Very much worth noting is the fact that Courtney Love's article is nothing but a poor rehash of a much better article by Steve Albini that was written at least a year before Courtney Love basically repeated it and took credit for doing some kind of expose by herself.
I think we're at an important time in music right now, because as the iPod proliferates, this sort of thing will not stand with consumers. Normally, they just keep buying and taking what they get and dealing with it. I don't see that happening much longer if Sony comes up with something that's more difficult to get around.
As far as the argument that "you sold the copyright, you lost control" - that doesn't make what Sony is doing any less stupid. Also, I don't know if Fair Use is supposed to be a right we cannot have taken away (as IANAL), but Sony is certainly on their way to doing that despite the fact that it's one of our rights.
The book "On Intelligence" by Jeff Hawkins (of Palm fame) and Sandra Blakeslee is all about how the brain works, and why people's approach to AI is not going to come anywhere near emulating the brain...
Figured it was worth mentioning given the subject matter of the thread... I liked it.. good read, if a bit dry at times...
I don't know if easytree had the same policy as "etree" (http://bt.etree.org) - but etree clearly states (and seems to enforce) that you should only post live shows from "trade friendly" artists.
Many artists don't just "not mind" but actually encourage live recordings be spread. Much as I detest the way they handled the whole napster thing, Metallica is one of those artists that made its name that way.
There is lots of great stuff on bt.etree.org and as far as I know it's all trade friendly artists. I can say for certain that many of the bands whose names I've seen on there are "trade friendly" (otherwise also called "taper friendly").
Was easytree.org the same sort of thing, or did they not keep it to trade friendly artists?
AOL is nothing at all like the mail service. While USPS is now privatized, it started out government owned/operated and came with some implicit checks and balances that still (to some extent) exist today. You're giving the USPS money to use their infrastructure, and it is a federal crime for them to tamper with your mail. It's the law.
With AIM -- you're giving them NO money, using THEIR servers/bandwidth. Who cares if they're "just delivering messages"? You're using their CPU time and bandwidth for free (or for ads if you actually use AIM instead of a 3rd party client).
They have every legal right on earth to monitor your conversations all they please as long as they didn't guarantee you otherwise. do I think it's right, good, or intelligent publicity? Hell no. But is it illegal? Also hell no. And it certainly isn't anything at all like the USPS.. I dunno how your goofy analogy got modded up as "interesting".
I don't understand how "ethics" comes into this picture.
I run a website that serves as a community and a search tool for a local music scene. I'm providing this tool free of charge - giving people access to data that I bothered to archive and put in a database myself. I should be able to put whatever I want anywhere on the pages. I archived the data, it's my site, and it's not like I'm charging or forcing anyone to use it.
How is what google is doing any different? They've archived a bunch of data and are giving free access to it. Who cares what ads they put up when you search for a company by name? If you don't like it - don't use the tool. I don't get how it's "unethical" to provide a witty and valid way for advertisers to reach a potential target market. Nobody is forced to use Google.
I think people are putting so much faith and trust in Google (and other search engines) being the end-all be-all of perfectly correct information that suddenly you've got people shouting "ethics" when in fact there should be no ethics involved at all in what Google is -- a free interface to a huge database. That's all it is - like it or not. It's their site, their bandwidth - why should anyone other than them dictate what shows up on it?
This reminds me of the MSN search and its anti-linux / OSS search results -- something much shadier and slimier, given the fact that MS is suppressing search results from its DIRECT COMPETITOR -- but still, why should this be illegal? It's Microsoft's database and search engine, and there is no implied guarantee that you're getting an objective result.
I think we need to stop treating search engines like dictionaries and encyclopedias - because this is not what they are.
Wow, what kind of crack are you smoking today man?
1. My post was hardly long enough to constitute a rant.
2. You posted anonymously - I'm not sure where your conspiracy theory (accusing the/. community of accusing you specifically of being pro bush) comes from - but I don't know who the hell you are nor can I tell your posts from the next Anonymous Coward post.
3. Brainwashed? Because I pointed out that/. has no obligation to be nonpartisan, and suggested that the kerry comment was that of the poster, and/. decided not to remove it - making them "not censors", rather than "partisan"?
4. Rhetoric? What rhetoric? I haven't even made a pro-any-candidate remark, let alone spouted any rhetoric OR made an anti-any-candidate (specifically an anti-bush, "it's bush's fault") remark.
I have NO idea where your insane, paranoid attacks are coming from man, but maybe you should relax, have a beer, and go to sleep.
I haven't seen anything in any recent threads about some republican posting anything pro-bush and the moderators chopping that part out of the post. Give it a shot - go find a worthy story and throw in your pro-Bush blurb. I have no idea if it'll get through, but until I hear that they're CENSORING one side, I see no validity to your complaint that they did not CENSOR the other.
I'd love to hear a good, cohesive argument for why I should vote for Bush. I'm not exactly Pro-Kerry, by the way. I simply haven't heard one SANE argument for voting for Bush. The best I've heard is "Kerry flip flips! He panders! He... he... he does what EVERY politician does!"
I'm listening. Please - make your argument (please back up any "facts" with sources). If you put something cohesive AND factual together, I'll give Bush my vote.
"you are wrong, "news for nerds" doesn't mean echoing fsking kerry."
So? What am I wrong about? It also doesn't mean "nonpartisan, unbiased, balanced news!". Slashdot, if anything, is more of a blog about news than a "news website". It can echo whatever it wants to.
Furthermore, it's not even Slashdot that said it - it's the poster. Slashdot editor(s) simply chose not to censor the post.
I knew from the post that someone would immediately whine that it mentioned Kerry's stance.. and immediately wanted to post something about it...
Slashdot is not a TV or radio network. There is no reason for it to give "equal time" or avoid showing bias. It's "news for nerds" - it doesn't claim to be nonpartisan (or partisan).
The internet is not the same as other "media outlets", and Slashdot has no "responsibility" to be any certain way.
Re:Gambling is a tax on the stupid
on
Geeks Playing Poker?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Poker is not the same as typical casino gambling - especially if you're not playing it at a casino.
Casino gambling involves games of chance where the "house" (the casino) has a statistical edge over the long term.
In poker, you're playing other players - so you've all got an equal shot at the money. The only factor giving you an edge is your ability to play the game.
To say that "Gambling is a tax on the stupid" in a thread like this is to imply that anyone who plays poker is stupid.
Quite the contrary. But we who are decent or even good/great at poker definitely prefer to play against the stupid - because they're the ones who line our pockets.
One might even argue that poker is really more a game of skill than it is "gambling" - though there is still luck involved in the short term, the skillful will win out in the long term regardless of luck.
Sorry, but this is not as good a bit of news as it looks...
Unemployment in the IT sector is up (due to both outsourcing AND the struggling economy), so who cares if the people with jobs are getting a bit more money?
Furthermore, this article is talking specifically about fresh out of college newhires - something the person who posted this seems to avoid clarifying altogether.
Guess what? They're getting these jobs and their first increase since 2001 (CS graduates) because the older folks who were making $60k and are now unemployed are gone - a net savings of $11k.
Bottom line: It's still brutally difficult to find a decent computer science / IT job right now, and the people in them aren't getting huge raises. It's also important to note that there's complaints heard 'round the country from IT and CS folks about the fact that they're working ridiculous numbers of hours.
The insane high salaries of the tech boom, however unjustified they seemed at the time, were actually justifiable because these fresh out of college kids were often dumping 60-80 hours per week into their job. (Note that I agree that the rest of the spending during the tech boom, however, was just as stupid as everyone says it was).
Phew, so the artists aren't really starving, but we still can't all go back to "borrowing" music from our friends instead of each purchasing our own copy.
Actually, the artists are still starving, it's the labels that aren't... see The Problem With Music, by Steve Albini. The labels are making plenty of money, choking the artist's bankrolls, and then blaming piracy for the supposed industry decline (and convincing artists it's piracy that is killing their bankrolls)...
I'm really upset that this article made/. and here's why:
First: Re "YOU are FUDding here!" -- no, he's not. Read the guy's post about the raids etc for a minute and forget about whether you liked his site or liked Stargate. It's totally misleading crap that doesn't even remotely mention that the raid was related to him (even at one point in the past) having hosted entire episodes. No, he makes it out to be an issue of linking to amazon that got him raided by the FBI.
Second: Giving this/. volume traffic, a bunch of dumb monkeys are going to paypal this clown $5 or $10 or whatever, and he's going to pocket it and/or use it for his legal defense. He doesn't deserve $5 or $10, even if he was somehow magically innocent, or even if you argue that "hey, he took the clips down and they still raided him!". He wrote a misleading post trying to get money from the public while not admitting one iota of the truth about the situation.
Also, as people mentioned there's discussion over at metafilter, and someone there stated that he knew he was going to be raided and had been moving around quite a bit before it happened, etc...
The ONLY valid point of discussion here is whether or not the PATRIOT act should be used, and if measures / activism need to be taken to get it repealed. Linking to this scammer's donation/"help my sorry ass" site without even realizing what a scammer he is, however, is upsetting to me.
Whoa, Peltzer devices? Awesome. I'm not sure how it's going to help us in space, but who am I to say that putting a smokeless ashtray, a juicer and a weird swiss army thing with a toothbrush that shoots out toothpaste onto a space probe is wrong?
I just started working for a company that gets lots of marketing data from Axciom... (it's a financial institution)... I had never heard of them until a few weeks ago when I started my job here...
Any word on snipermail.com and any charges it may face if this guy is convicted? The article doesn't say jack about it.. any lawyer-ish folks out there have input?
Thanks for the tip.. Maybe the makers of Miranda should list such things on the features portion of their website... as a "customer", or whatever you'd want to call me, I want to see the information right in front of me - not to have to research it just to find out if it's what I want - especially when I know of other products that have all those features...
Trillian gets mindshare over Miranda because it offers a lot of the features that common, every day users want that Miranda doesn't have.
For example, the Miranda webpage says NOTHING about things like File transfer support (does it?), Yahoo! Webcam support, AIM Direct Connect support, multi-user chat support for the various clients, etc...
the popularity is cool
on
Geeks and Poker?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I play a lot of hold 'em poker.. I used to play back in college, but it was hard to get a game going -- only real card players knew how to play...
I'm happy it's so popular now - it's easier to get a game going, and it's loads of fun to play. I play in home tourneys twice a week for low stakes buy ins ($20 and $10 usually), and I play online a bit too much... I need to stop that:-p
The great thing about it is that while luck comes into play in any given tournament, over the long haul you'll definitely see skillful players rise to the top. One guy who comes to my weekly game consistently finishes in the top 3 and wins at least 3 times as often as anyone else who plays.
Slashdot Mirror
Very much worth noting is the fact that Courtney Love's article is nothing but a poor rehash of a much better article by Steve Albini that was written at least a year before Courtney Love basically repeated it and took credit for doing some kind of expose by herself.
I think we're at an important time in music right now, because as the iPod proliferates, this sort of thing will not stand with consumers. Normally, they just keep buying and taking what they get and dealing with it. I don't see that happening much longer if Sony comes up with something that's more difficult to get around.
As far as the argument that "you sold the copyright, you lost control" - that doesn't make what Sony is doing any less stupid. Also, I don't know if Fair Use is supposed to be a right we cannot have taken away (as IANAL), but Sony is certainly on their way to doing that despite the fact that it's one of our rights.
So close, and yet so far...
I glanced at this topic and thought I saw discussion of Andrei Arlovski, of the UFC.
I think an interview with him would be much cooler. Plus some pictures of his vampire teeth.
The book "On Intelligence" by Jeff Hawkins (of Palm fame) and Sandra Blakeslee is all about how the brain works, and why people's approach to AI is not going to come anywhere near emulating the brain...
Figured it was worth mentioning given the subject matter of the thread... I liked it.. good read, if a bit dry at times...
I don't know if easytree had the same policy as "etree" (http://bt.etree.org) - but etree clearly states (and seems to enforce) that you should only post live shows from "trade friendly" artists.
Many artists don't just "not mind" but actually encourage live recordings be spread. Much as I detest the way they handled the whole napster thing, Metallica is one of those artists that made its name that way.
There is lots of great stuff on bt.etree.org and as far as I know it's all trade friendly artists. I can say for certain that many of the bands whose names I've seen on there are "trade friendly" (otherwise also called "taper friendly").
Was easytree.org the same sort of thing, or did they not keep it to trade friendly artists?
AOL is nothing at all like the mail service. While USPS is now privatized, it started out government owned/operated and came with some implicit checks and balances that still (to some extent) exist today. You're giving the USPS money to use their infrastructure, and it is a federal crime for them to tamper with your mail. It's the law.
With AIM -- you're giving them NO money, using THEIR servers/bandwidth. Who cares if they're "just delivering messages"? You're using their CPU time and bandwidth for free (or for ads if you actually use AIM instead of a 3rd party client).
They have every legal right on earth to monitor your conversations all they please as long as they didn't guarantee you otherwise. do I think it's right, good, or intelligent publicity? Hell no. But is it illegal? Also hell no. And it certainly isn't anything at all like the USPS.. I dunno how your goofy analogy got modded up as "interesting".
I don't understand how "ethics" comes into this picture.
I run a website that serves as a community and a search tool for a local music scene. I'm providing this tool free of charge - giving people access to data that I bothered to archive and put in a database myself. I should be able to put whatever I want anywhere on the pages. I archived the data, it's my site, and it's not like I'm charging or forcing anyone to use it.
How is what google is doing any different? They've archived a bunch of data and are giving free access to it. Who cares what ads they put up when you search for a company by name? If you don't like it - don't use the tool. I don't get how it's "unethical" to provide a witty and valid way for advertisers to reach a potential target market. Nobody is forced to use Google.
I think people are putting so much faith and trust in Google (and other search engines) being the end-all be-all of perfectly correct information that suddenly you've got people shouting "ethics" when in fact there should be no ethics involved at all in what Google is -- a free interface to a huge database. That's all it is - like it or not. It's their site, their bandwidth - why should anyone other than them dictate what shows up on it?
This reminds me of the MSN search and its anti-linux / OSS search results -- something much shadier and slimier, given the fact that MS is suppressing search results from its DIRECT COMPETITOR -- but still, why should this be illegal? It's Microsoft's database and search engine, and there is no implied guarantee that you're getting an objective result.
I think we need to stop treating search engines like dictionaries and encyclopedias - because this is not what they are.
Nevermind. Article makes no mention of Ballmer - title was just a reference to a past blathering by said Crazy Microsoft Guy(tm). Apologies.
Steve Ballmer endorsing something running linux?
Last I remember, he was the crazy guy at Microsoft (er, one of them). Did he leave Microsoft and I didn't hear about it?
Wow, what kind of crack are you smoking today man?
/. community of accusing you specifically of being pro bush) comes from - but I don't know who the hell you are nor can I tell your posts from the next Anonymous Coward post.
/. has no obligation to be nonpartisan, and suggested that the kerry comment was that of the poster, and /. decided not to remove it - making them "not censors", rather than "partisan"?
1. My post was hardly long enough to constitute a rant.
2. You posted anonymously - I'm not sure where your conspiracy theory (accusing the
3. Brainwashed? Because I pointed out that
4. Rhetoric? What rhetoric? I haven't even made a pro-any-candidate remark, let alone spouted any rhetoric OR made an anti-any-candidate (specifically an anti-bush, "it's bush's fault") remark.
I have NO idea where your insane, paranoid attacks are coming from man, but maybe you should relax, have a beer, and go to sleep.
"They" didn't mention it -- the poster did.
"They" simply didn't CENSOR it.
I haven't seen anything in any recent threads about some republican posting anything pro-bush and the moderators chopping that part out of the post. Give it a shot - go find a worthy story and throw in your pro-Bush blurb. I have no idea if it'll get through, but until I hear that they're CENSORING one side, I see no validity to your complaint that they did not CENSOR the other.
I'd love to hear a good, cohesive argument for why I should vote for Bush. I'm not exactly Pro-Kerry, by the way. I simply haven't heard one SANE argument for voting for Bush. The best I've heard is "Kerry flip flips! He panders! He... he... he does what EVERY politician does!"
I'm listening. Please - make your argument (please back up any "facts" with sources). If you put something cohesive AND factual together, I'll give Bush my vote.
"you are wrong, "news for nerds" doesn't mean echoing fsking kerry."
So? What am I wrong about? It also doesn't mean "nonpartisan, unbiased, balanced news!". Slashdot, if anything, is more of a blog about news than a "news website". It can echo whatever it wants to.
Furthermore, it's not even Slashdot that said it - it's the poster. Slashdot editor(s) simply chose not to censor the post.
I knew from the post that someone would immediately whine that it mentioned Kerry's stance.. and immediately wanted to post something about it...
Slashdot is not a TV or radio network. There is no reason for it to give "equal time" or avoid showing bias. It's "news for nerds" - it doesn't claim to be nonpartisan (or partisan).
The internet is not the same as other "media outlets", and Slashdot has no "responsibility" to be any certain way.
Poker is not the same as typical casino gambling - especially if you're not playing it at a casino.
Casino gambling involves games of chance where the "house" (the casino) has a statistical edge over the long term.
In poker, you're playing other players - so you've all got an equal shot at the money. The only factor giving you an edge is your ability to play the game.
To say that "Gambling is a tax on the stupid" in a thread like this is to imply that anyone who plays poker is stupid.
Quite the contrary. But we who are decent or even good/great at poker definitely prefer to play against the stupid - because they're the ones who line our pockets.
One might even argue that poker is really more a game of skill than it is "gambling" - though there is still luck involved in the short term, the skillful will win out in the long term regardless of luck.
aww you beat me to the punch with the link to Captured by Robots! hehe
DRMBT is the original, baby!
Sorry, but this is not as good a bit of news as it looks...
Unemployment in the IT sector is up (due to both outsourcing AND the struggling economy), so who cares if the people with jobs are getting a bit more money?
Furthermore, this article is talking specifically about fresh out of college newhires - something the person who posted this seems to avoid clarifying altogether.
Guess what? They're getting these jobs and their first increase since 2001 (CS graduates) because the older folks who were making $60k and are now unemployed are gone - a net savings of $11k.
Bottom line: It's still brutally difficult to find a decent computer science / IT job right now, and the people in them aren't getting huge raises. It's also important to note that there's complaints heard 'round the country from IT and CS folks about the fact that they're working ridiculous numbers of hours.
The insane high salaries of the tech boom, however unjustified they seemed at the time, were actually justifiable because these fresh out of college kids were often dumping 60-80 hours per week into their job. (Note that I agree that the rest of the spending during the tech boom, however, was just as stupid as everyone says it was).
Phew, so the artists aren't really starving, but we still can't all go back to "borrowing" music from our friends instead of each purchasing our own copy.
Actually, the artists are still starving, it's the labels that aren't... see The Problem With Music, by Steve Albini. The labels are making plenty of money, choking the artist's bankrolls, and then blaming piracy for the supposed industry decline (and convincing artists it's piracy that is killing their bankrolls)...
Yea thanks for the explanation.. but you missed the point... it was a reference to the movie Gremlins...
:-p only one person got it.. thanks, person who got it, for replying... hah..
oh nevermind..
I'm really upset that this article made /. and here's why:
/. volume traffic, a bunch of dumb monkeys are going to paypal this clown $5 or $10 or whatever, and he's going to pocket it and/or use it for his legal defense. He doesn't deserve $5 or $10, even if he was somehow magically innocent, or even if you argue that "hey, he took the clips down and they still raided him!". He wrote a misleading post trying to get money from the public while not admitting one iota of the truth about the situation.
First: Re "YOU are FUDding here!" -- no, he's not. Read the guy's post about the raids etc for a minute and forget about whether you liked his site or liked Stargate. It's totally misleading crap that doesn't even remotely mention that the raid was related to him (even at one point in the past) having hosted entire episodes. No, he makes it out to be an issue of linking to amazon that got him raided by the FBI.
Second: Giving this
Also, as people mentioned there's discussion over at metafilter, and someone there stated that he knew he was going to be raided and had been moving around quite a bit before it happened, etc...
The ONLY valid point of discussion here is whether or not the PATRIOT act should be used, and if measures / activism need to be taken to get it repealed. Linking to this scammer's donation/"help my sorry ass" site without even realizing what a scammer he is, however, is upsetting to me.
Whoa, Peltzer devices? Awesome. I'm not sure how it's going to help us in space, but who am I to say that putting a smokeless ashtray, a juicer and a weird swiss army thing with a toothbrush that shoots out toothpaste onto a space probe is wrong?
I just started working for a company that gets lots of marketing data from Axciom... (it's a financial institution)... I had never heard of them until a few weeks ago when I started my job here...
Any word on snipermail.com and any charges it may face if this guy is convicted? The article doesn't say jack about it.. any lawyer-ish folks out there have input?
Thanks for the tip.. Maybe the makers of Miranda should list such things on the features portion of their website... as a "customer", or whatever you'd want to call me, I want to see the information right in front of me - not to have to research it just to find out if it's what I want - especially when I know of other products that have all those features...
Trillian gets mindshare over Miranda because it offers a lot of the features that common, every day users want that Miranda doesn't have.
For example, the Miranda webpage says NOTHING about things like File transfer support (does it?), Yahoo! Webcam support, AIM Direct Connect support, multi-user chat support for the various clients, etc...
I play a lot of hold 'em poker.. I used to play back in college, but it was hard to get a game going -- only real card players knew how to play...
:-p
I'm happy it's so popular now - it's easier to get a game going, and it's loads of fun to play. I play in home tourneys twice a week for low stakes buy ins ($20 and $10 usually), and I play online a bit too much... I need to stop that
The great thing about it is that while luck comes into play in any given tournament, over the long haul you'll definitely see skillful players rise to the top. One guy who comes to my weekly game consistently finishes in the top 3 and wins at least 3 times as often as anyone else who plays.
first post?
seriously though.. the article may be interesting, but the hmmmm link says it all...
there will not be a solution, because like copy protection, everything can be circumvented.