Product Placement

In this week's show we talk about mp3.com's legal losses, Metallica vs. Napster, bad games, and, and more. If you think you can stand it, give it a listen.

Comments

Re:Lets take slashdot radio to the next step.

[Kris_J]

This idea rocks. I'd love to do an amateur radio show - it'd be a great excuse to finally buy a decent audio editing package for my PC (I used to edit audio as a job).

This could be a feature part of "my.slashdot.org" - where everyone has their own little stories, forums and an audio show...

Re:Corrections

[mindstrm]

Well.. I can attest to the fact that Xing is one of the crappier encoders. It does fine for low bitrate.. and it is very fast.. but the copies of lame I see floating around tend to work superbly.

I think lame is juts a front end.. however there are copies of it floating around with the codec attached.... faunhoffer reference code I believe..

Re:How Metallica found so many users on napster.

[swotl]

It even runs fine under Wine :)
-
sig sig sputnik

Re:Geeks in Space

[Wonko42]

Eww. I'm listening to episodes of Does Humour Belong in Technology, and no offense, but.....it's pure crap. This is the most boring radio show of any kind that I've ever heard. GiS is light years ahead of this moldy puke-inducer.

--

Free Software Song remix?

[monaco]

Did I hear right? Was there a reference to a remix of the Free Software Song? *shudder* Oh well, I'm in the mood for some cringe-inducing sounds, anyone got an url?

wait a moment...

[juzam]

i got an email about this two days ago. why wasnt this here earlier?

Re:Finally! A 'Short Circuit' Reference

[punkass]

When Steve Guttenberg finds time out of his busy, successful and legitimate movie career...oh, wait...

Where is the ASCII porn?

[Duxup]

I'm having trouble finding any good ASCII porn to send to Kurt.
Anyone know of a good source of ASCII porn?

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Re:Where is the ASCII porn?

[Gone Jackal]

Just go through the archives, browsing at -1.

Re:Open Source movement == Communism.

[dsplat]

There are a couple of flaws in your logic. No wait, you simply set up straw men in place of actual logic. But here are the flaws nonetheless. Under communism, everything belongs to The People. And we all know by example that The People are the people running the government. You get no choice and you retain no rights over your work.

Now, for Open Source. To the best of my knowledge, no piece of software has been made Open Source without the consent and cooperation of the programmer(s) involved. Few people in the Open Source community insist that every program should be open sourced. What we fight for passionately is sufficient recognition for the quality of open source software that we can use it for our work. And every Open Source license I have seen is based on the premise that the author of the code can limit what it is used for. Most open source licenses grant users certain rights and prohibit any reuse or redistribution in a way that would deny those rights to anyone else.

There are a fair number of hard core libertarians in Open Source. I suspect both communists and libertarians are over-represented here. There is certainly some tension between the groups. But we seem to agree that people can largely be trusted with our software if we spell out our intensions formally through a license. How many lawyers are there out there enforcing open source licenses full time? How many bureaucrats dedicate their days to protecting the intellectual property of the open source movement?

Communism is merely one of the formal definitions of a theory of left-wing anarchy. Free Software is compatible with a lack of central authority. Thus, it is compatible with communist theory. It is also compatible with anarcho-capitalism. But, as has been amply demonstrated, it can thrive in any environment where no one has the power to seize it and deny others continued use of it.

Good anime...

[the phantom]

Okay, you've seen Dragon Ball Z, you think its neat -- the pinicle of animation -- here are some others that you will enjoy:

• Anything by Hiyao Miyazaki [sp?] -- ie Mononoke Hime or Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
• Vampire Hunter D -- vampires in a distant future. It's fun, really.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion -- yes, they talked about it, I just thought I would voice my argeement. A great series, though the ending is best seen while high :)
• Any of the Gundams -- I think Cartoon Network is wrapping up Gundam Wing right now, but I don't have cable, so I don't know for sure.
• Dragon Half -- This is a must see!
• I suppose Akira and Ghost in the Shell ought also be included in a list of anime that one should see, they helped to popularize it in the US.
• The whole Robotech/Macross saga. Sure, there hundreds of episodes, but GIANT MECHA! How can you say no?

I can't think of anything else right off, but there is a lot of great stuff out there and I always get rather disturbed when people talk of Drangon Ball Z, Pokemon, or Sailor Moon as great anime! These add something to the genre (I don't know what that is, but they must add something),but there is good anime out there that dwarfs these; ie shojo like Child's Toy or (god forbid you should ever see this) I'll Make it a Habit for cuteness; Kite or Black Lion for shear bloody violence; Nausicaa or EVA for philosophy.

Please people -- go out and see some really good anime. It will make your life worth living again!

-----
Vikhozhu odin ya na darogu;
Skvoz' tuman kremnisti put' blectit;
Noch' tikha. Pystinya vnemlet bogu,

Re:opinions

[medicthree]

If it's alright for them to make a profit, why can't companies like mp3.com have ads in a linux bootup?

First of all, if you go back and actually read the thread you're mentioning, you'll see that the vast majority of comments that are high-scoring are ones that basically are expressing ambivalence (and even acceptance) of the "advertising" in the boot sequence. Second, the issue at hand in that thread was very very different from Slashdot's situation. The whole idea of the linux kernel is that it's open, free, and to a certain extent anti-commercial. That is not the point of slashdot. The point of slashdot is not to be anti-commercial. Slashdot never claimed to be against advertising, whether it be on the site or elsewhere. Posting and article questioning the encroachment of advertising on something that was (or at least seemed to be) up to that point advertising-free is in no way hypocritical. So I don't think your analysis of that situation is even close to fair.

Re:J. Edgar Hoover is a *perfect* example.

[small_dick]

that, and he looked good in a short skirt with high heels.

Slashdot poll suggestion

[PollMastah]

Who do you think best fits the job for producing Geeks in Space?

1. CmdrTaco is doing a good job, let him continue.
2. Hemos (and yes these two options are deliberately separate to provoke flamewars)
3. JonKatz, the Geek Wannabe ;-)
4. Natalie Portman, Slashdot's favorite actress
5. OOG THE OPENSOURCE CAVEMAN
6. Bill Gates. After all, he's been the center of countless geek debates on Slashdot recently, and some of his software is way out in space ...

Bitch Needs a Makeover...

[Anonymous Elf]

Blonds have more fun...

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Stalinism and the Cult of Personality

[Anonymous Coward]

It's clear enough what these "geeks" are trying to accomplish: They're attempting to foster a personality cult. Once they have your unquestioning "respect" (a.k.a. fawning obedience), they'll start superimposing their own self-interested agenda on the Open Source movement. This is worse than Stallman, because Stallman at least has principles. The Slashdot guys have no principles at all other than self-glorification. They'll do whatever it takes to inflate their egos and their wallets. You may not think they can do much damage, but wait until they have the kind of influence they want: You'll find that some of your favorite OSS projects are "out of favor"; their favored distro will get ten times the publicity and attention that it deserves.

We don't need this kind of centralization. Linus can be trusted with his power; Malda can't. It's that simple.

Re:How Metallica found so many users on napster.

[AdamJ]

If you want to connect to a particular Napster (Or OpenNap) server - and you run windows - you could always try Napigator.

Adam

Top X Signs Napster is Destroying the Universe

[RimRod]

1) Metallica now suing everyone who has ever played one of their CDs in a public place, ever, without paying royalties.

2) US bombs Iraq--not because they were closing oil lines, because they wouldn't play nice and upload their MP3s.

3) Sex has been renamed "Doin' the Napstah".

4) College campuses attempt to ban public libraries, as since they freely loan and collect books without a hidden agenda they must be evil.

5) In a desperate attempt to quiet the whole situation and appease the masses, the music industry announces that for the next 24 hours only, there will be a special "Buy 100, Get 1 Free!" sale on CDs made prior to 1985.

6) All references to "The Force" are replaced by "The Napster" in the Holy Trilogy. <I>Use the Napster, Luke...</I>

How Metallica found so many users on napster.

[Garak]

There are more than one napster server, there seems to be like 100 or so. And they are not linked like irc servers.
I connected one of my computers to napster then the other, I connected to napster over 100 times trying to copy all my mp3's from one to the other and I think I was on a diffrent server every time because of diffrent people in the chatrooms. I never did find my other user.
That number of users you see is only whats connected to that server. Same goses for the number of gigs online.
Connect and reconnect a few times, watch the numbers go up and down for each server.

Re:Open Source movement == Communism.

[cburley]

I hate to tell you this guys, but for those of you who think Open Source != Communism, you are sadly mistaken. You can continue to delude yourself but it doesn't make it any less true. People who want to "open source" hardware, ALL proprietary software, and now radio and probably TV and music? Why not just come out and say it? All property should be community property and everyone takes whatever they need from others.

Okay, everyone all together now: "All property should be community property and everyone takes whatever they need from others."

There, feel better?

No, you're right, there's no such thing as the "excluded middle" in logic, so you must be right that anyone who doesn't argue for the most extreme forms of intellectual property (what I like to call "intellectual privilege", for a variety of reasons, e.g. the gov't takes it away after a fairly limited amount of time and places into the public domain -- kinda like how it treated Elian Gonzalez, heh ;-) must therefore be arguing for the most extreme forms of communism.

You want MS Office 2000? No prob, just download it. MS wants a copy of your latest program? No problem, they download it. Clinton wants the latest copy of Playboy? No problem, he breaks into a magazine shop and takes it. Want free Internet access? No problem, just crack passwords and dial up.

Let me get this straight. You're saying these things aren't happening now?? "According to Janet Reno and Clinton lawyer Bob Bennett, the magazine shop had been given more than enough time to liberate the latest issue of Playboy, so the use of force to obtain 10 copies of that issue for `important White House activities relating to a dire shortage of interns' was way past due, justifying the raid of the store by 50 BATFP agents." -- ABC News, 2000-07-09.

Communism doesn't do anything for people but use them as slaves for the sake of fattening the government and the people in power..

Gee, almost like how America's supposedly "compassionate" combination retirement-home, health-care-facility, and mental-ward otherwise referred to as "The Federal Government", post-FDR anyway? (Okay, you don't quite have to be among the elite ruling class in the USA to enjoy a top-flight lifestyle while you're forced to pay for the stupid, avoidable mistakes made by people you've never met by a government that has never really cared...but it sure helps to be friendly with that elite, if you don't want your stock valuations sued out from under you.)

i.e. look at the Soviet Union and Fidel Castro in Cuba. NOTHING good has ever come out of communism. NOTHING.

Oh, come on. What about hockey? Ballet? "Hot Cuban Chicks", as the wags put it? You think Russians and Cubans would naturally have come up with these things without the direct intervention of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, and the helpful influence of Mao, Pol Pot, etc.? Keep in mind most of the very best hockey players and ballet dancers would have been couch potatoes like me ("I coulda been a contendah!", says I) if it weren't for the prospect of becoming a mere statistic in the latest Communist-sponsored "mass re-education"....

Remember that open source kiddies.

Remember that open source kiddies what? Did you run out of money before you could buy a verb or something?

This whole stupid movement will collapse like the ponzi scheme it is when people realize that they may want to get PAID to do the WORK that they HAVE done in case they some day want to retire without living in a complete [****]hole on a meager social security or welfare income.

Ah, but by the time we retire, our leaders will have Taken Over, the Great RMS will rule the world, and he will give each of us of the crumbs of his great wealth and power! Can't wait to run NASA, the National Weather Service, and The Weather Channel, myself...or did you think I wrote GNU Fortran because I actually write in that hackforsaken language?? Hahahahahaha!!

Pouvre, pouvre Kurt.

[Gone Jackal]

Damn...it's now $5 for an indulgence for listening to Geeks in Space. I wonder what I'm gonna have to give for posting to the forum?
At least it's not one of the deadly sins...

Memories...

[CrayDrygu]

You know what Geeks in Space reminds me of?

My high school has a radio station, and if you're lucky enough, you can get a couple of hours each week for a few months to goof off on the air. Take any episode of Geeks in Space, take out the parts where they actually talk about news, and insert some music, and you've got exactly what these high school radio shows sounded like, complete with the occasional comment about how nobody's probably listening =)

Geeks in Space

[Dark-Helmet]

I really like radio shows like these, just "everyday" people doing a radio show on what they think is important.

I do have some suggestions:

Stop saying no one is listening; Maybe its true, but hell no need to remind the people who *are* listening.

Always keep the talking limit on; No more then two people should talk at the same time.

Thats all I can think of right now. Keep up the good work.

If you really want a really polished radio station like Geeks in Space then definatelly check out Does Humour Belong in Technology?. Maybe Geeks in Space can take some pointers :)

Re:Napster - You can pick servers!

[CptnHarlock]

You have to "jump" servers. If you are looking for something in particular you keep it in the search filed and Disconnect, Connect, Search. I've heard of something called "Napigator" that lets' you choose napster servers. The servers are also named things like "Metal" and so on. There's also a page on www.napster.com for unsigned bands to promote their music or you can also meet a lot of people offering their own music on the chat channels. The reason for me being unprecise is I'm at work and I don't have Napster installed here. At school though I have my Napster running and shareing.. :-)

BTW, have you heard "Dr Dre featuring Metallica - Money, money money (Abba cover).mp3"?... j/k .. ;-P

Thank you.
//Frisco
--
"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth was Arcadia..." -Goethe