Cell phones, personal computers and space travel were all science fiction at one time. No laws of the universe needed to be violated to make them a reality. I believe the headline is referring to the current state of face recognition. Are there programs that can accurately identify people by face identification, or does that (at this moment) only exist in the realm of sci-fi? Science fiction describes things that may some day be possible (without violating laws of physics), otherwise it's fantasy. This line is often blurred because we don't know if certain concepts will ever become reality. This ambiguity is why many bookstores put their Sci-Fi books in the same section as their fantasy books.
For the sake of argument, most of the things you mention wouldn't be an issue if the drugs were legal. Meth would be professionally made by corporations who pay for the power and are responsible enough to make sure they are properly ventilated.
While I'm not a certainly fan of the idea of anyone being able to go out and get meth, cocaine, acid, ecstacy, etc, a large part of the problems that stem from those drugs wouldn't be an issue if the drugs could be made and distributed through legitimate markets.
I know this is an old thread, but... iPod and iTunes are tightly integrated. I've used iTunes from the day it was released. This was years before I became intrigued by linux or was annoyed by DRM. I'm not ready to drop hundreds of dollars worth of music so I can switch to a Free operating system. I don't even care if I can play my DRMed music on a Linux system, but one requirement I put on an operating system is that it can put all of my music on my iPod.
I tried to boycott sony for a while, but frankly I couldn't afford it. Try explaining to your girlfriend that you can't take her to see half the movies that come out because Sony is an evil company. Eventually she'll get fed up.
Another place I found it difficult to avoid Sony was a field I didn't even know sony was in -- batteries. My college campus sells sony batteries. I can spend my campus dollars (which expire at the end of the semester) on Sony batteries, but not Energizer or Duracell. Since the campus dollars disappear at the end of the semester, I can basically get sony batteries at no cost, or get a ride off campus to go pay out the nose for another company's batteries.
I do avoid Sony when I can. I bought a pair of really nice headphones last spring, and paid about $20 more for the Bose equivalent of something Sony made. When I buy CDs, I check the back to make sure it's not Sony BMG. I don't have a Playstation or PSP and probably never will. I'm avoiding BluRay, largely because of Sony's involvement.
I also think this business about Lik-Sang is pretty crazy. I once bought some Nintendo Gameboy games from Japan months before the US release. When they came out in the US, I bought them again so I could read the text. I don't see how Sony is possibly losing money to Lik-Sang importing games.
Yes, I would like to see a change in management at Sony, but frankly it's just not worth the cost of boycotting all of their products. If there were a large enough movement that Sony might actually take notice, I'd join in, but a few thousand nerds who take their business elsewhere (or nowhere) won't even be a blip on Sony's radar, so for now I avoid it when there's a decent alternative, but Sony still gets some of my business.
I can't remember the last time I listened to my iPod through headphones. I plug it into computer speakers when I'm at home, plug it into my car when I'm driving, and never go far enough to make it worth taking on a walk. Usually my iPod is playing between 80% and 90% volume, as it sends a signal to whatever auxillary device it's plugged into. On the rare occasion that I do use it with headphones, I use my noise cancelling headphones and keep the volume at about 50%. People who suggest that the high volumes only exist to destroy people's ear drums have a very narrow view of what the iPod is used for. Nobody is forcing people to listen at 100% volume, and for some purposes that volume level is actually quite useful.
there are programs that allow you to suck songs off an ipod with ease. they're not legal, technically, but they're out there.;)
You mean Office Depot is selling illegal software? (Note the first of the "Key Features"). There are plenty of free alternatives, but I can't see this one being legal just because you pay for it.
I see no reason it would be illegal to pull your music off of your iPod, though I can see Apple's reasoning for not making it easy. After all, you're aloud to keep your iTMS purchases on up to 5 computers. What happens when your computer crashes and your iPod is the only place you have your music stored? Or if you buy a new computer and want to use your iPod to migrate your music? Now, transferring your music to another person's computer may be illegal, but getting music off your own iPod is perfectly legitimate, and I suspect perfectly legal.
Yeah, but all Linux support for the iPod is third party, and simply because of the popularity of the device. Apple provides no Linux support for the iPod, and as such encrypted files cannot be moved from a linux machine to an iPod. This isn't a big deal if you use Linux and want to get an iPod, but if you're a long time iPod and iTunes user who would like to switch to Linux, the lack of Linux support for iTunes music can keep you tied to Windows.
As several other people on this thread have noted, Reiser3, which is what Novell is dropping support for, has been maintained solely by Novell for a few years. Hans Reiser dropped support for Reiser3 quite a while back, insisting people should use Reiser4. Novell didn't want to move to Reiser4, and that would be an especially shakey move with recent events, so instead they chose to go with the more stable, slightly slower Ext3 file system. This was a decision in the works before Reiser's arrest.
Neither xfs nor jfs partitions can be reduced. This may not be a big deal to compaines who just add disks and expand their partitions, but I know that I lost about two hundred gig worth of data that would probably still be around if I could have reduced my jfs partition. After that I tried to install ReiserFS then Reiser4, and after a little bit of trouble with those, decided I'd use Ext3 because it just works. Even if its performance isn't as great as some other file systems, I don't know too many people who have lost data because of flaws (or "features") of the filesystem.
I've heard this before, even from some fairly reputable sources, but like you say, until the GOP starts the blairing trumpets, I'm going to be skeptical.
I think its more likely this means dell won't get to charge that $25 recycling fee anymore. And nobody can make you recycle an old computer just because you buy a new one. They might make you recycle it to throw it away, but every time I've gotten a new computer for the past 13 years (I think that's when I got my second computer), I either gave/sold my old computer to someone who had something even older than the system I was getting rid of, or kept it myself for whatever use I can think to put it to.
1. Reccomending something is not the same thing as manhandling people into using it.
2. This is questionable, but there manufacturers that sell PCs with your choice of Windows or a Linux distro. I'm not aware of any big OEMs that offer PCs without an OS, however.
3. I believe windows stickers are applied to all PCs sold with windows, which makes sense. Regardless, a sticker doesn't require you to use the operating system. Same with the keyboard. I'm typing this on a machine running Kubuntu, and I use the "windows" key for all sorts of shortcuts.
I generally agree with you, but to play the devil's advocate, do you oppose different levels of the operating system? If Microsoft has developed all of the features for Ultimate, then aren't they artificially limiting the home version by not giving home users all of the features they could be inluding?
Interesting. I once fried my motherboard, then moved my hard-drives to another computer and was amazed that I was able to boot and didn't even have to reactivate. It didn't perform wonderfully, since the system didn't have the resources it thought it had, but it ran well enough to migrate my data.
It's not really that much of a chicken vs egg issue. It's more of a licensing issue. The GPL doesn't permit kernel level device drivers to be closed source, and binary drivers generally don't do the device justice. Companies don't want to give away trade secrets by releasing the sources to their drivers, and they don't want to release binary drivers that will suck.
Whenever there's an article about MySpace or Xanga, there are always people talking about how once you've published something to the web, you should assume it will always be available to anyone who wants it, even if you decide later you want to take it down.
A kid may write on their xanga about how drunk they got thursday night, then decide to take it down saturday, but it's always possible a future employer could come up with it anyway. Likewise, developers should assume that any exploits that have ever been mentioned on the web will always be available to anyone who wants them. Once has been published on the web, you can't make it disappear. End of story.
I certainly agree that parents have the responsibility for the actions of their kids, but I don't think games, movies or porn sites are going to cause a kid to go on a school shooting. I think kids likely to go on school shootings are attracted to violent video games, violent movies and porn sites, but that doesn't mean that those factors made the kid want to commit the crimes. Neither does it mean that every kid who plays violent video games, sees violent movies, or watches porn is going to go out and kill people.
One example that comes to mind is the pedophile and star trek correlation. I remember reading some time back that a bizzarre percentage of pedophiles were big trekkies. I don't know if its true, but assuming it is, this doesn't mean watching Star Trek makes you a pedophile, and it doesn't mean everyone that watches Star Trek is already a pedophile, it simply means that for some reason the same people are likely to be pedophiles are likely to enjoy Star Trek.
I know the phrase "correlation != causation" is cliché when it comes to Jack Thompson, but it's also quite true.
What are they stopping the masses from doing? Using their DVDs on a computer? Copying the DVDs? Downloading torrents of a DVD?
There are programs out there that make it simple to rip a DVD to your computer. The masses already aren't using these programs. There may be average joe's out there who have downloaded something like HandBrake to rip DVDs, but I'd bet the nerds at HandBrake have this patched within a week of getting their hands on one of these DVDs, so the average joes will just have to upgrade their software.
The only people this will effect are people who legitimately use their computers to watch movies. Anyone who does anything more than that will get around it.
I'm with you on that. As a college student with very limited space, my computer is my TV. I have a TV Tuner and use MythTV to watch television on my Linux box, and play DVDs on my Windows Laptop. If I ever run across a DVD that won't play in my laptop, I will take it back where I got it (probably blockbuster) and demand a refund. If it won't play in my legitimate DVD player, it's defective - simple as that.
A sibling post says it's difficult to return opened media. I won't accept "no" as an answer. If I have to, I'll pull out my laptop and show them that the DVD doesn't work.
I can deal with DRM when the restrictions exist from the beginning of the platform. For example, I may not like regional restrictions, but I knew they existed when I bought my DVD player. It's unnacceptable for media distributors to disable legitimate players, and for once I think the market may correct this problem. I think most people will return DVDs if they can't get them to play, and eventually pressure from retailers will get the distributors to stop placing these artificial limitations on DVDs.
The difference is that Bock committed libel against Scheff. Libel is a crime. I suspect if someone tried to destroy your reputation, and consequently damaged your client base you would feel justified in seeking reparations.
As numerous people have noted, libel and slander are crimes. Calling someone a crook and suggesting that they criminaly defraud their customers is against the law. I suspect if your reputation (and consequently your client base) were damaged by someone's lies, you would seek reparations as well.
I agree that some form of copy protection is needed. I don't play many games. On the occasion that I do play a game, it's probably one I bought back in middle school and have decided to play again for a few hours of good entertainment. Most of those games had relatively simple copy protection, you had to have the CD in the drive, or there was a CD Key and it was checked against a server to make sure it wasn't in use. I remember a game I had before I could read that showed me three pictures, then I had to pull out the game's directions, find that sequence of three pictures in a table, then click three other pictures that corresponded with directions in the manual. I've had other games that included a "users guide" which made it so you could not get past a certain point in the game without referring to the manual.
Those forms of copy protection were fairly effective against casual piracy. There are some steps that could be used to improve upon those methods of copy protection and make them more effective, but it doesn't take device drivers to prevent casual piracy, and device drivers aren't going to prevent a hardcore pirate.
Another thing I think you'll find on slashdot, is slashdotters tend to complain when companies go after pirates. I would much rather see legitmate litigation against pirates than obscene copy protection methods that devalue software/music/movies.
Slashdot Mirror
Cell phones, personal computers and space travel were all science fiction at one time. No laws of the universe needed to be violated to make them a reality. I believe the headline is referring to the current state of face recognition. Are there programs that can accurately identify people by face identification, or does that (at this moment) only exist in the realm of sci-fi? Science fiction describes things that may some day be possible (without violating laws of physics), otherwise it's fantasy. This line is often blurred because we don't know if certain concepts will ever become reality. This ambiguity is why many bookstores put their Sci-Fi books in the same section as their fantasy books.
While I'm not a certainly fan of the idea of anyone being able to go out and get meth, cocaine, acid, ecstacy, etc, a large part of the problems that stem from those drugs wouldn't be an issue if the drugs could be made and distributed through legitimate markets.
I know this is an old thread, but... iPod and iTunes are tightly integrated. I've used iTunes from the day it was released. This was years before I became intrigued by linux or was annoyed by DRM. I'm not ready to drop hundreds of dollars worth of music so I can switch to a Free operating system. I don't even care if I can play my DRMed music on a Linux system, but one requirement I put on an operating system is that it can put all of my music on my iPod.
Another place I found it difficult to avoid Sony was a field I didn't even know sony was in -- batteries. My college campus sells sony batteries. I can spend my campus dollars (which expire at the end of the semester) on Sony batteries, but not Energizer or Duracell. Since the campus dollars disappear at the end of the semester, I can basically get sony batteries at no cost, or get a ride off campus to go pay out the nose for another company's batteries.
I do avoid Sony when I can. I bought a pair of really nice headphones last spring, and paid about $20 more for the Bose equivalent of something Sony made. When I buy CDs, I check the back to make sure it's not Sony BMG. I don't have a Playstation or PSP and probably never will. I'm avoiding BluRay, largely because of Sony's involvement.
I also think this business about Lik-Sang is pretty crazy. I once bought some Nintendo Gameboy games from Japan months before the US release. When they came out in the US, I bought them again so I could read the text. I don't see how Sony is possibly losing money to Lik-Sang importing games.
Yes, I would like to see a change in management at Sony, but frankly it's just not worth the cost of boycotting all of their products. If there were a large enough movement that Sony might actually take notice, I'd join in, but a few thousand nerds who take their business elsewhere (or nowhere) won't even be a blip on Sony's radar, so for now I avoid it when there's a decent alternative, but Sony still gets some of my business.
I look forward to the actual release. Of the American English version. For more than one platform. (This is not directed at the firefox team).
I can't remember the last time I listened to my iPod through headphones. I plug it into computer speakers when I'm at home, plug it into my car when I'm driving, and never go far enough to make it worth taking on a walk. Usually my iPod is playing between 80% and 90% volume, as it sends a signal to whatever auxillary device it's plugged into. On the rare occasion that I do use it with headphones, I use my noise cancelling headphones and keep the volume at about 50%. People who suggest that the high volumes only exist to destroy people's ear drums have a very narrow view of what the iPod is used for. Nobody is forcing people to listen at 100% volume, and for some purposes that volume level is actually quite useful.
I see no reason it would be illegal to pull your music off of your iPod, though I can see Apple's reasoning for not making it easy. After all, you're aloud to keep your iTMS purchases on up to 5 computers. What happens when your computer crashes and your iPod is the only place you have your music stored? Or if you buy a new computer and want to use your iPod to migrate your music? Now, transferring your music to another person's computer may be illegal, but getting music off your own iPod is perfectly legitimate, and I suspect perfectly legal.
Yeah, but all Linux support for the iPod is third party, and simply because of the popularity of the device. Apple provides no Linux support for the iPod, and as such encrypted files cannot be moved from a linux machine to an iPod. This isn't a big deal if you use Linux and want to get an iPod, but if you're a long time iPod and iTunes user who would like to switch to Linux, the lack of Linux support for iTunes music can keep you tied to Windows.
Nowhere in the article or earlier in this thread can I find anyone who has said Flash 9 came out for Windows a year ago. Who are you correcting?
As several other people on this thread have noted, Reiser3, which is what Novell is dropping support for, has been maintained solely by Novell for a few years. Hans Reiser dropped support for Reiser3 quite a while back, insisting people should use Reiser4. Novell didn't want to move to Reiser4, and that would be an especially shakey move with recent events, so instead they chose to go with the more stable, slightly slower Ext3 file system. This was a decision in the works before Reiser's arrest.
Juries don't prove people guilty, prosecutors do. Juries find people guilty.
Neither xfs nor jfs partitions can be reduced. This may not be a big deal to compaines who just add disks and expand their partitions, but I know that I lost about two hundred gig worth of data that would probably still be around if I could have reduced my jfs partition. After that I tried to install ReiserFS then Reiser4, and after a little bit of trouble with those, decided I'd use Ext3 because it just works. Even if its performance isn't as great as some other file systems, I don't know too many people who have lost data because of flaws (or "features") of the filesystem.
I've heard this before, even from some fairly reputable sources, but like you say, until the GOP starts the blairing trumpets, I'm going to be skeptical.
I think its more likely this means dell won't get to charge that $25 recycling fee anymore. And nobody can make you recycle an old computer just because you buy a new one. They might make you recycle it to throw it away, but every time I've gotten a new computer for the past 13 years (I think that's when I got my second computer), I either gave/sold my old computer to someone who had something even older than the system I was getting rid of, or kept it myself for whatever use I can think to put it to.
1. Reccomending something is not the same thing as manhandling people into using it.
2. This is questionable, but there manufacturers that sell PCs with your choice of Windows or a Linux distro. I'm not aware of any big OEMs that offer PCs without an OS, however.
3. I believe windows stickers are applied to all PCs sold with windows, which makes sense. Regardless, a sticker doesn't require you to use the operating system. Same with the keyboard. I'm typing this on a machine running Kubuntu, and I use the "windows" key for all sorts of shortcuts.
I generally agree with you, but to play the devil's advocate, do you oppose different levels of the operating system? If Microsoft has developed all of the features for Ultimate, then aren't they artificially limiting the home version by not giving home users all of the features they could be inluding?
Interesting. I once fried my motherboard, then moved my hard-drives to another computer and was amazed that I was able to boot and didn't even have to reactivate. It didn't perform wonderfully, since the system didn't have the resources it thought it had, but it ran well enough to migrate my data.
It's not really that much of a chicken vs egg issue. It's more of a licensing issue. The GPL doesn't permit kernel level device drivers to be closed source, and binary drivers generally don't do the device justice. Companies don't want to give away trade secrets by releasing the sources to their drivers, and they don't want to release binary drivers that will suck.
A kid may write on their xanga about how drunk they got thursday night, then decide to take it down saturday, but it's always possible a future employer could come up with it anyway. Likewise, developers should assume that any exploits that have ever been mentioned on the web will always be available to anyone who wants them. Once has been published on the web, you can't make it disappear. End of story.
One example that comes to mind is the pedophile and star trek correlation. I remember reading some time back that a bizzarre percentage of pedophiles were big trekkies. I don't know if its true, but assuming it is, this doesn't mean watching Star Trek makes you a pedophile, and it doesn't mean everyone that watches Star Trek is already a pedophile, it simply means that for some reason the same people are likely to be pedophiles are likely to enjoy Star Trek.
I know the phrase "correlation != causation" is cliché when it comes to Jack Thompson, but it's also quite true.
There are programs out there that make it simple to rip a DVD to your computer. The masses already aren't using these programs. There may be average joe's out there who have downloaded something like HandBrake to rip DVDs, but I'd bet the nerds at HandBrake have this patched within a week of getting their hands on one of these DVDs, so the average joes will just have to upgrade their software.
The only people this will effect are people who legitimately use their computers to watch movies. Anyone who does anything more than that will get around it.
A sibling post says it's difficult to return opened media. I won't accept "no" as an answer. If I have to, I'll pull out my laptop and show them that the DVD doesn't work.
I can deal with DRM when the restrictions exist from the beginning of the platform. For example, I may not like regional restrictions, but I knew they existed when I bought my DVD player. It's unnacceptable for media distributors to disable legitimate players, and for once I think the market may correct this problem. I think most people will return DVDs if they can't get them to play, and eventually pressure from retailers will get the distributors to stop placing these artificial limitations on DVDs.
The difference is that Bock committed libel against Scheff. Libel is a crime. I suspect if someone tried to destroy your reputation, and consequently damaged your client base you would feel justified in seeking reparations.
As numerous people have noted, libel and slander are crimes. Calling someone a crook and suggesting that they criminaly defraud their customers is against the law. I suspect if your reputation (and consequently your client base) were damaged by someone's lies, you would seek reparations as well.
Those forms of copy protection were fairly effective against casual piracy. There are some steps that could be used to improve upon those methods of copy protection and make them more effective, but it doesn't take device drivers to prevent casual piracy, and device drivers aren't going to prevent a hardcore pirate.
Another thing I think you'll find on slashdot, is slashdotters tend to complain when companies go after pirates. I would much rather see legitmate litigation against pirates than obscene copy protection methods that devalue software/music/movies.