Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Equivalence, Toilets, Hundredth
Screenshots to show the boss. Jim Hall writes: "The other day, I downloaded OpenOffice build 628C for Linux and for Windows. I use Red Hat Linux (7.1) at home, and I already use StarOffice (5.2) for my regular office needs. It works great. I think my main complaint with OpenOffice is the silly desktop. Other than that, I consider it a fully functional office suite that can replace my MS Office needs anytime.
I didn't see any cool OpenOffice screenshots, so I made my own of the text document program. I didn't do any (yet?) of the spreadsheet program, or presentation software. These were really captured for the benefit of my brother, but I'm posting them here so that others can see them."
When I was a boy, we didn't have "archives" ... jbrw writes "Occasionally complaints will pop up that the archives at groups.google.com aren't complete enough. Well, here's your chance to help. Google is conducting an archive hunt to find some CDs from the "NetNews CD Series" pre-dating 1995, to help fill out their archive. I'm sure there's a whole heap of useful information hidden away in there, so it would be nice if it was available for all. Google says they will pay a spotter's fee for any of the CDs they don't have yet. I imagine the /. crowd would be more impressed with some sort of custom t-shirt, but there you go..."
We've mentioned this before, but it looks like they're still looking, or at least haven't updated the page.
Pinch your salt well, folks. Sir_Real writes "The RIAA wants to re-establish the CPRM standard. It is also lobbying lawmakers to make the ISP responsible for content shared by the people they provide for. Sound Cards are being targetted also. If Ms. Rosen has her way, "Watermarked" content will not be rippable because of hardware protection implemented in the new cards. The Register has the full story."
My advice would be to take this one more as a thought experiment than anything else, though it would be interesting if some sort of substantiation emerges.
The site named after a game show noise hits a milestone. Zanthrax writes: "ZZZ Online just got their 100th edition out ! You should go see this site if you allready haven't. Lots of cool stuff on the site gets submitted to /. , Like their ornithopter story which was on a lot sooner than here on /."
Just good, clean, vicarious bathroom fun. random-nerds writes: "Following a suggestion from a Slashdot reader, we built and installed a display in our bathroom so all you crazy Int0rnet junkies can send us messages while we're in our bathroom. Now the MIT Bathroom Server is fun for the whole family. Check it out at http://neurosis.mit.edu/foo/"
There's something wrong there.
Congratulations. Your speed and timing are an inspiration to us all.
Recording Industry Ass. of America
Gotta love it!
see?
I want an actual picture of the message screen on the bathroom server. I know it would be /.ed in no time, but this just sticks text inside of a graphical frame. I want proof! ;)
load "linux",8,1
I'm sure pr0n filters have been enabled on those systems...
What's with the big red button on the MIT Bathroom display? If it does nothing may I suggest the "Please Fed-Ex me Toilet paper" internet alert button.
Next feature request: send remote flushes to the Foo Floor toilet.
Ad in classifieds: Pandora's Box (no box) $5
There's a choice quote from Hillary Rosen that everyone needs to pay close attention to.
Looks like she wants to repeal the safe harbor protection that ISP's have.
"Because of the magnitude of the problem, ISPs can no longer be shielded from the wrath of the law"
I'm just aghast at the arrogance from all parties involved.
It seems the RIAA is not only determined to run itself into the ground, but now wants to sink the entire PC industry by robbing it of the utilities that people actually want? I was fine when they were only trying to dissuade me from buying new CDs, but now they want to discourage me from upgrading my sound card and/or entire computer.
Especially now, PC manufactureres need the RIAA like a hole in the head.
http://www.ratemypoo.com
I'm speechless...
Search first, ask questions later.
At work, we've been worried that our boss is tracking our bathroom time to make sure we're "productive" enough on company time. And these guys are posting their bathrom usage on the Net? How ironic.
Would aol be all to happy with ms. rosen?
We'll leave the last, chilling word to Sony Music Entertainment's Steve Heckler: "Once consumers can no longer get free music, they will have to buy the music in the formats we choose to put out." You have been warned.
...or I could simply be satisfied with the music I already have, or start listening to unsigned independent artists, or quit passively listening to the garbage the RIAA has the temerity to call "art" or "music" and start jamming with my friends. Who knows, I may even share it with whoever wants it in a format that I choose. Regardless, there is nothing that says that I have to do anything that involves participating in their greed-inspired, twisted vision of the future.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Lets hope the bathroom servers don't have a disk dump!
Get it?
Eh?
Eh?
I use SO5.2 on my Linux laptop and my Win tower at home. And I like the desktop, and can't figure out why so many people bash on it.
All of the office apps are neatly tucked away under a single entry in KDE's task window. I click that open, and I can see every one of my documents in a neat little desktop.
In SO6.0beta, I get a individual window for every single document for each application (i.e. if i have two text documents and three presos open, I have 5 entries in the KDE task window, and I can't tell them apart until I onMouseOver them)
btw - the load times for 5.2 with desktop seem to be about the same for me as loading just one app in 6.0 beta. In fact, it seems faster to use 5.2 once it's loaded when I create new documents.
Some things aren't so useful, like the start button, and yes it does cover up other windows in the background, but I usually send SO to Window 4 or something all by itself, so that's no big deal
Okay, forget the puns, just read the very long log. Amusing.
I want to assure all those reading this post that my reason for opposing all these ridiculous bills proposed by the RIAA and other powerful interests is not to "download free music". As a musician and a member of our community orchestra, I do not need to get my music from major labels. I get all the live music (which i prefer) from my friends, family, and the musicians that I know and play with.
As I am treated like a child and told how I can and cannot use my computer (or other interactive digital devices), I am forced to use one of the first and easiest forms of protest to stop a commercial entity from causing harm. I am simply not buying commercial music (or other IP) from companies that support these new laws aimed at taking away our rights and freedom AS A FORM OF PROTEST. It's called consumer backlash and it is very effective. No money ---> No power.
At the same time I am writing letters to my legislators opposing these new bills like the SSSCA. We let the DMCA get by us. That was a mistake. The DMCA should be declared unconstitutional (which is being worked on) and we should as Americans stand up and let our lawmakers and power hungry corporations know that we will not stand to be treated like children.
The point of the matter is: Everytime you buy a CD from the companies that make up the RIAA, your funding this war on your privacy and freedoms. So quit buying them. Music is everywhere. Find it where it is free. Do not circumvent, just find something else to listen to. If you will just open your ears you will discover the world is full of music and we do not need the RIAA to feed it to us.
And please, write your congressmen and senators with real paper. Let them know how you feel about these new bills and the DMCA. They won't know your opinion unless you tell them.
These bills can be stopped but it takes many voices to be heard over all that money flowing from the lobbyists.
"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
The RIAA is going through the classic crisis in the concept of property introduced by digital information.
Since the invention of records and up to recently, music could never be found "living" outside of their wax drums, or vinyl disks, or cassette tapes. This was also true with books and photos, where the information could never be found "outside the paper". In short, up to recently, the medium and its content were inseparable from each other. As a result, humanity at large have blissfully mixed the commerce of media, which are physical numerable objects, and their content.
Now that digital technology have split the two (you can have music or books or photos "floating around" as pure data), a millenia-old way of trading properties is totally crumbling : one cannot be sure that selling one medium-object sells exactly one copy of the content. The reason why traditional commerce of medium-objects works is because, up to today, it was harder or more expensive to copy the content onto a new medium than acquire a legit new copy. This is not true anymore : the lines have crossed, and it's now easier, cheaper and more convenient to copy the content than to acquire a legit copy.
This is not a new problem. When did the lines cross ? for certain types of documents, like music sheets, the photocopier was a disaster (and publishers fought the photocopier). For music, the lines crossed when people could copy their audio cassettes with only a little quality loss. The lines haven't crossed for photographies, but I'm sure that won't take too long. Finally, books still sell as books today because people prefer paper books to LCD-equipped ebook, and it's still as hard to photocopy a paperback than to go buy it.
So, the RIAA is fighting a lost battle : because they can't keep the medium and the content inseparable, they're trying to impair all the playback and recording devices enough that the hard-to-copy/easier-to-buy lines cross back to what it was before. Of course, it's impossible : even if every CD player and every soundcard in the world had copy protection (which is not going to happen, cf. 1930s prohibition), people would still find an easy way around the protection. The RIAA's other way of making it harder to copy things is by making it more legally dangerous : they count on most people's fear of the policeman to deter them from copying things, and in some cases, people's intrinsic honesty. For that to work, because copies are so easy to make, they'd have to create an Orwellian police state, and that's actually a real possibility.
Of course, all traditional media companies are in the same boat. For example, when people will massively prefer E-paper over traditional books, book publishers will join forces with them, and that's not a prediction, that's a fact.
What's the solution ?
Well, there aren't many today : the traditional system of commerce with physical objects is so deeply rooted in human cultures that it's not going away anytime soon. A solution would be to create an entirely new economy for media contents from scratch. Not likely. Then, of course, if we had teleportation like in Star Trek, we could teleport medium-object as fast as we download data today, yet the teleported objects would retain their "object" property of uniqueness. Provided the teleportation process is free or very cheap, this would simply deprecate digital copies altogether. Again, not very likely.
What's in store for the near future ? the RIAA, MPAA, publishing companies and other traditional giant media companies dying a more or less slow death due to their new-found utter inadequacy, and as they go down, hurting people's rights by imposing shoddy products and by twisting the arm of the law to protect their dying business models, instead of reinventing themselves.
Brace yourself, it's going to hurt and it's only the beginning ...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
This opens up a whole new realm of hacktivism... bathroom display defacement.
Wouldn't that suck, sit down to take a leisurely dump, and suddenly find out that L337mAfiAd00dz 0wNz j00...
Make a high quality copy through the speaker output and then rip eat. ez enuff.
Sorry, but those open office screenshots look identical to Star Office 5.2 .. the only difference we can see is the title bar.
Isn't there anything wild and new that would convince me to try out the beta and dump Star Office 5.2??
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
The way how the RIAA is set up they could never make explicit comments about specific technologies. They can only make general comments about 'concerns on developments' and potentially use the IFPI to document potential solutions without rating them against each other....
There is no way that they could have a meeting like that, especially since all of them are lawyers that are very skilled at avoiding anti-trust problematic issues, neither would there be any way that a high-profile execs would join such a 'secret' meeting.
I mean why did the Register post this? Is it April Fool's day in some bizarre religious calendar?
If the RIAA actually makes CD unrippable, I'm going to be really pissed.
CDs are bulky, damage easily, are difficult to keep organized and are difficult to search through.
I just bought a Rio and ripped all of my music (that I leagally own). The CDs are in a closet. If I can't buy a CD, rip it, and put it in the closet, I AM GOING TO BE VERY ANGRY.
Am I alone in this?
I am waiting for the thing to hit a continous tone.
Why doesn't someone at MIT set up a video camera to record everything?
It would be fun to see the movie on the net as the smoke starts to pore out of the display unit.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The only reason the and their ilk is asking for leglislation is there is money in it and it is cheaper to leglislate profit then to provide quality product worth buying.
In looking to not buy product from the backers of CPRM/DMCA2.....I have come to the conclusion that if I want to use paper and pencil, I can avoid the CPRM/DMCA crowd. In the web page tradition, where is the page of vendors who DON'T support DMCA/CPRM, and have lobbied against this 'crap'
Once it passes, the only way to make it hurt them is to claim a copyright on all of your property. When AOHell Time Wanker downloads your pages into thier proxy servers, sue them under the DMCA2/CPRM. If they go the route of Germany where there is a 'tax' on media to protect copyright holders....where is your protection for all violations of your copyrights?
These copyrights are already inforcable. They can sue ANYONE right now. Let them use the laws they alrady have.
I have pretty much sworn off buying CD's from any record company associated with the RIAA. Movies I almost never go out to see anymore, although I used to, but now I feel my money should not be going to the MPAA who wishes only to destroy entire other industries (ISP's, PC hardware, software) so they don't have to reconfigure their business model to work in the digital age.
Unfortunately, it seems the entertainment industry is writing the law freely, and consumers are the ones getting the shaft, and people are losing rights, well, left and right. I wonder about the connection between our entertainment-centric society where people are obsessed with celebrities and this power the industry seems to have now to do whatever they please.
AOL/Time Warner was at the meeting...I am sure they would love 80% marktet share.
But, now that the kingdumb of fud is way in the toilet, maybe you should investigate acquiring this gnu wave set of URLs, including a year's free hosting, by following the simple directions.
Also, don't forget to check out these face scans of the REAL .commIEs, who are STILL, out on bail.
The music industry and its hired muscle, the Recording Industry Ass. of America, plans to step up its war against MP3 file sharing and CD ripping with campaigns targeting legal, technological and Internet access fronts, The Register has learned.
Awesome! Slashdot editors, please be sure to borrow this idea, and refer to the RIAA this way from now on in all your articles!
I have a stereo which i use to play sound through my computer. I can very easily hit record and put whatever's playing on my computer into a cassette. Then I can use playback on my stereo and use my line-in to put it back into mp3s. Presto! I have just circumvented the RIAA's nifty technology! So how long before owning a stereo be illegal?
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
It would be nice to see Star/Open Office offer some innovaitive and compelling features into their package. Until then, I will stick with MS Office for now.
kawai
...but it is not worth a thousand uses. The difference is that the new version of StarOffice has a nicer "feel" to it, can change its look, has no more "desktop", does much better with M$Office files, and defaults to an open, compressed XML format. My suggestion is, try it. If you already have MickeySoft Office you may not want to change, but if you are in need of an office suite you may find it a much better alternative.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Ok, please don't use the 'I' word. It makes most of us hurl. As for compelling features in OpenOffice/StarOffice there are a couple things going on:
1. This is the first release of a better modularized StarOffice. A lot of time was wasted in nailing down some of the basics that Star was missing.
2. There really aren't any "compelling features" left to develop for the basic types of software. I still use M$ Office 97 instead of upgrading to the "new, improved" 2000 or XP versions. And why should I? Do they offer anything over my current software WORTH several hundred dollars? No, not really.
Sun is really trying to make a commodity of Office apps instead of trying to make them "better". Making them "better" will only result in most people complaining that it isn't the same (ergo the StarDesktop).
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Mjolnir
There is nothing else more impressive than this.
The above is not worth reading.
Mirror here if you need it
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
When 6.0beta came along, it asked if I wanted to import my settings from 5.2 into 6.0. Sure, sounds good. It worked great. Until I needed to retrieve my files from my personal doc directory. They were ALL GONE!!! The installer followed my symlink and "accidentally" deleted all my files in my document directory. It left the directories intact, but all the files were GONE!
Fortunately, I had just made a backup of my system a couple days before, but I still lost a bit of work. !@$#.
Moral of the story: backup early and often. Moral #2 of the story: beware of using beta software on production machines.
You can read all the details of my experience on Sun's newsgroup that they collect bugs for star office on. It wasn't pretty.
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In Canada, we collect a levy on CDR media, this allows us the RIGHT as a citizen to make copies of any music CD for our own personal use.
d s
See more about this here: http://neil.eton.ca/copylevy.shtml#copy_for_frien
I have been toying with the idea of organizing / promoting a "Come and Copy CDs Day" at University of Windsor or maybe at on of the local Windsor Librarylocations, which does in fact contain a whole PILE of CDs we can now legally copy...
I believe it is important now to 'get the word out' and snuff out their massive revenue stream...
Also I believe we should simply order the CDRs online anf FUCK their 'corporate-whore-tax', it would make this otherwise legal event a little more gray, but hey, fuck them.
This could be seriously fun...
Sheesh. Misinformation abounds about this product! First off, the current build is 638C. That build of OpenOffice contains much of the same base code as the official StarOffice 6 Beta that was released on Oct. 4.
Let me be bold and italicized for this next one: There is no more integrated desktop. None. It sucked, and everyone knew it, so it's gone. Each component is seperate, with it's own icon (Text Document, Spreadsheet, Presentation, etc.)
One last thing, because I know it will come up. Previous builds of OpenOffice did not contain a spell check. Before you flame about that, let me mention two things: I just downloaded a build of Mozilla a few weeks ago, and it had no spellcheck either (yet the version of Netscape that used that Mozilla build *did* have a spell check...keep reading). Second, I'm pretty sure this build has a spellchecker in place, or it's right around the corner. Beyond that, if it's not there already, there will be options for different languages (I know German is mentioned often on the discussion list.)
StarOffice 6 Beta has a spellcheck, because that's one component that Sun owns and did not open source. There are other components in StarOffice that aren't in OpenOffice, but not many.
Whether you go with StarOffice or OpenOffice, you won't be disappointed. It's an incredible product. It is the product that will allow me to convert my clinic (250+ employees) away from MS Office, which will pave the way for more free (as in speech, and possibly beer) software down the road. I'm very excited about it!
--SC
You read fiction? I write it! Lemme know what you th
As much as I hate to admit it, the one MS product that is pretty good at what it's supposed to do is Word (and to a lesser extent, the other office modules). I think it pretty much goes without saying that Office applications are also the primary thing holding Linux back in the so-called "desktop wars". I can't tell you how many times I hear people around me say, "well, I *would* use Linux, but I need Word docs, PowerPoint, blah blah blah...". :) Hopefully, it will suck *less* than the latest StarOffice, and then it'll be one substantial victory for Linux users everwhere.
I have tried using StarOffice on and off again pretty much since it was released to the general public. And each time, it sucks a little bit less. I'm going to give OpenOffice a shot tonight, and if I see a little "start menu" and a fake Windows-ish desktop, it's gonna be curtains.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
I used to do this -- I had a computer with a CD drive that would always fail when I tried to rip for some reason. The sound quality didn't take any noticible hit (well, beyond the hit that all MP3's take, which is barely noticible even on a great system).
Of course, given that my kid sister could break RIAA-style encrytion, this is hardly an issue. The real danger isn't the technical stop-gap measures, it's the longer term transition of ideas into immutable corporate property.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Moral #0: Read the README file, which said that would happen.
Are there any compelling reasons to upgrade/sidestep to OO/SO?
Who knows, I may even share it with whoever wants it in a format that I choose.
Can't do that if the RIAA has its way, cuz you could also do an analogue recording of a CD and "share" it in the same way. There will be no audio path from you to the rest of the World, unless you sign up with a big label. That's what they want.
Yeah a whole new channel for sending SPAM
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I think ALL of teh Posters have missed an importanr point.These restrictions will be only in the continent of North America(US ,CANADA and Mexico maybe due to NAFTA).
The reasons:
1.IN EUROPE:
The EU takes privacy,customer rights and other little man issues very seriously.Case in point the absolutely tight Personal Data laws.I mean it's ridiculous that in the us a company can *own* YOUR personal information.
They are also massively anti big company who push their way through.Why?Because the grass roots participation of Europeans is very high and they take deep interesrt in any issue affecting them again in contrast to US.
Also sice this fight is led by Recording and Movie industry it puts the back up of most anti
american culture types.
Lastly,Technology is a very very important economic sector and the EU is unlikely to stifle choices and make protocols proprietary.
2.Rest of the World:
Taiwan,India,South Korea are in no mood to bind their tech sectors to some foreign companies' interest.In India any such "appeasing" of foreign companies shall be the death knell of govt.Another important factor is that geeks:) in india enjoy quite an amount of public ear and it's normally assumed that geeks right,Huge Big Corporation greedy pigs....
3.WTO:
unlike in the past when anyone displeasing the US could get hit by Super 301.Now of cource there is WTO....Which can and has given rulings against US.
I would assume that WTO is unlikely to permit such an imposition on other member countries when it shall be opposed by all but US and Canada.
TO CONCLUDE:
Even if Americans are unsuccesful in preventing another rape of their constitution,the rest of the world doesnt have much to fear yet....
Wanted : A Signature.
I had posted this before, but when I run the latest builds the fonts appear anti-aliased.
Here is a shot:
http://www.dvnull.org/screenshots/shot_oo.jpg
Same in the other apps as well.
But that's not the point. Employees were demonstrating the storage and playback of music. That's legally questionable. One can make arguments based on the Audio Home Recording Act for home use, but in a commercial environment, you need ASCAP and BMI licenses, as a minimum. Bars, restaurants, and nightclubs all pay. (Record stores have a special deal.)
At some point, Apple is going to have to face the RIAA. That should be interesting.
Everyone knows it... if it can be heard it can be copied.
Working a line-in jack on a stereo or computer isn't hard. Basically, if you want to stop the problem, you've got to go back to the root issue -- the users themselves versus the bands in question.
I have a friend who was firmly on Metallica's side during the Lars Ulrich vs. Napster debacle. Why? He respected them as artists, and as a result owns every album they have ever put out.
This is what the RIAA doesn't get. The bands themselves are the only ones who can convince users not to copy -- or have they forgotten that the bands exist apart from phony marketing images?
So here's the plan. Every band has a back catalogue of covers, garage recordings, and so on that will probably never get released and are next to worthless commerically. All they have to do is say "From now on, we're monitoring KaZaA/Morpheus/Gnutella/etc, and every fortnight where there's an average of less than XYZ files shared from us, we release new material for you to legally download free of charge".
Think about it. Dedicated fans, who already respect the band for their abilities, will start to police these file-sharing services for them. Problem halved.
Does this stand a chance, Slashdot? Ideas?
<!-- DHTML / JavaScript menu, popup tooltip, Ajax scripts -->
"a format that they choose"
If you mean the recipients then point taken. What I was trying to say was that it wouldn't be a format dictated by the RIAA.
You're using her as bait, Master!
From the response I got on the news feed, they had no idea such a bug existed until I explained how I was able to reproduce it.
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I am pleasantly surprised by the functionality of StarOffice/OpenOffice (although I am still trying to figure out why files are saving in a binary *.sxw as opposed to a unicode *.xml file format).
What I really would like to see is effort expended to make the the UI more intuitive and aesthetically pleasing. Re intuitiveness: why is the URL and stop the first thing on the functionbar. What's with the read only/edit mode button, particularly in third place. Consolidate the function bar with the main toolbar a la Word, Word Perfect and Word Pro. Similar refinement can be made throughout the suite's toolbars. Yes, there's a reason why every office suite has gravitated over 15 years to a similar look and feel and there is no reason for OpenOffice to default to something different! Same with the menu structure.
Re aesthetics: first, the icons are very primitive--like bargain bin software. If Sun can't borrow several of Apple's HUI gurus, then at least hire Iconfactory to produce 32-bit color icons. Compare MS Office v.X for Mac toolbar icons. They aren't just more visually pleasing, they convey more information to the user. Similarly, polish the dialog box layouts/widgets (which currently have a number of HUI no-nos such as vast amounts of unused panel and layout discrepancies). Constrast, for example, Apple's Aqua HUI guidelines. Or the refinement of MS Word's dialog boxes.
Additionally, there should be a MS Word "compatibility" setting that presents a similiar toolbar sequence and primary menu structure to MS Office within StarOffice/OpenOffice. This will permit more rapid adoption by MS Office users.
Finally, figure out how to integrate seamlessly with Mozilla's browser and email, a la MS IE, Outlook, and Word. Then, I can truly ditch MS Office!
Twelve karma points for the first person to write a Perl script that scrolls a Jon Katz article onto this thing. What better way to teach those MIT geeks that there are some places the Internet just doesn't belong?
Don't forget the 20 char limit.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Actually I was thinking it might be more apropos to say that Walt Disney is watching them...and spinning in his grave. I imagine he'd be pretty disgusted at how his creation had been turned into a greedy monster if he were still alive.
You're using her as bait, Master!
While I have no proof of this other than circumstantial evidence, I believe that IBM hires will work for food people off the street. The deal being minimum wage and all the bran muffins they can eat. They then circulate these people between bathrooms. My only proof of this is that within moments of going into any IBM bathroom to take a dump, someone will come in, choose the stall right next to yours (Doesn't matter if there're six empty ones) and commence with the explosive diarrhea. It definitely makes you want to cut your business short and get the hell out of there, let me tell you...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's too bad that Rosen, Valenti, the other members of the RIAA, MPAA, and other icons of entertainment industry greed weren't holding their secret meetings on the top floor of the WTC on 9/11. Of course their PR firms would spin it that they died fighting digital terrorism or some other rot. Given their 'Screw other industries and the public' attitude, I certainly wouldn't miss them.
If they would take even half the money spent on crap legislation and copy protection and used to produce quality art, they wouldn't have a problem making a profit.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
..or just get drunk and drive your car into a 7-11.
I don't know if this would work, but something instinctively makes me believe it would. If information such as copyrighted music was transmitted as quantum streams, wouldn't that make it impossible to copy it? You could move it, but when you tried to copy it, you would invariably change the source. Hmm, well. This would of course maybe make it troublesome to even listen to it, but that's not RIAA's problem, right? They'd only be even happier, I think.
PDR-W839 3 CD plus CDR-RW player/recorder [www.pioneerelectronics.com]
PDR-609 Single CD/CDR-RW Player Recorder [www.pioneerelectronics.com]
So is Pioneer going to be done for circumvention or does it only apply to individuals?
In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count votes.
"Want To Bet?" You forgot something important - The consumer has a vote. I'm going to whoever has good material that meets my needs. If the market goes dry, I'll work from sheet music, cd's, LP's, casettes, DVD's and reel to reel tape already collected. I don't have to have new music every year. If you choose not to meet that market, you loose as a supplier. Are you ready to cut yourself out of the market by closing the market? Have you noticed the market of USED? Goodwill gets $5 per CD. Used DVD's are $10 and up. Right of first sale is alive! If you cripple new material, existing material will only go up in value.
The truth shall set you free!
I use ADC/DAC I/O cards to digitize ionospheric sounder data recorded on analog tapes so that it can be processed on a computer. Many people use these cards to log data from experiments and to monitor and control industrial processes. These are not "sound cards" but it would be trivial to configure one to behave like a simple sound card. Is the RIAA going to demand that all ADC/DAC I/O cards contain copy protection circuits? Sorry about that oil refinery blowing up, the I/O card shut down after it falsely detected a copy protection watermark in the signal from the cat cracker pressure sensor.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
that if you can hear it... you can rip it.
I know people that make VERY high quality MP3's
of all their music cd's on computers that DON'T
have cd-rom drives. Duh!
Never underestimate the stupidity of your average
government.
Friends don't let friends buy Compaq's. (Dell/Gateway... same same) You want a good computer? Build it yourself.
that 90% of the typing public actually NEEDS
a friggin spell check option.
What the hell do you people do with your brains...
Sit on them??
Friends don't let friends buy Compaq's. (Dell/Gateway... same same) You want a good computer? Build it yourself.
That it may just have been a typo?
Yes it is just one point, but it may not intentionally be his fault. So dont bite his arm off too much.
I have disks 1-31 & I wrote to groups-support@google.com twice, but never received a reponse.
I imagine the /. crowd would be more impressed with some sort of custom t-shirt, but there you go..."
Forget about it. I was promised a Google shirt, but was never sent one. I tipped them to a number of usability problems with Google, from the logo not linking to their front page, to the << span pages >> arrows jumping you 10 pages at a time instead of the implied 1. Oh well.
It's been said that justice is equal, but the rich can afford more of it.
When it comes to lawsuits, The Big Guy can win by default because cases are too expensive.
With DVD players, you're at the will of that pesky CSS when it comes to playing foreign flicks... unless you can afford otherwise. Ditto for Macrovision, etc.
It's still the case, but knowledge is quickly becoming the new currency: a little know-how replaces the money the average jane needs to run an end route.
The only question you have to ask yourself is... would the MPAA/RIAA put lives and other industries at risk with myopic legislation designed to artificially protect their bottom line?
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
OpenOffice/StarOffice/Bob's 5x5 Cubicle Office. Last time I used any of them, they sucked. That was a long time ago though. VI is nice. But it doesn't cut it for some things, I'll have to fiddle with OpenOffice now. Thanks, another thing to add to my list of cruft to install. ;)
;)
;)
Archives. Yes, now we can see years of "Make Money Now!" "Lose Weight Now - Ask Me How!", and of course, "Thirty Asian Grrls in One Day!" ads. On the plus side, someone, somewhere, might be able to find a useful post about the merits of 1mb VGA cards.
RIAA. (I'll rant on the MPAA too.) Feh, let them scream all they want - the entertainment industry vs. the hardware industry, should be quite a show. My guess is that the hardware industry won't fold as easy, and will be lobbying our good representatives just as much. Besides, all we need is a good old fashioned red scare, and we could have Rosen exiled - after all, she's trying to directly harm a vital economic industry in this time of crisis. Sounds a bit fishy to me.
Anyway, people whining about boycotts. I still buy the occasional DVD. Like Enemy at the Gates. Some movies are too good to be sacrificed for any cause. I don't buy anywhere near the amount of crap I used to - maybe one DVD every three months now (I was going crazy buying back in the day.) CD's? Heh. I listen to what I have, or I purchase things not of the major record labels. I expect to get flamed, but, hey, I'm doing more than most, so, to quote a random moron from EverQuest, 'stfu n00b'.
ZZZ Online. I have too many sites to visit already, such as newgrounds.com, with their hillarious Mr. T vs. bin Laden flash. If you haven't seen it - go now.
Bathroom Computers. This is perfect, now I can be a more efficient EverCrack cleric. I can now go to the bathroom without worrying that my tank will get an idiodic idea in his head that he should pull four reds while the cleric's afk.
Not to mention the code productivity. It'll bring a new meaning to the words, "I'm dumping core."
I forsee great things for this bathroom computer. Invest today!
(Something is wrong here. I'm out of coffee.)
I say this every time one of these stories come out, there is no avoiding this crummy future without an organized resistance in the form of unencumbered digital content, consisting of material specifically created for the purpose of presenting an alternative by artists dedicated to empowering themselves and consumers against this limiting and innefficient model of distribution.
If anyone is REALLY interested in discussing alternatives for musicians and consumers please drop me a line. I'm thinking of publishing some thoughts and maybe even organizing/presenting ideas for getting real about fighting the content kings.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
The intermediate level of ignorance is the "adolescent." Here we have lack of knowledge compounded by lack of motivation to learn. The adolescent does not know the truth of facts, and lacks the fundamental motivation to discover them. They can be placed in front of him and he will grudgingly accept their existence, but otherwise he forges onward in his ignorance, somewhat blissful and innocent. The adolescent can fall either forward into adult ignorance, or backward into the deep stage, the fatal stage of ignorance.
This is "infantile" ignorance. The ignorant infant is unaware of reality, and flat-out refuses to accept evidence of his error or lack of knowledge. In a five-year-old child, infantile ignorance is "cute." The child refuses to believe that the world more complex than his on-the-spot interpretation, and objects outside of his perspective are not real, and therefore need not be considered. It is innocence and this is endearing, for it reminds us of when the world was simple and cast in shades black and white.
An adult who displays infantile ignorance is disgusting in the same way as an adult who has shit his pants. Bigotry and prejudice are two examples of infantile ignorance; the unrepentant refusal to be shown the truth or reality of facts regarding one's world. In an adult there is no innocent excuse for it; it's wilful and deliberate behavior. There's nothing to be done about the adult who displays infantile ignorance except to send them back to the "kid's table" to eat their meal, play with their feces, and drool on themselves. You cannot engage in adult conversation about important matters with the wilfully ignorant. There's a reason the term "like arguing with a four-year-old" was invented, and a reason it is a metaphor for futility.
it should be 'any size < 15' not 'any size 15'.
Then you need to check out Overclocked ReMix. There are some excellent game remixes available. Right now the downloads are limited to certain hours (bandwidth issues) unless you use a mirror. It's really cool to hear how creative people can be with the old game tunes you grew up playing.
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"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
What's next, make it illegal for the radio stations to play a complete song without interrupting it for the RIAA Copy-Protected Speech? "...today's Tom Sawyer, mean, mean stri.. we interrupt this classic song to inform you pirating this is against the RIAA. We now return you to the song in play.. today's.."
The sheer stupidity of the parties involved makes it clear they have lost touch with reality and only care about ripping.. er, reaping the profits from their artist :-p I give it no chance of really passing muster .. but I'll still contact my congressional reps.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
Not your stereo, but your sound card.
From the article:
According to Rosen, there are a number of tactics the RIAA will employ. First, she says, "we are working with sound card manufacturers to implement technology that will block the recording of watermarked content in both digital and analogue form".
Note that last part - analog. That translates as: plugging your stereo into your sound card. Or even, presumably, holding a mic up to your speakers. Fortunately we already have sound cards that don't give a crap about watermarks, right?
That will nobble attempts to rip and distribute encoded material, but what about existing files and CDs? Step forward PC manufacturers, whose help the RIAA hopes to recruit to "find ways to block the spread of legacy content".
Still laughing?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
This will be a long war, and a hard war. It will be a different kind of war than many of you are used to. But I know the American People are ready, and have the resolve to stamp out music sharing, and those countries that harbor music sharers. Make no mistake, we'll smoke 'em out.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Oops. That's my bad. It is a typo: I meant to say "I think my main complaint with StarOffice5.2 is the silly desktop." Yes, the silly desktop has gone away in OpenOffice, and for that I am grateful. Sorry 'bout that. I'm updating the page now.
Guess I picked a bad day to quit amphetamines! :)
...that the list was constructed in good humor. As I stated before, SO may not give you enough reason to change if you do already have Office97. However, the market will eventually force people to change and then they must decide between SO and M$O. These reasons merely shed light on why one might want to upgrade to SO instead of continuing the M$ tradition.
8. Ability to change interface to your preference of platform style.
Could you elaborate on that - I'm not sure exactly what you mean.
Sure. What I mean is that StarOffice has an option to look like Window, Motif or Aqua. Once again, a cool feature but not compelling in of itself.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade