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Slashback: Rumination, Apologies, Kisses
View the meal from which the soundbite was extracted! Jim Tyre writes: "When Slashdot reported on the preliminary injunction against Napster, and then on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' stay of that injunction, a missing piece was the actual ruling by the lower court, since it was an oral ruling from the bench, and a transcript had not yet been made available. C|Net now has the transcript here, and it makes for good reading for those interested in what the court's thinking was, not just the result."
On second thought, I'd rather not dance. Andreas writes: "As reported by the Heise Newsticker The German company CMG, which threatened to sue over the use of their registered name SAMBA, has stepped down from their plans. Nice to see at least some kind of clueness."
The article is in German, but the fish renders it quite intelligible.
If you want a kiss from CmdrTaco, you must be this big ... ClubNation writes: "Empeg have released their MP3 car player download software under the GPL. Before now you could only get an i386 binary for Linux, but now the source should build on pretty much anything with GCC or another good Posix C++ compiler with STL. I've heard on the empeg BBS that it builds out of the box on PPC and someone's working on a native Mac version.
You can get the code from their Web site or from their Geek Site which is also pretty cool and has a photo of CmdrTaco and Hemos in the photo album!"
And even though companies like Aiwa and Kenwood are selling MP3 head-units, the Empeg has one of the coolest industrial designs I've seen in anything for a long time. When I am a bazillionaire, I will put the Mark XXII in my Escort;)
So, in layman's terms, what might these projects be? Robert McMillan writes: "Linux Magazine has an interview with the brand new CEO of MandrakeSoft, Henri Poole. In it, he says that Tucows has apologized to his company about the Penguin Payola controversy. Poole also hints at some new open source projects that MandrakeSoft will be sponsoring in the next year and talks about what former CEO Jacques Le Marois will be doing now."
And now it's time for a mini, mini, mini review: invisik writes: "I got my NIC (New Internet Computer) yesterday. It's definitely a Linux box, running Netscape Navigator (browser only) 4.73, in 800x600 (can't change it). Connects easily to their ISP, your ISP, or your ethernet connection (DHCP or static IP). Has some utilities to make life easier, telnet, ssh, citrix, vnc, IRC clients. Also some games, solitaire, etc, etc. Speed is good, it doesn't really have much running on it to bog it down, though. And there's a little red light that flashed when it seen network activity--pretty cool. Not too bad for $199 if you really need some decent connectivity to your office (ssh/citrix/telnet) which I'd guess most other Internet terminal-type devices lack ..."
I'd think having the source would be great if you buy the player, and want to encode with something else besides MP3 later on (I've forgotten the name of the mp3 replacement /. has stories on from time to time).
You could also change the menus around, and really tweak the whole system however you liked!! If only you could do that with every product you buy...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Indeed, 'nature abhors a vacuum,' and 'some things are too good to last.' Napster served an important and positive market function by responding to a new media and demand. It stimulate market interest in soft copies of a vast resource of older music that existed below the threshold of profitablilty. Now that the corporate world (and thus the legal world) have taken attention to this new frontier, Napster will fade away and the Columbia Music type services will pave-over this once wild eutopia.
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
you mean ogg vorbis?
The problem with your comment is that you seem to confuse law with ethics. Whats legal may be unethical and whats illegal may be ethical.
No, this is not a problem with the previous comment. It's not the job of the courts to enforce ethics, and I would be terrified if it was. Imagine you're a woman who has an unwanted pregnancy. You go to a clinic and get an abortion, which is completely legal. Next thing you know you're in court being sentenced by a judge and jury who believe what you did was unethical.
The question of ethics came into play before Napster opened their service. They had to decide whether the Napster service was ethical. It came into play when the RIAA decided to sue them. The RIAA had to decide if Napster was ethical. If they found Napster to be ethical, they had to decide if it was ethical to sue them for doing something ethical. Once RIAA decided to sue, ethics became irrelevant. It's now a question of law, and law alone.
That's what the courts are there for. Ethics vary from person to person, and the courts are not there to ensure you are treated ethically. They are there to ensure you are treated fairly. To ensure that you are treated exactly the same as anyone else in your position would be, and in a manner that is set in writing so there should be no doubt of what will happen to you. If you feel they have failed in this, point out their failures in terms of places where they failed to comply with the law, not places where you feel they acted unethically.
IMHO NC's are the concept, not the ultimate result (so to speak)
Yes, NC's are a GREAT idea for the average person who wants to use a computer for things like research, general web browsing, and even some word processing, but in their current form yes I do think they are too limited.
What I think we need to focus on is not "How stupidly simple can we make this?" but rather "How stupidly EASY can we make this?" Some of you might be saying "What? that's the same thing!" no, it's not.
You can make it stupidly easy without making it simple... the "easy" part needs to be in the User Interface, NOT the components themselves (although a quick redesign of the way a few things connect to eachother would be advisable *cough*jumpers*cough*POWER CABLES*cough*) because if we make the very lowest levels of the computer extreamly simple, we may wind up with a sitation where there is an abundant supply of computers for the average person, but few for someone like me, who can't STAND not being able to screw up my system easily :)
And one other thing: the case, please for the love of god make computer cases easier to open and shut :)
Why do you keep posting the same thing over and over? Your point of view is incredibly myopic and serves to prevent the growth of computing. Rather than insist that we use your computing model of the itty bitty desktop, why not let us get on with the business of working from our lame terminals which hook up to the real machines?
So what about the person who has a little brother nagging him to let him play SimRoadKill while mom is telling him to hurry up so she can check her e-mail while dad is asking for the computer so he can check the prices of gizmos at buy.com... that person is not going to get his history paper written at all. And those other folks are going to have to wait... But I know! We'll buy them all PCs, we're RICH!
I do not have a signature
I've been maintaining the NICfit site, and one of the concepts I've been toying with has been to create "personality discs" for the NIC. I'm thinking the NIC is going to catch on, once they're ready to meet demand, and their current OS catches up with the others (it looks like they were planning on Mozilla, but Mozilla fell short, so they hacked in Navigator 4.73...), but I can see a whole lot of uses for a machine like this that are as easy as flipping a new disc in the drive. I don't think the hardware is ready for games, per se, but certainly there's more than one group out there who'd like to make their configuration management a little easier by burning a copy of a Linux install that can't be hacked...
The other project we've got designs on is a kernel with NFS and SMB, mpg123, busybox, and so on, to run in flash and free up the CD-ROM for MP3s as well. There's room for more, certainly, such as support for any cheap, USB-based wireless options that show up with Linux support.
The thinknic-tech and thinknic lists on eGroups are dreaming up new NIC projects, and I'm keeping track of them on the NICfit projects page...
Yes to static IPs... yes to no keyboard too.
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
Not necessarily. Netscape has the option to download all mail on connect, leave messages on the server and to delete on server when deleted locally. This all would mean that email could be stored onto a virtual disk that could be reset each time you turned the system on.
"I'll take the red pill. No! Blue! AAAaaaahhhhhhhhh"
- Monty Python meets the Matrix
Napster has definitely violated the letter of the law, [All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication, hiring, lending public performance, and broadcasting is a violation of applicable laws.]
But Napster hasn't duplicated, hired, lent public performance, or broadcast anything. All Napster has done is taken information created by users, (file indexes and connection information) stored that information in a large database, and made that database available for queries by users.
There is apparently some law that forbids contributing to copyright infringement. I don't like that, but it kind of makes sense. It's illegal to be an accomplice in a murder, why not make it illegal to be an accomplice in a copyright violation?
There is also apparently another law (fair use) that says that in certain circumstances, you can make copies of copyrighted material without it being infringement. This, it seems, is the key to Napster's legal defense. The problem is that fair use is a very complex and somewhat subjective law. I would like to see this law, preferrably condensed into some simple for that I could understand, since I suspect the full text of it contains much legal terminology I would be unfamiliar with. But what I am clear on, is that intent is important in fair use, so intent is relevant to Napster's defense.
Unfortunately, it sounds like their intent was pretty bad. The impression I get is that several internal documents were submitted as evidence in which Napster founders talk about how they expect it to be used chiefly as a piracy tool. This brings me back to wondering about whether the manufacturers of radar-detectors expect them to be used cheifly to avoid cops while speeding, but perhaps they actually are illegal, and the government has simply chosen not to prosecute.
Before I read this article, I was completely convinced that the courts should find in Napster's favor. But the judge made some excellent points, and I was unaware of the internal letters. Now, I think I have changed my mind a bit. If Napster was founded in any spirit other than to profit from piracy, then I would side with them. As it is, I think they should have come up with some research to show that they have actually helped RIAA, and convinced RIAA not to sue in light of this research, or convinced the judge that they have not caused RIAA any damages. It appears they attempted the latter, and were unsuccessful. Either their research was flawed, or the judge was in error. I must say I don't have all the facts needed to decide which.
If their research really was invalid, then Napster really is essentially intent on stealing from the RIAA (albeit in a very roundabout way) and they should pay damages and cease their illegal activity. If their research was valid, then I feel this, not fair use, should be their key argument (that no damages gives no cause for lawsuit) both in the current suit and the appeal, and I hope the judge finds in their favor.
Yes. Bug netzero to release it. It exists. It works on Linux. You can only get it with the NIC right now.
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
... then Oracle (or another LJE bootstrapped company) will keep reinventing the NIC over and over and over again, until Windows dies the death it deserves.
:-)
Not that I hate windows mind you, I actually use it on most of my machines (in large part because X is such a pain to get running on anything but "known" video cards...), but as Larry has suggested the quality of the software leaves a lot to be desired. Just try running ~4 dozen processes and see what happens to process startups and response time... Microsoft is "working" on this bug as I type...
Do you think the NIC only runs in a constrained video mode because they couldn't figure out how to configure X otherwise...
Seriously though, if it puts the net into the hands of young people it is a big step forward.
1) DVD: replace the CD with one. it's just a laptop CD drive.
2) It'll do 1024x768, just not the stock CD version. they went for 'common' monitor size/freq
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
It's far too late to complain about that. I had people complaining about all the clueless newbies when I got on the Net in 1988. Face it - it's september all year round now.
That's your job, to educate. I've rescued many people from AOL, and gotten them onto free services or with real ISPs. But sometimes they are too far gone, and don't want to abandon their AOL e-mail address. Sort of like the way old prisoners become attached to the prisons they are in.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
That's the one I was thinking of - and I like the wireless connection as well...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What's this about a small set of repetitive tasks? This system is powerful enough for full remote access to hosts, and that means you can run anything you want.
Not at all. If you come out with a similar box, upgrading would be easy. If anything, this make the 'computer' a truly appliance like thing.
Gee, I'm not locked into my toaster, or my oven, am I? I can junk the NIC and get something else IF something else is better. Remember, I'm not storing anything on the NIC (except a few bookmarks etc) So I'm totally free to use anything else instead. Try that on the average computer (Oh, I need to backup 10 gigs before I send my computer in to be replaced/fixed. Oops)
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
been done. I have an old Sigue Sigue Sputnik album with ads dor ID magazine And Vidal Sassoon Hair stuff.
When someone yells "Stop" or goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over.
It comes with ssh, telnet, VNC, citrix, irc, and you can Xhost +/- it, so you can use it as a Xterminal.
It's missing a few toys (network sound, etc) but give them some time. It DOES include mpg123 and an ogg player too.
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
Webmail for now. Hotmail or Yahoo, for instance.
I understand the plans include adding an IMAP mail program (no local storage, so POP tends to be out)
That is one beauty of this: get a CD in the mail, and bingo, you are upgraded. So adding a IMAP program wouldn't be too hard.
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
Control alt delete will do this (kill netscape and restart)
Also, just reboot, it only takes 1-2 minutes to reboot.
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
Done, asked for, it's coming. They will throw it onto a ftp site ASAP....
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
You could probably repackage the iMac as a network computer for $325... maybe call it the iSore.
MJP
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
it already has 10/100 ethernet!
...it had a cd player/ripper with it. I'd love to buy a new cd, go to the car and have it copied and saved to my car's hard-drive while driving home listening to it. Then I just leave the cd at home and listen to it whenever i want while the car has it too.
-WG
"America, I smoke marijuana every chance I get."
i've been running mandrake now for several months. everything was running rather well and i was quite impressed compared to other distro's i've tried... the red hat compatibility is nice - especially for rpm's when it comes down to dependencies and such... but yes - supermount is VERY nice... until this last week where my old FAT32 harddrive that i just haven't bothered to format yet is no longer recognized by supermount for no reason whatsoever.. and now i can't get it to mount the traditional way. argh. i think it may have just died. :)
if only on the install it would properly install my GLdrivers it would be perfect :)
The makers of this heinous product have given the common criminals of the world a fairly powerful method of drug storage and distribution. Ziplocs not only keep the drug in, but also keep out moisture! They help you to avoid being caught by limiting the odors that the drug emits. They can be used as a protective device when smuggling drugs in your intestinal tract!
It's about time they were sued for contributory drug trafficking. Either A) They'd lose, and we'd no for sure that freedom is dead or B) They'd win, and we'd have proved the absurdity of the Napster suits. A manufacturer or programmer should be held liable for direct damage from the product. (Ziplocks coated with benzene before packaging would kill people, and it'd be there fault, but it would be your fault if you stored crack in it.) Likewise, Napster should be responsible if their software is actually a virus, but not if other people violate the law. What happened to the common carrier concept?
The way telephone companies preserve their rights and avoid liability is by not censoring anything. As soon as they do, they become liable for anything they don't censor. By simply carrying any sound, they aren't forced to be police. That's what the police are for.
Sue ziploc!! together we will win the battle against stupid lawsuits (or possibly just get lots of cash from ziploc).
Q:Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A:All my autopsies have been performed on dead peop
From the page:
wmNetscapeKiller is a WindowMaker dockapp for killing Netscape when it freezes (so many times) !
Just one click on this dockapp : Netscape will be shut down and restart ! You can now (version 0.3) specify the program to kill and if you want to restart it or not.
What i really wonder about where this box is concerned is if the bios can be convinced to boot the 4 megs of flash.
I mean, since it includes netscape and realplayer, it's probably Cyrix MediaGX or Geode based. So it's pretty plain jane stuff.
The "4 megs EEPROM" is probably some sort of linear disk-on-chip. I have access to programmers for those sorts of things at work, and 4 megs is plenty to boot a minimal (say, router & mp3) system.
Does anybody have info on the guts and the bios?
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
Everyone keeps bashing their decision to include Netscape as their browser. While Netscape is not perfect, I would like to know what they SHOULD have used.
MS Internet explorer? Only in fantasy land, since they are running Linux
Mozilla? They would never want to use a product still in beta
Opera? Perhaps, but its not as familiar to people.
Lynx? Yeah, right.
So, what SHOULD they have used? I think Netscape was probably their best choice.
I don't need no steenkin sig...
Hey,
I wondered about this... by my testing, it looks like you were right. Here's what I did:
I had to find a relitavely popular website. One that had publicbly viewable stats. I went for http://www.geocities.com/walters_mission/. If you look at the site, apparently it had, like, a million hits so it seems like a good stats source to me. Obviously, it isn't a totally representative cross-section of teh internet-using population, but it's good enouth for our reasons.
Decided on this site, I looked at it's system stats. Here are the stats for Resolution.
Res -> Count -> % of total
800x600 -> 139348 -> 41.32%
1024x768 -> 124705 -> 36.98%
1280x1024 -> 23333 -> 6.92%
1152x864 -> 17569 -> 5.21%
640x480 -> 17142 -> 5.08%
Other -> 9909 -> 2.93%
1600x1200 -> 5170 -> 1.53%
So yes, most people do use 800x600, but 1024x768 isn't at all far behind. 16bpp was the top colour depth too. Good call.
Michael
...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
I installed a 2.5" HDD in my NIC and, with a bit of BIOS tweaking, I was able to get 1024x768x16bit color.
BTW, yes they do, if they distribute it in any manner, they have to give source. Go read the GPL.
They modified blackbox, they will give sources for it. They didn't modify VNC (for instance) they must still give sources for it.
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
Historical point? In the early days Xerox was like Napster. They got a percentage of every copy made. It wasn't until the Japanese started making cheap copy machines that Xerox dropped that. See Dealers Of Lightning".
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
The judge in this case is not given a responsibility to decidde ethics, only law. Our current law does not recognize the ethical value of destroying large corporations...
In smaller cases, internet copyright infringement has already shut down smaller businesses. And the RIAA's entire point is that people are downloading songs/albums that they would have bought otherwise. That is the issue that the judge must rule on.
Fair use does not permit you to copy an entire work. Read "The letter U and the numeral 2: Fair Use and copyright." by the band Negativland. Tone Loc was sued by Van Halen for the use of a guitar riff from "Jamie's Crying". Just a riff! Not the whole song.
But it looks as though we might as well be debating the existance of God...
Actually, at the prices good computer speakers go for nowadays, I get the little bookshelf stereos and hook them up. At $200, they're pricey, but less than the Bose acoustimass....
Add ihn the Auto DJ feature or a good playlist, it's better than a CD player at parties....
Try radar detectors then. I mean what can you say about a product with the brand name "Fuzzbuster"? It would be as if Napster had decided to name themselves "MusicThief" instead.
anyone know if NIC can mount nfs partitions... Also can it remeber them and automatically mount them on boot up (/etc/fstab)? Also I'm assuming you can boot any bootable cdrom... which means you can make your own custome OS right?
They misunderestimated me. -- George W. Bush
That's one of the primary reasons it has those nifty RCA's and separate power supply, so you can plug it in and use it at home. One of these suckers would be just fantastic for a small Party DJ business, by the way.
I've been called a "Fucking Dick" by better people than you.
Network Solutions, Inc
.com top-level domain isintended for use by for-profit corporations.Many such corporations are registered with Network Solutions, and this policy is unchanged.
.gov domain for organizations that are in fact governmental agencies, it was determined felt that this would not be appropriate.
505 Huntmar Park Drive
Herndon, VA 20170
April 1, 2000
Mr. Jeff Bezos
President and Chief Executive Officer
Amazon.com, inc.
P.O. Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226
Subject:Application for Renewel of amazon.com domain name
Dear Mr. Bezos:
We recently received your application for renewal of the"amazon.com" domain name for your company, Amazon.com, inc.Unfortunately, we must reject your application, and assign you an alternate domain name instead; for the reasons outlined below.
As you are no doubt aware, the
However, it has come to our attention, as evidenced by recent SEC filings on behalf of Amazon.com, inc., that your company has yet to turn a profit.As such, Amazon.com, inc. no longer qualifies for a domain name in the ".com"hierarchy.However, based on your financial performance, you do qualify for membership in the ".org" domain; which is intended for non-profit organizations.Unless there are any objections from you or your representative, Network Solutions will assign Amazon.com, inc. the new domain name "amazon.com.org". (We would have assigned the shorter "amazon.org" domain, but that domain is currently assigned to a website for the San Fransisco lesbian community.)
To be frank; we were gravely concerned about the amount of money that amazon.com, inc. has been losing.We were seriously considering assigning a name in the ".gov" domain based on the current rate that your corporation is losing money.However, as Amazon.com, inc. is a publicly-traded corporation, and policy reserves the
This change in your domain name registration only affects your Internet domain name as assigned by Network Solutions; and no way impairs your right tocontinue to do business under the trademark of "Amazon.com".If and when Amazon.com, inc. becomes a profitable enterprise; we willbe happy to reconsider granting you once again the domain name "amazon.com", assuming it is still available.
This change shall take effect within the next thirty (30) days, at which point the "amazon.com" name will be decomissioned.You have until then to notify customers and business partners.Effective immediately, and for the length of the thirty-day transition period; both names wlll be registered to Amazon.com, inc.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact our customer service department.
Sincerely,
Jim Rutt
Chief Executive Officer
Network Solutions, Inc.
)
I'm wondering if there would be any problems running FreeBSD on this thing. I'm guessing not.
/.
What I'd like to do is to make a custom FreeBSD boot CD that mounted / and a swap partition via NFS. The only difficulty I see would be making a custom boot CD that mounted its NFS mounts after booting the kernel. The stock Linux-based CD appears to use the CD as
I'm guessing, since the NIC uses a software modem, that FreeBSD users would be limited to ethernet, since USB modem support under FreeBSD is not ready for mainstream use at this time. This probably wouldn't be a big deal, though.
Add a USB NIC (like the LinkSys EtherFast 10/100 that I have on this laptop) and you'd have a cheap little firewall/router.
Perhaps in future versions, they will add boot-over-network support to the BIOS so that one can forgoe the CD-ROM completely. This would be wonderful for college computer labs, where you needed to deploy hundreds of cheap machines quickly.
Oracle is going to keep reinventing the "Network Computer" until people decide to actually start buying them, aren't they?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Wouldn't it be possible, then, to burn your own CD with the modifications to XF86Config?
I'm guessing that the reason why invisik couldn't get his/her NIC to run at a higher resolution is because the XF86Config file has 800x600 only and since its on a read-only CD, it can't be changed. I'm sure if you burned your own CD with an improved XF86Config, that this would not be a problem. What kind of graphics board only supports 800x600x16? A 1Mb card? I'll bet it has something better.
.... whackin' yer cluestick? :)
Today I didn't even have to use my AK; I got to say it was a good day -- Icecube
My question is, since it's got USB, can I not expand the storage to use it to store my own data with say a Zip 250? IMHO it would have been smart to include drivers of popular USB storage devices so that one can download their own APPS.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
This is what Netscape probably will be good for.
Except for the usual crashes it makes a good mailing program.
Sorry to hear about your problems with Mandrake. I bought 7.1 ( $30 bucks..can't beat that ) a few weeks ago and had it installed and running in about a half hour. The install was the most painless install I've ever had. It found my parallel zip drive and created a mount point for it, it configured X perfectly for my generic video card and generic monitor... the only thing it missed was my network card. (non PCI so I couldn't blame it). I gave it an A++ for the install.
The only problem I've had was when I used Drakconf to try to change my resolution. It flaked out pretty bad and I had to hack the XF86Config by hand to get X back...All in all I would recommend Mandrake to anybody who wants to try Linux, especially a newbie.
Possession of legal software such as Napster should only be punished when a crime is proven to have been committed.
logan
A close look at the website of the NIC box reveals that they are using a PCTEL softmodem. Anyone knows whether such linux drivers are generally available (PCTEL said they wouldn't sell to the public)?
The review indicated that only the web browsing component was installed, ergo no Communicator...that's what I'm confused about.
http://www.com.org is already taken, so you cannot designate amazon.com.org to them. You are an ingrate, but a somewhat amusing ingrate.
From the ruling:
This is a bad sign: clearly Judge Patel has never actually used Napster.
-
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Give me liberty or give me something of equal or lesser value from your glossy 32-page catalog.
In the case of Slim Jims, they are used frequently for legal purposes. It would be difficult to argue that 99.97% of Slim Jim use is illegal. A lot of criminals do use them, but it doesn't make up the overwhelming majority of use in the same way that Napster is overwhelmingly used for illegal purposes.
Napster does have a legal use, but very, very, very (very, very) few always use it legally and that's unlikely to change.
--
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
Yep, our chief tech has an Airport Bridge in his Miata, connected to his empeg, and can download music to it as if it were on the local net. There are lots of potential applications for this technology, which is backed up with a neat wakeup and task schedule facility (so you can do timed stuff without running your car battery flat).
Example - get your PC to drag down internet news or market reports before you wake up and transfer them to your car, for listening on the morning commute.
rob@empeg.com
-- Freddie Starr ate my empeg
One shoplifter is a criminal.
A hundred shoplifters is a jail.
A thousand shoplifters is a prison.
A nation of shoplifters- is a new law.
Politicians forget this at their peril. Judges? Judges don't need to understand it- it's not really their place to change the rules so ostentatiously. The politicians are the ones who have to be aware of situations like this.
Expect it to continue to be a hot topic-for-the-common-man and great potential-vote-getter. Already politicians are looking askance at the RIAA side for making absurd claims (such as that the Home Recording Act means nothing and conveys no permissions to copy). Add to this the amount of cheap positive publicity available to politicians aligning themselves with that 'nation of shoplifters', many of whom may be perfect selfish one-issue voters, and there's little chance the rules will remain the same.
Considering the quantity of beer consumed by college students, pleading poverty doesn't hold a whole lot of water though. It also doesn't excuse copywrite violation, music isn't a necessity and the radio is free as are most local bands if you bother to go to the bars where they play.
> On that note, where's the ability to read email?
Er, stick a paper clip in the CDROM hole. Take out the CD. Put in whatever bootable CD you want (Linux, windows, BSD, ProDOS-86...). Intentionally or not, they've allowed the things to be easily hackable.
-------
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
Particularly troubling is the Court's assertion that a personal computer does not constitute a home audio recording device. This could raise the issue of recording MP3's for personal use could come under fire. Besides that, since a PC can be (and commonly is) used to record audio, I think it falls well into the definition of a Home Audio Recording Device. If you doubt it's common, why does Windows include Sound Recorder??
That one comment is enough to make me a bit wary of the Judge's technical understanding of what is at stake in the Napster trials.
All of that said, I do think Napster et al will have a hard time showing that their primary purpose is noninfringing -- they shot themselves in the foot by advertising thier capacity to allow users to infringe. I think it would be in thier best interest to show why someone who legally owns a song (i.e. on CD) would download rather than rip an MP3. I think that case could be made: with my DSL, I can download a song much faster than I can rip and encode!
--
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
You know I had a thought about Imac's earlier and your post reminded me of it...
6 (or 7) years ago my high school (which I was a junior in way back then) finally upgraded their computers to something a bit more modern and bought newer macs to replace their aged aple IIe's. These PC's were one unit (monitor and cpu/inards in one box) and only had a keyboard that could conenct to them (they even lacked network ports). They also only had a CD-rom drive and floppy...
The thought is besides the support for USB (which had yet to be invented then) and the fact they had a floppy (which was required for the schools use, becuase of those tiny 500 Mb HD's mostly) they were just like Imacs without the funky colored cases... So why was the Imac a 'new' concept...? Funky colors? Lack of that floppy? USB?
Maybe it's just me, but I don't see those as being soemthign that make the Imac new and not the same old thing made current...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Hard Drive (10GB) $99
:-\
Monitor (15") $129
Motherboard (Cheapo) $99
$327, just under the price of your "Full blown
computer". Where do you shop? You must get
some great deals.
Just wanted to say, I've found when visiting non-english sites that FreeTranslation works better than the Fish. http://www.freetranslation.com for those interested.
For the last time, PIN Number and ATM Machine are redundancies!
I don't think any of them are ... what you would call without flaw.
The judge specifically denies the validity of the evidence claiming Napster harmed record sales; he also denies the validity of the evidence claiming Napster helped record sales. This evidence was not part of his decision.
You're the biased one, my friend. You misread that one quite badly.
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
In answer to your question, my original half-assed idea would be that, if you'd developed a product after ripping off GPL code, but added proprietary extensions to that code, you might want to distribute your derivative product as freeware, to build up a user base who could then be locked in. But you'd want to do so anonymously, so that the FSF could never prove it was you that had distributed it (proprietary derivative works for internal use are OK). So you could pay a fee to the GPLNet gateway (me) and we'd do your dirty work, untraceably. The revenue model doesn't really work, but nor does FreeNet's.
But the really important point here is the violation of my property rights. I didn't mind this spam in the past, but they've now stolen something that belongs to me. I hold VA Linux, the owner of this site, responsible.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
also, to the people who recieved one: are the chips upgradeable?
-f
-f
www.blackant.net
all together now:
learn to love me
assemble the ways
now, today, tomorrow and always
my only weakness is a list of crimes
my only weakness is, well, never mind....
----------------------------------
What are the weapons of happiness?
"gee, imagine a Beowulf cluster of _those_."
----------------------------------
What are the weapons of happiness?
What musicians should do is start placing ads in the songs and charging advertisers for 'ears' -
That's Right! Just give the music away (with a small fee for cd's and physical media) but start each number off with a smartly targeted advert for a meal at McDonalds or whatever, paid for by McD, make it short enough that reaching for the advance button isn't worth it - and bury the ad in the song somewhere unexpected, so you've just d/l'd the latest Metallica track and say 1.25 minutes in the music fades a little and Lars comes on with a pitch for Spencers Gifts or something...... That oughta please everyone. Well, at least folks would have to go thru the trouble of editing it out and leaving a abrupt inexplicable transition so that it's obvious something was cut.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
True, but wouldn't that only work for a computer that was close to the stereo???
;) You would need to leave the PC on, but most early adopters probably wouldn't mind that too much. (And it would give me a better reason then SETI to leave my box on. :)
If you could get rid of the hard drives, and hook it up over network, you wouldn't have to duplicate mp3's to it, or need to fiddle with the computer when you didn't want to. (And let's face it, only a real geek, wants to play with the computer during a party... unless of course it's that kinda of party.
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
but I want more then they offer"
I mean, it would be nice and all to have an mp3 player in your car that couldn't play mp3s unless your car was plugged into your network.
Consider the advantages:
- No hard drive. The system cannot be corrupted by people installing software. Quite a plus for windows boxes with no access control
- Boots off a CD. Anytime your sales staff needs new software, you just issue new CDRs to everybody
- Ease of use. For example, you can always turn the thing off just by hitting the power button
Of course, this would only work for those with a small set of repetitive tasks that they need a computer for. You would also need the network resources to support it all....it's only good for Internet surfing. If they add StarOffice, you hook up a USB printer (if Linux supports them, I'm not sure, and I'm too lazy to look) and it'd be perfect as a machine for granny. They've got 490MB still left on their system CD, so it's feasable...
...wait a second...this smells fishy. Aren't they breaking GPL somehow? I know it sounds weird, but they don't give you a system SOURCE CD! RMS will be furious if he finds out about this! ;-)
All in all, that NIC is a neat idea! It even has a NIC, so you can hook up your cable modem to it as well! (Get it, the NIC has a NIC...har har har?)
----
Toora Loora Toora Loo Rye Aye
... do I need to bother mentioning it? Napster was created for the distribution of illegal music copies, and its primary function is to distribute illegal music copies. Yes, it has other uses, but they are minor and nearly irrelavent.
Ziploc was created to package food products, and its primary function is to package food products. Yes, it has other uses, but they are minor and nearly irrelavent.
Steal your music, for all I care... but don't pretend that it's the same as using Ziploc bags.
-rt-
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Uh-huh. And a POSIX SCSI cable, I suppose?
Hint: POSIX only does Unixy standards. Language specs are generally ANSI, ISO, or both.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
The point I was making is that it's not a monetary loss if the people involved wouldn't have made the purchase anyway. The very few mp3s that I have (that aren't from my own cd collection) are from cds that I would never actually pay money for.
Considering the quantity of beer consumed by college students, pleading poverty doesn't hold a whole lot of water though.
Possibly, but I'm from Australia, and most of my friends attending college won't come out to a club on the basis that they can't afford the $5 door charge. That's about the price of two glasses of beer.. not that I'd drink the stuff.
music isn't a necessity and the radio is free as are most local bands
Music is a necessity and where I'm from, radio stations means recycled top 40 tunes. I'll stick to music with taste, thanks.
At a local computer store, they're selling used PCs for $199 ($299 about 2mo ago) they're PPro/200's with 32 MB or 64 MB of ECC RAM, and 2GB or 4GB scsi disks. You can also put in another PPro if you want. $199 w/ a cheap moniter gets you close. Good luck on finding 64/4... --Josh
There are exactly 42,935,718 letter sized sheets in a square mile.
it's more of a "point" thing and will probably disappear soon, but point taken, more bass in the voice.
--
+&x
oh, and in a completely off-topic note (not that it matters) it seems moderation has been turned off in a karmic sense. good riddance.
--
+&x
I keep hearing people criticizing NC's, saying that they'll never catch on, blah blah blah.
But the concept is not at all new, it's basically the "dumb terminal" revisited, and in one form or another, this method of network computing has been used for decades, and used a lot - people just don't seem to notice it, because they don't explicitly get called NC's when they're used. For example when I was studying Comp Sci our sys admin set up a lab of 50 PC's running slackware with X, using NFS to mount home dirs off the server. In concept, that's basically a lab of NC's. This sort of thing has been in common practice for about the last 20 years, and will continue to be.
Yes, thanks for the correction. I was typing quicker than I was thinking. The Xerox sales force got some fractional percentage of the sale price of the machine for each copy made on that machine. Each machine had a counter, and every month some guy in a crisp white shirt would "read the meter".
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
The point is that no matter how cheap you remember everything else being there were other non-essential expenses. College students choose where they spend the money (and most College students I knew had extensive if estoric CD collections). If they're spending less on CD's now and there is a correlation between this and mp3 then it's pretty fair to say that mp3 hurts profits in that market segment.
Since the appeals court struck down the injunction, and in particular specifically overruled the line of reasoning that the judge was taking (that what people are doing with Napster can't fall under fair use since computers aren't audio recording devices under the law), I guess it's not so clear-cut that Napster has violated the letter of the law.
This just gives you a cheap little server you can stick in a corner, maybe give it an old 14" monitor in case you ever need to look at it, and forget about it. If you're just going to use it as a server, you're hardly ever going to look at it, so what do you need a 1600x1200 true-colour display for?
Grab.
It's my understanding that the filesystem resides primarially on the CD which is not removable during normal operations. I expect that you could NFS mount your filesystem from a server and free up the CD, but a standalone system couldn't run without the system CD in place.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
The problem with your comment is that you seem to confuse law with ethics. Whats legal may be unethical and whats illegal may be ethical. IMO copyright infringement is clearly ethical, as long as you, the copier, do not make a profit by it.
Why is it ethical? Because there are only winners here. You get something you wouldnt otherwise have, and the copyright holder loses nothing, as long as you wouldnt have bought it in case copying had been impossible.
It is different if you sell illegal copies, because then the copyright holder loses business from people who otherwise would have been paying customers.
Spam is an irritant and bandwidth-hog for all, but copyright laws are only good for a minority of the population, and bad for a majority.
And BTW, for the umpteenth time, copyright infringement != theft. Even the legal system recognizes this - thats why theres two different fscking terms for it! In theft, someone must be bereaved of something. This does not happen in case of copying. Potential profits do not qualify; if they did Acme Cola could claim you "steal" from them since you choose not to buy their cola...
Actually it is (IMO) good if a certain technology harms a large enough corporation. Large corporations are dangerous for the rights of common people, by their largeness alone. Large corporations have the depths of pockets needed for almost any kind of abuse of the system, and they have no qualms about doing so.
Corporations do not exist to serve the people, only to make profit for the shareholders, and if it can increase the profits so screw the environment, working conditions and health risk concerns. Corporations do not even have the pitiful checks and balances the political system has. IMO one of the worst mistakes of our current capitalism is that it allows corporations to become arbitrarily large. Already big business contol mainstream media and buy any laws they want, and it is sure to become worse in the future. So yes, anything harming big corporations is good.
/Dervak
It seems really cool... but surely there are better uses then a car!
Hell, with a 200MMX, I could use one that fit's in a drive bay! (Tho' if I could pay for one, I could pay for a better processor....)
Or how about a stereo??? How many mp3 devices are there for a stereo setup?
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
but I want more then they offer"
Let's be a bit more complete, eh? Case, ram, etc?
8G HD, Quantum (discontinued), new: $41
Monitor, Komodo, 15", bought new with rebate: $99
M571 mobo, Alladin, SS7, new: $27
32M PC66 SDRAM, used but tested: $34
AMD K6-II 475, used but tested: $25
Cheap mid-tower: $40
Sales Tax (Michigan): $15.96
_______________________
Total: $281.96
You can do a bit better if you pick and choose.
.sig: Now legally binding!
It was funny the first time, and ordinarily I'd
;)
'flame on' on this pass, but it has finally gotten
the recognition it deserved in the first place.
Okay, so it needs at least another +1, Funny to
get that, but it's on it's way, right?
.sig: Now legally binding!
Well, once again us poor college students are being stereotyped by everyone ner the sun. Is it any wonder that we're always protesting something?
I was one of those typical "poor college students" who spent about $200 a month on alcohol and $20 on food; I sure would have liked to get that kind of free ride from Mommy and Daddy. (And I'm not stupid enough for credit card debt, another rarity apparently.) By the time I graduated just last may I had managed to download about 3 songs off of napster, all of which I owned.
But I digress... my point is that college students are just as diverse, if not more so, than pretty much every other group out there.
At least where I went to college, I'm sure yours is/was/will be different
-Space for rent
The one problem I have with the current trend of promoting easy-to-use tools to those who need them is that the Internet is being populated by those who do not know what they are doing, are (sometimes) gullible, and cheapen connectivity for the rest of us. I know many people who think the Internet is America Online.
Mine arrived Friday. Very cool: Netscape with Flash, Realplayer. It uses a PCTEL software modem, a PCnet ethernet chip, SoundPro sound chip, SiS 5597 chipset and an SiS 7001 USB chip. The boared is a mini-ATX with a 100 Watt power supply; the case is about the size of a phone book.
The coolest part is the 4MB EEPROM - it is configured as /dev/hdb1 and the CDROM is mounted as /dev/hda. You can access the BIOS on boot-up with "delete". Setting up a dial-up connection or a LAN connection is easy. It should be trivial to replace the CD-ROM with a hard drive, but there is no room in the case.
You boot up into Netscape and remain there. The NIC uses the Blackbox window manager, but it just displays a pretty graphic in the root window - no right or left click choices to make except re-start browser.
With only 190 MB of stuff on the CDROM itself, it would be easy to add programs you want, change default values, etc., and burn a new CD-ROM. There may be some copyright issues with the NIC software, however. You should even be able to make a DOS bootable CD and load DOS-based games (Quake anyone?).
I was able to boot DemoLinux on it, but without the drivers, The sound, modem asnd ethernet wouldn't work. It would be pretty easy to hack DemoLinux to include the drivers and produce a full Linux with StarOffice.
I was able to open an xterm from my main box on teh NIC and display X apps on it remotely. It does suffer from font server problems, however. IF the video is capable of 1024x768 @ 72 Hz, it could make a great X Terminal.
I hope to have some pics up at the Peninsula Linux Users Group website before long.
What if the Hokey Pokey _is_ what it's all about?
It's definately a Linux box, running Netscape Navigator ...
Cool. Now that I have a Java webserver, I'll start working on my IPO ;)
It's as mean as kicking a puppy, but I couldn't help myself.
PDHoss
======================================
======================================
Writers get in shape by pumping irony.
Is this real? If it is, I'll bet Amazon goes for amazon.net. They are allowed to have that, aren't they?
:P
Better yet! Maybe they'll sue the lesbians for domain name squatting!
That Glad, makers of Ziplock(tm) baggies, doesn't have a list of places where you can buy drugs in their baggies.
----
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
You know, I'd pay $199 just for a nethack terminal.
--
Sony did NOT invent VHS. They invented the Betamax, which had higher quality than JVC's format. (and yes, I've done side-by-side testing, so don't try to refute the facts)
As for small Ziploc bags, their great for storing all the little figures that come with Shogun, a game no geek household should be without.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
I don't think the judge is biased in the narrow sense, but rather in the larger sense in that she is a conservative (not in the sense of 'Republican') who will simply interpret the law according to previous cases and the current laws--without regard to larger issues, such as constitutional limits on the powers of copyright, or examination of how these laws are getting out of hand. And that's not all a judge's role is, in fact. Judges can and have made larger, more sweeping, statements. But Patel isn't of that mold, I suspect. Here's a pretty key statement, in my opinion:
"I cannot essentially sit by [because the infringement is hard to justify], and plaintiffs are entitled to enforce their copyright rights and not have them infringed just because the nature of the technology is such that it's too hard to identify."
This is a fairly sweeping statement. Basically, this would allow the copyright-holders to enforce their copyrights against anything. Including the net as a whole. This is another area where the judge is not, in my opinion, considering the implications of the current state of copyright law. Also, no consideration anywhere is made of the good that the Napster service provides to the community in general. Again, a conservative and narrow view, focused on money and profit, because that's the traditional focus of this kind of case. That's not entirely Patel's fault, of course.
Another thing that interests me is the fact that intent is considered, quite explicitly, by Patel. I didn't realize that the intent of the creators of a device could have such a large part to play in the legal fate of that device. If Napster had been created in all innocence of infringement issues, would it have a stronger defense? Or can intent merely be used as ammunition for the plaintiffs? It's hard, at this point, to imagine innocence or in fact almost anything being a viable argument, based on intent, for the defense. Which again is more of a systemic issue--one that Patel is not that concerned with, in my opinion. Naturally this brings up some of the weaknesses of the judicial system in general, but I won't address that here.
So, what's next? If difficulty-of-enforcement is no defense, what networks are safe? The only real defense that the net itself has is that it is distributed, that it is really really big (in terms of numbers using) and that it was around for quite some time before an suits were brought against it (which would give it some defense in the intent stakes, and make it seem more like a victim of late-coming abusive users than a collaborator in copyright infringement). But any new network is it real trouble, because it doesn't have any of those defenses, and proving innocence of intent will be almost impossible. So, the copyright rulings have an additional chilling factor on technological development as well as the already-existing one on free speech; cf. cases concerning parody in particular. It would seem that the only real hope is for some titanic ruling (such as one against the entire Internet) that dramatically shows up the deleterious effects of the current 'IP' laws, and thus brings about a radical shift in direction. I'm not holding my breath.
The final page of the transcript, showing Patel's exchanges with the attorneys, supports the above view. Patel (and I suspect she is in the mainstream of American judicial opinion here) considers Napster (and probably any other new thing that comes along and facilitates copyright infringement) to be a genie let out of the bottle. And she considers it the responsibility of Napster, the company, to put it back in the bottle. In other words, any new thing that is created that can be used to infringe copyright is going to be forced, judicially, to deal with that use or cease operation. That may sound reasonable at first, but look at it more closely and think again. Copyright infringement is very easy to do these days, due to the massive efforts put in by interested parties to extend the concept of copyright. What this ruling, and the laws that made it possible, essentially do is give to the major interested parties (MPAA, RIAA, etc.) the power to veto new technologies.
('Hey look, I've created a device that can duplicate anything! An end to poverty! An end to hunger! An end--what? You're representing who? What do you mean, an injunction?')
The NIC sounds good for a lot of thing, but has two big problems, IMO:
...
... hmmm.
1) If I'm going to have a little hang-on-network / sit on counter Anything Box, I greedily want it to play DVDs.
2) The resolution. If it can't do XGA, I dunno if it's worth it. It's just not an 800x600 world any more
It's still very tempting as a public terminal for the common room in my apt, so my two roommates can check their email from it
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
It's good to see Oracle still working on NCs. This kind of specialized device really is the way of the future. When the American consumer culture grows up and starts thinking, Oracle will be there waiting.
Think NCs are too limited to be useful? How come your TV doesn't also cut your grass? Exactly.
--Jeff
This is an absolutely awesome MP3 system for the car. It is custom built to fit neatly into a standard stereo port, plug in to your speakers, draw power, etc. Very nice job, even includes a cool little remote and some neat software for display on the little LCD.
I wonder what the use of the software is without the player. I mean, are you really gonna spend the thousands to make your own, or what? Of course, I'm always all for GPLing everything in sight, but is this really that important? There is no indication that I know of that the company is open to outside modifications of their code.
You must be easily frightened.
Many people don't want a multi-purpose, do-all, end-all device. It is often a valid idea to dedicate a box to a single function (firewall for instance). If my mom only wants to access email from home, why buy an $800.00 box that can do more than she wants when a $200.00 box will suffice?
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Would suing over the SAMBA name seem so clueless in Germany?
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Just a keyboard will do fine thanks! and if you can hook it up to the TV!!!
Apple is the only company that i know that thinks outside the box, this thing is still black an old looking (a little like old Sparc 2's).
And the specs, hell you could make a full blown computer for that much (330 bucks with monitor)!!
And its still ugly___
At least they got the OS right, even though having Netscape as your only browser will not be the best Internet Experience!!
Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
"And also, under the 9th Circuit law, neither computers nor hard drives are audio home recording devices, nor is there anything else in this case that involves Napster that is an audio home recording device within the meaning of the statute"
Guess what folks... Based on this line in the judges decision usage of a mini-disc recorder to record tracks of your CDs is probably now illegal after all. When the laws were written mini-discs didn't exist as a home recording device either.
Hmm... All we need is a NIC running a GNU mp3 player stapeled to my dashboard and WHAMO!
Instant car mp3 player.
Kalrand
-the voice of reason
No such luck here, I'm Canadian. 11 bucks for the last pitcher of beer I had while in university.
That would cause me to take up arms against my oppressors! 11 bucks? For a pitcher? Holy christ! They're not that expensive at titty bars around here! And I'm talking the medium grade beer, too, not the cheap Milwaukee's Beast or Lone Star. Stuff like Bass or Shiner. Yeah.Actually, I bet most of you haven't heard of Shiner... It's a Texas brew...
Rev.I remember on campus (FSU) when we tried to get a dos prompt when all we had was Netscape. We actually changed the "program association" for a .gif file to "command.com". then when you right clicked on an image and hit "open" you had command.com (and thus debug, type, etc). Might be a similiar hack (or crack or whatever) in the Linux ver.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
As to the fourth factor, plaintiffs have produced evidence that Napster use harms the market for the copyrighted work in at least two ways, and we've had a number of studies, and I will spell out in the order the problems with some of those studies. I don't think any of them are, you know, what you would call without flaw.
I think that this is good proof of the judge not paying ay attention to Napster in this case. Everything I have seen from this case has involved the judge being already prejudiced, and attacking napster. Every study that has shown that Napster depletes music sales has been paid for by the RIAA. Napster does increase music sales, and the RIAA is ust trying to obfuscate the facts with their pre-paid judge. Napster, until they get an honest, objective judge, doesn't stand a chance.
Actually, if you decide to go with a Xerox service contract, you DO pay for each copy that comes out of the machine.
Can't say about the sales guys getting a piece of that action though.
The Doctor is Out... (Making the copies!)
I'd love to know how, in the Samba article, the babel fish translated "Roland Lindemann" to "Roland lime tree man".
Superman In Need: Oh, Oh Lime Tree Man, how can I ever repay you?
Lime Tree Man: Oh, you don't need to guv. It's all in a days work for... Lime Tree Man!
Three Supermen: Our Hero!
Voiceover: Yes! whenever lime trees are endangered, or menaced by international communism, Lime Tree Man is ready!
Please don't give Chicago's city government any more ideas! They've already banned spray paint sales, and hanging out on street corners is called "gang loitering."
There is a menu option that kills Netscape and retsarts it. They thought this out pretty well.
What if the Hokey Pokey _is_ what it's all about?
There. Anyone in the current legal battles reading this? Anyone?
> On that note, where's the ability to read email?
Probably had to go the way of the dodo when they decided not to put any hard drive into it. Programs like Netscape Communicator have to put the e-mail *somewhere* local while you're reading it. I think IMAP might get around this, but anything based on POP can't work without a HD.
Sure sounds interesting. But Freenet already does that and more like protecting your ISPs from being fscked when it's you who should be.
Besides stopping the spread is not something I care about. It's impossible period anonymous or fully disclosed. It's not something I worry much about.
Attempt to make claims against me as to rights I have regarding stuff I have PAID for or CREATED and you'll be seeing me in court.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I think the NIC was meant for school and similar environments where for security and anal retentiveness reasons you don't necessarily want people running a mail client.
I work at a library and recently we purchased a NIC for evaulation. The first thing i looked for when booting it for the first time was whether there was an e-mail client. I was glad there wasn't because if there was i would have had to rebuild the CD without the e-mail client. The powers that be who set computer usage policy want patrons to be able to use the web for research, not to spend all day chatting on e-mail. I don't quite understand this since e-mail can also be a research tool, but my opinion doesn't matter since i don't set the policies.
----- "I'm still sane on three planets and two moons."
Right, like the Internet's sole purpose is for us geeks to have something to do. Average users, people who want nothing more than to chat with friends or swap recipes, make up a vast majority of internet users. They create the demand for shopping sites and easy to use tools, which provide programmers, web designers, and network technicians with jobs. Non-knowledge users don't cheapen connectivity, they keep us employed.
If you people would bother to read the RIAA response to Napster's stay request, you'd see the clear difference.
Take the Xerox lawsuit. They were sued because they aided in the duplication of copyrighted printed materials. Same with the Sony lawsuit - their VHS technology allowed the reproduction of television transmissions, and allowed the duplication of copyrighted casettes.
The difference being - Sony and Xerox sell a consumer good. At the point of sale, their involvement in the use of the product ends. They don't have a wire going into their boxes from their headquarters feeding it copyrighted stuff - they just say "Here you go, do what you want."
Napster, on the other hand, is involved during the entire process. They own the client, and they own the servers that allow the sharing of files. If they would've been more like Gnutella where client connects to another client with no middleman servers, RIAA probably wouldn't have as strong of a case. Instead, they opened themselves to liability by incorporating a business solely to aid in the distribution of copyrighted materials.
When does NetZero allow anything other then Windows to connect to it? I know there were password revealers and the like for *nix that allowed us to see see what our true l/p for nz was and log in, but it only would stay up for like 5 mins, 10 tops.
Tried to chekc out NZ's website but the DOWNLOAD page was broken.. Still didnt find anything that said "Hey guys, we support linux now". So is this something limited ONLY to the nic?
----------------------------------
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
A computer is supposed to be a multipurpose device not a specific one. Anytime a group of people start trying to subdivide the tasks a computer can/cannot do it is fairly frightening. Grasp this: suppose they get rid of the component for internet access to a cheap machine that would leave consoles to rule the game market and the cost of the "PC" would skyrocket because everyone would buy some crappy computer. Software distribution is a better goal for the internet as well as information gathering and storage. Personal communications and the like the subsidiary goals that were added on to the internet as we now see it.
Respond to s
This will lock people into one type of device and will be a bitch to upgrade
Respond to s
But why did they have to go and muck it up with Netscape?
If they were trying to streamline the machine they would have been better off to just cycle through some images on the desktop wallpaper. At least you would have a chance to see something before falling asleep.
Mind you.. if they had waited for Mozilla... well.. lets just not go there.
antidigerati (auntie digerati)(NT digerati)
I am a musician (quite well known, so posting anonymously) and I am sick to the depth of my stomach of these criminals stealing my art and depriving me of my rightful rewards.
How would Commander Taco and Cow-Boy Neil like it if I stood outside their house giving away free crowbars to any passing criminal, so they could break into the 'geek compound' ?
Napster is exactly the same.
In the UK there is a law against 'going equipped' to comitt a crime. Posession of illegal software like napster should be punished, and punished severely. Nothing less than a custodial sentance will send the message - Music Piracy == COMMON THEFT.
The OS is on CD-ROM. Why wait when you can start market penetration, and release a patch? Sounds sort of like most games of late, doesn't it?
I need a compact computer for my wife to use on our home network. I'm tired of her tying up the fast desktop with the big monitor to read email and load webpages. As soon as I confirm that I'll take a NIC (I see USB, so that should suffice) I'll be ponying up my $199. I don't even need the monitor (which is extra).
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Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
Sure... pick the market segment most technologically able and with the lowest income, and then whinge about the fact that they don't buy your music.
'OK... I just won't bother eating for a week, then I can buy myself a CD.'
yay.
What kind of world is it??
The typical user runs in 800x600 with 16bpp color or less.
This is based on real world demographics I have used from about 50 million page views of 'non'-geek oriented websites.. meaning stuff your average consumer makes it to.
800x600 further more is sufficient for those tasks.. anyways my two cents.
Jeremy
If you think education is expensive, try ignornace
From now on, anyone purchasing an Apple product will be named in a reverse class-action suit. A court order will be packaged with the unit itself. www.ridiculopathy.com
Well one point against you is that the internet is not a passive medium like TV is (and no HDTV dosn't appear to have changed this). Also you have to realize that things like this have been tried (remember WebTV?). People who are going to want internet access want to have all the benefits that come with internet access. If I want to have my own say email program and not the one that the company wants me to have what do I do? What if I wand to to digital videwo editing in my spare time? What about playing games that are a little more complex than mario or donkeykong 64? Modern PCs beat most things into the ground. What about the person who wants to play games do differential equations, chemical modeling, write a paper for his history class, type a memo, and do all this in an afternoon on one box? That's right it just dosn't work. I have seen what people do when they want to screw others. Take a look at the next generation of various calculators that I was pricing just today from hewlett packard. They are adding wizbang features that havn't decreased in price or preformance at all. So what happens? Well the price keeps rising and never sinking. That is just crap. Also the history of industry in the US would tent to eliminate this idea as well. Consider the concept of interchangeable parts that can do the job wheather they are from one group manufacturing them or 700. Those parts have traditionally fit together and worked nicely. That is what people want. Also planned obscelescence(sp) isn't exactly what people want to deal with when they have say 5-10 different machines that cost over $100 USD. That's why the PC was created to prevent fractioning of the world and get people do handle things like a swiss army knife.
Respond to s
Looking good should be an afterthought and not a design goal
Respond to s
For that matter, if you don't like web browsing using Navigator, you can always use lynx :-)
Freedom: "I won't!"
God forbid that we build machines specifically for gaming so that the rest of us can get back to computing. :)
This device is an excellent terminal/client device for real computers (i.e. not PCs). This is an affordable, well-configured client box. Creating a different CD with a modified OS might even be possible, opening the door for third party upgrades once the hardware is in place. Even so, upgrades are problem free, since the upgrade CD isn't an installer-- it is the upgrade.
As to the price of the "PC" going up? Even if this were true/likely, add together the price of the NIC and a Sega Dreamcast and tell me if your computer cost that much. As you will learn if you take any introductory economics class, specialization leads to efficiency-- which can lead to lower prices. Frankly, I'd rather spend less for two machines that did what I wanted, than more for just one. Special bonus: with two machines, your friends/family can use one, while you use the other.
I do not have a signature
I've got a network testing/development lab, and a
:-)
$200 little box that goes "ping" sounds amazingly useful. Does anybody know if it'll run without a keyboard (at least after it's first configured)? Can you give them static IP addresses, or do they always need DHCP?
I've got other ways to solve the problem - half a dozen doorstop Pentium60 boxes, but they take a lot of rack space, need keyboards and mice, make noise, and occasionally want to have monitors on them, and I've got enough other things to do with them that a couple of NICs would be a real asset. (Also, they're cheap enough I might be able to buy them on the "cheap parts and junk" budget instead of the "more bureaucracy required" budget
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
Well, according to this portion of the census, the median net worth of all households is about $38k, but for those under 35 years, it's under $6k. There aren't any age/DPI statistics that I can find, but the age/income charts seem to agree with the net worth statements noting that in households headed by 15-24 year olds, the average income is $23,564, but in $25-34 year olds, it's $40,069. This would seem to imply that people over the college age make more money than people in college.
Remember that the "HUGE" amount of money somebody is making in college probably is fractional to what their future salary will be, and while $1k/month is a huge allowance, it's nothing compared to the salary of a college grad, especially for college grads who go to schools where $1k/month allowances are common.
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Got a NIC in the first shipment. Added a bash shell hack the first night. Posted screenshots to the website the first night. (http://www.bestkungfu.com/nicfit)
/. thread was gonna happen on it. Gee, I love when I'm right (too easy to predict /. these days)
It's a cute little box, and for the price, quite reasonable. Try to build a thin client cheaper, and you'd be hard pressed. Yes, you could add a harddrive, but WHY?
Runs Linux, quite nicely. It's a homebrew, not based on anyone else's distro. This from the horse's mouth...
The 4 meg is an IDE flash disk, and it's a little daughterboard. You could remove it and use it elsewhere (hint hint)
The guys at Thinknic are GREAT... and they have been VERY very supportive and more on the mailing list(s). Everything we could wish for and more.
As for the GPL, they ARE going to release source... already asked for it, and it's been assured to me they will be taking care of it. In fact, I told them that a
Tonight I cracked the root password for the box, so I not only own one, I 0wN one. (grin)
Personally, I want to see additional CD and flash stuff developed for it. It's happening now... check out the mailing lists for more details (egroups.com)
Larry has a hit on his hands. I can see lots of people and companies buying these. Custom CDs will be used by companies, making upgrading a breeze. Schools, hotels, libraries, other public places will benefit from a cheap and useful terminal that won't be easily broken.
Summary: Recommended. Highly. Cheap and good.
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
Well, if your college days were anything like mine, a keg of beer cost less than my average bartab these days. Remember $6 cases of beer. and $8 1.75 liter bottles of vodka? When I was in college it wasn't even a decision, 3.5 liters of vodka, or one cd. The vodka was crystal palace, not grey goose or vox. the "good" gin was beefeater, not sapphire. And appleton estate for rum? nah, the best we ever had was the trusty captain. I'm also quite certain that our champagne was never PJ, Moet, Dom or Cristall. And don't forget frat parties... depending on which school I pick, they were either 100% free, or about $3, all you could drink. If I drank my current beverages in college quantity, my checking account would give out long before my liver did. Remember that when you're saying that the ability to get plastered == the ability to afford cds.
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Personally, I think this is a brilliant idea. As a internet connected "appliance" for people like my grandparents (who are vaguely interested in this "newfangled internet thing") or those who have no real need or desire for a PC, but wish to get email and browse the web.
On that note, where's the ability to read email? You'd only be able to use web based email as far as I can tell with this. That seems like a mistake. How much more difficult would it have been to add the ability to use NS Communicator and have one piece of functionality added? It wouldn't have added much overhead, space, or difficulty, so far as I can tell.
Any ideas why they didn't include something of that nature?
...opinion and reasoning, makes me think another cluestick needs whackin'. Guess what I'm doing tonight?
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+&x
To be honest, I've never had much success with Mandrake (I've tried to install their distro both by FTP and from a CD image numerous times and always had it fail for some non-user-related error (a crash, a failed dependency, something). However, they most unheralded project which they currently support and use has got to be Supermount. The new author (forget his name) has managed to update the patches all the way up to 2.3.99pre5, and those patches should work with the latest 2.4.0test kernels as well.
What does supermount do? Basically, it virtually mounts your filesystems and then monitors the drives to see whether or not they should be really mounted. This means that you can mount the floppy drive as supermountfs, stick in a floppy, access the drive, remove the floppy, stick in a new floppy, access the drive, etc. etc. Basic removeable media flexibility, just like other OSs. It's something that Linux desperately needs to allow it to compete in the desktop market, and it isn't a kludge like autofs.
I've used it for quite some time with no problems, but Mandrake continues to help maintain this when it needs to and their distro has included it for quite some time. I may not be able to use Mandrake, but at least I can use some of their efforts.
I use netscape 4.73 to surf the web, and I can't say I find it to be 100% reliable. The same can be said about just any browser I suppose, but is someone not familiar with computers going to figure out how to pop open a terminal and type 'killall -9 netscape'? Other than that, I'm bout ready to buy one myself!