Legally, MP3's are ok. I can chock my hard drive full of MP3's as long as I a) legally purchased that music or b) have consent from the authors/publishers to store it. I have a lot of cool MP3's on my hard drive that I put up on Napster that are 100% legal for anyone to download, possess, and redristribute. That's what Napster was supposed to do. The fact that yahoos trade illegal MP3's isn't the fault of Napster. Period. That's like saying if I store a pirated copy of Photoshop on my ftp site that my ISP is to blame, not me.
No, it's like saying that if you put a pirated copy of Photoshop on your FTP site that the whole gamut of FTP client & server software is to blame. This is obviously wank, and the RIAA's attacks on Napster is also obviously wank, but since so many people don't understand the issues (see Misguided Fool somewhere in this discussion with his 99.7% stat) then the RIAA hope they can muddy the waters sufficently that you can't see what they're up to.
The RIAA vs MP3 (of which the Napster case if a part) is the same war as MPAA vs DeCSS (although MP3 has a cast-iron case even under all these bizzare vested-interest-protection laws you in the US seem to be so ready to have passed in your name*). The war is one of control of distribution. Record companies are Satan's Minions On Earth, and artists have always known this, but they've been a necessary evil in order to get your product to the users. Now they've noticed that they're going to be redundant, and they're going down kicking and screaming.
* - I'm not out particularly to bash the US here, but as with most things, you're leading the world in giving corporations ridiculous powers. It wouldn't bother me too much, but our (UK) government will just bend over before the WTO and the other Organisations Of No Use To No Man and incorporate these powers into our law.
Yahho! has its own auction site (http://auctions.yahoo.com IIRC) and obviously people have been auctioning off illegal warez. While I'm in all favour of suing Yahoo! (being a editor of ODP), and I support the companies in preventing software piracy, we have got to ask ourselves what will happen to other auction sites like eBay etc.
Then I'd argue that the Gamespot article is way off beam. "Online retailer lawsuit"? Are online auctions "online retailing"? Is Yahoo really being accused of the "sale of illegal and counterfeit video game products"? I think not.
I'm confused. Where exactly does Yahoo retail "counterfeit videos"?
Are they referring to some auction selling that Yahoo hosts, or do they mean that Yahoo actually retail pirated products (which I would find hard to believe)?
I mean, thanks for the link to the story. I'm glad to hear Terry Anderson got his day in course. But I don't know what the FUCK this has to do with Microsoft, and frankly, I'm now just a little cautious about the common sense shown by the/. reporter.
C'mon, if the creator of Thunderbirds getting 340 million bucks for being chained to a radiator for seven years ain't News for Nerds then I don't know what is.
Apart from (maybe) calculating in different currency's here, there's the issue that for a node in a beowulf cluster, it is not neccesary to have RAID (== costly), or even a harddrive. Nor is it very likely that they used dual processors. Because of the crappy multiprocessing with x86 it would hardly be of benefit over using only single-processor boxes, while being much more cost-effective.
If they're not using dual procs, then I find it hard to believe that it's more powerful than this.
Quote from site: The FSL cluster (called "Jet") currently consists of 276 nodes, organized into three long banks. The nodes are unmodified, off-the-shelf Compaq Alpha systems with 667 MHz processors and 512 MB of memory.
...but then again I ain't no hexpert. Anybody care to comment?
It will be funny when Mexico has all the good e-commerce sites in 10 years because they actually put computers which have something to teach in front of their kids.. instead of computers with a bunch of mindless icons that teach no long term though related computer skills.
...and that's the kicker - developing countries (and enlightened ones who embrace OSS in the education/public sector) will rapidly pull away from countries who retain a closed model. Already the level of programming and what I'd term 'proper' computer skills is slipping rapidly in the UK, mainly due to the superscedence (is there such a word?) of 'programmable' home computers (hands up any UK coders aged 25-35 who didn't start on a ZX*) by Wintel boxes. Yes, you can learn to hack on a doze PC, but only if you're really bothered (and cough up for the tools, usually), and what you also get is people who imagine themselves to be a computing wizard because they can install a printer, or re-install windows, which is a bit like claiming to be a mechanic because you can drive to the shops.
A lot of them wouldn't want to have to access it through these bizarre VNC clients.
...and people who know what VNC actually is will welcome it. And yes, VNC can be SSH'd. It is GPL'd and has an excellent development team. Highly underrated. Everybody see http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/ and for an example of what you can do with it, see http://www.hubbe.net/~hubbe/x2vnc.html
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No, it's like saying that if you put a pirated copy of Photoshop on your FTP site that the whole gamut of FTP client & server software is to blame. This is obviously wank, and the RIAA's attacks on Napster is also obviously wank, but since so many people don't understand the issues (see Misguided Fool somewhere in this discussion with his 99.7% stat) then the RIAA hope they can muddy the waters sufficently that you can't see what they're up to.
The RIAA vs MP3 (of which the Napster case if a part) is the same war as MPAA vs DeCSS (although MP3 has a cast-iron case even under all these bizzare vested-interest-protection laws you in the US seem to be so ready to have passed in your name*). The war is one of control of distribution. Record companies are Satan's Minions On Earth, and artists have always known this, but they've been a necessary evil in order to get your product to the users. Now they've noticed that they're going to be redundant, and they're going down kicking and screaming.
* - I'm not out particularly to bash the US here, but as with most things, you're leading the world in giving corporations ridiculous powers. It wouldn't bother me too much, but our (UK) government will just bend over before the WTO and the other Organisations Of No Use To No Man and incorporate these powers into our law.
How about 3.28 trillion bits per second down 300km of fibre? Wouldn't that be amazing?
http://www.vnunet.com/News/601094
Then I'd argue that the Gamespot article is way off beam. "Online retailer lawsuit"? Are online auctions "online retailing"? Is Yahoo really being accused of the "sale of illegal and counterfeit video game products"? I think not.
Are they referring to some auction selling that Yahoo hosts, or do they mean that Yahoo actually retail pirated products (which I would find hard to believe)?
C'mon, if the creator of Thunderbirds getting 340 million bucks for being chained to a radiator for seven years ain't News for Nerds then I don't know what is.
If they're not using dual procs, then I find it hard to believe that it's more powerful than this.
Quote from site: The FSL cluster (called "Jet") currently consists of 276 nodes, organized into three long banks. The nodes are unmodified, off-the-shelf Compaq Alpha systems with 667 MHz processors and 512 MB of memory.