Okay, probably not (yet). But I'm actually serious about that. Aside from the awesomeness that would be seeing tux on the boot screen of a photonic device, there's the sheer awesomeness that is just running a computer on (mostly) lasers instead of electricity. Even if it's still a long ways off.
And lets not forget how much power it could theoretically save, what with not having to deal with resistance (not that light doesn't have its own problems, ie refraction and diffraction, both big deals when working on small scales).
So, we'll have more very well educated idiots who go on to manage a Denny's?
As long as I'm included in the science majors that get free tuition, I say go for it. I do so enjoy having my grades shot through the roof after professors curve to the mean level of stupidity to prevent nearly the whole class from failing. After all, if too many of the students fail their classes it starts to make the professors' teaching styles (ha!) look bad.
Plus, you know, better to spend money on education than weapons which go missing in the war effort. But given that I'm a student I realize my view is probably quite bias.
Yes, reinstalling windows does indeed accomplish the same thing. However, doing so (or using a VM) is still deleting files along with the filesystem (or virtual filesystem in the case of the VM)
Using a new computer would still leave the original files intact, thus making the DMCA even more ludicrous.
Delete the files, get sued. Don't delete the files, get sued.
Where exactly does circumvention of copy protection begin and end? If a person had deleted the data but not printed more coupons, would it still be circumventing copy protection?
What if they had to format the filesystem?
Or for that matter, what if he had bought a new computer? Can we now not buy things because it circumvents copyright, albeit inefficiently and in an extremely costly manner?
And yes, I realize he actually got busted for posting instructions for circumvention, even providing software that does it, but they probably are charging him with the greatest charge they believe they can get a conviction for, or possibly planning to settle out of court, cause this does sound at least a little bit invasive even for the DMCA.
In fact, lets take this a step further and make it more like what the guy did. I know I'll probably get troll flagged for this, but this is a matter of morals now.
Anyone wanting free unlimited coupons from Coupons.Com can do so by buying a new computer for every set of coupons they create.
There, I just told you how to circumvent it. Thereby violating the DMCA, for all of slashdot (that reads this far down) to see. Don't like it? Then sue me.
...(about 2 hours and 53 minutes later)
PONG!
To put that into perspective, that's about how long it would take to ping Voyager 1 wirelessly.
Before you factor in the slashdot effect.
This is a wonderful idea. After all, advertisements are never a waste of resources, and nothing says "green" like smoldering hot balls of glowing plasma that people will ignore once the awesomeness of it wears off.
At this rate it's just a matter of time before they laser color the moon into a giant Pepsi logo.
Tri - 3 Pod - foot or foot like projection, also sometimes spelled pode.
Anything with exactly 3 points of contact on the ground is a tripod, by the most technical definition. And since the legal system these days is about exploiting technicalities, use the string pod mentioned above or just a quadpod (those have to exist by now, right? right?).
"Unfortunately we are likely to see neither sense nor principle from the Democrats on this issue, as Hollywood is their biggest cash machine."
Call me cynical, but if a politician shows sense, they won't get enough of the conservative vote to ever get elected. And if they show principle, well, they're probably so lacking in even common sense to ever get liberal vote. So why should we expect either in any measurable form?
That trolling asside, from TFA:
Bainwol noted that many campus networks are created with taxpayer funds and are intended for "academic and research purposes," but end up, he said, giving students "a means to steal."
Roads also facilitate theft. Roads also have police to patrol and set up roadblocks if necessary, that sort of thing. But funds are appropriated for such services. If one is to mandate that measures be taken to prevent intellectual property theft, one should provide a plan for funding of such an endeavor. It's not a universities fault that students steal any more than it is a construction worker's fault of someone later uses a road to facilitate a crime because the road happens to go past a bank.
If it's so "basic" to the brain then why is it the exception in human society and not the rule?
Having an appendix is also genetic, but that doesn't mean we have to use it for anything. Likewise, having the potential to feel pleasure from helping others doesn't mean every (or even any) person in the world is going to act on such potential. Especially if a person could get the same enjoyment from eating something (and I mean that in every possible sense).
I get the feeling that making it impossible to play a stolen disc isn't going to bring costs down much. Assuming (probably incorrectly) that costs are in fact high in order to make up for losses in theft/piracy, somebody stealing a 6 cent disc instead of paying $20 for it (or $60-ish for a game) before making illegal copies probably wasn't all that a significant loss in the scheme of things. On the other hand, this would make buying entertainment products on physical media all the more annoying.
The DMCA says something along the lines of not applying to keys if they have "commercially significant uses other than to circumvent" and such.
A 128-bit key is still relatively short compared to..say..the infinite number of decimal digits of an irrational number, such as Pi. Now, being an irrational number, Pi will eventually cycle through every finite length series of digits. So if you convert your # to decimal, it's EVENTUALLY going to be somewhere in pi (or in e or sqrt(2) or any other irrational).
Now, I for one would say Pi and e we've got at least a few "commercially significant uses" by which to invalidate the ownership of these #'s. Or any sequence of #'s if you really wanted to stretch this line of thinking.
More importantly, this is the only reason I've ever been able to justify memorizing digits of Pi. The fact that eventually any finite sequence will be expressed, one could look at Pi in binary and--eventually--come across any series of 1's and 0's of finite length.
Meaning not only every possible encryption key, but all the porn that ever was, is, or will be, is contained in Pi.
Quantity doesn't necessarily beat quality. Ask yourself what's more efficient: making hundreds of minor adaptations to an environment, or making a few really good ones? Most animals grow what they need to gather food and defend themselves. We make what we need. Ideas change faster than genes.
..just make a standard issue 'nix distro already! SELinux or something OpenBSD based per chance? They're both already extremely secure (and not just through obscurity--though it helps).
Of course...I'd have to walk around saying stuff like "Learning (to use it) is half the battle" and "G. I. OOOOOOOOOOOOO--S"...and now that tune will be stuck in my head all day.
Calling TiVo OS X and MythTV Windows may be the most backwards thing I've ever heard. Especially considering they both run (primarily) off linux kernels.
MythTV is great once it has been set up, which Knoppmyth takes care of quite well IMHO. And I believe Myth is fully functional anywhere you go, so long as the hardware still runs and has a compatible recorder. So, power cord issues aside it seems a viable means of recording while overseas.
But ultimately the kicker for me, the reason I built a MythTV box instead of buying a TiVo, was service fees. I don't see why I should pay for something I already own, particularly on a questionably closed piece of hardware running open source software.
Slashdot Mirror
...but can they run linux?
Okay, probably not (yet). But I'm actually serious about that. Aside from the awesomeness that would be seeing tux on the boot screen of a photonic device, there's the sheer awesomeness that is just running a computer on (mostly) lasers instead of electricity. Even if it's still a long ways off.
And lets not forget how much power it could theoretically save, what with not having to deal with resistance (not that light doesn't have its own problems, ie refraction and diffraction, both big deals when working on small scales).
So, we'll have more very well educated idiots who go on to manage a Denny's?
As long as I'm included in the science majors that get free tuition, I say go for it. I do so enjoy having my grades shot through the roof after professors curve to the mean level of stupidity to prevent nearly the whole class from failing. After all, if too many of the students fail their classes it starts to make the professors' teaching styles (ha!) look bad.
Plus, you know, better to spend money on education than weapons which go missing in the war effort. But given that I'm a student I realize my view is probably quite bias.
Yes, reinstalling windows does indeed accomplish the same thing. However, doing so (or using a VM) is still deleting files along with the filesystem (or virtual filesystem in the case of the VM)
Using a new computer would still leave the original files intact, thus making the DMCA even more ludicrous.
Delete the files, get sued. Don't delete the files, get sued.
Where exactly does circumvention of copy protection begin and end? If a person had deleted the data but not printed more coupons, would it still be circumventing copy protection?
What if they had to format the filesystem?
Or for that matter, what if he had bought a new computer? Can we now not buy things because it circumvents copyright, albeit inefficiently and in an extremely costly manner?
And yes, I realize he actually got busted for posting instructions for circumvention, even providing software that does it, but they probably are charging him with the greatest charge they believe they can get a conviction for, or possibly planning to settle out of court, cause this does sound at least a little bit invasive even for the DMCA.
In fact, lets take this a step further and make it more like what the guy did. I know I'll probably get troll flagged for this, but this is a matter of morals now.
Anyone wanting free unlimited coupons from Coupons.Com can do so by buying a new computer for every set of coupons they create.
There, I just told you how to circumvent it. Thereby violating the DMCA, for all of slashdot (that reads this far down) to see. Don't like it? Then sue me.
The Iron Fist of War
Actually, my math was way off on that, it'd be like 28 hours to ping it, but you get the point. It'd take a while.
...(about 2 hours and 53 minutes later) PONG! To put that into perspective, that's about how long it would take to ping Voyager 1 wirelessly. Before you factor in the slashdot effect.
I for one welcome our 64 core overloards.
This is a wonderful idea. After all, advertisements are never a waste of resources, and nothing says "green" like smoldering hot balls of glowing plasma that people will ignore once the awesomeness of it wears off.
At this rate it's just a matter of time before they laser color the moon into a giant Pepsi logo.
Well if you want to get overly technical,
Tri - 3
Pod - foot or foot like projection, also sometimes spelled pode.
Anything with exactly 3 points of contact on the ground is a tripod, by the most technical definition. And since the legal system these days is about exploiting technicalities, use the string pod mentioned above or just a quadpod (those have to exist by now, right? right?).
Call me cynical, but if a politician shows sense, they won't get enough of the conservative vote to ever get elected. And if they show principle, well, they're probably so lacking in even common sense to ever get liberal vote. So why should we expect either in any measurable form?
That trolling asside, from TFA:
Roads also facilitate theft. Roads also have police to patrol and set up roadblocks if necessary, that sort of thing. But funds are appropriated for such services. If one is to mandate that measures be taken to prevent intellectual property theft, one should provide a plan for funding of such an endeavor. It's not a universities fault that students steal any more than it is a construction worker's fault of someone later uses a road to facilitate a crime because the road happens to go past a bank.
At least, that's the way I see it.
Having an appendix is also genetic, but that doesn't mean we have to use it for anything. Likewise, having the potential to feel pleasure from helping others doesn't mean every (or even any) person in the world is going to act on such potential. Especially if a person could get the same enjoyment from eating something (and I mean that in every possible sense).
...but can we run linux?
I get the feeling that making it impossible to play a stolen disc isn't going to bring costs down much. Assuming (probably incorrectly) that costs are in fact high in order to make up for losses in theft/piracy, somebody stealing a 6 cent disc instead of paying $20 for it (or $60-ish for a game) before making illegal copies probably wasn't all that a significant loss in the scheme of things. On the other hand, this would make buying entertainment products on physical media all the more annoying.
The DMCA says something along the lines of not applying to keys if they have "commercially significant uses other than to circumvent" and such.
A 128-bit key is still relatively short compared to..say..the infinite number of decimal digits of an irrational number, such as Pi. Now, being an irrational number, Pi will eventually cycle through every finite length series of digits. So if you convert your # to decimal, it's EVENTUALLY going to be somewhere in pi (or in e or sqrt(2) or any other irrational).
Now, I for one would say Pi and e we've got at least a few "commercially significant uses" by which to invalidate the ownership of these #'s. Or any sequence of #'s if you really wanted to stretch this line of thinking.
More importantly, this is the only reason I've ever been able to justify memorizing digits of Pi. The fact that eventually any finite sequence will be expressed, one could look at Pi in binary and--eventually--come across any series of 1's and 0's of finite length.
Meaning not only every possible encryption key, but all the porn that ever was, is, or will be, is contained in Pi.
Or wont be... *shudders*
Quantity doesn't necessarily beat quality. Ask yourself what's more efficient: making hundreds of minor adaptations to an environment, or making a few really good ones? Most animals grow what they need to gather food and defend themselves. We make what we need. Ideas change faster than genes.
Unlimited could be short for UNbearably LIMITED...
And anyone with gspace installed could easily get past their 5G limit using only email in under a week.
Why do I get the feeling that according to Diebold things went more like 4:1 in their favor?
Oh...right... well, *ahem* let's just hope their court case continues to..uhhh... die boldly?
If you want to see what it looks like, it was already featured here. The thing's damn small...
I had heard that Vista licenses were expensive...but damn...
You didn't buy our flawed, faulty and unsecured product. We've decided to sue you.
Sounds like something a few other choice companies might attempt.
Er, make that "Knowing (how to use it) is half the battle" >.>
..just make a standard issue 'nix distro already! SELinux or something OpenBSD based per chance? They're both already extremely secure (and not just through obscurity--though it helps).
...and now that tune will be stuck in my head all day.
Of course...I'd have to walk around saying stuff like "Learning (to use it) is half the battle" and "G. I. OOOOOOOOOOOOO--S"
Calling TiVo OS X and MythTV Windows may be the most backwards thing I've ever heard. Especially considering they both run (primarily) off linux kernels.
MythTV is great once it has been set up, which Knoppmyth takes care of quite well IMHO. And I believe Myth is fully functional anywhere you go, so long as the hardware still runs and has a compatible recorder. So, power cord issues aside it seems a viable means of recording while overseas.
But ultimately the kicker for me, the reason I built a MythTV box instead of buying a TiVo, was service fees. I don't see why I should pay for something I already own, particularly on a questionably closed piece of hardware running open source software.