I do the same thing. I also point out that their own software lets you do it - iTunes lets you burn DRM-encrusted tracks to CD, then immediately rip them again in any format they support (which includes mp3). I don't see why I should have to waste a CD to get the same results.
That's pretty much my stance. I don't pirate stuff, but if something I paid for breaks due to something beyond my control - certainly if it's because of DRM shenanigans - I don't have any qualms about grabbing it over bittorrent.
The interesting part is not the next model Play Station won't have an optical drive, it's that it won't have a hard drive.
Are you getting that from somewhere, or just guessing? It doesn't make much sense, unless they think we'll all have fast enough connections that we can stream entire games - instantly - every time we want to play them (assuming we're still paying, of course).
I spent a semester messing with setjmp and longjmp. We wrote a multitasking kernel that ran in userland using setjmp and longjmp... Boy was that fun to debug.
Amazon mp3's entire catalog is DRM-free, if memory serves. I'm not sure about iTunes' catalog though. A lot of it is DRM-free, some of it may still have DRM. I try to avoid iTunes largely due to them not using.mp3 by default.
But them, I'm biased in favor of Amazon anyway, so YMMV.
yes because a computer illiterate mom, who is not illiterate enough to use the computer, failed to reason that downloading and sharing music or whatever type of data files for FREE is illegal.
It took quite a bit of explaining to get my sister (who is only somewhat computer literate) to understand why downloading music via filesharing networks is illegal.
To a lot of people, if it's easy to download, it must be legal - and if it's free, so much the better. After all, they believe, if it weren't legal, it wouldn't be available!
Feel free to believe everyone else has a good understanding of the internet and the legal system; as for me, I just correct misconceptions as I find them.
In nicer languages than C that have exceptions, you often also have try...finally blocks, where you can guarantee that your cleanup code will be called, even if you call some function which calls exit().
C lets you do that, too... You can register a handler with atexit().
This already happens. My wife plays Age of Empires II a lot, and the AI almost always resigns when it's clear my wife is going to win (even if the AI still has a fair amount of its force still intact).
Since when did anyone in Star Trek use a simple, obvious, common-sense solution to their problems?
As exhibit A, Your Honor, I present the entire series of Star Trek: Voyager, in which the crew deliberately ignores the obvious get-home-quick solutions in virtually every episode.
(I like Voyager a lot, but the tendency of the crew to ignore the obvious is really annoying.)
Actually not only is the transparent effect only extremely temporary, but it's not transparent in the visible light spectrum. From TFA:
In this weekâ(TM)s Nature Physics an international team, led by Oxford University scientists, report that a short pulse from the FLASH laser âknocked outâ(TM) a core electron from every aluminium atom in a sample without disrupting the metalâ(TM)s crystalline structure. This turned the aluminium nearly invisible to extreme ultraviolet radiation.
So it'd great if we were looking for a way to stay in the shade but still get a sunburn...
I do find it interesting that one of the winning teams (BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos) is a merger of three other top ten teams, and I wouldn't doubt it if you told me The Ensemble is a merged team as well (especially given its name). I certainly can't fault them for merging. Why risk winning nothing, when you can split a cool million with two other teams and have a much better chance of winning?
What would be funny is if the last two teams merged at the last minute ^_^ (Not feasible, I'm sure, but it would be humorous.)
Then you find the nearest Starfleet Academy shuttle bay, steal a shuttle, and head for the sun. Hmm... something's wrong with that plan, but I can't quite put my finger on it...
I think you missed the part where I linked to a case that has the same dimensions as the mac mini.
No, Ubuntu isn't the same as OSX. But if you're buying a Mac Mini, you're buying it to check your e-mail and watch Youtube; Ubuntu is more than capable of doing that. You don't buy a mac mini to do video editing or photoshopping.
Also, all were over five years old when I did it, which should show you another reason why everybody except slashdotters think a mac is a "premium" laptop -- they often do last for five years.
Whatever. People whose Windows laptops don't last very long are morons who treat their laptops like textbooks. I had an IBM Thinkpad that lasted eight years, and wasn't especially careful with it, tossing it around and throwing it in my backpack with my textbooks without a second thought.
Nowadays, sure, laptops aren't quite so durable, but I would guess a modern Mac laptop wouldn't last long as a textbook either.
If you treat your laptop like a computer, rather than like a textbook, I see no reason why your average Dell laptop can't last five or six years.
Newsflash people: computers aren't frisbees!
As for other sorts of durability, I once dropped my Dell laptop while it was running. The hard drive securing screw broke, and the hard drive flew out of its slot a good five feet across the room. I was in the middle of something, so I just popped it back in and went on my way. Everything worked fine. Maybe I just got lucky - but my experience has given me no reason to think I should be paying for accelerometers to shut off my hard drives "just in case".
If the punishment were one year for partner companies, then maybe I could understand the system (though I would still not agree with it). But ten years unable to file a patent just because one guy decided to be a moron? That's just ridiculous.
Besides, what can these companies do to their unscrupulous (ex-)partner? Sue them for the lost revenues of the patents they can no longer file? Congratulations, you've burdened our legal system with more useless baggage.
Oh, that's the other thing... whenever you call their new service number, or use their check-availability website, the first thing they ask is "please enter your Verizon phone number."
Why on earth would they assume that someone calling for new service already has a Verizon land-line?
Not only that, but they use it to determine where you're wanting service. Doesn't help the process much when all I have is an out-of-state non-Verizon cell phone number.
Slashdot Mirror
I do the same thing. I also point out that their own software lets you do it - iTunes lets you burn DRM-encrusted tracks to CD, then immediately rip them again in any format they support (which includes mp3). I don't see why I should have to waste a CD to get the same results.
Is it even *possible* to put DRM in an mp3? I thought that was the reason they'd been using AAC instead.
Since when have teachers in public schools shown students how to download music? Friends, sure, but teachers?
And I bother trying to educate people so that they don't end up getting one of the RIAA's $5000 extortion letters.
Funny? More like Insightful. This is, perhaps, the most accurate car analogy I've ever seen.
That's pretty much my stance. I don't pirate stuff, but if something I paid for breaks due to something beyond my control - certainly if it's because of DRM shenanigans - I don't have any qualms about grabbing it over bittorrent.
The interesting part is not the next model Play Station won't have an optical drive, it's that it won't have a hard drive.
Are you getting that from somewhere, or just guessing? It doesn't make much sense, unless they think we'll all have fast enough connections that we can stream entire games - instantly - every time we want to play them (assuming we're still paying, of course).
I have an Amazon-produced Amazon mp3 shirt that bears the logo "Don't Restrict Me". I'm pretty sure that's been their mindset from the beginning.
Ah, sorry, I missed that line in your post.
I spent a semester messing with setjmp and longjmp. We wrote a multitasking kernel that ran in userland using setjmp and longjmp... Boy was that fun to debug.
Amazon mp3's entire catalog is DRM-free, if memory serves. I'm not sure about iTunes' catalog though. A lot of it is DRM-free, some of it may still have DRM. I try to avoid iTunes largely due to them not using .mp3 by default.
But them, I'm biased in favor of Amazon anyway, so YMMV.
yes because a computer illiterate mom, who is not illiterate enough to use the computer, failed to reason that downloading and sharing music or whatever type of data files for FREE is illegal.
It took quite a bit of explaining to get my sister (who is only somewhat computer literate) to understand why downloading music via filesharing networks is illegal.
To a lot of people, if it's easy to download, it must be legal - and if it's free, so much the better. After all, they believe, if it weren't legal, it wouldn't be available!
Feel free to believe everyone else has a good understanding of the internet and the legal system; as for me, I just correct misconceptions as I find them.
No, but someone *else* could post those instructions.
I'm not sure what's worse... that you could write that without collapsing, or that I could actually hear it in a perfect valley girl voice.
In nicer languages than C that have exceptions, you often also have try...finally blocks, where you can guarantee that your cleanup code will be called, even if you call some function which calls exit().
C lets you do that, too... You can register a handler with atexit().
This already happens. My wife plays Age of Empires II a lot, and the AI almost always resigns when it's clear my wife is going to win (even if the AI still has a fair amount of its force still intact).
Since when did anyone in Star Trek use a simple, obvious, common-sense solution to their problems?
As exhibit A, Your Honor, I present the entire series of Star Trek: Voyager, in which the crew deliberately ignores the obvious get-home-quick solutions in virtually every episode.
(I like Voyager a lot, but the tendency of the crew to ignore the obvious is really annoying.)
Actually not only is the transparent effect only extremely temporary, but it's not transparent in the visible light spectrum. From TFA:
In this weekâ(TM)s Nature Physics an international team, led by Oxford University scientists, report that a short pulse from the FLASH laser âknocked outâ(TM) a core electron from every aluminium atom in a sample without disrupting the metalâ(TM)s crystalline structure. This turned the aluminium nearly invisible to extreme ultraviolet radiation.
So it'd great if we were looking for a way to stay in the shade but still get a sunburn...
Having just watched that movie a few days ago, I must say, it never gets old :)
Ah, I needed a good laugh... thanks!
Exactly.
I do find it interesting that one of the winning teams (BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos) is a merger of three other top ten teams, and I wouldn't doubt it if you told me The Ensemble is a merged team as well (especially given its name). I certainly can't fault them for merging. Why risk winning nothing, when you can split a cool million with two other teams and have a much better chance of winning?
What would be funny is if the last two teams merged at the last minute ^_^ (Not feasible, I'm sure, but it would be humorous.)
First you share your solution with us.
Then you find the nearest Starfleet Academy shuttle bay, steal a shuttle, and head for the sun. Hmm... something's wrong with that plan, but I can't quite put my finger on it...
O'dumba
I will not have you insulting our Irish female twins of Dumbo!
(Ok, that was lame, but so is the original "insult".)
I think you missed the part where I linked to a case that has the same dimensions as the mac mini.
No, Ubuntu isn't the same as OSX. But if you're buying a Mac Mini, you're buying it to check your e-mail and watch Youtube; Ubuntu is more than capable of doing that. You don't buy a mac mini to do video editing or photoshopping.
Gah, why did that post anonymously?
Also, all were over five years old when I did it, which should show you another reason why everybody except slashdotters think a mac is a "premium" laptop -- they often do last for five years.
Whatever. People whose Windows laptops don't last very long are morons who treat their laptops like textbooks. I had an IBM Thinkpad that lasted eight years, and wasn't especially careful with it, tossing it around and throwing it in my backpack with my textbooks without a second thought.
Nowadays, sure, laptops aren't quite so durable, but I would guess a modern Mac laptop wouldn't last long as a textbook either.
If you treat your laptop like a computer, rather than like a textbook, I see no reason why your average Dell laptop can't last five or six years.
Newsflash people: computers aren't frisbees!
As for other sorts of durability, I once dropped my Dell laptop while it was running. The hard drive securing screw broke, and the hard drive flew out of its slot a good five feet across the room. I was in the middle of something, so I just popped it back in and went on my way. Everything worked fine. Maybe I just got lucky - but my experience has given me no reason to think I should be paying for accelerometers to shut off my hard drives "just in case".
If the punishment were one year for partner companies, then maybe I could understand the system (though I would still not agree with it). But ten years unable to file a patent just because one guy decided to be a moron? That's just ridiculous.
Besides, what can these companies do to their unscrupulous (ex-)partner? Sue them for the lost revenues of the patents they can no longer file? Congratulations, you've burdened our legal system with more useless baggage.
Oh, that's the other thing... whenever you call their new service number, or use their check-availability website, the first thing they ask is "please enter your Verizon phone number."
Why on earth would they assume that someone calling for new service already has a Verizon land-line?
Not only that, but they use it to determine where you're wanting service. Doesn't help the process much when all I have is an out-of-state non-Verizon cell phone number.