I was just watching CNBC and according to the moron doing the reporting "Linux...the popular computer program that many programmers are happy with" is down 30% in trading today due to job cuts and organizational changes.
Does anyone know where I can dump all these shares of Linux I have clogging my portfolio?
Yeah, and I think I saw a Mountain Dew commercial last week with a bunch of scruffy guys hacking Perl and pouring Mountain Dew down their throats. Oh, wait, that's how everyone programs anyway. Never mind.
That's all well and good and I'll probably do that but there are many 'music' topics that I would like to see; SDMI, mp3 in general, to name a couple. There are ePlus, TurboLinux and GNUStep topic areas, and Napster stories probably outnumber all three of those areas together. I for one was very thankful when Anime was finally given its own topic section so I could hide all those stories. It might be too late for a Napster topic though, but I have a feeling there'll be another deluge of stories in the next month or so.
but of course economics is as close to witchcraft as you'll find in the social sciences. You're pretty much right on, though.
Right now people get Windows at a fairly reasonable price, or at least that's the perception and it's usually hidden in the cost of the computer they picked up at Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. Eventually people will start to notice if when the computer they saw for $1700 two months ago is now $2500. The big question is, will they ask why? If they do, the big retailers are more likely to offer PC's with alternative OS's, especially if their tech dept. can add $100 to install the OS of the customer's choice and maybe even add on extra in classes teaching people how to use their new OS. That's where the money will come from to replace the missing $300 billion or whatever it was. And there's always the possibility that Apple will finally get the hint and drop their hardware prices a bit to induce more people to buy Macs. And what about the people who have considered putting out an OS but didn't because there was no way they could break into the market? This would be a golden opportunity for them, as well.
I would be ashamed to write such an article under the auspices of academia, especially at a school like Texas which has a good tradition of economic though going back to John R. Commons. Coincidentally, Common's big theory was that ultimately, the courts are the main determination in how the economy acts, no matter what the market "wants" to do.
I kind of agree with you. K5 had a lot of good stories and I checked there a couple times a day but every once in a while there'd be some rant from some punk kid whining about how his high school teachers are so mean or some other such piddling tripe, and it would get posted as a story. There's one argument against the kind of moderation they had.
The real reason Emmanuel registered that name was because Verizon had already gone out and registered verizonsucks.com and such gems as verizon-shits.com,.net, and.org. In the last issue of 2600 they list all 706 domains registered by verizon and it makes pretty good reading. Here's my favorite: wwwverizonsuperpages.org. Whatever that is.
Come on, now...renaming songs is one of the most entertaining parts of the Napster experience. Everytime someone with a modem downloads Britney Spears from me at 1.5 Kbps and then winds up with "14 Jazz Funk Greats" by Throbbing Gristle, I get a warm feeling inside.
And regarding connection speeds - I gotta wonder about those "cable" connections sometimes. I hope those poor suckas ain't payin' $50/month for their 2.5 Kbps connection. Also, let me know when someone shows up with the "or better" part of T3 or better.
Naw, you'd think that wouldn't you but my grandmother's still waiting for cross-stitch pattern sharing software to appear on freshmeat and pattern "sharing" came to light a couple months ago. Course, cross-stitch is pretty complicated and most likely requires a buncha new widgets.
Oh, and tomorrow watch for the Slashdot Interview with Nina Blackwood and Jon Katz's heartfelt article on the struggles of the geeky Triple J on the set of MTV.
I think I might just be biased against Absolut because I was expecting it to be better when I tried it. I was probably just duped by their ad campaign and their fancy frosted bottle (I think they were the first to do something like that with their bottle). The last time I had some, though, I still didn't like it.
Down here in the states Absolut is around $20 while Smirnoff is $13-14. Of course, Smirnoff is made here so there aren't tariffs to deal with. I know Canada tries to control liquor sales quite a bit more through their state licensed stores. It took me awhile to get used to looking for the standard grain and grapes signs the first time I was up there. I usually try to bring as much liquor as I can get away with when I go up there. Long live the duty-free shops!
It's weird that Absolut is so cheap relative to Smirnoff because taking the exchange rate into account $20 CDN is right in line with what it costs here. I think the last time I saw Ketel One it was right around $15 at the right store.
The Smirnoff Citrus Twist isn't too bad, better than Absolut anyway. It's more of a martini vodka, though, rather than something you'd enjoy straight out of a vodka glass.
Finally, a Slashdot topic I can get into. You're right, Smirnoff is pretty crappy, but it's still a step above junk like Skyy or Absolut, and way cheaper.
You're from France, huh? Have you ever tried Grey Goose? The bottle says it comes from France and has become my new favorite when I drink martinis. My head still hurts from the five Grey Goose martinis I drank last night. It's too easy to drink, I think.
Have you witnessed the explosion of vodkas from places you wouldn't expect in France? I was about my favorite bar a week ago and decided to start sampling some of the other vodkas.
Mezzaluna, from Italy - Not bad but doesn't do anything to distinguish itself from the other high-end vodkas.
Voxx, from England - The most expensive vodka I've seen yet. It says it's filtered four times. It seemed a little TOO flavorless for my taste.
I also ran across one from Austria but I can't remember what it was called. It was more of a traditional Polish-style potato vodka. Not bad.
My all time favorite is still good old Stoli, though.
Funny. The first link I got was Linux Today so I too tried www.microsoft.com, going with their McDonald's/PETA dichotomy in their example. I got the same error. So I tried slashdot, same thing. It looks like they have a few bugs to iron out.
Just a little nitpicking here but I like my punk history to be reported correctly. Johnny Rotten was not the lead singer for the Sex Pistols. That would be Sid Vicious. Johny Rotten did sing for Public Image and Public Image, Ltd. Check out their first couple records sometime if you get the chance.
Well, we don't have cable internet access in Lincoln, NE, although we will since we have AOL cable service now, but from what I understand, although the theoretical bitrates on cable are higher, they rarely play out that way because there are usually multiple cable users on the same router. If the cable company advertises 1.2 Mbps but there are 30 on your router, you share that bandwidth with everyone else. I've even seen stories about all the people on your block becoming part of your Network Neighborhood if you use WinDos. Just get on the Napster sometime and try downloading from someone with a cable modem during peak hours. It's brutal, but wait until 2 a.m. and you get 30-40 Kbps easy.
I have a 384 Kbps ADSL connection and I usually get close to that although there are a few ftp servers out there that push the data out so fast that I can easily exceed 700. It seems that the 384 limit that the telco sets is kind of soft since they also have 768 Kbps and 1.5 Mbps tiers. Hopefully those faster connections will be cheaper once AOL rolls out the cable access. Oh, and another advantage of DSL (at least with my ISP) is that you can get a static IP and run a webserver out of your house. From what I understand, the few cable ISP's that exist don't allow that.
This is reminiscient of something the RIAA tried to pull about 8 years ago. I used to work in an independent music store and suddenly we got the word from all the big music distributors (Sony, BMG, Uni, Polygram, etc) that they would be pulling ad support for stores that continued to sell used CD's. Their reasoning was bizarre to say the least, claiming that we couldn't resell a CD we bought from a customer because the artist wasn't receiving any royalties. They even lined up Garth Brooks as the industry mouthpiece to say he didn't like it that music stores were profiting from something he created, never mind that he'd already received royalties on that CD once.
Anyone who has ever worked at a music store knows that the profit margins are pretty slim. New product from a company like Sony cost about $9 per and to compete with places like Best Buy we had to resell it around $12. A used CD on the other hand we could buy for around $3.50 and sell for $8.50. Needless to say, we definitely emphasized the used CD part of our business. Eventually NARM (National Association of Music Retailers) got their collective sh*t together and protested and the RIAA eventually dropped it. And poor Garth continued to sell 5 million units every year.
This case will be a little different because NARM will believe they stand to lose as much as the RIAA if mp3's are still distributed. It just sounds like Paul is the designated industry voice in this case, most likely because it will appeal to the people in their 40's and 50's who have more control over what's going on, at least in the legal area.
The whole controversy over mp3's is a smokescreen anyway, just the RIAA wanting control over how music is distributed. The bulk of what you'll find on the Napster is top 40 radio crud that will still sell no matter what. Sure kids'll download a few Britney Spears singles but she isn't going to be missing any of the money. The bands who are really hurting for money, the ones that barely get by anyway, won't miss it either. Bands like that tour and sell T-Shirts. Plus, I've searched the Napster numerous times for bands like Fugazi and I might run across one or two tracks at the most despite the fact that they've sold tens of millions of CD's over the past 15 years. People who like the independent/local bands will continue to buy their product because they want to support them. When the used CD thing happened, I asked a member of a band that was on a major label what he thought and he said to go ahead and buy the used CD because he'll never see any of the money anyway.
Less popular bands are essentially indentured servants to whatever label they are on anyway. The record company might give you a million dollar contract (over 4 or 5 albums, no less) but then they'll want you to make a video and go on tour and guess what, they charge you for that and takeit out of your royalties. Then when it comes time to record your next album, they'll make you pay for the studio time out of your contract as well.
Face it, the RIAA doesn't give a crap about the artist unless the arist is a "radio-friendly unit-shifter" (thanks for the term, Nirvana). They just want to control how the music is distributed.
Hey, thanks for the links. Those three sites demonstrate three different ways to do something interesting with electronic fiction. Grammatron was especially nice because it did something unique along with the story, kind of like snarg.net with a direction.
I'm glad you brought this issue up because I'm afraid it might get lost in a forum like this. I just got done rereading "Floating Opera" for the first time in a few years and I was just thinking about some of the authors you mentioned.
The fact is, there's probably lots of interesting fiction out there on the web but because major publishers won't touch it not alot of people know about it. I've checked out a few of the on-line writers' workshops and it seems like many of those are devoted to sci-fi/fantasy, much to my disappointment. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with sci-fi. Ballard still blows me away and Steve Aylett is someone I've recently discovered who is just as unique.
Maybe a couple decades down the road we'll start learning about the real innovators in interactive fiction. That's usually the time-lapse with any original writing. Of course, with the web, that lapse may very well be shorter.
Well, Jon, again you seem to have written a really long article but I'm not sure what your point is. The fact that Stephen King's "e-book" was downloaded by thousands of people isn't really significant to the publishing industry at all. What it means is that all the King fans out there will go slavering after anything he writes, even if it is a piece of crap he tossed of in about 4 hours.
When the publishing industry starts to make everything available for download, then I'll start to pay attention. Most of the cost of a book is invested in printing and binding (much of which is done overseas). If I could go download the new Steve Aylett novel for $3, I damn sure would. Part of the reason I don't buy many new books is because of the cost, especially when a really good used bookstore will have what you need. Plus, there's always the local public library and if you're not clamoring for the new Sue Grafton novel , there's a pretty good chance you'll get what you want.
Also I really like the feel of holding a book and taking it wherever I go and I still subscribe to the newspaper even though I can read it all on-line just because of the immediacy of it. There's nothing like pulling the red rubber band off the morning edition and having the news right in front of you. Plus, e-books arent' really that portable. Sure you can throw it on your PDA and take it with you but until there's a waterproof one I can use in the bathtub, I'll stick to the book.
Really, have you ever gone to a place like netLibrary or Gutenberg and tried to read a whole book on-line. It's maddening. Reading Ulysses in book form is hard enough, try reading it on your monitor. On-line publishing may be good for the short form though. Something you can read in one sitting and there lies the one advantage to on-line books. I once spent an entire day at work reading "In the Beginning was the Command Line" and "The Hacker Crackdown" and nobody around me caught on. I just looked like I was doing what I always do, sitting in front of my computer going through the daily grind.
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously, the need to buy action figures mirrors the need of the medieval lay person to buy icons and indulgences from their local priest.
I was just watching CNBC and according to the moron doing the reporting "Linux...the popular computer program that many programmers are happy with" is down 30% in trading today due to job cuts and organizational changes.
Does anyone know where I can dump all these shares of Linux I have clogging my portfolio?
Yeah, and I think I saw a Mountain Dew commercial last week with a bunch of scruffy guys hacking Perl and pouring Mountain Dew down their throats. Oh, wait, that's how everyone programs anyway. Never mind.
Ha. I just clicked over here to read this thread and thought it was funny that the banner at the top of the page was for Altavista Search Engine 3.0.
That's all. Thank you.
How ironic.
That's all well and good and I'll probably do that but there are many 'music' topics that I would like to see; SDMI, mp3 in general, to name a couple. There are ePlus, TurboLinux and GNUStep topic areas, and Napster stories probably outnumber all three of those areas together. I for one was very thankful when Anime was finally given its own topic section so I could hide all those stories. It might be too late for a Napster topic though, but I have a feeling there'll be another deluge of stories in the next month or so.
Is there any way we could get a Napster section so we could exclude these stories?
but of course economics is as close to witchcraft as you'll find in the social sciences. You're pretty much right on, though.
Right now people get Windows at a fairly reasonable price, or at least that's the perception and it's usually hidden in the cost of the computer they picked up at Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. Eventually people will start to notice if when the computer they saw for $1700 two months ago is now $2500. The big question is, will they ask why? If they do, the big retailers are more likely to offer PC's with alternative OS's, especially if their tech dept. can add $100 to install the OS of the customer's choice and maybe even add on extra in classes teaching people how to use their new OS. That's where the money will come from to replace the missing $300 billion or whatever it was. And there's always the possibility that Apple will finally get the hint and drop their hardware prices a bit to induce more people to buy Macs. And what about the people who have considered putting out an OS but didn't because there was no way they could break into the market? This would be a golden opportunity for them, as well.
I would be ashamed to write such an article under the auspices of academia, especially at a school like Texas which has a good tradition of economic though going back to John R. Commons. Coincidentally, Common's big theory was that ultimately, the courts are the main determination in how the economy acts, no matter what the market "wants" to do.
I kind of agree with you. K5 had a lot of good stories and I checked there a couple times a day but every once in a while there'd be some rant from some punk kid whining about how his high school teachers are so mean or some other such piddling tripe, and it would get posted as a story. There's one argument against the kind of moderation they had.
The real reason Emmanuel registered that name was because Verizon had already gone out and registered verizonsucks.com and such gems as verizon-shits.com,.net, and .org. In the last issue of 2600 they list all 706 domains registered by verizon and it makes pretty good reading. Here's my favorite: wwwverizonsuperpages.org. Whatever that is.
Come on, now...renaming songs is one of the most entertaining parts of the Napster experience. Everytime someone with a modem downloads Britney Spears from me at 1.5 Kbps and then winds up with "14 Jazz Funk Greats" by Throbbing Gristle, I get a warm feeling inside.
And regarding connection speeds - I gotta wonder about those "cable" connections sometimes. I hope those poor suckas ain't payin' $50/month for their 2.5 Kbps connection. Also, let me know when someone shows up with the "or better" part of T3 or better.
Naw, you'd think that wouldn't you but my grandmother's still waiting for cross-stitch pattern sharing software to appear on freshmeat and pattern "sharing" came to light a couple months ago. Course, cross-stitch is pretty complicated and most likely requires a buncha new widgets.
Oh, and tomorrow watch for the Slashdot Interview with Nina Blackwood and Jon Katz's heartfelt article on the struggles of the geeky Triple J on the set of MTV.
Peter, you have been trolled. Good job, shizat. And he replied to it so straight-faced. Tee and/or hee.
Ha Ha! You stole my thunder, you dog. I just watched the Princess Bride last night and I was all set to...aw hell.
My name is Inigo Montoya
You beat me to the joke.
Prepare to die.
Or maybe I should just say:
Stop saying that!!
It was on www.kuro5hin.org a couple of weeks ago.
I think I might just be biased against Absolut because I was expecting it to be better when I tried it. I was probably just duped by their ad campaign and their fancy frosted bottle (I think they were the first to do something like that with their bottle). The last time I had some, though, I still didn't like it.
Down here in the states Absolut is around $20 while Smirnoff is $13-14. Of course, Smirnoff is made here so there aren't tariffs to deal with.
I know Canada tries to control liquor sales quite a bit more through their state licensed stores. It took me awhile to get used to looking for the standard grain and grapes signs the first time I was up there. I usually try to bring as much liquor as I can get away with when I go up there. Long live the duty-free shops!
It's weird that Absolut is so cheap relative to Smirnoff because taking the exchange rate into account $20 CDN is right in line with what it costs here. I think the last time I saw Ketel One it was right around $15 at the right store.
The Smirnoff Citrus Twist isn't too bad, better than Absolut anyway. It's more of a martini vodka, though, rather than something you'd enjoy straight out of a vodka glass.
Finally, a Slashdot topic I can get into. You're right, Smirnoff is pretty crappy, but it's still a step above junk like Skyy or Absolut, and way cheaper.
You're from France, huh? Have you ever tried Grey Goose? The bottle says it comes from France and has become my new favorite when I drink martinis. My head still hurts from the five Grey Goose martinis I drank last night. It's too easy to drink, I think.
Have you witnessed the explosion of vodkas from places you wouldn't expect in France? I was about my favorite bar a week ago and decided to start sampling some of the other vodkas.
Mezzaluna, from Italy - Not bad but doesn't do anything to distinguish itself from the other high-end vodkas.
Voxx, from England - The most expensive vodka I've seen yet. It says it's filtered four times. It seemed a little TOO flavorless for my taste.
I also ran across one from Austria but I can't remember what it was called. It was more of a traditional Polish-style potato vodka. Not bad.
My all time favorite is still good old Stoli, though.
Funny. The first link I got was Linux Today so I too tried www.microsoft.com, going with their McDonald's/PETA dichotomy in their example. I got the same error. So I tried slashdot, same thing. It looks like they have a few bugs to iron out.
Ah, crap. I don't know what I was thinking. Sid Vicious played bass. Shoot me or something.
Just a little nitpicking here but I like my punk history to be reported correctly. Johnny Rotten was not the lead singer for the Sex Pistols. That would be Sid Vicious. Johny Rotten did sing for Public Image and Public Image, Ltd. Check out their first couple records sometime if you get the chance.
Well, we don't have cable internet access in Lincoln, NE, although we will since we have AOL cable service now, but from what I understand, although the theoretical bitrates on cable are higher, they rarely play out that way because there are usually multiple cable users on the same router. If the cable company advertises 1.2 Mbps but there are 30 on your router, you share that bandwidth with everyone else. I've even seen stories about all the people on your block becoming part of your Network Neighborhood if you use WinDos. Just get on the Napster sometime and try downloading from someone with a cable modem during peak hours. It's brutal, but wait until 2 a.m. and you get 30-40 Kbps easy.
I have a 384 Kbps ADSL connection and I usually get close to that although there are a few ftp servers out there that push the data out so fast that I can easily exceed 700. It seems that the 384 limit that the telco sets is kind of soft since they also have 768 Kbps and 1.5 Mbps tiers. Hopefully those faster connections will be cheaper once AOL rolls out the cable access. Oh, and another advantage of DSL (at least with my ISP) is that you can get a static IP and run a webserver out of your house. From what I understand, the few cable ISP's that exist don't allow that.
This is reminiscient of something the RIAA tried to pull about 8 years ago. I used to work in an independent music store and suddenly we got the word from all the big music distributors (Sony, BMG, Uni, Polygram, etc) that they would be pulling ad support for stores that continued to sell used CD's. Their reasoning was bizarre to say the least, claiming that we couldn't resell a CD we bought from a customer because the artist wasn't receiving any royalties. They even lined up Garth Brooks as the industry mouthpiece to say he didn't like it that music stores were profiting from something he created, never mind that he'd already received royalties on that CD once.
Anyone who has ever worked at a music store knows that the profit margins are pretty slim. New product from a company like Sony cost about $9 per and to compete with places like Best Buy we had to resell it around $12. A used CD on the other hand we could buy for around $3.50 and sell for $8.50. Needless to say, we definitely emphasized the used CD part of our business. Eventually NARM (National Association of Music Retailers) got their collective sh*t together and protested and the RIAA eventually dropped it. And poor Garth continued to sell 5 million units every year.
This case will be a little different because NARM will believe they stand to lose as much as the RIAA if mp3's are still distributed. It just sounds like Paul is the designated industry voice in this case, most likely because it will appeal to the people in their 40's and 50's who have more control over what's going on, at least in the legal area.
The whole controversy over mp3's is a smokescreen anyway, just the RIAA wanting control over how music is distributed. The bulk of what you'll find on the Napster is top 40 radio crud that will still sell no matter what. Sure kids'll download a few Britney Spears singles but she isn't going to be missing any of the money. The bands who are really hurting for money, the ones that barely get by anyway, won't miss it either. Bands like that tour and sell T-Shirts. Plus, I've searched the Napster numerous times for bands like Fugazi and I might run across one or two tracks at the most despite the fact that they've sold tens of millions of CD's over the past 15 years. People who like the independent/local bands will continue to buy their product because they want to support them. When the used CD thing happened, I asked a member of a band that was on a major label what he thought and he said to go ahead and buy the used CD because he'll never see any of the money anyway.
Less popular bands are essentially indentured servants to whatever label they are on anyway. The record company might give you a million dollar contract (over 4 or 5 albums, no less) but then they'll want you to make a video and go on tour and guess what, they charge you for that and takeit out of your royalties. Then when it comes time to record your next album, they'll make you pay for the studio time out of your contract as well.
Face it, the RIAA doesn't give a crap about the artist unless the arist is a "radio-friendly unit-shifter" (thanks for the term, Nirvana). They just want to control how the music is distributed.
Hey, thanks for the links. Those three sites demonstrate three different ways to do something interesting with electronic fiction. Grammatron was especially nice because it did something unique along with the story, kind of like snarg.net with a direction.
I'm glad you brought this issue up because I'm afraid it might get lost in a forum like this. I just got done rereading "Floating Opera" for the first time in a few years and I was just thinking about some of the authors you mentioned.
The fact is, there's probably lots of interesting fiction out there on the web but because major publishers won't touch it not alot of people know about it. I've checked out a few of the on-line writers' workshops and it seems like many of those are devoted to sci-fi/fantasy, much to my disappointment. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with sci-fi. Ballard still blows me away and Steve Aylett is someone I've recently discovered who is just as unique.
Maybe a couple decades down the road we'll start learning about the real innovators in interactive fiction. That's usually the time-lapse with any original writing. Of course, with the web, that lapse may very well be shorter.
Well, Jon, again you seem to have written a really long article but I'm not sure what your point is. The fact that Stephen King's "e-book" was downloaded by thousands of people isn't really significant to the publishing industry at all. What it means is that all the King fans out there will go slavering after anything he writes, even if it is a piece of crap he tossed of in about 4 hours.
When the publishing industry starts to make everything available for download, then I'll start to pay attention. Most of the cost of a book is invested in printing and binding (much of which is done overseas). If I could go download the new Steve Aylett novel for $3, I damn sure would. Part of the reason I don't buy many new books is because of the cost, especially when a really good used bookstore will have what you need. Plus, there's always the local public library and if you're not clamoring for the new Sue Grafton novel , there's a pretty good chance you'll get what you want.
Also I really like the feel of holding a book and taking it wherever I go and I still subscribe to the newspaper even though I can read it all on-line just because of the immediacy of it. There's nothing like pulling the red rubber band off the morning edition and having the news right in front of you. Plus, e-books arent' really that portable. Sure you can throw it on your PDA and take it with you but until there's a waterproof one I can use in the bathtub, I'll stick to the book.
Really, have you ever gone to a place like netLibrary or Gutenberg and tried to read a whole book on-line. It's maddening. Reading Ulysses in book form is hard enough, try reading it on your monitor. On-line publishing may be good for the short form though. Something you can read in one sitting and there lies the one advantage to on-line books. I once spent an entire day at work reading "In the Beginning was the Command Line" and "The Hacker Crackdown" and nobody around me caught on. I just looked like I was doing what I always do, sitting in front of my computer going through the daily grind.