Daily Archives: Tue, 26 June, 2007

css is the work of the devil

Posted on by

(Not only aiming at two targets with one blog – how economical is that? – but giving it a spurious biblical aura.)

This blog tends to the belief that ID is the personification of evil in (two-alphabetic-character form and in two repellent variants (Intelligent Design and National Identity Card) that we rant about with a pleasingly symmetrical regularity.

But the previous post here mentions, in passing, the differently demonic horrors emanating from its three-alphabetic-character rival for demonic rulership CSS.

We may be forced to form a new anti-css cult, dedicated to blaming all the ills of this world on ranndom initial pairs or triads.

Don’t think its only manifestation on the human plane is just the newly emergent life form CSS, able to resist any human efforts to make it place anything on a blog or webpage where you expect, in a remotely similar way at different resolutions on different browsers.

The cursed initials have meme-wormed their way into the wonderful world of copy protection.The Register said:

Buying a DVD and then copying it for use on your PSP, iPod or laptop could soon become impossible, if the DVD Copy Control Association gets its way…. The association wants to amend the licence underpinning the use of its DVD copy-protection technology, CSS (Content Scrambling System).

(see – the evil letters appear in another context :-))

The amendment would force, say, DVD playback software from displaying ripped content. It would also imply the use of software built into PCs and optical drives to prevent ripping software from saving an unscrambled copy of a disc’s contents for later playback on a device without a DVD drive, such as a PSP or an iPod.

The plan is that the DVD tech will only let you run something while it is physically present in the drive. This is already getting challenged by companies trying to make multiroom home cinemas. However as the Register points out, there is no way that crackers won’t have already got round it. )

Anyone spot in the market for a device manufacturer who takes this stuff into account? From the BBC today, when it refers to a (surprisingly modest) 61% of the population having admitted to crimes from a list of ten:

Presumably, that 61% would be higher still if the list had included a wider range of crimes, such as downloading music and copying software illegally.

Tagged by Atheist Perspective

Posted on by

This blog was tagged by atheist perspective I’ve shamelessly lifted an explanation of what that means from the atheist perspective site, which is excellent by the way.

We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
– Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
– People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
– At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
– Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Well part A is completed with minimal effort. Clearly the next stage must have to be the 8 random facts. Argh, 8 things about us that we wouldn’t mind going on the net – but are actually interesting enough to post. Damn that rules out almost anything I could put here….

Hmmm…. hmmm…..

  1. Between us we have lived on or visited 5 continents. Antartica is one of the two we’ve never been to, although one of us has been close enough to swim in it’s waters. (Yes, it really is as cold as you would imagine).
  2. Between us we speak – to a standard ranging from fluent (English) to pathetically halting (well, the others) – 5 languages and can make sense of a couple more with babelfish’s help. Oh yes, 5 languages Plus Latin.
  3. One of us genuinely believes the Wire is the major artwork of the 21st century. This is a minority viewpoint in every sense, even on the blog.
  4. We train with weights, more or less every day. One of us even got a certificate that will pay out thousands if anyone he trains gets injured, The other one has long been planning to enlist him as her personal trainer and do something spectacularly stupid…
  5. One of us has become obsessed with taking photographs and keeps getting better and better digital cameras every few months. And the pictures are getting better all the time as well.
  6. One of us refuses to accept any limitations, no matter how glaringly obvious, and hence persists in thinking she can do 3d graphics, despite the evidence of the senses.
  7. Terry Pratchett remains the one author we agree 100% over and have obsessively read every book produced. (Not all good though- the “actual” sci-fi books are poo and the science companion is distressing)
  8. CSS design is soundly despised by every one who has anything to do with this blog. Even their pets hate CSS.

Choosing 8 blogs was no easy task either. There were obvious choices – like nullifidian – who have probably already been tagged within an inch of their lives so would just get pissed off. However, I sprinkled my fairy dust over the atheist blogroll and found some worthy, if less familiar, contenders.

[tags]Blog Meme, Atheism, Wire, WhyDontYou, Why Dont You, Society, Culture, Travel, Languages,Blog, Meme, Blogs[/tags]