This is why the RIAA is perfectly willing to shoot itself in the foot in the short term (5 years)
Which I would be perfectly fine with, if they didn't at the same time insist on shooting me in my foot, too.
Seriously, though: this article makes the point that the RIAA and its ilk stand to lose much more than a few years' market growth if they continue with their current scorched-earth tactics. To the contrary: Copy-protected CD's are a proven dud, their crippled "digital music services" are struggling for life, their current technology (by comparison with DVD's and video games) is looking more and more outdated, and their impending (crippled) formats are likely to be DOA.
What they really need is to be saved from themselves.
"The evidence is that this is an increasing battle, not one that is
going to be resolved in the short term," says Lawrence Lessig.... "This is a struggle to the
death."
No! In fact, death is only a threat if the Content Cabals get their way. In that case, they will in all likelihood kill off (severely reduce) both Tech Sector profits and their own. On the other hand, if by some miracle they give up and grant their customers fair use rights to digital content, they will (contrarily) end up making more money than ever before.
Demonstrating this point is as easy as looking back at the last few distribution revolutions. VCRs? We've already got Valenti's famous serial-killer quote, but thank goodness he didn't get his way - video rentals have been big business for the studios ever since the Supreme Court ruled the VCR legit.
Going back further: Were audio cassettes the bane that the music industry feared, way back in the age of disco when Home taping was killing music? I didn't think so.
And prior even to that: Think television, think radio, think... the printing press. Did publishers make more money before, or after, Gutenberg?
Returning to the present age, is it even clear that Napster, that glorious window onto the world of music as a whole, undivided and beautiful and ever-surprising - was it indeed a bad thing, or was it perhaps free-marketing the music itself? And at the same time, oh look, those copy-protected CDsdon't seem to be selling so good.
What I'm getting at here is that discussions of this issue often degenerate rapidly into an us-vs-them mentality. Which in a way makes sense, since the --AA's are a bunch of raving lunatics, who want to lock people up for sharing music after first DOS'ing their computers. But looked at from a different perspective, they're just lost sheep in need of some direction - a little guidance from those of us who actually live with, embrace, and explore the technological frontiers.
In other words, people paint the conflict as win-lose. But it's not: it's a choice we have, as a society: win-win, or lose-lose.
Sun spots can masquerade as Doppler shifts by altering the spectrum of the star systematically as the star rotates. You think it's the planet's period, but it's actually the star's rotation (at the latitude of the sunspot). That's why Greg Henry's discovery of photometric variability with the same period as the "planet" is so damning.
Planetary transit searches will be subject to sunspots as a noise source (star's light changing by small amounts, erratically), but are unlikely to be fooled by them. A planetary transit causes the star's light to dim in a distinct flat-bottomed way that a sunspot cannot mimic.
Note also that no one has discovered a planet yet using the transit-search technique. The transiting planet of Henry & Charbonneau was known to exist already thanks to the spectroscopic surveys.
Anyone who agrees that patents should exist will have to agree that there are some software innovations that are worthy of being patented - for example if someone invented a superquick way to sort a string of numbers, say...
If you believe this, then do you believe that mathematics can be patented? How about the Pythagorean theorem? Root-finding by the Newtonian method? Eulerian primality testing? Or the number Pi?
You don't seem to have thought very much about the implications of algorithm patentability for the progress of mathematics and computer science generally. It is the nature of our highly networked, competitive society that most discoveries are made nearly simulataneously by two or more groups. Granting a 20-year monopoly to the "first" of these - as opposed to simply insisting on their rights of citation - does nothing to advance the progress of science under these conditions. Abolish all patent rights tomorrow, and progress in these fields will continue - or, more probably, accelerate.
The quicksort algorithm - developed prior to the present age of software patents, and available in many free implementations - is actually a perfect example of this.
The author can not grant you permisson to do things the government does not allow.
Exactly. That's why it is a violation of the GPL (for most of us) to distribute a GPL'd MP3 decoder. See mbrubeck's comments one and two in this thread if you are confused.
The GPL claims to allow modification and redistribution under certain terms. However, a GPL program that incorporates MP3 technology is in fact not redistributable under the terms of the GPL.
Certainly, as Thomson says, they are only going to go after you if you redistribute for $$ (a la RedHat). However, that doesn't change the fact that the original author who attached the GPL was asserting rights in the work that the author did not possess.
Thomson is not going after anyone who writes/releases a free (as in beer) MP3 decoder (well, not yet anyway);
However the patent license granted to free (as in beer) MP3 decoders does not allow redistribution for $$;
Hence, the patent license for free (as in beer) MP3 decoders is not compatible with the GPL;
Hence, any GPL'd MP3 decoder is in violation of the patent license.
It's hard to see Thomson as the bad guys here. Rather, the fault lies with those who slapped a GPL on top of their MP3 player-programs, without considering the legal restrictions (vis, that they were violating MP3 patents thereby).
For crying out loud... there's a reason why we're the #1 industrialized nation, and they're a "3rd world" nation, and its not because we've spend hundreds of years feeling guilty for other nations.
Hey, good point. While you're at it, why not gloat over the fact that your accident of birth in the United States (I'm guessing) instead of, say, Thailand means that you have the money and the power to purchase the virginity of a 13-year old in Bangkok?
Seriously though: think about it. Capital is no substitute for morality, and just because the "market will bear" your exploitation of other human beings doesn't mean you have the right.
When I was interviewing programmers for my
former employer, there were two questions I would
always ask.
Why do you want this job?
What single accomplishment of yours are you most proud of?
I would also have a creative problem-solving question. Ex: How would you walk on water, or, Design me a mailbox. Inspired by Joel's Guerrila Guide to Interviewing, we were content to look for someone who was (a) smart; and (b) got things done. Best way to judge (a) is to have them solve a problem they haven't thought of before (no algorithms! no riddles!). Best way to judge (b) is with the questions above.
if you can play it, and listen to it, you can record it
Ah yes... but if your SACD player doesn't play
anything but original SACD's (no SACD-R), then
you won't be able to play your copy as an SACD.
Sure, you'll be able to burn it to CD... but you
won't want that "harsh" CD sound any more, you
will be hooked on SACD.
Why
play just a looping 10-second piece of the song when you can play a clip and then say, "To get the whole song
legally for just $1.95, visit Pressplay.com" or something to that effect?
Simple: because you simply can't do that yet.
The day that MusicMatch and Pressplay offer
plain vanilla MP3's of their songs for download
at $1.95 a pop is the day they begin to win back
mindshare and marketshare from the P2P services.
Until then, they are stuck with desperate
measures like these to gum up the P2P works.
isn't this a better deal for cable modem users than dsl users who presumably still have to pay the phone company for a line?
It depends. Just because you have an active phone line in your house doesn't mean you have to pay for the local phone monopol^H^H^H^H^H^H^H company's monthly calling plans.
In most parts of the country the price for the
lowest tier of service (toll calling) is regulated
and very cheap (e.g. $5/month). Add that to
your Vonage charges and you will still be better
off than if you signed up for the "Unlimited Local
Calling" plan (ca. $20/month, plus toll charges for some calls within your area code) and the long
distance company of your choise (ca. $20/month,
plus $0.10/minute long distance).
-Renard
Re:The problem with all these equations...
on
Rare Earth
·
· Score: 2
We by no means have catalogued every element that exists
On the contrary, we most certainly have (I suggest you check out an encyclopedia entry on "nuclear physics" if you doubt this). The only elements yet to be discovered will have half-lives measured in microseconds, at best... not exactly conducive to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Sample size is equal to this planet and life on this planet.
In terms of life, yes (so far...). In terms of chemistry, no. We are not limited to our own creativity here: radio astronomers routinely detect the signatures of organic (carbon-based) molecules in interstellar space.
If there were any new sorts of molecules out there,
they would give unusual radio emissions that
would be of great scientific interest... we have
yet to see any such evidence.
Interesting idea; if you can show a payment was
made to the Taiwanese ISP then the bribe would be a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (1977, amended 1988) by the MPAA and indictable under US law.
Of course IANAL but see the code itself if you're interested in details.
does anyone know of an easy-to-use program which can rip to.ogg (as well as other
formats perhaps)?
Try grip. Configure it to rip to any format you want - all it needs is the path to the executable. It will do the freedb lookup and name the files in your favorite style too.
Since ogg vorbis is a free codec (as in beer; as in speech) this is really the best way to go. Note that US Linux users who rip to MP3 with free-as-in-beer software are probably in violation of one or more laws. Since XMMS plays OGG as well as MP3 you can mix and match MP3's from your favorite P2P community with OGG's of your own collection.
as you probably know there is a sparse few number of them
available to download...
So what are you waiting for? Get oggenc and do your part!
very original and i don't see a thing wrong with it - thanks.
to illuminate the Napster controversy for people of an older generation (my age, e.g. 30's and above) i like to ask the following question: of all the people you knew in college, who had the most extensive record collections, and spent the most money on music?
inevitably, when they think about it, they realize that their friends with the CD collections numbering in the 1000's and the $100/month CD habit were college disc jockeys.
sure there's a selection effect, but think about it! the people who were constantly being exposed to torrents of new music, music of all sorts, not just the week's top 40 ad infinitum, for free, courtesy of their radio station, were precisely the ones spending the lion's share of their disposable income on same.
when i went on napster for the first time i suddenly knew how they felt. look at (listen to!) all this great music out there! i have to have some! and not just on my computer - for home and the car, and for the album art and liner notes, i had to have the cds.
i never spent as much money on cd's as i did during the 2 years i was using napster - even gnutella has yet to make as fanatic a music fan of me yet. (collecting albums on gnutella still being a substantial pain in the *&@!)
Corporate Music has let down their shareholders in devastating fashion: the blood of their fanbase is on their hands.
Hardly! In an ideal world I'd like them to bring that back too (w/ modern processor and OS X). But in the end the Cube didn't sell well enough to justify its one-off design (with all the corresponding unique elements).
As long as the new iMac is selling snappily, though, they won't have any such volume problems here. And selling iHubs would expand their marketshare further upstream, to people who need a slightly more serious computer.
I've been going back and forth on the new iMac myself - disliked it at first but have been coming around lately (esp. after hearing Ive's arguments) -
Observing the public reaction, it is clear that like its predecessor it is destined to invade and fully occupy the public imagination for the next couple of years. Bully for Apple, and for Ive. And it will be perfect for my parents.
But what I've realized I'd personally like most is just the detached hub. I'll buy my own flat-screen thank you (maybe an Apple Cinema display). I don't need more than one viewing angle and I'd rather put the hub itself off towards the back of the desk. Just need the LCD, keyboard, mouse/trackball and speakers up front.
I hope they're planning on releasing this iHub on its own, some time soon. It would be a sweet machine - short on expandability, but as this NYT article points out, at a better price point (and a helluva lot more aesthetic) than the G4 towers.
The article doesn't distinguish between antimatter and antiatoms.
You're right. An older NASA article mentioned by an early poster (above) gives more details. Basically they are talking about using antiprotons as rocket fuel. These are stored in a fairly gargantuan Penning trap (active volume one millimeter in size... well these things are relative, don't you know!).
Antiatoms are discussed in the article as well; easier to store but much, much harder to make than plain old antiprotons.
You have to have an extremely good vacuum, however
When you're dealing with antimatter of any sort you have to have a very good vacuum regardless. Happily, this is not very hard, we can make the best vacuums in the known universe right here on Earth, much less in space...
If the reaction chamber had a hemisphere of a high-Z material, like
uranium, the gamma photons from a matter/antimatter reaction could be reflected (assuming the gamma rays are not of
sufficient energy to cause fission of the material)
On the contrary, the gamma-rays (even when they are not energetic enough to cause fission) will merely be absorbed by the high-Z nuclei, knocking them loose to rattle around the spacecraft (kinetic energy), or alternatively raising them to an excited state, after which they will relax by emission of one or several gamma-rays in random directions (isotropic distribution). Since you will have absorbed the momentum of a gamma-ray that was going in the wrong direction, you will end up with a net loss.
If it were that easy to "reflect" gamma-rays, believe me, gamma-ray astronomers would have been doing it a long time ago...
if you want to get it into the sun you have to supply a delta-velocity of 30 km/s (Earth's orbital velocity). that's four times the velocity to get to Earth orbit (your $10k/lb figure).
conservatively speaking that's going to increase your cost estimate by a factor of 10...
I believe the actual research described is somewhat more subtle than your characterization.
Punishment is a purely selfish strategy: spend money punishing someone, so they will invest more, so your profits increase.
Incorrect - In the actual experiment, if you chose to punish a `freeloader' then you paid out of your own profits, and no one else's. The games were not iterated (played repeatedly with the same cast of players), so any consequent change in the freeloader's behavior would not be to your benefit. Perhaps on the next time around, the freeloader would have a change of heart, but even if s/he did this was not likely to be to your own benefit.
Thus in the context of the game, choosing to punish was a very counter-selfish act - not selfish at all, but quite the opposite. That's what makes the research so interesting.
-Renard
Re:In response to others...
on
Flying on Mars
·
· Score: 2
Helicopters won't work well on mars, you'll need to have your props spinning 10 times faster to get the same lift, which will be somewhat diffucult, no?
One other problem mentioned in the NASA pages: because of the thin atmosphere your rotors will have to be moving at supersonic speeds before they provide sufficient lift! The resulting shockwaves (sonic booms) are severely disruptive of typical rotor airflow patterns.
-Renard
Re:I think people are making this more difficult..
on
Flying on Mars
·
· Score: 2
Hmm. In fact this would not be so easy I think.
The highest-altitude balloons ever flown on Earth topped out at 100,000 feet. That's the altitude where Earth's atmospheric density finally drops to the point where it reaches Mars' at "sea level".
By comparison the x1/3 lower gravity will not be that much help - you will need a huge, thin balloon to carry any weight at all, and (a) collecting the necessary quantity of gas; and (b) inflating it safely both become major challenges.
I think this is why we don't see mention of balloons / zeppelins on the NASA webpages.
Slashdot Mirror
Which I would be perfectly fine with, if they didn't at the same time insist on shooting me in my foot, too.
Seriously, though: this article makes the point that the RIAA and its ilk stand to lose much more than a few years' market growth if they continue with their current scorched-earth tactics. To the contrary: Copy-protected CD's are a proven dud, their crippled "digital music services" are struggling for life, their current technology (by comparison with DVD's and video games) is looking more and more outdated, and their impending (crippled) formats are likely to be DOA.
What they really need is to be saved from themselves.
-Renard
No! In fact, death is only a threat if the Content Cabals get their way. In that case, they will in all likelihood kill off (severely reduce) both Tech Sector profits and their own. On the other hand, if by some miracle they give up and grant their customers fair use rights to digital content, they will (contrarily) end up making more money than ever before.
Demonstrating this point is as easy as looking back at the last few distribution revolutions. VCRs? We've already got Valenti's famous serial-killer quote, but thank goodness he didn't get his way - video rentals have been big business for the studios ever since the Supreme Court ruled the VCR legit.
Going back further: Were audio cassettes the bane that the music industry feared, way back in the age of disco when Home taping was killing music? I didn't think so.
And prior even to that: Think television, think radio, think... the printing press. Did publishers make more money before, or after, Gutenberg?
Returning to the present age, is it even clear that Napster, that glorious window onto the world of music as a whole, undivided and beautiful and ever-surprising - was it indeed a bad thing, or was it perhaps free-marketing the music itself? And at the same time, oh look, those copy-protected CDs don't seem to be selling so good.
What I'm getting at here is that discussions of this issue often degenerate rapidly into an us-vs-them mentality. Which in a way makes sense, since the --AA's are a bunch of raving lunatics, who want to lock people up for sharing music after first DOS'ing their computers. But looked at from a different perspective, they're just lost sheep in need of some direction - a little guidance from those of us who actually live with, embrace, and explore the technological frontiers.
In other words, people paint the conflict as win-lose. But it's not: it's a choice we have, as a society: win-win, or lose-lose.
-Renard
Planetary transit searches will be subject to sunspots as a noise source (star's light changing by small amounts, erratically), but are unlikely to be fooled by them. A planetary transit causes the star's light to dim in a distinct flat-bottomed way that a sunspot cannot mimic.
Note also that no one has discovered a planet yet using the transit-search technique. The transiting planet of Henry & Charbonneau was known to exist already thanks to the spectroscopic surveys.
-Renard
If you believe this, then do you believe that mathematics can be patented? How about the Pythagorean theorem? Root-finding by the Newtonian method? Eulerian primality testing? Or the number Pi?
You don't seem to have thought very much about the implications of algorithm patentability for the progress of mathematics and computer science generally. It is the nature of our highly networked, competitive society that most discoveries are made nearly simulataneously by two or more groups. Granting a 20-year monopoly to the "first" of these - as opposed to simply insisting on their rights of citation - does nothing to advance the progress of science under these conditions. Abolish all patent rights tomorrow, and progress in these fields will continue - or, more probably, accelerate.
The quicksort algorithm - developed prior to the present age of software patents, and available in many free implementations - is actually a perfect example of this.
-Renard
Exactly. That's why it is a violation of the GPL (for most of us) to distribute a GPL'd MP3 decoder. See mbrubeck's comments one and two in this thread if you are confused.
-Renard
Certainly, as Thomson says, they are only going to go after you if you redistribute for $$ (a la RedHat). However, that doesn't change the fact that the original author who attached the GPL was asserting rights in the work that the author did not possess.
-Renard
- Thomson is not going after anyone who writes/releases a free (as in beer) MP3 decoder (well, not yet anyway);
- However the patent license granted to free (as in beer) MP3 decoders does not allow redistribution for $$;
- Hence, the patent license for free (as in beer) MP3 decoders is not compatible with the GPL;
- Hence, any GPL'd MP3 decoder is in violation of the patent license.
It's hard to see Thomson as the bad guys here. Rather, the fault lies with those who slapped a GPL on top of their MP3 player-programs, without considering the legal restrictions (vis, that they were violating MP3 patents thereby).-Renard
Hey, good point. While you're at it, why not gloat over the fact that your accident of birth in the United States (I'm guessing) instead of, say, Thailand means that you have the money and the power to purchase the virginity of a 13-year old in Bangkok?
Seriously though: think about it. Capital is no substitute for morality, and just because the "market will bear" your exploitation of other human beings doesn't mean you have the right.
-Renard
- Why do you want this job?
- What single accomplishment of yours are you most proud of?
I would also have a creative problem-solving question. Ex: How would you walk on water, or, Design me a mailbox. Inspired by Joel's Guerrila Guide to Interviewing, we were content to look for someone who was (a) smart; and (b) got things done. Best way to judge (a) is to have them solve a problem they haven't thought of before (no algorithms! no riddles!). Best way to judge (b) is with the questions above.-Renard
Ah yes... but if your SACD player doesn't play anything but original SACD's (no SACD-R), then you won't be able to play your copy as an SACD. Sure, you'll be able to burn it to CD... but you won't want that "harsh" CD sound any more, you will be hooked on SACD.
I'm not saying it will work, but that's the plan.
-Renard
Indeed, it does not.
Given the Copyright as Cudgel subject, however, this very change might (generously) be interpreted as a fairly witty commentary on the topic.
Could it be? A witty troll?
-Renard
Simple: because you simply can't do that yet.
The day that MusicMatch and Pressplay offer plain vanilla MP3's of their songs for download at $1.95 a pop is the day they begin to win back mindshare and marketshare from the P2P services.
Until then, they are stuck with desperate measures like these to gum up the P2P works.
-Renard
It depends. Just because you have an active phone line in your house doesn't mean you have to pay for the local phone monopol^H^H^H^H^H^H^H company's monthly calling plans.
In most parts of the country the price for the lowest tier of service (toll calling) is regulated and very cheap (e.g. $5/month). Add that to your Vonage charges and you will still be better off than if you signed up for the "Unlimited Local Calling" plan (ca. $20/month, plus toll charges for some calls within your area code) and the long distance company of your choise (ca. $20/month, plus $0.10/minute long distance).
-Renard
On the contrary, we most certainly have (I suggest you check out an encyclopedia entry on "nuclear physics" if you doubt this). The only elements yet to be discovered will have half-lives measured in microseconds, at best... not exactly conducive to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Sample size is equal to this planet and life on this planet.
In terms of life, yes (so far...). In terms of chemistry, no. We are not limited to our own creativity here: radio astronomers routinely detect the signatures of organic (carbon-based) molecules in interstellar space.
If there were any new sorts of molecules out there, they would give unusual radio emissions that would be of great scientific interest... we have yet to see any such evidence.
-Renard
Of course IANAL but see the code itself if you're interested in details.
-Renard
Try grip. Configure it to rip to any format you want - all it needs is the path to the executable. It will do the freedb lookup and name the files in your favorite style too.
Since ogg vorbis is a free codec (as in beer; as in speech) this is really the best way to go. Note that US Linux users who rip to MP3 with free-as-in-beer software are probably in violation of one or more laws. Since XMMS plays OGG as well as MP3 you can mix and match MP3's from your favorite P2P community with OGG's of your own collection.
as you probably know there is a sparse few number of them available to download...
So what are you waiting for? Get oggenc and do your part!
-Renard
to illuminate the Napster controversy for people of an older generation (my age, e.g. 30's and above) i like to ask the following question: of all the people you knew in college, who had the most extensive record collections, and spent the most money on music?
inevitably, when they think about it, they realize that their friends with the CD collections numbering in the 1000's and the $100/month CD habit were college disc jockeys.
sure there's a selection effect, but think about it! the people who were constantly being exposed to torrents of new music, music of all sorts, not just the week's top 40 ad infinitum, for free, courtesy of their radio station, were precisely the ones spending the lion's share of their disposable income on same.
when i went on napster for the first time i suddenly knew how they felt. look at (listen to!) all this great music out there! i have to have some! and not just on my computer - for home and the car, and for the album art and liner notes, i had to have the cds.
i never spent as much money on cd's as i did during the 2 years i was using napster - even gnutella has yet to make as fanatic a music fan of me yet. (collecting albums on gnutella still being a substantial pain in the *&@!)
Corporate Music has let down their shareholders in devastating fashion: the blood of their fanbase is on their hands.
-renard
Hardly! In an ideal world I'd like them to bring that back too (w/ modern processor and OS X). But in the end the Cube didn't sell well enough to justify its one-off design (with all the corresponding unique elements).
As long as the new iMac is selling snappily, though, they won't have any such volume problems here. And selling iHubs would expand their marketshare further upstream, to people who need a slightly more serious computer.
-Renard
Observing the public reaction, it is clear that like its predecessor it is destined to invade and fully occupy the public imagination for the next couple of years. Bully for Apple, and for Ive. And it will be perfect for my parents.
But what I've realized I'd personally like most is just the detached hub. I'll buy my own flat-screen thank you (maybe an Apple Cinema display). I don't need more than one viewing angle and I'd rather put the hub itself off towards the back of the desk. Just need the LCD, keyboard, mouse/trackball and speakers up front.
I hope they're planning on releasing this iHub on its own, some time soon. It would be a sweet machine - short on expandability, but as this NYT article points out, at a better price point (and a helluva lot more aesthetic) than the G4 towers.
-Renard
You're right. An older NASA article mentioned by an early poster (above) gives more details. Basically they are talking about using antiprotons as rocket fuel. These are stored in a fairly gargantuan Penning trap (active volume one millimeter in size... well these things are relative, don't you know!).
Antiatoms are discussed in the article as well; easier to store but much, much harder to make than plain old antiprotons.
You have to have an extremely good vacuum, however
When you're dealing with antimatter of any sort you have to have a very good vacuum regardless. Happily, this is not very hard, we can make the best vacuums in the known universe right here on Earth, much less in space...
-Renard
On the contrary, the gamma-rays (even when they are not energetic enough to cause fission) will merely be absorbed by the high-Z nuclei, knocking them loose to rattle around the spacecraft (kinetic energy), or alternatively raising them to an excited state, after which they will relax by emission of one or several gamma-rays in random directions (isotropic distribution). Since you will have absorbed the momentum of a gamma-ray that was going in the wrong direction, you will end up with a net loss.
If it were that easy to "reflect" gamma-rays, believe me, gamma-ray astronomers would have been doing it a long time ago...
-Renard
conservatively speaking that's going to increase your cost estimate by a factor of 10...
-renard
Punishment is a purely selfish strategy: spend money punishing someone, so they will invest more, so your profits increase.
Incorrect - In the actual experiment, if you chose to punish a `freeloader' then you paid out of your own profits, and no one else's. The games were not iterated (played repeatedly with the same cast of players), so any consequent change in the freeloader's behavior would not be to your benefit. Perhaps on the next time around, the freeloader would have a change of heart, but even if s/he did this was not likely to be to your own benefit.
Thus in the context of the game, choosing to punish was a very counter-selfish act - not selfish at all, but quite the opposite. That's what makes the research so interesting.
-Renard
One other problem mentioned in the NASA pages: because of the thin atmosphere your rotors will have to be moving at supersonic speeds before they provide sufficient lift! The resulting shockwaves (sonic booms) are severely disruptive of typical rotor airflow patterns.
-Renard
The highest-altitude balloons ever flown on Earth topped out at 100,000 feet. That's the altitude where Earth's atmospheric density finally drops to the point where it reaches Mars' at "sea level".
By comparison the x1/3 lower gravity will not be that much help - you will need a huge, thin balloon to carry any weight at all, and (a) collecting the necessary quantity of gas; and (b) inflating it safely both become major challenges.
I think this is why we don't see mention of balloons / zeppelins on the NASA webpages.
-Renard