If you're not willing to stop listening to music when you stop buying CDs, I'll always have reason to doubt you're that committed to restoring fair pricing. And the record companies will have a much easier time ignoring your message and blaming Napster.
If you get free music out of the deal, people are going to think you're doing it for the free music, not the message.
I'm not sure you read the post before replying. You don't have to pay $18 per CD, because you don't have to listen to the music at all. By downloading the mp3, you don't do any more damage to the companies' finances; all you do is allow them to claim you're a thief.
It's strange you should say MP3s are "the consumer's first real weapon." I'm almost certain the first boycott was organized before the MP3 format was developed.
Overreacted? By writing letters? I agree with the original poster's comments about killing and dynamiting. If his sister was being harrassed, then that called for a hell of a lot more than "asking" for its removal.
I recognize a lot of these names, but not nearly all of them. I'd love to see a list of what they've done that merits their nominations. It would be nice reading. In particular, I'd like to read Bill Gates' entry. Now look, some wise guy's going to point to Freshmeat...
The bottom line is that the market has spoken: We like the stuff MS makes. It's sad but true. No matter what, it comes down to MS has used the free market to get their stuff on top and the Gov't has no business second-guessing those market dynamics. People have voted with their dollars, and MS has won.
Quite simply, your definition of "free market" differs from mine. I don't think the market was free to choose the best product when Microsoft went to great lengths to see that: 1) Potential competitors cancel plans to develop alternatives and 2) When alternatives do exist, potential customers have reason not to use them, regardless of their appeal.
I consider myself Libertarian in many respects, but this isn't one of them: I don't believe that a market is free just because there is no government intervention. It usually is, but if one company becomes a monopoly and uses its influence to decide what choices are available, then that's no better than letting the government make the decisions.
I hope that the penalty goes towards preventing Microsoft's use of such tactics in the future, without, as you say, letting the government "do the thinking for me." Then customers can choose products solely on the basis of their quality, and the market really will be free.
I would agree that the blind would be better off using an ISP that can resist putting so much crap between them and the Internet. The law, however, says they have the right to make the mistake of choosing AOL. The Americans With Disabillies Act says that all businesses must be accessible to the disabled. In the past, that's only been applied to brick-and-mortar businesses, but the plaintiffs are arguing that it should be extended to online businesses, at least as far as to force them to actually read and think about the links you provided.
I agree that litigation is way out of hand, but companies need to be held accoutable.
Accountable for what, exactly? The plaintiffs didn't claim to have actually lost data, much less valuable data; they just said it was theoretically possible. Toshiba should pay full damages: $0.
And if you want to talk punitive damages to teach Toshiba a lesson for even taking the risk, then do you really think $2 billion is a fair price?
But since there are a lot of areas where DSL and cable modems are not available and won't be for some time, there are people for whom a T1 coop would be the only choice.
I don't think any of these advantages will do any good in the web-browsing appliance market.
You only have to get it working on one box, and then ship a million identical boxes, so where does portability come in?
Free is great, but other options probably won't cost more than a few dollars a box. And if they can find something more lightweight (face it: X and Netscape are hogs) then the savings in hardware will pay for it.
Linux is stable, but so are BeOS, QNX, etc. Come on, stop assuming Windows is the most stable OS the commercial software vendors can produce! And if all it does is run a web browser, the biggest threats to stability are gone (changing configurations, buggy third-party software, drivers that should still be in beta...).
Gateway, Dell, and especially AOL like to steer you towards one national ISP, Gateway and Dell so they can enhance the out-of-box experience and AOL because it IS that ISP. If your box works with that one ISP, then Linux's networking versatility doesn't matter.
KDE and Gnome are overkill for this kind of appliance. They don't want something that looks like Windows; they want something that runs a web browser and can be figured out by someone who's never used a computer.
AMD didn't announce the Athlon until August. It started shipping to OEMs in June, yes, but processors always ship before they're announced (just as Coppermines have almost certainly been shipping to OEMs before now -- but not very long before). Want a motherboard? Go to www.pricewatch.com and pick one out. Was that so hard?
On an unrelated gripe, "Tom's Hardware Guide" isn't helping its credibility much by having a major error in the very first sentance. "pushed from its thrown"? Ugh.
I don't know. I thought it fit right in in Slashdot's battle-of-the-titons dept.
If you ever have to take a test like this, answer honestly.
My understanding from the article is that no one will ever have to take a test like this. The questions are answered by administrators, based on what they know about the student's past behavior.
Doesn't anyone read the articles anymore? None of these questions would be asked, because the student doesn't take the test. In said right there in the article that administrators are the ones who answer the questions, presumably based on the student's records. The example they gave was whether or not the student had access to guns.
I don't get it. There are so many good reasons to fault this program, but instead we get all these posts from people who don't even know what they're arguing against.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if that arose naturally from Google's search algorithm. The "about Google" page says Google ranks pages by looking at pages which link to that page. So if someone puts up a page which says "Microsoft is more evil than Satan himself" and provides a link to Microsoft's home page, Google notices.
The command line is not like "real life." In "real life," I can talk to someone using all kinds of variations on English syntax and vocabulary, and that person will understand it. I can say one thing in a million different ways. The command line, on the other hand, demands that you use one particular format for your input. You can't say, "search that file and tell me which lines contain this word." If you don't know how to use grep, you're stuck until you read the documentation.
A user looking at a graphical search program, on the other hand, will understand instantly what input it needs. Click on the icon for the file you want to search, or type its name in the box. Type your search string in the other box. Click on "search."
Grep is more powerful, of course, and a user who needs that power will find learning how to use it to be well worth the time. But that does the new user no good when he doesn't need that power. He would spend more time reading the man page than it would take for him to just run the point-and-click application and find what he's looking for. And ultimately, the program that allows the user to finish the job sooner is better suited to the task.
Sorry, but I agree with the first guy: if one doesn't want to use the command line but has to anyway, the software is flawed. Grep may be fast, but it's not intuitive. If you already know how to use it and need to search a huge file quickly, that shortcoming is irrelevant. If you've never seen grep before, though, that shortcoming is real. Yes, you can overcome the software's shortcoming by spending time to learn how to use it, but that's just a workaround, not a true solution (like solving NT's stability problem by rebooting every night). For the occasional user who doesn't use it enough to justify studying it, an intuitive interface is the superior solution.
This guy says that the average geek wants to "look at a computer as a sacred mystical tool, and use allegorical and mythical terms to describe it." I really don't like it when someone decides he's qualified to testify about what I'm thinking, and then gets it completely wrong. Look at the Jargon File or any slashdot discussion about what "geek" means. One attribute that frequently comes up is that geeks take pride in seeing things as they really are! A computer is a box full of on/off switches, not a mystical tool that only the l33t can use.
And if using Linux is a way to prove I'm better than everybody else, why do I want more people to use it? Simple: I don't feel threatened by people ascending to my level, but I do think the world will be better off for it. And I cheer the arrival of easier-to-learn tools for installing and using Linux because they are not a threat to my status, but rather are an important step towards a world in which a powerful, stable operating system is ubiquitous.
I tried KDE once for a couple of days. I didn't see it giving me much value beyond what a window manager does alone. It wasn't long before I switched to Windowmaker and no DE, and that hasn't made my system any harder to use.
I'm not a computer programmer or a network administrator and I don't intend to be. My love is biochemistry and molecular biology, and that's what I'll be doing with my life. I do like computers and I like messing around with Linux, but it requires far too many hours to tweak it to the point where it's as functional as my Windows 95 partition. When that effort starts to cut into the time I could use for studying, I know Linux isn't really worth it. I'll keep playing with it because the journey is as much fun as the destination, but other people are allowed to entertain themselves in other ways. I'm not about to let myself fail any classes just so I can spend more time on Linux to prove I have a brain. And I hope you can see the irony in doing so.
2. Write an implementation/driver for Linux and shut up (assuming you are intelligent enough to do this)
This is a bit of a digression, but it really bugs me that so many people around here equate "intelligent" with "able to write whatever code they need." Believe it or not, there are some intelligent people in the world who have actually chosen not to become programmers. Perhaps they chose to devote themselves to such challenging fields as math, chemistry, physics, biology, medicine, etc. Maybe they even chose to study philosopy or literature.
How much time does it take to become a programmer capable of writing the multimedia tools whose absence we are lamenting here? Can you fairly ask someone who specializes in something else to put in that time? Accept it: not all non-programmers are stupid.
I, for one, am finding this half entertaining, half educational. I've got a Red Hat partition that's been sitting on my computer since I first put it together a few months ago. I still don't use it regularly and haven't finished tweaking it to my satisfaction (mostly window manager things - Red Hat's default is repulsive!).
Sometimes I wonder if I should tear it all down and replace it with slackware or something to really learn it thoroughly, starting from the bottom. Then I wouldn't get frustrated by simple command-line syntax issues that wouldn't slow me down if I had actually needed to use a command line at first (this is actually what stopped me the last time I booted the Linux partition). I already know I don't care for RPMs. I never used them with any constistency (which screws RPM up, right?), and now I've stopped using them altogether.
So reading a debate over the pros and cons of slackware is pretty relevant to me. The fact that it's so heated just increases the entertainment value.
"Visual Basic makes the easy things easier; Delphi makes the hard things easier." Has anyone else noticed you can make the same generalization about all MS products?
I can lose myself for hours on the internet. Does that mean I'm addicted to it? Well, I can also lose myself for hours reading newspapers or magazines. All I want is news, opinions, analysis, and more news, and the internet is just one more way of getting it.
Slashdot Mirror
If you get free music out of the deal, people are going to think you're doing it for the free music, not the message.
It's strange you should say MP3s are "the consumer's first real weapon." I'm almost certain the first boycott was organized before the MP3 format was developed.
Overreacted? By writing letters? I agree with the original poster's comments about killing and dynamiting. If his sister was being harrassed, then that called for a hell of a lot more than "asking" for its removal.
I recognize a lot of these names, but not nearly all of them. I'd love to see a list of what they've done that merits their nominations. It would be nice reading. In particular, I'd like to read Bill Gates' entry. Now look, some wise guy's going to point to Freshmeat...
Quite simply, your definition of "free market" differs from mine. I don't think the market was free to choose the best product when Microsoft went to great lengths to see that: 1) Potential competitors cancel plans to develop alternatives and 2) When alternatives do exist, potential customers have reason not to use them, regardless of their appeal.
I consider myself Libertarian in many respects, but this isn't one of them: I don't believe that a market is free just because there is no government intervention. It usually is, but if one company becomes a monopoly and uses its influence to decide what choices are available, then that's no better than letting the government make the decisions.
I hope that the penalty goes towards preventing Microsoft's use of such tactics in the future, without, as you say, letting the government "do the thinking for me." Then customers can choose products solely on the basis of their quality, and the market really will be free.
Really? The buzz I've heard from people who have beta/rc versions is that it's a better desktop OS than Win 9x in just about every way.
I would agree that the blind would be better off using an ISP that can resist putting so much crap between them and the Internet. The law, however, says they have the right to make the mistake of choosing AOL. The Americans With Disabillies Act says that all businesses must be accessible to the disabled. In the past, that's only been applied to brick-and-mortar businesses, but the plaintiffs are arguing that it should be extended to online businesses, at least as far as to force them to actually read and think about the links you provided.
Accountable for what, exactly? The plaintiffs didn't claim to have actually lost data, much less valuable data; they just said it was theoretically possible. Toshiba should pay full damages: $0.
And if you want to talk punitive damages to teach Toshiba a lesson for even taking the risk, then do you really think $2 billion is a fair price?
But since there are a lot of areas where DSL and cable modems are not available and won't be for some time, there are people for whom a T1 coop would be the only choice.
You only have to get it working on one box, and then ship a million identical boxes, so where does portability come in?
Free is great, but other options probably won't cost more than a few dollars a box. And if they can find something more lightweight (face it: X and Netscape are hogs) then the savings in hardware will pay for it.
Linux is stable, but so are BeOS, QNX, etc. Come on, stop assuming Windows is the most stable OS the commercial software vendors can produce! And if all it does is run a web browser, the biggest threats to stability are gone (changing configurations, buggy third-party software, drivers that should still be in beta...).
Gateway, Dell, and especially AOL like to steer you towards one national ISP, Gateway and Dell so they can enhance the out-of-box experience and AOL because it IS that ISP. If your box works with that one ISP, then Linux's networking versatility doesn't matter.
KDE and Gnome are overkill for this kind of appliance. They don't want something that looks like Windows; they want something that runs a web browser and can be figured out by someone who's never used a computer.
AMD didn't announce the Athlon until August. It started shipping to OEMs in June, yes, but processors always ship before they're announced (just as Coppermines have almost certainly been shipping to OEMs before now -- but not very long before). Want a motherboard? Go to www.pricewatch.com and pick one out. Was that so hard?
I don't know. I thought it fit right in in Slashdot's battle-of-the-titons dept.
My understanding from the article is that no one will ever have to take a test like this. The questions are answered by administrators, based on what they know about the student's past behavior.
I don't get it. There are so many good reasons to fault this program, but instead we get all these posts from people who don't even know what they're arguing against.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if that arose naturally from Google's search algorithm. The "about Google" page says Google ranks pages by looking at pages which link to that page. So if someone puts up a page which says "Microsoft is more evil than Satan himself" and provides a link to Microsoft's home page, Google notices.
A user looking at a graphical search program, on the other hand, will understand instantly what input it needs. Click on the icon for the file you want to search, or type its name in the box. Type your search string in the other box. Click on "search."
Grep is more powerful, of course, and a user who needs that power will find learning how to use it to be well worth the time. But that does the new user no good when he doesn't need that power. He would spend more time reading the man page than it would take for him to just run the point-and-click application and find what he's looking for. And ultimately, the program that allows the user to finish the job sooner is better suited to the task.
Sorry, but I agree with the first guy: if one doesn't want to use the command line but has to anyway, the software is flawed. Grep may be fast, but it's not intuitive. If you already know how to use it and need to search a huge file quickly, that shortcoming is irrelevant. If you've never seen grep before, though, that shortcoming is real. Yes, you can overcome the software's shortcoming by spending time to learn how to use it, but that's just a workaround, not a true solution (like solving NT's stability problem by rebooting every night). For the occasional user who doesn't use it enough to justify studying it, an intuitive interface is the superior solution.
And if using Linux is a way to prove I'm better than everybody else, why do I want more people to use it? Simple: I don't feel threatened by people ascending to my level, but I do think the world will be better off for it. And I cheer the arrival of easier-to-learn tools for installing and using Linux because they are not a threat to my status, but rather are an important step towards a world in which a powerful, stable operating system is ubiquitous.
What am I missing here?
I'm not a computer programmer or a network administrator and I don't intend to be. My love is biochemistry and molecular biology, and that's what I'll be doing with my life. I do like computers and I like messing around with Linux, but it requires far too many hours to tweak it to the point where it's as functional as my Windows 95 partition. When that effort starts to cut into the time I could use for studying, I know Linux isn't really worth it. I'll keep playing with it because the journey is as much fun as the destination, but other people are allowed to entertain themselves in other ways.
I'm not about to let myself fail any classes just so I can spend more time on Linux to prove I have a brain. And I hope you can see the irony in doing so.
This is a bit of a digression, but it really bugs me that so many people around here equate "intelligent" with "able to write whatever code they need." Believe it or not, there are some intelligent people in the world who have actually chosen not to become programmers. Perhaps they chose to devote themselves to such challenging fields as math, chemistry, physics, biology, medicine, etc. Maybe they even chose to study philosopy or literature.
How much time does it take to become a programmer capable of writing the multimedia tools whose absence we are lamenting here? Can you fairly ask someone who specializes in something else to put in that time? Accept it: not all non-programmers are stupid.
Um, didn't DEC ultimately fail? What I mean is, it doesn't even exist as an independent company anymore. Not my idea of success.
Sometimes I wonder if I should tear it all down and replace it with slackware or something to really learn it thoroughly, starting from the bottom. Then I wouldn't get frustrated by simple command-line syntax issues that wouldn't slow me down if I had actually needed to use a command line at first (this is actually what stopped me the last time I booted the Linux partition). I already know I don't care for RPMs. I never used them with any constistency (which screws RPM up, right?), and now I've stopped using them altogether.
So reading a debate over the pros and cons of slackware is pretty relevant to me. The fact that it's so heated just increases the entertainment value.
"Visual Basic makes the easy things easier; Delphi makes the hard things easier."
Has anyone else noticed you can make the same generalization about all MS products?
I can lose myself for hours on the internet. Does that mean I'm addicted to it? Well, I can also lose myself for hours reading newspapers or magazines. All I want is news, opinions, analysis, and more news, and the internet is just one more way of getting it.