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Has anyone ever been hurt because of mp3s? Has any_one_ (not corporations) lost money because of mp3s? I challenge you to show me figures of actual individuals being hurt because of Napster.
The corporation's predicted socio-economic effect of Napster is no where near being serious, when compared to real socio-economic disasters.
I know this is cliched, but what ever happened to the artist who didn't care about money? It's sickening to think that the RIAA is acting on behalf of so many artists, who could supposedly loose so much because of Napster. So they all are greedy talentless images whose personalities are determined by market surveys?


The RIAA will never win, even if they can twist our excuse for a justice system to the extreme, and "win." Anyone reading this message should feel the neccesity and urgency of organizing a boycott/demonstration against the RIAA. I am going to go order a bunch of anti-RIAA stickers.
Now a summary for those who are too lazy to read full sentences (oops!) :
RIAA : FUCK YOU.

-Fred

Did you know that if downing 4 bottles of S kyrocket Flavored syrup from ThinkGeek would kill the average human? It well goes over the LD50 of caffeine.

Did you know that if downing 4 bottles of S kyrocket Flavored syrup from ThinkGeek would kill the average human? It well goes over the LD50 of caffeine.

The chart in the story shows Jolt as the highest caffeine, 72mg in 12oz. Well, don't forget about Bawls!, it has 80mgs in a 10oz bottle! I drink this stuff when its "one of those mornings" or I want to go to a show or club and I just don't think I will have the energy. You'll know when it kicks in (and you'll definetly know when it starts to wear off)!

To purchase some of your own Bawls, check out ThinkGeek but I highly recommend against buying from BeveragesDirect, they don't answer the phone and forget to ship stuff...

Geoffeg

Bah. If you want a real caffeine fix have a Jolt, and use it to wash down some Energy mints.

Hey, are we wired yet? :)
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Bah. If you want a real caffeine fix have a Jolt, and use it to wash down some Energy mints.

Hey, are we wired yet? :)
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Yeah, it would seem that someone left off a closing quote when writing their HTML. Try purchasing the book at ThinkGeek as I'd expect it'll work better than a large Katz article... And someone on the editing staff, add the " to the end. Honestly, <a href="http://www.thinkgeek.com>ThinkGeek</a> ? Such poor HTML skills. :)

Actually, so that my post gets moderated up :) maybe I should also note that thinkgeek has a similar product, though for a little more money.

Actually, so that my post gets moderated up :) maybe I should also note that thinkgeek has a similar product, though for a little more money.

Technology does breed advances in productivity - but those advances get fed right back into the technologial loop. Indeed, at this time advances in productivity are not enough at this time to sustain the required exponentail growth curve. W need productivity-enhancing technologies that enable us to increase our prodictivity to the point where we actually work smarter, not harder.

Some of those technologies are appearing today, here and here, but it will take a while before they actually get implemented in the marketplace. In the meantime, expect people to work longer hours trying to sustain the exponential growth curve that is the foundation of our booming economy.

Technology does breed advances in productivity - but those advances get fed right back into the technologial loop. Indeed, at this time advances in productivity are not enough at this time to sustain the required exponentail growth curve. W need productivity-enhancing technologies that enable us to increase our prodictivity to the point where we actually work smarter, not harder.

Some of those technologies are appearing today, here and here, but it will take a while before they actually get implemented in the marketplace. In the meantime, expect people to work longer hours trying to sustain the exponential growth curve that is the foundation of our booming economy.

You don't need a Linux box to remotely administer a Win32 box. Just a phone, and this box ;)

Also check ThinkGeek

I really like that site. :)

Yeah, but if i did that, i'd have to buy a bunch of tux gear... or get a tattoo... or do SOMETHING to show off my inner linux geek... and tux gear and tattoos are expensive...

Think that was flamebait? You've obviously never met me in person...

Posted by 11223:

I have just the T-Shirt picked out for him to wear...

Posted by 11223:

I think that Katz needs to read Kurzwiel's "The Age of Spiritual Machines" - in which he explains how the technologists are like the Neo-Luddites, and are just as weary about the application of the technology. Remember, Katz, just because we're Geeks , that doesn't mean that we like all of the new-fangled e-commerce hoopla. Slaying the physical lines? We don't all stay inside all of the time. Often we'd rather go out than shop for something online. While items that were traditionally done through mail and telephone can be replaced with the computer, the computer can't replace a real-life exerience - of standing in line and talking to the chick in front of you.

will be the ones that sell something of value to consumer. In other words, take the cheapness of setting up shop on the net, buy a warehouse in the middle of kansas, and sell. In terms of getting more eyes, thats where the advertisements come in. In other words, thinkgeek is i site i'd never known about without advertising. And they make their money selling quite real stuff. Plus it doesn't help that they successfully target the right audience without asking you twenty questions [ahem - realplayer].

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Hehe, my new Summer model billboard just showed up in the mail today. In the few minutes I spent opening it and trying it on, 5 more people learned a bit about the patent office.

For a VERY on-topic link, try here.

Oh, and for those of you that don't know...the T-Shirt Economy is coming. Soon. When it's ready.

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Hey, this is great! Combine the portable PSX with a pair of Thinkgeek's I-glasses, and that silly Microsoft commercial with the stockbroker in the plaza in Russia can become a reality!

<cut to scene of business-suited man in a park, leaping around, screaming "spill your black blood, Sephiroth!" and nearly running into pedestrians, crying "no, not more zombies!">

Okay, maybe it's not so great.

- Michael Cohn

"The Adfu ad system has been replaced with a small Apache module written in C for better performance, and that too will be open sourced When It's Ready (tm). This was done to make things consistant across all of Andover.Net (I personally prefer Adfu, but since I'm not the one who has to read the reports and maintain the list of ads, I don't really care what Slashdot runs)."

Time for a new thinkgeek sticker? - "Go away, or I will replace you with a small apache module"

GoodPint

--Programmers are tools for converting caffeine into code.

I can just see it now. A manager at Google walking over to a developer's PC and seeing this sticker and saying,"Why not?"

Now all that's needed is for thinkgeek to claim responsibility for this action. :)

"Ada was Lord Byron's daughter. It is practically the law to mention this point in any discussion having a word with the letters 'ada' in it, whether or not the disussion is related to programming. She was his only legitimate daughter. Previously, he was married to his half-sister and had a kid or two. (I'd go re-read all this, but I don't want to log into my filesys on account of my laziness).

So anyway, he was the only legitimate daughter of this guy Byron (who left his sister and married someone else, hense her legitimate status).

She worked with Charles Babbage...she was the first programmer. (This line inserted in accordance with the Ada Detail Discussion Act). She worked alot...eventually she got some kind of digestive/respiratory problem.

They gave her drugs.

Literally, lots and lots of drugs. (Begin the freaky part...I'm not making any of this up). Using the finest "modern scientifik resoning methods" of the day, they treated her with a mixture of brandy, morphine, and heroine, and some other stuff. Needless to say, she became quite addicted to this stuff.

Also, she went insane (echo: insaaane). She believed she could communicate and do math with God. Eventually, she figured out that the drugs were messing with her, and quit cold turkey. To dull the pain of her many and various kinds of simultanious withdrawl, she took up gambling on horse racing. She died in debt.
.steady now
..
...wait for it
....
...........oh yeah....and they named a language after her."

RE: Perl...yeah...perl was named after that completely messed up kid in that hateful book: The Scarlet Letter

To the great and wise moderators: yeah, this is mad out of date, but I'm being force-fed Ada95 and have been waiting for an opportunity to vent in a public forum.

Probably not for Ford, but somewhere else. Isn't ThinkGeek hiring?

IMHO, the controversy wasn't about individuals fanaticly defending their rights over their "published works" but something more complex that struck a nerve with many of the Slashdot readership whether they posted to that discussion or not. (I'll try to explain my view)

WHO
I think some folks are still uneasy with the thought that Slashdot is now a very much for-profit public company. As a public company they have a lawful obligation to maximize profit for their shareholders.

Despite this, we think of Slashdot as being different and they are. If the NY Times had published the entire discussion in a special Columbine One Year Later insert, we'ld be glad to have been heard, and their use of our "copyright" material wouldn't have surprised anyone. We expect Slashdot to exist on a higher moral plane than the rest of the media, and even if it can legally be done doesn't mean it's the Right Thing. We expected to be asked our feeling on the use of readers' comments before any kind of deals were signed.

Personlly, I think asking the overall readership their opinion on the matter in a Slashdot Poll *before* announcing the book as a done deal would have resulted in an overwelming positive response and given you the informal permission you needed to proceed without getting PR whacked. After the fact now, you've got all this greif and the publication of a good book is in limbo.

HOW
If Slashdot had announced that the comments were going to be published in a $1 edition of Wired magazine there would have been less upheavel. Had /. announced that they were distributing 20,000 copies in "note-pack" bindings at this year's Comdex instead of bumper stickers, etc. there may have been only praise. - But, when you publish a "real" book for ThinkGeek, an Andover company, to sell for $14.95 - you're inevitably going to alienate some readers.

As legal as it may be, Slashdot readers don't want to be used to help Andover's bottom line without being asked nicely first. It helps us maintain our suspension-of-disbelief that your not really a for-profit concern.

I thinkg /. is doing the right thing now and I hope they're successful in getting the book to press. I hope this somehow helps some understand the tension here. I think I'm stating the obvious, but from a lot of other posts I've read, maybe not.

Go over to Thinkgeek.com and go into the Gadgets section, there's a headset there that
would work nicely with this .99 pound wonder! The Power supply would be the only problem,
it would be kind of a drag to only be able to look like Lobot on Star Wars within 10 feet or so
of a power outlet
Lots of fun
when I get money I must purchase one
KillerPenguin

I'll see your bid and raise you a small arsenal of koosh guns from ThinkGeek and one stuffed tux.

/*--Why can't I find the QNX OS on any warez sites?
* (above comment useless as of 4-26-2000)
*/

New Rider's MySQL $29.25

UPS Ground ($6.73)
UPS 3 Day Select ($8.60)
UPS Second Day Air ($11.10)
UPS Next Day Saver ($22.25)
UPS Next Day Air ($24.75)

You're looking at a minimum of $35.98.

Do some comparison shopping first at Best Book Buys before you decide.

BTW, the ISBN listed at ThinkGeek is incorrect. As the /. article states, it should be 07357-0921-1.

Barnes & Noble dot com: $39
Think Geek: $ 29
Amazon dot com: $39

I think it's trying to be a swiss army pc... speaking of swiss army... It's nifty! I promise!

The Slashdot Jon Katz review, another slashdot review by Allen Knowleton Wilson, and you can buy the book at ThinkGeek.

The Slashdot Jon Katz review, another slashdot review by Allen Knowleton Wilson, and you can buy the book at ThinkGeek.

undersized? don't you mean OVERsized shirts?

try shinymonkey, thinkgeek or copyleft.net (.com?)

T hink Geek's sticker has it with the "or".

Will you subscribe to the same set of standards set forth in your Slashdot editorial? Will you release "Gee ks" (or other writing that you have written and is not already available) on the web, free to download?

Will you open up your own intellectual property so that we can "pirate" it?

A much more difficult question, when it actually applies to your own livelihood. I think you should set an example... and I think you could still make money.

I like the idea of a gift/reward economy (my own description, not necessarily related to other gift economies) where I have free access to your ideas, when I benefit from or enjoy those ideas (or expressions of ideas, as some have rightly pointed out) I can reward you materially (typically with money).

Shareware basically works on this principle, and it is possible to make money using this strategy. However, it is not as ingrained a custom in our consumer society as I wish it would be. Perhaps this could change. The potential for abuse looms, but if technology could make the reward/gift a simple task, I would hope that the majority would not mind paying (what they could afford, or perceived the value of the idea to be).

Right now I already do this in a commerical setting. I am a rabid Phish fan, and own most of their albums. However I rarely listen to the CDs as I have gigs of live shows on mp3 that I prefer. hish encourges their live shows to be taped and freely distributed. I only wish there was a way for me to send them more money for all of the enjoyment I have received listening to their music.

With this latest in a string of stories about Amazon and their evil "1-click patent". Not to mention the numerous stories about the evils of software patents, why do we still find this in the book reviews section:

The books here are brought to us in Partnership with Amazon.com.

I'm amazed this post has a score 4, considering it seems to have even less fact checking than your average /. story.
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Ummm; it points to slashdot. The link to the ThinkGeek Geeks page is Here.

Nick Messick
nick@trendwhore.com

Here are some nice ties. :)

I'm dissapointed, so I am giving a slashdot mug to the first person to post a reply to this post, explaining in which circumstances the dates 12/14/1774 and 6/22/1462 are all-even-digit numbers. The year in the original post (1642) is wrong.
I'm serious!

Conditions:
1 - The timestamp will be the criterium.
2 - The answer is posted today.
3 - AC's will not be accepted
4 - I will talk to the winner through his e-mail, as shown in the discussion page, spam-proofing is ok.
5 - Think Geek must be able to ship the mug to the location.
6 - Most important: This message is not moderated down. (And, no, I do not have another account with moderation points)

Andover's self-referential integrity is still intact.

Andover's self-referential integrity is still intact.

1. This is a classic saga: The morning after AOL-Time-Warner-EMI a 15 year old kid takes on the New World Order. There's something seriously wrong if you're not reading about this off-Slashdot and being briefed by your Granny. Even more important than mirroring the source is mirroring the truth.

2. Who unplugged ESR and RMS and (insert 3-letter guru here)? For once, I'd like to know what they think. The media listens to them. They command influence. Typical: when you need them they're as silent as lambs.

3. ThinkGeek, where's the DeCSS t-shirt? Something like this, but without the acid-casualty background. Memorize it and grafitti it on movie posters. Mugs. Tatoos. Stickers. Screensavers. Flyers. BeerMats. The only cure for the discontents of commodification are more commodities.

4. The human spirit views censorship as damage and routes around it.

Becuase ThinkGeek is owned by Andover.net - that's why.

Who said that Andover buying Slashdot never changed anything.

Tnx for pointing out it's hot&sunny in California, it's freezing here (Belgium)!!!
But anyway... best wishes for the the happy couple
The geeks in suits could've worn a Tux-tie ;-)

It's sad to live in a world where knowing how to

Lets see if I remember my HTML.

Thinkgeek has a cool shirt if you like caffeine

I sure know I want one
---------------------------------------
The art of flying is throwing yourself at the ground...
... and missing.

You could always try the Sky Rocket Syrup , 100mg/oz. Yeah it's a syrup that is supposed to be used in coffee, talk about a double whammy, but I know of a guy that does this stuff as shots.

I was reminded of the ThinkGeek glasses. I don't drink beer, but I was just reminded of it.

Speaking of beer, what happened with CowboyNeal's beer provisions now? How about the rest of the guys?