I only get references to something called music television when I google it; but clicking on it on the television only gets me some stupid Reality TV show or some documentary about the 80's...
According to TFA the music industry are now depended on Apples iTunes Store due to the major revenue. How come none of the labels have launched a similair service (it's not really the most original idea of all times)?
Simple--they have tried to do so in the past; between their propensity towards suing everyone they work with and their addiction to (failing) DRM no one wants anything to do with them any more.
Sure there are reasons to dislike Apple but their stance on DRM is refreshing and has not changed significantly over time, making their iTunes Music Store less of a risk than any 'hear today, gone tomororw' outfit the RIAA can throw up overnight. Moreover their partner in rhymes (Microsoft) got greedy and did the rest of us a favor by underlining just how risky it is to buy music that 'Plays for Sure' and eliminated any other major players from moving in.
Not to say that the iTunes Music Store is the only (no DRM) mp3 store around, I know they aren't and there are certainly a couple of good ones well worth doing business with--but who has heard of them besides us geeks and Linux users?
Google's moves in China have shown how far they are willing to go to play ball in those markets (not that it has worked in their favor before) and this represents a dangerous new grounds for privacy concerns to fester in!
Cute. Now go and reread what I wrote paying attention to the sentence immediately before the one you quoted. Actually, let me help you out...
The goals of 'OLPC' are entirely different than the plans of this new 'OLPC 2.0' as far as I'm concerned AND I IMAGINE IT IS THIS WAY FOR MANY OTHERS AS WELL. We watched and applauded as OLPC began only to watch in dismay and tears as they project allowed itself to be taken over from within.
Some emphasis added...
Following the flow of what I actually wrote should have made it clear the 'we' refered to the 'many' of the previous sentence, and many is not a substitute for 'all'. Nice try at making my words say something that wasn't there though.
As for the thrust of your post... Just reading it makes it clear to me just how far the project has fallen from its one time goals. You speak about feeding the body before educating the mind, you talk about basic ignorance that can only be cured by education and rail on about infrastructure. What you don't seem to understand is in its original incarnation the OLPC was the infrastructure. That was what made it so revolutionary in scope!
This was an attempt to not only teach a man to fish, (to borrow from that old analogy) but also to provide a man with the tools to fish too.
Too bad petty politics and ideology turned it into another excuse to profit off the backs of the poor when if properly executed it could have lead to enrichment all the way around.
This is significantly more than a simple reboot. The goals of 'OLPC' are entirely different than the plans of this new 'OLPC 2.0' as far as I'm concerned and I imagine it is this way for many others as well. We watched and applauded as OLPC began only to watch in dismay and tears as they project allowed itself to be taken over from within.
There are all kinds of points that could be made here, but I'll let the others bring those up. For me the complete 180 they've done has made me write them off completely as a useless relic of what happens when you completely lose sight of your goal to the point you start to believe the ends justify the means. RIP OLPC.
I have a Virgin Mobile that I've been using now for nearly a year and I still get calls from all sorts of telemarketers who refuse to stop calling me, claiming I owe money or that my car warranty is about to expire. I recently made a report on one of these companies whose robo calls filled up my voice mail, only to recieve a letter back saying the report was 'unfounded' and wishing me a nice day. So while I'm happy to see there has been some action taken here against some of these companies I wish they'd be more consistent in enforcement.
The other thing that bothers me is the increasing frequency of these types of calls coming over VOIP and their increasing similarity to spam. My fear is that unless we get consistent in enforcement we're going to end up with today's situation with email repeated on cellphones, just as it was on faxes and landlines.
>>Seriously, why do people think the system is deficient >>just because problems are not solved instantly?
Because it's insane having to go through this every other year or so!
What else do you call it when the Legislative and Executive branches see their attempts to pass feel-good laws consistently rejected as unconstitutional by the Judicial branch, yet nevertheless continue to approve the same unconstitutional boondoggles? Oh and lets not forget the cost to both federal and state budgets needed to resolve a question already answered the **LAST** few times it came up?
If there seems to be any impatience on the part of your fellow Slashdotters, consider maybe it is due to our exasperation at seeing the idiots in government insist they can make 2+2=5 if they just keep working at it long enough....
Martin Ankerl has a potential solution for you then, he made a HOWTO and has released a compact version of Human and Clearlooks which really make a difference! I even use them when I'm on my desktop these days to cut down on screen bloat. Find the HOWTO and linsk to the themes here: http://martin.ankerl.com/2008/10/10/how-to-make-a-compact-gnome-theme/
What if the user has an ASUS EeePC, or other netbook like device with SSD hard disk or even a regular platter based hard disk in a incredibly difficult to reach location? This could still prove to be a laptop killer for many users and it is incredibly dishonest to pretend any differently. Oh and before anyone gets any ideas, look at my username, understand that this is being posted from Ubuntu Hardy Heron and I am quite happy with my Linux experience. I just don't think its fair to pretend this is any less serious than it actually is.
I have an old box hooked up to my parent's TV that is setup with XBMC and so far I've never yet had an issue with playing MKV...you might want to give that a try, see if it plays better on your system?
Or alternately you could just pony up for an account with Megaupload or etc and download those same 'must have' shows from there via a simple google search.
Average sized "one hour" episode of TV comes in at 350mbs at a clear enough resolution on a 36inch TV that it is indistinguishable from HD for my parents and I. Given how piss-poor the quality of most channels on the local cable monopoly are this results in a serious improvement for us. Also there's the net benefit of not having to put up with nearly twenty minutes of commercials every show we watch....
As for Netflix or @ppleTV--why bother? I don't personally have much success with bittorrent (thank you ever so much for replacing the manufacturer's firmware with your undocumented crap Verizon...you have no idea the warm and fuzzy feelings this has engendered for you in my heart....no really..) but you could easily set up a Media Center box with XBMC on your favorite Operating System and connect that to your TV and get just as good of an image--if not better depending on the hardware you use. Use Miro to automatically grab your favorite TV shows and you'll not have to do much else after the initial setup work.
I occasionally help out a buddy who works at a private school as Network Administrator--one of the things strictly enforced is their network policies, and if this is not something he can disable I already know he's going to be removing Firefox and switching back to IE. He may dislike IE (as most admins who recognize its effect on system security) but he has to have it available any way for one of their mandatory programs, it'll be easier for him to simply go back to IE than fiddle with profiles and work arounds to disable the thing...
The Firefox and Mozilla people need to really start thinking about security and administrative policies if they want to see Firefox continue to have the take up its had in the last few years!
>>That's probably because, with the exception of Fox News, >>the MSM still has a sliver of integrity left somewhere and >>won't game the headline that way unless it's possible to >>prove that the records were actually shared, as opposed >>to just illegally accessed.
Bwaaaahahahahahahahahahaha!
Gah, that was a good one. If after this election anyone can claim the clearly biased in favor of Obama have any integrity at all...
The sad thing is the MSM is only beginning to realize just how badly they've screwed themselves here, and what they've done to their credibility because of it.
I watched Katie Couric on Letterman the other night shifting and smiling uncomfortably as Dave bounced all over the place congratulating her and the rest of the MSM for their work in getting Obama elected. She just kept on glaring at him with her eyes as her smiles kept getting bigger and bigger...
She knows what Dave doesn't--and that unless the MSM can quickly bury their involvement with this election the American public will remember and discount their biases come next election--something none of the MSM reporters, flacks, and punditry want, but far too many in the entertainment branches are drunk with power and won't SHUT UP about it.
I use Linux on most of my computers at this point and when my Mom comes over and wants to check her email this silly bit of FUD always gets her until I point to the screen where the link is to continue on any way...
You'd think after the whole Opera vs Oprah fiasco Microsoft would have learned better...
..because the MSM (all sides of it) are convinced their viewers and listeners are idiots and morons, so they wouldn't have done anything described by the grandfather post, because that would have been entirely too subtle for them!
I used to save fanfics for a forum I go to, and would save the pages manually before I discovered easier ways (de-FFNet-izer)... It was also around this same time period I began using noscript and I was amazed at the difference in file sizes with and without it enabled. We're talking about a difference of a hundred to three hundred kilobytes per page!
IMHO it's all the useless JavaScript that's choking the tubes these days! Not to mention the privacy and security concerns...
Slashdot Mirror
Empty-Vee?? What's that?
I only get references to something called music television when I google it; but clicking on it on the television only gets me some stupid Reality TV show or some documentary about the 80's...
--bornagainpenuin
Simple--they have tried to do so in the past; between their propensity towards suing everyone they work with and their addiction to (failing) DRM no one wants anything to do with them any more.
Sure there are reasons to dislike Apple but their stance on DRM is refreshing and has not changed significantly over time, making their iTunes Music Store less of a risk than any 'hear today, gone tomororw' outfit the RIAA can throw up overnight. Moreover their partner in rhymes (Microsoft) got greedy and did the rest of us a favor by underlining just how risky it is to buy music that 'Plays for Sure' and eliminated any other major players from moving in.
Not to say that the iTunes Music Store is the only (no DRM) mp3 store around, I know they aren't and there are certainly a couple of good ones well worth doing business with--but who has heard of them besides us geeks and Linux users?
--bornagainpenguin
Google's moves in China have shown how far they are willing to go to play ball in those markets (not that it has worked in their favor before) and this represents a dangerous new grounds for privacy concerns to fester in!
--bornagainpenguin
Not unless some way can be made to assure users no one can steal everything with a simle password change, which has been seen before in the past...
--bornagainpenguin
Some emphasis added...
Following the flow of what I actually wrote should have made it clear the 'we' refered to the 'many' of the previous sentence, and many is not a substitute for 'all'. Nice try at making my words say something that wasn't there though.
As for the thrust of your post... Just reading it makes it clear to me just how far the project has fallen from its one time goals. You speak about feeding the body before educating the mind, you talk about basic ignorance that can only be cured by education and rail on about infrastructure. What you don't seem to understand is in its original incarnation the OLPC was the infrastructure. That was what made it so revolutionary in scope!
This was an attempt to not only teach a man to fish, (to borrow from that old analogy) but also to provide a man with the tools to fish too.
Too bad petty politics and ideology turned it into another excuse to profit off the backs of the poor when if properly executed it could have lead to enrichment all the way around.
--bornagainpenguin
This is significantly more than a simple reboot. The goals of 'OLPC' are entirely different than the plans of this new 'OLPC 2.0' as far as I'm concerned and I imagine it is this way for many others as well. We watched and applauded as OLPC began only to watch in dismay and tears as they project allowed itself to be taken over from within.
There are all kinds of points that could be made here, but I'll let the others bring those up. For me the complete 180 they've done has made me write them off completely as a useless relic of what happens when you completely lose sight of your goal to the point you start to believe the ends justify the means. RIP OLPC.
--bornagainpenguin
I have a Virgin Mobile that I've been using now for nearly a year and I still get calls from all sorts of telemarketers who refuse to stop calling me, claiming I owe money or that my car warranty is about to expire. I recently made a report on one of these companies whose robo calls filled up my voice mail, only to recieve a letter back saying the report was 'unfounded' and wishing me a nice day. So while I'm happy to see there has been some action taken here against some of these companies I wish they'd be more consistent in enforcement.
The other thing that bothers me is the increasing frequency of these types of calls coming over VOIP and their increasing similarity to spam. My fear is that unless we get consistent in enforcement we're going to end up with today's situation with email repeated on cellphones, just as it was on faxes and landlines.
--happy one
>>Seriously, why do people think the system is deficient
>>just because problems are not solved instantly?
Because it's insane having to go through this every other year or so!
What else do you call it when the Legislative and Executive branches see their attempts to pass feel-good laws consistently rejected as unconstitutional by the Judicial branch, yet nevertheless continue to approve the same unconstitutional boondoggles? Oh and lets not forget the cost to both federal and state budgets needed to resolve a question already answered the **LAST** few times it came up?
If there seems to be any impatience on the part of your fellow Slashdotters, consider maybe it is due to our exasperation at seeing the idiots in government insist they can make 2+2=5 if they just keep working at it long enough....
--bornagainpenguin
Martin Ankerl has a potential solution for you then, he made a HOWTO and has released a compact version of Human and Clearlooks which really make a difference! I even use them when I'm on my desktop these days to cut down on screen bloat. Find the HOWTO and linsk to the themes here: http://martin.ankerl.com/2008/10/10/how-to-make-a-compact-gnome-theme/
--bornagainpenguin
What if the user has an ASUS EeePC, or other netbook like device with SSD hard disk or even a regular platter based hard disk in a incredibly difficult to reach location? This could still prove to be a laptop killer for many users and it is incredibly dishonest to pretend any differently. Oh and before anyone gets any ideas, look at my username, understand that this is being posted from Ubuntu Hardy Heron and I am quite happy with my Linux experience. I just don't think its fair to pretend this is any less serious than it actually is.
--bornagainpenguin
We all need to remember our roots! ;-)
I have an old box hooked up to my parent's TV that is setup with XBMC and so far I've never yet had an issue with playing MKV...you might want to give that a try, see if it plays better on your system?
--bornagainpenguin
JUST DO IT! You know how many of us are thinking it...
--bornagainpenguin
Or alternately you could just pony up for an account with Megaupload or etc and download those same 'must have' shows from there via a simple google search.
Average sized "one hour" episode of TV comes in at 350mbs at a clear enough resolution on a 36inch TV that it is indistinguishable from HD for my parents and I. Given how piss-poor the quality of most channels on the local cable monopoly are this results in a serious improvement for us. Also there's the net benefit of not having to put up with nearly twenty minutes of commercials every show we watch....
As for Netflix or @ppleTV--why bother? I don't personally have much success with bittorrent (thank you ever so much for replacing the manufacturer's firmware with your undocumented crap Verizon...you have no idea the warm and fuzzy feelings this has engendered for you in my heart....no really..) but you could easily set up a Media Center box with XBMC on your favorite Operating System and connect that to your TV and get just as good of an image--if not better depending on the hardware you use. Use Miro to automatically grab your favorite TV shows and you'll not have to do much else after the initial setup work.
--bornagainpenguin
..when I saw your sig, somehow all the reassurance in the world just comes unstuck for some strange reason.... :/
--bornagainpenguin
I occasionally help out a buddy who works at a private school as Network Administrator--one of the things strictly enforced is their network policies, and if this is not something he can disable I already know he's going to be removing Firefox and switching back to IE. He may dislike IE (as most admins who recognize its effect on system security) but he has to have it available any way for one of their mandatory programs, it'll be easier for him to simply go back to IE than fiddle with profiles and work arounds to disable the thing...
The Firefox and Mozilla people need to really start thinking about security and administrative policies if they want to see Firefox continue to have the take up its had in the last few years!
--bornagainpenguin
--bornagainpenguin
>>That's probably because, with the exception of Fox News,
>>the MSM still has a sliver of integrity left somewhere and
>>won't game the headline that way unless it's possible to
>>prove that the records were actually shared, as opposed
>>to just illegally accessed.
Bwaaaahahahahahahahahahaha!
Gah, that was a good one. If after this election anyone can claim the clearly biased in favor of Obama have any integrity at all...
The sad thing is the MSM is only beginning to realize just how badly they've screwed themselves here, and what they've done to their credibility because of it.
I watched Katie Couric on Letterman the other night shifting and smiling uncomfortably as Dave bounced all over the place congratulating her and the rest of the MSM for their work in getting Obama elected. She just kept on glaring at him with her eyes as her smiles kept getting bigger and bigger...
She knows what Dave doesn't--and that unless the MSM can quickly bury their involvement with this election the American public will remember and discount their biases come next election--something none of the MSM reporters, flacks, and punditry want, but far too many in the entertainment branches are drunk with power and won't SHUT UP about it.
--bornagainpenguin
I use Linux on most of my computers at this point and when my Mom comes over and wants to check her email this silly bit of FUD always gets her until I point to the screen where the link is to continue on any way...
You'd think after the whole Opera vs Oprah fiasco Microsoft would have learned better...
More information on these previous games here:
http://slashdot.org/articles/03/02/06/1645229.shtml?tid=109
http://people.opera.com/howcome/2003/2/msn/
Why anyone would trust any thing Microsoft does after repeatedly pulling this crap in their corporate history is beyond me!
--bornagainpenguin
Even Sony and Sharp have shipped products with Chunghwa panels inside, simply because they're cheaper.
Somehow in the light of the article this statement is just troubling on so many levels....
--bornagainpenguin
..because the MSM (all sides of it) are convinced their viewers and listeners are idiots and morons, so they wouldn't have done anything described by the grandfather post, because that would have been entirely too subtle for them!
--bornagainpenguin
The Aristocrats!
I used to save fanfics for a forum I go to, and would save the pages manually before I discovered easier ways (de-FFNet-izer)... It was also around this same time period I began using noscript and I was amazed at the difference in file sizes with and without it enabled. We're talking about a difference of a hundred to three hundred kilobytes per page!
IMHO it's all the useless JavaScript that's choking the tubes these days! Not to mention the privacy and security concerns...
--bornagainpenguin
Call me crazy but adblock is the killer app for Firefox these days as far as I'm concerned anyway...
--bornagainpenguin (not the OP but thought I'd chime in any way
...and report back to us!
--bornagainpenguin