the ONLY time i buy something made by sony is if there is no other choice (ex, they have the only product that meets the need). I don't care if i have to pay 2x as much if there is another supplier that will meet the need i will buy theirs.
I've rarely found that anything made by Sony goes beyond Want and becomes Need.
Where have you been for the last few years? Libraries have been making free electronic book loans using systems based on Adobe Digital Editions for a considerable time.
Replace 'Sony's Technique' with DRM and the post makes a lot more sense. He is saying without DRM, people wouldn't be getting these things from libraries (Except for public domain works)
Huh? You can check CDs and DVDs out at the public library here in Springfield. But I've never seen school/technical/reference books they'd let you check out at any library, and I've been going to libraries for over half a century.
It varies library to library (Springfield, VA? I go to the library in Alexandria).
Reference books they don't let you check out, but that's more of an issue that they are typically just supposed to be reference books that you look up one or two items and walk away.
eBooks could help resolve this, the main problem right now is that the whole licensing thing hasn't always been negotiated with the rights holder. It is more complicated than the simple "Buy this book, do what you want with it" since a lot of rights were licensed for physical copies before the internet was even thought of.
If I forget to take my book back or renew it, and they can remotely disable it without imposing a late fee,
As currently implemented, that happens automatically. No late fees.
Additionally it opens up the possibility (and admittedly I don't know if they have any plans for this) of loaning library books over the air or via download on the internet, so I don't even need to go into my library - they could just fire me an email when the book's available, I click a link and get a file I can put on my device.
That is EXACTLY how it works now. My library has certain ebooks available. I can log into my computer, browse their collection, see what is checked out, what is available, place holds on checked out items, add items to my future reading list so they will automatically download once I finish my current book. I don't have to drive there if I don't want to.
And finally, no more hunting for hours for a book which the system tells me is on a shelf but which is actually nowhere to be seen when I have no idea if it's just been moved or stolen, etc (although I guess things like RFID will help with this with physical books, but with digital books it's a complete non-issue)
That's exactly how it works. The only limitation is that for some libraries the search function isn't that great, but you would run into that same problem at their physical location (Where the card catalog or digital search isn't that great either). But that's a fix with a simple software update. See my previous paragraph for how convenient the search is.
Giving them away results in greater book sales, odd as that sounds.
Book sales increase now because the book IS a better product when compared to ebooks. If ebooks became the better product (let's say an ereader was invented that out-performed physical books), the current situation would not exist.
The only reason it works now is because most people still prefer physical books. You would probably have seen a similar result for music if when MP3 players were still crap, you released a digital copy of every CD available for free. People would get a taste of the product, but still prefer the physical media.
When the physical media is inferior, those sales will dry up.
There has to be some sort of return on producing books, are we going to rely on people doing it as a hobby, or go back to the old days where you need a patron? (Hope there is some rich guy who likes your genre and hires an author?)
This isn't like the music problem where mandatory license fees prop up the RIAA and related companies who have a vested interest in keeping the market limited.
There is NOTHING preventing free books from being released by authors now. There is effectively ZERO barriers to entry. You don't even need your own internet connection.
1. Write book at home on an old 286 2. Borrow someone's connection and upload it to the web. 3. DONE.
Your book is infinitely published.
And unlike the music industry there are currently no major laws with regard to publishing which force authors to support one company that has been granted a monopoly. This system is evolving exactly as it should and probably in the best way it can.
If you were attacking the length of copyright terms, I could understand, but this IS the work produced by someone of their own free will and can be released in a manner of their choosing. I see nothing wrong with this.
You don't think that nuclear weapon technology shouldn't be kept out of the hands of the general public?
The general public does not have the means to act upon it. Governments do, and they already have the means and the knowledge. The only thing keeping Iran from nuclear weapons isn't the knowledge, but access to materials.
Exactly, instead it will go back to the newspapers/TV news as being the main avenue for releasing leaked information. Once they get their hands on it there's no knowing what they'll do to it in the process of editorialising it and publishing their POV on the incident.
With wikileaks you are able to see the original documents, so even though there may be bias added to some of their reporting (many complained about the shortened & commentated video of the helicopter attack), the original source is also available.
If you felt that the newspaper did not report the important facts, you could always escalate and release the document in it's entirety. Why can't wikileaks have some discretion?
If my doctor were to mischarge medicare, would my medical history need to be released if I was an innocent bystander in order for a full investigation to take place?
How would that law be enforced? If you cannot read the documents, how do you know whether or not they have been overclassified?
I have argued that items be reduced in classification from Top Secret to Secret. The entity with Original Classification Authority agreed and the classification level was reduced.
The parent has a point.
Even for non-classified documents or procedures. Consider a building permit. The group granting permits can only LOSE if they grant a permit which should not have been granted, but little to lose if they deny the permit for a new design. That is why we have so many homes built on previously approved designs, it makes the approval process safe for all parties. Classification is similar. No one wants to be the guy who reduced a classification level, and later we find out that it should have been higher. The burdon is dangerous and it is asking someone to accept responsibility and potentially liability.
I have proposed processes by which we increase periodic reviews of classified material with a de-emphasis on losing face or embarassment. (it isn't supposed to exist now, but being humans it will always be there) Naturally that won't fly without a LOT of pressure.
I would prefer such a system to the current wikileaks approach of "Release it all and let God sort it out". It is irresponsible.
and your quibbles about wikileaks' methods are interesting to hear. perhaps they don't have the resources to address your concerns. maybe you should help them edit and remove information harmful to the innocent.
No thank you. I've already said I don't approve of their methods, I'm certainly not going to help them.
I guess to him, some things are worse than federal prison. That in itself should tell you that the world should pay attention to these documents.
And some people feel that it is more important to kill someone they hate even though they will go to prison. Not all people think rationally or assign the same weight to benefits and consequences.
Some people flip out and would blow up a building over a traffic ticket they feel was wrongly issued. That they feel it is so important to them does not make them justified in their actions.
The above post is sadly a growing movement of "don't rock the boat" people who just don't want to hear anything that upsets them.
Bullshit. I want to hear when my country is doing things that are illegal. I want to hear when my congressman has accepted a bribe and is trying to sweep it under the rug. I want to hear when something is hidden only because it is embarassing and not actually dangerous to those involved.
Are you telling me that these thousands of documents each correspond to a thousand incidents? Or is it just an attempt to "OMG that's a big number" and catch more headlines. If it is important and someone did something criminal, that alone will be enough to get headlines.
What would happen if they released a single document which had implications of wrongdoing and simply said that there were 20-30 MORE documents relating to the incident? Isn't it possible to be a bit cautious when releasing and not just tossing everything into the air and letting the chips fall where they may?
Don't pretend that my statement was about sticking my head in the sand suggesting that I don't want to know where corruption exists. My statement was that the manner in which this is being performed is irresponsible and is harming the cause in those that would normally support something like wikileaks.
Is it wrong to say, The ends don't always justify the means? Isn't that the goal of a lot of people who support wikileaks?
The concept is nice: A tool for exposing corruption
But the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. Even as someone who is very strongly in support of open government, the methods used by Wikileaks just feel a bit too... cowboyish?
I don't really know, perhaps someone can explain better, but I just get this bad feeling the way they are going about this.
Having tried the 'VGA to HDMI' solution, I would not recommend it. One of the reasons there are so few of these converters on the market is they can be really picky about what is on both ends of them. My system usually got caught up in a long loop of autodetect and finally gave up. Attempts to manually set the resolution (under windows at least) never worked since the time for HDMI to settle down and accept the signal was longer then the time box for accepting.
There are other issues I've run into:
My original setup was DVI-VGA(pc) to VGA(tv). I ran into issues with ghosting, audio was only passed in stereo (Samsung limitation)
Then I went to a DVI(pc)-HDMI(tv)
That caused a whole list of issues. My television would report to my NVIDIA card that since it was connected via HDMI, it could accept audio over HDMI (it could) So the NVIDIA card would DISABLE the analog audio on my sound card and transmit the digital audio it was receiving over the DVI connection (You CAN do that) The problem was that my video card did NOT have a digital audio in port. So it was receiving a null value for digital audio (or nothing) and therefore transmitted a null audio signal to my television.
It was an issue with the NVIDIA drivers, and partially my Samsung TV (PN50A650). Samsung's software did NOT allow me to disable the digital audio (and therefore not report back that it could accept digital audio) and NVIDIA's drivers did not allow me to tell it to NOT attempt to send audio via the DVI/HDMI connection.
I had to manually edit the NVIDIA driver for it to use a custom EDID to fix the audio screwup. It took me hours to figure out what was wrong, and any time I want to update drivers I'll have to manually edit them as well. NVIDIA did in one release have an option to disable the digital audio, but that option disappeared in later driver releases. (Though they aren't as bad as ATI for drivers, yet)
In the end, I was ready to just ditch the video card altogether and purchase one that went straight from HDMI to HDMI and could accept/send audio over that link.
I really hate the HDMI standard because it is so easy to have a glitch on one side (audio or video) which messes up the whole experience.
Why the hell would I hire a DVD? Their references are almost always terrible, have no work experience prior to 1996, and they don't do any work -- they just sit around looking all shiny.
Am I going to make you feel old?
I have no work experience prior to 1996. I've designed aircraft components that have been in service for over 5 years.
I'm not saying you always want to transcode, or that there aren't situations where the very best thing you can do with a video file is leave it alone, but the idea to which I was originally responding, the "Why do you people waste time transcoding anythgn???" is just silly.
You are getting hit with the typical responses that plague a lot of tech questions. The 'I don't care what the situation is, you must always/never do this.'
You could ask a simple question "I need to do this, but for a variety of reasons, B is not an option. How would I go about that" You will always get a response similar to, "B is the better way to do it, so throw everything you have in the trash, go buy this, and do B." Or you will get the questions, "Why would you want to do that in the first place? I don't do that, no one could ever want to do that."
As for ripping DVDs, that should be done on the server, if you want to watch it now, you put the DVD in; if you want to watch it later there's no real obstacle to putting the DVD into the server machine to rip it.
In my opinion, I don't agree that such an activity should be performed on the server, since that requires physical access to the server. It sits out in my workshop. It also serves the rest of my family (Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, New Jersey). Having the ability to remotely rip and load data is VERY useful for a server.
I mean, it IS a server right? It receives data, and gives data, why SHOULD you go to it when you want to rip data when you could just do that from the client?
HDR looks so unreal even if at times aesthetically pleasing. Their "more real" filter didn't do the scene much justice too. Was the guy supposed to look that way?
Not having seen the video I can't comment on that part yet. But your reaction is interesting, as it DOES happen quite a bit when people get used to seeing 'limited' media and then being exposed to media in a way that lets your eyes detect more information. (This is in general, I don't know if the source video is good or not)
I've seen people react to higher quality presentations in a similar way, being so used to the lower quality work, when presented with the higher quality they almost interpret it as feeling a bit unreal even though it is actually more real than what they are used to.
it's for you own protection and what do you care if you are filmed on one of these while buying a hot dog or walking into a store it not like you are doing anything illegal ??? maybe you are and thats why this worries you.
Why don't you stop assuming that his objection to universal surveillance was somehow a call for the abolishment of police forces. He didn't advocate only hiring police officers once a crime has been committed and then abolishing them afterwards so don't behave as if he did.
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the ONLY time i buy something made by sony is if there is no other choice (ex, they have the only product that meets the need). I don't care if i have to pay 2x as much if there is another supplier that will meet the need i will buy theirs.
I've rarely found that anything made by Sony goes beyond Want and becomes Need.
Where have you been for the last few years? Libraries have been making free electronic book loans using systems based on Adobe Digital Editions for a considerable time.
Replace 'Sony's Technique' with DRM and the post makes a lot more sense. He is saying without DRM, people wouldn't be getting these things from libraries (Except for public domain works)
Huh? You can check CDs and DVDs out at the public library here in Springfield. But I've never seen school/technical/reference books they'd let you check out at any library, and I've been going to libraries for over half a century.
It varies library to library (Springfield, VA? I go to the library in Alexandria).
Reference books they don't let you check out, but that's more of an issue that they are typically just supposed to be reference books that you look up one or two items and walk away.
eBooks could help resolve this, the main problem right now is that the whole licensing thing hasn't always been negotiated with the rights holder. It is more complicated than the simple "Buy this book, do what you want with it" since a lot of rights were licensed for physical copies before the internet was even thought of.
If I forget to take my book back or renew it, and they can remotely disable it without imposing a late fee,
As currently implemented, that happens automatically. No late fees.
Additionally it opens up the possibility (and admittedly I don't know if they have any plans for this) of loaning library books over the air or via download on the internet, so I don't even need to go into my library - they could just fire me an email when the book's available, I click a link and get a file I can put on my device.
That is EXACTLY how it works now. My library has certain ebooks available. I can log into my computer, browse their collection, see what is checked out, what is available, place holds on checked out items, add items to my future reading list so they will automatically download once I finish my current book. I don't have to drive there if I don't want to.
And finally, no more hunting for hours for a book which the system tells me is on a shelf but which is actually nowhere to be seen when I have no idea if it's just been moved or stolen, etc (although I guess things like RFID will help with this with physical books, but with digital books it's a complete non-issue)
That's exactly how it works. The only limitation is that for some libraries the search function isn't that great, but you would run into that same problem at their physical location (Where the card catalog or digital search isn't that great either). But that's a fix with a simple software update. See my previous paragraph for how convenient the search is.
The well-known rules and even the existence of libraries are a direct result of the shortcomings of physical media
And if that shortcoming did not exist? Would we have libraries?
Giving them away results in greater book sales, odd as that sounds.
Book sales increase now because the book IS a better product when compared to ebooks. If ebooks became the better product (let's say an ereader was invented that out-performed physical books), the current situation would not exist.
The only reason it works now is because most people still prefer physical books. You would probably have seen a similar result for music if when MP3 players were still crap, you released a digital copy of every CD available for free. People would get a taste of the product, but still prefer the physical media.
When the physical media is inferior, those sales will dry up.
Honestly, what would you want?
There has to be some sort of return on producing books, are we going to rely on people doing it as a hobby, or go back to the old days where you need a patron? (Hope there is some rich guy who likes your genre and hires an author?)
This isn't like the music problem where mandatory license fees prop up the RIAA and related companies who have a vested interest in keeping the market limited.
There is NOTHING preventing free books from being released by authors now. There is effectively ZERO barriers to entry. You don't even need your own internet connection.
1. Write book at home on an old 286
2. Borrow someone's connection and upload it to the web.
3. DONE.
Your book is infinitely published.
And unlike the music industry there are currently no major laws with regard to publishing which force authors to support one company that has been granted a monopoly. This system is evolving exactly as it should and probably in the best way it can.
If you were attacking the length of copyright terms, I could understand, but this IS the work produced by someone of their own free will and can be released in a manner of their choosing. I see nothing wrong with this.
You don't think that nuclear weapon technology shouldn't be kept out of the hands of the general public?
The general public does not have the means to act upon it. Governments do, and they already have the means and the knowledge. The only thing keeping Iran from nuclear weapons isn't the knowledge, but access to materials.
Exactly, instead it will go back to the newspapers/TV news as being the main avenue for releasing leaked information. Once they get their hands on it there's no knowing what they'll do to it in the process of editorialising it and publishing their POV on the incident.
With wikileaks you are able to see the original documents, so even though there may be bias added to some of their reporting (many complained about the shortened & commentated video of the helicopter attack), the original source is also available.
If you felt that the newspaper did not report the important facts, you could always escalate and release the document in it's entirety. Why can't wikileaks have some discretion?
If my doctor were to mischarge medicare, would my medical history need to be released if I was an innocent bystander in order for a full investigation to take place?
so you cede the right to have your complaints taken seriously.
If you will not support us, you cannot criticize us. That makes no sense.
I do not believe that the ends justify all means. I disapprove of their means, so I will not support them.
How would that law be enforced? If you cannot read the documents, how do you know whether or not they have been overclassified?
I have argued that items be reduced in classification from Top Secret to Secret. The entity with Original Classification Authority agreed and the classification level was reduced.
The parent has a point.
Even for non-classified documents or procedures. Consider a building permit. The group granting permits can only LOSE if they grant a permit which should not have been granted, but little to lose if they deny the permit for a new design. That is why we have so many homes built on previously approved designs, it makes the approval process safe for all parties. Classification is similar. No one wants to be the guy who reduced a classification level, and later we find out that it should have been higher. The burdon is dangerous and it is asking someone to accept responsibility and potentially liability.
I have proposed processes by which we increase periodic reviews of classified material with a de-emphasis on losing face or embarassment. (it isn't supposed to exist now, but being humans it will always be there) Naturally that won't fly without a LOT of pressure.
I would prefer such a system to the current wikileaks approach of "Release it all and let God sort it out". It is irresponsible.
and your quibbles about wikileaks' methods are interesting to hear. perhaps they don't have the resources to address your concerns. maybe you should help them edit and remove information harmful to the innocent.
No thank you. I've already said I don't approve of their methods, I'm certainly not going to help them.
I guess to him, some things are worse than federal prison. That in itself should tell you that the world should pay attention to these documents.
And some people feel that it is more important to kill someone they hate even though they will go to prison. Not all people think rationally or assign the same weight to benefits and consequences.
Some people flip out and would blow up a building over a traffic ticket they feel was wrongly issued. That they feel it is so important to them does not make them justified in their actions.
Perhaps you would like something more beaurocratic? Maybe the government should run Wikileaks so we can all feel more comfortable about it.
Would it be a bad idea to have a more critical review of what we classify and a periodic review of releasing such information?
It's not impossible. It would be hard, but wholesale release of everything is simply not acceptable.
The above post is sadly a growing movement of "don't rock the boat" people who just don't want to hear anything that upsets them.
Bullshit. I want to hear when my country is doing things that are illegal. I want to hear when my congressman has accepted a bribe and is trying to sweep it under the rug. I want to hear when something is hidden only because it is embarassing and not actually dangerous to those involved.
Are you telling me that these thousands of documents each correspond to a thousand incidents? Or is it just an attempt to "OMG that's a big number" and catch more headlines. If it is important and someone did something criminal, that alone will be enough to get headlines.
What would happen if they released a single document which had implications of wrongdoing and simply said that there were 20-30 MORE documents relating to the incident? Isn't it possible to be a bit cautious when releasing and not just tossing everything into the air and letting the chips fall where they may?
Don't pretend that my statement was about sticking my head in the sand suggesting that I don't want to know where corruption exists. My statement was that the manner in which this is being performed is irresponsible and is harming the cause in those that would normally support something like wikileaks.
Is it wrong to say, The ends don't always justify the means? Isn't that the goal of a lot of people who support wikileaks?
The concept is nice: A tool for exposing corruption
But the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. Even as someone who is very strongly in support of open government, the methods used by Wikileaks just feel a bit too... cowboyish?
I don't really know, perhaps someone can explain better, but I just get this bad feeling the way they are going about this.
Having tried the 'VGA to HDMI' solution, I would not recommend it. One of the reasons there are so few of these converters on the market is they can be really picky about what is on both ends of them. My system usually got caught up in a long loop of autodetect and finally gave up. Attempts to manually set the resolution (under windows at least) never worked since the time for HDMI to settle down and accept the signal was longer then the time box for accepting.
There are other issues I've run into:
My original setup was DVI-VGA(pc) to VGA(tv). I ran into issues with ghosting, audio was only passed in stereo (Samsung limitation)
Then I went to a DVI(pc)-HDMI(tv)
That caused a whole list of issues. My television would report to my NVIDIA card that since it was connected via HDMI, it could accept audio over HDMI (it could) So the NVIDIA card would DISABLE the analog audio on my sound card and transmit the digital audio it was receiving over the DVI connection (You CAN do that) The problem was that my video card did NOT have a digital audio in port. So it was receiving a null value for digital audio (or nothing) and therefore transmitted a null audio signal to my television.
It was an issue with the NVIDIA drivers, and partially my Samsung TV (PN50A650). Samsung's software did NOT allow me to disable the digital audio (and therefore not report back that it could accept digital audio) and NVIDIA's drivers did not allow me to tell it to NOT attempt to send audio via the DVI/HDMI connection.
I had to manually edit the NVIDIA driver for it to use a custom EDID to fix the audio screwup. It took me hours to figure out what was wrong, and any time I want to update drivers I'll have to manually edit them as well. NVIDIA did in one release have an option to disable the digital audio, but that option disappeared in later driver releases. (Though they aren't as bad as ATI for drivers, yet)
In the end, I was ready to just ditch the video card altogether and purchase one that went straight from HDMI to HDMI and could accept/send audio over that link.
I really hate the HDMI standard because it is so easy to have a glitch on one side (audio or video) which messes up the whole experience.
Why the hell would I hire a DVD? Their references are almost always terrible, have no work experience prior to 1996, and they don't do any work -- they just sit around looking all shiny.
Am I going to make you feel old?
I have no work experience prior to 1996. I've designed aircraft components that have been in service for over 5 years.
I'm not saying you always want to transcode, or that there aren't situations where the very best thing you can do with a video file is leave it alone, but the idea to which I was originally responding, the "Why do you people waste time transcoding anythgn???" is just silly.
You are getting hit with the typical responses that plague a lot of tech questions. The 'I don't care what the situation is, you must always/never do this.'
You could ask a simple question "I need to do this, but for a variety of reasons, B is not an option. How would I go about that" You will always get a response similar to, "B is the better way to do it, so throw everything you have in the trash, go buy this, and do B." Or you will get the questions, "Why would you want to do that in the first place? I don't do that, no one could ever want to do that."
As for ripping DVDs, that should be done on the server, if you want to watch it now, you put the DVD in; if you want to watch it later there's no real obstacle to putting the DVD into the server machine to rip it.
In my opinion, I don't agree that such an activity should be performed on the server, since that requires physical access to the server. It sits out in my workshop. It also serves the rest of my family (Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, New Jersey). Having the ability to remotely rip and load data is VERY useful for a server.
I mean, it IS a server right? It receives data, and gives data, why SHOULD you go to it when you want to rip data when you could just do that from the client?
Docks always either break too quickly or far outlast the single device they were designed to take.
So on average, they are just right?
HDR looks so unreal even if at times aesthetically pleasing. Their "more real" filter didn't do the scene much justice too.
Was the guy supposed to look that way?
Not having seen the video I can't comment on that part yet. But your reaction is interesting, as it DOES happen quite a bit when people get used to seeing 'limited' media and then being exposed to media in a way that lets your eyes detect more information. (This is in general, I don't know if the source video is good or not)
I've seen people react to higher quality presentations in a similar way, being so used to the lower quality work, when presented with the higher quality they almost interpret it as feeling a bit unreal even though it is actually more real than what they are used to.
is only a dystopia if you are conventionally religious, or have inflated ideas of the importance of the human race.
Is this another way of saying, "It's only a dystopia if you don't believe the way I do."
it's for you own protection and what do you care if you are filmed on one of these while buying a hot dog or walking into a store it not like you are doing anything illegal ??? maybe you are and thats why this worries you.
Really? I mean... REALLY?
Stop being so asinine.
Why don't you stop assuming that his objection to universal surveillance was somehow a call for the abolishment of police forces. He didn't advocate only hiring police officers once a crime has been committed and then abolishing them afterwards so don't behave as if he did.