Category: Blog News

Fox 20th Century are doing copy protection wrong, in my opinion. They’ve implemented a copy protection scheme on at least some dvd’s that does not allow you to watch dvd’s protected by it on your mac.

Today I hired the dvd ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ from our local video store, together with ‘Madagascar’ for Tom.

While Tom was watching his movie on the home cinema thingie, I tried watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith on my mac mini.

No Go. The mac-included DVD player software refused to see that there was a disc inserted, and if I quit DVD player the disc got ejected. At first I thought that this was a problem with the media, but that seemed ok.

On the back of the dvd box however, is a copy-protection symbol with the message : This DVD is protected from copying. This makes it impossible to make usable copies from it (translated from flemish).

All fine and well, but I wanted to watch the movie, not copy it ! Damn stupid way to go about it, if you ask me.

Videolan Client (VLC ) however, to the rescue. This open-source, cross-platform media player can read and play the disc without any problems, so that is what I used to watch my movie.

Oh, and after some googling, it appears that the new copy protection does not pose a problem for movie copiers : they either use Handbrake for Mac or AnyDVD for Wintel to copy the dvd.

So the end of the story is that once more, the guy who wants to watch the movie with the default software can’t, while the movie copier just uses another tool.

I just added a new site to my ‘worthy site’ link list, Joelonsoftware.com. I had managed to find his site once before a year or more ago, but lost the link when I migrated to Apple hardware. I tend to like to start ‘fresh’ again, and only copy my most used stuff across.

Joel Spolsky is a programmer who knows how to write, and has kept a log of it for a long time now. His site has been made into two books. Lots of his articles on his site are very interesting and extremely well thought out.

So in my quest for quality blogs, this one had to be added to the list.

An entry that he made in 2001 is very pertinent to the situation in Europe now (and I guess everywhere else where outsourcing happens more and more).

Two yuppies in a living room buying an e-commerce engine from company A and selling merchandise made by company B and warehoused and shipped by company C, with customer service from company D, isn’t honestly adding much value. In fact, if you’ve ever had to outsource a critical business function, you realize that outsourcing is hell.

Also read the comments.

It’s frrrrreezing cold outside. Time to hit the sack.

I just checked my stats, and noticed that someone is running google translate on some of my postings. I’ve got one or more french/francophone readers !

I have my suspicions, though…

A look is an invitation.

Sometimes things go ‘click’ in my head, like last thursday, when by accident I looked into the blue-grey eyes of a goodlooking woman and felt a sort of connection spring over. She looked. I looked.

And then we continued our separate ways. Neither of us gave any indication something had happened, except for that look.

That’s when I realised that a look, any look, is a doorway, an invitation to further communication. They don’t even have to be inviting. Angry looks, despairing looks or even looking away are means of communication that you can use if you want to.

Strange that it took me all this time to realise this.

Winter is coming. And every year it is the same problem – the trains break down – or rather, the junction boxes or the powerlines.

Yesterday there was a broken power line in Brussels South.
Today there was (again) a broken power line in Halle.

There was only one train leaving, and I think we could (almost) simulate a Japanese train, what with all the people pressed together in it.

Pfffrt.

Thursday had a special ending to it. While boarding the train home, the intercom came alive to tell us that there was a problem with the mains in Halle station. We would be delayed ‘for an undetermined amount of time’…. after which the train left anyway.

We continued our trip until just before Halle – where we stopped, and the train conductor told us that we would have to wait between 30 to 60 minutes for the six trains before us to clear. Apparently there was only one track that was still working, and trains had to take turns going forward.

Kudos to the train conductor, who the whole time was upfront with us and shared with us the news when he got it himself. We were not too happy though to hear about these delays, especially those people who had to travel normally for another hour or two . I asked if we could not go back to the last station, so those who would wish to could get picked up there , take the bus, or even go on foot from there. He told us that this was not at the moment possible, but would look into it.

After another half hour, he had permission, and we finally went in reverse and traveled 200 meters or so back to the last station (Buizingen), where most of us got of the train. Most people had somebody waiting to pick them up, it seems, as only a few of us walked home.

Together with another lady I started talking to, we walked the 40 minutes home in the pouring rain. At least it wasn’t freezing ! After a while, we hardly noticed the rain or the dark night, as we discovered what each of us had experienced. Turns out she had been an ex-Sabena air stewardess, so we started comparing planes, trips and air traffic and feeling scared or not during flights.

In the end, it was that experience that made it all worthwhile. I did not think of the long walk home or the long boring wait in the train – I had nice, good long talk with a total stranger !