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Riot

A question (or two) about Doug's helmet:
First, mp4:
Why does he use mp4 as his default compression format instead of Ogg Vorbis? Does Warrior's World mp3 and mp4 closely resemble our real world versions of those formats, including the licensing baggage?
Several times Doug's helmet has been described as having an enormous storage capacity. Why not store audio in a lossless format such as FLAC or Ogg FLAC? Does Doug have a good enough 'ear' to be distracted by compression artifacts in formats such as mp3?
BTW, double-blind hearing tests (google on "ABX ogg vorbis") seem to support Ogg Vorbis as THE superior lossy audio compression format.
Regarding Doug's 'ear' for flaws in music... After spending a lot of time with various CD-ripping programs before switching to CDparanoia, I can NOT ignore the tiny pops and clicks that crappy CD ripping software hardware introduces. Also, after doing many ABX tests of original music versus various compressed versions, I have a difficult time ignoring compression artifacts.
If you spend enough time listening for flaws in music, it becomes difficult to ignore those flaws in the future.
Loonix:
Is this derived from Linux, by any chance?
To grossly simplify: In the real world, early Linux development depended on three people. Linus Torvalds, of course. Richard Stallman, because he had already written many open source software tools -- including a compiler -- required to have an operating system rather than merely an operating system kernel. And Bill Gates, for making sure that MS Windows would work on cheap clone hardware, thereby encouraging vicious competition in PC hardware that resulted in low prices.
Linux probably would not have achieved critical popularity over the various BSD operating systems if the reputation of BSD had not been temporarily crippled by a frivolous lawsuit. (see www.freebsddiary.org/linux.php , search for "USL" on this page.)
wwEarth (Warrior's World Earth) has to deal with extraterrestrials on a regular basis, correct? Among ETs, is there any intellectual property law? For practical reasons, I assume not, that whenever some ET wants to restrict information, they simply keep that information secret.
How has dealing with such attitudes shaped intellectual property law on wwEarth, and how has it shaped Doug's attitudes?
Okay, so Doug is the Warrior's Chief of Security, but he seems to have a rather casual attitude toward intellectual property.
Perhaps on wwEarth, whenever groups try to restrict intellectual property, some alien or gadgeteer sells something slightly better, no strings attached beyond the purchase price?
Doug seems to understand what Priss means by bootlegging music, but seems not to care. Does this mean that wwEarth has groups like the RIAA and MPAA that try to restrict copying, but that they are less powerful than on our Earth?
Thinking about the information...
--Indexfiles aka Index aka J.W. Harris

Koryimran

Well not being anything official (but I own the home version Wink I'll try and answer some of your questions.
Why mp4? Why not from the description of Warrior's World I'm assuming (time to make an ass out of myself) that most technology is leaps and bounds ahead of where we are. Add to the point that who knows if Ogg Vorbis was ever invented in WW. (Please note that Bob has been writing this for the past 5 years ogg vorbis has been around and fairly well known for what a 1.5 years? When the scene was written ogg might not have been around.) This just seems like a really minor detail that doesn't make a difference. It doesn't add of detract from the story IMHO. Another question is that I can't prodict how the tech of an alternate world might have developed in great detail. Maybe its the best there is on WW or that Doug knows the people who wrote it and is promoting their stuff.
Loonix:
Well we see in the story that Doug (like Bob) is very pro open source. While BSD could have been a good choice as well it doesn't adapt as well in the name department as Linix does. Smile So I would bet is a linux adaption.
Aliens and intellectual property law:
People will adapt their security to the current needs as they see fit. If aliens restrict information I'm sure there are scientists working on that things that would lead to that information or industrial spies looking for ways to steal it (that might make an interesting game campaign idea). It would be something out of how the US and USSR tried to show up each other in their sciences during the cold war, that would be the way I would play it. I'm betting again that intellectual property law would be similar to some degree to ours but less time on how long the copyright or patent lasts before being pushed into public domain.
Doug on INtellectual Property Law:
Doug works for the UN. Also I don't think the UN actually handles copyright law violations that would be left to the individual country to set its own copyright laws and try to enforce them. Doug's attitude about copyright law takes after his open sorce view points. Restricting information doesn't really help anyone at all in regards to copyrights. Anyways Doug is a security head that would mainly deal with physical threats, copyright law violations would be pretty low on the board after that.
Anyways that's my attempt at answers. I'm sorry if I made an ass out of myself in answering these questions. I'll stop if asked to.

Shawn Earl

Skitz Warriors Alpha

Index writes:
I> Okay, so Doug is the Warrior's Chief of Security, but he
I> seems to have a rather casual attitude toward intellectual
I> property.
Most of the things you mention seem like that have not canonically come up in the game WW, so I'm going to assume that they are DW WW bits added for color, and we've already
determined that there are some small differences between the Game WW and the DW WW.
But one thing is certain: The warriors are not prigs. Most of us are pretty libertine about many issues. There is a school of thought that copyright issues and much of IP law in general has gotten way out of hand, especially as it's expressed in the US.
So while Doug's in change of security, we expect him to be actually working toward the physical security of the Mansion and our employees and not to go all Orrin Hatch on pirated music. And while we don't officially condone any of our members breaking even trivial laws, I'm sure we'd just shrug and say that enforcement of those laws isn't our problem should it come up.
And, of course, off planet we'll show even less respect for laws we feel are 'stupid'.

Skitz
Okay, Index, first off, let me recite a short sentence beloved of both Don Bellisario and Gryphon:
You are examining this way too closely.

That said, Koryimran is quite right. The chapter in question was written years before Ogg Vorbis was created.
There's also the issue that what is called "MP4" in Warriors' World may not necessarily resemble in any technical way what we here in the ostensibly real world would call "MP4".
Thirdly, Doug can run his power off of a 1970s vintage AM rock broadcast, and in fact has.
Above and beyond that, any attempt to start a holy war over sound reproduction technologies in this discussion forum will be vigorously quashed. This is an Official Warning. Got it?
Now, Loonix... was intended as a joke and nothing more. Until I wrote that passage, the operating system in Doug's helmet never had a name. I decided to call it "Loonix" when I learned that Linus Torvalds pronounces "Linux" as "Lee-nooks" (his own name, properly pronounced, comes out "Lee-noos", so it makes sense). Reverse the vowel sounds, and you get... well, you know. And I gave it the version number of one of the more popular releases of DOS. That's all there was to that.
IP issues: Warning 2: Holy Wars on IP issues will also not be tolerated, despite my own propensity to rant on this one.
That said, Doug left his earth in 1998 -- years before copying became the political and social hot issue it is today, even assuming that this part of the timeline runs the same in both worlds. Doug also shares certain values vis-a-vis copying and "bootlegging" with the Greatful Dead and Phish -- basically, cool, go for it, dude, we'll make our money back when you come to the next concert.
And, as someone else said once in a review, for him it's the rough equivalent of picking up a dropped magazine for a gun he's carrying. Yeah, it might be technically theft, but in the middle of a firefight, who cares?


-- Bob
---------
There's no wrong way to eat a Rhesus.
Skitz said:
Quote:
Most of us are pretty libertine about many issues.
I think you might mean "liberal". Unless we're all debauched and stuff when it comes to politics.
Quote:
So while Doug's in change of security, we expect him to be actually working toward the physical security of the Mansion and our employees
Exactly.
Quote:
and not to go all Orrin Hatch on pirated music.
Mainly because Doug's a lot better informed than Hatch or J. Random Congresscritter. Besides, ees no my yob, man.
Quote:
And while we don't officially condone any of our members breaking even trivial laws, I'm sure we'd just shrug and say that enforcement of those laws isn't our problem should it come up.
And if somehow an effort were made to try and dragoon us into becoming a thug squad for the copyright industry, we'd pretty much say "Are you joking?", laugh, and walk.


-- Bob
---------
There's no wrong way to eat a Rhesus.

Skitz Warriors Alpha

Bob Writes:
B> I think you might mean "liberal". Unless we're all debauched
B> and stuff when it comes to politics.
{Checks "libertine" in M-W.com} Hmm, I coulda sworn that it had, you know, sorta libertarian overtones to the free thinking aspects, but there you go: M-W claims it's 'dissolute'. Damn, there goes a perfectly fine adjective.
I hate it when that happens

Skitz
"Libertarian" certainly works for most of us, too... no prob there. I'm certainly not one who subscribes to a one-dimensional political axis.


-- Bob
---------
There's no wrong way to eat a Rhesus.

Kokuten

"one-dimensional political axis" seems a pretty much accurate description of the horrible, horrible choices in governmental officials set before us...
[Image: kokbanner.jpg]
--- Kokuten Daysleeper, Retired Epicced Officered DorfWire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
Closer to 0-dimensional with every year...


-- Bob
---------
There's no wrong way to eat a Rhesus.