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A cost analysis of Vista content protection

A cost analysis of Vista content protection

Posted Dec 24, 2006 11:17 UTC (Sun) by drag (subscriber, #31333)
In reply to: A cost analysis of Vista content protection by bk
Parent article: A cost analysis of Vista content protection

Plus DVDs on DVD players just suck. :-)

I was watching movies at my parents house and I was amazed to see that I couldn't just skip through the advertisements at the beginning and the FBI warning and other assorted nonsense. It'd pop up a warning that said something along the lines of 'Disk forbids this function at this time'.

I had forgotten that stuff existed because I am used to just using Xine or mplayer to watch DVDs.

Who do you want your hardware to serve? You or a movie studio?

It's amazing that now I have to break federal law just to skip advertisements. Pretty soon I'll start hearing that I am not allowed to buy certain types of fatty fried foods? (oh wait...)

When will it end? This whole erosion of liberty thing is realy realy starting to piss me off.


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A cost analysis of Vista content protection (just a bit off topic)

Posted Dec 24, 2006 18:17 UTC (Sun) by TxtEdMacs (guest, #5983) [Link]

" ... Pretty soon I'll start hearing that I am not allowed to buy certain types of fatty fried foods? (oh wait...)"

You might think this as humorous, but how well informed of the trans fat content of the food you consume? Were you aware that they were an inadvertant result of trying to lower arterial disease? Are you aware they are at least as dangerous (or more) as the food component they were meant to replace? I would guess not*. Recognize too the trans fat content is to the advantage of the producer/seller not the consumer. It is cheaper and more stable; as to having a taste advantage - there is none.

Are you against the "War Against Drugs"? I personally am in favor of giving the confiscated drugs away to confirmed addicts on the condition they they not pursue criminal activities. In addition, I would stress helping those kick the habit if they were motivated to try. Last I would place the lowest priority upon street level enforcement. The goal is to reduce the demand side and the profit margins so the business is less enticing to all concerned.

If you choose to knowingly kill yourself - fine with me, but I want you off any health insurance reimbursement system. Eat all the trans fats and consume all the addictive drugs you please - try tobacco. But don't cry later.

For me, I just do not like DRM equipped hardware being forced upon me when I play very little video or audio on my machines.

* I am painfully aware, because I happened to work on a multi-department, multi-university project meant to attack heart and arterial disease where the solution was as bad culprit: butter fat. Later instinctively I kept my butter fat intake low, but preferred it to margarine.

A cost analysis of Vista content protection (just a bit off topic)

Posted Dec 25, 2006 8:04 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

""You might think this as humorous, but how well informed of the trans fat content of the food you consume? Were you aware that they were an inadvertant result of trying to lower arterial disease? Are you aware they are at least as dangerous (or more) as the food component they were meant to replace? I would guess not*. Recognize too the trans fat content is to the advantage of the producer/seller not the consumer. It is cheaper and more stable; as to having a taste advantage - there is none.""

No it's not fucking humorous. This thinking is the one of the most unfunny things I have ever heard in my entire life.

It's showing how absurd this thinking goes. If you don't want to eat transfat then DON'T. Nobody is going to force you, nobody gives a shit one way or another. It's MY LIFE. Not yours, not the government's, not anybody elses and Dammit, if I want KFC I want KFC.

Screw the a-holes trying to control every freaking aspect of our lives because they feel justified because they assume that everybody else is a completely and total fucking moron. People need to worry a hell of a lot about their own lives before they go around trying to control how other people live theirs.

""If you choose to knowingly kill yourself - fine with me, but I want you off any health insurance reimbursement system. Eat all the trans fats and consume all the addictive drugs you please - try tobacco. But don't cry later.""

Fuck that. This sort of thing REALY pisses me off. I WORK for a living. I make a valueable contribution to sociaty and I get compinsated. I use the money I earn to buy health insurance.

Are you saying that since a person does not follow your nutrional rules that they are less relevent and should be less able to get medical help?

Seems a bit fascist to me.

I am a grown person, work for a living, and it's not anybody else's business. It's NOT ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS.

SEROUSLY. Just because you want to be a cheap bastard doesn't mean that it gives you a right to control other people's lives. And you know what? You get rid of transfat it's not going to make anybody healthy, it's not going to make your insurance cheaper. It's NOT GOING TO ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING.

A fat bastard will just continue on being a fat bastard. They will get sick and die, and you know what? Nothing you will do will ever change anything. One way or another they are just going to find another way to kill themselves off slowly.

Do you comprehend how fucked up this whole thing is? The VERY IDEA of this whole thing is so completely counter to the idea of a free country.

Why not just pass a law saying that unless people walk a mile everyday they are going to get fined?

Why not just pass a law saying that a person has to eat a balanced diet and that stores are not allowed to sell people certain combinations of food?

Why not make it illegal to buy too much pork?

Here.. This is a great idea..

Why not use RATIONS to determine what food stores are allowed to sell to me. It would be brilliant idea!!!

That way people will be FORCED to only buy the correct balance of fruits and vegetables.

This is the way your going. It's just so completely asinine. Words just fail me. I am just failing to come up with polite words to express how completely and utterly how wrong this line of thinking is.

""* I am painfully aware, because I happened to work on a multi-department, multi-university project meant to attack heart and arterial disease where the solution was as bad culprit: butter fat. Later instinctively I kept my butter fat intake low, but preferred it to margarine."""

That's why it should be illegal to sell butter, right?

A cost analysis of Vista content protection (just a bit off topic)

Posted Dec 25, 2006 10:03 UTC (Mon) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

>> ""If you choose to knowingly kill yourself - fine with me, but I want
>> you off any health insurance reimbursement system. Eat all the trans
>> fats and consume all the addictive drugs you please - try tobacco. But
>> don't cry later.""

> Fuck that. This sort of thing REALY pisses me off. I WORK for a living.
> I make a valueable contribution to sociaty and I get compinsated. I use
> the money I earn to buy health insurance.

I think the question here is (and I would like that you respond it with a
sound argument if you have one): I too work for a living, etc etc. WHY
should my health insurance cost the same as yours, if I do everything to
prevent health problems (including seriously limiting my intake of drugs,
amongst them white sugar, trans fat, alcohol and tobacco) and you don't???
You should be carrying the burden of your own style of living, not me.

> I am a grown person, work for a living, and it's not anybody else's
> business. It's NOT ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS.

The problem is: it IS my business if you are spending MY money on your
self-inflicted health problems.

A cost analysis of Vista content protection (just a bit off topic)

Posted Dec 25, 2006 14:03 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

There is absolutely no reason why your insurance should be the same as mine.

Why do you think it is? I realy realy doubt you pay the same as I do.

Go and find some insurance place that does physicals if you don't want to share your cost with unhealthy people.

""The problem is: it IS my business if you are spending MY money on your
self-inflicted health problems.""

It isn't your money.

A cost analysis of Vista content protection (just a bit off topic)

Posted Dec 26, 2006 13:02 UTC (Tue) by irios (guest, #19838) [Link]

I want your genome scanned for genetic imperfections which might cost other innocents a lot of money later.

Your attitude is so selfish, self-righteous, self-indulging, self-serving, and myopic that you deserve no answers at all. And all because one day you read an article about fat, and now you feel enlightened, and entitled to impose your supposedly informed opinions on others.

That attitude is why you have to pay an arm and a leg for a shitty health insurance, or else you may die sitting at the door of a hospital for all they care, while everybody in my much poorer country is protected by universal health coverage.

A cost analysis of Vista content protection (just a bit off topic)

Posted Dec 25, 2006 22:20 UTC (Mon) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

That's a common reaction from people who a) don't really understand what trans fats are, and b) don't really understand the details of the 'ban'.

Banning trans fats will have absolutely zero effect on your ability to eat unhealthily if you so desire. You can be obese/overweight (and develop all the related health complications) to your heart's content. Restaurants will still have the option of frying everything in lard, butter, coconut oil and just about anything else.

What the ban *does* do is prevent establishments (almost entirely national fast-food franchises) from making the economic decision to use products that are cheaper but endanger the health of consumers. Trans fats are artificial (ie, they don't exist in nature) chemicals resulting from the hydrogenation of vegetable oil. Such restaurants can continue to use slightly more expensive products (such as lard) that are still quite unhealthy (don't worry, the 'health nut' agenda won't be forced on you) but don't have the overwhelmingly toxic effects of trans fats.

It also doesn't prevent you from going to a store and buying hydrogenated oils and using them at home. Of course there's no rational reason to do this (other than perhaps saving a penny or two by using Crisco instead of butter or animal fat) but it's still your option.

Nothing you will do will ever change anything.

Posted Jan 4, 2007 6:01 UTC (Thu) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

> Nothing you will do will ever change anything.

Right.

No public health program has ever changed anything.
No political campaign has ever changed anything.
No human being will ever achieve anything.

> One way or another they are just going to find another way to
> kill themselves off slowly.

And, of course, every time anyone ever gets sick it is entirely
their own fault and has nothing whatever to do with the public
sphere. No-one else has any hope of preventing it, and no-one
else will ever suffer as a result.

A cost analysis of Vista content protection

Posted Dec 25, 2006 2:38 UTC (Mon) by jamienk (guest, #1144) [Link]

Pretty soon I'll start hearing that I am not allowed to buy certain types of fatty fried foods? (oh wait...)

The one government regulation is the result of monopolists pretty much paying to have intricate, draconian, and weird laws passed to protect their business models, enforce their monopolies, and all but guarantee them more income than the amounts they paid for the laws.

The other government regulation is the result of nutritionists fighting to stop machine-made poisons from being sold as foods.

You might argue some libertarian-esque line that "all government regulation is bad" but I think such an argument is overkill here. We can all agree that the former "regulation" should be fought against before we even begin to debate the terms of the second issue.

A cost analysis of Vista content protection

Posted Dec 25, 2006 8:10 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

""The one government regulation is the result of monopolists pretty much paying to have intricate, draconian, and weird laws passed to protect their business models, enforce their monopolies, and all but guarantee them more income than the amounts they paid for the laws.

The other government regulation is the result of nutritionists fighting to stop machine-made poisons from being sold as foods.""

BOTH ARE JUST AS BAD.

Seriously. You don't know were this is leading do you?

Just stop and pause.. Stop assuming that eveybody else is a moron and knows nothing about nuturion and they need to be protected from 'big transfat' and realise the implications of a government controlling foods becuase they do not approve of the nutrional content.

Oh sure,your freedom is sooo important when it comes to being able to copy files, but on the other hand it's completely irrelevent when it comes to how you run a business.

Do you not see the irony? Which freedom do you think is more important?

A cost analysis of Vista content protection

Posted Jan 4, 2007 6:33 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]

> Stop assuming that eveybody else is a moron and knows nothing about nuturion and they need to be protected from 'big transfat' and realise the implications of a government controlling foods becuase they do not approve of the nutrional content.

So presumably adding sand, heroin, arsenic or polonium-210 to foodstuffs and not telling your customers that you've done so should also be perfectly legal, if that's what the consumer is willing to tolerate when spending their dollars?

I'm as individualist as they come, but sadly the consumer who makes a rational decision based on complete and correct information at all times is about as likely to be spotted in the wild as the Loch Ness Monster. Especially when consumers are increasingly required to distinguish between conflicting authoritative claims... if even experts cannot reach consensus, how on earth is the average consumer supposed to choose? In such a situation the only sensible choice is not to consume unless you know and trust the production. (For example, only eating what you grow, catch or hunt yourself.)

I'm scarcely the first person to moot this, and I wish I were so much better at acting on it, but: Self-sufficiency is a prerequisite for functional liberty. If you don't have the freedom to refuse all choices and go your own way, you have no freedom at all - and the freedom is pointless without the ability.

(Having said which, I think banning advertising in all forms would accomplish a HELL of a lot more for people's health, not to mention their sanity, than banning particular "bad" substances. After all, advertising is basically systematic manipulation - brainwashing, frankly - and every bit as coercive as the use of force. We live in a world where people taste a beer differently depending on what they believe its brand name to be... advertisers take full advantage of the chasm between how much we *do* trust our senses and our judgement, and how much we *should*.)

A cost analysis of Vista content protection

Posted Jan 4, 2007 6:41 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]

> not telling your customers that you've done so

...should read "not making any particular effort to let your customers know that you've done so, on the grounds that if they care enough to want to know they'll ask"

A cost analysis of Vista content protection

Posted Dec 25, 2006 11:32 UTC (Mon) by dion (subscriber, #2764) [Link]

I'm with you on the DRM bit, there is no reason for the government to protect the copyright holders over customers, however, that has no parallels to the government protecting you from harmful crap in your food.

Transfats are an artificial and bad type of fat and there are other, less damaging types of fat that can be used in stead.

There is no way for the customer to see if the fat used is one of the evil kinds and maybe the kitchen staff have no idea either.

I think it makes perfect sense to simply outlaw the transfats, escpecially when there are perfectly fine alternatives and when it's very hard for most people to tell the difference.

Your liberty is not being eroded by when the government makes it illegal for companies to poison your for profit.

I think your problem is that you live in a country so corrupt and democracy-deficiant that you have come to assume that all government involvement is bad, when at times it can be absolutely cool.

A cost analysis of Vista content protection

Posted Dec 25, 2006 14:23 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Transfat != poison.

It's stabilised vegitable oil. The proccess that produces this causes certain types of fatty acids that make your LDS cholesterol raise more rapidly then some other types of common fat.

Since highten LDS cholesterol is associated with greater risk of heart disease then people assume that transfat causes heart disease... which isn't even nessicarially true.

All this 'poison' stuff is realy irritating. It should sound very familar:
http://www.dhmo.org/

There is no adverse effects from transfat in moderation. If you eat nothing but fast food then your health is going to go to shit, which is the whole target of this. Fast foods places use a lot of transfat, but you can't pass a law based on targetting specific types of businesses like that.. you wouldn't get away with it they'd lobby against you and stop it.

But you can't lobby against stopping 'man made poison'. It's the social engineers people trying to get people to eat less fast food.

I don't have a problem with that, but it should be taken care of through public education rather then subverting government to your own ends.

Banning isn't going to realy do anything. Fatty fast foods are still going to be just as unhealthy if they use other types of fat. It's just not a balanced diet. People are still going to become fat asses, not eat properly, and get no excerise weither or not their food uses one type of fat or another.

If you don't want to use cisco, then don't. Your better off without it.

A cost analysis of Vista content protection

Posted Dec 25, 2006 14:24 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

oops. Crisco, not cisco.

A cost analysis of Vista content protection

Posted Jan 4, 2007 6:35 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]

Although... ;)

A cost analysis of Vista content protection

Posted Dec 25, 2006 19:15 UTC (Mon) by dion (subscriber, #2764) [Link]

As far as I can tell trans fats are worse for your health than the alternatives and the alternatives are not expensive or rare, so what's the argument for using trans fats?

Nobody is trying to outlaw shitty KFC type food, or McD, it's a relatively simple case of forcing the industry to use a less harmful ingredient.

... but this is entrirely off topic, my point was that some times it makes perfect sense to outlaw something for the good of the people and that the customers are actually better off because of it.

Take a hypotetical example, let's say cigarrets contain additives that only serve to make the victims addicted, would forcing the industry to stop adding that crap really infringe on anybodys freedom?

To get all of this a bit back on topic: I'd be all for making copyright a two-way trade, either the copyrightholder respects fair use and allows it or he gets no copyright protection at all.

A cost analysis of Vista content protection

Posted Dec 28, 2006 15:41 UTC (Thu) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]

There went five minutes I'll never get back... :-|

A cost analysis of Vista content protection

Posted Jan 5, 2007 18:27 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

It's really self-centered to look at content protection as erosion of liberty. It's just a shift of liberty, that happens to be away from you.

DRM schemes enhance the liberty of a movie maker to put DVDs in millions of homes, usable in a variety of ways, without unwanted copying happening.

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