Microsoft bought the Vote of the Swedish National Standards Body. What a coincidence: There's long been a question mark over the relationship of the Swedish Government and the MPAA:
Sheesh. Hey Lords of Slashdot: Anyone who uses Slashdot for a while without a -ve karma becomes a moderator, right? Well it's not working. We're seeing more and more tin mods who don't understand the different between disagreeing or modding someone down. How about actually enforcing the moderator guidelines? Meta-moderating doesn't work.
> Most electronics are made in China, it generally comes down to who makes them and how much oversight there is.
Companies are moving manufacturing to China only for three reasons: Price, Price and Price. Western companies contracting to China need to keep an eye on quality, or their names will go to mud. Seagate obviously have a strong eye for quality at the moment (my racks of Seagate HDDs are testament to that! not *one* failure!) But if Chinese Management (no offense, China) takes over, will they keep an eye on quality? I suspect the corporate culture is very different, and contrary to what the China thinks is expected of it. Walmart is filled with Chinese-made crap because it's cheap, not because it's good.
> Have you seen a Thinkpad from the last few years? They're the same as they were before the handover.
If they have, that's good. Personally used them and never had a high opinion of their quality. IBMers told me they called them "Stinkpads".
> If it's a legitimate company (like Lenovo), then the quality will generally be higher.
IBM's death in the HDD business began when they moved HDD manufacturing to Eastern Europe. The Desk Star series (aka "Death Star" Series) The quality was appaling, and worse because IBM denied there was a problem when they full well knew they were selling customers units with a high-defect rate. I had two of these drives. Absolute lemons. IBM ended up abandoning the business, selling it to Hitachi.
In the end, depends on who buys Seagate. Depends on corporate culture. HP's Chinese made PCs too a dive in quality, but other companies like Toshiba have managed to hold the grade. (BTW Fujitsu is the only Japanese PC company that still makes PCs in Japan).
> Seeing as Seagate drives are already made in China, I don't see why this would be a big deal.
Well, despite this story on Slashdot, no fighting it. Companies will keep moving operations to China: It's the new land of opportunity. I hope Seagate stays American owned, but with Samsung producing nice drives at least we have a choice.
> You're kidding, right? My last Seagate ('Cuda.10 - 320GB) was made in China.
NOOOOO!!!!!!!!
Seriously, bummer. The good news is The Samsung Corporation have entered the HDD market to good reviews. I have two of their drives, and yes, they're made in Korea: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=30 31
I'd like to see Universities who let their researchers give away their copyright to private publishers (like Springer) lose their public funding. The fees these private publishers charge are just way too much: usually more than a book, and they didn't even write the stuff.
Like taking someone out on a first date, only to have them hump another diner in the toilet who slips them US$40. Is that Ivy League?
Thanks for pointing that out. One problem with Slashdot's mod system is if someone comes along first, marks your post as a troll, it's automatically modded down to -1 and you're lucky if it sees the light of day. In theory moderations are reviewed for fairness. In theory.
Someone sympathetic to Rupert Murdoch/Congress/SONY censoring differing views... who would have though?;-)
Seagate have given me years of rock-solid hard drivers. Own many, but never lost one due to failure.
Now Lenovo wants to buy them out? For all that is holy, stop them. China just doesn't get quality, and the hard drive is one place more than anything else in a PC where quality counts.
I heard this story on the BBC. They said the Monkeys also pointed at their heads telling the villages they are smarter than them. Like moneys understand anatomy that well? In which case the supposed conclusion remains the same
Hmm... Critters making their life hell. Government tells the people they're not allowed to shoot. Now I wonder, how would an *American* solve this?;-)
Says Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "There is a growing trend for hacking gangs to break into innocent people's computers to spy, to steal, and to cause damage. This sentence sends out a strong message to other hackers that infecting others with Trojan horses and other malware is not acceptable." So Justice Department: You going to do anything about this, or are you corporate shills too?
SoundExchange http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundExchange is a subsidiary of the RIAA. Why do webcasters, radio stations and everyone else continue to play their game? There is a lot of good music out there; Always has been, but now it's a listener's market. The web means we no longer need the RIAA to choose which acts we should listen to. So why don't these guys, instead of waltzing with the RIAA, tell them to get bent and promote other artists instead?
Can you imagine the looks on the faces of the RIAA Shill Lawyers when the webcasters say: "You're absolutely right. We're not going to give a single one of your artists a second of airtime again. Now get out before we call the cops. Watch that step. Ooooh that's a dozy! Doris, if he doesn't pick himself off the floor in thirty seconds have security bring the Rottweiler. Oops sorry I trod on your hand." You get the idea... So webcasters, stop acting like wusses.
> That may be true, but I'd trust the 'experts' over the fans to be unbiased towards certain classes or other aspects and not create a power swing over to those aspects.
Economist Levit wrote a book called "Freakonomics". He talks about how people are willing to pay so-called Experts on the assumption that their advice is worth gold. Trouble is these experts have their own agendas: WOTCs is to sell you a whole new collection of books. At least that's how they figure it. Experts use tricks like information hoarding to convince you only their word can be trusted.
WOTC, despite the names, aren't Gods. They don't have a divine touch. Fans could rewrite the rules. There's no reason a competent group of fans couldn't do their own rewrite. WOTC would of course do everything in their power to thwart that, and propagate the myth that they're so much better at this than anyone else.
I look at the vast hardbound spaghetti code tomes that is "Got to Collect them all!" AD&D 3.5, and disagree. Don't think for a moment that the D&D 4.0 effort is the work of divine artists struggling for perfection. It's suits with sales targets. If AD&D 4 turns out to be only 16 pages long, I'll retract that. What are the chances of that?;-)
> You're obviously a youngster that never played DnD 1st ed.
Used to play in college under a good DM who knew the rules inside out. Twenty years later had fond memories and decided to get back into the game. With AD&D 3.5 I read and read and read, and it was so boring. Commercial law textbooks have to be more exciting. I wrote a D&D combat tool to try and sort out what I learnt. That was a pretty big program, and I'd not even got around to adding magic. Nah. It's become too complicated. You're either one of these people who have the time to study it thoroughly, like someone might study Commercial Law. Or you've got a life. I decided life was too short, so left any idea of returning to D&D for good.
I've never played D&D 1E, but have the manuals. Yeah, easy to learn. The problem is they've extended D&D the way people extend bloatware programs. They can piling new crap on top. Most people don't have time to make that sort of investment. Compare that to WoW (sure, WoW could be much better done), but the choice is still a no-brainer.
WOTC think their mission is to sell you more and more books. I'm sure that's how their sales bonuses are calculated. Trouble is, customers went to WOTC looking for a good game experience. Not lots of books. At some point most customers go "You've got to be kidding. This isn't what I signed up for" and walk off.
The AD&D 3.5 manuals are just too damned complicated. Hundreds of pages and table after table after table. It's more like a software spec than game instructions. No one new is going to get onto this. If you're going to make it that complex, let a computer handle all that messing around.
Enter WoW. It's the AD&D online that AD&D never had. Must irk them to see all that money going to someone else. Their own DDO Stormreach bombed. This is a desperate ploy to cling some of their market back. If they can find people who'll pay $$$ for all new AD&D 4.0 books. In this day and age of the net does it have to be WOTC that rewrite the rules a few solitary voices claim so badly need repairs. Nope. Fans could do this by themselves. WOTC, like the RIAA, are on an outdated business model.
If someone went to a VC with this as a business plan, they'd get laughed out of the office. WOTC on their way out.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft bought the Vote of the Swedish National Standards Body. What a coincidence: There's long been a question mark over the relationship of the Swedish Government and the MPAA:
R ights_Violations_Regarding_The_Pirate_Bay_Raid?t=1 882690#c1882690 (original article embedded here)
http://digg.com/tech_news/Complete_List_of_Civil_
Sheesh. Hey Lords of Slashdot: Anyone who uses Slashdot for a while without a -ve karma becomes a moderator, right? Well it's not working. We're seeing more and more tin mods who don't understand the different between disagreeing or modding someone down. How about actually enforcing the moderator guidelines? Meta-moderating doesn't work.
> Most electronics are made in China, it generally comes down to who makes them and how much oversight there is. Companies are moving manufacturing to China only for three reasons: Price, Price and Price. Western companies contracting to China need to keep an eye on quality, or their names will go to mud. Seagate obviously have a strong eye for quality at the moment (my racks of Seagate HDDs are testament to that! not *one* failure!) But if Chinese Management (no offense, China) takes over, will they keep an eye on quality? I suspect the corporate culture is very different, and contrary to what the China thinks is expected of it. Walmart is filled with Chinese-made crap because it's cheap, not because it's good. > Have you seen a Thinkpad from the last few years? They're the same as they were before the handover. If they have, that's good. Personally used them and never had a high opinion of their quality. IBMers told me they called them "Stinkpads". > If it's a legitimate company (like Lenovo), then the quality will generally be higher. IBM's death in the HDD business began when they moved HDD manufacturing to Eastern Europe. The Desk Star series (aka "Death Star" Series) The quality was appaling, and worse because IBM denied there was a problem when they full well knew they were selling customers units with a high-defect rate. I had two of these drives. Absolute lemons. IBM ended up abandoning the business, selling it to Hitachi. In the end, depends on who buys Seagate. Depends on corporate culture. HP's Chinese made PCs too a dive in quality, but other companies like Toshiba have managed to hold the grade. (BTW Fujitsu is the only Japanese PC company that still makes PCs in Japan). > Seeing as Seagate drives are already made in China, I don't see why this would be a big deal. Well, despite this story on Slashdot, no fighting it. Companies will keep moving operations to China: It's the new land of opportunity. I hope Seagate stays American owned, but with Samsung producing nice drives at least we have a choice.
> You're kidding, right? My last Seagate ('Cuda.10 - 320GB) was made in China.
0 31
n kets-withdrawn-in-New-Zealand-Australia
NOOOOO!!!!!!!!
Seriously, bummer. The good news is The Samsung Corporation have entered the HDD market to good reviews. I have two of their drives, and yes, they're made in Korea: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3
Noticed since HP switched PC manufacture to China they've been getting shoddier quality too. Bad News, so I reach for my security blanket: http://news.top100.biz/shopping/Made-in-China-bla
I'd like to see Universities who let their researchers give away their copyright to private publishers (like Springer) lose their public funding. The fees these private publishers charge are just way too much: usually more than a book, and they didn't even write the stuff.
Like taking someone out on a first date, only to have them hump another diner in the toilet who slips them US$40. Is that Ivy League?
Nice idea, and Thanks for your post too. Glad someone got to read it before the anonymous moderator's troll took effect.
Thanks for pointing that out. One problem with Slashdot's mod system is if someone comes along first, marks your post as a troll, it's automatically modded down to -1 and you're lucky if it sees the light of day. In theory moderations are reviewed for fairness. In theory.
;-)
Someone sympathetic to Rupert Murdoch/Congress/SONY censoring differing views... who would have though?
> But would we really care if they put lead in the hard drives??
Memo to self: When my new Lenovo hard drives fails outside of its 7-day warranty period, do not give to kids as 'toy'.
> How To Address A Visit from MPAA Senior VP Rich Taylor?
I believe to correct title is 'Darth'
Seagate have given me years of rock-solid hard drivers. Own many, but never lost one due to failure.
Now Lenovo wants to buy them out? For all that is holy, stop them. China just doesn't get quality, and the hard drive is one place more than anything else in a PC where quality counts.
That's pretty funny. Hope the name catches on. It'd certainly explain poor sales in China :-)
:-/
Oh wait her comes another humor impaired mod to further 'Offtopic' us.
I heard this story on the BBC. They said the Monkeys also pointed at their heads telling the villages they are smarter than them. Like moneys understand anatomy that well? In which case the supposed conclusion remains the same
;-)
Hmm... Critters making their life hell. Government tells the people they're not allowed to shoot. Now I wonder, how would an *American* solve this?
Penryn? Wolfdale? Yorkfield? I wonder if Intel hasn't run out of names and started naming their processors after English Teddy Bears.
Things aren't a troll just because you disagree with it. If you don't agree, say why.
Read the Moderator Guidelines.
Case 1/ 99/e-cyclopedia/302366.stm http://www.vision.net.au/~apaterson/politics/econo mist_murdoch.htm Presidential Candidates eagerly take handouts from FOX http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070802/ap_on_el_pr/ed wards_news_corp- mobile/2007/08/17/1186857730452.html
0 05/05/va_threatkrew2.html7 08
s prigman.html http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2002/02/21 /web_copyright/index.html
* FOX doesn't pay their taxes. "Don't worry about it" says Congress. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1999/02
* Guy videos FOX's Simpson movie. Goes to Jail. http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/simpsons-filmed-on
Case 2
* SONY regularly cracks the security on customer's computers. No prosecution.
* Some guy does it. 21 months jail. http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2
* Congress decide life jail for hackers would be better: http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2002/02/50
Case 3
* Disney Wants the law changed. Law gets changed. http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20020305_
* What's Congress done for you lately? Health Insurance? Told their own kids to enlist?
Says Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "There is a growing trend for hacking gangs to break into innocent people's computers to spy, to steal, and to cause damage. This sentence sends out a strong message to other hackers that infecting others with Trojan horses and other malware is not acceptable." So Justice Department: You going to do anything about this, or are you corporate shills too?
SoundExchange http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundExchange is a subsidiary of the RIAA. Why do webcasters, radio stations and everyone else continue to play their game? There is a lot of good music out there; Always has been, but now it's a listener's market. The web means we no longer need the RIAA to choose which acts we should listen to. So why don't these guys, instead of waltzing with the RIAA, tell them to get bent and promote other artists instead?
Can you imagine the looks on the faces of the RIAA Shill Lawyers when the webcasters say: "You're absolutely right. We're not going to give a single one of your artists a second of airtime again. Now get out before we call the cops. Watch that step. Ooooh that's a dozy! Doris, if he doesn't pick himself off the floor in thirty seconds have security bring the Rottweiler. Oops sorry I trod on your hand." You get the idea... So webcasters, stop acting like wusses.
Windows: Pain in the ass activation system
Linux: Not
Windows: Media Player monitors what you are watching/listening to and logs it with Microsoft.
Linux: None
Windows: Intrusive DRM, Scarce Driver Support, Many incompatabilities, Huge Security Holes
Linux: None
Windows: Parent company breaks anti-trust laws, slap on wrist by Justice Department, continues to flaunt law without penalty
Linux: None
Windows: Threatens small competitors with a flood of patent lawsuits
Linux: None
Windows: Includes code to spy on China
Linux: None
Hey, Microsoft is right! Linux can't do anything!
> Blog service providers in China are "encouraged" to register users with their real names and contact information,
Or just use your Yahoo! account and they'll hand it (and you) over to the Communists for you.
So how many bad pixels do I need before they'll exchange this thing? http://news.com.com/2102-1041_3-5579493.html?tag=s t.util.print
> That may be true, but I'd trust the 'experts' over the fans to be unbiased towards certain classes or other aspects and not create a power swing over to those aspects.
That assumes no one at WOTC is also a player.
Economist Levit wrote a book called "Freakonomics". He talks about how people are willing to pay so-called Experts on the assumption that their advice is worth gold. Trouble is these experts have their own agendas: WOTCs is to sell you a whole new collection of books. At least that's how they figure it. Experts use tricks like information hoarding to convince you only their word can be trusted.
;-)
WOTC, despite the names, aren't Gods. They don't have a divine touch. Fans could rewrite the rules. There's no reason a competent group of fans couldn't do their own rewrite. WOTC would of course do everything in their power to thwart that, and propagate the myth that they're so much better at this than anyone else.
I look at the vast hardbound spaghetti code tomes that is "Got to Collect them all!" AD&D 3.5, and disagree. Don't think for a moment that the D&D 4.0 effort is the work of divine artists struggling for perfection. It's suits with sales targets. If AD&D 4 turns out to be only 16 pages long, I'll retract that. What are the chances of that?
> You're obviously a youngster that never played DnD 1st ed.
Used to play in college under a good DM who knew the rules inside out. Twenty years later had fond memories and decided to get back into the game. With AD&D 3.5 I read and read and read, and it was so boring. Commercial law textbooks have to be more exciting. I wrote a D&D combat tool to try and sort out what I learnt. That was a pretty big program, and I'd not even got around to adding magic. Nah. It's become too complicated. You're either one of these people who have the time to study it thoroughly, like someone might study Commercial Law. Or you've got a life. I decided life was too short, so left any idea of returning to D&D for good.
I've never played D&D 1E, but have the manuals. Yeah, easy to learn. The problem is they've extended D&D the way people extend bloatware programs. They can piling new crap on top. Most people don't have time to make that sort of investment. Compare that to WoW (sure, WoW could be much better done), but the choice is still a no-brainer.
WOTC think their mission is to sell you more and more books. I'm sure that's how their sales bonuses are calculated. Trouble is, customers went to WOTC looking for a good game experience. Not lots of books. At some point most customers go "You've got to be kidding. This isn't what I signed up for" and walk off.
mod parent interesting
The AD&D 3.5 manuals are just too damned complicated. Hundreds of pages and table after table after table. It's more like a software spec than game instructions. No one new is going to get onto this. If you're going to make it that complex, let a computer handle all that messing around.
Enter WoW. It's the AD&D online that AD&D never had. Must irk them to see all that money going to someone else. Their own DDO Stormreach bombed. This is a desperate ploy to cling some of their market back. If they can find people who'll pay $$$ for all new AD&D 4.0 books. In this day and age of the net does it have to be WOTC that rewrite the rules a few solitary voices claim so badly need repairs. Nope. Fans could do this by themselves. WOTC, like the RIAA, are on an outdated business model.
If someone went to a VC with this as a business plan, they'd get laughed out of the office. WOTC on their way out.
> arrested attempting to pick up $7 million in gold that he was using to launder the money.
f irst_pants_man_loses_case_nex.html
$7 million to do the laundry? This sounds like the work of Judge "No Pants" Pearson. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2007/08/
Does a library "making available" books constitute copy violation too?
1 .html
The RIAA and MPAA regularly steal from the IP creators anyway: http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2003-09-07-
They really don't have a leg to stand on.