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Slashback: Drives, Errors, Copyright
Spin control for some IBM drives? If you are one ofthe people who have the same results with IBM 75GXP hard drives that Sean Kelly did when he posed a recent Ask Slashdot, you may be interested in this report from legLess, who writes: "Pair Networks is swapping out every IBM 75GXP hard drive they have "[b]ased on an amazingly high failure rate." Pair is a big host: 114,000 sites all running on FreeBSD 4.1.1, including cdrom.com and Tom's Hardware. "We currently use and recommend Maxtor drives" they say. Big black eye for IBM."
GNU isn't Linux, either. Amid the stream of recent and upcoming software releases (Suse 7.3, Red Hat 7.2, Qt 3.0), it's sometimes easy for projects with smaller followings or more esoteric goals to get lost. BorrisYeltsin writes: "The Debian HURD iso images are now available from your local ftp.gnu.org mirror. There are 3 iso's available, so get downloading now!" (And read through the recent months' on the HURD Kernel Cousin too.)
Update: 10/16 14:20 GMT by T : Please note that the GNU Project maintains a list of ftp mirrors -- look for one local to you for best results all around :)
Placing warning signs along the road to consumerism brigc writes: "Good interview in the Chronicle of Higher Education with Jessica Litman about changes in the copyright arena since the publication of her book.
For those who were asleep, Litman's book 'Digital Copyright' does a good job of discussing why the copyright process got handed over to the industry and Congress has failed to protect the rights of the public."
Litman's book got a rave review from Michael a few months back; I suggest you check it out, and better yet ask you local library to put it up on display. Libraries have a strong vested interest in not ceding all control to copyright holders forever and ever amen.
It might pay to have a big fat mouth and ask for a refund on defective merchandise, too. anonicon writes: "Here's a heads up to the web site I'm running at http://www.fatchucks.com. I've started both a Corrupt CDs list for people who wish to report 'copy-protected' CDs or find out which ones they are, and an Indie Rec for people who want to recommend independent artists to the public. Thank you."
HURD -- a testament to the never-give-up and never-think-things-through spirit of GNU.
"Linux is nothing, work on the HURD" -- Stallman
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
I was planning on upgrading my own small servers with some of these drives, but have also made the switch to Matrox. I grew up the son of an IBM company man, who had great pride in IBM. This pride was passed down to me, and I've always trusted IBM for quality and dependability when it came to hardware for "Business Machines"... this is not just a black eye for IBM, but an end of an era.
From Tim Baker of Sunrise Records during MusicNotes @ 6 on my local radio station CHTZ-FM, best as I can remember the quote:
"You know the Panasonic or Yamaha CD burners you want to get this Christmas? Well, I've got news for you - save your money. After Christmas all new releases will be encoded and you won't be able to burn your own - and it's about time"
This is really paraphrased, but I have the gist of the quotation. I guess our fair use rights are supposedly forfeited because of the evil Napster. I wish these people would realise it's the price of a CD that was driving the Napster thing, not a willingness to steal. I alomst feel sorry for the record stores, though, since they take orders from the RIAA cabal.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
"Copy protected" CDs are going to be a shambles, good on the owner of that site for starting a list! And even better for compiling ways to, ahem, deal with the problem :).
These CDs will do little to stop online piracy. Everyone knows, if it can be heard it can be copied. Working a line-in jack on a stereo or computer isn't hard. Heck, you probably lose more fidelity in the MP3/OGG/Whatever compression than the digital-to-analog conversion with good audio equipment. All it takes is one good copy to be released and online music piracy will be off again.
Basically, if you want to stop the problem of music piracy, 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, not any fancy technical or legal hurdles -- or have they forgotten that the bands exist apart from phony marketing images?
So here's a plan to decrease piracy. 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 -->
The Debian HURD iso images are now available from your local ftp.gnu.org mirror.
Shouldn't that be Debian GNU/HURD, just to be fair?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Does anyone else have any anecdotal evidence of IBM drive problems? For all we know, Pair is just damned unlucky.
yeah the bands themselves do it but the companies and bands have every right to stop piracy any way they know how. I do agree that this is not the best way to do it (creating better music is not going to stop it it will probably just help to spread it).
Personally I believe that the best way to do it is to allow free recording of every show that an artist puts out. A devout fan is more likely to BUY a studio album if they can already get a taste of what the band is capable of on stage.
I hate the idea of copy-protected CDs (and personally I will not buy them) but I have a feeling we won't have a choice. Boycotting them won't work (try boycotting any chain, etc) it is HIGHLY unlikely that numbers of bought CDs will drop in any significant amount. (Just as they haven't dropped due to Napster, Gnutella, whatever).
Individuals will NOT police services themselves. That's fucking ridiculous. People are accustomed to copying music (I know I have been making my own compilations for years why would I stop now).
Support bands that support free music. Don't support bands who are in it only for the money.
The RIAA will never change, ever. Remember when tapes first got easy to record on?
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
How goes the rip CD's from XP thing, or has this been dropped? It looked like a pure publicity exercise to me, it'd be weird to see 'rip with windows' or something on a CD sticker. MS'd have to pay a shedload of money for the privilege I guess, not that they don't have it.
Yeah, that is a bit of a blow to IBM. However the real question this raises is: Why is pair using consumer level IDE drives in their servers?!
Q.
Actually, IIRC, Metallica does exactly that; they allow (and I think even encourage) their fans to make and trade concert recordings. They felt (reasonably, IMO) that they had a fan-friendly view of copying and trading songs, and really exploded only when they found out that one of their works in progress was being traded online. That's why they phrased so many of their complaints in terms of protecting their artistic integrity; they felt that the public trading of a song that they hadn't finished yet got in the way of their ability to change it further.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
IBM drives are on the whole very good. Yes the 75GXPs are crap. On the other hand the 40GXPs and 60GXPs are some of the best consumer level drives on the market right now. If you're trying to avoid a faulty drive don't go to a slightly less faulty alternative like Maxtor (I have seen too many Maxtors (of varying generations) fail, I will never trust them again) rather than one of the products that gave IBM their previous reputation for reliability.
P.S. No I don't work for or are in any way affiliated with IBM. I'm just a sysadmin thats run a lot of hardware into the ground over the years, and am a happy owner of a 60GXP.
How the hell long is it going to take for people to grow some spine and not buy a single CD from any artist from any RIAA member? It isn't that bad, folks. The only chance for us to break this racket is to not buy the product from the racket's participants.
The American Dream went to hell in a handbasket when someone decided that "The Customer" was King, and the customer beli
How the hell is this supposed to stop piracy? So these bands will just play thier little tunes while the pirates are our raping and pilliaging on the high seas? How will this help? The ONLY way to stop pirates is to protect every convoy with armed naval ships!
...um, wait a second... Wha? Since when did pirates copy music anyway?
:)
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Well then I am going to have to agree w/what Metallica did. OTOH I don't agree w/the rest of the shit that is going on. Most artists do NOT allow this sort of trading and are attempting to stop it.
Check out The record industry's newest copy protection scheme. ;)
The DTLA is one of the affected drives, the IC35L040 is one of the new 60GXPs, I've heard mixed reports on them, but so far they don't appear to be as bad as the 75GXPs. Also, you have command tagged queueing turned on, for some reason this seems to reduce the failure rate (at least on our local machines; we used to get these failures every couple of months on the drives, but we havn't seen it since turning on CTQ).
I read the internet for the articles.
I wonder if Pair Networks runs AMD on VIA boards with that quirky chipset problem. Someone pointed out the last time this IBM Deathstar issue came up that a lot of the people affected have VIA boards. I have one of these drives with a VIA board and my machine when screech screech screech .... clickety, clickety, clickety too 8^(
Anyone running AMD on VIA with the GXP?
You'd be right to bring a class-action suit, except that IBM is fulfilling their warranty in a speedy fashion.
The notion of a good being saleable for the purpose it was intended isn't separate from the warranty that's provided on the condition that the item fails before it's life expectancy.
Now, if IBM had failed to honor the warranty, and the alleged large number of drives had failed, then there'd be room for legal action. EXCEPT, IBM has acted honorably.
I'm still not a lawyer.
They're going to get sued a lot on this. And juries hate 'em now.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
Personally I believe that the best way to do it is to allow free recording of every show that an artist puts out. A devout fan is more likely to BUY a studio album if they can already get a taste of what the band is capable of on stage.
:) There are many other artists like this, Dave is just one of them.
Dave Matthews does exactly that. He allows recorders at his shows and allows his music to be freely traded/swapped/copied/etc. He's ok with people making CD's out of his shows and selling them (including those shows he makes into albums). He's ok with people making MP3s (and other formats) out of his albums and shows and then placing them on p2p services.
Why does he do this? His philosophy is that of a Jazz musician (his music has an element of Jazz to it, btw) (i shouldnt really be singling out jazz, a lot of other types of musicians are the same way). They like their music to be listened to and enjoyed, not the monetary value they get in return. That philosophy is very similar to programmers who contribute to Open Source projects.
You are correct by saying a devout fan buys music - I have all of Dave's CDs
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
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GNU/HURD should indeed be called just GNU, since it's the GNU OS proper; RMS said recently in a mailing-list that although this is the case one should use GNU/HURD whenever there is need to differenciate (e.g. "Debian GNU" would be awkward and misleading, hence GNU/Linux and GNU/HURD). Apart from that, the HURD is indeed GNU (since the kernel is part of the GNU system there is no need to use GNU/HURD, unlike GNU/Linux where there is such a need).
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Usability: how many people have actually tried installing and running GNU/HURD? From the comments, not a lot... Sure, there are still several things missing, but the concept of the HURD is elegant and interesting enough to make it worthwhile... the fundamental servers are already done, many interesting translators are done and others being developed (think for example of the ftp translator... that give system wide transparent FTP, with no modification on any user program...). All the gnu shell and text utils are there, and so is Emacs and hundrends of other programs, including XFree. I wouldn't call this 'useless'...
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Some limitations and shortcomings are still there, and some of them probably give the appearance of a slowdown in development (threads, the 1GB limit for the partitions that the it can handle and the ppp code); this will be hopefully soon solved (I would say very soon). The truth is that, apart from the hardware support - that will be greatly improved with oskit-mach - and some programs that depend on libs that are hard to port everything is available. I can browse the web on GNU/HURD; I can program in GNU/HURD; I can do huge ammounts of important stuff while using GNU/HURD, and all this without even going for HURD specific features that are very intriging and useful (again, servers and translators come to mind... check the GNU/HURD website for info on all this.
Instalation and packaging is pure Debian, so nobody should have major problems (always keeping in mind that it's still being developed).All in all I'm very pleased with the status of it and the possibilities it gives (and the ones that are to follow).
Try it; get involved; you could just come to like it.
What's so bad about socialism?
I work for a start up with many ex-IBM'ers, we decided in the begining to use the above mentioned IBM harddrives. For me, I could care less about quality of warranty, or past reliability. What I care about is that I have to swap 100's of IBM drives, full of data. I have had this drive fail 3 times in a 6 month period on my mail server, each time requiring me to take time out of my evenings to rebuild a busy machine. I'm busy enough without crappy hardware. My users are yelling for replacement drives from a diffrent manufacturer.
We went with drives from Western Digital. My my time and companies money is wasted.
www.bleepyou.com
My company pumps out quite a few systems per month, and we have been using Seagate HD's for the past two years UNTIL now. For some reason for a period of 2 months we were getting back almost 2 in 3 of the Seagate 20Gig 5400rpm drives (cant remember model number) in our systems. That lasted for two months, until changed to Fujitsu.
:( But none of the other Seagate drives has any similar problem, not even the 20Gig 7200rpm. So i would say its very much like the IBM problem, and alike also in that it hasnt been fixed quickly enough! :(
The drives would just completly fail anywhere between 1 hour and 1 month from purchase.
/rant...
I had a IBM 20gig fail on me just two weeks ago--right after my brother lost two Maxtors. IBM was very good about filling the warranty--much better than Maxtor! The 20gig had been running smoothly for about a year.
In reality, all hard drives are made pretty much the same way. (For some GREAT information on everything harddrive related, check out this site.) For some reason IBM appears to be in a bit of a slump, but I remember a few years ago everyone was saying "don't buy a maxtor--they're cheap trash." Whatever you buy, just remember that your precious data resides on ferroceramic disks spinning at 5200-10000 rpm with the means of destruction--the read head--floating mere microns above. Back up often!
-s
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Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
"We currently use and recommend Maxtor drives"
Shit, Maxtor drives? Those are at the very bottom of my list of reliable drives, trying hard for a place next to Western Digital. Seriously, couldn't they have picked a better drive? Fujitsu still makes some good quality drives. They're very quite, too.
OTOH, maybe Maxtor's gotten better since they incorporated Quantum... but I dunno. It doesn't seem terribly likely to me.
I'm sure the industry would love that. Nobody could prove how many songs were traded online so they'd release a couple songs to get people's attention and then claim rampant copying when they felt like quitting.
They'd come out looking like the good guys, after all, it was the users who didn't do the right thing... Just like Stephen King and his bullshit with "The Plant". He ran out of time so he stopped writing it (leaving everyone who had bought the first parts in the lurch) and blamed it on piracy. What an ass.
I really never cared about MP3s until now, but I'll definately encourage people to download MP3s from copy protected discs instead of paying for them. It's getting to the point where we need to fight this shit instead of sitting and taking it.
He made over $80,000 US on a single short story. You're going to tell me that's not sucessful?
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
Stephen King didn't do it right. He decided he's do it as long as "piracy didn't go over 50%", but he's evidently too stupid to realize that's a broken way to do it.
As soon as he announced that, many people decided to download the ebook quite a few times just to sabotage him. Other users felt (unlike SK) that if they bought the book, they deserved to be able to read it in multiple formats and they downloaded two copies, HTML and Palm reader, or such.
When SK discontinued the book (after making upwards of a million dollars) he screwed over the fans who had paid for it, all to spite a couple of script kiddies with perl scripts.
If someone else tried this, with a set $ value per chapter instead of a % of downloads, they'd probably do just fine. But I doubt people will shell out for a book which may never be finished. I think authors have to be prepared to write the whole thing on spec, instead of charging piecemeal.
The record companies don't "have good contacts". They *own* the contacts. The ones they don't own they bribe. Look into ClearChannel and the payola scams.
If anyone tries to go it on their own I bet they'll be black-listed completely out of business.
Stephen King was an idiot - he thought a 70% visit/purchase ratio was too low (it's really amazingly high). King failed to take into account: people downloading but not actually reading the books, people re-downloading the books, people not wanting to pay for an unfinished work, his books are all have the same plot, many readers would have used the public library anyway, etc. Anyway, my point is that the Steven King fiasco was not a model example.
Um... OpenBSD can run anything Linux can that's not Linux-specific.
Take the example of my best friend. He owns TWO copies of every Metallica CD up to the Napster fiasco. One copy of every cassette tape up to then. 4 or 5 posters, up to then. 5 or 6 T-shirts. A baseball cap. He was The World's Biggest Metallica Fan, all caps, in stereo. He was also the second-biggest Napster user I ever met. Then came the Napster Fiasco, and he got banned for an mp3 of No-Leaf Clover, found on his machine, *ripped off his own legitimate CD and not available for downloads*. Result?
;-) Second, he dropped Metallica cold, and hates their guts today, Lars in particular. He gets a grim satisfaction from anti-metallica sites like killmetallica.com. He is now one of the biggest Metallica HATERS I know. There is no evidence that his Napster use ever cost them a dime, and he must have spent hundreds on them over the years. Would have spent hundreds more if he'd remained a fan. Now, nothing.
Well, first he hacked his way out of the ban like any self-respecting music fan.
Talk about your Operation: Footbullets.
This is not about fan's respect. A fan who likes a band is MORE likely to share its music. Metallica was all in favor of tape trading back in the day, when they were little. We haven't forgotten, Lars, even if fame has made you forget. Face it - this is about money, and about destroying those fair-use rights that cut in on corporate profit. Nothing more, nothing less.
-Kasreyn
P.S. Doubly ironic, they banned him for a reallu sUxx0r song like No Leaf Clover, when there were also mp3's of Master of Puppets, Orion, One, etc...
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
I 100% agree. I hate powering down my box....it just feels like murder to the hard disk.
In additon, here's a taping FAQ: http://www.phish.net/PhishFAQ/tape-qs.html
The time of day is 29:33.
I've been trying to think of something along the lines of a "Boston Tea Party" to protest the dismantling of consumer rights.
Trashing a bunch of CDs would only be to the RIAA's benefit since we'd have to pay for all those CDs. Unless we steal them, but I doubt breaking into record stores would be good PR.
So my idea is to distribute copies of "corrupted" CDs for free. We do it standing outside the stores, too. Now, we could say that we're only providing computer-readable copies for people who have legally bought the CD, but it's such a hassle to have to ask every single person to show a receipt.
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
or have they forgotten that the bands exist apart from phony marketing images?
In 1981 or therabouts, the Record Industry almost lost it all to MTV. Why? They suddenly lost control of the promotional media. For the first time all the payola and underhanded promoting meant nothing in the face of artists who could not only be seen, but heard.
Then the record company learned their lesson, and signed all the unpopular bands that MTV 'made', and promptly ruined them. Almost all of the really good 80's bands that didn't understand how the record industry worked are now lucky to show up on Vh1's 'Behind the Music' or 'Where are they Now?'. God, I really had a crush on Belinda Carlisle when I was a kid, too.
Now, the record industry pumps an 'Artist'-- and I do use that term loosely-- as much on their visual image as they do on their sound.
What, you think Britney got those new cookies because she particularly wanted them? Or do you think some fork-tounged record-executive/producer told her that they would boost her popularity and sales enough times that she started to beleive him?
Real good example of the way this works. Look at the Monkees. Crap band with some charismatic, but not really good-looking members. They were made up out of whole cloth. Pete, Peter, Mickey, and Davey were the winners of an audition. They were just barely good enough to get a TV show as part of their promotion package.
Let's contrast and compare with O-town, yet another group that was manufactured by the Hollywood machine. They *started* with a TV show *about* the audtions, because the record industry now understands that video is an important part of the 'image'.
Remember, it has *always* been about the perception of pop music stars, be it 'Sound' or 'Image', and *never* about their musical talents.
If it was about talent, there never would have been Disco.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Under the Corrupt CD's is a banned book area, very interesting. He has them in areas by banned on political, religious, sexual and social reasons. I think I'll use this as a must read list. Been wanting to read 1984.
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"The worst part of censorship is XXXXXXXXXXX." -- Unknown
How long is it going to take for you and those who put forth the same arguments to realize that IT WILL NOT WORK and as a bonus IT HURTS ARTISTS YOU LIKE.
/. stopped buying DVD's and CD's, the simple fact is that they wouldn't even notice! We are a small minority buying a (relativley) small amount of music/movies, especially compared to the army of nSync fans ready to buy at the drop of a hat.
I like Cake, Ivy, and a number of other arists quite a bit. When I buy those CD's, sure I'm giving some money to RIAA but I'm also supporting the arists I like (I also support local artists too, I just happed to like some signed bands).
Even if everyone reading
In fact, what would really happen are that for a few bands that a lot of people around here like (Daft Punk? Cake?) that the sales numbers would be put off as we're a larger percentage of that sub-market - so they'd still have almost as much money as before, but would think your favorite band was dropping in popularity fast and it would be a damn long time before you see another CD from them!! You'd be saying "Hey, wasn't that my favorite lead singer in Dark Days II?"
What we can do here is use something we have proportionally more of - money - than the population at large to fight against them. Donate to the EFF!! They are the ones fighting the battles that will get the laws we hate overturned, if they are going to be overturned at all. They are, to paraphrase, our last hope.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This Sony page tells us that any CD carrying the "compact disc digital audio" logo is compliant to the IEC 908 standard and/or the Philips-Sony Compact Disc Digital Audio System Description (the RED Book). Any way to get the labels in for wrongfully using that logo (if they do) ?
I hate the idea of copy-protected CDs (and personally I will not buy them) but I have a feeling we won't have a choice. Boycotting them won't work (try boycotting any chain, etc) it is HIGHLY unlikely that numbers of bought CDs will drop in any significant amount. (Just as they haven't dropped due to Napster, Gnutella, whatever).
Actually....
So quickly we forget the details. It's kinda sad in a way.
I remember seeing something on CNN in early 2000 right when the Napster lawsuits were filed and/or aired to the general public as a whole. The news went something like this:
"The RIAA has filed a lawsuit against Napster, the online music-sharing service, due to it's ability to facilitate piracy of music and potential to cripple sales.
"In other news, CD sales this quarter are up almost 20%, a near-record quarter for the music industry."
The teeny little smirk of irony that the guy let slip through spoke volumes for those that saw it.
Very shortly afterwards, hundreds of people started boycotting the RIAA by refusing to purchase CDs released by RIAA member labels. Everyone was outraged by the total ridiculousness of the charges in the lawsuit and by God they were going to DO something about it!
And you know what? It worked. Unfortunately, because it was such a grassroots and spontaneous choice by hundreds and even thousands of individuals, nobody bothered to tell the MEDIA that people were boycotting the RIAA. And so it backfired on us.
Whatsernutz, the RIAA's Head Hatchetwoman... er... spokeswoman, that is, pointed to CD sales in 2001 being down even further than usual to points much lower than in the past two to three years as proof that Napster and other music-sharing services ARE hurting the industry. Never mind the fact that the major player - Napster - has been stopped cold, with no way to trade anything over it. Never mind that online music piracy has been reduced, effectively, to that of pre-Napster levels. CD sales are slipping. They know why, and can even truthfully say that it's because of Napster. They just haven't bothered to tell anyone that, hey, it's because we SUED Napster that they're slipping. The cause is Napster, but not in the way that they want everyone to think.
And nobody's bothered to point this out to the Media, the courts, or the world at large.
So you say that it's highly unlikely that a boycott would do any good. I say that you're right, but not for the same reasons. Boycotts are USELESS if the public isn't made aware of them. The number of CDs purchased in the past year HAS dropped significantly, and as of right now, it's only filling their ammo bins. We need someone to step up and tell people that the reason CD sales are slipping is because the people who buy the majority of music aren't buying anymore in protest. And it needs to be someone famous - or at least vaguely well-known - and respected.
Just some food for thought for all of ya.
You thought that this sig was what you think that I thought you wanted me to think. I think.
Hmm, you swallowed the M$ line that the shell (internet explorer) is part of the OS.
But is is. Not MSIE-the-application but MSIE-the-library. Yes, most people don't see the difference between these two, but you can compare MSIE-the-application to konqueror and MSIE-the-library to KHTML.
It's my opinion that anything which is assumed to be part of the OS by many or all applications and/or users is part of the OS.
On Linux this includes:
- The kernel
- Libraries, including the C, C++, curses, pam, z, crypt libraries
- Bourne shell including frequently used tools such as grep, awk, sed, cut, sort
- Tools like mount, iptables, ifconfig, modutils
- X Windowing system and libraries
I would even go as far as saying the KDE base libraries are part of the OS.This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
I was required to take 30 "humanities" credits, and this is the first opportunity I've had to put this "valuable" knowledge to use, so please excuse me.
I seem to vaguely remember something in Psychology 101 about how people would prefer something that was reliably unreliable to an alternative that seemed to violate a their conception of how reliable it was. In short: a system of unreliable reward modifies behavior with greater effect than a system of reliable reward.
That said I've had my share of HD's, only the Maxtors have failed under their listed mean time before failure (my bad luck YMMV). But they've always replaced them, of course I fell asleep while on hold waiting for a person once.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Just Linux please. I think I made it pretty clear I don't really like the name GNU/Linux ;-)
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
John Coltrane is up to 120 RPM in his grave.
-- Support Ometz le-Serev.
Online trading has dropped? Well, maybe a little but I doubt it! Ever heard of Morpheus? Kazaa? Bearshare? Gnutella? Sure it's not in a nice shiny package like Napster was. It's not totally Music either. Personally, I might download a MP3 when I want to here something then delete it. I may also download clips from TV shows as well on Morpheous.
I would BUY every CD I wanted if it was only about 5 bucks. The RIAA and music agents steal from artists. Take a look at artists like TLC and a few others. Yeah yeah they may have been lame one hit wonders, but I don't know anyone who doesn't know their songs and they went totally broke right about the time they were the most popular and selling lots of CD's. Then, all of a sudden, noone listened to TLC anymore and/or someone started to wondered what happened to them. Watch any beyond the music or behind the music or whatever and lots of artists have a similar story. Very few reach the heights of bands and musicians like Aerosmith, Eric Clapton, Mariah Carey (ok her new one sucks be she had way more hits then most of the current musicians) or heck even Metallica has done extremely well and held on for a while.
If the music industry wants to increase sales, they need to make the purchase worth it. Enhanced CD's while cool, are usually poorly executed. They want to install 3-4 year old software like Quicktime 2.0 and even old versions of flash. They don't recognize that PC owners have there stuff already installed. Where am I going with this? Fans will buy regardless, but if you give that new listener something other then 10 other songs that don't get airplay, they may be more apt to buy future CD's. A real well done enhanced CD could go further towards that. Include some professional Winamp skins or Windows Media Player skins and things such as wallpaper and professional Windows and Mac skins and themes. Ditch the auto launching flash presentations, or if you have one, don't go too crazy with it. Include a link in the flash presentation that will launch a file explorer. Real fans will eat em up and new users may get more then the song they hear on the radio 15 times a day.
Gorkman
You'd be right to bring a class-action suit, except that IBM is fulfilling their warranty in a speedy fashion.
Replacing the failed drive is nothing like meeting a full warranty. Your system is down (if single-drive) or crippled (if multiple-drive) for days while waiting for the new drive. Then you've got to spend hours installing it, formatting it, and reloading from backup. (No backup? THAT is your own fault.) Is IBM re-imbursing people for the down time and labor?
The electronics & software industries have gotten used to quality levels and warranties far more limited than would be acceptable anywhere else. This is of dubious legality, it holds back the progress of the industry (imagine if half of the people now employed in tech support were free to develop new uses for the computers, instead of running around restoring them after crashes), and it deters businesses and people from investing more into hardware and software.
Imagine if the steering linkage broke on a new car while going down the freeway at 70mph, and the manufacturer would only send out a new steering linkage? (1) Would you buy a car from that company after hearing about this? (2) Under the laws in most states, the courts would toss out that "limited warranty" and allow the victims' estates to sue for wrongful death, the value of the car, etc. This might have been unreasonable in 1910, when few engineers could design a car that would make it out of the driveway on it's own power, let alone hold together through a long high-speed trip. But two decades later, you could drive a good car across the USA without stopping for repairs... The computer and software industries have had more than 50 years to learn how to make reliable products. Why don't they?
Nonsense. I learned that definition back in the 80's. (I also learned the difference between a shell and a web browser long before IE was written.) Do you thing RMS is a Micro$soft dupe when he notes, "But you can't use a kernel by itself; a kernel is useful only as part of a whole operating system."
Admittedly, "operating system" is a fuzzy term; some use it to mean only the kernel, while some refer to the system as a whole. "Kernel" and "system" are clearer, and I prefer to use them. Linux - i.e., what Linus wrote - is the kernel. The stuff that makes it a useable system - and the whole vision of a free (as in speech) Unix-like system - is GNU.
In day-to-day use, yes, I call my machine a Linux box. But I also call generic facial tissue "Kleenex", and the Canon copier in the office a "Xerox" machine. I am aware of the difference and make it clear when necessary.Mach is a microkernel, which is not the same thing as a kernel. If you have a microkernel, you build servers that sit on top of it to provide the usual kernel services; the Hurd is a collection of such servers. You could can the Hurd a kernel, loosely speaking. (GNU does.)
The Hurd is, according to GNU,
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
This is drifting off topic, but this is not a troll. Just honest thinking about it. Questions to ponder. More questions than answers. But one conclusion at the end.
Shouldn't it really be called: GNU/Linux/XFree/ALSA/Qt/KDE? I mean, that's what I run. Honest. And my system wouldn't be usable (to me at least) without these.
In all honesty and complete candor, my system really wouldn't be usable if I didn't call it...
GNU / Linux / XFree / ALSA / Qt / KDE / StarOffice / XMMS / LAME / Apache / Java / Python / PHP / PostgreSQL / htdig / et. all.
Now in my progression of names, you might argue that some of them are merely "packages" that enable specific functionality. But there are two good counter arguments to that which are seperate and distinct.
1. Isn't GNU just a collection (or package) of software that enables specific functionality? Is it really more necessary in order to have an operational system, than say, Apache?
2. Isn't what constitutes a "usable" system dependent on the user and intended use?
For instance, one might argue that Apache isn't necessary. But if the system's intended use is a webserver, then Apache might be necessary, and GNU tools might be unnecessary. For instance, can't you replace most GNU tools with perl scripts? (In fact, I remember a project once to replace most of the tools with perl scripts.) Imagine a web server appliance. It might have a Linux kernel, an Init program, a web server, a scripting language, and NO GNU tools. No command line. No compilers, etc. It seems clear that this hypothetical system would not properly be called GNU/anything.
And on my system, I have lots of GNU tools installed. I don't think about them any more than I give any special thought to Qt, KDE, XFree, Apache, Python, etc., etc. or other major projects which are the product of major effort. I don't mean to downplay the effort that has been put into GNU. So should my system be called GNU/Linux? Shouldn't the other important major projects which make all the difference to my system being usable get a place in the name? Why should going from my hypothetical embedded webserver appliance to a desktop system where GNU tools are added, mandate a prefix of GNU?
Maybe the people who package my system should choose the name? The box says "SuSE Linux 7.2 Professional". What if they wanted to call it the "Aardvark" operating system which includes and is based on lots of software works including Linux, GNU, KDE, etc., etc.?
I'm not suggesting that GNU should not receive credit. I also don't want to fail to recognize the wonderful work of untold thousands in many other major software projects that I make use of daily and take for granted, with hardly a second thought.
Imagine a system geared for end users. Not stupid people. Just non-geeks who want to do useful work. They never use the command line, compilers, etc. How hard would it be for such a system to be GNU free? Even if GNU parts were installed on the system as part of the distribution, does GNU play a big or even any part of making the system usable to them in any significant way? Doesn't Linux and (let's suppose) KDE, XFree and StarOffice play the bigger roles of making this system operational and usable?
Suppose Apple were to include GNU tools as an optional install in Mac OS X? What part do those tools play in the overall system? Should they call it GNU/Mac OS X? How much does this system resemble the non-Mac system of the previous paragraph?
Like I said, I have a lot more questions than answers. I'm not ooposed to using GNU/Linux in a lot of contexts. But in the end, the real problem I have is that I think RMS is a control freaque. I applaud the many good things he has done. But I don't worship him as much as I do some others. And as I read more and more articles I find myself more and more pissed at RMS as time goes on. (I should use the term alienated, but I'm more in the "pissed" mindset at this moment.) Just as a longtime Apple user (20+ years, predating Macintosh and even IBM PC) I find myself very pissed at Steve Jobs as I've read more accounts of behind the scenes.
This is a rant. Not intended as a troll or flame or to draw flames. An opinion for sure. Questions. No definite answers. Blowing off steam.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I'm not going to insult your analogy.
Your reply gave me pause, and an opportunity to think about where I stand on limited warranties.
My best answer at this moment is,
Any law that exists for any reason other than to protect citizens and their property is generally bad.
In the specific example, a hard drive fails, we have to determine the value of the loss. How I value my Master's Dissertation and research may not be the same monetary value that you assign to it. Rather than engage in court proceedings to determine value each time data is lost, we have come to accept that our self-created IP is not valued by others, and that the hard drive itself will be replaced. The time and work for installing it isn't any greater than the first time the drive was purchased.
You may not like it, but unless we can come up with an easy way to work out value... The only other possibility is take out data loss insurance that could be used to pay for data recovery services.
Thanks
Hey, just out of curiosity, does OpenBSD have the same Linux compatibility engine that Free and NetBSD do?
Yes (for the i386 arch anyway). You just install the proper package ("pkg_add redhat_base-6.2.tgz") and you're done. As you probably guessed, the Linux compatibility is based on Red Hat 6.2, which is admitedly a little old, but a great deal of binary-only linux software is statically linked anyway. I have had a great deal of success with it myself.
As far as returns go when something does go wrong, I've dealt with WD, Maxtor, Quantum, and Seagate. I've had no problems with any of them...give them a call or go to their website, get an RMA, pack the drive properly (tossing the drive in a baggie and then into a Priority Mail box doesn't count...I've received drives that were shipped that way, and they were DOA), send it in, and wait a week or two for a new drive to be shipped out. On a couple of occasions, I've gotten back bigger drives than I sent in. Still, it would be better to not have to put the manufacturer's customer service to the test.
FWIW, the only SCSI drive that's ever failed on me was a refurbed 40MB Conner that I bought for my Apple IIe back in '91, and it took eight or nine years to conk out. There would appear to be at least a grain of truth to the increased reliability of SCSI drives. It's just a pain that they're so much more expensive (gotta factor in the cost of the controller, too). The machines in which I have SCSI drives (an Apple II and a Mac) have them because that's all they support (or used to support...while my Quadra 610 is still SCSI-only, I could replace the caching SCSI controller in my IIGS with an IDE controller).
(For the crack-addict moderators who thought my opinion of Maxtor was a troll...WTF?)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
OK, the broken steering linkage is a rather extreme example of "incidental and consequential" damages. However, I think that cases like that -- and finding such limitations in the warranties issued by _all_ competing manufacturers -- was the inspiration for the UCC (adopted by most state legislatures) to provide that incidental and consequential damages cannot be excluded from warranty on consumer products. And it doesn't distinguish serious and trivial cases. E.g., your starter motor in a new car fails due to a defect in it's manufacture, resulting in tow charges, loss of a few hours of your time, and labor putting in a new solenoid. GM cannot just send you a new starter and leave the rest up to you. They will probably pay for the tow and certainly pay for the labor. If they can't get the car back on the road promptly, they should also provide transportation until it is fixed.
As I understand the laws, you could also sue for the time you lost -- but since you'd spend days in court and pay your lawyer in five or six figures, it's hardly worthwhile.
If the car was bought for and used in business, then the mfg is allowed to exclude incidental and consequential damages -- corporate buyers should be able to read and understand that limited warranty, and negotiate a better one if needed, or find another mfg willing to stand behind it's products before buying a fleet of cars. Nor can any manufacturer afford to cover alleged consequential damages such as "My car broke down, I missed my sales appointment and lost a $100M contract." So a reasonable warranty for business use is generally somewhere in between "parts only" and full coverage. But consumers hardly ever have the ability to negotiate over the warranty, so the law provides a minimum warranty for them. And this causes most mfgs to maintain a certain minimum quality level so they aren't flooded in lawsuits -- which also benefits businesses that need to buy a reliable car without paying cadillac prices, for instance.
Yes, it would be better if everyone could negotiate a price & warranty to best suit their particular needs. E.g., gamers can get lowest price and "parts only" warranties, corporations buy high-quality servers with warranties that pay $10,000/hour for downtime (and OS and hardware such that they aren't likely to have _any_ downtime), and people that use a single computer for serious business get appropriate in-between price, quality, and warranty. So go right ahead, call up Bill Gates and tell him that because you use your home computer for financial records and work, you are willing to pay three times as much for an OS more stable than Windows and a guarantee of $100/hour for any downtime... 8-)
I think that the difference between the starter failing and the drive failing, and specifically being reimbursed for installation costs is this:
On the car, you don't buy your starter in a box, you buy it installed. You buy it installed, and the warranty is such that they pay for installation at the dealer.
A better comparison is this:
Your car is out of warranty, you buy a starter at AutoZone and install the starter while laying on your back in the driveway. The starter is under a warranty from AutoZone.
The starter fails, you take it out, go back to AutoZone, and they give you another boxed unit.
We're getting down to silly details, I agree it would be better if we could negotiate our own warranties- not that it'll happen anytime soon.
There are parts of the Linux OS (eg. Nvidia binary module) which would NEVER be allowed in a GNU operating system
:-)
If you believe the NVidia driver is part of Linux, I suggest you insert it into your kernel, observe a crash, and then report it to the linux-kernel list. Be sure to mention you had the NVidia driver loaded.
Have fun
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Do you mean you get any better warranty by buying a complete system with a pre-loaded OS? Not bloody likely. All you avoid is MS and the hardware makers pointing fingers at each other -- because MS won't talk to you at all!
By the way, I've installed a couple of starters and one fuel pump while laying on my back in parking lots or beside the road. I long ago lost track of how many starters I've changed in the driveway... But when the car is new and under warranty, it had better work right.
You can't count on that with computers, and that's what I'm complaining about. Software crashes cost nothing to the vendor, and you've got to be NASA or something to get even moderate reliability in your software; hardware crashes the vendor replacement parts, and it's usually reasonably reliable even in the bargain brands, but you still get top-rated brands mass-producing lemons now and then. (If you can forgive another analogy -- Chevy could produce the Vega and survive, Cadillac never would.)
Do I mean that you get a better warranty by buying the computer? Not often- depends on the vendor.
If your drive fails in a computer bought as a whole, the either the goofy kits shop has to replace it and install it for you. Or IBM will, if you've bought their kit. Gateway, HP, anything bought from a reseller like Best Buy, CompUSA, Time, Tiny, etc..., you're out of luck, unless you're loud.
My thought was, that if you've bought boxed goods originally, and knew that you were going to pay someone to install them or install them yourself, the warranty doesn't pay you for your time to install it a second time, same as in auto repair.
When the new car is under warranty, it had better work, and you can't always count on that: Hyundai Excel, Ford Pinto, Fiat, anything with Lucas electrics, etc.... With computers, the case is much the same, it had better work, but you can't count on it 100%, and we're far more accepting of the dregs of computers than we are of automobiles.
I installed an alternator in my co-op's car in the IBM parking lot two weeks ago.
Cadillac sold the Cimarron and now sells the Catera, both lesser machines, one a Chevy relabelled, and the other, an Opel. The Opel seems pretty good so far, but the Cimarron was a piece of yellow citrus if there ever were one.
Because we began this discussion by talking solely about hardware, I've avoided bringing MS into it. You're absolutely right when you imply that most problems are caused by software and you can't get a hardware manufacturer to recognise it until you've fdisk'ed your hard drive-
I'm finding that we're really in agreement here. Do you see anything left to argue over?