The idea is to expose the medium to a strong, reversing magnetic field---one that will get the magnetic domains in the object vibrating to it. Leave the medium in the path of the eraser, maybe circulate it around a bit. But here's the kicker...
After awhile, slowly move the medium away from the eraser until it's about 3 or 4 feet away. Then, and only then, turn off the power to the eraser.
Maybe, just maybe, you'll have gotten rid of most of the magnetic fluxes.
...and if they don't want to replace 'em, how 'bout they let folks like MP3.COM put 'em up on their site so we can listen to 'em after the originals, which we paid for, degrade?
I don't want to make a point-by-point reply to this, because I like the BSD's. In fact, I've been looking 'round for that book on BSD kernel internals because it's such a good, technical book. Unfortunately, though, the *BSD people have made some political mistakes that may have given them this very problem.
Several years ago, I tried FreeBSD 2.0 or so on an old 486/50 I had been using to test various free OS's. I got my copy from Walnut Creek, with the nice book. Sadly, I discovered that the Promise IDE controller in my box wasn't supported, or there was some other problem with IDE support. I wrote about it to Walnut Creek, as they suggested I do, and got a mail back from one of the BSD team. The mail said, basically, "we ain't interested in fixing it. Our OS is for big servers with SCSI controllers, and we don't support "broken" hardware. Send the stuff back to Walnut Creek, and use Linux, because they support every piece of junk out there, no matter how badly it mangles the rest of the system."
Now, I'm not saying the *BSD people should abandon their goals. But I am saying that they need to establish a clear public image as a very high-quality OS for use by seriously-committed computer professionals. Either that, or they should seriously consider scaling their OS to include, at the bottom end, the same level of "junk hardware" support that Linux has.
Maybe it's too late to consider these issues now, but I hope not. I'd hate to see a super-excellent OS go away just because of politics and ideals.
Hoo-boy! We have a Real Problem here, don't we?? Winmodems are going to take over the industry!
Just what we need! Next thing you know, they'll start developing CD-ROM devices with rim drives, just like those little cheap turntables us old folks got stuck with when we were kids.
Just think! Soon, Linux will have modems that smoke our CPU's in no time! Bet that'll make Intel happy!
First, the people who work on UI's in the UNIX world have gone through an intellectual and philosophical sea-change over the past few years. I remember back in 1995 or so, I used to fight on comp.os.linux.advocacy for UNIX/Linux developers to recognize the need for tools with which DOS/Windows users would feel familiar. In the beginning, there was a lot of resistance. Now, we have tools like the editor in the Midnight Commander, which can do CUA quite well. Then, there's xwpe, which has a really Borland-like feel to it. The GNOME and KDE desktop technology is getting very easy for "average" users to handle.
What bothers me about articles like this is that they tend to perpetuate the stereotypes. The other thing that bothers me is that the very idea has the feel of "we need to find yet another weakness in what these people are doing."
The February Linux Journal has a GNOME article in which the author mentions a UI team. I've been expecting that to happen at some point. Open Source projects with UI teams--maybe even usability teams---what kind of Achilles' Heel is that?
Why is mp3.com fighting with the RIAA over duplicating CD's and sending them over the Internet? Why does mp3.com even *bother* with this approach, instead of trying harder to use mp3 technology to market new artists and give people exposure who would otherwise never be heard? Money, I guess.
Frankly, I've been hoping someone would develop a portable device that could hold an ISO9660 CD with mp3's on it. Then, the recording artists would be in a position to record more music on a single disc. This would be a great opportunity for, say, jazz and classical performers.
I'm troubled by this My CD project, and I can't develop a great deal of sympathy for mp3.com. They're getting into a bruhaha with the RIAA that could well destroy the precious thing they really offer.
Sad. I was just about to plan some purchases of DAM CD's from them. I'll still do so, but with this crazy My CD thing, I wonder how long I'll be able to do it.
And I wonder what will happen to the artists who've contributed their music?
Oh, well--I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. Greed wins the day---again. Only this time, it's two greedies fighting with each other. Too bad. So sad.
Things change. Those of us who have the knowledge can use it to influence people, even if each of us just gives a tiny nudge. Add them up, and things change. Sometimes it takes a long time. though.
But then, just for curiosity: does anyone know if an Alpha-based computer would qualify as usable in a residence WRT radio-frequency interference? That "home-PC" market will never be in the Alpha camp if not.
1. Insert Slackware boot disk 2. Insert root disk when instructed 3. Log in as root when "login:" appears 4. dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1024 count=128 5. send computer back to store--no damn good anymore.
I bought the Crystal Trackball from CompUSA, and it's been working fine on X (although I once-in-a-while get a "protocol error" on my console log.) I like it because I can't see very well, and find it difficult to "mouse around." I got the Logitech Marble on my 95/NT dual boot at work first, because there is this one NT screen that's a pain in the ass to work with, but I have to use the darn thing repeatedly. Positioning the pointer in a fixed location and then tapping the left mouse button for each invocation of the screen was a pain until I got the Marble. I actually like the CompUSA Crystal Trackball better for Linux at home, because the ball is very large and the pointer tends to move more quickly on Linux. Also, it's 'way cool to see those red and green LED's show through the clear plastic.
Frankly, though, I believe X needs a WM that *never* requires a mouse except for drawing and area boxing. There should be an equivalent to Microsoft MouseKeys on X for this purpose.
Failing that, the trackball seems to be the way to go for me.
I suspect that around 80% of American adults can drive cars. I can't.
I'd feel a whole lot happier if the *shit* that passes for public transportation in this country had a little more effect on the minds and hearts of Americans, but I ain't holding my breath.
Then, there's the "real-estate" industry. People don't buy houses in this country for living quarters; they buy them to make a profit. When does that stop, and what happens when it does?
If some of this changed, maybe I'd feel a little better about the future.
If there's a GPL'ed browser, what will happen to Mozilla? Did I ask and answer my own question?
There are spokespeople in this industry who have derided the GPL, but I have a feeling that a GPL'ed Mozilla would be a *long* way further developed by now than the Mozilla that's still largely guided by Netscape. The only reason I can see that there's no competition from GPL supporters *is* Netscape. If Netscape dies, or Mozilla doesn't prove to be a good product, there *will* be a GPL'ed browser.
I don't recall the license Lynx uses, but I'm talking about GUI browsers.
...right on topic. If you haven't seen it yet, rent or buy a copy of the movie.
Before the Internet was popular, I was recommending this movie to my younger friends in the computer industry, who were enthralled with the Internet's possibilities.
I believe there's a posting on lwn.net right now about a broadband antenna, designed with a Beowulf cluster. The purpose of that antenna is to *allow wireless network communication to become prolific*.
I remember the Atari serial bus, on the Atari 800. When you cut the number of wires for communication between devices, you cut the bandwidth. Also, it was a lot easier for hardware makers to jump in bed with copy-protection-oriented software makers (like MICROSOFT where Atari machines were concerned.)
I know that ISA is aging, and I know that USB is very popular right now, once the marketing pressure came to bear. But I wonder about its future. Will the spec prove inadequate when people start cramming on the hardware? What about disk drives (as some posters have said here already.)
I guess if people get used to the idea of a serial bus, and event-driven hardware support, maybe things will work out once the serial bus actually gets fast enough. Ya think people will ever learn enough to make fiber cabling work commonplace and easy?
And what about all these machines around right now. What do we do--throw them in the garbage can? Really environment-conscious, aren't they?
I really hate pushy people. The people behind USB are starting to grate.
Exactly the reason for my earlier thoughts. I will never support an environment of that kind; it was hard enough with the vinyl record industry, and Heaven knows, the CD-ROM technology must eventually be a Godsend to those who would like to make up their own little shows and have their own little distribution network.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't we ultimately just go for capacity, and leave the encryption/decryption issue out of it? I knew nothing about DVD until this story broke; in my ignorance, I thought it was going to be a lot like CD-ROM, but with far more capacity, and usable for (for example) distributing a whole Linux distribution on one platter.
Just like before, I think we have to clearly illuminate the issue, which is, as always, that some people are always going to be paranoid about someone swiping their stuff.
THAT SHOULD NOT BE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE TECHNOLOGISTS TO SOLVE! That's a MORAL ISSUE.
I've had a VCR im my house since 1985, and guess what I use it for? Time shifting. That's it. If I had a media platter that was re-writable, and could store 15, 20, or even 30 hours of video, guess what? It would be for when I'm on vacation, or don't have the time to record and watch later.
Any dork from the music or mass-media industry that's reading this, spread the word: you're never going to win if you place paranoia and greed above all other motives. You *will* win if you remember who you serve.
I wish I could bell the cat, but I'm afraid I have neither the time nor the expertise; however, I have an idea.
What if people who are into these things got together and established a freely-available technology akin to DVD? What if they then made the encryption/decryption technology part of the hardware, or gave the proprietary-content people a way to plug in security at the hardware level? If that happened, we'd have a situation where (as always preferable,) people would have a *choice* about how to encode, or whether to encode, security information into their content.
I think media-to-eye paths should be viewed just like any other communication path. Satellite television and cable television are not, in themselves, proprietary routes for information. It's the responsibility of the indivitual cable companies and providers to scramble/descramble their transmissions. This has *nothing* to do with the particular television set we use, because the set is a standard device that responds to standard signals.
There will always be greedy people to fight these kinds of things, either for their own pocket or their own expediency. But, ultimately, there's no long-term advantage for that.
If DVD is cracked, it's cracked. Punishing the people who did it isn't going to stop future crackers, but it *will* give those of us who already distrust the mass-media industry a bad taste that can only get worse. Look at what's gone on with MP3. There could be an ever-widening gorge between the mass-media producers and those they are supposed to serve.
Unless we can come up with an alternative that everyone can live with.
What say? Is it worthwhile? Or should we just continue fighting with each other, and see where the war gets us?
When I was working at Cook County Hospital as a programmer trainee, I was asked to print their inventory proof sheet for the daily transactions. It was about 50 pages of 132-column text on fanfold paper (remember that?) By mistake, I coded:
// PRINTER... blablabla...,SYSOUT=B
instead of whatever the Hell I was suppoed to do. I remember that SYSOUT because, about an hour later, I got a call from Operations:
"'scuse me, sir, but we have 6 boxes of punched-cards you generated just now. What do you want us to do with them?"
"I'll call you back later," I said.
I told my trainer. He laughed for about 20 minutes, then said:
"You'd better not call them back. I'll take care of it for you."
I'm surprised they didn't make me put all the confetti back in...
There have been, over the years, reasons for me to believe that Americans are paranoid of "outside control." here was once an article in High Times magazine, of all places, about the notion that going to the Metric system would put American under the control of some kind of Big Brother. I once heard (many years ago,) an editorial on WFMT radio, a local classical-music station, about how wonderful it was that the conversion effort failed. There was some jabberwoky about how an inch is about the width of a craftsman's thumb. Bleh!
How wide is a craftman's thumb after he misses the nail? What about a woman's thumb--is that Metric, by chance?
I'm getting real tired of not knowing which screws to use.
...assuming you *are* interested in working this out together with the rest of us, here goes.
NOTE: This would apply to the pure, FTP'ed version that low-cost CD distributors create. Unless otherwise specified, the word "Linux" goes after. If Red Hat would "sign on" to this idea, they could say that a distribution with their chosen name is the free, unsupported, FTP'd version.
NOTE: My apologies if anyone has already claimed one of these names. Any trademarked Linux version with a name below wouldn't apply.
FreeHat Durham TopHat Magic Rabbit Power (as in "Power Tools" Electric NC-Free Raw Pristine Community Public Firehouse People's Generic Red Hat Unsupported Red Hat Ruby MountanTop Xxxxx-Valley Natural Red Hat GNU/Linux Hacker's Hat Programmer's Hat HobbyHat OpenHat
I hope you guys find this interesting. I figure some of the shout ones would be usable with "Red Hat" at the beginning of the name, but if not, so be it.
If they'd thought about how to contact people a little more before opening their big mouths, I think this would have worked out a whole lot better.
First, they should have come to *all* of us with the problem, and asked for suggestions. No. Instead, they managed to piss off a good percentage of the people who have helped them get where they are, in ways they can't even see.
Second, they should have offered GPL distributors an alternative way to distribute the community work, rather than just complaining about the name.
I feel uneasy about this whole business, because I'm beginning to wonder if they've decided to ditch the people what brung 'em. If they haven't, 's too bad they had another SNAFU like the "community stock offering," and I hope they do right by it. But if they have, y'all better sell that stock, but quick. Myself, I came from Slacware to Red Hat; I can go back.
Very good point. And that's why all you people out there pirating copies of record-company fare should do this:
(1) stop pirating, and also stop buying the CD's. (2) get out there and do your *own* music. (3) get together with musicians who want to get their music *heard* but don't want to deal with record companies and their crap (4) Go to their clubs, concerts, invite them to your parties, get copies of their mp3's and *listen* to their music.
It's time to do that. Music isn't something you use for wallpaper, or to fill that void of silence while you study. As long as you continue to believe that it *is* for those purposes, these problems will continue to plague you. When you ride a bus or walk the street, use that Rio to listen to some *art*, not some ripped-off Sony cd.
Actually, I'm kind of hoping things will turn out this way: When people realize their *art* is easy to distribute via the Net, they'll be *encouraged* to once again *learn* how to read music and play an instrument. Because people will *hear* what they do, even if they don't have the skill to get around the music industry. Remember, music is becoming a "lost art" *because* people don't want to have to *deal* with managers, record distributors, record companies, recording studios that want you IN AND OUT AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, and all the other *drek* that comes with trying to show people your talent. Look, the only people who seem to get anywhere with music these days are those who want to grab that gold ring on the end of the stick attached to their forehead. That doesn't leave much room for people who just want to make music, does it? Because the only way you can get that gold ring is to cater to the LARGEST AUDIENCE YOU CAN POSSIBLY GET, and art be damned. I read a book long ago called Against the American Grain by Dwight MacDonald, (now out of print,) in which he refers to this phenomenon as "masscult." Pander to "the masses" so you can fill your auditoriums and pockets, by trying to FIGURE OUT what they want ahead of time, then GIVE IT TO THEM, as MANY OF THEM AS POSSIBLE. Don't bother to try and develop your own art, then see how many people are interested.
I'm hoping that ubiquitous distribution of freely-available music will start to change this. Maybe musicians who would otherwise not bother because of a limited audience, will now realize they can get samples of their works out there, where anyone can see them and take copies. Then, when that happens, the good ones will get the shows, the concerts, the auditoriums, and the small venues based on the VALUE OF THEIR ART, *not* on the results of some stupid surveys and PR campaigns.
When that day comes, I might be more inclined to check out new music. Because I'll know people are once again putting their soul into it.
That's very commendable of you, but you'd probably be better off finding out the address of the artist and sending them a check. They sure as Hell ain't being supported by the record company.
Oh--I'm sorry. I guess a *couple* of them are. The ones they want to *milk for everything they can get.*
Oh, man, I just *love* to answer some of these "music industry" letters!
I'll come right out and say it: quality and the "music Industry" have nothing to do with each other. Quality comes from the soul. If they have it, that means someone sold it to them.
Slashdot Mirror
YESSSS!!!!
And if that ain't enough for you--if you want to learn about the World's First Industrial Church, go visit:
The Website Of "Bob!"
Bulk eraser.
The idea is to expose the medium to a strong, reversing magnetic field---one that will get the magnetic domains in the object vibrating to it. Leave the medium in the path of the eraser, maybe circulate it around a bit. But here's the kicker...
After awhile, slowly move the medium away from the eraser until it's about 3 or 4 feet away. Then, and only then, turn off the power to the eraser.
Maybe, just maybe, you'll have gotten rid of most of the magnetic fluxes.
...and if they don't want to replace 'em, how 'bout they let folks like MP3.COM put 'em up on their site so we can listen to 'em after the originals, which we paid for, degrade?
Interesting angle I never thought of before...
I don't want to make a point-by-point reply to this, because I like the BSD's. In fact, I've been looking 'round for that book on BSD kernel internals because it's such a good, technical book. Unfortunately, though, the *BSD people have made some political mistakes that may have given them this very problem.
Several years ago, I tried FreeBSD 2.0 or so on an old 486/50 I had been using to test various free OS's. I got my copy from Walnut Creek, with the nice book. Sadly, I discovered that the Promise IDE controller in my box wasn't supported, or there was some other problem with IDE support. I wrote about it to Walnut Creek, as they suggested I do, and got a mail back from one of the BSD team. The mail said, basically, "we ain't interested in fixing it. Our OS is for big servers with SCSI controllers, and we don't support "broken" hardware. Send the stuff back to Walnut Creek, and use Linux, because they support every piece of junk out there, no matter how badly it mangles the rest of the system."
Now, I'm not saying the *BSD people should abandon their goals. But I am saying that they need to establish a clear public image as a very high-quality OS for use by seriously-committed computer professionals. Either that, or they should seriously consider scaling their OS to include, at the bottom end, the same level of "junk hardware" support that Linux has.
Maybe it's too late to consider these issues now, but I hope not. I'd hate to see a super-excellent OS go away just because of politics and ideals.
Hoo-boy! We have a Real Problem here, don't we?? Winmodems are going to take over the industry!
Just what we need! Next thing you know, they'll start developing CD-ROM devices with rim drives, just like those little cheap turntables us old folks got stuck with when we were kids.
Just think! Soon, Linux will have modems that smoke our CPU's in no time! Bet that'll make Intel happy!
First, the people who work on UI's in the UNIX world have gone through an intellectual and philosophical sea-change over the past few years. I remember back in 1995 or so, I used to fight on comp.os.linux.advocacy for UNIX/Linux developers to recognize the need for tools with which DOS/Windows users would feel familiar. In the beginning, there was a lot of resistance. Now, we have tools like the editor in the Midnight Commander, which can do CUA quite well. Then, there's xwpe, which has a really Borland-like feel to it. The GNOME and KDE desktop technology is getting very easy for "average" users to handle.
What bothers me about articles like this is that they tend to perpetuate the stereotypes. The other thing that bothers me is that the very idea has the feel of "we need to find yet another weakness in what these people are doing."
The February Linux Journal has a GNOME article in which the author mentions a UI team. I've been expecting that to happen at some point. Open Source projects with UI teams--maybe even usability teams---what kind of Achilles' Heel is that?
Just turn your case on its side, attach platter, arm, needle and viola!
Wow----A PLAYER VIOLA!!!
Why is mp3.com fighting with the RIAA over duplicating CD's and sending them over the Internet? Why does mp3.com even *bother* with this approach, instead of trying harder to use mp3 technology to market new artists and give people exposure who would otherwise never be heard? Money, I guess.
Frankly, I've been hoping someone would develop a portable device that could hold an ISO9660 CD with mp3's on it. Then, the recording artists would be in a position to record more music on a single disc. This would be a great opportunity for, say, jazz and classical performers.
I'm troubled by this My CD project, and I can't develop a great deal of sympathy for mp3.com. They're getting into a bruhaha with the RIAA that could well destroy the precious thing they really offer.
Sad. I was just about to plan some purchases of DAM CD's from them. I'll still do so, but with this crazy My CD thing, I wonder how long I'll be able to do it.
And I wonder what will happen to the artists who've contributed their music?
Oh, well--I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. Greed wins the day---again. Only this time, it's two greedies fighting with each other. Too bad. So sad.
Things change. Those of us who have the knowledge can use it to influence people, even if each of us just gives a tiny nudge. Add them up, and things change. Sometimes it takes a long time. though.
But then, just for curiosity: does anyone know if an Alpha-based computer would qualify as usable in a residence WRT radio-frequency interference? That "home-PC" market will never be in the Alpha camp if not.
1. Insert Slackware boot disk
2. Insert root disk when instructed
3. Log in as root when "login:" appears
4. dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1024 count=128
5. send computer back to store--no damn good anymore.
I bought the Crystal Trackball from CompUSA, and it's been working fine on X (although I once-in-a-while get a "protocol error" on my console log.) I like it because I can't see very well, and find it difficult to "mouse around." I got the Logitech Marble on my 95/NT dual boot at work first, because there is this one NT screen that's a pain in the ass to work with, but I have to use the darn thing repeatedly. Positioning the pointer in a fixed location and then tapping the left mouse button for each invocation of the screen was a pain until I got the Marble. I actually like the CompUSA Crystal Trackball better for Linux at home, because the ball is very large and the pointer tends to move more quickly on Linux. Also, it's 'way cool to see those red and green LED's show through the clear plastic.
Frankly, though, I believe X needs a WM that *never* requires a mouse except for drawing and area boxing. There should be an equivalent to Microsoft MouseKeys on X for this purpose.
Failing that, the trackball seems to be the way to go for me.
I suspect that around 80% of American adults can drive cars. I can't.
I'd feel a whole lot happier if the *shit* that passes for public transportation in this country had a little more effect on the minds and hearts of Americans, but I ain't holding my breath.
Then, there's the "real-estate" industry. People don't buy houses in this country for living quarters; they buy them to make a profit. When does that stop, and what happens when it does?
If some of this changed, maybe I'd feel a little better about the future.
If there's a GPL'ed browser, what will happen to Mozilla? Did I ask and answer my own question?
There are spokespeople in this industry who have derided the GPL, but I have a feeling that a GPL'ed Mozilla would be a *long* way further developed by now than the Mozilla that's still largely guided by Netscape. The only reason I can see that there's no competition from GPL supporters *is* Netscape. If Netscape dies, or Mozilla doesn't prove to be a good product, there *will* be a GPL'ed browser.
I don't recall the license Lynx uses, but I'm talking about GUI browsers.
...right on topic. If you haven't seen it yet, rent or buy a copy of the movie.
Before the Internet was popular, I was recommending this movie to my younger friends in the computer industry, who were enthralled with the Internet's possibilities.
I believe there's a posting on lwn.net right now about a broadband antenna, designed with a Beowulf cluster. The purpose of that antenna is to *allow wireless network communication to become prolific*.
See the movie, if you haven't.
I remember the Atari serial bus, on the Atari 800. When you cut the number of wires for communication between devices, you cut the bandwidth. Also, it was a lot easier for hardware makers to jump in bed with copy-protection-oriented software makers (like MICROSOFT where Atari machines were concerned.)
I know that ISA is aging, and I know that USB is very popular right now, once the marketing pressure came to bear. But I wonder about its future. Will the spec prove inadequate when people start cramming on the hardware? What about disk drives (as some posters have said here already.)
I guess if people get used to the idea of a serial bus, and event-driven hardware support, maybe things will work out once the serial bus actually gets fast enough. Ya think people will ever learn enough to make fiber cabling work commonplace and easy?
And what about all these machines around right now. What do we do--throw them in the garbage can? Really environment-conscious, aren't they?
I really hate pushy people. The people behind USB are starting to grate.
Exactly the reason for my earlier thoughts. I will never support an environment of that kind; it was hard enough with the vinyl record industry, and Heaven knows, the CD-ROM technology must eventually be a Godsend to those who would like to make up their own little shows and have their own little distribution network.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't we ultimately just go for capacity, and leave the encryption/decryption issue out of it? I knew nothing about DVD until this story broke; in my ignorance, I thought it was going to be a lot like CD-ROM, but with far more capacity, and usable for (for example) distributing a whole Linux distribution on one platter.
Just like before, I think we have to clearly illuminate the issue, which is, as always, that some people are always going to be paranoid about someone swiping their stuff.
THAT SHOULD NOT BE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE TECHNOLOGISTS TO SOLVE! That's a MORAL ISSUE.
I've had a VCR im my house since 1985, and guess what I use it for? Time shifting. That's it. If I had a media platter that was re-writable, and could store 15, 20, or even 30 hours of video, guess what? It would be for when I'm on vacation, or don't have the time to record and watch later.
Any dork from the music or mass-media industry that's reading this, spread the word: you're never going to win if you place paranoia and greed above all other motives. You *will* win if you remember who you serve.
I wish I could bell the cat, but I'm afraid I have neither the time nor the expertise; however, I have an idea.
What if people who are into these things got together and established a freely-available technology akin to DVD? What if they then made the encryption/decryption technology part of the hardware, or gave the proprietary-content people a way to plug in security at the hardware level? If that happened, we'd have a situation where (as always preferable,) people would have a *choice* about how to encode, or whether to encode, security information into their content.
I think media-to-eye paths should be viewed just like any other communication path. Satellite television and cable television are not, in themselves, proprietary routes for information. It's the responsibility of the indivitual cable companies and providers to scramble/descramble their transmissions. This has *nothing* to do with the particular television set we use, because the set is a standard device that responds to standard signals.
There will always be greedy people to fight these kinds of things, either for their own pocket or their own expediency. But, ultimately, there's no long-term advantage for that.
If DVD is cracked, it's cracked. Punishing the people who did it isn't going to stop future crackers, but it *will* give those of us who already distrust the mass-media industry a bad taste that can only get worse. Look at what's gone on with MP3. There could be an ever-widening gorge between the mass-media producers and those they are supposed to serve.
Unless we can come up with an alternative that everyone can live with.
What say? Is it worthwhile? Or should we just continue fighting with each other, and see where the war gets us?
That's nothing, pal!
... blablabla...,SYSOUT=B
When I was working at Cook County Hospital as a programmer trainee, I was asked to print their inventory proof sheet for the daily transactions. It was about 50 pages of 132-column text on fanfold paper (remember that?) By mistake, I coded:
// PRINTER
instead of whatever the Hell I was suppoed to do. I remember that SYSOUT because, about an hour later, I got a call from Operations:
"'scuse me, sir, but we have 6 boxes of punched-cards you generated just now. What do you want us to do with them?"
"I'll call you back later," I said.
I told my trainer. He laughed for about 20 minutes, then said:
"You'd better not call them back. I'll take care of it for you."
I'm surprised they didn't make me put all the confetti back in...
There have been, over the years, reasons for me to believe that Americans are paranoid of "outside control." here was once an article in High Times magazine, of all places, about the notion that going to the Metric system would put American under the control of some kind of Big Brother. I once heard (many years ago,) an editorial on WFMT radio, a local classical-music station, about how wonderful it was that the conversion effort failed. There was some jabberwoky about how an inch is about the width of a craftsman's thumb. Bleh!
How wide is a craftman's thumb after he misses the nail? What about a woman's thumb--is that Metric, by chance?
I'm getting real tired of not knowing which screws to use.
Dear Red Hat:
...assuming you *are* interested in working this out together with the rest of us, here goes.
NOTE: This would apply to the pure, FTP'ed version that low-cost CD distributors create. Unless otherwise specified, the word "Linux" goes after. If Red Hat would "sign on" to this idea, they could say that a distribution with their chosen name is the free, unsupported, FTP'd version.
NOTE: My apologies if anyone has already claimed one of these names. Any trademarked Linux version with a name below wouldn't apply.
FreeHat
Durham
TopHat
Magic
Rabbit
Power (as in "Power Tools"
Electric
NC-Free
Raw
Pristine
Community
Public
Firehouse
People's
Generic Red Hat
Unsupported Red Hat
Ruby
MountanTop
Xxxxx-Valley
Natural
Red Hat GNU/Linux
Hacker's Hat
Programmer's Hat
HobbyHat
OpenHat
I hope you guys find this interesting. I figure some of the shout ones would be usable with "Red Hat" at the beginning of the name, but if not, so be it.
Any webmasters interested in starting a contest?
If they'd thought about how to contact people a little more before opening their big mouths, I think this would have worked out a whole lot better.
First, they should have come to *all* of us with the problem, and asked for suggestions. No. Instead, they managed to piss off a good percentage of the people who have helped them get where they are, in ways they can't even see.
Second, they should have offered GPL distributors an alternative way to distribute the community work, rather than just complaining about the name.
I feel uneasy about this whole business, because I'm beginning to wonder if they've decided to ditch the people what brung 'em. If they haven't, 's too bad they had another SNAFU like the "community stock offering," and I hope they do right by it. But if they have, y'all better sell that stock, but quick. Myself, I came from Slacware to Red Hat; I can go back.
Very good point. And that's why all you people out there pirating copies of record-company fare should do this:
(1) stop pirating, and also stop buying the CD's.
(2) get out there and do your *own* music.
(3) get together with musicians who want to get their music *heard* but don't want to deal with record companies and their crap
(4) Go to their clubs, concerts, invite them to your parties, get copies of their mp3's and *listen* to their music.
It's time to do that. Music isn't something you use for wallpaper, or to fill that void of silence while you study. As long as you continue to believe that it *is* for those purposes, these problems will continue to plague you. When you ride a bus or walk the street, use that Rio to listen to some *art*, not some ripped-off Sony cd.
Actually, I'm kind of hoping things will turn out this way: When people realize their *art* is easy to distribute via the Net, they'll be *encouraged* to once again *learn* how to read music and play an instrument. Because people will *hear* what they do, even if they don't have the skill to get around the music industry. Remember, music is becoming a "lost art" *because* people don't want to have to *deal* with managers, record distributors, record companies, recording studios that want you IN AND OUT AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, and all the other *drek* that comes with trying to show people your talent. Look, the only people who seem to get anywhere with music these days are those who want to grab that gold ring on the end of the stick attached to their forehead. That doesn't leave much room for people who just want to make music, does it? Because the only way you can get that gold ring is to cater to the LARGEST AUDIENCE YOU CAN POSSIBLY GET, and art be damned. I read a book long ago called Against the American Grain by Dwight MacDonald, (now out of print,) in which he refers to this phenomenon as "masscult." Pander to "the masses" so you can fill your auditoriums and pockets, by trying to FIGURE OUT what they want ahead of time, then GIVE IT TO THEM, as MANY OF THEM AS POSSIBLE. Don't bother to try and develop your own art, then see how many people are interested.
I'm hoping that ubiquitous distribution of freely-available music will start to change this. Maybe musicians who would otherwise not bother because of a limited audience, will now realize they can get samples of their works out there, where anyone can see them and take copies. Then, when that happens, the good ones will get the shows, the concerts, the auditoriums, and the small venues based on the VALUE OF THEIR ART, *not* on the results of some stupid surveys and PR campaigns.
When that day comes, I might be more inclined to check out new music. Because I'll know people are once again putting their soul into it.
That's very commendable of you, but you'd probably be better off finding out the address of the artist and sending them a check. They sure as Hell ain't being supported by the record company.
Oh--I'm sorry. I guess a *couple* of them are. The ones they want to *milk for everything they can get.*
Oh, man, I just *love* to answer some of these "music industry" letters!
I'll come right out and say it: quality and the "music Industry" have nothing to do with each other. Quality comes from the soul. If they have it, that means someone sold it to them.
'nuff said.