Whereas most of the implementations of Linux out in the market are either invisible (routers) or phones or Android implementations, this is one of the first commercial applications that I've seen that really takes advantage of the flexibility of the OS. Of course Linux has a great kernel and network stack, but it also has good graphics and peripheral support.
It's pushing into an area where (strangely enough) Windows CE would have traditionally have dominance. Many "panel" devices on the market are WinCE based because of the synergy between the embedded OS and the desktop OS. But that synergy is a lot of hype, when you get down to it. Support for standards like TCP/IP is enough to connect two devices nowadays. Given that the fridge is always powered, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to have it run a webserver and service requests from DLNA devices around the house.
The built in applications here are interesting, but once true connectivity is achieved, that's when I think we will see the benefits of Linux as the base OS really shine.
It's a good way to separate the wheat from the chaff. The idiot kids who do it to be edgy change their icons to something else. The idiot neo-Nazis change theirs to be another WP symbol.
It's definitely biased towards Western culture, but that may have more to do with its primary market than anything else.
I'm not so sure MS is out there trying to cram Western culture down the throat of every gamer. They simply only have their own cultural signposts to guide them. If you were to make a convincing argument that a particular icon was terribly offensive in another culture, I'm sure they'd update their list of banned iconography.
Buddhists strive to make that dissociation, but that's their issue, not the one at hand.
You are absolutely right. The question becomes whether one culture's significant artifact is better or has more importance than another's. Does the cultural significance of the Nazi swastika imbue the non-Nazi swastika with the same negative connotations of the former? As the blog writer said, it depends on context.
However, the context here is the XBox servers and the game playing public who accesses these servers. MS has decided which icons are unacceptable, and they have used Western culture as the context for most of their decisions.
Right or wrong, in Western culture, the swastika has a very specific negative meaning. It is one of hatred, murder, and intimidation.
And your point is that in-game as an icon it would not be offensive because, despite its primary association with the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime, the symbol can also be associated with other meanings?
Buddhists would say that the meaning of the icon lies in the mind of the one ascribes the meaning to it. Therefore the icon has no intrinsic meaning in and of itself and thus they would have no problem finding another meaningless icon to use in its place.
No one is playing the "Super Hindus" when they use the swastika. It is an inflammatory icon with specific anti-Semitic meaning.
Its use ought to be banned, just as if a group called themselves the "Jew gassers" and tried to claim it was a tribute to a wacky Israeli troupe.
Should anything offensive be banned? Well, MS has decided that they will cater to the lowest common denominator, so that means nothing offensive. These rules are indicated up front, so you don't really have a case that you didn't know about the rules.
I suspect that they are (reasonably) well aware that somebody, presumably an embedded system/driver dev had to produce the blobs and loaders and other structures they are monkeying with in the first place.
Mainly because the security experts, for the most part, don't know what they are doing and spend most of their time reinventing bugs that developers have already grappled with and overcome.
It's a lot like how a lot of teachers have a Masters in Education but not in anything specific to the courses they teach. Basically, all they have is a bunch of random ideas without any expertise to show them the right way.
I read these security reports and have to wonder how much, if any, driver experience these security specialists have.
When we talk about patents, we like to drone on and on about prior art and how obvious something is to someone skilled in the art. But these security reports about flashing the EEPROM and running code on the NIC CPU and using DMA to corrupt the OS are all things that are done daily by embedded systems and driver developers.
As long as an effective defense is more expensive than out of court settlement, this type of harassment will exist. Even though Davenport Lyons may have known that some of the recipients of the letter were not guilty of anything, it would have been time consuming to figure out which ones they were. And with the state of the courts these days, it was more effective to take a wide view and hit everyone they could.
Until the government provides basic defense in all cases, this type of thing will continue.
Effective or not at eliminating the website, the legal history of TPB reads like the rap sheet of a 19 year old from Baltimore. It's a laundry list of lawsuits and injunctions including prison sentences for some of the principals.
And given the relative dearth of TPB stories here on/. in the past couple years compared to the years preceding, it seems like TPB has finally toned down their attitude and decided to play ball, however reluctantly. That's a win for Sweden.
You're introducing extra factors where the answer is really quite simple. TPB was a bunch of assholes doing borderline stuff. When called on it, they said, "yeah we're assholes doing borderline stuff but there's nothing that can touch us, so fuck off".
The Swedish government gets a few tips on how to take them down, and they acted *in the government's best interest*
As nice and generous as the Swedish government is, it (nor can any government, really) stand to have that kind of antisocial element thriving in its borders.
I think you're right in that it was the Pirate Bay that caused this.
However, I think that it was the Pirate Bay's unrepentant disrespect for laws and growing popularity that pushed Sweden to crack down on this type of behavior. If TPB had been able to tone down their rhetoric and occasionally pretend like they were conscientiously trying to run a legitimate service then Sweden would have left them alone and filesharing would be much more acceptable in the mainstream than it is.
But Sweden's hand was essentially forced, and a government must sometimes knock down the square pegs.
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That is because the KKK hasn't co-opted the image of the cross.
Now, an image of a burning cross is something they have co-opted and is relatively well-understood to be a racist and antagonistic symbol in the U.S.
Whereas most of the implementations of Linux out in the market are either invisible (routers) or phones or Android implementations, this is one of the first commercial applications that I've seen that really takes advantage of the flexibility of the OS. Of course Linux has a great kernel and network stack, but it also has good graphics and peripheral support.
It's pushing into an area where (strangely enough) Windows CE would have traditionally have dominance. Many "panel" devices on the market are WinCE based because of the synergy between the embedded OS and the desktop OS. But that synergy is a lot of hype, when you get down to it. Support for standards like TCP/IP is enough to connect two devices nowadays. Given that the fridge is always powered, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to have it run a webserver and service requests from DLNA devices around the house.
The built in applications here are interesting, but once true connectivity is achieved, that's when I think we will see the benefits of Linux as the base OS really shine.
It's a good way to separate the wheat from the chaff. The idiot kids who do it to be edgy change their icons to something else. The idiot neo-Nazis change theirs to be another WP symbol.
All the better to see you with, my dear.
Then why are you arguing? That's exactly the point I ascribed to you.
It's definitely biased towards Western culture, but that may have more to do with its primary market than anything else.
I'm not so sure MS is out there trying to cram Western culture down the throat of every gamer. They simply only have their own cultural signposts to guide them. If you were to make a convincing argument that a particular icon was terribly offensive in another culture, I'm sure they'd update their list of banned iconography.
I'm sorry. Were we discussing the iconography of temples in the game?
No? Then go fuck yourself.
Buddhists strive to make that dissociation, but that's their issue, not the one at hand.
You are absolutely right. The question becomes whether one culture's significant artifact is better or has more importance than another's. Does the cultural significance of the Nazi swastika imbue the non-Nazi swastika with the same negative connotations of the former? As the blog writer said, it depends on context.
However, the context here is the XBox servers and the game playing public who accesses these servers. MS has decided which icons are unacceptable, and they have used Western culture as the context for most of their decisions.
Right or wrong, in Western culture, the swastika has a very specific negative meaning. It is one of hatred, murder, and intimidation.
And your point is that in-game as an icon it would not be offensive because, despite its primary association with the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime, the symbol can also be associated with other meanings?
Buddhists would say that the meaning of the icon lies in the mind of the one ascribes the meaning to it. Therefore the icon has no intrinsic meaning in and of itself and thus they would have no problem finding another meaningless icon to use in its place.
No one is playing the "Super Hindus" when they use the swastika. It is an inflammatory icon with specific anti-Semitic meaning.
Its use ought to be banned, just as if a group called themselves the "Jew gassers" and tried to claim it was a tribute to a wacky Israeli troupe.
Should anything offensive be banned? Well, MS has decided that they will cater to the lowest common denominator, so that means nothing offensive. These rules are indicated up front, so you don't really have a case that you didn't know about the rules.
No I aren't!
We should get rid of these ships.
Let us DRIVE our containers across the ocean!
I suspect that they are (reasonably) well aware that somebody, presumably an embedded system/driver dev had to produce the blobs and loaders and other structures they are monkeying with in the first place.
I don't suspect they know this at all.
Mainly because the security experts, for the most part, don't know what they are doing and spend most of their time reinventing bugs that developers have already grappled with and overcome.
It's a lot like how a lot of teachers have a Masters in Education but not in anything specific to the courses they teach. Basically, all they have is a bunch of random ideas without any expertise to show them the right way.
I read these security reports and have to wonder how much, if any, driver experience these security specialists have.
When we talk about patents, we like to drone on and on about prior art and how obvious something is to someone skilled in the art. But these security reports about flashing the EEPROM and running code on the NIC CPU and using DMA to corrupt the OS are all things that are done daily by embedded systems and driver developers.
As long as an effective defense is more expensive than out of court settlement, this type of harassment will exist. Even though Davenport Lyons may have known that some of the recipients of the letter were not guilty of anything, it would have been time consuming to figure out which ones they were. And with the state of the courts these days, it was more effective to take a wide view and hit everyone they could.
Until the government provides basic defense in all cases, this type of thing will continue.
The Nobel Peace Prize is a pretty big achievement, you know.
Russia just wants to know the implementation details so they can determine the vulnerabilities of the system.
If Russia develops a missile shield, what is to stop them from attacking with impunity? We must act first!
From my parents' in Wyoming, I stab at thee!
Don't mistake the right thing with the acceptable thing.
Effective or not at eliminating the website, the legal history of TPB reads like the rap sheet of a 19 year old from Baltimore. It's a laundry list of lawsuits and injunctions including prison sentences for some of the principals.
And given the relative dearth of TPB stories here on /. in the past couple years compared to the years preceding, it seems like TPB has finally toned down their attitude and decided to play ball, however reluctantly. That's a win for Sweden.
Borderline is borderline. I never said they violated Swedish law.
Repeatedly treating people without a modicum of respect is antisocial. You don't get a free pass because someone else is treating you poorly.
You're introducing extra factors where the answer is really quite simple. TPB was a bunch of assholes doing borderline stuff. When called on it, they said, "yeah we're assholes doing borderline stuff but there's nothing that can touch us, so fuck off".
The Swedish government gets a few tips on how to take them down, and they acted *in the government's best interest*
As nice and generous as the Swedish government is, it (nor can any government, really) stand to have that kind of antisocial element thriving in its borders.
I think you're thinking of the judge who was rejected for the U.S. Supreme Court, Robert Bork Bork Bork.
I think you're right in that it was the Pirate Bay that caused this.
However, I think that it was the Pirate Bay's unrepentant disrespect for laws and growing popularity that pushed Sweden to crack down on this type of behavior. If TPB had been able to tone down their rhetoric and occasionally pretend like they were conscientiously trying to run a legitimate service then Sweden would have left them alone and filesharing would be much more acceptable in the mainstream than it is.
But Sweden's hand was essentially forced, and a government must sometimes knock down the square pegs.