NOBODY here is saying "musicians shouldn't be paid for their work". What "anti-copyright people" object to, though, is the fact that it's a profession in which you work hard ONCE and get paid for a lifetime, as opposed to "normal" professions where you get paid for the work you done, and that's it. I think most people would agree that copyright is good, as it keeps other people from making money out of the work you've done, but the way it is now, it is also keeping people from simply enjoying the work you've done for its own sake... and if you're an artist, the thing you're supposed to care about is to make art, not how much more you can milk your product some more. That's the difference between an artist and a (for example, as this applies to all art-fields) "music producer". Of course, you must make money to survive, and that's where Trent Reznor's latest album becomes significant : it shows how to make money from your art, without being detrimental to the people who are supposed to ENJOY it. Of course, he won't be able to live off this album for the rest of his life, but it will pay his rent for some time to come, time during which he'll be able to create something new, which he'll be able to sell again the same way.. etc...
If it doesn't sound like a comfortable style of life, then I'll have to tell you a shocking truth : that's how it is for everybody who works independantly.
As someone stated earlier : you can install xubuntu (for example) on the XO... It would save you the trouble of replaceing one "abomination" with another more expensive and slower one.;)
It's purely instrumental and rearranged songs from other albums can be heard throughout. It's definitely more akin to an ambient album than other NIN work.
Personally I like it and I don't mind having paid 5US$ for the 36 tracks at all (but I'd have prefered to be able to download the FLACs I actually paid for from NIN's site instead of having to look for another ~source~). But you're really better advised to listen to the 9 free tracks before buying the whole thing.
Actually, Trent Reznor was quoted saying something like "f*ck the industry! download and share my album, then buy t-shirts and come to see me" during a concert when "Year Zero" came out. That was prior to Radiohead. And as many have already pointed out, he did a "get it free or pay if you want" thing with Saul Williams in November.
Here's the story : I like NIN, I love the idea, I like the tracks I was able to listen to, so I actually bought the album (downloadable 5US$). First hickup (apart from an abysmaly slow server)was when their site rejected my credit card due to an "invalid expiration date". I then tried Amazon.com, which also offers the tracks for the same price... sadly I'm not a US resident, so wasn't allowed to buy. Then I went the Paypal way... same credit card as before, and mysteriously they didn't have anything against the expiration date.
"cool" I thought to myself, followed the promptly mailed download link, selected FLAC as format, kind of grunted when I saw the "one time download" notice, pressed the "OK" button... and ended up on a blank page. Reloading brought me promptly (as in : this is apparently the only page that isn't slashdotted) to a page stating that I had exceeded my download limit and was not entitled to download the files ~again~ (?!?)
A mail to their support is already on the way, but I'd advise everybody who wants to buy the album to wait a few days before doing so, to give them to sort out their many problems (for some of which I presume/. is actually one of the cause;)
I think you're misjudging smuggler priorities. A few months ago a couple was arrested in the UK because they built boats for smugglers. They were using rigif-hulled inflatable boats equipped with eight time 250-horsepower outboarders.
Sounds to me like the diametrical opposite to the wave powered craft's concept.
the moment we have an AI that does or doesn't execute the program you just wrote based on the first impression it got from you based on what you're wearing and whether you are a people's person is when I'll start cultivating my social skills at work. Until then, I'll let management and sales do the talking and look ~good~.
Using the words "fucking clue" doesn't make your point more valid. Check at around the 16th minute of the video. They are talking about evil music downloaders and how they hope that other states, apart from California ("... ueber alles") will adopt stateside prosecution against illegal up- and downloaders.
How well this work and how willing the US is at talking to.. well.. ANYBODY.. can be seen in archive footage of the UN meetings prior to the latest Iraq invasion.
If you decide to resolve wars using only bots (or even by playing out a virtual video-game like war), my bets are that one of the side will realize it can actually physically attack its opponent, while the opposing side is arguing that the random number generator used is unfair.
Add to that that what you want are generally the natural ressources of the country you're invading and that people are expendable, I'd guess that robots would be programmed to leave vital assets intact and wipe out the humans, instead of doing it the other way around. After all, you can run an oil refinery with a few hundred people, and it costs much more to rebuild it after the war instead of just flying in a few workers to operate it.
There is nothing civilized about war and hoping for fair behaviour on either side is hopelessly optimistic.
Performance benefit of DX10 over DX9? Care to name your source? HERE is one saying the contrary.. and it's just an example. Google for "dx10 dx9 performance comparison" and you should find plenty more.
As far as I know, the benefit of DX10 are slightly different (not always better in my opinion) visuals, and I concur with the Anandtech guys that many of the DX10 improvements could have been done in DX9 too.
[shudder].. and here I am feeding the trolls again...
Indeed.
I'm part of a two developer team in a [gasp] marketing company. Until recently, we were in an open space with all the marketing and sales guys who couldn't grasp the fact that there is nothing worse for a developer than to be interrupted during a coding binge. They'd keep interrupting us and asking for our full attention at any time, no matter how concentrated we were staring at the screen. Using headphones was always received with contempt and remarks about "excluding ourselves from the team", and even interrupted us while we were actually discussing ideas about how to develop one thing or another.
ME: "Hey listen! I think I found a solution! We could write a method which receives those arguments and..."
MARKETING GUY : "aeh.. guys. I need one of you!"
ME: "Give us a min. okay.. we're discussing something."
M.G.: "Come on... It's not going to take long, and it's very important!"
ME: "[sigh]... okay.. what's the matter?"
M.G. : "You told me a few times, I know.. but how do you create bookmarks in IE again?"
ME: "gahh... in the menu? where it says 'bookmark'?"
M.G. : "ahh.. right. nice. thanks. you coming along well on the project?"
ME: "we were... [turning toward colleague] aehm... Where was I?"
Not to be mistaken, those guys are actually nice and we even spend time with the rest of the team off-hours, but they just have no idea how much concentration is required while coding, and for the most part, they have no interests in computers whatsoever. It's just a fancy typing machine and organizer for them, and sometimes I suspect they think they are doing us a favour by pulling us back to the ~real world~ when we look particularly intense.
Since our boss moved us to a small cramped cabinet in which we are undisturbed, both our code and productivity increased tenfold.
So, to get back on topic : each his own office is not a necessity, but at least separate the devs from the rest and throw them all together wherever there is enough room for the monitors and the computers.
Slightly OT, but the big strengths of Oblivion lie in its open-endedness AND the construction kit. Pretty much everybody seems to hate the dynamic leveling in vanilla Oblivion, but there are plenty of mods to alleviate that.
Personally, I use OOO. Now, when I enter a cave, the mobs might or might not be stronger than me, better equipped or not. If I get attacked by a rat whilst I'm at level 20, the rat is STILL somewhere between level one and three.
This makes exploring a lot more fun, and coming back for revenge later on a possibility.
For me, Oblivion (heavily "realistically" modded... but in my opinion that's the whole point of the Bethesda games) is the best sandbox game so far, and I still play it regularly after 2 years.
actually, it goes a bit further than that. developing a game for the PS3 is way more expensive than developing one for the Wii. Google "development costs wii ps3" and you'll find plenty of articles about PS3 games costing up to 4 times the price of a wii game. Lower population but higher costs are not an incentive to develop games (but apparently it is for music visualizers.. go figure..)
Apart for the fact that this/. article is just non-news, I just want to remind you of something : the Dreamcast WAS able to connect to the internetout of the box using the inbuilt 56.7K modem and there were plenty of multiplayer games and stuff for it.
Still got a working Dreamcast here and it's a great console (although the internet part is useless now:/
I don't know... maybe it's just exactly the specialized user thing. I found synaptic to be very easy and intuitive to use. But then, I have been using computers for the last 24 years (damn.. now I feel old).
As for the "average user", I don't think it's a myth. Most people I know are using their computer in their personal life for four things, gaming not withstanding : internet browsing, checking/writing emails, writing stuff in Word (or Open Office if they use Linux), and managing their iPod/mp3 player.
Professionally, most ~work~ with spreadsheets, but what they do is extremely basic . Of course, I know people who are professionally or personally into graphic design or music, but those are the minority.
The rest doesn't even WANT to do anything else but those four tasks with their computer.It's not like they couldn't learn, they just aren't interested, and there is nothing wrong with that. From my point of view, those are they are "average users"
Btw.I checked Lightroom on Wikipedia, and I must admit that I don't think something like that exists for Linux. As for the aps I mentioned, those are just very basic things : a multi language programming editor, a GUI editor, a ~colour matcher~ (gives you all sorts of complementary coloursets for a given colour), a TrueType font editor, and.. well.. just a display panel, though this last thing was really a cheap shot at the customizability of Gnome compared to OSX;)
Actually, I found most description to be rather accurate. And the thing about install frenzy is due to the fact that new Ubuntu user generally only know the proprietary software environment. As a geek, you know about free alternatives, but the standard user has, at the most, vaguely heard about Firefox and never heard, for example, of Opera. If he is actively using FF instead of Safari or IE, it's because his Friendly Neighbourhood Geek introduced it to him.
So, what happens is that the first time he fires up synaptic and types, for example, "graphic", he'll start trying everything out. Free Software? A click away? that generally seems like paradise to windows/mac expats. And even if 70% of what he installs is buggy or doesn't fit his needs, the other 30% are not and do. That might not be efficient, but it's "FUN" and very often inspirational.
Concerning Alternatives :
Photoshop : if you're able and willing to learn a new interface, everything you can do in PS can be done as easily in GIMP. Two exceptions : batch and CMYK format. But those two are not relevant to most but specialized users. Batch would hurt ME, as a web developer, the most... if I wasn't a developer in the first place, so able to write scripts to circumvent it. I never used CMYK and probably never will. If GIMP doesn't rock your boat, you could use Kryta... or Cinepaint.. or another.. there are a few to choose from.
Final Cut Pro: not MANY alternatives, but there are a few. KDenlive or Cinelerra for example. I'll admit that Cinelerra can't be installed over Synaptic, but it IS rather powerfull.
Lightroom: honestly, no idea. Never had any use for this kind of application so never searched for it... My guess is that there are alternatives.
Consider this though : these applications (except perhaps for Photoshop which is ubiquitous) are highly specialized commercial software packages. most users will never touch them (or be able to pay for them in the first place). The alternatives I proposed are all FREE, and all, except for Cinelerra, are available through Synaptic. If you think this is not the case, then let me ask you this : I want an alternative for Geany, Glade, Agave, FontForge.. oh.. and just to round it up... the "gnome display panel" for the Mac. Any suggestions?
sigh.. my karma is already bad... but :
you mean, in contrast to a leopard who is mostly an animal who will rip you to to pieces if it can and likes to piss everywhere to mark its territory?
Which is basically manually installing. If it were automatic, you wouldn't have to tell it what you want to use. And I ask again - how is a new user supposed to know what they want to use? Most open-source projects are very short on documentation, or even descriptions of what the app does, for a new user. So, they still need to seek out a website to find what they want - compare sourceforge and versiontracker in this respect - which helps the novice find good software more easily?
WHAT the user wants is his problem. but once he's made up his mind, all he has to do is start synaptic, enter his admin password, click on search and then enter keywords. The next step is to read the description, install what he thinks is best suited (or just everything that might remotely be interesting), click apply.
the only big problem with this system is that you generally end up with lots of applications to choose from, and lots of stuff that's only peripherall related to what you were searching for but which sounds interesting/puzzling/cool. New Ubuntu users tend to get into an install frenzy easily;)
You don't have to drag any files around, you don't have to search the web... it's just there.
Slashdot Mirror
NOBODY here is saying "musicians shouldn't be paid for their work". What "anti-copyright people" object to, though, is the fact that it's a profession in which you work hard ONCE and get paid for a lifetime, as opposed to "normal" professions where you get paid for the work you done, and that's it. I think most people would agree that copyright is good, as it keeps other people from making money out of the work you've done, but the way it is now, it is also keeping people from simply enjoying the work you've done for its own sake ... and if you're an artist, the thing you're supposed to care about is to make art, not how much more you can milk your product some more. That's the difference between an artist and a (for example, as this applies to all art-fields) "music producer". .. etc ...
Of course, you must make money to survive, and that's where Trent Reznor's latest album becomes significant : it shows how to make money from your art, without being detrimental to the people who are supposed to ENJOY it. Of course, he won't be able to live off this album for the rest of his life, but it will pay his rent for some time to come, time during which he'll be able to create something new, which he'll be able to sell again the same way
If it doesn't sound like a comfortable style of life, then I'll have to tell you a shocking truth : that's how it is for everybody who works independantly.
As someone stated earlier : you can install xubuntu (for example) on the XO ... It would save you the trouble of replaceing one "abomination" with another more expensive and slower one. ;)
It's purely instrumental and rearranged songs from other albums can be heard throughout. It's definitely more akin to an ambient album than other NIN work. Personally I like it and I don't mind having paid 5US$ for the 36 tracks at all (but I'd have prefered to be able to download the FLACs I actually paid for from NIN's site instead of having to look for another ~source~). But you're really better advised to listen to the 9 free tracks before buying the whole thing.
Actually, Trent Reznor was quoted saying something like "f*ck the industry! download and share my album, then buy t-shirts and come to see me" during a concert when "Year Zero" came out. That was prior to Radiohead. And as many have already pointed out, he did a "get it free or pay if you want" thing with Saul Williams in November.
"cool" I thought to myself, followed the promptly mailed download link, selected FLAC as format, kind of grunted when I saw the "one time download" notice, pressed the "OK" button
Reloading brought me promptly (as in : this is apparently the only page that isn't slashdotted) to a page stating that I had exceeded my download limit and was not entitled to download the files ~again~ (?!?)
A mail to their support is already on the way, but I'd advise everybody who wants to buy the album to wait a few days before doing so, to give them to sort out their many problems (for some of which I presume /. is actually one of the cause;)
I strongly agree on all points. Especially the last one.
come on! mod the parent at least to funny. it was and it wasn't even a "frist post"-post
I think you're misjudging smuggler priorities. A few months ago a couple was arrested in the UK because they built boats for smugglers. They were using rigif-hulled inflatable boats equipped with eight time 250-horsepower outboarders .
Sounds to me like the diametrical opposite to the wave powered craft's concept.
the moment we have an AI that does or doesn't execute the program you just wrote based on the first impression it got from you based on what you're wearing and whether you are a people's person is when I'll start cultivating my social skills at work. Until then, I'll let management and sales do the talking and look ~good~.
Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of jokes like that!!
Using the words "fucking clue" doesn't make your point more valid. Check at around the 16th minute of the video. They are talking about evil music downloaders and how they hope that other states, apart from California ("... ueber alles") will adopt stateside prosecution against illegal up- and downloaders.
So does the Skype 2.0 client btw. It can be found in the beta section and works even better than AMSN.
If you decide to resolve wars using only bots (or even by playing out a virtual video-game like war), my bets are that one of the side will realize it can actually physically attack its opponent, while the opposing side is arguing that the random number generator used is unfair.
Add to that that what you want are generally the natural ressources of the country you're invading and that people are expendable, I'd guess that robots would be programmed to leave vital assets intact and wipe out the humans, instead of doing it the other way around. After all, you can run an oil refinery with a few hundred people, and it costs much more to rebuild it after the war instead of just flying in a few workers to operate it.
There is nothing civilized about war and hoping for fair behaviour on either side is hopelessly optimistic.
HERE is one saying the contrary
As far as I know, the benefit of DX10 are slightly different (not always better in my opinion) visuals, and I concur with the Anandtech guys that many of the DX10 improvements could have been done in DX9 too.
[shudder] .. and here I am feeding the trolls again ...
I'm part of a two developer team in a [gasp] marketing company. Until recently, we were in an open space with all the marketing and sales guys who couldn't grasp the fact that there is nothing worse for a developer than to be interrupted during a coding binge. They'd keep interrupting us and asking for our full attention at any time, no matter how concentrated we were staring at the screen. Using headphones was always received with contempt and remarks about "excluding ourselves from the team", and even interrupted us while we were actually discussing ideas about how to develop one thing or another.
ME: "Hey listen! I think I found a solution! We could write a method which receives those arguments and ..." .. guys. I need one of you!" .. we're discussing something." ... It's not going to take long, and it's very important!" ... okay .. what's the matter?" .. but how do you create bookmarks in IE again?" ... in the menu? where it says 'bookmark'?" .. right. nice. thanks. you coming along well on the project?" ... [turning toward colleague] aehm ... Where was I?"
MARKETING GUY : "aeh
ME: "Give us a min. okay
M.G.: "Come on
ME: "[sigh]
M.G. : "You told me a few times, I know
ME: "gahh
M.G. : "ahh
ME: "we were
Not to be mistaken, those guys are actually nice and we even spend time with the rest of the team off-hours, but they just have no idea how much concentration is required while coding, and for the most part, they have no interests in computers whatsoever. It's just a fancy typing machine and organizer for them, and sometimes I suspect they think they are doing us a favour by pulling us back to the ~real world~ when we look particularly intense.
Since our boss moved us to a small cramped cabinet in which we are undisturbed, both our code and productivity increased tenfold.So, to get back on topic : each his own office is not a necessity, but at least separate the devs from the rest and throw them all together wherever there is enough room for the monitors and the computers.
Slightly OT, but the big strengths of Oblivion lie in its open-endedness AND the construction kit. Pretty much everybody seems to hate the dynamic leveling in vanilla Oblivion, but there are plenty of mods to alleviate that.
... but in my opinion that's the whole point of the Bethesda games) is the best sandbox game so far, and I still play it regularly after 2 years.
Personally, I use OOO. Now, when I enter a cave, the mobs might or might not be stronger than me, better equipped or not. If I get attacked by a rat whilst I'm at level 20, the rat is STILL somewhere between level one and three.
This makes exploring a lot more fun, and coming back for revenge later on a possibility.
For me, Oblivion (heavily "realistically" modded
for Windows, I'd say R4.
actually, it goes a bit further than that. developing a game for the PS3 is way more expensive than developing one for the Wii. Google "development costs wii ps3" and you'll find plenty of articles about PS3 games costing up to 4 times the price of a wii game. Lower population but higher costs are not an incentive to develop games (but apparently it is for music visualizers .. go figure ..)
something to buy a PS3 for :)
Apart for the fact that this /. article is just non-news, I just want to remind you of something : the Dreamcast WAS able to connect to the internetout of the box using the inbuilt 56.7K modem and there were plenty of multiplayer games and stuff for it.
Still got a working Dreamcast here and it's a great console (although the internet part is useless now:/
I don't know ... maybe it's just exactly the specialized user thing. I found synaptic to be very easy and intuitive to use. But then, I have been using computers for the last 24 years (damn .. now I feel old).
As for the "average user", I don't think it's a myth. Most people I know are using their computer in their personal life for four things, gaming not withstanding : internet browsing, checking/writing emails, writing stuff in Word (or Open Office if they use Linux), and managing their iPod/mp3 player.
Professionally, most ~work~ with spreadsheets, but what they do is extremely basic . Of course, I know people who are professionally or personally into graphic design or music, but those are the minority.
The rest doesn't even WANT to do anything else but those four tasks with their computer.It's not like they couldn't learn, they just aren't interested, and there is nothing wrong with that. From my point of view, those are they are "average users"
Btw.I checked Lightroom on Wikipedia, and I must admit that I don't think something like that exists for Linux. As for the aps I mentioned, those are just very basic things : a multi language programming editor, a GUI editor, a ~colour matcher~ (gives you all sorts of complementary coloursets for a given colour), a TrueType font editor, and .. well .. just a display panel, though this last thing was really a cheap shot at the customizability of Gnome compared to OSX ;)
So, what happens is that the first time he fires up synaptic and types, for example, "graphic", he'll start trying everything out. Free Software? A click away? that generally seems like paradise to windows/mac expats. And even if 70% of what he installs is buggy or doesn't fit his needs, the other 30% are not and do. That might not be efficient, but it's "FUN" and very often inspirational.
Concerning Alternatives :
Photoshop : if you're able and willing to learn a new interface, everything you can do in PS can be done as easily in GIMP. Two exceptions : batch and CMYK format. But those two are not relevant to most but specialized users. ... if I wasn't a developer in the first place, so able to write scripts to circumvent it. I never used CMYK and probably never will. ... or Cinepaint .. or another .. there are a few to choose from.
Batch would hurt ME, as a web developer, the most
If GIMP doesn't rock your boat, you could use Kryta
Final Cut Pro: not MANY alternatives, but there are a few. KDenlive or Cinelerra for example. I'll admit that Cinelerra can't be installed over Synaptic, but it IS rather powerfull.
Lightroom: honestly, no idea. Never had any use for this kind of application so never searched for it ... My guess is that there are alternatives.
Consider this though : these applications (except perhaps for Photoshop which is ubiquitous) are highly specialized commercial software packages. most users will never touch them (or be able to pay for them in the first place). The alternatives I proposed are all FREE, and all, except for Cinelerra, are available through Synaptic.If you think this is not the case, then let me ask you this : I want an alternative for Geany, Glade, Agave, FontForge
sigh .. my karma is already bad ... but :
you mean, in contrast to a leopard who is mostly an animal who will rip you to to pieces if it can and likes to piss everywhere to mark its territory?
actually, Windows would be an old ugly hooker, but it does more things than the pretty one and it's also cheaper. ;)
WHAT the user wants is his problem. but once he's made up his mind, all he has to do is start synaptic, enter his admin password, click on search and then enter keywords. The next step is to read the description, install what he thinks is best suited (or just everything that might remotely be interesting), click apply.
the only big problem with this system is that you generally end up with lots of applications to choose from, and lots of stuff that's only peripherall related to what you were searching for but which sounds interesting/puzzling/cool. New Ubuntu users tend to get into an install frenzy easily