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Slashback: Verstecken, Poe, Roundtable 130

Posted by timothy from the saluti-ai-viaggiatori- dept.
You thought the ban on violent video games from public display was a little off-putting? Well, try it on for size in Lotusland, USA. If that's not taxing enough, consider working some more on an allegedly cracked Poe cipher (but which you can't see yet). And then, it's primary source time on the MP3 brouhaha with Esther Dyson, Hilary Rosen, Orrin Hatch, Kevin Smith and Some Guy. All in this episode of Slashback.

A 17-year-old can join the real army, remember ... If you thought that the Indianapolis ordinance restricting video games with violent content from storefront display was either an anomaly or a strictly Middle-American move, read on. An unnamed correspondent writes: "GameFan reports in an article that yet another city is creating an ordinance that '...would restrict minors from playing arcade games with graphic violence or sexually explicit content.' The ordinance also covers the positioning and clear marking of the 'bad' machines. 'Currently, the bill states that such violent arcade machines must be marked and situated more than 10 feet from non-violent video titles.'"

Yes, at this point, it's just the proposal of a city council member, not a done deal. The city is (gulp!) sunny San Diego. Bother anyone? Perhaps they'll move all the games with punching into buildings like NYC has for Off Track Betting?

A long long time ago, I can still remember ... And for those into games that with a bit less gore ("We didn't have gore when I was small -- we were too poor!"), Kevin writes " Futurelooks has started a new feature called Retrolooks, which looks back at technology of the past and puts it up against the technology of today." Go read 'Atari 2600 VCS VS. Sega Dreamcast: FIGHT!' and try not to weep with nostalgia, at least if you are -- errrrr -- mature enough to have developed nostalgia. Here's a sample:

"Ah Atari, the granddaddy of all gaming platforms, the editio princep, the grail upon which all future gaming developed. In 1976 the Saturday Night Fever crowd was tired of just Staying Alive and craved something new. One Nolan Bushnell gave them that new fix with the invention of the first Atari console. Bushnell created the first unit with $250 and a desire for something new. Within four years the company of one had grown considerably and was worth over $28 million."

Plus, the grail is in the Castle ... [Aaaaggghhhh ....] AssFace writes: "As previously covered there is/was a contest of which the main goal was to break a cipher that had stood 154 years. At least two people have now solved it (separately) and we are now waiting on word (from the Bokler site) as to what will come next - apparently once one part is broken there is more? - I had created a list a while back on which a group has been discussing the cipher and at least one of the members is one of the people that came up with a solution of sorts and he posted a note regarding it here.
Frustrating for me personally because the code I was writing was just starting to evolve pretty nicely - but it will be fun to see what is next."

Proof positive, though? No word yet on the contest Web site; I think Edgar is cackling merrily in his grave.

If I share some love with you, do I have less left afterward? StoryMan writes "There's an interesting (and long) article at the NYTimes about file sharing, peer-to-peer networks, and the future of digital music.

It merits a read, if only because its participants are both important and interestingly diverse. Participating the round-table were: Hilary "I Speak for Artists, Hear me Roar" Rosen (complete with a very scary picture), Kevin "Chasing Amy" Smith, Esther Dyson, David Boies, a software developer, and your average 17-year old dude."

So long as you label it accurately, OK, fellas? For all their possible nefarious uses, cookies on your hard drive simply don't track you as well as certain companies would prefer. That's why devices like the Cue Cat, which exchange some convenience for information on your buying habits, will only get more common.

For instance, jgilm writes: "A 'new' product/company called Qode (marketese for "code") (www.qode.com) has a device reminicent of the Cue:Cat. Informationweek had a brief on it with items like '... a small wireless device called a Qoder ... scan UPC bar codes ... to search for better deals online.' and 'The scanned data is then downloaded to a personalized Web site.... Companies will then offer special deals on the personalized sites.'

The Qode site, which has a penchant for Flash movies, has info for businesses like '...a new and far more efficient way to deliver promotions. Plus you get a real-time heads up on consumer product interests.'

They claim that they are a 'wall' and 'walls are strong. And silent.' No joke. This is in relation to their privacy policy. Their idea of privacy is that they don't give out personal information to their business partners.

One aspect they don't address is the fact the the company still keeps track of your buying habits. Another is the probable lack of Linux software for the device (though no mention is made anywhere of system requirements)."

OK, so the world will soon be (or is already?) awash in free barcode readers. However, that's not all -- japhar81 writes: "Saw this over at GeekNews: netcity is offering a free smart-card reader. I'm personally planning to use it for an unintended purpose, like a certain other freebie. Off the top of my head, perhaps using my creditcard as the key to my pc ... Hardware hackers go wild:)"

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Slashback: Verstecken More

Slashback: Verstecken

Comments Filter:

  • Re:Age discrimination (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You don't know many 18 year-olds, do you? Or twenty-one year-olds? SOME minors should be allowed to do this, but most shouldn't. There should be an aptitude test of some sort... I'm not some old fart saying that kids can't be trusted. I'm 19, and I've had this opinion since I was 15. I've hated people of my age group for a very long time because of their immaturity, and their lack of ability/willingness to think. But then, people should have to take classes on any matter that they plan to vote on, or something. Unfortunately, any society bigger than a few thousand is going to leave almost everybody unhappy.

  • Re:Edgar Allen Poe (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No no no......If Poe were alive today, he'd be banging on the top of his coffin and screaming "Get me out of here!"...

    Remember, the 9:30 is completely different than the 7:30 show. Thank you, enjoy the veal.
  • Dyson sphere maybe... Or Daystrom - even "Esther" rings a bell for some reason.
  • I don't know, but every time I hear the name "Esther Dyson" I think of Star Trek (original series) for some reason...
  • ...drop the insurance and buy a bond. It's totally up to you.

    The statistics, IMO, should only be a starting point. Every year millions of kids start driving and get their licenses. There is no history for them, nor was there when you started driving. There are statistics that have been collected from previous years and whether you like them or not, they are valid for what they measure. They measure that thousands of those kids crash.

    Now, just imagine that you are an insurance company. In a fashion, someday you will be if you ever have any kids. Do you start a brand new, inexperienced and young driver out with the best, lowest rates? Do you do this when all of driving history shows that other kids *like*that*one* are a much more expensive and certainly warrant higher rates? Of course not, otherwise you'd go broke paying all of those bills.

    >Um, and blacks are more violent than whites. I
    >have statistics to prove such.

    Unfortunately, no one is required to buy insurance of their own good behavior, so this particular statitistic is irrelevant.

    >I'd just like to be judged on what i've done.
    >Regardless of how you decide to classify my
    >gender, race, age, or fucking style.

    Don't worry, eventually you will be. The problem is when you are young, you haven't done anything.
    So...you are judged by your contemporaries.

    >This `woman driver` crap is segregating and
    >offensive. I haven't done anything and neither
    >have females.

    What the hell are you talking about? What woman driver crap? It is a feature of our CULTURE that men, especially young ones, drive more than women. When was the last time that a female took a male on a date? You know, asked him out, drove the car, paid the *whole* bill? Males engage in this behavior much more than females. How many SAH moms are there compared to SAH dads? It's cultural. Driving is just a part of it, and since men drive more, they are greater risks especially when they are young and inexperienced.

    OTOH, since they get more experience, they get better and become lesser risks than women as they get older. Realize these are all generalizations.

    >You're born a certain way and I
    >dislike any company that discriminates upon what
    >I can't (and do not want to) change.

    Sorry bud, but here's a taste of reality. People will judge you on such triviality as the way that you look. Learn to deal with it. Stereotypes exist for one reason and that is that they work. It is natural for your brain to generalize. Any intelligent person will recognize this and thus be able to reduce the number of errors that they would make if they relied entirely on stereotypes. Just because they aren't perfect doesn't mean that they are "bad". They are reality.
  • >Also, how is the increased amount males have to
    >pay explained? That seems like that could be sex
    > discrimination

    It's actually pretty clear. Males do more driving than females. They also do more driving with "company" in the car to distract them. Then there's the obvious(if you've been there) change in behavior and attitude when males, on average, turn 25. They start getting married, hormones start fading, they start having thoughts about a career, start accumulating material wealth and appreciating the effort it took to acquire. IOW, they start taking fewer risks with their lives and property.

    Yes, there are those that drive more safely earlier and some later. That is why I think that insurance should simply be more personal. Do you or I have a good record? If so, then we should get much better rates. OTOH, if one of us makes a mistake, or in some fashion exhibits risky or careless behavior, the rate hike should be higher.

  • Amen! (Score:1)

    by marcus ( 1916 )
    Dead on and waaaaayyyyy ahead of his time.

    Lucky bastard didn't have to live to see his nightmares come true.
  • The great old HP (or something much closer to it than the HP PC company you're ranting against) is Agilent Technologies [agilent.com]---they still make the great oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and all the other unkillable tools you've spent so many sleepless nights with :-).

    For some reason, they sold off their old name to the PC purveyors, and took one of the new, shiny, meaningless ones so fashionable now. If they stay on course, in a decade, all electro-geeks will revere ``Agilent'', and not care about that run-of-the-mill computer company (what was it's name again?). The quality is in the product, not the name.

  • He was referring to another site's page not /. did you not even bother to read his comment? +2?
  • Oh, and I'd have to say that information should be free as in love.

    You mean illegal to buy except in certain counties of Nevada?
    --
  • s/legislation/litigaitors
    Steven E. Ehrbar
  • Ms. Rosen: Sen. Hatch incorrectly (but articulately!) suggests that record companies provide only manufacturing and distribution and are therefore afraid of the non-physical world.

    I don't know about you, but telling a Senator he's wrong is usually considered a bad thing where I come from.

    The fact is that the true expense and importance of any middlemen between artist and fan is when they create the demand for the artist's work itself. That is what record companies do most of the time.

    ``Our job is to convince you that you want to listen to $LATEST_INCARNATION_OF_MENUDO, because Eris knows they couldn't get you interested in their music without our help.''

    This is necessary in a non-physical world as well -- perhaps even more so. Anyone who doesn't add value won't be in this space though, that is for sure.

    And when the cost of creating demand for your work is approximately $50 per annum (domain name + ``Web Sites for Dummies''), where's the ``added value'' in a company the size of Universal?


  • My European friends believe it rediculous that we have all these ages for driving, voting and drinking. And now add video games to that list.

    Germany is even worse for video games(or maybe just more consistent). They just outright ban video games that are too violent or present objectionable imagery. All the ID games come to mind.

  • OMG! Masterpiece! Mod this up! Hahahahahaha!

    fuck, I've soiled myself :)

  • I dunno about this. I'm inclined to disbelieve it, just because it's not very good writing. The other example of Poe's cryptograms that I know of turned out to be a quote from a literary source, and of course Poes' own writing was very good. I could be wrong, of course, but this was my first reaction.
  • Allow me to set the facts straight:

    The Atari 2600 has 128 BYTES of RAM.

    The Atari 2600 has a total of 39 BITS of what would qualify as Video RAM, and that's if you have loose qualifications. Note that's BITS and not BYTES. or put another way, just slightly more than one single 'int' register on a current CPU.

    The RAM is RAM for everything, including the stack. Many games for the Atari 2600 never went more than 2 call levels deep on the stack.

    The Program address space was 4K, or 4096 BYTES, and read-only.

    The sound chip had 2 channels (voices).

    Each sound channel had a 5-bit frequency range, or only 32 different possible frequencies. However there were 8 modes that could adjust the sound channel operation, allowing for a larger number of actual output frequencies.

    The system was capable of displaying 128 different colors: 16 hues, at 8 intensity levels each.

    Try playing a game like Pitfall 2, and look at the graphics, the game world size, and especially the music. Then ponder what it took to program such a game.

  • I think the reason people find insurance
    companies' attitude wrong is because their
    only value is in spreading the risk. So if
    they reduce their risk by using actuary
    tables, then they push risk management back
    to the consumer. People simply don't like
    lower level of service.
    The non-discrimination argument is also quite
    strong. One could make a statement that blacks
    are not as educated as whites on average, so
    they should not be hired in any intellectual
    capacity. I dunno if this is still true but
    there were times when it was definitely true.
    Would you agree that this argument is not
    acceptable? I don't see a difference between
    the above argument and what the insurance
    companies are doing. Do you?
  • That's exactly the point I'm trying to make. You should be teaching your children the basic differences between right and wrong rather than sheltering them from all "bad" things, so that when you're not there to flip the channel they'll be able to make good choices on their own. That's the difference between good and bad parenting.
  • I don't know but, he just rubbed me the wrong way. He makes a crack about DeCSS making it easy to pirate DVDs... and he chimes in "I got to agree with Gene" like every other response. But, the one that kills me was the bit about not having enough HD space for MP3s but, downloading a Britney Spears video (*gasp*)! When Hilary Rosen started talking about "creating demand" for music all I could think of was Britney Spears. I guess it worked on Newell huh?
  • In England, you can get married (with parental consent, or by popping up to Scotland) at age 16. You can have sex, and children. You can buy a video camera, and film yourselves having sex, but YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO WATCH THE VIDEO! :-)

  • Geeknews (I visited for the first time today) has invalid HTML (tables) and you can't even view their news page in Netscape under linux. Sucks :/
  • Just a note regarding insurance premiums. In the last year or two insurance companies have shifted from the "25 and over" to the 9 years driving experience clause. Thus you no longer pay more because you are 22. Rather you pay more because you have only 6 years driving experience.

    I don't know if they did this to be PC or just to make more money!!( a person how gets their license at age 20 would be 29 when their insurance would go down)

    PS: the 50 year deduction is now 34 years driving experience.
  • and we (former) NJians get screwed again... as if our rates weren't high enough, we don't get a license until 17, and now the 25 line turns to 26 (even if I'm now in MN)... of course, I've got my house insured with the same company as the car, and after next June (wedding) the married thing drops my rates a bunch (hmmmm, that's even worse than age, really)...

    --
  • In fact, rates are increased (somewhat dramatically) for those with spots on their records... I've been lucky enough to keep points off of my license, and not get hit by cell-phone-talking-changing-the-kid-in-the-back-se at-soccer-mom-in-a-minivan types (nearly run off the road by the aforementioned several times), which raises your rate, even if you aren't at fault... In some cases, a single speeding ticket can raise your rate by a hundred or more percent (depending on the severity of the infraction, and the insurance company).

    Being a single male under 25 does suck for insurance, though... next year I solve one of those, and two more years to the other one (no plans to change the male part, though 8^D )

    --
  • I read an interesting article about Napster in "streaming" magazine, which is aimed at radio people. One of the quotes was "there are 30 million users of Napster--imagine if they all wrote their congressmen and said 'we want this'."

    That was a good point. 30 million letters beats the RIAA every time.

  • According to their support page, the smartcard reader plugs into a serial port and uses a keyboard passthrough for power. Hmmm...I hope this won't affect my cuecat scanner's operation in any way...I am using the scanner in conjunction with the barcode on an old win 95 instruction manual as the password for my FREESCO router. So when people ask me if it's secure, I say "secure? hell, not even *I* know the root password!"

    Some guy made a smartcard reader driver for BeOS a while back, so I am hopping to get that reader in the mail and try it out! I sure hope Netcity doesn't act like dicks and sue him.
  • dammit man, why you gotta go posting them goatse.cx links!!??
  • Damn, I totally forgot about her fatality... what did she do again?
  • I think you also may have missed my point on that last post. What I was trying to say is that it is impossible for us to raise someone in a way that will not make them a Clockwork Orange. Now, we may not be able to force the specific behavior on a person like in a clockwork orange. However, we are forcing a behavior, just not one that we can predetermine(or postdetermine(is that a word?) for that matter).
  • Yes, I would agree that by that standard NONE of use have a free choice! Pretty shocking isn't it ;). That is really what I honestly believe. I have convinced a lot of people that this is true, but I don't feel like getting into it right now. If you are really interested, email me(omalled@purdue.edu).

    What makes you think that I think "molding" your childs "free choice" is a bad thing? For the record, I don't think it is really a good thing or a bad thing. It is inevitable. If you tell your child not to do things, you mold him one way. If you let him do whatever he wants, you mold him another way. Everything that happens is inevitable ;).
  • This is basically the point I am trying to make. Everyone is 100% CO. It seems to me that anyone who is an exact duplicate of another person(not like twins...like an exact duplicate including having the exact same experiences in life) will do exactly what their exact duplicate would do in the exact same situation. So basically, what you do is determined by your physical makeup(which is partially a result of genetics/etc and partially a result of what has happened to you in life...physical makeup to me also includes like the state of your brain) and what is currently happening. This seems to remove all choice from everything. It also seems to be true(IMHO), so I'm going to stop typing this comment now. This is not because I want to, but because I have no other choice ;).
  • they should be raising their children in such a way that the kids would *freely choose* not to play them

    How can you say children have a free choice when you have raised them in a way that will only allow them to make a certain chioce?
  • Because, the truth about that is, that some will choose to be violent no matter what you do.

    I am going to have to disagree with you on this one. You can manipulate a child into whatever you want them to be. Maybe the normal methods of making a child non-violent will not work for a specific child, but that certainly does not mean that there is _no_ way to make a child non-violent. Also, I would not cite a work of fiction(Lord of the Flies) in an attempt to report fact.

    The bottom line is that everyone is essentially a Clockwork Orange, but everyone is a different Clockwork Orange. Thus, it appears as if no one is a Clockwork Orange, and we are all making our own decisions.
  • Yes, musicians don't usually want to handle the business side of things. Thats why they have some guy be their Business Manager. They don't necessarily need the record company for that.

    And as for the "added value" of "creating demand", aka promotion, the internet has the potential to, and increasingly is, providing that for free too. How many indie bands have websites with free samples, or spread their music through things like mp3.com? Sure, that still means reliance on word of mouth, but the net has potential for all sorts of more advanced, low cost ways to promote. And even word of mouth can be very powerful on the net. Remember when that nintendo cover band the Minibosses got Slashdotted?
  • The article on consoles, like many US gaming articles, paints the picture of the Sega consoles dying because of Nintendo dominance. Few seem to realise that this is not the case worldwide.

    Here in New Zealand, stores carried the Master System and MegaDrive(Genesis) and it was rare to even see a Nintendo console.

    I beleive this is the case in other countries also.

    As far as I can tell the Master System and MegaDrive died because of the same reason all consoles die, old age.

    And boy do their web bages blow goats.
  • so, your perceptions of liberals are different than mine... I don't watch Oprah, but I know what you're talking about. I guess I just don't percieve liberals as not believing in accountability, but I see why you associate it with 'liberals' in general.

    just the same, 'conservatives' suffer from similar deficiences in rational thought.

    honestly, the examples you list for typical liberal statements may be valid-- i.e. bad childhoods may indeed produce wifebeaters. but that doesn't mean wifebeaters don't get punished... for me it's more of a way to look for solutions, or at least understand the problems.

    in another example; say I can't learn to deal with people, but while that may be "Social Anxiety Disorder", that doesn't do me any good. What it really is is "MY problem" that I can try to fix or not, and I don't expect others to accomodate me for it.

  • Only the "stupid" part has anything to do with it. Society as a whole, if such a thing can be spoken of, will suffer just as much from the cumulative effects of "stupid (Conservative/whatever Ideology) parents" as from "stupid Liberal parents"....

    if there were a way to make people less stupid, we'd be on to something, but I'm a bit pessimistic about that

  • Damn straight. Ban MK 1,3,4 and the second movie. The first one was kinda cool, though. :-)
  • Why do kids like violent games and games with sex* in them? I would say because a group of knowledgeable and attentive designers, marketers, artist, etc. primary goal is to design a video game that children will enjoy. Don't underestimate this. There are basic reactions that human beings can be depended to respond to. The goal of a game design team is to have an individual, from a targeted demographic (young males, generally but increasingly young women) greatly enjoy a game, usually expressed by hours and days of game play, and recommend that game to others. That as well as buying the sequel.

    But so what? Show me that violent video games make violent children. Recently a report on NPR or the BBC described a group of kids who were given a competitive game to play together. The researches recorded which children were more violent prone as well as there level of violence. Then the kids were given some "violent" video games to play. Lastly, they played another competitive group game. No change. The non-violent kids remained non-violent and the violent kids maintained the same level of violence. Maybe long term game play effects a tendency towards violence. I doubt it. More likely some people like violent video games and most violent people like violent video games.


    *If a kid is interested in sex, he is transitioning away from being a kid or in fact not a child anymore and should be treated thusly.

  • Mr. Newell: One reason for this is the DeCSS software that allows DVD owners to decrypt the movie and pull it straight off of the DVD with no loss of quality.
    This comment just pisses me off... People really need to be educated before they speak. Hey Craig Newell If you're reading this: THE ORIGINAL INTENT OF DeCSS WAS TO PLAY DVD's ON LINUX!!! I can't stress this enough.


    Yeah, so what? He is saying that DeCSS allows DVD owners to copy thier movies. Is that factually wrong? I think he may not know as much about DeCSS as you do but he knows, as anyone who knows anything about DeCSS, that is can be used to COPY. That's okay, we should be able to copy things we own. You make the point that the intention of DeCSS was to play movies. Good for it. That doesn't mean it can't (and isn't) being used for other purposes.

  • for the lazy... (yes i know this is ugly)
    #include <iostream.h>
    #include <iomanip.h>

    void main ()
    {
    int x[254],y=0;

    cout << endl << "Enter hex digits (0 to end): ";
    x[y-1]=1;
    while (x[y-1] != 0)
    {
    cin >> hex >> x[y];
    y++;
    };

    for (int z=1;z < y; z++)
    cout << char(x[z]);
    }
  • Excuse me, Ms. Rosen? I seem to have lost my soapbox, could I share yours? It seems to be broken in nicely.
  • Did anyone notice that Ms. Rosen twice mentioned "demand creation" as a value-added service? So part of the $15 for that CD goes to choking MTV international with the latest from Britney Spears? Delete your Napster files now, lest we be deprived of a single image of that pneumatic jailbait (what America really wants; hence the pedophilia paranoia)!

    When we get the bandwidth, I want to start seeing old Batman episodes in their original, unbutchered-by-Turner form. I want to see stuff that's been sued out of existence, such as "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story."

    And how about a Gnutella-type browser for reading the pro-drug files Hatch wants to ban?

  • By the age of 18, they had also taught me how to launch tactical nuclear missiles...Yet I still couldn't legally drink. Now is that a bone-head idea or what?

    Maybe they were concerned that the drinking would affect your aim?

    ObHeinleinParaphrase: Strong drink can make you launch tactical nuclear weapons at tax collectors. And miss.
  • what the fuck? searching around - I put the link right in the story you jackass
    ----------------------------------------- ---------
  • The first one turned out to be Addison's Cato - and the fact that it doesn't seem very well written is an interesting observation - you an English major? There are two reasons it might not seem like him - 1)it isn't him, it is supposedly by a guy Tyler- and 2) you could be wrong - if you had done a little research, you would actually see that what is writen is very much like some of Poe's poems - do a search for some fo the phrases in that translation, you will find a great deal of them in one of Poe's poems (actually more, but one is very close - "their fragrance" is what helped the solution for the guy that had this posted)
    ----------------------------------------- ---------
  • I use this name in many places, and I think it is funny - but that is no reason to discount a post. What is funny is that the other guy that responded to this pointed out one of my urls that are registered -there are a lot of them - www.smallandflaccid.com, www.sweatyhorseballs.com, www.ijustshitmypants.com - there are a lot of them. What is funny is you are likely to have heard of them in awhile - there isn't really content right there, but ther is going to be soon and I have a feeling it will get a lot of Linux type traffic - funny names or not.
    ------------------------------------------------ --
  • Heh not closely enough obviously.... I deserve to be modded to nothingness (that is why I never post at +1) :)

  • Senator Hatch is also the senator who believes that "profit is unAmerican".

    He made that statement when lambasting Bill Gates during the Microsoft hearings. We may all want to take his side in fighting the "great evil", but this comment makes it clear that he's willing to ignore fact and principle in order to make a nice sound bite.

    The fact is that America has a capitalist economy so there is nothing more American than "profit". We can still choose to be altruistic if we want, but there is nothing "unAmerican" about profit, regardless of what Mr. Hatch would have you believe (and in spite of Mr. Hatch's substantial fortune made in the retail furniture business where profit margins exceed those in the software industry).

    Clearly this is an ally you'd want to watch carefully.

  • I never meant to imply that promotion isn't easy. I'm currently working with a friend of mine to help promote his band on-line.

    I do understand your argument about artists wanting to spend more time on the creative side of things rather than the business side. I'm just saying that I think out of the $13.00+ I spend for a CD I'd like to see more go to the artist for his/her blood sweat and tears. I'm sick of record companies fronting millions of dollars for some artist that (IMHO) has absolutely no talent. While some other artist sits in obscurity. I don't like seeing my money go toward something I have no interest in purchasing or listening to. Someone else however, may feel differently about a particular artist and want to support them. That's great. Everyone has different musical tastes. Where I feel a particular artist has no talent someone else may feel the exact oposite.

    I think promotion over the Internet is a very good thing. There is so much good music that goes unnoticed by the mainstream. I realize that not everyone has the ability (or desire) to promote on his or her own. However, the Internet is making it much easier.

    I just hope these lawsuits don't get out of hand and destroy all the progress we've made. (See sig below)

  • You do have a point, however DeCSS is not the only way to copy a DVD. It's easy enough to plug some cables into the video out on my video card or on my TV. I could then say copy it to a videocassette or say another DVD.

    I know DeCSS does decrypt DVD's, but it's original intent was to make DVD playing under the Linux (or Unix) OS possible. Jon Johansson had no intention of opening Pandora's box or illegally copying all his DVD's to put up on the Internet. He was just a geek who was pissed because he couldn't play DVD's on his Linux Box.

    I think Craig Newell got most of his information about DeCSS from the mainstream media and I have learned not to trust anything that the mainstream media tells me.

  • If we can't charge people an extra $500/year on car insurance because they're black or jewish, why can we charge people an extra $500/year because they're 22?

    You might want to check your insurance a bit more carefully. Mine doesn't make any mention of age, but does mention driving experience. IOW, someone who started driving at age 26 would have the same rate as someone 10 years younger who started driving at 16. FWIW, in California it's also common practice, although nominally against the law, to use place of residence as the largest single factor in insurance rates, which results in a lot of racial and ethnic discrimination.

  • woa (Score:1)

    by kel-tor ( 146691 )
    so i go out and read the article, and im reading about a 17 year old 'internet music fan' and next is the guy that wrote gnutella and they have pictures of them and they look like happy energetic people. i scroll the page down to the next person, a sour horrid looking troll like evil image, something out of a Grim fairy tale maybe, the wicked stepmother, or maybe Baba Yaga. my brain reboots after gpf'ing on that image and i notice that the name is 'hillary rosen.' because i can not stomache anymore i scroll it off the page and continue reading. (blah, why oh why would anyone anywhere intentionally chooses to use such an image?)

    ---

  • I can't figure out why the stories I submitted never got posted to slashdot, but they're relevant here.

    This research shows that playing agressive video games increases agression, at least in the study group: http://www.sciencedaily .co m/releases/2000/04/000424094004.htm [sciencedaily.com].

    While this one shows that childrend's core personality is not changed by video games: http://www.sciencedaily .co m/releases/2000/08/000811061557.htm [sciencedaily.com].

    Take your pick. Having children, I can authoritatively say that the only way I could raise them to "*freely choose* not to play them" would be to remove all game consoles and computers from my house. And then I'd still have to forbid the kids to go anywhere such a device existed. They like the games because they're exciting (not to mention the peer pressure); the way I raise them won't do anything about that.

    Instead, I'm trying to raise them to realize that the solutions presented by violent video games are not the right solution for all situations; not even for any situation, necessarily. I don't condone laws forbidding kids to play the games, but I do like the idea that they're labeled, so I can have some idea of what my kids are considering buying right off the bat.

  • I have one en route to a pseudonymous address. (Hackers of the World Unite!) Anyways, one great way to get (semi) random keys is to go to a country which uses chipcards for the payphones. A nearby nation is Canada; other good choices include France, Germany, Denmark, Greece, Japan, and other first- and second- world nations. (Ignore the UK and Italy. UK because of RIP; Italy because its cards are mini-magstripes.) What you do is use buy a few cards of the lower denominations and use them to a certain extent. Not neccesarily to extinction (like you could easily do on a direct-dial call to the US), but close to it. That way, you have a stream of cards with different values on them.

  • I don't think he was trying to say that Hatch was soley responsible for these things. Certainly there were others backing the as well. He was just pointing out that Hatch has done a lot that goes counter to what he purports to support now.

  • How can you say children have a free choice when you have raised them in a way that will only allow them to make a certain chioce?

    By that standard, NONE of us have free choice! Where is our choice to never speak with mom and dad spending all of that time encouraging us to say our first word? Our choice to enjoy eating dry decaying leaves and dirt when dad's over there saying 'don't put that in your mouth, it's NASTY'.

    In other words, short of leaving their babies in the woods somewhere to make up their own minds about who and what they are and how to behave, every parent somehow molds free choice, and its a GOOD THING!

  • > If we can't charge people an extra $500/year on car insurance because
    > they're black or jewish, why can we charge people an extra $500/year
    > because they're 22?

    Uhh, could it be because people under 25 have about $500/year more in accidents than those who don't? Nah, it must be discrimination.

    NOte that poeple over 25 still pay the high rates if they've had a license less than four years, as many of the foreign students found out while I was in grad school. And after seeing people who'd grown up without even riding in cars drive, I'm convinced that their rates were *way* too low :)

    At least at Iowa state it was easy to detect them on the road: they were about the only oens in town who bought Japanese cars . . .
  • I think that statisic is not that "blacks have higher accident rates" but that "blacks are more likely to live in zip codes with higher accident rates". The second implies the first, but is a legal and moral way of allocating risk.

    hawk, who indeed did read the portions of the thread that existed before he posted
  • Umm, duh? The alternative, after all, is that said adults actually become good attentive parents. God (or whatever) forbid!

  • I don't know... this may be an unpopular opinion, but I think it's natural, especially for males, to be somewhat fascinated by violence.

    If you look at any group of little boys, it doesn't matter from what culture, I think you will find that most of them are prone to play at violence, the same as kittens or puppies who wrestle and play-bite each other.

    This is probably just the result of "evolution". Fighting is a very important skill for a wild species and humans are hardly domesticated ;) As a matter of fact, civilization only seems to make it worse, institutionalizing violence on a much grander scale and making it more impersonal .

    Playing at violence is not a cause for worry IMHO. I'm not saying that kids should watch slasher movies, but as long as video games are relatively abstract I think they are OK for anyone tall enough to play them... perhaps some of them are too bloody and should be toned down a bit, I agree that it should be up to the parent(s) to make sure that their kids don't have access to games they find offensive.

    I'll never forget the first time my son picked up a long straight stick, just after learning to walk. Instantly, with no example or encouragement from others, it was a spear to poke kittens with. It was not awkward for him at all, the proper balance and motion came more naturally than walking. (Of course, we pointed out that he might hurt the kittens and that he should poke leaves instead.) I remember thinking about the timescale of human existance and how we were simple hunters and gatherers for 99% of that time, and coming to the conclusion that "Underneath it all we're all just a bunch of spear-chucking barbarians". :)

    "Free your mind and your ass will follow"

  • A feminist tried to fight this trend in her sons, giving them Barbies to play with. She was very dismayed to see them hold them by their legs, point the heads at each other, and make gun noises.

    Steven E. Ehrbar
  • Countries with parliamentary supremacy can legislatively interpret Article 41 to avoid some of the sillier implications of some of the clauses.

    In the U.S., we'd have 11-year-olds suing their parents under Article 15 to overturn "no TV" rules, then legislation suing to overturn an act specifically authorizing "not TV" rules.

    Steven E. Ehrbar
  • I think I made my point above about financing of non-talent with real talent. If you need help "creating demand" for your music... You're in the wrong business. If you work hard long hours to make your music why would you not work even harder to promote it? And that is what has the RIAA frightened...

    Perhaps because artists like to spend their time creating art, not marketing it? I mean, yes, it takes months to get a deal and such with a record company, but think about it: WHY do artists today do it? I mean, if it were as simple as you say, record companies wouldn't exist in the first place! Sad as it may be, and as corrupt as the system is, I think it's obvious that, at the very least, artists WANT to let a 3rd party handle the business side of things as much as possible.

    That said, I certainly think that the current system where record companies take the vast majority of the profit has room for improvment, and that we should work toward streamlining the process of audiences finding the material they'll like.. BUT, the system that succeeds will be the one that lets artists EASILY promote their music. If artists have to chose between letting record companies make most of the profit andn spending all their time trying in vain to promote their material, a lot of artists would (and do) choose the former.

  • Although the Netcity form does only have two OS choices (Windows and Mac, of course), it is not a required field; so you can fill it out with no OS choice. It'll be difficult for them to claim you told them you had Windows, and they do put up a screen promising you you'll receive your scanner in 6 to 12 weeks.

    I didn't agree to anything regarding it's use, either.

    -
  • Teenagers, as a group, do stupid things at a higher rate than the general population. As they get older, experience, maturity, and in extreme cases, Darwin, reduce their accident rate. Men, who are biologically expendable, are much more likely to be involved in accidents than women. Teenage males are much more expensive to insure than other drivers. See this page [insure.com] for some statistics on death rates broken down by age and gender.

    It isn't all bad news, young people pay less for health and life insurance. I would gladly pay teenage male rates for auto insurance if it included an 18-year old body :-).

    The insurance industry indirectly discriminates on the basis of other factors, due to the practice of setting rates on the basis of ZIP code. My insurance rates increased noticably when I moved to my current residence, which is in an area with lower incomes and higher crime rates than my previous residence.

  • All the hoopla over banning the violent games just makes them more popular. Look what happened to mortal kombat, it's not even a very good game and they ended up making sequel after sequel.

    --
    linkfilter.net [linkfilter.net] - fresh links served daily.
  • When are people going to realize that making laws isn't going to make up for poor parenting? That's what it all boils down to with the whole censorship saga. It's all about personal responsibility.
  • Well, to be fair, I don't think people would be making the big deal out of video games or drinking if a big, government agency trained you in how to do it and how to take orders regarding it as the Army did regarding machine guns and tactical nuclear missiles. So we're not talking about quite the same thing here.
  • One other thing to add to that - last time I checked, Somalia was the one country in the world without a government, after the war.

    In other words, the US is effectively isolated on that one. The only other country couldn't sign if it tried.
  • ... and their lack of ability/willingness to think.

    Bad news, kid. They don't think any more when they get older...

  • A lot easier, with equivalent functionality:


    #!/usr/bin/perl -w
    print "Enter hex digits (0 to end): ";
    while (<>) {
    $_ = pack "H*";
    last if (/\0/);
    print;
    }


    Of course, an even shorter version would be:
    perl -pe 'print pack "H*"'

    but not quite as interactive.

  • He was the one who put forth from "anonymous" a bill attached to unrelated legislation to extend the term for drug patents. (ala the "as a work for hire" fiasco that took song rights from musicians). It's the least he could do after riding around in Schering-Plough's corporate jet, the ones who have the patent for Claritin that is about to expire. Too bad seniors (AARP) noticed because they have enough of a hard time as it is paying for prescriptions. It sort of makes the republican's plan for a prescription drug benifit ring hollow.

    Actually, it was Linda Daschle, wife of Democratic Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle who lobbied on the behalf of the drug companies to pass the bill through.

    Also, Sen. Hatch is the only member of government who has had the balls to stand up to Hilary Rosen in Congress and defend the doctrine of fair use. He's an artist himself, so he undertstands both the need to protect content creators as well as the need for people to be able to copy works they own.

    As for the link, several Democratic senators were also involved in the copyright extensions. That, and if Disney were to have lost those trademarks, it would have lost the core of their business, costing a hell of a lot of jobs. Personally, the article shows that Democrats also supported the bill. And what the hell relevance does it have to any of this anyway?

  • The real problem is that tstores and Government will bend to the demands of adults who wrongfully belief that games with a little bit of gore will turn the countries children into gun-toting thugs.

    It is after all the adults that vote the Government in, and that keep the stores in business, not the kids who buy and play the games.



    _______________
    SitePoint.com - Resources to Build and Grow Your Site [sitepoint.com]
  • Just skimming the NYT article about Napster, I noticed that they gave Hillary Rosen a chance to respond to other people like that 17-year-old, Kevin Smith, and Esther Dyson, without giving them the same chance to respond to her.

    There is a lengthy Q&A session following, but that hardly makes up for it. As usual, the industry cartel is over-represented.

  • That, and if Disney were to have lost those trademarks, it would have lost the core of their business, costing a hell of a lot of jobs.

    Oh, I was going to write some witty response about drug dealers and government not supporting legalization of drugs and losing their core business etc but I don't think I can be bothered.

    I'll just say It is not he business of government to erode the rights of its citizens to provide a bit of cash for billion-dollar corporations

    "Government by the people, for the people" eh?

    Rich

  • If you check out the egroups mailing list (there is a link in the story) - one of the guys that solved the puzzle posted the solution.
    ------------------------------------------------ --
  • From: http://www.eapoe.org/geninfo/poebiog.htm "The twin notions that Poe was a user of opium and a chronic alcoholic have been an unfortunate obsession with his fans and detractors alike for over one hundred years. ...important note describing Poe's condition, changing 'a gentleman, rather the worse for wear' first to 'deep intoxication' and later to 'beastly intoxication.' ...From a purely medical perspective, it might be fair to say that Poe was an alcoholic."

    I would say he circumvented his own access control device! Pickled it to be more accurate!

  • I'm buying a new PC for high-end graphics work. General idea is 1GHz Thunderbird, GeForce Ultra, Windows NT 4 SP6A (the most stable version), and a DAT-III drive for backup. This is about $4K worth of machine.

    Attempting to buy from HP, after a week of runaround from HP pre-sales support, finally resulted in the following responses today:

    • HP does not offer HP DAT-III drives on HP PCs.
    • Installing NT voids the warranty on the PC.
    Presumably installing Linux would also void the warranty.

    HP also has a web site that brings to mind the old line "you are in a maze of twisty little passages, all different." Until you figure out the difference between a Brio, a Kayak, a Pavillion, and something else I forget, (all of which are x86 PCs) you can't find anything.

    HP used to be such a great company, too. It's sad when the good ones die.

  • After all, cracking his cipher is obviously circumventing Poe's access-control device!

    Encryption challenges sponsored by a cryptosystem designer (such as Poe Cipher and the various d.net [distributed.net] challenges) imply a license to take part in the challenge.

    Of course, IANAL; if you want legal advice, talk to your attorney.
    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • The Atari VCS 2600 console had 128 bytes of RAM and a framebuffer that held only half a scanline. How's that for primitive? It gets worse: there are only five sprites; three are mere rectangles, and the other two are eight-pixel-wide 1-bit bitmaps. Their locations are not specified (x, y) but rather (start drawing them at this CPU cycle).
    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • Searching around, I eventually found this page [bokler.com] which is the original thing to try and crack. I got lost just looking at it..

  • Yeah, there are a lot of errors in the article. One other that I noticed: the Dreamast doesn't crank 200 polygons/sec. More like 20m.
  • ...because if he was, he'd probably be suing Bokler under the DMCA. After all, cracking his cipher is obviously circumventing Poe's access-control device!
  • Someone named AssFace got a submission accepted? ;)
    -
  • You misunderstand me. What I mean is that if you allow the freedom to choose to be violent, some will choose that, despite any efforts to encourage them otherwise. Of course, you can always warp people (like Clockwork Orange), but that is the wrong course.

    The point is that we must not manipulate people to prevent them from being able to choose, and we must recognize that the end result is that some will choose the very thing that we were trying to avert.

    I was not using Lord of the Flies as a document of fact, but more like something that reminds us of certain truths. If you don't think that Lord of the Flies is fundamentally true in it's presentation of the natural disposition of man to be cruel (not the only disposition, but part of it), I can accept your opinion. But if you do agree, then you agree with my point about it as far as I intended to use it.

    -------------
  • You are right in part, that in the process of teaching and encouraging, even if done in the most gentle fashion, will remove some courses of thought and action from the realm of possibility. So we always have your Clockwork Orange, no matter how we do it. I would still argue that some Clockwork Oranges (CO for short) are better than others. Maybe what I think is a good CO is only because of the CO that I have experienced. The relativistic point of view is that no CO is better than any other CO. I would disagree with that, and say that we can actually use our faculties to determine the best CO for the situation. Also, while the CO we will obviously influence (or forcing a behavior, as you said, though I think that a good CO does not force it) the outcome, it does not completely determine it. The same CO applied to two very similar situations can have drastically different outcomes.

    -------------
  • Well, I would not agree with 100%. That would suggest that everything that happens was predetermined by the initial state. I choose to believe otherwise, or if you prefer, that belief was chosen for me.

    -------------
  • How can you say children have a free choice when you have raised them in a way that will only allow them to make a certain chioce?

    That's the real trick, isn't it? Teaching people to not love violence for it's own sake, but always allowing them the freedom to choose to love it if they wish. Because, the truth about that is, that some will choose to be violent no matter what you do. So the shortcut, the easy way, is to not allow any dissent -- to make it impossible to take the wrong path.

    Your comment is well taken. Many would take the notion of raising children "properly" to mean that they don't have the capacity to even think about violence, and that children should be sheltered and coddled so they never are tainted by it. Or so sternly disciplined that they won't do it -- "beat it out of 'em." But even children have it within them to be violent and cruel (Lord of the Flies). But children also can be very kind, generous, and loving. Perhaps parents should spend less time trying to discourage the former and more time encouraging the latter.

    -------------

  • HOW DARE YOU! (Score:3)

    by CMiYC ( 6473 ) on Tuesday September 26, 2000 @05:25PM (#752027) Homepage
    If people want violent games off the market, they should be raising their children in such a way that the kids would *freely choose* not to play them, because the violence would not appeal to them.

    I'm utterly appauled at the fact that you claim it should be MY responsbility to raise MY kids. We all know that us parents simply do not have the time to raise our own children. In should be society's responsbility and if society produces violent games, it is society's fault. It is most certainly NOT mine! Or any other parent's for that matter!

    Seriously: I fully agree with you, and I wish everyone else could see it that way. But I don't think its going happen... too many people think in the same manner I'm being saracastic.

    ---

  • Atari 2600 had 128K? NOT! (Score:3)

    by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Tuesday September 26, 2000 @02:56PM (#752028)
    Maybe 128 *bytes* of RAM ;-)

    But sure as fsck not 128kilobytes. Christ, my Apple //e had 128K, and it was state of the art!

    ObMicrso~1Bash:

    BTW, is it just me, or is that site the most garbled heap of nested tables and crap HTML I've seen in ages? I mean, even for a M$ FrontPage site, it's pretty fucking sick to see 70-80 kilobytes of HTML - 30K of banner-ad tables and 40K of other shite - for about 3K of actual text.

    Multiply it out, that's about 200K of HTML I had to download to read something that could have fit in a single, albeit long, /. comment. What is it with m0r0n webmasters who think that a web site should be like a book - and require the manual clicking of a mouse to "turn a page" every time you read two or three paragraphs?

  • On the flip side... (Score:3)

    by guran ( 98325 ) on Tuesday September 26, 2000 @10:43PM (#752029)
    ...a minor can be sentenced to death in the US. Actually you are one of the two countries in the world who has not signed the UN declaration of childrens right (the other is Somalia...)

    *sigh* I do NOT miss my teenage days...

  • Re:Edgar Allen Poe (Score:3)

    by h3x0r ( 132441 ) on Tuesday September 26, 2000 @03:12PM (#752030)
    59 6F 75 20 6D 65 61 6E 20 6C 69 6B 65 20 74 68 69 73 3F 20 48 6F 77 20 6D 61 6E 79 20 70 65 6F 70 6C 65 20 64 65 63 6F 64 65 64 20 74 68 69 73 20 61 6E 64 20 72 65 61 64 20 69 74 3F 20 50 6C 65 61 73 65 20 72 65 70 6C 79 2E 20 49 66 20 61 6E 79 6F 6E 65 20 61 73 6B 73 20 77 68 61 74 20 69 74 20 69 73 20 73 61 79 73 20 69 74 27 73 20 48 54 4D 4C 20 66 6F 72 20 61 20 67 6F 61 74 73 65 2E 63 78 20 6C 69 6E 6B 2E [fskdjflsdj.fsdj]
    ---

  • Edgar Allen Poe (Score:3)

    by Th3 D0t ( 204045 ) on Tuesday September 26, 2000 @03:08PM (#752031)
    Cackling in his grave...
    If he were alive today, he would be a /. troll. Primarily he would post disgusting stories he wrote and links to graphic images for shock value. But then every once in a while he would post an encoded message just because he knew people would try to decode it.
    ---

  • Deciphered Poe Text (Score:4)

    by ryder ( 111 ) on Tuesday September 26, 2000 @02:40PM (#752032)
    One cypherpunk going by the handle "mystery_inc" has posted the results and some analysis of the decoding to the PoeCipher mailling list at egroups. You can read his entire message here [egroups.com].
    He believes it says:

    it was early spring warm and sultry
    glowed the afternoon the very breezes
    seemed to share the delicious languor of
    universal nature as laden the various
    and mingled perfumes of the rose and the
    jessamine the too dense abatis wildflower
    they slowly wafted their fragrant offering
    to the open window where sat the lovers
    the ardent sun shone full upon her blushing
    face and its gentle beauty was more like the
    treetop of side wind romance of flirt
    inspiration of a dream than the actual
    reality of earth tenderly her lover gazed
    upon her as her glittering ringlets
    were eased by amorous and sportive
    zephyrs and when he permitted the rude
    intrusion of the sunlight he sprang to
    draw the curtain and she gently stayed
    him no no dear charles she softly said
    much rather would i have a little sun than
    no sun at all

  • Why do kids like violent games? (Score:4)

    by 64.28.67.48 ( 217783 ) on Tuesday September 26, 2000 @03:54PM (#752033)
    Why do kids love violent games? That's the real question that people should be asking. I suspect that violent games contribute very little to "making" someone a dangerous person (whatever that means). I would say that the popularity of violent games with kids is something to ponder. Locking up all the "bad" video games is like wearing Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses(TM). The problem hasn't changed. If people want violent games off the market, they should be raising their children in such a way that the kids would *freely choose* not to play them, because the violence would not appeal to them.

    But blaming "the world" for corrupting their children is more popular because it lets people cry that they are powerless, and if one is powerless, they are also free from the nasty burden of taking responsibility for the problem and doing something about it.



    -------------

  • More about Senator Orrin Hatch for those that (Score:4)

    by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Tuesday September 26, 2000 @03:31PM (#752034)
    don't know. I have posted this rant to a mail list already, so those that have seen it please close your eyes.

    > "The government's view of the law is not monolithic, however. Senator
    > Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah and chairman of the Senate Judiciary
    > Committee, recently wrote a letter to the Court of Appeals stating that
    > the government's brief does not necessarily express the views of the
    > Congress in the matter. "

    I live in Utah where Senator Hatch is up for re-election. As someone who once knew Senator Hatch, I'm really sorry to say that he _is not_ your fair use friend.

    As head of the Judiciary Committee he was one of the principal authors of the DMCA. Also, he was the one that sponsered the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA).

    When the MPAA and a few pals roll into town he is only too willing to roll over and support their cause after a few "donations". The conservative "Eagle Forum" explains how Disney has clout with the republican congress [eagleforum.org].

    He was the one who put forth from "anonymous" a bill attached to unrelated legislation to extend the term for drug patents. (ala the "as a work for hire" fiasco that took song rights from musicians). It's the least he could do after riding around in Schering-Plough's corporate jet, the ones who have the patent for Claritin that is about to expire. Too bad seniors (AARP) noticed because they have enough of a hard time as it is paying for prescriptions. It sort of makes the republican's plan for a prescription drug benifit ring hollow.

    If he really cared about "fair use", he would have delineated it by now in the DMCA. Or at least given half a thought about the "anti-crcumvention" monster that he created.

    My guess is that he wanted to blow some hot air in the sails of the Good Ship Lollipop before she goes down, knowing full well that "fair use" has already been tossed in a lockbox and thrown overboard to the unattainable deep.

    Sure he looks good for supporting Napster and "fair use". Just too bad that he really smells.

  • A few things... (ok maybe more than a few) (Score:5)

    by KiboMaster ( 129566 ) on Tuesday September 26, 2000 @05:02PM (#752035) Homepage
    Mr. Newell: Certainly, Gene is right here. Whether it's on Scour Exchange or someplace else, the file-sharing "craze" has begun to spread to other media such as video and will continue to do so as technology progresses. One reason for this is the DeCSS software that allows DVD owners to decrypt the movie and pull it straight off of the DVD with no loss of quality. This opens many possibilities, such as compressing it and sharing it on the Internet.

    This comment just pisses me off... People really need to be educated before they speak. Hey Craig Newell If you're reading this: THE ORIGINAL INTENT OF DeCSS WAS TO PLAY DVD's ON LINUX!!! I can't stress this enough. The MPAA doesn't want you to play DVD's on a computer unless they bless it first.

    Mr. Smith: The subscription service makes sense. Folks can join, pay a monthly fee, and from said fees, the provider can pay the music companies for use of their material.

    If I'm going to join a "subscription service" why the hell would I want to pay the music company? Why should the RIAA profit from the talent of others... all they do with that money is funnel it into people who have no talent anyway.

    Ms. Rosen: Esther is right about the future, even if she is completely wrong about what a record company does. New distribution systems provide for new levels of competition, and record companies and all sorts of others who work with artists in the future will have to prove their worth to that artist (and their fans) in the new marketplace. Today, a record company does that by investing in the "creation of the demand" for an artist's music. I don't think that will change. Helping an artist create the demand for their music is a critical factor in their careers. Some artists do it themselves; most don't want to. There is a lot of music out there. But we must all concede that we pay attention to certain music or certain artists because they have become more popular, and we rely on the natural selection processes of the marketplace. That process does not come cheap in the physical world -- or in the online world.

    I think I made my point above about financing of non-talent with real talent. If you need help "creating demand" for your music... You're in the wrong business. If you work hard long hours to make your music why would you not work even harder to promote it? And that is what has the RIAA frightened...

    Mr. Boies: The Internet is both a threat and an opportunity. It is an opportunity to efficiently promote and build demand. It is a threat because it is a distribution and promotion channel that the record labels, at least for now, do not control. It is the greatest opportunity for the 98 percent of artists that are not distributed by the major record labels. It is the greatest threat to the RIAA and its members.

    Mr. Boies: An industry at war with its customers is an industry in trouble. The RIAA and its members are making users mad as hell, and these users will find a way not to take it anymore.

    Amen -- to both points

    Ms. Rosen: The Internet is clearly viewed by the music community as an opportunity. Mr. Boies's accusations are ridiculous and offensive. No one can control the Internet. There are so many innovative technology partnerships with the music community going on right now that no one with any knowledge even thinks that is the music community's intention. What we can do, however, is assure that certain simple rights are enforced and that companies don't break the law.

    No one can control the Internet... Isn't that what you're (the RIAA) trying to do? Insuring that companies don't break the law? You're sure putting up a fine example.

    Ms. Rosen: Artists, musicians, songwriters, music publishers and record companies are not asking for additional legislation. In selected areas, we merely seek the existing law to be enforced. To suggest that illegal activity by a single infringer like Napster is representative of all that is going on is simply short-sighted. The Internet is being used every day by all of us in the music community with many different technology partners promoting, introducing, Webcasting and selling new music and favorite artists to their fans. The marketplace is working. The fact that a few companies are not abiding the law does not mean that Congress needs to intervene. It simply means that the existing law should be respected. Most are playing by the rules. A few are not.

    The RIAA obviously don't respect existing laws. Have you ever heard of Fair use??

  • Age discrimination (Score:5)

    by Chiasmus_ ( 171285 ) on Tuesday September 26, 2000 @02:12PM (#752036) Journal
    Okay, I've come to accept that, in the U.S., minors under 18 don't have any rights. Granted, actual citizens are prohibited from beating them up, but that doesn't qualify as a right, just a protection.

    Now, you might be saying, "The phrase 'minors under 18' is redundant," but that's not true. "Minor" is defined, for some weird reason, based on context. So a 17-year old in an R-rated movie is not a "minor" in that context, and a 20-year-old drinking beer, is. In fact, if two 20-year-olds in Nevada walk into a casino and sit down, they can both be arrested, charged with "contributing to the delinquency of a minor", and tried as adults.

    So, the fight against the ban on video games is a lost cause. Minors should fight, instead, for the cause of being recognized as FULL CITIZENS IN EVERY WAY at age 18. That includes fighting wars, drinking beer, running for president, voting, and getting reasonable insurance.

    If we can't charge people an extra $500/year on car insurance because they're black or jewish, why can we charge people an extra $500/year because they're 22? Even if there was a strong correlation between accidents and black drivers, it would still be illegal for insurance companies to raise premiums.

    Maybe if someone under 65 actually VOTED instead of adopting the "fuck the system and smoke pot" attitude, this could all change.

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