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.
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
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.
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!
My favorite quote:
Or alternatively, consumers may simply start listening to bands from alternative labels that do most of their promoting with free music samples over the Internet. The fact of the matter is that the record labels are not nearly as useful as they were when distributing music meant putting vinyl records on shelves, and promoting it required convincing radio stations to give it air time.
I personally have steered clear of this whole MP3 craze. So I couldn't care less what happens. But history and simple economics would suggest that the time is ripe for alternatives to the current music distribution scheme.
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
Striaght from the MIT bathroom server this quote comes as no suprise:
Woah, Nellie! This thing's beeping up a storm. We must have made Slashdot again.
Yes they are pretty bright over there.
"Get them before they get....