I consider myself fairly literate when it comes to technical matters, but the sheer volume of information on the subject of DSS hacking makes me wonder how Joe 6-pack could ever commit $300-$400 to purchase something that could become unusable literally overnight, unless he is willing to keep on top of updates and patches and unloopers and reprogrammers.
Compare that to cable theft...you buy a box and it works and it always works. Cable companies can't change encryption schemes overnight. In truth, in the five years I've been in my home location we are still using the same Jerrold/GE boxes. A one time fee of $200 for five years of unlimited cable seems like a worthy temptation.
I am honestly surprised that there isn't a bigger market for these digital cable black boxes. Almost as many channels as DSS plus the local stuff plus many people feel they can rationalize it by paying for the basic cable connection.
So I think that part of the effort that goes into the DSS hacking scene must truly be the hacking spirit, the doing something difficult to see if it can be done. I can see that modivation but at best that could only be a couple thousand dedicated souls. Where the other 98,000 customers are coming from I just can't understand.
Actually, no you are wrote about movie rental stores. They don't pay a fee every time a movie is rented. They get screwed by the same sort of system you describe.
The first week a new movie comes out on VHS, the price of the tape is set by the publisher at $80-$90 a copy. Why is this? No one would pay this much for a movie...expect video rental stores, because they need to have the new releases when they first comes out. If you don't have the new releases, customers will go rent them from your competitor. So the only people buying these initial $80-$90 copies are video stores. After a couple weeks, the price drops to $20 and that's what Joe Public (no relation) pays for the copy.
If you've ever lost a tape from Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, etc you might be surprised that instead of charging you what the video is currently worth ($20) they will try to charge you what they actually paid for it ($80-$90).
It's a big racket. The reason DVDs are becoming so prevalent in video stores is that DVDs were targetted at only consumers. Because they tend to get so easily damaged (a single large scratch and the DVD can no longer be rented) it was assumed that video rental stores would have no interest in them. So DVDs are released at and stay at the $20-$30 range (which is outragous considering they cost less than VHS tapes).
Unfortunately for the publishers, the video rental stores figured out that the cost difference between DVDs and VHS can more than pay for the cost of replacing the occasional damaged copy (furthermore then can recover damages from customers even though for goodwill they usually won't unless it is constant abuse). So you will be seeing more and more DVD pushing by the video rental stores.
However, having watched prices on reel.com for a long time, I'm starting to notice a few DVDs coming out at the $40 price range and then getting discounted a few weeks later to the $20 range. So I don't think it's going to take publishers very long to adopt the VHS pricing scheme to once again milk the profits.
Sooner or later, these price increases will drive the cost of renting so high that the majority of consumers will turn to pay-per-view and the publishers will have killed a major golden goose.
"As for Jini technology itself, you're wrong. It's been very successful...in fact, late last year, a European Jini technology conference had to turn interested developers away because they were already 25 percent overbooked."
So, does that mean that 5 people showed up instead of 4? [rimshot]
The day that a PR guy can admit that something didn't turn out as well as they hoped is the day I start taking press releases seriously.
All you have to do is run one of the countless "mouse-wiggling key-typing" simulator programs that were used to defeat anti-idle mechanisms in AllAdvantage and then you're once again home free.
DeCSS, as expressed in the form of writing, has been declared "illegal" by the law (DMCA). Child porn, as expressed in the form of pictures, has been declared "illegal" by the law (CPPA).
So DeCSS tries to escape the law by moving from text to pictures. Paintings of DeCSS, songs of DeCSS, shirts of DeCSS, etc. All to blur the lines between what is protected (pictures of code with artistic value) and what isn't (copies of code with purely technological values ).
Likewise child porn tries to escape the law by staying primarily text. Stories about underage sex, stories about incest, stories in books like Lolita. All to blur the line between what is protected (the idea of kids having sex) and what isn't (pictures of kids having sex).
We have heard all the arguements presented by people like Professor Lessig on the legalities of the various forms of DeCSS. But consider how the same arguments apply to child porn...
Child porn pictures are illegal. So are cartoons illegal? How about ASCII art (images composed of letters and numbers)? Is it a picture or a strangly written story? What about ANSI art (adding color codes)?
Child porn pictures are illegal. Is describing a child porn picture illegal? Is describing how to draw a child porn picture illegal ("Arc from 12,3 to 14,2 radius 2.5...)? Isn't that what vector format picture is? Isn't that what a cartoon is? When enough details are given, isn't that what a JPEG is?
Assume the courts declare even fake child porn pictures as illegal just like the courts declared even linked DeCSS is illegal. If you have a Photoshop filter that makes it look like semen is on someone's face, is that illegal because it can be used on pictures of kids? What if it has non-illegal uses like parodies of "Got Milk?" ads? What about distributing three pictures that can be combined to form a depiction of child porn?
This is not an argument in favor of child porn. I'm merely trying to point out the absurity in a society trying to declare Form A of something legal and Form B illegal. If a society wants to ban child pornography it would have to do it at all levels, from books like Lolita to videos showing children being abused.
But if total censorship is unpalatable, then maybe child porn is a symptom and not a problem. DeCSS came about because the laws concerning fair use of DVDs were so completely out of touch with reality. Likewise, does anyone really think that 18 years old is a suitable standard for judging moral capacity? Nursing is natural and acceptable but when the kid is six it's abuse?
Ideas can only be censored, not controlled. Society needs to change more than just its laws.
Look at Nokia phones. They put games on those too. They have graphics that are inferior to the original GameBoy and sound is pretty much non-existant. But they are one of the most commonly mentioned features in the cellular stores I visit "Which is the one with the games?". Which should Nokia have given people? 400 phonebook entries or 250 phonebook entries and four cheapo games? I dare say Nokia made the right decision.
Look at the newere custom features like downloadable ringtones and graphics. Again, purely fluff. But again, all the teen girls love hearing their phone play "Eninem - Stan" when their boyfriend calls along with a flashing picture of Calvin & Hobbes. Again, features that please consumers.
I really have a lot of respect for Nokia when it comes to taking interesting steps. Motorola opened the door to designer cell phones with their StarTAC series but Nokia perfected it with the 8890. The newer 99xx series that opens like a glasses case to reveal a screen and keyboard is also amazing.
Now, I have been wishing and praying for a company to make a cheap TV->PC bridge for years. ReplayTV almost did it, but disabled their firewire ports due to pressue from TV studios. Nokia I dare say has virtually no connection to any media company at all (at least not until they have 3G phones that can stream video?) so all they care about is selling units...which is precisely what a hardware manufacturer should be concerned with.
If I can buy a box that I can program to record shows and the deliver them to any computer station on my home network, I will buy them, and I will buy many of them. I could care less if it's Radio Shack, Papa John's or Nokia. A ethernet port would be the ultimate but it's not a far stretch from USB and the FireWire storage options would be greatly welcomed.
Obviously you live in a less-urban market than T-Ranger and I do. Here in the big cities they use these plastic lock-nuts that cover up the threads on both the male and female ends. The only way to get them off is to use a Wizard to cut slits on either side and pry them in half. Of course, this is entirely obvious because you don't have any locknuts or the little crimping device to re-attach the unfiltered connection.
There are already digital cable descramblers. Search on "Jerrold 10000" or such since those are the models that are compatible with most digital cable systems. They are just really, really expensive. It's cheaper to buy an H card *AND* a satellite package.
This is why the TV warez scene is going by leaps and bounds. I thank God every day for age-old groups like ANiVCD and newcomerslike EliteMedia who basically function as intelligent, networkable TiVos. I never have to worry about missing Futurama. I don't have to worry about making a mistake programming the VCR and having scan the TVGuide every week to find the one I missed. I don't have to waste a tapes recording Friends while my sister in France.
All I go is log onto iSONews and see if there's any new releases. Then I head over to my favorite distro and suck 'em down. The quality is great, and the commercials have been pre-fast-forwarded.
Oh, but these groups will all get taken down...or will they? Remember RecordTV.com? They are still fighting throught the legal mountain that the bottomless pockets of the MPAA creates but in the end, they have questions that demand answers:
If I record a show off the air...can I watch it?
If I can watch a show I record...can I watch it with a friend?
If I can watch it with a friend...can I loan the tape to a friend?
If I can load the tape to a friend...can I mail it to him via the Post Office?
Then why the hell can't I "mail" it to him via the Internet?
Either the courts are going to have to put some clear legal boundaries on who my friends are allowed to be, or they are going to have to formally acknowledge that this is all just time and space shifting of publically accessable information.
"Get it off his property" doesn't apply to cable because utility companies often need to pass through your land to provide service to other customers. Technically the cable isn't on your property. In order to get the cable company to install service, the property owner (or the land developer who built your tract, etc.) grants the cable company an "easement". An easement is basically rights to a piece of your property.
The five foot by one foot trench that carries the cable from the headend to your house (or the wire itself if it comes from a telephone pole) is technically property of the cable company. You can't legally tamper with the hardware.
So how does this apply if you are paying for basic cable? Well, technically if you aren't touching the wire they can't stop you from manipulating the signal once it enters your house. Cable companies know this, which is why in most markets now if you are only paying for basic cable, the cable company installs a filter that blocks the signal of the premium channnels (even if they are already scrambled). Legally you are not allowed to remove this filter even if it's in the cablepot on your front lawn because that's cable company property.
So you are screwed.
Someday when I have enough money I plan to file a class action lawsuit against the major cable companies. I plan to argue that I purchased several thousand dollars worth of "cable-ready" televisions and VCRS and now all those tuners are going to waste because a local monopoly decides to scramble a signal that *coincidentally* requires people to rent new tuners from them at $7/month. One for every TV and VCR I own would cost me $35/month. It's outrageous. The law says that utility companies cannot force you to rent equipment...but if I buy a cable box, all the cable company has to do is change encryption formats to render it obsolete! Imagine if the local phone company start scrambling the phone signal to your box and then required you to rent custom phones in order to continue service. They would never get away with it. So why do the cable companies?
It seems to answer a lot of the questions raised in this thread about personal hovercrafts...which happens to be the most convincing hypothesis I've read.
It's been out for well over a year. Still not as feature-packed as the original but certainly enough to keep yourself interested during that boring meeting.
Just make sure the sound is off. The sound options for this program overrides your system preferences (ie, off). Be warned.
I can't see any reason why a hardware manufacturer would be stupid enough to implement this. Hardware makers want to sell units. Anything that ticks of customers is not going to sell units.
What's going to happen is IBM and others will make these drives, meanwhile overseas companies like in China will continue to make non-compliant drives and everyone will just buy them instead.
Frankly, I think if I was a stockholder in any company that makes hard drives, I think I'd want to make it very clear that caving to SOFTWARE interests is finacially a stupid move.
It's like 3COM implementing dongles for the PalmPilot to appease software developers. A) it costs 3Com a lot of money B) makes the devices more expensive C) pisses off customers who now have to deal with it and. So, if 3COM did it anyway, their shareholders could sue them for it.
Hardware manufacturers should be like backbone providers and common carriers. It isn't their jobs to regulate or restrict content.
I actually hope that if one candidate wins the electoral vote, the other candidate wins the popular vote.
Why?
Because then the anger over such a narrow (and "unfair") defeat will mean at least one political party will be fighting for election reform for the next term.
Then again, if that party is the Democrats, and the Republicans control both the House and the Senate then they will face an uphill "why rock the boat and fix what ain't broke" battle.
And if ICANN has taught us anything, even if we were to get trly democratic popular-vote elections, what do you bet the Legislative branch would find some way to foul it up in favor of the pre-ordained, pre-destined two-party system?
Not to mention that a lot of ISPs are now making it painfully obvious where you live thanks to the preschool level naming scheme they give to their routers. [cough]@Home[cough]PacBell[cough]
I mean, if an advertiser wanted to send out some spam to customers in, say, Sacramento CA it's as easy as getting on a chat network and typing/who *.scrmnt1.ca.home.com and then messaging them all.
Whoops no they are talking about Sega of Japan, my bad. Stupid DNS server was down so I couldn't follow the link (I have/. shortcut by IP cause it happens so much).
IIRC, Sega of America is a privately held company and I think that's who the article is talking about. I remember looking that up back when Kalisto announced they were getting paid Sega stock to stop pirating DC releases (caught you, ha ha!)
Sega of Japan is a limited partnership, and I don't really know what that means for there stock. Apparently something of Sega's is traded "over the counter" so maybe out there somewhere is Sega stock you can sell.
I dunno. But in my opinion, Sega should concentrate on hardware (DC or otherwise). You can't pirate hardware. Licensing the design to other manufacturers so they can add new features is also a good idea (a la Palm).
I read it. I'm just wondering if WINFirst is one of the companies that planned ahead, or one of the new startup that is finding itself left out in the cold as fiber goes to bigger, more established customers.
...can's application and operating systems put a new DNS system as an OPTION (not necessarily even a default). Every program that comes out should add this! I don't care what it is.
One click in Opera or Lynx or Netscape to allow it to check with DNS servers run by people who serve the public interest and not bend over for big business and electing themselves emporer for life? A click in WinAmp to enable you to connect to Shoutcast servers located by a NullSoft DNS server (imagine having TLDs based on music genres?)
Better yet, a list of servers that people could pick or choose from based on reputation. Don't like ICANN? Disable the root servers entirely and get your.com.net.org from AlterNIC or whoever.
Operating Systems to could easily make this a part of their DNS configuration menus.
All we need is someone to create the standards and provide some kind of reputation for DNS servers. Surely this is worthy cause? Won't someone just do the paperwork necessary to start the Domain Freedom Foundation so I can contribute large heaping amounts of cash to something that will kill Network Solutions and ICANN once and for all?
Well imagine this, a device that is basically a spool of wire with a spring to automatically coil the wire if no force is applied (like a seatbelt) and a clamp to prevent the wire from moving.
Mount this spool device on an another device that would be able to move along horizontal/vertical tracks in the wall. Now connect several of these devices to the user at key joints.
If user wanted to feel a table, the clamps for that arm would release and he would be allowed to move his hand and arm downward until the software detected that he had come in contact with the table, at which point the clamps would activate and the user wouldn't be able to move his hand downward any further.
The advantage to this system is if the user crossed his arms or turned his body or bent over or any other complex action, the servos on the wall could unwind themselves or position themselves in such a way that they can provide feedback without getting wires crossed. If someone put this hands over his head and then crossed them, the servos for the right hand could switch places with the servos for the left hand and still provide control.
This type of system would also work, I think, as equally well as the boots with poles and might be more immersive to boot.
I think you are mistaken. The majority of the support would be provided by a clamp type system that would prevent the pole from moving up or down.
If the person was registered as being on the ground, then the servo would be clamp down on the pole to prevent it from feeding downward. If the person was stuck in tar, the servo would clamp down to prevent (or make it harder) it from feeding upward. So it is rather passive.
What you are talking about would only be necessary if you wanted to simulate the type of enviroment where the ground could produce a force on the user, say if they stepped on a landmine or whatever. Yeah, that would be dangerous but I don't think the system I was thinking about would be. The only real danger is that a programming error causes the clamp to release completely, but if the user was supported in a safety harness this would be easily avoidable.
Slashdot Mirror
I consider myself fairly literate when it comes to technical matters, but the sheer volume of information on the subject of DSS hacking makes me wonder how Joe 6-pack could ever commit $300-$400 to purchase something that could become unusable literally overnight, unless he is willing to keep on top of updates and patches and unloopers and reprogrammers.
Compare that to cable theft...you buy a box and it works and it always works. Cable companies can't change encryption schemes overnight. In truth, in the five years I've been in my home location we are still using the same Jerrold/GE boxes. A one time fee of $200 for five years of unlimited cable seems like a worthy temptation.
I am honestly surprised that there isn't a bigger market for these digital cable black boxes. Almost as many channels as DSS plus the local stuff plus many people feel they can rationalize it by paying for the basic cable connection.
So I think that part of the effort that goes into the DSS hacking scene must truly be the hacking spirit, the doing something difficult to see if it can be done. I can see that modivation but at best that could only be a couple thousand dedicated souls. Where the other 98,000 customers are coming from I just can't understand.
-JoeShmoe
Actually, no you are wrote about movie rental stores. They don't pay a fee every time a movie is rented. They get screwed by the same sort of system you describe.
The first week a new movie comes out on VHS, the price of the tape is set by the publisher at $80-$90 a copy. Why is this? No one would pay this much for a movie...expect video rental stores, because they need to have the new releases when they first comes out. If you don't have the new releases, customers will go rent them from your competitor. So the only people buying these initial $80-$90 copies are video stores. After a couple weeks, the price drops to $20 and that's what Joe Public (no relation) pays for the copy.
If you've ever lost a tape from Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, etc you might be surprised that instead of charging you what the video is currently worth ($20) they will try to charge you what they actually paid for it ($80-$90).
It's a big racket. The reason DVDs are becoming so prevalent in video stores is that DVDs were targetted at only consumers. Because they tend to get so easily damaged (a single large scratch and the DVD can no longer be rented) it was assumed that video rental stores would have no interest in them. So DVDs are released at and stay at the $20-$30 range (which is outragous considering they cost less than VHS tapes).
Unfortunately for the publishers, the video rental stores figured out that the cost difference between DVDs and VHS can more than pay for the cost of replacing the occasional damaged copy (furthermore then can recover damages from customers even though for goodwill they usually won't unless it is constant abuse). So you will be seeing more and more DVD pushing by the video rental stores.
However, having watched prices on reel.com for a long time, I'm starting to notice a few DVDs coming out at the $40 price range and then getting discounted a few weeks later to the $20 range. So I don't think it's going to take publishers very long to adopt the VHS pricing scheme to once again milk the profits.
Sooner or later, these price increases will drive the cost of renting so high that the majority of consumers will turn to pay-per-view and the publishers will have killed a major golden goose.
-JoeShmoe
From the article:
"As for Jini technology itself, you're wrong. It's been very successful...in fact, late last year, a European Jini technology conference had to turn interested developers away because they were already 25 percent overbooked."
So, does that mean that 5 people showed up instead of 4? [rimshot]
The day that a PR guy can admit that something didn't turn out as well as they hoped is the day I start taking press releases seriously.
- JoeShmoe
All you have to do is run one of the countless "mouse-wiggling key-typing" simulator programs that were used to defeat anti-idle mechanisms in AllAdvantage and then you're once again home free.
No idle = no screensaver = no cycles for Juno
Right?
- JoeShmoe
No, not flamebait...conside this...
DeCSS, as expressed in the form of writing, has been declared "illegal" by the law (DMCA). Child porn, as expressed in the form of pictures, has been declared "illegal" by the law (CPPA).
So DeCSS tries to escape the law by moving from text to pictures. Paintings of DeCSS, songs of DeCSS, shirts of DeCSS, etc. All to blur the lines between what is protected (pictures of code with artistic value) and what isn't (copies of code with purely technological values ).
Likewise child porn tries to escape the law by staying primarily text. Stories about underage sex, stories about incest, stories in books like Lolita. All to blur the line between what is protected (the idea of kids having sex) and what isn't (pictures of kids having sex).
We have heard all the arguements presented by people like Professor Lessig on the legalities of the various forms of DeCSS. But consider how the same arguments apply to child porn...
Child porn pictures are illegal. So are cartoons illegal? How about ASCII art (images composed of letters and numbers)? Is it a picture or a strangly written story? What about ANSI art (adding color codes)?
Child porn pictures are illegal. Is describing a child porn picture illegal? Is describing how to draw a child porn picture illegal ("Arc from 12,3 to 14,2 radius 2.5...)? Isn't that what vector format picture is? Isn't that what a cartoon is? When enough details are given, isn't that what a JPEG is?
Assume the courts declare even fake child porn pictures as illegal just like the courts declared even linked DeCSS is illegal. If you have a Photoshop filter that makes it look like semen is on someone's face, is that illegal because it can be used on pictures of kids? What if it has non-illegal uses like parodies of "Got Milk?" ads? What about distributing three pictures that can be combined to form a depiction of child porn?
This is not an argument in favor of child porn. I'm merely trying to point out the absurity in a society trying to declare Form A of something legal and Form B illegal. If a society wants to ban child pornography it would have to do it at all levels, from books like Lolita to videos showing children being abused.
But if total censorship is unpalatable, then maybe child porn is a symptom and not a problem. DeCSS came about because the laws concerning fair use of DVDs were so completely out of touch with reality. Likewise, does anyone really think that 18 years old is a suitable standard for judging moral capacity? Nursing is natural and acceptable but when the kid is six it's abuse?
Ideas can only be censored, not controlled. Society needs to change more than just its laws.
- JoeShmoe
Look at Nokia phones. They put games on those too. They have graphics that are inferior to the original GameBoy and sound is pretty much non-existant. But they are one of the most commonly mentioned features in the cellular stores I visit "Which is the one with the games?". Which should Nokia have given people? 400 phonebook entries or 250 phonebook entries and four cheapo games? I dare say Nokia made the right decision.
Look at the newere custom features like downloadable ringtones and graphics. Again, purely fluff. But again, all the teen girls love hearing their phone play "Eninem - Stan" when their boyfriend calls along with a flashing picture of Calvin & Hobbes. Again, features that please consumers.
I really have a lot of respect for Nokia when it comes to taking interesting steps. Motorola opened the door to designer cell phones with their StarTAC series but Nokia perfected it with the 8890. The newer 99xx series that opens like a glasses case to reveal a screen and keyboard is also amazing.
Now, I have been wishing and praying for a company to make a cheap TV->PC bridge for years. ReplayTV almost did it, but disabled their firewire ports due to pressue from TV studios. Nokia I dare say has virtually no connection to any media company at all (at least not until they have 3G phones that can stream video?) so all they care about is selling units...which is precisely what a hardware manufacturer should be concerned with.
If I can buy a box that I can program to record shows and the deliver them to any computer station on my home network, I will buy them, and I will buy many of them. I could care less if it's Radio Shack, Papa John's or Nokia. A ethernet port would be the ultimate but it's not a far stretch from USB and the FireWire storage options would be greatly welcomed.
- JoeShmoe
Obviously you live in a less-urban market than T-Ranger and I do. Here in the big cities they use these plastic lock-nuts that cover up the threads on both the male and female ends. The only way to get them off is to use a Wizard to cut slits on either side and pry them in half. Of course, this is entirely obvious because you don't have any locknuts or the little crimping device to re-attach the unfiltered connection.
There are already digital cable descramblers. Search on "Jerrold 10000" or such since those are the models that are compatible with most digital cable systems. They are just really, really expensive. It's cheaper to buy an H card *AND* a satellite package.
- JoeShmoe
This is why the TV warez scene is going by leaps and bounds. I thank God every day for age-old groups like ANiVCD and newcomerslike EliteMedia who basically function as intelligent, networkable TiVos. I never have to worry about missing Futurama. I don't have to worry about making a mistake programming the VCR and having scan the TVGuide every week to find the one I missed. I don't have to waste a tapes recording Friends while my sister in France.
All I go is log onto iSONews and see if there's any new releases. Then I head over to my favorite distro and suck 'em down. The quality is great, and the commercials have been pre-fast-forwarded.
Oh, but these groups will all get taken down...or will they? Remember RecordTV.com? They are still fighting throught the legal mountain that the bottomless pockets of the MPAA creates but in the end, they have questions that demand answers:
If I record a show off the air...can I watch it?
If I can watch a show I record...can I watch it with a friend?
If I can watch it with a friend...can I loan the tape to a friend?
If I can load the tape to a friend...can I mail it to him via the Post Office?
Then why the hell can't I "mail" it to him via the Internet?
Either the courts are going to have to put some clear legal boundaries on who my friends are allowed to be, or they are going to have to formally acknowledge that this is all just time and space shifting of publically accessable information.
- JoeShmoe
"Get it off his property" doesn't apply to cable because utility companies often need to pass through your land to provide service to other customers. Technically the cable isn't on your property. In order to get the cable company to install service, the property owner (or the land developer who built your tract, etc.) grants the cable company an "easement". An easement is basically rights to a piece of your property.
The five foot by one foot trench that carries the cable from the headend to your house (or the wire itself if it comes from a telephone pole) is technically property of the cable company. You can't legally tamper with the hardware.
So how does this apply if you are paying for basic cable? Well, technically if you aren't touching the wire they can't stop you from manipulating the signal once it enters your house. Cable companies know this, which is why in most markets now if you are only paying for basic cable, the cable company installs a filter that blocks the signal of the premium channnels (even if they are already scrambled). Legally you are not allowed to remove this filter even if it's in the cablepot on your front lawn because that's cable company property.
So you are screwed.
Someday when I have enough money I plan to file a class action lawsuit against the major cable companies. I plan to argue that I purchased several thousand dollars worth of "cable-ready" televisions and VCRS and now all those tuners are going to waste because a local monopoly decides to scramble a signal that *coincidentally* requires people to rent new tuners from them at $7/month. One for every TV and VCR I own would cost me $35/month. It's outrageous. The law says that utility companies cannot force you to rent equipment...but if I buy a cable box, all the cable company has to do is change encryption formats to render it obsolete! Imagine if the local phone company start scrambling the phone signal to your box and then required you to rent custom phones in order to continue service. They would never get away with it. So why do the cable companies?
- JoeShmoe
Hmm. I think he's (she's?) got it.
It seems to answer a lot of the questions raised in this thread about personal hovercrafts...which happens to be the most convincing hypothesis I've read.
Bravo. If I only had a mod point.
- JoeShmoe
It's been out for well over a year. Still not as feature-packed as the original but certainly enough to keep yourself interested during that boring meeting.
f m? prodID=3856
Just make sure the sound is off. The sound options for this program overrides your system preferences (ie, off). Be warned.
You can check it out here:
http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.c
Or for the cut-and-paste impaired, here.
- JoeShmoe
I can't see any reason why a hardware manufacturer would be stupid enough to implement this. Hardware makers want to sell units. Anything that ticks of customers is not going to sell units.
What's going to happen is IBM and others will make these drives, meanwhile overseas companies like in China will continue to make non-compliant drives and everyone will just buy them instead.
Frankly, I think if I was a stockholder in any company that makes hard drives, I think I'd want to make it very clear that caving to SOFTWARE interests is finacially a stupid move.
It's like 3COM implementing dongles for the PalmPilot to appease software developers. A) it costs 3Com a lot of money B) makes the devices more expensive C) pisses off customers who now have to deal with it and. So, if 3COM did it anyway, their shareholders could sue them for it.
Hardware manufacturers should be like backbone providers and common carriers. It isn't their jobs to regulate or restrict content.
- JoeShmoe
Ha ha! Brilliant.
Well said indeed.
- JoeShmoe
I actually hope that if one candidate wins the electoral vote, the other candidate wins the popular vote.
= -
Why?
Because then the anger over such a narrow (and "unfair") defeat will mean at least one political party will be fighting for election reform for the next term.
Then again, if that party is the Democrats, and the Republicans control both the House and the Senate then they will face an uphill "why rock the boat and fix what ain't broke" battle.
And if ICANN has taught us anything, even if we were to get trly democratic popular-vote elections, what do you bet the Legislative branch would find some way to foul it up in favor of the pre-ordained, pre-destined two-party system?
- JoeShmoe
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Not to mention that a lot of ISPs are now making it painfully obvious where you live thanks to the preschool level naming scheme they give to their routers. [cough]@Home[cough]PacBell[cough]
/who *.scrmnt1.ca.home.com and then messaging them all.
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I mean, if an advertiser wanted to send out some spam to customers in, say, Sacramento CA it's as easy as getting on a chat network and typing
- JoeShmoe
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Whoops no they are talking about Sega of Japan, my bad. Stupid DNS server was down so I couldn't follow the link (I have /. shortcut by IP cause it happens so much).
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- JoeShmoe
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IIRC, Sega of America is a privately held company and I think that's who the article is talking about. I remember looking that up back when Kalisto announced they were getting paid Sega stock to stop pirating DC releases (caught you, ha ha!)
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Sega of Japan is a limited partnership, and I don't really know what that means for there stock. Apparently something of Sega's is traded "over the counter" so maybe out there somewhere is Sega stock you can sell.
I dunno. But in my opinion, Sega should concentrate on hardware (DC or otherwise). You can't pirate hardware. Licensing the design to other manufacturers so they can add new features is also a good idea (a la Palm).
- JoeShmoe
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Secaucus Group (WIPOSUCKS-DOM)
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295 Greewich Street Suite 184
New York, New York 10007
USA
Domain Name: WIPOSUCKS.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact, Billing Contact:
Parisi, Dan (DP996) dparisi@GARDEN.NET
Dan Parisi
Post Office Box 1009
Secaucus, NJ 07094
973-503-1785
...how about wipo-really-sucks.com, anyone?
- JoeShmoe
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guinness-really-sucks-and-this-isnt-their-website. com?
t his.com?
e ak-my-bones-but-words-will-never-hurt-me.c om
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or...
guinness-really-sucks-and-i-am-not-angry-about-
or...
guinness-never-learned-sticks-and-stones-may-br
Feh. I'm going out right now and registering guinness-tastes-like-sh*t.com but then again, it might already be taken.
Might I suggest a massive registration rally in protest followed by massive search engine submissions?
- JoeShmoe
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I read it. I'm just wondering if WINFirst is one of the companies that planned ahead, or one of the new startup that is finding itself left out in the cold as fiber goes to bigger, more established customers.
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- JoeShmoe
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I wonder how well this article coincides with
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this article on MSNBC?
- JoeShmoe
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...can's application and operating systems put a new DNS system as an OPTION (not necessarily even a default). Every program that comes out should add this! I don't care what it is.
.com .net .org from AlterNIC or whoever.
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One click in Opera or Lynx or Netscape to allow it to check with DNS servers run by people who serve the public interest and not bend over for big business and electing themselves emporer for life? A click in WinAmp to enable you to connect to Shoutcast servers located by a NullSoft DNS server (imagine having TLDs based on music genres?)
Better yet, a list of servers that people could pick or choose from based on reputation. Don't like ICANN? Disable the root servers entirely and get your
Operating Systems to could easily make this a part of their DNS configuration menus.
All we need is someone to create the standards and provide some kind of reputation for DNS servers. Surely this is worthy cause? Won't someone just do the paperwork necessary to start the Domain Freedom Foundation so I can contribute large heaping amounts of cash to something that will kill Network Solutions and ICANN once and for all?
- JoeShmoe
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HavenCo!
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Man, will HC ever go live so we can stop reading about all these precious web jewels being trounced upon by lawyers?
- JoeShmoe
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Well imagine this, a device that is basically a spool of wire with a spring to automatically coil the wire if no force is applied (like a seatbelt) and a clamp to prevent the wire from moving.
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Mount this spool device on an another device that would be able to move along horizontal/vertical tracks in the wall. Now connect several of these devices to the user at key joints.
If user wanted to feel a table, the clamps for that arm would release and he would be allowed to move his hand and arm downward until the software detected that he had come in contact with the table, at which point the clamps would activate and the user wouldn't be able to move his hand downward any further.
The advantage to this system is if the user crossed his arms or turned his body or bent over or any other complex action, the servos on the wall could unwind themselves or position themselves in such a way that they can provide feedback without getting wires crossed. If someone put this hands over his head and then crossed them, the servos for the right hand could switch places with the servos for the left hand and still provide control.
This type of system would also work, I think, as equally well as the boots with poles and might be more immersive to boot.
- JoeShmoe
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I think you are mistaken. The majority of the support would be provided by a clamp type system that would prevent the pole from moving up or down.
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If the person was registered as being on the ground, then the servo would be clamp down on the pole to prevent it from feeding downward. If the person was stuck in tar, the servo would clamp down to prevent (or make it harder) it from feeding upward. So it is rather passive.
What you are talking about would only be necessary if you wanted to simulate the type of enviroment where the ground could produce a force on the user, say if they stepped on a landmine or whatever. Yeah, that would be dangerous but I don't think the system I was thinking about would be. The only real danger is that a programming error causes the clamp to release completely, but if the user was supported in a safety harness this would be easily avoidable.
- JoeShmoe
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