A game vendor shaving their game to get a M rating isn't that different from film makers shaving scenes to get back from a NC-17 (or worse) rating. Theater chains won't carry it, major retailers won't carry it.
You're right, it's no different, and I don't approve of either one. A game or movies rating should have absolutely zero impact on where or who sells it. The rating is there for the consumers information, not the retailers. Makes me wonder how much capital you would need to start your own movie chain that carries any movie regardless of rating.
I understand the history behind the ESRB and why it exists, I just feel it's wrong for retailers to make blanket decisions to not stock a product based on its rating. I also think selling two versions of the product, one censored and the other not might be workable, so long as the censored version is clearly marked. I refuse to purchase any CDs at WalMart because they censor all their CDs, and it really ticks me off that they don't even put any warning stickers telling you they're censored.
As for the MPAA, that's another one I'm not happy about. I recently watched This Movie Has Not Been Rated and was disgusted at the practices the ratings board follows. I think MPAA ratings shouldn't be released for a film till it's released in theaters. The purpose of the ratings is supposed to be to allow parents to decide if their children should be allowed to watch the movie, and to a lesser extent if they want to watch it, it should not be used to determine if a theater should be showing the movie or not.
Your demographic has MORE people watching "American Idol" and other brain sucking tripe on TV that is getting the high ratings than the 3rd tier networks or dont watch TV at all.
I really hope that the morons who suck up those brain dead shows are going to be shoveling fries and flipping burgers, not running large corporations. So yeah, while a lot of my generation watches that junk, I think most of the ones that will have the money and be making key decisions will likely have a small overlap with that segment.
do not believe any of the BS they teach you in management classes in college, It's who you know and who knows you.
You misunderstand. I know many people who are moving into management, but I myself have no intention at all of doing so. I'm a programmer, and I enjoy programming, the last thing on earth I want to do is move to management position. I also wonder how the enhanced social networking thats possible because of the internet will impact the so called "old boy network" and if that will have an effect on how people move up through the ranks. I myself have a profile on LinkedIn.com, and one of the executive VPs of the company I work for also has a profile with a connection to mine.
I know that MS and Nintendo have to sign off on a game prior to it being released for the console, but do you know if Sony does? It was my understanding that at least for the PS2, you could get a development kit and release a game without any approval from Sony (well, you had to buy the kit from them, but from then on it was all you), unless you wanted an official seal on your game. Also, any speculation on how everyone is going to be handling the new customer generated content? If I recall didn't Nintendo recently announce they would be opening up a SDK for homebrew development of virtual console games?
I'd like to see a retailer grow some balls, tell the ESRB to shove off, and start carrying AO games on the shelves. I don't care if they section it off in it's own little area or something, so long as it's available for purchase. Then companies could make whatever they feel like making and who cares what the ESRB rates it.
Back when I used to still watch TV I mostly watched Discovery (Mythbusters), TLC (random stuff), and Food Network (Good Eats was awsome, and the japanese Iron Chef was cool to). Not sure what all is still on now. I've heard Mythbusters has gone downhill a lot lately.
America lives and dies by the Boob-tube (TV) we do what it tells us to do.
As a younger American I'm part of the generation that's just now beginning to take control of the marketplace, many of my friends are moving into management positions, and maybe 10 or 20 years from now will likely be CEOs or VPs. I, and many of my friends, do not on the whole watch television (I haven't had a TV with a cable connection for 2 years now), and I wonder how this is going to impact our economy. I get almost all my news from the internet, and all my video entertainment is either downloaded or I buy on DVD. As the generation that is less dependent on television comes into power what kind of effect do you think that will have on the American economy? Will we see more competition from foreign vendors?
I wonder if there are "safer" languages than C with similar performance and memory usage characteristics.
Take a look at D. It's basically C++ with a first class String object and garbage collection, plus a few other nice things borrowed from various languages. It's performance characteristics seem to be on par with C and C++, but it has most of the nice bits from Java and C# as well.
I think one of the MyEclipse plugins I've got running has a memory leak, as initially it gobbles up about 300-400M, but after running for a day or so it can grown to 800-900M. As for the seperate boxes, we do have those, but because of the brain-dead corporate policies it's a pain the butt to push most things out to them, so unless we're doing a test build for all the developers, or pushing a build out to QA or Production we run everything locally. I can sometime get away with not running the DB, which frees up a bit of resources, but the biggest hog is the webapp itself (lots of big in memory data structures get cached). Yes a laptop could probably handle it, but it would be slower than my desktop, and I'd probably need to have extra RAM added as most laptops only have 1G initially (at least the mid-range ones the company is likely to buy). As for the recompile, our ant build script does some things that unfortunately means it must be used whenever a build is done, and quite often requires a clean build.
Why would a programmer's laptop need more muscle than one that runs office apps?
I do Java webapps for a large corporation, and when I'm working I've got eclipse with a number of plugins (sucks memory, and when doing compiles or auto-completion CPU), Tomcat (more memory) the actual webapp (more memory), a local test database (more memory and CPU), a couple web browsers, Outlook (hate it, but required), Pidgin, and a GUI client for the webapp (memory mostly) all running at the same time. I use about 1.5 gigs of RAM, 1.5 gigs of swap, and periodically peg my CPU at 100% (mostly during compiles). About the only thing not maxed on my development system that would improve my performance would be a faster hard drive. The point is, if you're working on a significantly complex application, you will need some beefy hardware.
They are the people running computer labs, servers, and office computing systems. I expect even the high-end professional users to migrate to laptops except when laptops don't offer enough raw performance at any cost.
Close, but not quite. The trend I'm seeing is a overall trend for offices to move to laptops for each employ with a docking station. Modern laptops have more than enough muscle to run office apps, with the exception being specialists such as programmers and video editors. On the consumer end though the push for bigger screens, and more graphics heavy games has lead to a uptake of higher end systems by gamers and media enthusiasts with specs that can't easily be obtained in laptops. I think most office workers and those that pick up a computer to browse the net and do their taxes will be just fine with a laptop. For the gamers and the serious developers (the ones who's profession is computer-centric and not just a convenience) the desktop will always be the best option (at least till they come out with something better than laptops).
You're correct of course, and I committed a sin by using the term open-source when I should have said free and/or open-source. The main point is that someone will create what is essentially a crack for the scheme, and without patent law and the DMCA backing them up, the DRM creator will be even more out of luck than they currently are.
After reading several of your posts I've determined that I'm morally opposed to most of your opinions, however, I'm going to try to provide what advice I can in a reasonable and logical fashion.
It sure makes life easier if I know that the TV in her room with an antennae or basic cable won't be showing uncut Soprano or Sex in the City reruns.
If you're concerned that your child will have access to TV content you don't approve of, then the TV probably shouldn't be in the childes bedroom, and if it is, you may want to invest in one of those timer power switches that shuts an appliance off between certain hours (although the child could probably bypass this easily, but then again, they will gain access to virtually anything they want to anyway, not much point censoring really). Most current appliances also have parental lock codes (that can't be disabled in some cases much to my annoyance) that will restrict certain content. Finally, maybe you should look into some sort of media PC, or maybe put together a MythBox. Doing that you could load up all the movies you approve of, and maybe schedule certain approved television shows to be recorded regularly, allowing the child to view approved content whenever he or she wishes.
As someone else pointed out, it's not societies job to approve what your child can see, but there are resources out there to help you perform that task yourself. It's up to you to use them.
Companies would still be able to make money off of it because what would have previously been patented would now become a trade secret. The padlock is well understood, yet I think there are still companies making money off of padlock sales.
On your first point, once the DRM implementation has been reverse engineered (which is currently illegal thanks to the DMCA), a open source implementation can be created. If the underlying algorithm isn't covered by patent (and the name by trademark), then there's nothing the company can do to prevent you from distributing your version of the DRM for free, and furthermore, without the DMCA there's nothing they can do if you want to distribute a "broken" version that bypasses authorization checks and just decodes the content. On the second point, a pad lock is a tangible good, it takes resources to create each and every one, and as such, even if it's well understood, because it's a useful item it can still be sold because of the costs necessary to construct it. Software, having 0 duplication cost, if well understood and not protected by patent, trademark, or copyright, becomes much harder to sell because a free version can easily be implemented and distributed. Most companies when faced with a product that can at best be sold for a few months at minimal profit before it becomes completely useless, and long before the development cost has been recouped, will not bother to work on that product. I'm sure, even if the DMCA was repealed today and DRM became unpatentable, there would still be a few companies that would try to develop and market DRM, which would quickly be cracked, and free decoders distributed within weeks of the DRMs release. No companies (unless they were morons and signed long term contracts) would bother to use the DRM because it would be useless (even more than it is now), and the industry would quickly realize the futility of DRM.
Why wouldn't you want DRM to be patented? The more its patented the less it can be used, thats the whole basis of IP reform.
Two reasons. First, if there's no way to patent it, it becomes harder for a company to make a profit off of it, and less likely large companies will be dumping money into it. Second, if it's not patented, then if you develop an opensource version of it, they can't sue you for patent infringement, although they still might be able to do something with the DMCA. If we could eliminate the DMCA, and make DRM unpatentable, we'd be a lot closer to having all this nonsense with the Mafiaa cleared up.
The bottom line here is that DRM schemes are inherently broken and can't be fixed. So let's just get rid of all DRM and be done with it, 'k Mafiaa?
Maybe the PTO should treat DRM the same as they (supposedly) treat perpetual motion machines, and refuse to assign patents or trademarks on DRM technology because it's physically impossible to implement a working system?
Has anyone else noticed pages with comments loading slower than normal? Front page, and my user page seem to load normal, but anytime I click the read more link it seems to take a long time to load. Same for if I try posting or replying to a comment. Side effect of the new comment system?
but that's not really the same as saying that we will now saturate the biosphere with radiation of our own making.
As opposed to all that radiation saturating the biosphere not of our own making? You do realise that light is radiation right? Also, in case you're worried about all the terrible WiFi access points, your average 60 watt bulb puts off far more energy (radiation) than any WiFi AP in use. Now, admittedly, not all radiation has the same effect on everything (such as UV), but the key thing with EM radiation like light and radio waves is the total power and the distance from the source. Remember, power dissipates with the square of the distance, so if you're anything but sitting on top of the transmitter, and even then if it's relatively low power, you've got more to worry about standing outside on a sunny day. The fact that they're talking about such short distances with this tech leads me to believe this will probably be a very low power device, much the same as bluetooth and RFID are.
or receive something from someone who commits one.
What it actually says is to send or receive something from someone who has had their assets frozen by this act. If it was written as you say that wouldn't be that bad (although still not the greatest), but as it is now it can be taken to whatever level of indirection the government wants to.
since using acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq is pretty much a terrorist act. I don't have a problem with the gov't blocking the bank accounts of terrorists!
You seem to have missed another key point as well.
(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or
(iii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.
(b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the
receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.
That means you don't actually have to commit the acts to have your assets frozen, merely to have had business dealings with someone who has had their assets frozen. By extension this could be carried on to however many levels of indirection you want. If you donated to the red cross, and the red cross donated to someone, who donated to someone, who donated to someone that was labeled as a terrorist, the entire chain all the way back to you could have your assets frozen. Now, that is an extreme example and incredibly unlikely, but the point is, by the wording of this it could be done.
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You're right, it's no different, and I don't approve of either one. A game or movies rating should have absolutely zero impact on where or who sells it. The rating is there for the consumers information, not the retailers. Makes me wonder how much capital you would need to start your own movie chain that carries any movie regardless of rating.
I understand the history behind the ESRB and why it exists, I just feel it's wrong for retailers to make blanket decisions to not stock a product based on its rating. I also think selling two versions of the product, one censored and the other not might be workable, so long as the censored version is clearly marked. I refuse to purchase any CDs at WalMart because they censor all their CDs, and it really ticks me off that they don't even put any warning stickers telling you they're censored.
As for the MPAA, that's another one I'm not happy about. I recently watched This Movie Has Not Been Rated and was disgusted at the practices the ratings board follows. I think MPAA ratings shouldn't be released for a film till it's released in theaters. The purpose of the ratings is supposed to be to allow parents to decide if their children should be allowed to watch the movie, and to a lesser extent if they want to watch it, it should not be used to determine if a theater should be showing the movie or not.
I really hope that the morons who suck up those brain dead shows are going to be shoveling fries and flipping burgers, not running large corporations. So yeah, while a lot of my generation watches that junk, I think most of the ones that will have the money and be making key decisions will likely have a small overlap with that segment.
do not believe any of the BS they teach you in management classes in college, It's who you know and who knows you.You misunderstand. I know many people who are moving into management, but I myself have no intention at all of doing so. I'm a programmer, and I enjoy programming, the last thing on earth I want to do is move to management position. I also wonder how the enhanced social networking thats possible because of the internet will impact the so called "old boy network" and if that will have an effect on how people move up through the ranks. I myself have a profile on LinkedIn.com, and one of the executive VPs of the company I work for also has a profile with a connection to mine.
I know that MS and Nintendo have to sign off on a game prior to it being released for the console, but do you know if Sony does? It was my understanding that at least for the PS2, you could get a development kit and release a game without any approval from Sony (well, you had to buy the kit from them, but from then on it was all you), unless you wanted an official seal on your game. Also, any speculation on how everyone is going to be handling the new customer generated content? If I recall didn't Nintendo recently announce they would be opening up a SDK for homebrew development of virtual console games?
I'd like to see a retailer grow some balls, tell the ESRB to shove off, and start carrying AO games on the shelves. I don't care if they section it off in it's own little area or something, so long as it's available for purchase. Then companies could make whatever they feel like making and who cares what the ESRB rates it.
Back when I used to still watch TV I mostly watched Discovery (Mythbusters), TLC (random stuff), and Food Network (Good Eats was awsome, and the japanese Iron Chef was cool to). Not sure what all is still on now. I've heard Mythbusters has gone downhill a lot lately.
As a younger American I'm part of the generation that's just now beginning to take control of the marketplace, many of my friends are moving into management positions, and maybe 10 or 20 years from now will likely be CEOs or VPs. I, and many of my friends, do not on the whole watch television (I haven't had a TV with a cable connection for 2 years now), and I wonder how this is going to impact our economy. I get almost all my news from the internet, and all my video entertainment is either downloaded or I buy on DVD. As the generation that is less dependent on television comes into power what kind of effect do you think that will have on the American economy? Will we see more competition from foreign vendors?
I think you underestimate our idiot supply. With only 10 million that means there are probably some idiots out there who haven't bought one yet.
Take a look at D. It's basically C++ with a first class String object and garbage collection, plus a few other nice things borrowed from various languages. It's performance characteristics seem to be on par with C and C++, but it has most of the nice bits from Java and C# as well.
I think one of the MyEclipse plugins I've got running has a memory leak, as initially it gobbles up about 300-400M, but after running for a day or so it can grown to 800-900M. As for the seperate boxes, we do have those, but because of the brain-dead corporate policies it's a pain the butt to push most things out to them, so unless we're doing a test build for all the developers, or pushing a build out to QA or Production we run everything locally. I can sometime get away with not running the DB, which frees up a bit of resources, but the biggest hog is the webapp itself (lots of big in memory data structures get cached). Yes a laptop could probably handle it, but it would be slower than my desktop, and I'd probably need to have extra RAM added as most laptops only have 1G initially (at least the mid-range ones the company is likely to buy). As for the recompile, our ant build script does some things that unfortunately means it must be used whenever a build is done, and quite often requires a clean build.
I do Java webapps for a large corporation, and when I'm working I've got eclipse with a number of plugins (sucks memory, and when doing compiles or auto-completion CPU), Tomcat (more memory) the actual webapp (more memory), a local test database (more memory and CPU), a couple web browsers, Outlook (hate it, but required), Pidgin, and a GUI client for the webapp (memory mostly) all running at the same time. I use about 1.5 gigs of RAM, 1.5 gigs of swap, and periodically peg my CPU at 100% (mostly during compiles). About the only thing not maxed on my development system that would improve my performance would be a faster hard drive. The point is, if you're working on a significantly complex application, you will need some beefy hardware.
Close, but not quite. The trend I'm seeing is a overall trend for offices to move to laptops for each employ with a docking station. Modern laptops have more than enough muscle to run office apps, with the exception being specialists such as programmers and video editors. On the consumer end though the push for bigger screens, and more graphics heavy games has lead to a uptake of higher end systems by gamers and media enthusiasts with specs that can't easily be obtained in laptops. I think most office workers and those that pick up a computer to browse the net and do their taxes will be just fine with a laptop. For the gamers and the serious developers (the ones who's profession is computer-centric and not just a convenience) the desktop will always be the best option (at least till they come out with something better than laptops).
Oh good, I needed some toilet paper.
Am I the only one who's STILL wondering exactly how the three seashells worked?
Isn't "Ted "Tube" Stevens" being investigated for something or other right now?
You're correct of course, and I committed a sin by using the term open-source when I should have said free and/or open-source. The main point is that someone will create what is essentially a crack for the scheme, and without patent law and the DMCA backing them up, the DRM creator will be even more out of luck than they currently are.
After reading several of your posts I've determined that I'm morally opposed to most of your opinions, however, I'm going to try to provide what advice I can in a reasonable and logical fashion.
It sure makes life easier if I know that the TV in her room with an antennae or basic cable won't be showing uncut Soprano or Sex in the City reruns.If you're concerned that your child will have access to TV content you don't approve of, then the TV probably shouldn't be in the childes bedroom, and if it is, you may want to invest in one of those timer power switches that shuts an appliance off between certain hours (although the child could probably bypass this easily, but then again, they will gain access to virtually anything they want to anyway, not much point censoring really). Most current appliances also have parental lock codes (that can't be disabled in some cases much to my annoyance) that will restrict certain content. Finally, maybe you should look into some sort of media PC, or maybe put together a MythBox. Doing that you could load up all the movies you approve of, and maybe schedule certain approved television shows to be recorded regularly, allowing the child to view approved content whenever he or she wishes.
As someone else pointed out, it's not societies job to approve what your child can see, but there are resources out there to help you perform that task yourself. It's up to you to use them.
I was going to respond to this guy, but you've done an excellent job of it for me. If I had any mod points left I'd rate you insightful.
On your first point, once the DRM implementation has been reverse engineered (which is currently illegal thanks to the DMCA), a open source implementation can be created. If the underlying algorithm isn't covered by patent (and the name by trademark), then there's nothing the company can do to prevent you from distributing your version of the DRM for free, and furthermore, without the DMCA there's nothing they can do if you want to distribute a "broken" version that bypasses authorization checks and just decodes the content. On the second point, a pad lock is a tangible good, it takes resources to create each and every one, and as such, even if it's well understood, because it's a useful item it can still be sold because of the costs necessary to construct it. Software, having 0 duplication cost, if well understood and not protected by patent, trademark, or copyright, becomes much harder to sell because a free version can easily be implemented and distributed. Most companies when faced with a product that can at best be sold for a few months at minimal profit before it becomes completely useless, and long before the development cost has been recouped, will not bother to work on that product. I'm sure, even if the DMCA was repealed today and DRM became unpatentable, there would still be a few companies that would try to develop and market DRM, which would quickly be cracked, and free decoders distributed within weeks of the DRMs release. No companies (unless they were morons and signed long term contracts) would bother to use the DRM because it would be useless (even more than it is now), and the industry would quickly realize the futility of DRM.
Two reasons. First, if there's no way to patent it, it becomes harder for a company to make a profit off of it, and less likely large companies will be dumping money into it. Second, if it's not patented, then if you develop an opensource version of it, they can't sue you for patent infringement, although they still might be able to do something with the DMCA. If we could eliminate the DMCA, and make DRM unpatentable, we'd be a lot closer to having all this nonsense with the Mafiaa cleared up.
Maybe the PTO should treat DRM the same as they (supposedly) treat perpetual motion machines, and refuse to assign patents or trademarks on DRM technology because it's physically impossible to implement a working system?
Because IE hates web developers (and the feeling is mutual).
Has anyone else noticed pages with comments loading slower than normal? Front page, and my user page seem to load normal, but anytime I click the read more link it seems to take a long time to load. Same for if I try posting or replying to a comment. Side effect of the new comment system?
As opposed to all that radiation saturating the biosphere not of our own making? You do realise that light is radiation right? Also, in case you're worried about all the terrible WiFi access points, your average 60 watt bulb puts off far more energy (radiation) than any WiFi AP in use. Now, admittedly, not all radiation has the same effect on everything (such as UV), but the key thing with EM radiation like light and radio waves is the total power and the distance from the source. Remember, power dissipates with the square of the distance, so if you're anything but sitting on top of the transmitter, and even then if it's relatively low power, you've got more to worry about standing outside on a sunny day. The fact that they're talking about such short distances with this tech leads me to believe this will probably be a very low power device, much the same as bluetooth and RFID are.
What it actually says is to send or receive something from someone who has had their assets frozen by this act. If it was written as you say that wouldn't be that bad (although still not the greatest), but as it is now it can be taken to whatever level of indirection the government wants to.
You seem to have missed another key point as well.
(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or(iii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.
(b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.
That means you don't actually have to commit the acts to have your assets frozen, merely to have had business dealings with someone who has had their assets frozen. By extension this could be carried on to however many levels of indirection you want. If you donated to the red cross, and the red cross donated to someone, who donated to someone, who donated to someone that was labeled as a terrorist, the entire chain all the way back to you could have your assets frozen. Now, that is an extreme example and incredibly unlikely, but the point is, by the wording of this it could be done.