Not the only reason the labels are running scared.
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Napster Wars
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· Score: 2
What has always worried me about the mass conglomeration of labels (who make up RIAA) is the fact that since their inception, they have been trying to find a way to still claim to represent musical artists, while trying to find ways of avoiding paying for them. I posted a comment here explaining my views on it. I won't repeat myself here, but I personally think that their method of slowly replacing musicians on major labels with manufactured 'employee' artists is possibly the worst thing to happen to music in a long time. I'm not saying that there is no place for manufactured pop, but to slowly erode every contemporary alternative form of non-classical music into obscurity is a travesty they have/had every hope to commit. I believe their plan is to use marketing to make their 'artists' the only music widely available.
Although Britney, N'Sync and co. do a roaring trade on Napster, it's also the place to get material from bands that are nigh-on impossible to find outside specialist shops (hard to come by in a non-city environment), and bands who have been dropped by their labels in the last few years and have had their albums deleted.
What makes me laugh about the whole Metallica thing is there is no way they would have been signed in today's musical climate. They not only relied on bootleggers and word-of-mouth, but on independent labels such as MFN, and sympathetic people like Johnny Zazula to enable them to survive until being picked up by Elektra in the mid-80s. If they were trying to be signed today, they'd have to go to image consultants, focus group meetings, and prove to these arse^H^H^H^Hpeople that they can sell something, before they were as much as offered a pre-contract memo, let alone a record deal!
It annoys me that the labels can get away with slowly narrowing the focus of what constitutes 'contemporary music' until nothing is left but that which they produce, which they can price/distribute as they please. RIAA is nothing more than a cartel of people who care about nothing but label profits, annulling any alternative method of distributing music that isn't theirs, and, this is the bit which gets my hackles up no end, claiming they're doing it for the good of the artist. Artists that have already made their millions are sympathetic, because they have nothing to fear anymore. But what about those who are being forced out? What about those who can't afford stage school or image consultants? How much talent are we denying here?
I see my friends who were promised a shot at recording in the late 90's being throttled with their pre-contract exclusivity memos, forced into silence by a system that doesn't feel it needs them anymore. Where's the justice in that?
I nearly committed suicide twice, and I know one or two friends that actually did
I don't know what to say to you about that, because I didn't know your friends, and I don't know you. I do know that the same things happened to me however. I lost one friend to suicide, another to heroin addiction (to this day I don't know if he's still alive, because he wouldn't talk to me), and one to what I still believe to be a grisly murder at the hands of a group of yobs with nothing better to do than make other people's lives hell. I also know that he was a bright kid with a bright future. That was the one incident that made me stop being so maudlin, wake up and start standing up for myself. I don't mean physically, any heavily-built human could probably kick my butt if they wanted to, but that's irrelevant, because as you do get older, brains do become more important. You're obviously bright enough, to see as far as you do. I bit my tongue, finished my exams and got the hell out of Dodge, moved to town and am currently heading towards the last year of a Uni course that will (hopefully) see me financially secure at the end of it. Every so often I go back to my home town (to see my family), and see those that used to taunt me, still stuck in their mindset. It's been years, but they haven't moved on. I see them, and realise that I was mentally killing myself with fear and worry over nothing. I may not make much of a difference on a global scale yet, but I'll do my bit from where I'm standing to help those who were in my position out. If you have the ability to think like that, you've already got the f**kers beaten. They're stuck on their islands, proclaiming their manhood, but they've never touched anyone deeply, and it's them who are condemned to eke out an existence as a mediocrity until they keel over.
We're so hyped-up on the sanctity of life that we won't let people opt out of living - people who the rest of the world has already decided are totally worthless;
If I were them, I'd set about trying to prove the rest of the world wrong. Worked for me;-)
But seriously, If you can transcend the prison that they built for you (and you finished, by letting them get to you) in your head (It will be rebuilt from time to time, recurring depression still affects me. I've done my fair share of crying, but now some people depend on me, and they're so important to me that, well, any problem I have can wait), and look at it from the outside, hopefully you'll see that you don't deserve to be there, not for them, not for anyone. If you're bright enough to use a computer, you have a skill that many don't (even if you're only starting out). Remember, though they don't understand it yet, they'll be working on cars and in factories, or maybe even working in stores when you're outclassing and out-earning them.
Few ever achieve happiness, and the rest either live in their misery or delude themselves that they really are happy, after all, painting on hollow smiles and crying themselves to sleep every night.
I used to think that, and I have the right to feel pain over my problems, but compared to Jason Haas, or the guy on here whose wife was killed by a speeding drunk, or my friends, lying passed out under a bridge, or six feet under somewhere more permanent, hell, I've got a better chance of dealing with my problems than they have. My smile when it shows is definitely not painted. I won't fake emotion for anybody. You can get out of the ruts you're in without letting go of life. For those who genuinely didn't believe otherwise, it's a tragedy. I wish the old adage 'Only the good die young' wasn't true, but sometimes it is, and all we can do is not add to the statistics.
When you wake up tomorrow morning, look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, "Where did I say I was going to be today, when I was 6?" Then let me know whether you start crying.
When I was 6, I said I was going to be a pilot. And you know what? I joined the Air Training Corps, hated the herd mentality there and left. But one day, either with money from my music or my work on computers, I'm going to take my money, learn to fly, and I'm going to plot a course directly over my old school, and the places I've been taken to remind me of 'the way it is' with sticks, fists and white trainers, and I'm going to spit on them from a thousand feet.
A hard goal, but not impossible. Please don't give up. Life was much simpler and nicer when you were young, don't think I don't know that. We all wish we could go back sometime, but the sad truth is, we can't. All we can do is take what we've learned and pass it on, while trying to make our lives as much fun as we can (and I can still have a lot of fun at 21). Read Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith for a more eloquent analogy on this and other things.
Obviously something shitty has happened to you, and I hope that it can be resolved. Just remember that pain fades, hate becomes irrelevant and life can be worth it. You could blow your brains out tomorrow, and they wouldn't care, because they don't have the mental capacity to go beyond certain things. They fuck rather than love, they work/drink/fight rather than think and they'd rather die than admit they are wrong. I suspect you are more than that. Don't die because of them, we need more people like you. Live to prove them wrong. And I hope you can hear me too, Ian.
Not likely. In 21st Century America, harassment and cruelty are fine as long as you don't do it on a computer.
Or even on a computer, as long as you do something that raises the school's profile. I remember being told in school to cut my hair, smarten my attire and cut out my slacker attitude (by teachers who were quite blatantly drunk as hell on occasion) on a regular basis, while the school (& county) champion runner/rugby player/cricketer could look like how/do what the hell he wanted (including verbally abusing the less athletically inclined). When I questioned those double standards (directly to the head teacher, no less), I was told that that was the way life could be sometimes, that he brought a lot of attention onto the school, that that was a good thing, and by the way, cut your hair, or I'll suspend you. My (admittedly childish) retaliation was to cut my hair to within a millimetre of the regulation, form a band, and use the schools' rock concert for charity as a sounding-board. 'There's only one way of life (and that's your own)' was a good starting point, and 'Killing in the name of' was a good follow-up (Although we covered it badly, the look of shock on the teachers' faces as we screeched 'F**k you, I won't do what you tell me' time after time is an image burned forever onto my mind, and raises a grin every time I think about it - I also wound up with a nice young lady that evening;-). I got canned for it, but it felt good to make the statement. Athletic boy put a band together the following year, played Oasis covers and didn't pull. *grin*
This was in the UK at a fairly cold-shower independent school, and I believe that any child in a repressive environment should be allowed to sound off, at least once, for what they feel is right, as long as they can back up their arguments well. If I had been born 5 years later, I would probably have sounded off on the Web. I would have expected maybe detention, but arrest? I can't help but think that the powers that be are way off-base here. Those that fail to acknowledge history are doomed to repeat it. Any kid who feels that life is unfair only has to look at how the Columbine two were portrayed to know that the answer doesn't lie with Dylan and Klebold's methodology. You'll die (which sucks), You'll be hated by everyone (which sucks), and you'll make it worse for others likes you (which sucks more than anything has ever sucked before)
Use your brain, not a Beretta. And just because Utah is fairly backwater doesn't make it right. No-one should have to endure it. Only when a disillusioned kid kills themselves and others do the words 'Life's like that, deal with it' sound kind of hollow.
USG produced some fine games, and a fair amount of dreck in their time, but EIDOS Interactive is a large conglomerate now. an admittedly fairly old article here talks of how US Gold and Domark merged to form the company originally amid large mergers, including USG's main rival, Ocean with Infogrames. Of course more joined later, Core Design infamously. I don't know that much about internal politics, but EIDOS definitely seem to be more marketing than games oriented these days (flogging the Tomb Raider franchise to extinction, turning quite an original game into a shell of it's former self being a prime example). If you're business-minded, you can see they're just covering their collective butts by doing this, just diverting money from what they consider non-essential (read: less profitable) projects to those which stand to make a killing (And let's face it, Romero's return is going to generate an *awful* lot of revenue, whether the game is any good or not). It's not right, and it is extremely sad, but bitching isn't going to help.
Breaking into games programming and development is one of the toughest nuts a geek can crack, but there must be at least a few of us that could muster the time and energy to do it, regardless of platform, and if Open-Source projects can reap capital by being clued up, so can games. It would be too cool (However (un)likely), if we could take the games back, and show the next generation of gamers what they're missing now the marketers are in control.
To the LG boys and girls, we're on your side here. You were one of the few companies I know who could truly claim innovation a lot of the time, and one of the few where every sequel was a better game. On top of that, SS1 and 2 allowed us to experience paranoia in space in a way that only Mac people had (in the form of Marathon) before. As a company, you will be sorely missed. As programmers and gamers, you shall righteously kick ass in greener pastures, I'm sure.
AMD's Athlon and Intel's Wilamette are excellent x86 designs, which are severely cutting-edge. I'm not sure about the Willamette architecture, as I haven't done much reading into it, but pretty much everything from the Pentium (P6 in particular) onwards has strayed from being pure x86 in favour of a heavily pipelined architecture. In the case of the Athlon, effectively the CISC x86 instructions are emulated by splitting them down into what AMD terms MacroOps, and letting the RISC core deal with the rest.
Where the PPC scores here is that it is fundametally RISC by nature, although IIRC the PPC has a basic 68k emulation frontend for legacy purposes. However most modern apps on the Mac are tailored for the PPC, and as such, can use some of the funky RISC features to gain a speed advantage. For example, some Photoshop filters will render quicker on a G4@400MHz than on an equivalent, or higher spec x86 box, simply because the architecture is less cluttered, and the compilers don't have to take the legacy baggage into consideration. The same applies to the Alpha, in that by using MHz as a speed comparison between architectures, you are doing the more modern chips a major disservice, because they don't need to be clocked as high to gain comparable application performance.
As for the colour and font handling, he's right. The Macintosh's ease of use made it a very strong contender in the DTP arena early on, and as a result, programs like ATM and ColorSync allow a far greater degree of output control than the Windows (or Linux, sorry guys) equivalent. This is just by the nature of having existed on the platform longer, however.
Maybe it's just me, but I've found Napster to be a practically worthless tool for finding music by new musicians. MP3.com is far more useful for this.
I don't know about how MP3.com distributes the files that well, so I can't comment, but I will say that I share my band's stuff on Napster, and I know of a few propellerheads that do the same. In fact, pretty much any unsigned artist I talk to is more excited than worried by the premise, and you don't need to be a propellerhead to use Napster.
Remember MP3.com probably have a say in what goes on (largely dance music, in my experience). With Napster, an artist doesn't need to be ratified before they can share their material, and while this could lead to a fair amount of dreck being available, it 's a nice feeling to know that your stuff's out there on the ether being enjoyed. Any artist can promote themselves with a web page, and a few insightful posts on forums that deal with their art could work wonders for your image. I'm really surprised that more people haven't thought of this. Just my final 0.02 Euro
Why force people to install a proprietary client to get at your music, when you could place it on a web page, accessible to anyone with a browser?
Maybe a better question to ask would be :
Why go for one way of distributing our material rather than two?
You can download a song from a band's web page, *and* the band can release it to Napster. Seems to me that you'd get a much wider audience that way. Remeber also that the Web is a primarily visual medium at the moment. You can advertise on the Web. The guy or girl who sees the ad is going to go to the site, maybe the site is bogged down, but if you tell them that it has been released to Napster, then there's another way they can get your stuff. Say (if you're lucky) they like it a lot. Remember also, that the 'net is a very vocal environment, so they post to newsgroups, and e-mail their friends, telling them you're great musicians, and not just that, but that 'They released it to Napster! They're 'net junkies just like us!'. They share the songs, their friends share the songs, and before you know it, you've got a little community that likes your stuff. Good music should be about inspiring a community spirit between people using music as the bond. Personally, I can't think of a better way to do it. For years now, music made by those that like music for whatever reason has been cast aside by the industry (who find it cheaper to mass-produce 'pop stars' and pay them as employees. Hell, they're even trying to create 'virtual' pop stars where they don't have to pay them anything!), and they brushed it aside with 'That music has no appreciable market'. Now, here's the clincher. With Napster, you can log on and SHOW them that there are multiple copies of your song floating around all the time. You can show them the website logs. You can PROVE to them that there is a market for what you do, and that you created it without having to spend millions of dollars on marketing. They will see you as a lot more committed as a result. They may not sign you, but they will *respect* you, (And *may* pass you onto a little indie subsidiary that their friend runs). Before passing sentence on Napster, it may be an idea to at least acknowledge that it can be used for as much good as bad. Metallica, Dre and even Britney, for that matter, don't need any extra money, and if you look at my earlier post, I explain that it probably doesn't do much harm to non-manufactured artists. I don't know how you could, or if you should, enforce proper use (There will *always* be troublemakers), but think of what you're shutting the door on before you shut it.
So by that logic, it's OK to walk into Borders and steal "I, Robot" by Asimov if you then go out and purchase other Asimov books?
I think you're a little off-base with that comparison. I think if you went to a site, and downloaded a chapter, or partial segment of "I, Robot", and then went out and bought it, along with all Asimov's other works, then you'd have a better analogy. Napster users rarely download whole albums (Unless they're taking money from burning fake CD's, in which case they're hardcore pirates, a minority that has plagued the industry since taping and CD duplication was possible. Losing Napster won't stop them).
Those Napster users I know who download copyrighted works only do it either for archival purposes, when the recording is of something they already own, or to try new music before they buy, because they can't really afford to purchase a CD they won't play more than once (remember, a CD in the UK is roughly double the price of the equivalent US product. Tell me how that's fair!).
I will defend artist rights to the death, being a musician myself, but what irks me is the probable fact that it isn't the artists who have come down on Napster. Most smaller-time musicians I know love the fact that their stuff can whizz around the globe unconstrained by a physical format. What I suspect is that Metallica/Dre's shtick is nothing to do with the smaller, struggling musicians and bands. They're basically being hired goons for RIAA. I highly doubt they actually knew about MP3, much less Napster, until their attorney (read: RIAA affiliate) clued them in on it. On top of this, they're generating more publicity than they've managed to over the last three years in the last month. RIAA wins, MetalliDre gets new publicity, and the attorney walks away with a fat pay cheque.
Anyway, that's largely irrelevant. What irks me is the fact that whether the piracy possibilities of Napster were considered when it was written or not, Napster is an invaluable tool for aspiring musicians to swap demos freely. To destroy Napster could destroy one of the most significant leaps forward for the little guy in music. You record a demo for a few hundred (insert relevant currency). You hawk it on Napster, and people can hear it. Then (if you're good, and reasonably clued in to the beast that is the record industry), you have proof to give to record companies that there is a market for what you're playing, and that is a ground to fund you to record more. That, I believe, is strong grounds for Napster to be considered a useful piece of software.
OK, sensible part over, it's conspiracy theory time. As I said earlier, very few download whole albums from Napster. The bread and butter of the RIAA's sales though, is pop pap like Britney, Billie, 5ive, N-Sync et al, who are not what are termed 'album-oriented' artists. The bulk of the millions they earn the suits comes from CD single sales. To download a Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, or (and I include them as a reference) a Metallica album, even with a broadband connection, would probably take upwards of an hour. The latest Britney single, however, can be down in a few minutes. They've lost a significant sale there, probably to those who they consider the 'spotty girlfriend-less nerds' they thought targeted with Britney's gyrations on MTV. They changed their sales strategy a few years back. Before, a record would move up the charts before moving back down. Now, with in-your-face marketing, records generally crash in at the top, only to be gone in a couple of weeks. This works great if CD singles are your only source for a Britney-fix, but Napster can circumvent singles sales. It's therefore a problem that they created with their manipulation and greed, as much as those who brought Napster to the fore.
I don't think it was the chipset manufacturers that got slammed by Intel as much as the motherboard makers. The whole reason that Intel went for a Slot rather than a Socket design was not primarily out of ease of fitting (as claimed by the marketroids), as much as it was that other CPU makers would have a much harder time, as they could then patent Slot 1 and price the license effectively out of range. AMD responded with Slot A which did not only for them what Slot 1 did for Intel, but also solved a few of the bus limitation problems along the way (Getting those disaffected former DEC guys was obviously a canny move;-).
To cut a long story short, Intel figured this out, and put the smack down on anyone who supported the Athlon. Not just VIA, (whom Intel despise for matching their chipsets in many respects, and then selling them cheaper), but motherboard makers too. ASUS didn't even put the K7M on the front page of their website for months, and that was widely regarded as the best all-round K7 board! Personally I think Intel need to be taught a lesson, which is why I'm a confirmed AMD advocate now. Hopefully with Duron, and maybe Joshua (Heh! VIA get their own back!) assaulting the basic Celeron, the Athlon taking on the Celeron II and PIII, and the Thunderbird and Itanium slugging it out, those of us who are more tech-savvy can return the smack to Intel.
Anyway, to avoid going too OT here, it will be interesting to see exactly how AMD will make up the shortfall in mobos when the Duron is released. If the vacuum that faced the Athlon upon release can be avoided, we can hope for an interesting fight, which I hope makes Intel question a couple of fundamental issues (Such as, don't fire your older workers, who've probably been in the game for a while, because they will go elsewhere). On another note, It would be cool to see AMD and VIA team up and use the same socket standards on their lower-range chips, or even better, to implement a standard everyone will use, and stop these tit-for-tat architecture changes, that renders building/upgrading machines a logical and financial grind! (Unlikely, but I suppose I can dream.....)
where they have been merged with another chip firm, and are now producing a chip codenamed Joshua, which could prove an interesting asset to lower-spec machines.
Does it bother anybody else that the only source given for this "story" is one web page called "commondreams.org"? Hello? Fact-checking, anyone?
Here's a source from The Observer, a fairly reputable UK Sunday newspaper. It's not a good idea to discriminate on the basis of a domain name. Obviously if there's nothing else to go on, then you may be suspicious, but as a rule, that kind of discrimination just makes you sound like Eric Cartman ("It must be written by hippies, and hippies suck!).
...as I suspect this is a troll, however, Just this once I will take on your argument.
I am going to say this once, and only once:
WE ALL PAY FOR ALMOST EVERY MICROSOFT PRODUCT ON THE WINDOWS LICENSE THAT IS INCLUDED IN THE COST OF EVERY PC.
I realise that the caps are unnecessary, but here goes. You wanna pirate MS software? Presto! The price of all MS software goes up. Integrating IE into Windows is a canny move because they can hike the license cost even more, and snare those who don't know into believing they are getting something for free. You paid for IE and WMP when you bought your machine. Either that or you pirated the software, and every one of us who is forced to run Windows, for whatever reason (And, unhappy as it is, most of us are), is paying for you to use IE and WMP. It's because of practises like these that they are in the position where Gates can sit behind his wall of money and claim he's doing the computing community a service. They're also cheapskates, as they have only paid for the 56k-limited version of Fraunhofer to ship with Windows, leaving us to pay for full versions with whatever software we have to buy, while claiming 'full MP3 functionality' under Windows. If it's hobbled, they should say it's hobbled.
The reason projects like LAME, GNU and the like are necessary is because shareholder greed is dictating to the computer industry at the moment. What started as a communal effort to make existence better and easier by a bunch of techies is now an industry behemoth making a very small number of people *extremely* rich. By simply taking from them, by pirating, or whatever, you only give them an excuse to make more money out of the honest. By replacing what they do with a free (as in either beer OR speech) solution of equal or better quality, you obviate the need for their product, and their existence. By obviating the need for their existence, you return computers to their original purpose; to help people perform tasks that they could not perform as quickly, or at all, before.
Speaking of Superior Russian Design, that comment reminded me of the russian Tupolev-???, which was a Concorde lookalike.
IIRC, the Tupolev-144 was largely a carbon copy of Concorde, at least in it's later incarnation. The first prototype (that flew before Concorde) was configured differently. It carried more passengers than Concorde, but was a lot less fuel efficient (It was heavier, and needed more power). Details on the amount of spying that took place can be found here. It seems that Soviet Russia certainly did not have her eye solely on the USA.
Of course, popular theory would suggest the West would never have stooped to spying back, until it was discovered that the famous crash at Le Bourget, which sank the Tupolev's reputation was caused by maneouvres to evade a French Mirage photo-reconaissance jet;-)
There was a comparitively recent NASA experiment on supersonic transport, using the Tupolev as a basis.
This could be considered OT, but it shows exactly how much those on both sides of the Iron Curtain would throw at a project to keep them one step ahead (Not that I would relish a return to those dark old days).
Sorry to tread on your '733T attitude, but for some of us, warez aren't an option for various reasons.
1. It hurts developers as well as consumers. Developers write software for a company, software is cracked. Company loses money on software due to proliferation of cracked copy. Do the suits in the boardroom lose their bonuses? Hell no. They hike the price of the software and keep developer pay down, using piracy as an excuse. They get off scot-free nad can afford another year at the golf course.
2. It hurts platform development. If a platform isn't as globally entrenched as MS-DOS/Windows (Like Atari and Amiga back in the day, and Linux and BeOS now), and a lot of software is cracked, the companies don't develop for the platform anymore, and Bill gets richer.
3. Cracked versions are usually pre-release, despite all the FINAL!!!! and 100%!!!!! crap. It therefore has a tendency to *crash*. Especially with software like SoundForge and VST, which do a lot of direct writing to your HDD, a BSOD is not a good thing to have to deal with. Not only do you lose your work, but you tend to have to do a lot of HDD restructuring afterwards (Unless you can afford a RAID-5 solution at home, which, let's face it, is unlikely.)
We all know that software is overpriced, but using warez wholesale isn't the answer. It hurts us, and people like us more than the software companies. Using warez is a useful way of deciding whether to buy software, but let's face it, unless you want your platform to disappear, or your descendants paying even more astronomical money for software (the honest ones at least), warez are not the way to go.
TuRRIcaNEd - A former pirate atoning for his sins by living in a Microsoft world.
Point No. 1: The generally agreed (stereotypical) musician is usually not very high up on the financial food chain (especially so if said musician is unsigned). OK, so the prices of Windows PC's (and usable Macs to a certain degree) is coming down. Unfortunately, the price of musical software on these platforms (At least musical software that is stable and is actually useful) is unacceptably high, bordering on extortionate. A good *free* (even as in beer) system would be a serious boon to those budding musicians who can't afford the overheads. With a free OS and a free package, the offer is seriously inviting. (This point is slightly negated by the fact that Jazz++ is also available for Windows, although Windows 9x's inherent instability could cause a problem, and most home musicians won't fork out for NT or 2k. The loss of DirectX plugins may be a downer on the Linux front, however)
Point No. 2 It is a documented fact that many computer freaks are avid followers of music too (Maybe the combination of form and artistry makes music appeal to them as much as programming). Many of these people (myself included) are not avid Microsoft fans, so the opportunity to have a usable music program on the OS of choice is a very cool idea.
The only worry is that RMS will inflict on us ever longer versions of the Free Software Song, with him on lead vocal;-)
If there is any respect left isn't it about time we turned of [sic] the life support machine and let the platform rest in peace.
Maybe, if something came along that *genuinely* felt better/smoother/quicker than the old Amigas felt in their day. But what has happened in computing since then? Bloated systems, ever hungry for resources in the name of companies shifting more units?! It's the attitude that keeps Amiga alive. Jay Miner would be turning in his grave if he saw how computing had 'advanced', bloatware style.
Amiga is not just a computer, it is a by-word for excellence, elegance and simplicity by design (let us forget that CBM made sure it is also remembered for ham-fisted marketing, underfunding and management disasters). We can't use the old 68k+Agnus+Paula+Denise, because they are precisely that. But keeping the spirit alive with new hardware is a more than acceptable solution (Maybe it would sit in its old position, straddling the games/home computing markets. You have to wonder, especially with the X-Box around the corner). I'd have preferred a PPC solution, but you can't have everything.
I'd hope that most Linux people would be on Amiga's side, after all, anything that takes market share from Microsoft is a Good Thing (tm)
You're saying that evolution favours the strong, and advocating that theory on the grounds that we have a right to wipe each other out, and that to foster evolution we must systematically cull the gene pool. Hmmmmm... your argument seems to sit alongside the thought processes of a certain long-dead Austrian, who shall remain nameless.
When does the need to kill stop? Who decides who lives and who dies? Who has the right to make that decision? I'd certainly feel very uncomfortable handing the future of humanity over to anyone who still divides people along race lines.
Call me a tree-hugging hippie, I don't care. I'm logged in. I'm going to get moderated down for being OT. I don't care. I will state my point for the last time. NO ONE'S LIFE NEEDS TO BE TAKEN IN ORDER TO FURTHER EVOLUTION. That point I do care about. Humanity would not exist if strength alone was the criteria. And most extinctions in the world have been a direct result of Man over-culling, hunting and killing to extremes.
FYI If geeks are naturally racist because they have never met a black person, 1. My flatmate is black (He's also a darned amazing classical musician/composer). My boss from last year is black. 3. The first girl I ever had a crush on is mixed-race.
Guys like you make such a good case for the Anti-Free Speech brigade, it's amazing they haven't censored more.
Right. Planet Of The Apes had practically NO racist agenda that I have ever seen (The worst offender here tends to be the earlier Disney movies, where every character is whiter than white, except the bad guys/comic relief). The whole central tragedy of the series (to me, at least)is that the apes were doomed to repeat the failure of their human predecessors by either deliberately or unwittingly adopting the worst aspects of human culture (Censorship and denial to promote the advancement of the few, usually those already in power, and blatant cronyism keeping it there). As you can see, from this viewpoint, the film still has relevance today, except the power in the real world has shifted from governments to multi-bilion dollar corporations. Not only that, but the original Apes movies packaged it in a way that children could understand, and I think, as the future of our species, they have a right to know things.
Now, back to the 'geeks are naturally racist' comment. I am a geek. Possibly a nerd. I am also originally from Bexleyheath, in the south-east of England. For those who don't keep up on race issues internationally, not least have never heard of the horrible little town (not saying you should, just a bit of background info here), a few miles away, in Eltham, a black teenager was stabbed, by at least five white thugs. He was waiting at a bus stop on the road I walked down to get home from school. I have always been liberal, and vehemently anti-racist, but I made a point of joining every organisation I could to prevent this crap from happening again, against the 'advice' of the many bigots who live around the area. I signed up with the Anti-Nazi League, made donations out of the £20 I got a week for working on a flower stall, went on marches, the lot. Now, I'm not going for sainthood here, and I can't deny a level of ingrained prejudice against some groups, but I do my best to confront and destroy them, with the mantra that being a dickhead is not restricted to any colour, creed, caste or religion. I am prejudiced, yes, against violent people, bigoted people, and those who make others' lives a misery, but I am by no means racist, and, to tar geeks with a brush like that is either flamebait, in which case this rant was completely unnecessary, and should be moderated into a quasar, or one of the nastiest, most ill-informed assumptions I have ever seen.
For what it's worth, it will be interesting to see what Burton does with '...Apes'. It would be cool to see a darker, slower-paced side to the tale.
Sorry for the rant, but I do find ill-informed bigotry inexcusable, as it's a crime I perpetrate far too often.
....a sample box to do Cartman, IIRC (His voice is actually sped up). RW can still be funny, and can still do the 'throwaway' stuff with ease (You only need to see/hear 'Live At The Met' to know that). Besides, who takes the Academy Awards seriously any more? The best stuff is almost always at smaller film fests these days anyway.
'Quick sip of Perrier, Sorry folks, had to quit drinking alcohol because I got sick of waking up nude in front of my car with my keys in my ass'
But the true irony of all this is that it is in Microsoft's favor too! Almost a catch-22 if you dislike the Wintel duopoly.
I thought this for a while, and then realised that there are 2 things that could redress the balance.
1. AMD are out of the server market for the most part. I don't think they have their sights set on it in the way MS do. Until now, AMD's main market is and always has been the home user. It would be interesting to see an AMD server solution, simply for the fact that it would be power at a better price. On top of that, the clock speed that the Sledgehammer runs to is likely to be a lot higher than Itanium, so 64-bit apps on Linux (as long as the compilers are there) shouldn't be a problem.
2. I doubt AMD are in a mood to do MS any favours at the moment, after going with Intel for the X-Box. It must be hard to forgive a corporation that strings you along like that (Although Intel's offer was too good to refuse, it was a nasty move that could only be made by the monopoly it holds).
Certainly the hardware exists to equip an x86 box to do an awful lot of MIDI stuff, if so desired. The lack of Linux software is a shame, because many musicians who are not almost permanently contracted are forced to shell out heavily for Windows+Cubase+SoundForge+Insertsoftwareofchoice. An Open-source project would be wonderful, but anyone contemplating it would need to know exactly what was needed.
The author mentions the Tracker music as used in the Amiga demo scene. The trackers were wonderful, in that they allowed people with talent and vision, but little musical expertise to produce tunes that sounded nigh-on professional at times, nad best of all, the software was generally free, or at the very worst, shareware. However, in the late '80s and early '90s, 8-bit 22Khz sampling was perfectly acceptable for release, as cassette was the primary means of distribution outside of the computer. What sounded professional 10 years ago would be laughed out of the studio now. There already exist several trackers in the public domain for most OS's, but they serve more as a doodling pad than anything else. So there are more complex options (Cubase, Cakewalk etc......)
It doesn't say a lot for Windows and MacOS that an awful lot of musicians would rather die than let go of their ST's, simply for stability reasons. TOS was admittedly crap, but it rarely needed patching, and there were no service pack. The TOS that came with your machine would be the one it stayed with until it died, for the most part. BSOD/GPF's are bad enough for coders, but imagine what it'd be like to have to reassemble the music if one crops up! You may never get that sound again, unless you made copious notes on the settings, and let's face it, one of the points of doing it on computer was to alleviate writing every little detail down. MacOS these days is almost as bad....and that's before we come to the astronomical prices charged for the latest versions of the software. I'm aware that the software is WAY more advanced than the ST/Amiga days, but the price shouldn't be hiked as high as it has been.
So we come to Linux. Stable? yes. Capable of performance? yes. Lots of developers around the world? YES! It is an acknowledged fact that many coders also have an affinity for music, so... Musicians, what do YOU want from a Linux-based music program? Musician/Coders, what do YOU want from a Linux based music program? Coders, what can we GIVE them in a Linux based music program?
Windows problems are bugs to laugh at while Linux problems are 'problems to be solved'
While I agree that/. can border on hypocrisy, the argument above is precisely why Open Source development should be lauded. If there is a 'problem to be solved' with Linux, or the myriad of packages, by it's very nature, anyone with the inclination can fix the problem and feel pretty smug, whereas the developers behind Windows are forced to release patch after patch, and the problems aren't usually solved as reliably as with a true OS project.
OK, OT rant over, I agree that it is depressing that we have to rely on partnerships with the companies we vilify in order to 'further the cause', but it is necessary. Standard MPEG won't be adopted by major media companies, as it is way too easy to save/re-distribute. It also doesn't stream too well (in my experience). An OS player that allows closed-source plugins would be the ideal solution, to my mind, but these companies want the whole hog, and to develop the player as well (probably because of the advertising revenue that they can rake in on the unregistered versions). It's greedy, but it is also an unfortunate consequence of the lie of the technological landscape right now.
We're shaking the Devil's hand in situations like this, and for now that is necessary, but we're not selling our souls, and that's the important thing.
Online reports of a recall of PlayStation2 memory cards are false, Sony Computer Entertainment America told Daily Radar today... but the memory card bug is still a significant flaw that Sony has not yet addressed.
But wasn't it a problem with the Japanese machines? SCEA shouldn't be bothered with this, as the console won't ship over there for months yet, hence the 'we're rectifying this' spiel. As far as I can tell, the problem of corruption with savegame files (RR5) is still a problem, and I think that that is far more damaging PR than a recall. Strictly speaking, if the component parts of Sony have some degree of independence from each other, who says that the Japanese arm has to tell the US arm that they're recalling?
This sounds like marketroid-speak for 'The first release machines are crocked in Japan, but don't worry about the US/Europe release'.
If you take the leading and final statement from the article (catenated above), then it seems that this press release contradicts itself more than it does the previous story, with marketing bumpf inbetween. Sounds more like face-saving and future-protection than a denial to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Although Britney, N'Sync and co. do a roaring trade on Napster, it's also the place to get material from bands that are nigh-on impossible to find outside specialist shops (hard to come by in a non-city environment), and bands who have been dropped by their labels in the last few years and have had their albums deleted.
What makes me laugh about the whole Metallica thing is there is no way they would have been signed in today's musical climate. They not only relied on bootleggers and word-of-mouth, but on independent labels such as MFN, and sympathetic people like Johnny Zazula to enable them to survive until being picked up by Elektra in the mid-80s. If they were trying to be signed today, they'd have to go to image consultants, focus group meetings, and prove to these arse^H^H^H^Hpeople that they can sell something, before they were as much as offered a pre-contract memo, let alone a record deal!
It annoys me that the labels can get away with slowly narrowing the focus of what constitutes 'contemporary music' until nothing is left but that which they produce, which they can price/distribute as they please. RIAA is nothing more than a cartel of people who care about nothing but label profits, annulling any alternative method of distributing music that isn't theirs, and, this is the bit which gets my hackles up no end, claiming they're doing it for the good of the artist. Artists that have already made their millions are sympathetic, because they have nothing to fear anymore. But what about those who are being forced out? What about those who can't afford stage school or image consultants? How much talent are we denying here?
I see my friends who were promised a shot at recording in the late 90's being throttled with their pre-contract exclusivity memos, forced into silence by a system that doesn't feel it needs them anymore. Where's the justice in that?
I don't know what to say to you about that, because I didn't know your friends, and I don't know you. I do know that the same things happened to me however. I lost one friend to suicide, another to heroin addiction (to this day I don't know if he's still alive, because he wouldn't talk to me), and one to what I still believe to be a grisly murder at the hands of a group of yobs with nothing better to do than make other people's lives hell. I also know that he was a bright kid with a bright future. That was the one incident that made me stop being so maudlin, wake up and start standing up for myself. I don't mean physically, any heavily-built human could probably kick my butt if they wanted to, but that's irrelevant, because as you do get older, brains do become more important. You're obviously bright enough, to see as far as you do. I bit my tongue, finished my exams and got the hell out of Dodge, moved to town and am currently heading towards the last year of a Uni course that will (hopefully) see me financially secure at the end of it. Every so often I go back to my home town (to see my family), and see those that used to taunt me, still stuck in their mindset. It's been years, but they haven't moved on. I see them, and realise that I was mentally killing myself with fear and worry over nothing. I may not make much of a difference on a global scale yet, but I'll do my bit from where I'm standing to help those who were in my position out. If you have the ability to think like that, you've already got the f**kers beaten. They're stuck on their islands, proclaiming their manhood, but they've never touched anyone deeply, and it's them who are condemned to eke out an existence as a mediocrity until they keel over.
We're so hyped-up on the sanctity of life that we won't let people opt out of living - people who the rest of the world has already decided are totally worthless;
If I were them, I'd set about trying to prove the rest of the world wrong. Worked for me ;-)
But seriously, If you can transcend the prison that they built for you (and you finished, by letting them get to you) in your head (It will be rebuilt from time to time, recurring depression still affects me. I've done my fair share of crying, but now some people depend on me, and they're so important to me that, well, any problem I have can wait), and look at it from the outside, hopefully you'll see that you don't deserve to be there, not for them, not for anyone. If you're bright enough to use a computer, you have a skill that many don't (even if you're only starting out). Remember, though they don't understand it yet, they'll be working on cars and in factories, or maybe even working in stores when you're outclassing and out-earning them.
Few ever achieve happiness, and the rest either live in their misery or delude themselves that they really are happy, after all, painting on hollow smiles and crying themselves to sleep every night.
I used to think that, and I have the right to feel pain over my problems, but compared to Jason Haas, or the guy on here whose wife was killed by a speeding drunk, or my friends, lying passed out under a bridge, or six feet under somewhere more permanent, hell, I've got a better chance of dealing with my problems than they have. My smile when it shows is definitely not painted. I won't fake emotion for anybody. You can get out of the ruts you're in without letting go of life. For those who genuinely didn't believe otherwise, it's a tragedy. I wish the old adage 'Only the good die young' wasn't true, but sometimes it is, and all we can do is not add to the statistics.
When you wake up tomorrow morning, look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, "Where did I say I was going to be today, when I was 6?" Then let me know whether you start crying.
When I was 6, I said I was going to be a pilot. And you know what? I joined the Air Training Corps, hated the herd mentality there and left. But one day, either with money from my music or my work on computers, I'm going to take my money, learn to fly, and I'm going to plot a course directly over my old school, and the places I've been taken to remind me of 'the way it is' with sticks, fists and white trainers, and I'm going to spit on them from a thousand feet.
A hard goal, but not impossible. Please don't give up. Life was much simpler and nicer when you were young, don't think I don't know that. We all wish we could go back sometime, but the sad truth is, we can't. All we can do is take what we've learned and pass it on, while trying to make our lives as much fun as we can (and I can still have a lot of fun at 21). Read Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith for a more eloquent analogy on this and other things.
Obviously something shitty has happened to you, and I hope that it can be resolved. Just remember that pain fades, hate becomes irrelevant and life can be worth it. You could blow your brains out tomorrow, and they wouldn't care, because they don't have the mental capacity to go beyond certain things. They fuck rather than love, they work/drink/fight rather than think and they'd rather die than admit they are wrong. I suspect you are more than that. Don't die because of them, we need more people like you. Live to prove them wrong. And I hope you can hear me too, Ian.
Or even on a computer, as long as you do something that raises the school's profile. I remember being told in school to cut my hair, smarten my attire and cut out my slacker attitude (by teachers who were quite blatantly drunk as hell on occasion) on a regular basis, while the school (& county) champion runner/rugby player/cricketer could look like how/do what the hell he wanted (including verbally abusing the less athletically inclined). When I questioned those double standards (directly to the head teacher, no less), I was told that that was the way life could be sometimes, that he brought a lot of attention onto the school, that that was a good thing, and by the way, cut your hair, or I'll suspend you. My (admittedly childish) retaliation was to cut my hair to within a millimetre of the regulation, form a band, and use the schools' rock concert for charity as a sounding-board. 'There's only one way of life (and that's your own)' was a good starting point, and 'Killing in the name of' was a good follow-up (Although we covered it badly, the look of shock on the teachers' faces as we screeched 'F**k you, I won't do what you tell me' time after time is an image burned forever onto my mind, and raises a grin every time I think about it - I also wound up with a nice young lady that evening ;-). I got canned for it, but it felt good to make the statement. Athletic boy put a band together the following year, played Oasis covers and didn't pull. *grin*
This was in the UK at a fairly cold-shower independent school, and I believe that any child in a repressive environment should be allowed to sound off, at least once, for what they feel is right, as long as they can back up their arguments well. If I had been born 5 years later, I would probably have sounded off on the Web. I would have expected maybe detention, but arrest? I can't help but think that the powers that be are way off-base here. Those that fail to acknowledge history are doomed to repeat it. Any kid who feels that life is unfair only has to look at how the Columbine two were portrayed to know that the answer doesn't lie with Dylan and Klebold's methodology. You'll die (which sucks), You'll be hated by everyone (which sucks), and you'll make it worse for others likes you (which sucks more than anything has ever sucked before)
Use your brain, not a Beretta. And just because Utah is fairly backwater doesn't make it right. No-one should have to endure it. Only when a disillusioned kid kills themselves and others do the words 'Life's like that, deal with it' sound kind of hollow.
Breaking into games programming and development is one of the toughest nuts a geek can crack, but there must be at least a few of us that could muster the time and energy to do it, regardless of platform, and if Open-Source projects can reap capital by being clued up, so can games. It would be too cool (However (un)likely), if we could take the games back, and show the next generation of gamers what they're missing now the marketers are in control.
To the LG boys and girls, we're on your side here. You were one of the few companies I know who could truly claim innovation a lot of the time, and one of the few where every sequel was a better game. On top of that, SS1 and 2 allowed us to experience paranoia in space in a way that only Mac people had (in the form of Marathon) before. As a company, you will be sorely missed. As programmers and gamers, you shall righteously kick ass in greener pastures, I'm sure.
Where the PPC scores here is that it is fundametally RISC by nature, although IIRC the PPC has a basic 68k emulation frontend for legacy purposes. However most modern apps on the Mac are tailored for the PPC, and as such, can use some of the funky RISC features to gain a speed advantage. For example, some Photoshop filters will render quicker on a G4@400MHz than on an equivalent, or higher spec x86 box, simply because the architecture is less cluttered, and the compilers don't have to take the legacy baggage into consideration. The same applies to the Alpha, in that by using MHz as a speed comparison between architectures, you are doing the more modern chips a major disservice, because they don't need to be clocked as high to gain comparable application performance.
As for the colour and font handling, he's right. The Macintosh's ease of use made it a very strong contender in the DTP arena early on, and as a result, programs like ATM and ColorSync allow a far greater degree of output control than the Windows (or Linux, sorry guys) equivalent. This is just by the nature of having existed on the platform longer, however.
I don't know about how MP3.com distributes the files that well, so I can't comment, but I will say that I share my band's stuff on Napster, and I know of a few propellerheads that do the same. In fact, pretty much any unsigned artist I talk to is more excited than worried by the premise, and you don't need to be a propellerhead to use Napster.
Remember MP3.com probably have a say in what goes on (largely dance music, in my experience). With Napster, an artist doesn't need to be ratified before they can share their material, and while this could lead to a fair amount of dreck being available, it 's a nice feeling to know that your stuff's out there on the ether being enjoyed. Any artist can promote themselves with a web page, and a few insightful posts on forums that deal with their art could work wonders for your image. I'm really surprised that more people haven't thought of this. Just my final 0.02 Euro
earlier post
Maybe a better question to ask would be :
Why go for one way of distributing our material rather than two?
You can download a song from a band's web page, *and* the band can release it to Napster. Seems to me that you'd get a much wider audience that way. Remeber also that the Web is a primarily visual medium at the moment. You can advertise on the Web. The guy or girl who sees the ad is going to go to the site, maybe the site is bogged down, but if you tell them that it has been released to Napster, then there's another way they can get your stuff. Say (if you're lucky) they like it a lot. Remember also, that the 'net is a very vocal environment, so they post to newsgroups, and e-mail their friends, telling them you're great musicians, and not just that, but that 'They released it to Napster! They're 'net junkies just like us!'. They share the songs, their friends share the songs, and before you know it, you've got a little community that likes your stuff. Good music should be about inspiring a community spirit between people using music as the bond. Personally, I can't think of a better way to do it. For years now, music made by those that like music for whatever reason has been cast aside by the industry (who find it cheaper to mass-produce 'pop stars' and pay them as employees. Hell, they're even trying to create 'virtual' pop stars where they don't have to pay them anything!), and they brushed it aside with 'That music has no appreciable market'. Now, here's the clincher. With Napster, you can log on and SHOW them that there are multiple copies of your song floating around all the time. You can show them the website logs. You can PROVE to them that there is a market for what you do, and that you created it without having to spend millions of dollars on marketing. They will see you as a lot more committed as a result. They may not sign you, but they will *respect* you, (And *may* pass you onto a little indie subsidiary that their friend runs). Before passing sentence on Napster, it may be an idea to at least acknowledge that it can be used for as much good as bad. Metallica, Dre and even Britney, for that matter, don't need any extra money, and if you look at my earlier post, I explain that it probably doesn't do much harm to non-manufactured artists. I don't know how you could, or if you should, enforce proper use (There will *always* be troublemakers), but think of what you're shutting the door on before you shut it.
I think you're a little off-base with that comparison. I think if you went to a site, and downloaded a chapter, or partial segment of "I, Robot", and then went out and bought it, along with all Asimov's other works, then you'd have a better analogy. Napster users rarely download whole albums (Unless they're taking money from burning fake CD's, in which case they're hardcore pirates, a minority that has plagued the industry since taping and CD duplication was possible. Losing Napster won't stop them).
Those Napster users I know who download copyrighted works only do it either for archival purposes, when the recording is of something they already own, or to try new music before they buy, because they can't really afford to purchase a CD they won't play more than once (remember, a CD in the UK is roughly double the price of the equivalent US product. Tell me how that's fair!).
I will defend artist rights to the death, being a musician myself, but what irks me is the probable fact that it isn't the artists who have come down on Napster. Most smaller-time musicians I know love the fact that their stuff can whizz around the globe unconstrained by a physical format. What I suspect is that Metallica/Dre's shtick is nothing to do with the smaller, struggling musicians and bands. They're basically being hired goons for RIAA. I highly doubt they actually knew about MP3, much less Napster, until their attorney (read: RIAA affiliate) clued them in on it. On top of this, they're generating more publicity than they've managed to over the last three years in the last month. RIAA wins, MetalliDre gets new publicity, and the attorney walks away with a fat pay cheque.
Anyway, that's largely irrelevant. What irks me is the fact that whether the piracy possibilities of Napster were considered when it was written or not, Napster is an invaluable tool for aspiring musicians to swap demos freely. To destroy Napster could destroy one of the most significant leaps forward for the little guy in music. You record a demo for a few hundred (insert relevant currency). You hawk it on Napster, and people can hear it. Then (if you're good, and reasonably clued in to the beast that is the record industry), you have proof to give to record companies that there is a market for what you're playing, and that is a ground to fund you to record more. That, I believe, is strong grounds for Napster to be considered a useful piece of software.
OK, sensible part over, it's conspiracy theory time. As I said earlier, very few download whole albums from Napster. The bread and butter of the RIAA's sales though, is pop pap like Britney, Billie, 5ive, N-Sync et al, who are not what are termed 'album-oriented' artists. The bulk of the millions they earn the suits comes from CD single sales. To download a Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, or (and I include them as a reference) a Metallica album, even with a broadband connection, would probably take upwards of an hour. The latest Britney single, however, can be down in a few minutes. They've lost a significant sale there, probably to those who they consider the 'spotty girlfriend-less nerds' they thought targeted with Britney's gyrations on MTV. They changed their sales strategy a few years back. Before, a record would move up the charts before moving back down. Now, with in-your-face marketing, records generally crash in at the top, only to be gone in a couple of weeks. This works great if CD singles are your only source for a Britney-fix, but Napster can circumvent singles sales. It's therefore a problem that they created with their manipulation and greed, as much as those who brought Napster to the fore.
To cut a long story short, Intel figured this out, and put the smack down on anyone who supported the Athlon. Not just VIA, (whom Intel despise for matching their chipsets in many respects, and then selling them cheaper), but motherboard makers too. ASUS didn't even put the K7M on the front page of their website for months, and that was widely regarded as the best all-round K7 board! Personally I think Intel need to be taught a lesson, which is why I'm a confirmed AMD advocate now. Hopefully with Duron, and maybe Joshua (Heh! VIA get their own back!) assaulting the basic Celeron, the Athlon taking on the Celeron II and PIII, and the Thunderbird and Itanium slugging it out, those of us who are more tech-savvy can return the smack to Intel.
Anyway, to avoid going too OT here, it will be interesting to see exactly how AMD will make up the shortfall in mobos when the Duron is released. If the vacuum that faced the Athlon upon release can be avoided, we can hope for an interesting fight, which I hope makes Intel question a couple of fundamental issues (Such as, don't fire your older workers, who've probably been in the game for a while, because they will go elsewhere). On another note, It would be cool to see AMD and VIA team up and use the same socket standards on their lower-range chips, or even better, to implement a standard everyone will use, and stop these tit-for-tat architecture changes, that renders building/upgrading machines a logical and financial grind! (Unlikely, but I suppose I can dream.....)
Hope this helps.
Here's a source from The Observer, a fairly reputable UK Sunday newspaper. It's not a good idea to discriminate on the basis of a domain name. Obviously if there's nothing else to go on, then you may be suspicious, but as a rule, that kind of discrimination just makes you sound like Eric Cartman ("It must be written by hippies, and hippies suck!).
I am going to say this once, and only once:
WE ALL PAY FOR ALMOST EVERY MICROSOFT PRODUCT ON THE WINDOWS LICENSE THAT IS INCLUDED IN THE COST OF EVERY PC.
I realise that the caps are unnecessary, but here goes. You wanna pirate MS software? Presto! The price of all MS software goes up. Integrating IE into Windows is a canny move because they can hike the license cost even more, and snare those who don't know into believing they are getting something for free. You paid for IE and WMP when you bought your machine. Either that or you pirated the software, and every one of us who is forced to run Windows, for whatever reason (And, unhappy as it is, most of us are), is paying for you to use IE and WMP. It's because of practises like these that they are in the position where Gates can sit behind his wall of money and claim he's doing the computing community a service. They're also cheapskates, as they have only paid for the 56k-limited version of Fraunhofer to ship with Windows, leaving us to pay for full versions with whatever software we have to buy, while claiming 'full MP3 functionality' under Windows. If it's hobbled, they should say it's hobbled.
The reason projects like LAME, GNU and the like are necessary is because shareholder greed is dictating to the computer industry at the moment. What started as a communal effort to make existence better and easier by a bunch of techies is now an industry behemoth making a very small number of people *extremely* rich. By simply taking from them, by pirating, or whatever, you only give them an excuse to make more money out of the honest. By replacing what they do with a free (as in either beer OR speech) solution of equal or better quality, you obviate the need for their product, and their existence. By obviating the need for their existence, you return computers to their original purpose; to help people perform tasks that they could not perform as quickly, or at all, before.
IIRC, the Tupolev-144 was largely a carbon copy of Concorde, at least in it's later incarnation. The first prototype (that flew before Concorde) was configured differently. It carried more passengers than Concorde, but was a lot less fuel efficient (It was heavier, and needed more power). Details on the amount of spying that took place can be found here. It seems that Soviet Russia certainly did not have her eye solely on the USA.
Of course, popular theory would suggest the West would never have stooped to spying back, until it was discovered that the famous crash at Le Bourget, which sank the Tupolev's reputation was caused by maneouvres to evade a French Mirage photo-reconaissance jet ;-)
There was a comparitively recent NASA experiment on supersonic transport, using the Tupolev as a basis.
This could be considered OT, but it shows exactly how much those on both sides of the Iron Curtain would throw at a project to keep them one step ahead (Not that I would relish a return to those dark old days).
1. It hurts developers as well as consumers. Developers write software for a company, software is cracked. Company loses money on software due to proliferation of cracked copy. Do the suits in the boardroom lose their bonuses? Hell no. They hike the price of the software and keep developer pay down, using piracy as an excuse. They get off scot-free nad can afford another year at the golf course.
2. It hurts platform development. If a platform isn't as globally entrenched as MS-DOS/Windows (Like Atari and Amiga back in the day, and Linux and BeOS now), and a lot of software is cracked, the companies don't develop for the platform anymore, and Bill gets richer.
3. Cracked versions are usually pre-release, despite all the FINAL!!!! and 100%!!!!! crap. It therefore has a tendency to *crash*. Especially with software like SoundForge and VST, which do a lot of direct writing to your HDD, a BSOD is not a good thing to have to deal with. Not only do you lose your work, but you tend to have to do a lot of HDD restructuring afterwards (Unless you can afford a RAID-5 solution at home, which, let's face it, is unlikely.)
We all know that software is overpriced, but using warez wholesale isn't the answer. It hurts us, and people like us more than the software companies. Using warez is a useful way of deciding whether to buy software, but let's face it, unless you want your platform to disappear, or your descendants paying even more astronomical money for software (the honest ones at least), warez are not the way to go.
TuRRIcaNEd - A former pirate atoning for his sins by living in a Microsoft world.
The generally agreed (stereotypical) musician is usually not very high up on the financial food chain (especially so if said musician is unsigned). OK, so the prices of Windows PC's (and usable Macs to a certain degree) is coming down. Unfortunately, the price of musical software on these platforms (At least musical software that is stable and is actually useful) is unacceptably high, bordering on extortionate. A good *free* (even as in beer) system would be a serious boon to those budding musicians who can't afford the overheads. With a free OS and a free package, the offer is seriously inviting. (This point is slightly negated by the fact that Jazz++ is also available for Windows, although Windows 9x's inherent instability could cause a problem, and most home musicians won't fork out for NT or 2k. The loss of DirectX plugins may be a downer on the Linux front, however)
Point No. 2
It is a documented fact that many computer freaks are avid followers of music too (Maybe the combination of form and artistry makes music appeal to them as much as programming). Many of these people (myself included) are not avid Microsoft fans, so the opportunity to have a usable music program on the OS of choice is a very cool idea.
The only worry is that RMS will inflict on us ever longer versions of the Free Software Song, with him on lead vocal ;-)
Maybe, if something came along that *genuinely* felt better/smoother/quicker than the old Amigas felt in their day. But what has happened in computing since then? Bloated systems, ever hungry for resources in the name of companies shifting more units?! It's the attitude that keeps Amiga alive. Jay Miner would be turning in his grave if he saw how computing had 'advanced', bloatware style.
Amiga is not just a computer, it is a by-word for excellence, elegance and simplicity by design (let us forget that CBM made sure it is also remembered for ham-fisted marketing, underfunding and management disasters). We can't use the old 68k+Agnus+Paula+Denise, because they are precisely that. But keeping the spirit alive with new hardware is a more than acceptable solution (Maybe it would sit in its old position, straddling the games/home computing markets. You have to wonder, especially with the X-Box around the corner). I'd have preferred a PPC solution, but you can't have everything.
I'd hope that most Linux people would be on Amiga's side, after all, anything that takes market share from Microsoft is a Good Thing (tm)
You're saying that evolution favours the strong, and advocating that theory on the grounds that we have a right to wipe each other out, and that to foster evolution we must systematically cull the gene pool. Hmmmmm... your argument seems to sit alongside the thought processes of a certain long-dead Austrian, who shall remain nameless.
When does the need to kill stop? Who decides who lives and who dies? Who has the right to make that decision? I'd certainly feel very uncomfortable handing the future of humanity over to anyone who still divides people along race lines.
Call me a tree-hugging hippie, I don't care. I'm logged in. I'm going to get moderated down for being OT. I don't care. I will state my point for the last time. NO ONE'S LIFE NEEDS TO BE TAKEN IN ORDER TO FURTHER EVOLUTION. That point I do care about. Humanity would not exist if strength alone was the criteria. And most extinctions in the world have been a direct result of Man over-culling, hunting and killing to extremes.
FYI If geeks are naturally racist because they have never met a black person, 1. My flatmate is black (He's also a darned amazing classical musician/composer). My boss from last year is black. 3. The first girl I ever had a crush on is mixed-race.
Guys like you make such a good case for the Anti-Free Speech brigade, it's amazing they haven't censored more.
Now, back to the 'geeks are naturally racist' comment. I am a geek. Possibly a nerd. I am also originally from Bexleyheath, in the south-east of England. For those who don't keep up on race issues internationally, not least have never heard of the horrible little town (not saying you should, just a bit of background info here), a few miles away, in Eltham, a black teenager was stabbed, by at least five white thugs. He was waiting at a bus stop on the road I walked down to get home from school. I have always been liberal, and vehemently anti-racist, but I made a point of joining every organisation I could to prevent this crap from happening again, against the 'advice' of the many bigots who live around the area. I signed up with the Anti-Nazi League, made donations out of the £20 I got a week for working on a flower stall, went on marches, the lot. Now, I'm not going for sainthood here, and I can't deny a level of ingrained prejudice against some groups, but I do my best to confront and destroy them, with the mantra that being a dickhead is not restricted to any colour, creed, caste or religion. I am prejudiced, yes, against violent people, bigoted people, and those who make others' lives a misery, but I am by no means racist, and, to tar geeks with a brush like that is either flamebait, in which case this rant was completely unnecessary, and should be moderated into a quasar, or one of the nastiest, most ill-informed assumptions I have ever seen.
For what it's worth, it will be interesting to see what Burton does with '...Apes'. It would be cool to see a darker, slower-paced side to the tale.
Sorry for the rant, but I do find ill-informed bigotry inexcusable, as it's a crime I perpetrate far too often.
'Quick sip of Perrier, Sorry folks, had to quit drinking alcohol because I got sick of waking up nude in front of my car with my keys in my ass'
I thought this for a while, and then realised that there are 2 things that could redress the balance.
1. AMD are out of the server market for the most part. I don't think they have their sights set on it in the way MS do. Until now, AMD's main market is and always has been the home user. It would be interesting to see an AMD server solution, simply for the fact that it would be power at a better price. On top of that, the clock speed that the Sledgehammer runs to is likely to be a lot higher than Itanium, so 64-bit apps on Linux (as long as the compilers are there) shouldn't be a problem.
2. I doubt AMD are in a mood to do MS any favours at the moment, after going with Intel for the X-Box. It must be hard to forgive a corporation that strings you along like that (Although Intel's offer was too good to refuse, it was a nasty move that could only be made by the monopoly it holds).
The author mentions the Tracker music as used in the Amiga demo scene. The trackers were wonderful, in that they allowed people with talent and vision, but little musical expertise to produce tunes that sounded nigh-on professional at times, nad best of all, the software was generally free, or at the very worst, shareware. However, in the late '80s and early '90s, 8-bit 22Khz sampling was perfectly acceptable for release, as cassette was the primary means of distribution outside of the computer. What sounded professional 10 years ago would be laughed out of the studio now. There already exist several trackers in the public domain for most OS's, but they serve more as a doodling pad than anything else. So there are more complex options (Cubase, Cakewalk etc......)
It doesn't say a lot for Windows and MacOS that an awful lot of musicians would rather die than let go of their ST's, simply for stability reasons. TOS was admittedly crap, but it rarely needed patching, and there were no service pack. The TOS that came with your machine would be the one it stayed with until it died, for the most part. BSOD/GPF's are bad enough for coders, but imagine what it'd be like to have to reassemble the music if one crops up! You may never get that sound again, unless you made copious notes on the settings, and let's face it, one of the points of doing it on computer was to alleviate writing every little detail down. MacOS these days is almost as bad....and that's before we come to the astronomical prices charged for the latest versions of the software. I'm aware that the software is WAY more advanced than the ST/Amiga days, but the price shouldn't be hiked as high as it has been.
So we come to Linux. Stable? yes. Capable of performance? yes. Lots of developers around the world? YES! It is an acknowledged fact that many coders also have an affinity for music, so... Musicians, what do YOU want from a Linux-based music program? Musician/Coders, what do YOU want from a Linux based music program? Coders, what can we GIVE them in a Linux based music program?
Answers on a Post Form!
While I agree that /. can border on hypocrisy, the argument above is precisely why Open Source development should be lauded. If there is a 'problem to be solved' with Linux, or the myriad of packages, by it's very nature, anyone with the inclination can fix the problem and feel pretty smug, whereas the developers behind Windows are forced to release patch after patch, and the problems aren't usually solved as reliably as with a true OS project.
OK, OT rant over, I agree that it is depressing that we have to rely on partnerships with the companies we vilify in order to 'further the cause', but it is necessary. Standard MPEG won't be adopted by major media companies, as it is way too easy to save/re-distribute. It also doesn't stream too well (in my experience). An OS player that allows closed-source plugins would be the ideal solution, to my mind, but these companies want the whole hog, and to develop the player as well (probably because of the advertising revenue that they can rake in on the unregistered versions). It's greedy, but it is also an unfortunate consequence of the lie of the technological landscape right now.
We're shaking the Devil's hand in situations like this, and for now that is necessary, but we're not selling our souls, and that's the important thing.
But wasn't it a problem with the Japanese machines? SCEA shouldn't be bothered with this, as the console won't ship over there for months yet, hence the 'we're rectifying this' spiel. As far as I can tell, the problem of corruption with savegame files (RR5) is still a problem, and I think that that is far more damaging PR than a recall. Strictly speaking, if the component parts of Sony have some degree of independence from each other, who says that the Japanese arm has to tell the US arm that they're recalling?
This sounds like marketroid-speak for 'The first release machines are crocked in Japan, but don't worry about the US/Europe release'.
If you take the leading and final statement from the article (catenated above), then it seems that this press release contradicts itself more than it does the previous story, with marketing bumpf inbetween. Sounds more like face-saving and future-protection than a denial to me.
I'd moderate you up, if I had any points left. >;-)