Problems with DivX and XP SP2 explained

I am the Product Manager for the DivX Codec, and I read your letter to The Inquirer, here.

It's a good article, but I wanted to offer some comments that will help you understand the cause of the problem as related to DivX.

In your article, you state:

"DivX will be generating machine code into a buffer and calling it. This is a recognised trick for accessing screen memory extremely quickly: you generate code that implicitly knows about the screen memory layout, the logical operatings you want to do on the image, and so on. They you call it. It runs a load faster than code that's full of "if (24bitscreen) {} else {}" idioms, because all those questions were answered while it was being generated."

The problem we see with DEP and DivX is actually caused by our product security wrapper, which we use as a measure against software piracy and reverse engineering, which is forbidden by the license agreement. The same issue affects our installers, which you note later in your article, because we try to register some DLLs that are wrapped by the security layer, and this fails.

DivXNetworks will be releasing SP2-compatible versions of affected products soon; we are currently working to provide a timely solution to our customers. Our recommended workaround for this problem has changed since your article was posted. Because of inconsistent behavior amongst different types of hardware and DEP settings, we now recommend disabling DEP until a new version of DivX is available.

More details can be found here.

Alastair Mayo
Product Management
DivXNetworks, Inc.

Sporting Chances

Wendy

You wrote

"But let's face it: sports are a business, and everyone in business is always seeking a competitive advantage. Does anyone believe in the "pure" ideal of sports any more?"

I think this is the crux of the matter, but I see it differently. You start from the axiom that "sports are a business". In my view, big business has annexed certain kinds of sport, and those kinds of sport are now played by the "rules" of business (i.e. none, if the participants can possibly get away with it).

But the intrinsic meaning of "sport" remains unchanged, and it is utterly antithetical to business. Real sport, in which people play because they enjoy the sport, like competing and strive to excel honestly, still exists. It just doesn't usually coexist with grossly excessive financial rewards. If you let someone earn millions of dollars by winning a gold medal or breaking a record, that is a business scenario and (s)he will often respond by doing everything legal, and anything illegal that is not certain to be exposed and punished, to succeed. Just like business executives. Whenever a see a footballer "take a dive" in the penalty area, I think of Microsoft for some reason. Who was the imbecile (American, of course) who said "winning isn't the most important thing - it's the only thing"?

When I were a lad, I read sports heroes' books, and I remember tales of how people like Herb Elliott had to pay an entrance fee to get into the stadium where thousands of paying customers were waiting to see them perform. Accepting a single monetary prize - no matter how tiny - or anything of any value, or saying anything (even in private) that could be interpreted as "advertising" could mean a lifelong ban.

That could hardly be right, especially when it meant that those from less privileged backgrounds could not afford to train and compete as intensively as the independently wealthy. But the rewards of modern sport are ridiculous, and I honestly feel we need a new vocabulary to differentiate "industrial sport" from the real thing. Maybe it's time to build up an amateur sports structure alongside the industry. People could always cross over if they felt the need to cash in - but it would be a one-way trip.

Regards
Tom Welsh

Banned Substances
A wacko feature of the drug bans is the number of banned substances that do not enhance performance. For example, when my nose starts running like a faucet (plant and mold allergies), I take an over-the-counter sinus relief product which contains pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, having learned by trial-and-error that compared to other sinus relief products, its side-effects are minimal for me - which is, of course, what matters to me.

I do not run faster nor jump higher, but were I an athlete who took the same product for the same reason, I would be banned from competition and subjected to public humiliation and shunning because the metabolites of pseudoephedrine HCl react positively to tests for the metabolites of other less benign substances that are known - or at least perceived to be - 'performance enhancers'.

[Another whole field of dispute is whether most 'enhancers' actually work, or are merely examples of the placebo effect.]

This is not a 'unique' occurrance - hundreds if not thousands of over-the-counter remedies and even vitamin and herbal concoctions produce 'masking' metabolites, and are therefore banned. Far more innocent products are banned than guilty ones. The presumption of guilt goes deep in the 'athletic' community.

John

Most sickening news in this field that I've seen of late was a local swim team coach who quit because he discovered that virtually all of the children (14 down to 8 !) on his neighborhood swim team were taking a prescription asthma medication before swim meets - a medication which artificially improves breathing effectiveness. All the kids had legit prescriptions, even though most of them had no asthmatic symptoms; their parents had lied or cajoled the family MD to prescribe the crap. [No studies have ever been done of the long-term effects of abuse of the medication by healthy children, but the parents had no qualms about buying their kid a chemical 'edge' - and those parents would be the first to proclaim the 'we didn't know' variety of (false) innocence, and to sue, of course, if Johnny or Mary later developed breathing problems.]

Dell wins, but will Wal*Mart thwack it?

Quick comment on the story; Dell and WalMart are the same kind of company. Both are website front-ends to effecient supply chain management systems. Neither company maintains inventory and both require their vendors link into their ERP systems. Dell wins against other PC vendors by optimizing their supply chain and riding the low margin/high volume wave. However, WalMart does basically the same thing. If they get into a pissing contest over the PC market, neither can really win because they are essentially running at the same high level of efficiency. Sure, WalMart can probably push higher numbers, but the profit margin will still be low and the world-wide production capacities for PCs are essentially fixed or constrained for certain components.

Can't see either one really winning in any meaningful way. Your thoughts?

Tony

The Girl
Hey man post some info on this girl is there any? For being shown on the internet so much she could start her own website, her exposure is massive. She could start a stock photography website. Can you imagine how many pictures of her would be out there if there were more than just the two or three? shoot there would be two different pictures of her a day on msn.

Charlie

Leave Rust alone

I dont get it...most other writers on the inq. post similar story's for no point. *points at gutter watch* so why pick on rust, seems like a fun guy, and i also read all the storys he wrote, and find them to be quite...individual? but anyways let the guy be, atleast give him a warning or something :)

if i was american id put something like "just my 2 cents deary". But then again, id probally be to lazy to write to you guys...

james
Ye old blighty land lubber

Fire Rust
Is this "Dell Girl" thing going to stop?

I mean, I considered "TheInquirer" a serious news portal, not some place where 12 year olds can post their own view of the world.

Shape up!

Yours, faithful reader, Tal.

Everything imaginable banned at Athens 2004

Hello dear Magees,

I am really sorry that once again Greece is becoming a target of criticism without any prior research and cross-referencing. I don't know if it is the fact that Greece being a small country with limited influence and resources makes her an easy target for the media.

First, concerning the ban of weapons and objects that can be used as weapons, it is a bit hypocritical to critisize this decision when for more than 5 years now the world media have been scrutinizing the country for being soft on security and terror (regardless of the fact that Greece has the lowest crime rate and is concidered to be the safest place in Europe). I don't see where exactly is the problem with banning weapons from the venues of the Olympic games(!!) and yes there are some countries where carrying weapons of any kind is considered to be a crime.

As for the non-Olympic copyright T-shirts, bags and other clothing, flags of countries that aren't taking part in the games etc., if you had looked a bit more carefully into it you would have known that these rules were imposed by the IOC (international olympic comittee) and not by Greece (you don't even say the Athens 2004 commitee but you generalize saying that GREECE HAS GONE ban-mad over the Olympic games). The contracts signed between the corporations and the IOC state that the latter will ban any other competitive company from advertising in the olympic games. Unfortunatelly, the commercialization of the games was imposed and promoted after the Corporatolympics of 1984 in Los Angeles and has been accepted by sold out athletes, audiences and officials all over the world.

As for the ban on the flags of non-members, this has been a policy of the IOC for decades now but suddenly media discovered about it when the games are being held in Athens (the fact that these news are reported by Taipei Times is not a coincidence as long as Taiwan is not a recognised state and its flag is not allowed in the Olympics. There have been many problems before with Chinese from Taiwan trying to display their flag in the Olympics).

To keep it short, yes I agree that the Olympics have largely become a commercial show while the olympic spirit of unity and competition is dying. Being held in their birthplace though, gives us the chance to add a bit of this lost spirit. There are however some moments in the games that move us like nothing else. The media has done its best during the past few years to harm the image of Athens 2004 simply because, in its opinion, Athens was not good enough. Many of them are now so disappointed they were proven wrong that they cannot stand it. The city is beautiful, the venues are ready, and uncle Osama will not be joining us.

All these Kassandras may keep their sorry attitude to themselves, and let us enjoy the celebration of humanity. And if they can't get excited about athletes from all over the worl winning medals, we will. We appreciate all athletes who put in so much hard work. We also appreciate the underdogs who come from little countries and perform miracles. Unlike them, we still feel proud of small nations, and we appreciate anyone who gives an honest fight (and honestly I do not include The Inquirer in the media I am referring to...However I can't see how this article fits in the inquirer...I haven't seen any articles on important political issues such as the Iraq genocide, the violation of human rights in all western countries with the terrorism threath pretext etc.)

Yours

Nikolaos Gryspolakis

Dell Girl is God

As an individual with a mild interest in theology, I have followed the saga of the 'Dell girl' with interest. Three characteristics which are generally regarded as necessary to be God are:

Omniprescence. Well, she seems to meet this one. See seems to be all over the place at once.

Omniscience. Probably doesn't do to badly on this either. She seems to know just about everything, or at least is in the process of training to know everything.

Omnipotence. Not sure about this one, but she does seem to be able to cause journalists to be fired and hired.

Finally, apparently she's imaginary, and no self respecting contender for deity has a good case unless someone claims they don't exist.

On a more mundane matter, if the second coming really is upon us in the form of a young lass, where are the nude shots? From watching highly educational TV such as "America's next top model", I have learnt that models are more or less obliged to wear nothing before they get to wear something. Why, I'm not quite sure, as when I want to find out whether clothes fit myself, I always try them on, not take everything off, but apparently the world of modelling is a bit different. Of course if she's God, she might have been able to skip the nudie classes.

Christopher Cookson