The real problem is that too many artists spew out piles of garbage with just a few good songs on each CD. When artists make entire albums worth buying, I buy them. Otherwise, I'm stick with just buiying the songs I like, thank you
The problem is that if everyone were like you, the only songs we'd get would be shallow songs that are instantly likeable. If you want that, why bother with CDs at all? Just turn on the radio.
I've got many albums where it has taken months, or even years, for me to appreciate the greatness of some of the songs on them.
As someone pointed out the other day, there was plenty of quality art available before copyright
Justice Breyer, back before he was on the Supreme Court, wrote a paper on that, where he concluded that the costs of copying were high enough so that artists/authors didn't really need copyright, at least in some areas. Books, for example, usually made most of their sales soon after release, and by the time someone, using the best technology of the day, could get a knockoff out, it would not be profitable.
However, the costs of copying have gone WAY down since then. At the time Breyer wrote, it was close. The results now would alsmost certainly go the other way.
One way to make things more sane is to abolish copyright
Yawn...yet another slashdot post suggesting abolishing copyright, without making any suggestion for how to solve some other way the problems that copyright law solves.
Worse, there's about a 90% chance that the poster doesn't even know what those problems are.
Just make the game CD bootable, running a custom Linux distribution, with the game executable replacing/sbin/init, and make the game executable check that its PID is 1, so that you can't take it run it on an ordinary Linux system.
The author makes the mistake of attributing the number of holes discovered in Windows to the larger user base.
However, if you look at who is actually discovering these holes, it seems to be a handful of security researchers.
The larger Windows user base means that a flaw might do more damage than an equivalent OS X (or Linux) flaw, and that there are way more script kiddies waiting to jump on it.
I know it is selfish...I no longer care about spam
Not selfish. The word you want is stupid. Your attitude is equivalent to saying you don't care about massive water pollution because you've got a really good personal filtering system that can make a small amount of drinking water safe, so you don't care about pollution, say, killing crops.
The problem with spam is that it is threatening to overwhelm the basic infrastructure of the net.
Software (Games, CDs, DVDs, et cetera) usually have a very low wholesale price...
I'm not sure it is really accurate to say that software has a wholesale price, since the stores do not buy it. It's more of a consignment arrangement, with the software distributors paying the stores to offer the software.
Here is a very good explanation
of how the retail software industry works.
In theory, it is illegal for a manufacturer to dictate the price that a store sells an item. For example, Best Buy could choose to sell iPods at a loss just to get more people to the store and there's nothing that Apple can legally do about it
That's incorrect. There is plenty Apple can legally do about it. For example, Apple can stop selling to/through that store. There is nothing in anti-trust law that requires Apple to sell via every store that wishes to carry iPods.
Anti-trust law would be a problem if Apple threatened to cut off people for discounting, but if Apple doesn't make the threat, but rather simply acts after the fact and cuts off people who discount, that is perfectly legal.
More importantly, you still have to get the one-time pad to your compadre in the first place - and who's to stop someone intercepting it there, unless you hand it to them? (In which case, why aren't you just telling them face to face?)
There are many situations in which you know that you will in the future need to send secure messages to someone you are meeting with now (diplomats, for example, or military units). One time pads are quite useful for this (and are in fact widely used).
Appeals are still double-jeopardy. In the U.S., the prosecution cannot appeal an innocent verdict
Correct. Instead, in the US, the prosecution has to instead start over with a new charge, in a different court.
For example, some red-neck jury won't convict that pesky murderer in state court? Go to federal court and go for violating the dead person's civil rights, instead.
Based on what people have posted here of the procedure in Norway, it is not double-jeopardy of the kind that is not supposed to happen here in the US. It sounds like they have a finite, definite procedure that includes one trial, and one appeal by the loser that does not require any new evidence.
Just because Redhat believes that the Linux desktop RIGHT NOW is not as good as Windows for the average home user doesn't mean they think that it will NEVER be as good or better, or that such a time is so far in the future that they should not be trying to bring it about.
The reason spam is evil, and must be stopped, is that it is not tied to the rate of consumption of anything the recipient does.
Consider TV ads. You get, say, 15 in a half hour. Watch more TV, see more ads. Watch less TV, see less ads. If a new advertiser wants to get a TV ad to you, they have to displace some other ad. You still get 15 an hour.
Same with ads in magazines. Read N pages, see K ads. Read 2N pages, see 2K ads.
Same with banners ads on web pages. View a slashdot story, see a banner. View two stories, see two banners.
With spam, if someone wants to send you a spam, that adds one to the total number of spams you get. It's not tied to the amount of mail you send, or the amount of non-spam you receive, or your amount of time online. It is capped by your mailbox capacity, but that is about it.
No form of advertising should be allowed that is not directly tied to the rate of consumption of something at the recipient end, unless the recipient agrees to it.
Note that this means that not only is spam bad, but email advertising even from companies you have a business relationship with, unless asked for, is bad, even though that is usually not considered spam.
Buying someone a service (or a pet) as a gift is, well, stupid is the most positive thing I can think of
If after a year, the recipient doesn't feel like keeping up the site, they have still had a year out of it. If they do keep it up, they've recieved a year for free. How are either of these stupid?
A pet is bad, unless you know the person wants it, because you can't just abandon it (without being an asshole), like you can with a website.
FYI, a very useful place to go before ordering from a mail order or internet place is Reseller Ratings. Newegg is one of the highest rated general computer components places, and it is based on thousands of reviews, so is a pretty reliable rating.
Reseller Ratings is particularly useful when considering ordering from a place listed at Pricewatch. The vendors listed at pricewatch range from great to total sleazebags that I would not order from even if their price was half anyone else's and included shipping and a blow job from the UPS person.
I know everyone is trying to make these as small and unobtrusive as possible, but this little guy is a little too small and too oddly-shaped (a square???) to be comfortably used.
I wonder how well these small players (this one, and iPod) work on desks? My player is mostly used at work, sitting on my desk, connected to full sized headphones with one of those coiled cords. When I step over to the bookshelf to get a book, it does pull on the player. My Archos is heavy enough, and has these rubberish dodads on the corners, so that it doesn't come flying off the desk.
Would these other players do be as stable? The iPod in particular looks awfully smooth.
Interesting examples of lack of innovation, considering that in the case of Office, no open source office suite comes close. The best we've got in open source are things like OpenOffice, which are good enough to painfully get by with. No other commercial office suite comes close, either.
That would solve the controversy problem since Cartoon Network is a cable channel
They are a cable channel that cuts the Professor on Futurama when he says "sweet zombie Jesus", at a time that is supposed to be only adults watching. I wouldn't look to them for controversial programming.
Slashdot Mirror
So...why the heck did SCO allow employees to contribute to Linux? That seems massively stupid.
The problem is that if everyone were like you, the only songs we'd get would be shallow songs that are instantly likeable. If you want that, why bother with CDs at all? Just turn on the radio.
I've got many albums where it has taken months, or even years, for me to appreciate the greatness of some of the songs on them.
Why in Bob's name would I want to donate to help decieve consumers?
If their product was worth supporting, they wouldn't need to try to trick people into buying it.
Check past threads.
Justice Breyer, back before he was on the Supreme Court, wrote a paper on that, where he concluded that the costs of copying were high enough so that artists/authors didn't really need copyright, at least in some areas. Books, for example, usually made most of their sales soon after release, and by the time someone, using the best technology of the day, could get a knockoff out, it would not be profitable.
However, the costs of copying have gone WAY down since then. At the time Breyer wrote, it was close. The results now would alsmost certainly go the other way.
Yawn...yet another slashdot post suggesting abolishing copyright, without making any suggestion for how to solve some other way the problems that copyright law solves.
Worse, there's about a 90% chance that the poster doesn't even know what those problems are.
Just make the game CD bootable, running a custom Linux distribution, with the game executable replacing /sbin/init, and make the game executable check that its PID is 1, so that you can't take it run it on an ordinary Linux system.
However, if you look at who is actually discovering these holes, it seems to be a handful of security researchers.
The larger Windows user base means that a flaw might do more damage than an equivalent OS X (or Linux) flaw, and that there are way more script kiddies waiting to jump on it.
He does...but he doesn't qualify as a copyright expert. See Larry McVoy's post in that thread on the kernel for a correction of Linus' error.
Not selfish. The word you want is stupid. Your attitude is equivalent to saying you don't care about massive water pollution because you've got a really good personal filtering system that can make a small amount of drinking water safe, so you don't care about pollution, say, killing crops.
The problem with spam is that it is threatening to overwhelm the basic infrastructure of the net.
I'm not sure it is really accurate to say that software has a wholesale price, since the stores do not buy it. It's more of a consignment arrangement, with the software distributors paying the stores to offer the software.
Here is a very good explanation of how the retail software industry works.
That's incorrect. There is plenty Apple can legally do about it. For example, Apple can stop selling to/through that store. There is nothing in anti-trust law that requires Apple to sell via every store that wishes to carry iPods.
Anti-trust law would be a problem if Apple threatened to cut off people for discounting, but if Apple doesn't make the threat, but rather simply acts after the fact and cuts off people who discount, that is perfectly legal.
There are many situations in which you know that you will in the future need to send secure messages to someone you are meeting with now (diplomats, for example, or military units). One time pads are quite useful for this (and are in fact widely used).
Correct. Instead, in the US, the prosecution has to instead start over with a new charge, in a different court.
For example, some red-neck jury won't convict that pesky murderer in state court? Go to federal court and go for violating the dead person's civil rights, instead.
Based on what people have posted here of the procedure in Norway, it is not double-jeopardy of the kind that is not supposed to happen here in the US. It sounds like they have a finite, definite procedure that includes one trial, and one appeal by the loser that does not require any new evidence.
How about you actually read the page before making stupid comments?
Are you sure you'd want someone from a country where they can't tell the difference between a blackboard and a web page?
Just because Redhat believes that the Linux desktop RIGHT NOW is not as good as Windows for the average home user doesn't mean they think that it will NEVER be as good or better, or that such a time is so far in the future that they should not be trying to bring it about.
Consider TV ads. You get, say, 15 in a half hour. Watch more TV, see more ads. Watch less TV, see less ads. If a new advertiser wants to get a TV ad to you, they have to displace some other ad. You still get 15 an hour.
Same with ads in magazines. Read N pages, see K ads. Read 2N pages, see 2K ads.
Same with banners ads on web pages. View a slashdot story, see a banner. View two stories, see two banners.
With spam, if someone wants to send you a spam, that adds one to the total number of spams you get. It's not tied to the amount of mail you send, or the amount of non-spam you receive, or your amount of time online. It is capped by your mailbox capacity, but that is about it.
No form of advertising should be allowed that is not directly tied to the rate of consumption of something at the recipient end, unless the recipient agrees to it.
Note that this means that not only is spam bad, but email advertising even from companies you have a business relationship with, unless asked for, is bad, even though that is usually not considered spam.
If after a year, the recipient doesn't feel like keeping up the site, they have still had a year out of it. If they do keep it up, they've recieved a year for free. How are either of these stupid?
A pet is bad, unless you know the person wants it, because you can't just abandon it (without being an asshole), like you can with a website.
FYI, a very useful place to go before ordering from a mail order or internet place is Reseller Ratings. Newegg is one of the highest rated general computer components places, and it is based on thousands of reviews, so is a pretty reliable rating.
Reseller Ratings is particularly useful when considering ordering from a place listed at Pricewatch. The vendors listed at pricewatch range from great to total sleazebags that I would not order from even if their price was half anyone else's and included shipping and a blow job from the UPS person.
Go play golf in a thunderstorm, and you might see a first hand example of wireless electricity.
I wonder how well these small players (this one, and iPod) work on desks? My player is mostly used at work, sitting on my desk, connected to full sized headphones with one of those coiled cords. When I step over to the bookshelf to get a book, it does pull on the player. My Archos is heavy enough, and has these rubberish dodads on the corners, so that it doesn't come flying off the desk.
Would these other players do be as stable? The iPod in particular looks awfully smooth.
How is the Simpsons not family-friendly?
Interesting examples of lack of innovation, considering that in the case of Office, no open source office suite comes close. The best we've got in open source are things like OpenOffice, which are good enough to painfully get by with. No other commercial office suite comes close, either.
They are a cable channel that cuts the Professor on Futurama when he says "sweet zombie Jesus", at a time that is supposed to be only adults watching. I wouldn't look to them for controversial programming.