honest trust relationship with your kids. I assume you were using the Internet with them prior to now right?
If so, you should have already talked about what the Internet is and isnt. If this foundation is weak, work to strengthen it in their space for a bit before fully letting go.
Above all:
They need to know they can come to you with *anything* they might find on the net. Either you are going to let them use the net, or not....
(rare/. rambles about kids mode on...)
My own kids are starting this period as well. We have discussed the Net and what one can find. Basically, I did not hold anything back during the education stage. I worked my best to teach them how I use the net. (this means both good and bad things) They might as well know what spyware is, why giving bogus names in web forms is ok, how to recognize and consider the nature and source of information they find, along with any number of other things I know as an experienced net user.
In the beginning, I put one machine in the living room, shared and in the open. At first, I set the machine up with a password logon for internet, and another unprotected one for general computer use. As we gained trust, I enabled the Internet full time for them one at a time as they reached a point where I felt I could communicate with them and they could handle what they see.
This worked well in that they quickly get used to using the net with others around. It gets social and loses its mysterious aura quickly.
I learned a lot during the first couple years. They understood from the beginning that you are who you say you are on the Internet. We played with chatting and the web and e-mail games and other things.
Chat is one area I do keep a close watch on with the younger kids. Basically, they cannot do it alone. My oldest can watch them, or I will. It is interesting to watch them role play in chat areas. This was something I did not have much of a chance to do as a kid. Since I do not use the Internet for this much, save the occasional IRC, doing it with them made the most sense.
The oldest one can use the net after hours and in her room now if she wants to.
It is easiest to compare this experience to teaching them how to drive. Not everybody follows the rules and there are bad things just past the driveway. Same for the net. You simply must tell them how it is in order to have any real chance at doing some good.
I did do one thing however that helped at an earlier stage. I told them the computer would remember what was done and that I would get the information if I needed to. The reality is close to that anyway, and the minor ways this small manupulation differs from the truth, (unless one decides to log everything) does not matter in the long run. I regretted it initially, but later realized that idea set the stage for honesty early on in a way that would have been harder otherwise. The one time I did go digging I regretted. What I found was benign, but I realized I could not broach the subject without letting my kid know I did not trust them enough to ask. Big mistake.
So, my kids understand I am good at computers and the net. They also know I am not going to be big brother if they are honest with me. They also know they can count on my help in the future if they need it. They also understand, for many folks, the net is new.
My decision to bring it into the family is a gift to them many of their friends do not have. The older ones are now beginning to see the differences between their net use and general knowledge and that of many of their friends.
So far, things have gone well. They tell me things --enough things that I can be sure things are going ok, though I do wish the net was a nicer place overall for kids. The spyware scum really know how to work the younger folks. "I'll trade you this simple game, if you just click yes..." (The main room computer runs win2k. Other computers run Linux or IRIX --t
I thought the same way at first. The geek in me knows the both sets of content will fit nicely; however, having kids puts a different spin on the matter.
One copy of media gets destroyed and you have...
Nothing!
I am not sure the extra DVD really costs them that much, and I sure don't mind storing it.
Disney needs to learn a few lessons from Pixar regarding respect for their viewers.
Disney DVD:
Too damn many previews, lame plots, good characters, One disk for movie, other disk for special features, lots of stickers on the side to peel off.
Pixar DVD:
Almost the opposite. You get two discs containing the movie, one wide and one full pan & scan. So, one for the kids to thrash and one to keep for later, or give to a friend. No forced previews, and one security sticker.
Frankly, the Pixar packaging and presentation value is easily 2X that of Disney and that does not even count the movie. Which has been more lame than usual these days.
Pixar is making new stories instead of pillaging the public domain as Disney tends to do often. Sure, there are new stories from Disney, but they have not been as good as those produced by Pixar.
Given all the crap Disney does behind the scenes regarding copyright issues plus their overly pushy presentation and packaging issues, I believe many people are more than willing to look at other options.
Disney can retool their production house all they want, but they are going to lose big in the DVD market as long as they keep releasing the way they do.
I can't wait to see Pixar go once they can do what they want.
Tempest 2000 & Alien -vs- Predator. (Wish sombody would port that version to a faster machine. Great FPS game. Scary too.)
Everything else was crap (sigh).
Oh well, it did say "Atari" on it, so it goes into the collection...
Since I am gonna ramble... Why buy this anyway? I want a console that can be hacked a bit. Maybe not as easy as the Dreamcast (only because that killed it), but easy enough that I can make creative use of it later after the company that made it no longer cares.
Personally, I like it. That is why I have read./ from the very beginning. Anti MS is a good healthy thing that brings complete warmth to my soul.
Open Source is good, GPL is good, Linux is great, and computing is fun again! Stories of hacks, people doing interesting things with their own machines, super computers, embedded software, games, programming, scripting and many other cool things are really where Linux and Open Source / Free Software is at.
When people have the freedom to create, lo and behold, they do! The last couple of years have seen a level of creation simply unmatched by the Beast and I love it!
Why? Because I understand how to make use of all that Open Source / Free software Linuxy stuff. Was it easy? No. Am I done? No. Is it worth i? Hell yes!
Every last one of these stories remindes me why I do what I do and why I work hard at being able to continue to do it. Learning about Windows is like learning how to do what you are told exactly. Learning about Open Source is all about learning to do exactly what you want!
Once one realizes this, the stories all become good entertainment. (Which they are.)
I would rather pay sombody I have never met a bit to continue working on free software than pay one more red cent to Microsoft.
Am I crazy? Maybe, but let me tell you this:
Where I work, it is all Microsoft. Rah Rah lead the charge. Nothing else makes any sense. Why? Because everybody is running it, the big company execs are running it, the sales drones are running it and so are the technical field support people. I have to run it pretty often. (gotta hate that)
BTW, that is a big part of the problem. Hard to sell something you are not able to show or use right? Linux? sure we might support that if enough people ask. Would you run it? interesting, now let me show you the latest version on windows which I have here with me...
Once you latch onto the nipple of Windows, you are well on your way to sucking the tit for life! Nothing seems as good or easy or modern anymore. All you have to do is spin the update CD's once a year and things get better, or at least different in a way that somehow seems worth it.
Ahh, the path of least resistance. Shoddy products become the subject of office jokes, product problems are easy to dismiss as "computer problems". Hell, mistakes are easy to catagorize as computer problems. Why not, everyone else does it!
The support people really can only do a few things, so their job is easy too. Blame it on Bill, but lets make sure he gets paid so we can get that next update toward computing nirvana done quick.
The truth really hurts, but once you get over it, it's not so bad really.
Truth is simple. Hard things are hard, no matter what interface you put on them. One can either just bend over and "trust Bill and friends" to "help" you get things done, or one can take a few steps toward actually knowing how to get things done a little more directly.
Microsoft and friends send out an awful lot of information. The truth is mixed in nicely with th usual FUD bullshit and smooth security lies topped with a sprinkle of executive authority that somehow lends just enough creedence to the thing so people end up nicely confused.
All of this noise is really important because it keeps the conversation directed toward Microsoft. They have something to say about most anything most of the time. You would think they are the authority on computing if you did not know better right? Trust them, it's on the roadmap, just get ready for it.
With most of the people in the company that matter all looking north for their "what's new and cool in computing news" that next update gets pretty important. Without it, they are stuck running the same old boring stuff they were yesterday.
Wash, rinse --repeat...
Then we have/. and other sites like it. They showcase
atm machines seem to have a pretty secure method of operation. There are some flaws involving the PIN and such, but overall the ATM, made by Diebold I might add, seems to be a pretty solid device.
When money is involved, things get worked out pretty well. Votes? Not a worry, we can buy those with enough money right?
Recently, there has been a rise in the number of stories in the press surrounding the topic of electronic voting. I live in Oregon where we have chosen to vote by mail. At first, I wondered exactly why my State chose this route because electronic voting seemed to be attractive for a number of reasons.
After reading the various news stories and web postings present on various Internet web sites and forums, I have come to the realization electronic voting in its current incarnation is a highly suspect process.
The majority of voting machine manufacturers today wrap the inner workings of their machines inside contracts and licenses designed to cloak their products in secrecy. These cloaks when combined with the current state of intellectual property law make it difficult for the American people to understand and discuss the nature of the machines and their potential effect on the democratic process.
The American people need to engage this issue with all the facts at hand. The spirit of the law is not in line with the letter of the law in this case. The action of your students is commedable and worthy of your support.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." --Stalin
The right to vote is one of the founding principles behind our great nation. Changes to this process will have nationwide consequences on our society that we might not understand, but for the actions of a few people concerned about preserving the trust inherent to the core of the democratic process. These changes will affect each and every one of us and should not be made lightly or without due consideration of all the facts involved.
I urge you to consider the nature and purpose of the student actions along with the potential issues at hand before rendering your decision.
I believe any system where the voter keeps a record of their vote as a part of the process will be corrupted and use against said voters in ways the designers of the process did not intend.
We just cannot be required to keep out votes as a matter of record, which means the votes themselves must be the matter of record; thus, keeping the information on the paper ballot is the right way to go. Encode machine friendly things on the ballots to help speed the process along, but in the end make sure that all the votes can be
Inspected with a pair of hands and eyes.
Sorry, its the best way. Electrons are not going to change that anytime soon.
I have a problem with the voter holding anything. That thing could be used against them later no matter what the law says and no matter what it contains.
Paper ballots are exactly what I described in my post. Add a few machine friendly bits to help speed the process along, but the primary source of information moves as a ballot, not as any sort of electronic stream.
If it can't be examined and understood with two eyes and a pair of hands, we are using the wrong method to communicate votes.
Could it be Salon wants those to be read? Hope so, because it was enlightening.
BTW, wonder if these actions are there for the presidents benefit. Maybe if he could really see the protests, he might think better of some of his actions? Hmmm..
I know that sounds shallow, but I never really thought about that angle. My perception has been basically: "Bush knows these things will anger people, but business needs to get done and freedom reduced for the good of the nation" or some other such thing.
These letters make me think about perception on both sides. Sure, keeping the protesters in seperate zones makes for easy warm fuzzy media coverage while disenfranchising the protesters at the same time. But, the perception of the president could (and likely) is as distorted as well.
If the first family gets the same news we do, maybe they are not asking any of the tough questions because they see no reason to. Add in all the folks that just see the media and are not active and that becomes a real problem.
Since when does "free speech" = dissent? Isn't political discussion and expression something this country prides itself on?
I was raised differently than this, and I am not that old. Chilling indeed...
The entire transfer of data should be human readable, or at the very least, human understandable with some effort.
Moving the bits electronically is where the problem is. Too many ways to corrupt the process and no audit no matter how hard we try. This is the nature of electronic information. --I agree with you here.
What about a system where the ballots are encoded with the election? Ballots are mailed, or picked up at the voting stations. They are rrinted on the back with a simple barcode or binary image encode. (Like many drivers licenses) On the front is the info relevant to the election at hand. These pre ballots would be reuseable, or not depending on the preferences of those holding the election. Want to save a coupla trees? Keep the ballots near the voting machines. Want to let people kick the choices around a bit, distribute them with the voters guide.
The voting machine ends up being dumb, and provides an interface only to produce another ballot that is again human friendly.
The main advantage, with regard to the machines, happens to be stability. Once the encoding standards are met and the machines tested, anyone could make them. Testing and certification would be simple with the resulting machines being cheap.
An election could still be held without the machines if need be. --Just use human counters as we do now.
The final ballots can be electronically counted because of the encoding on the back, they can be verified to see if the printed result on the front matches the printed encoding as well. They remain after the fact for recounts and such, and the user does not have to keep their vote record preventing all the dirty tricks possible.
They can be time and date stamped with precinct and such saving time and effort on those collating election results. Those wanting some hard stats could get pretty finely grained unofficial results for a fee to the state.
With these methods, we still get significant time savings combined with an audit trail for problems. (We will have problems.) The machines could report electronically for estimates and such, but the final count would happen the old fashioned way. Sombody loads the ballots, the machine counts them. Errors are handled by hand, close elections get the manual recount.
Really close elections, or suspect ones get the full, look at every ballot double-check treatment.
The key being very simple. We need to store the election on media that can be examined with a pair of hands and eyes period. Said media needs to be capable of reasonable archive expectations and should survive a few handlings.
We should avoid mechanical things. Cuts, bumps, fucking chads and such are all bad ideas. The media should be as unchanged mechanically as possible. This means marks with ink --good ink.
The more I think about this, the more I am convinced that it really is a scam. Power without accountability is the goal of those either in power or who seek power. (Most folks are good people, but this sort of thing is in our nature --we might as well admit it.)
The last/. story took me through blackboxvoting.org. I was enlightened, Bev did a fine job bringing the issue to light. It's too bad so many are trying to keep people like her quiet.
I live in Oregon, we decided to to the mail-in voting thing. I found it interesting how many negative opinions there are about this. For once, the state did something right. We do save a batch of time, one can still go down and vote the old fashioned way, and we have a nice audit trail sans expensive machines and their problems.
I get your point about A: and C: ; However, I am not sure your conclusion is correct.
True, people like icons. I like icons. What if those icons were labeled as so?
System Disk
Option Disk
Floppy Disk
Removable Disk
CD-ROM
My Home Directory
My Pictures
My Settings
My Mail
The market identifies with A: and C: because one company in particular was successful in enough other things to make this acceptable. Users can easily remap these things, particularly when the names make sense and can be associated to common tasks or ideas.
As to having the power, I agree users need know nothing about it. A good OS will have reasonable defaults for the standalone machine, (Mandrake?) but will still have the power under the hood for those that know what they are doing.
Not having drive letters is a good thing --one that users can easily deal with. Having the ability to keep the logical state of things seperate from the physical state of things makes life easier for those doing the heavy lifting at very little cost to the user.
Personally, I have ran into a couple of these users. The names 'A drive' and 'C drive' worked quite nicely:)
I have a large VCS / 400 computer collection and the kids liked it. One day, I brought the whole mess down for some cleaning nostalga time.
Most of the games I have on disk have died, so the 400 was cart only... They spent some time playing the 10 or so games that worked. Interesting thing about Star Raiders, they liked this game. One would run the controls, the other the keyboard. The team part let the youngest get into the game without having to deal with coordinates and such.
The 2600 was a different matter. After setting the thing up with all the controllers and about 200 carts, I sat back to watch and give instructions. (They seemed to need a lot of instructions.)
Most of the single player games did not hold their interest very long. (No power ups, bad graphics and such were the most common complaints.) They liked having the different controllers though dealing with switching them was annoying it seemed.
Kaboom! Is addictive still to the younger folks. My oldest kids still ask for this from time to time. They like the same "trance" state I did. --Very interesting. Space Invaders, Ms Pac man, Freeway!, Pitfall II, Breakout, Super Breakout seemed to be the ones they played the most from the one player at a time games.
The most interesting thing was the two or more player games. They liked these far more. Warlords got a lot of game play. They will ask for this on occasion as well. The younger ones will sit around the game and play doing all the simple goofy stuff we all did. Maze Craze is another one that got a lot of play as well. (I always hated that one!) Indy 500 tag, Combat, some of the Video Olympics games seemed to be fun for them as well.
The EGM guys really missed the boat on this article. Sure, we all feel old when kids ask about powerups, or when the next screen is coming, but there is another side to the older games as well.
Take Kaboom! for example. It is a fast and simple game. Turn the paddle, catch the bombs. Focus too much on the nature of the task and you lose track of the bombs. Learn to relax and see the pattern and make the smooth motion and you catch lots of bombs. For a generation of kids knowing only buttons and little analog thumbsticks, this is a new challenge. One, based on the kids in my neighborhood, that they are willing to work at just as we did.
The multi-player games were interesting in a similar way. Warlords got a lot of fun. The game itself is very simple as are the graphics and control mechanics. What makes it fun? Simple human interaction. Trash talk, distraction, fakes, and rapid reflexes all combine for an interesting game experience.
These guys picked some goofy games and ran a focus group. Got some good comments, if they are real that is, but missed getting some reactions from the kids in the process.
This is getting a bit long, but I have one other point to make...
In my house, we have a number of game consoles. The 2600 gets regular play for the good titles. On the computer, MAME gets almost as much play as the consoles do combined. !?!
People recognize good games and want to play them. Old or not, good games are simply good games. As a kid, I wondered if that would continue to be true. Back then, the classic board and card games were still fun, why not video games. Kept my machine and did some collecting in the late 80's and early 90s to see if it continues to be true.
In the end, this article seemed awful shallow. I was disappointed at both the games chosen as well as the story of the kids reactions. Instead of spending their time getting kids reactions to crappy games (Super Mario and Donkey Kong being the exception) they should have let the kids try a lot of games and write about that. Would have actually been worth the read...
I did see it. (Have notification on) Very interesting. I participated in the recent PBS online discussion regarding this same issue. It was a debate between Lessig and sombody representing the RIAA. It can be found here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/june03/copyright 9a.html#oc
The question I asked was about the nature of a music purchase. Wanted to know if we got a license, or a copy to use.
They dodged this, but did say the following:
Q: What are we buying when we buy entertainment media? Is it a license to view/listen to the product, or is it just a copy of the title that we have limited rights to? That is, do we own the license to view/listen to the content in any format -- or when we buy a CD, are we just purchasing the format of the content?
A: When you buy a CD, you should feel free to consume the music. That means you should listen to that disc, and feel free to make a copy of that disc for your own use so that you can have a copy in your home and your office. You should feel free to copy it onto other formats, such as.mp3, so that you can listen to it on your computer. You should feel free to copy it to cassette.
The only time you run into problems is if you begin to distribute your copies to others.
So, they agree that we can move music where we like, but do not agree that we can distribute on even a casual basis.
Personally, I believe the right choice is to err on the side of the folks paying for the music. Some sharing and personal self-pimping of ones favorite tunes is nothing but a good thing, unless the music being pushed is not under the RIAA...
This issue is what I was trying to get at with the license question. If we own music licenses, then they can set some terms. If they sell us an image, so to speak, we get the right of first sale combined with those personal freedoms we normally enjoy provided they are of a non-commercial nature.
I too would like to drag this issue into the courts. It needs some resolution. At this point, the only thing I know for sure is that the RIAA et. al. want control. If they are the choke point, then the other problems are easy to handle.
Perhaps both sides are right with the DMCA mucking things up. (Wouldn't that be nice!) Of course this whole thing really does not address Kazaa though.
Trading physical media with friends is ok. So are the copies as long as they don't get out of hand. In the digital world, this could be the same as trading tracks via ssh or e-mail or something. Still does not get out of hand.
The primary problem with Kazaa is that one does not know who the copy goes to. Maybe that is a part of the distinction between a "personal not for commercial use copy" as allowed by the Home Recording Act and an illegal distribution.
Good stuff really. Wish I had more time and ability to persue the issue.
Well, I am in a similar situation. Have Linux, win32 and IRIX here at home. At work, I use the three plus a little BSD.
Rather than drag out the zealot issue, why not quantify what it is you need to do on win32 that it does so well?
A win32 machine is indeed a good all around choice for a lot of folks right now. Why? Because most people know how things are done. Does this make it the best way? No, just a known way.
Does this mean it is the best choice? Not at all.
I think you are confusing your current ability to perform many tasks under a win32 OS with the capabilities of OSes in general. Maybe this is a time issue for you. Could it be that your current understanding of how to complete tasks is based on the win32 way of things?
I know it was for me. Early on, I saw Linux and liked its potential, but doing most things was hard. Why not just stay with the win32 machine then?
Because each and every skill I develop under an OSS is a skill that I am free to use under any capacity for as long as I choose to. That's a pretty damn big plus in my book. Big enough to do a little learnig for.
Learning Linux is fun --at least for me. Learning how to get things done involved both knowledge of the applications at hand as well as the OS and the computer supporting them. Neither of these things is really productive at the beginning, but real change never is.
There is no free lunch. We all know this, OSS is no different. I think of this as pay now or pay later.
People running win32, for the most part, are just users. If the computer does not currently do something needed, buy something from somebody that makes it so. On one hand, this can get costly because software costs money when distributed and developed in this manner. On the other hand, many tasks are easy enough if the right program is brought to bear on the task.
This is the pay later scenario. Why? Because everyone using those programs become dependant on them. This is called lock-in and it sucks now, but is really going to suck hard in the longer term because the people who produce all that nice software know they can leverage their users dependance into profit --just about as many times as they want to. Over and over and over. (Pay, and pay and pay later...)
The tradeoff: Easy to learn and use, with ongoing costs that never decline.
People running OSS are different. They look to build solutions and take advantage of the body of work already done. They too are users, but they are in control of their computing environment. The very nature of OSS sort of forces this. When it comes time to make the machine do something new, they first consider the other OSS solutions that exist. Perhaps somebody else already has written something to do the task? Maybe they build it, or have someone else build it for them. Finally they consider buying software.
This is the pay now scenario. Why? Because more learning and work is required up front in order to get things done. Ongoing costs are lower however because the nature of the up-front work produces the ability to perform many tasks with tools that have little or no annual costs attached.
The tradeoff: Slower ramp up time, personal learning committment required combined with few ongoing costs.
I was taught to help myself as much as possible before taking the easy way out. (Spending money or asking for help.) OSS is this ideal perfectly embodied in software today.
Not sure about you, but I often have plenty of time, but not always plenty of money. Keeping my monthly costs down in order to save for the future, raise a family and earn the ability to have nicer things in life is a priority.
So here it is in a nutshell. OSS computing is cheap in terms of hard cash one needs in order to get real work done. Is it easy? No, nothing really is. Learning to get basic tasks done with OSS takes some real time and effort. This is easier today than it has been in years past howev
"I don't buy many CD's anymore, not because the music is free, but because the music sucks." True enough these days, if you are tuned into your local Clear Channel...
Over 30 perhaps? There is good music, the problem is that it is damn hard to find if you are only using the provided officially sanctioned venues.
That is one good thing about P2P that I do miss. Search on something you like, find music from other user and look for new names. Problem is getting the tunes after learning of them.
Interesting thought regarding the RIAA suit. Might be worth a bit of googling.
Leave my ISP billing alone. I know what my Internet access costs each month and that is the way it should stay. As soon as one charge hits the bill, everybody is going to want in and Internet ISP billing begins to look like the mess that is our phone bill today. --No thanks.
Mp3 music is crap at all but the highest quality. Most of the encodes you find on Kazaa are poor. Downloads are iffy as well. Add this up and what do we find? Millions of people downloading bunches of crap music.
Go back a few years ago. FM is crap, unless you take the time to really make the most of it. This is a lot like spending tons of time on Kazaa looking for only the best encodes. People all have tape decks. Add it up and you have millions of people making crappy copies of music.
Didn't hurt things then, does not now.
Just for the record, I no longer use P2P for music. (I will still get other things however.) Got tired of the crap. Funny, I got tired of the crap taping FM as well.
How to trade? With friends via SSH. Nice and private, not too much distribution. In fact, this form of distribution is not too much different from people trading discs.
I would be more inclined to encourage this, but I am not sure we can put a centralized payment scheme on a decentralized service in a fair manner. These jokers should have taken the first Napster deal. They would be making a lot of money right now and would own a popular name. It's too late now.
So will all mp3 downloads be taxed? How? What if the creator wants to provide the content? Do I still need to pay for it? If I am paying for one kind of download, why not others? If downloads begin to be charged according to their type at the ISP, what exactly am I paying for? Will general Internet access get cheaper? Who pays for the new ISP billing systems? Me --you?
This is not the answer. At this point, the answer is marketing. Clean honest marketing of music with added value services and content attached.
Basically, these folks need to earn their keep. Since we all know distribution is cheap, why do they need to make the money they do? Hell, it was cheap with CD media. As far as I am concerned, they have been making far too much already.
They could link music downloads with all sorts of things to make plenty of money. They could make the downloads worth downloading as Apple clearly shows.
What to do with Kazaa? Not sure, but I don't want to pay for something I do not use.
I read that article this morning. I am not sure the author really understands the technology change that is happening right now.
You see, people are beginning to understand that they can create much of the software they need on their own. This realization beginning with Stallman and has resulted in the body of software commonly known as Open Source or Free Software today.
SCO seeks to take control of that body and license it. Those that are currently in the big software business favor this action because it means they will be able to continue to charge people for the ability to perform basic computing tasks.
The reality is simple: We no longer have to pay for much of the software we use because its construction and distribution are both common knowledge and dirt cheap. Do we pay large amounts every year for other technologies that are mature and proven? No. Computing is no different.
Open Source software is disruptive in a big way right now and this SCO spat is not going to do much to change that in the longer term. Why? Because the software all of us have written (me included) is ours and not theirs.
The price for use? Zero + the cost of distribution. The price for use in a product? A requirement that you share your improvements + cost of getting the software to work from. Or, one could pay for the right to commercialize the software and go from there.
This is the part that companies don't like. They want to package, change and manupulate the software to further their goal of making money. BSD software has always allowed this, but Open Source / Free Software does not. (Damn good thing too.)
Will Open Source software remove a billion dollar revenue source from the industry? No. What it will do is redistribute that revenue source across the industry and that is a good thing.
Right now companies, like Microsoft, seek to bundle, intergrate and manupulate their software in ways that people must pay for. The bigger the bundle, the better the lock-in, the more money they make. This is not a bad thing provided we have choice in the matter, but choice breaks the business model now doesn't it? Why? Because choice lowers the overall value of the bundle. If we can choose our own OS, Word Processor, e-mail clients and such what value does the Microsoft bundle have for example?
It would have considerably more value in my mind, if it were open to other solutions, but it is not. Why again? Because that is just hard to do. Cookie cutter does not work because everyone does things just a bit differently.
Their solution? Get all of us to just accept the cookie cutter method, collect enough cash to cover damage control and keep on working each year to keep enough of us happy that the other problems can be dismissed.
No fucking thanks!
What if one does not want to run Office or win32? Should they not be allowed to compute how they want to? If they cannot, what incentive does Microsoft have to act in their best interests? Afterall, the only real check on the power of their monopoly is Open Source / Free Software.
That article represents some of the best FUD surrounding this issue right now. Companies say they need the freedom to innovate. (Read, combine software in ways that force us to pay more.)
Companies say they will lose revenue. (Is this a bad thing? Should we pay for something we no longer need to pay for year after year because it is just part of the package?)
Companies say the OSS / FSF folks have copied and distributed their software. (Really, we have checked and removed the bits we know of. Will they allow us to do the same?)
I started using Open Source software around the Red Hat 5.1 days. It has grown far since then. It has grown more than any other form of software has in a shorter time frame. OSS works and works well.
Today, I run OSS / FS almost everywhere. I no longer pay for the following tasks:
get another decent Linux systems intergrator / reseller.
Why not? Clearly SCO is no longer on their radar. Somebody needs to go see this guy and find out what they can do for their business using Open Source tools.
Lots of potential customers to convert and service. Maybe this is not a bad thing for the reseller.
They did not want users just performing the action, so they made it both non-accidental and hard to remember.
Called it the Vulcan Death Grip
Pressing the following 4 key simultaneously will cause the kernel to kill the Xserver. Under normal circumstances it will get restarted again automatically.
They have already heard both sides of the issue and can choose accordingly. Taking this issue to my kids through the school is horrible. Think of it as the RIAA guy walking my kid to school for a couple of days. --Fuck that! I am the parent and they are not.
The day they decide to play that game in my school is the day we go out for ice cream and talk about the real world a little, their place in it, and who exactly the school works for and why this sort of thing is wrong.
The school is not their broadcast arena. We pay for the schools and should have considerable influence over the nature of the education.
Bottom line: The schools work for us, not the government or the RIAA. We pay to have them help us educate our kids, not raise them.
I plan to take this article to my school and let them know my kids will not be attending this program and that I resent the idea of my school being turned into a potential mouthpiece.
You judge me with regard to entitlement. It's a hasty judgement that detracts from your other point.
Man, I have never been entitled to anything period. Growing up, I had nothing but what I earned. One does not get anything unless they earn it. The driving is a right/privilige thing is getting hashed above, so I am not going to rehash again here, but I will say this:
I have worked hard for everything I have. Dig though my comment history for a little more on that. There are attitudes sinking this country, but mine is clearly not one of them.
The parent of this post has my intent, flawed as it may be, correct.
I posted above after thinking on this for a while. Driving may not be a natural right, but it is more than a simple privilige because of the affect it has on other more clearly defined natural rights.
Slashdot Mirror
honest trust relationship with your kids. I assume you were using the Internet with them prior to now right?
/. rambles about kids mode on...)
If so, you should have already talked about what the Internet is and isnt. If this foundation is weak, work to strengthen it in their space for a bit before fully letting go.
Above all:
They need to know they can come to you with *anything* they might find on the net. Either you are going to let them use the net, or not....
(rare
My own kids are starting this period as well. We have discussed the Net and what one can find. Basically, I did not hold anything back during the education stage. I worked my best to teach them how I use the net. (this means both good and bad things) They might as well know what spyware is, why giving bogus names in web forms is ok, how to recognize and consider the nature and source of information they find, along with any number of other things I know as an experienced net user.
In the beginning, I put one machine in the living room, shared and in the open. At first, I set the machine up with a password logon for internet, and another unprotected one for general computer use. As we gained trust, I enabled the Internet full time for them one at a time as they reached a point where I felt I could communicate with them and they could handle what they see.
This worked well in that they quickly get used to using the net with others around. It gets social and loses its mysterious aura quickly.
I learned a lot during the first couple years. They understood from the beginning that you are who you say you are on the Internet. We played with chatting and the web and e-mail games and other things.
Chat is one area I do keep a close watch on with the younger kids. Basically, they cannot do it alone. My oldest can watch them, or I will. It is interesting to watch them role play in chat areas. This was something I did not have much of a chance to do as a kid. Since I do not use the Internet for this much, save the occasional IRC, doing it with them made the most sense.
The oldest one can use the net after hours and in her room now if she wants to.
It is easiest to compare this experience to teaching them how to drive. Not everybody follows the rules and there are bad things just past the driveway. Same for the net. You simply must tell them how it is in order to have any real chance at doing some good.
I did do one thing however that helped at an earlier stage. I told them the computer would remember what was done and that I would get the information if I needed to. The reality is close to that anyway, and the minor ways this small manupulation differs from the truth, (unless one decides to log everything) does not matter in the long run. I regretted it initially, but later realized that idea set the stage for honesty early on in a way that would have been harder otherwise. The one time I did go digging I regretted. What I found was benign, but I realized I could not broach the subject without letting my kid know I did not trust them enough to ask. Big mistake.
So, my kids understand I am good at computers and the net. They also know I am not going to be big brother if they are honest with me. They also know they can count on my help in the future if they need it. They also understand, for many folks, the net is new.
My decision to bring it into the family is a gift to them many of their friends do not have. The older ones are now beginning to see the differences between their net use and general knowledge and that of many of their friends.
So far, things have gone well. They tell me things --enough things that I can be sure things are going ok, though I do wish the net was a nicer place overall for kids. The spyware scum really know how to work the younger folks. "I'll trade you this simple game, if you just click yes..." (The main room computer runs win2k. Other computers run Linux or IRIX --t
media...
I thought the same way at first. The geek in me knows the both sets of content will fit nicely; however, having kids puts a different spin on the matter.
One copy of media gets destroyed and you have...
Nothing!
I am not sure the extra DVD really costs them that much, and I sure don't mind storing it.
Disney needs to learn a few lessons from Pixar regarding respect for their viewers.
Disney DVD:
Too damn many previews, lame plots, good characters, One disk for movie, other disk for special features, lots of stickers on the side to peel off.
Pixar DVD:
Almost the opposite. You get two discs containing the movie, one wide and one full pan & scan. So, one for the kids to thrash and one to keep for later, or give to a friend. No forced previews, and one security sticker.
Frankly, the Pixar packaging and presentation value is easily 2X that of Disney and that does not even count the movie. Which has been more lame than usual these days.
Pixar is making new stories instead of pillaging the public domain as Disney tends to do often. Sure, there are new stories from Disney, but they have not been as good as those produced by Pixar.
Given all the crap Disney does behind the scenes regarding copyright issues plus their overly pushy presentation and packaging issues, I believe many people are more than willing to look at other options.
Disney can retool their production house all they want, but they are going to lose big in the DVD market as long as they keep releasing the way they do.
I can't wait to see Pixar go once they can do what they want.
still have the damn thing too! Two games:
Tempest 2000 & Alien -vs- Predator. (Wish sombody would port that version to a faster machine. Great FPS game. Scary too.)
Everything else was crap (sigh).
Oh well, it did say "Atari" on it, so it goes into the collection...
Since I am gonna ramble... Why buy this anyway? I want a console that can be hacked a bit. Maybe not as easy as the Dreamcast (only because that killed it), but easy enough that I can make creative use of it later after the company that made it no longer cares.
on the anti MS threads right?
./ from the very beginning. Anti MS is a good healthy thing that brings complete warmth to my soul.
/. and other sites like it. They showcase
Personally, I like it. That is why I have read
Open Source is good, GPL is good, Linux is great, and computing is fun again! Stories of hacks, people doing interesting things with their own machines, super computers, embedded software, games, programming, scripting and many other cool things are really where Linux and Open Source / Free Software is at.
When people have the freedom to create, lo and behold, they do! The last couple of years have seen a level of creation simply unmatched by the Beast and I love it!
Why? Because I understand how to make use of all that Open Source / Free software Linuxy stuff. Was it easy? No. Am I done? No. Is it worth i? Hell yes!
Every last one of these stories remindes me why I do what I do and why I work hard at being able to continue to do it. Learning about Windows is like learning how to do what you are told exactly. Learning about Open Source is all about learning to do exactly what you want!
Once one realizes this, the stories all become good entertainment. (Which they are.)
I would rather pay sombody I have never met a bit to continue working on free software than pay one more red cent to Microsoft.
Am I crazy? Maybe, but let me tell you this:
Where I work, it is all Microsoft. Rah Rah lead the charge. Nothing else makes any sense. Why? Because everybody is running it, the big company execs are running it, the sales drones are running it and so are the technical field support people. I have to run it pretty often. (gotta hate that)
BTW, that is a big part of the problem. Hard to sell something you are not able to show or use right? Linux? sure we might support that if enough people ask. Would you run it? interesting, now let me show you the latest version on windows which I have here with me...
Once you latch onto the nipple of Windows, you are well on your way to sucking the tit for life! Nothing seems as good or easy or modern anymore. All you have to do is spin the update CD's once a year and things get better, or at least different in a way that somehow seems worth it.
Ahh, the path of least resistance. Shoddy products become the subject of office jokes, product problems are easy to dismiss as "computer problems". Hell, mistakes are easy to catagorize as computer problems. Why not, everyone else does it!
The support people really can only do a few things, so their job is easy too. Blame it on Bill, but lets make sure he gets paid so we can get that next update toward computing nirvana done quick.
The truth really hurts, but once you get over it, it's not so bad really.
Truth is simple. Hard things are hard, no matter what interface you put on them. One can either just bend over and "trust Bill and friends" to "help" you get things done, or one can take a few steps toward actually knowing how to get things done a little more directly.
Microsoft and friends send out an awful lot of information. The truth is mixed in nicely with th usual FUD bullshit and smooth security lies topped with a sprinkle of executive authority that somehow lends just enough creedence to the thing so people end up nicely confused.
All of this noise is really important because it keeps the conversation directed toward Microsoft. They have something to say about most anything most of the time. You would think they are the authority on computing if you did not know better right? Trust them, it's on the roadmap, just get ready for it.
With most of the people in the company that matter all looking north for their "what's new and cool in computing news" that next update gets pretty important. Without it, they are stuck running the same old boring stuff they were yesterday.
Wash, rinse --repeat...
Then we have
atm machines seem to have a pretty secure method of operation. There are some flaws involving the PIN and such, but overall the ATM, made by Diebold I might add, seems to be a pretty solid device.
When money is involved, things get worked out pretty well. Votes? Not a worry, we can buy those with enough money right?
Hmmm....
Greetings,
Recently, there has been a rise in the number of stories in the press surrounding the topic of electronic voting. I live in Oregon where we have chosen to vote by mail. At first, I wondered exactly why my State chose this route because electronic voting seemed to be attractive for a number of reasons.
After reading the various news stories and web postings present on various Internet web sites and forums, I have come to the realization electronic voting in its current incarnation is a highly suspect process.
The majority of voting machine manufacturers today wrap the inner workings of their machines inside contracts and licenses designed to cloak their products in secrecy. These cloaks when combined with the current state of intellectual property law make it difficult for the American people to understand and discuss the nature of the machines and their potential effect on the democratic process.
The American people need to engage this issue with all the facts at hand. The spirit of the law is not in line with the letter of the law in this case. The action of your students is commedable and worthy of your support.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." --Stalin
The right to vote is one of the founding principles behind our great nation. Changes to this process will have nationwide consequences on our society that we might not understand, but for the actions of a few people concerned about preserving the trust inherent to the core of the democratic process. These changes will affect each and every one of us and should not be made lightly or without due consideration of all the facts involved.
I urge you to consider the nature and purpose of the student actions along with the potential issues at hand before rendering your decision.
Respectfully,
( name )
one.
I believe any system where the voter keeps a record of their vote as a part of the process will be corrupted and use against said voters in ways the designers of the process did not intend.
We just cannot be required to keep out votes as a matter of record, which means the votes themselves must be the matter of record; thus, keeping the information on the paper ballot is the right way to go. Encode machine friendly things on the ballots to help speed the process along, but in the end make sure that all the votes can be
Inspected with a pair of hands and eyes.
Sorry, its the best way. Electrons are not going to change that anytime soon.
I have a problem with the voter holding anything. That thing could be used against them later no matter what the law says and no matter what it contains.
Paper ballots are exactly what I described in my post. Add a few machine friendly bits to help speed the process along, but the primary source of information moves as a ballot, not as any sort of electronic stream.
If it can't be examined and understood with two eyes and a pair of hands, we are using the wrong method to communicate votes.
Could it be Salon wants those to be read? Hope so, because it was enlightening.
BTW, wonder if these actions are there for the presidents benefit. Maybe if he could really see the protests, he might think better of some of his actions? Hmmm..
I know that sounds shallow, but I never really thought about that angle. My perception has been basically: "Bush knows these things will anger people, but business needs to get done and freedom reduced for the good of the nation" or some other such thing.
These letters make me think about perception on both sides. Sure, keeping the protesters in seperate zones makes for easy warm fuzzy media coverage while disenfranchising the protesters at the same time. But, the perception of the president could (and likely) is as distorted as well.
If the first family gets the same news we do, maybe they are not asking any of the tough questions because they see no reason to. Add in all the folks that just see the media and are not active and that becomes a real problem.
Since when does "free speech" = dissent? Isn't political discussion and expression something this country prides itself on?
I was raised differently than this, and I am not that old. Chilling indeed...
Right on! I would expand on this a bit.
/. story took me through blackboxvoting.org. I was enlightened, Bev did a fine job bringing the issue to light. It's too bad so many are trying to keep people like her quiet.
The entire transfer of data should be human readable, or at the very least, human understandable with some effort.
Moving the bits electronically is where the problem is. Too many ways to corrupt the process and no audit no matter how hard we try. This is the nature of electronic information. --I agree with you here.
What about a system where the ballots are encoded with the election? Ballots are mailed, or picked up at the voting stations. They are rrinted on the back with a simple barcode or binary image encode. (Like many drivers licenses) On the front is the info relevant to the election at hand. These pre ballots would be reuseable, or not depending on the preferences of those holding the election. Want to save a coupla trees? Keep the ballots near the voting machines. Want to let people kick the choices around a bit, distribute them with the voters guide.
The voting machine ends up being dumb, and provides an interface only to produce another ballot that is again human friendly.
The main advantage, with regard to the machines, happens to be stability. Once the encoding standards are met and the machines tested, anyone could make them. Testing and certification would be simple with the resulting machines being cheap.
An election could still be held without the machines if need be. --Just use human counters as we do now.
The final ballots can be electronically counted because of the encoding on the back, they can be verified to see if the printed result on the front matches the printed encoding as well. They remain after the fact for recounts and such, and the user does not have to keep their vote record preventing all the dirty tricks possible.
They can be time and date stamped with precinct and such saving time and effort on those collating election results. Those wanting some hard stats could get pretty finely grained unofficial results for a fee to the state.
With these methods, we still get significant time savings combined with an audit trail for problems. (We will have problems.) The machines could report electronically for estimates and such, but the final count would happen the old fashioned way. Sombody loads the ballots, the machine counts them. Errors are handled by hand, close elections get the manual recount.
Really close elections, or suspect ones get the full, look at every ballot double-check treatment.
The key being very simple. We need to store the election on media that can be examined with a pair of hands and eyes period. Said media needs to be capable of reasonable archive expectations and should survive a few handlings.
We should avoid mechanical things. Cuts, bumps, fucking chads and such are all bad ideas. The media should be as unchanged mechanically as possible. This means marks with ink --good ink.
The more I think about this, the more I am convinced that it really is a scam. Power without accountability is the goal of those either in power or who seek power. (Most folks are good people, but this sort of thing is in our nature --we might as well admit it.)
The last
I live in Oregon, we decided to to the mail-in voting thing. I found it interesting how many negative opinions there are about this. For once, the state did something right. We do save a batch of time, one can still go down and vote the old fashioned way, and we have a nice audit trail sans expensive machines and their problems.
Die Diebold, Die.
I get your point about A: and C: ; However, I am not sure your conclusion is correct.
:)
True, people like icons. I like icons. What if those icons were labeled as so?
System Disk
Option Disk
Floppy Disk
Removable Disk
CD-ROM
My Home Directory
My Pictures
My Settings
My Mail
The market identifies with A: and C: because one company in particular was successful in enough other things to make this acceptable. Users can easily remap these things, particularly when the names make sense and can be associated to common tasks or ideas.
As to having the power, I agree users need know nothing about it. A good OS will have reasonable defaults for the standalone machine, (Mandrake?) but will still have the power under the hood for those that know what they are doing.
Not having drive letters is a good thing --one that users can easily deal with. Having the ability to keep the logical state of things seperate from the physical state of things makes life easier for those doing the heavy lifting at very little cost to the user.
Personally, I have ran into a couple of these users. The names 'A drive' and 'C drive' worked quite nicely
I have a large VCS / 400 computer collection and the kids liked it. One day, I brought the whole mess down for some cleaning nostalga time.
Most of the games I have on disk have died, so the 400 was cart only... They spent some time playing the 10 or so games that worked. Interesting thing about Star Raiders, they liked this game. One would run the controls, the other the keyboard. The team part let the youngest get into the game without having to deal with coordinates and such.
The 2600 was a different matter. After setting the thing up with all the controllers and about 200 carts, I sat back to watch and give instructions. (They seemed to need a lot of instructions.)
Most of the single player games did not hold their interest very long. (No power ups, bad graphics and such were the most common complaints.) They liked having the different controllers though dealing with switching them was annoying it seemed.
Kaboom! Is addictive still to the younger folks. My oldest kids still ask for this from time to time. They like the same "trance" state I did. --Very interesting. Space Invaders, Ms Pac man, Freeway!, Pitfall II, Breakout, Super Breakout seemed to be the ones they played the most from the one player at a time games.
The most interesting thing was the two or more player games. They liked these far more. Warlords got a lot of game play. They will ask for this on occasion as well. The younger ones will sit around the game and play doing all the simple goofy stuff we all did. Maze Craze is another one that got a lot of play as well. (I always hated that one!) Indy 500 tag, Combat, some of the Video Olympics games seemed to be fun for them as well.
The EGM guys really missed the boat on this article. Sure, we all feel old when kids ask about powerups, or when the next screen is coming, but there is another side to the older games as well.
Take Kaboom! for example. It is a fast and simple game. Turn the paddle, catch the bombs. Focus too much on the nature of the task and you lose track of the bombs. Learn to relax and see the pattern and make the smooth motion and you catch lots of bombs. For a generation of kids knowing only buttons and little analog thumbsticks, this is a new challenge. One, based on the kids in my neighborhood, that they are willing to work at just as we did.
The multi-player games were interesting in a similar way. Warlords got a lot of fun. The game itself is very simple as are the graphics and control mechanics. What makes it fun? Simple human interaction. Trash talk, distraction, fakes, and rapid reflexes all combine for an interesting game experience.
These guys picked some goofy games and ran a focus group. Got some good comments, if they are real that is, but missed getting some reactions from the kids in the process.
This is getting a bit long, but I have one other point to make...
In my house, we have a number of game consoles. The 2600 gets regular play for the good titles. On the computer, MAME gets almost as much play as the consoles do combined. !?!
People recognize good games and want to play them. Old or not, good games are simply good games. As a kid, I wondered if that would continue to be true. Back then, the classic board and card games were still fun, why not video games. Kept my machine and did some collecting in the late 80's and early 90s to see if it continues to be true.
In the end, this article seemed awful shallow. I was disappointed at both the games chosen as well as the story of the kids reactions. Instead of spending their time getting kids reactions to crappy games (Super Mario and Donkey Kong being the exception) they should have let the kids try a lot of games and write about that. Would have actually been worth the read...
I did see it. (Have notification on) Very interesting. I participated in the recent PBS online discussion regarding this same issue. It was a debate between Lessig and sombody representing the RIAA. It can be found here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/june03/copyright 9a.html#oc
.mp3, so that you can listen to it on your computer. You should feel free to copy it to cassette.
The question I asked was about the nature of a music purchase. Wanted to know if we got a license, or a copy to use.
They dodged this, but did say the following:
Q: What are we buying when we buy entertainment media? Is it a license to view/listen to the product, or is it just a copy of the title that we have limited rights to? That is, do we own the license to view/listen to the content in any format -- or when we buy a CD, are we just purchasing the format of the content?
A: When you buy a CD, you should feel free to consume the music. That means you should listen to that disc, and feel free to make a copy of that disc for your own use so that you can have a copy in your home and your office. You should feel free to copy it onto other formats, such as
The only time you run into problems is if you begin to distribute your copies to others.
So, they agree that we can move music where we like, but do not agree that we can distribute on even a casual basis.
Personally, I believe the right choice is to err on the side of the folks paying for the music. Some sharing and personal self-pimping of ones favorite tunes is nothing but a good thing, unless the music being pushed is not under the RIAA...
This issue is what I was trying to get at with the license question. If we own music licenses, then they can set some terms. If they sell us an image, so to speak, we get the right of first sale combined with those personal freedoms we normally enjoy provided they are of a non-commercial nature.
I too would like to drag this issue into the courts. It needs some resolution. At this point, the only thing I know for sure is that the RIAA et. al. want control. If they are the choke point, then the other problems are easy to handle.
Perhaps both sides are right with the DMCA mucking things up. (Wouldn't that be nice!) Of course this whole thing really does not address Kazaa though.
Trading physical media with friends is ok. So are the copies as long as they don't get out of hand. In the digital world, this could be the same as trading tracks via ssh or e-mail or something. Still does not get out of hand.
The primary problem with Kazaa is that one does not know who the copy goes to. Maybe that is a part of the distinction between a "personal not for commercial use copy" as allowed by the Home Recording Act and an illegal distribution.
Good stuff really. Wish I had more time and ability to persue the issue.
Well, I am in a similar situation. Have Linux, win32 and IRIX here at home. At work, I use the three plus a little BSD.
Rather than drag out the zealot issue, why not quantify what it is you need to do on win32 that it does so well?
A win32 machine is indeed a good all around choice for a lot of folks right now. Why? Because most people know how things are done. Does this make it the best way? No, just a known way.
Does this mean it is the best choice? Not at all.
I think you are confusing your current ability to perform many tasks under a win32 OS with the capabilities of OSes in general. Maybe this is a time issue for you. Could it be that your current understanding of how to complete tasks is based on the win32 way of things?
I know it was for me. Early on, I saw Linux and liked its potential, but doing most things was hard. Why not just stay with the win32 machine then?
Because each and every skill I develop under an OSS is a skill that I am free to use under any capacity for as long as I choose to. That's a pretty damn big plus in my book. Big enough to do a little learnig for.
Learning Linux is fun --at least for me. Learning how to get things done involved both knowledge of the applications at hand as well as the OS and the computer supporting them. Neither of these things is really productive at the beginning, but real change never is.
There is no free lunch. We all know this, OSS is no different. I think of this as pay now or pay later.
People running win32, for the most part, are just users. If the computer does not currently do something needed, buy something from somebody that makes it so. On one hand, this can get costly because software costs money when distributed and developed in this manner. On the other hand, many tasks are easy enough if the right program is brought to bear on the task.
This is the pay later scenario. Why? Because everyone using those programs become dependant on them. This is called lock-in and it sucks now, but is really going to suck hard in the longer term because the people who produce all that nice software know they can leverage their users dependance into profit --just about as many times as they want to. Over and over and over. (Pay, and pay and pay later...)
The tradeoff: Easy to learn and use, with ongoing costs that never decline.
People running OSS are different. They look to build solutions and take advantage of the body of work already done. They too are users, but they are in control of their computing environment. The very nature of OSS sort of forces this. When it comes time to make the machine do something new, they first consider the other OSS solutions that exist. Perhaps somebody else already has written something to do the task? Maybe they build it, or have someone else build it for them. Finally they consider buying software.
This is the pay now scenario. Why? Because more learning and work is required up front in order to get things done. Ongoing costs are lower however because the nature of the up-front work produces the ability to perform many tasks with tools that have little or no annual costs attached.
The tradeoff: Slower ramp up time, personal learning committment required combined with few ongoing costs.
I was taught to help myself as much as possible before taking the easy way out. (Spending money or asking for help.) OSS is this ideal perfectly embodied in software today.
Not sure about you, but I often have plenty of time, but not always plenty of money. Keeping my monthly costs down in order to save for the future, raise a family and earn the ability to have nicer things in life is a priority.
So here it is in a nutshell. OSS computing is cheap in terms of hard cash one needs in order to get real work done. Is it easy? No, nothing really is. Learning to get basic tasks done with OSS takes some real time and effort. This is easier today than it has been in years past howev
"I don't buy many CD's anymore, not because the music is free, but because the music sucks." True enough these days, if you are tuned into your local Clear Channel...
Over 30 perhaps? There is good music, the problem is that it is damn hard to find if you are only using the provided officially sanctioned venues.
That is one good thing about P2P that I do miss. Search on something you like, find music from other user and look for new names. Problem is getting the tunes after learning of them.
Interesting thought regarding the RIAA suit. Might be worth a bit of googling.
Leave my ISP billing alone. I know what my Internet access costs each month and that is the way it should stay. As soon as one charge hits the bill, everybody is going to want in and Internet ISP billing begins to look like the mess that is our phone bill today. --No thanks.
Mp3 music is crap at all but the highest quality. Most of the encodes you find on Kazaa are poor. Downloads are iffy as well. Add this up and what do we find? Millions of people downloading bunches of crap music.
Go back a few years ago. FM is crap, unless you take the time to really make the most of it. This is a lot like spending tons of time on Kazaa looking for only the best encodes. People all have tape decks. Add it up and you have millions of people making crappy copies of music.
Didn't hurt things then, does not now.
Just for the record, I no longer use P2P for music. (I will still get other things however.) Got tired of the crap. Funny, I got tired of the crap taping FM as well.
How to trade? With friends via SSH. Nice and private, not too much distribution. In fact, this form of distribution is not too much different from people trading discs.
I would be more inclined to encourage this, but I am not sure we can put a centralized payment scheme on a decentralized service in a fair manner. These jokers should have taken the first Napster deal. They would be making a lot of money right now and would own a popular name. It's too late now.
So will all mp3 downloads be taxed? How? What if the creator wants to provide the content? Do I still need to pay for it? If I am paying for one kind of download, why not others? If downloads begin to be charged according to their type at the ISP, what exactly am I paying for? Will general Internet access get cheaper? Who pays for the new ISP billing systems? Me --you?
This is not the answer. At this point, the answer is marketing. Clean honest marketing of music with added value services and content attached.
Basically, these folks need to earn their keep. Since we all know distribution is cheap, why do they need to make the money they do? Hell, it was cheap with CD media. As far as I am concerned, they have been making far too much already.
They could link music downloads with all sorts of things to make plenty of money. They could make the downloads worth downloading as Apple clearly shows.
What to do with Kazaa? Not sure, but I don't want to pay for something I do not use.
be pretty happy. They just got 130,000 new ad revenue generators...
I read that article this morning. I am not sure the author really understands the technology change that is happening right now.
You see, people are beginning to understand that they can create much of the software they need on their own. This realization beginning with Stallman and has resulted in the body of software commonly known as Open Source or Free Software today.
SCO seeks to take control of that body and license it. Those that are currently in the big software business favor this action because it means they will be able to continue to charge people for the ability to perform basic computing tasks.
The reality is simple: We no longer have to pay for much of the software we use because its construction and distribution are both common knowledge and dirt cheap. Do we pay large amounts every year for other technologies that are mature and proven? No. Computing is no different.
Open Source software is disruptive in a big way right now and this SCO spat is not going to do much to change that in the longer term. Why? Because the software all of us have written (me included) is ours and not theirs.
The price for use? Zero + the cost of distribution. The price for use in a product? A requirement that you share your improvements + cost of getting the software to work from. Or, one could pay for the right to commercialize the software and go from there.
This is the part that companies don't like. They want to package, change and manupulate the software to further their goal of making money. BSD software has always allowed this, but Open Source / Free Software does not. (Damn good thing too.)
Will Open Source software remove a billion dollar revenue source from the industry? No. What it will do is redistribute that revenue source across the industry and that is a good thing.
Right now companies, like Microsoft, seek to bundle, intergrate and manupulate their software in ways that people must pay for. The bigger the bundle, the better the lock-in, the more money they make. This is not a bad thing provided we have choice in the matter, but choice breaks the business model now doesn't it? Why? Because choice lowers the overall value of the bundle. If we can choose our own OS, Word Processor, e-mail clients and such what value does the Microsoft bundle have for example?
It would have considerably more value in my mind, if it were open to other solutions, but it is not. Why again? Because that is just hard to do. Cookie cutter does not work because everyone does things just a bit differently.
Their solution? Get all of us to just accept the cookie cutter method, collect enough cash to cover damage control and keep on working each year to keep enough of us happy that the other problems can be dismissed.
No fucking thanks!
What if one does not want to run Office or win32? Should they not be allowed to compute how they want to? If they cannot, what incentive does Microsoft have to act in their best interests? Afterall, the only real check on the power of their monopoly is Open Source / Free Software.
That article represents some of the best FUD surrounding this issue right now. Companies say they need the freedom to innovate. (Read, combine software in ways that force us to pay more.)
Companies say they will lose revenue. (Is this a bad thing? Should we pay for something we no longer need to pay for year after year because it is just part of the package?)
Companies say the OSS / FSF folks have copied and distributed their software. (Really, we have checked and removed the bits we know of. Will they allow us to do the same?)
I started using Open Source software around the Red Hat 5.1 days. It has grown far since then. It has grown more than any other form of software has in a shorter time frame. OSS works and works well.
Today, I run OSS / FS almost everywhere. I no longer pay for the following tasks:
Word processing / general office
e-mail (Both
often have trouble with Macrovision. They do have AGC and early color correction circutry that can be affected by Macrovision.
Should one be watching DVD on older sets? Another topic...
get another decent Linux systems intergrator / reseller.
Why not? Clearly SCO is no longer on their radar. Somebody needs to go see this guy and find out what they can do for their business using Open Source tools.
Lots of potential customers to convert and service. Maybe this is not a bad thing for the reseller.
They did not want users just performing the action, so they made it both non-accidental and hard to remember.
Called it the Vulcan Death Grip
Pressing the following 4 key simultaneously will cause the kernel to
kill the Xserver. Under normal circumstances it will get restarted
again automatically.
left-shift
left-control
F12
keypad-/
They have already heard both sides of the issue and can choose accordingly. Taking this issue to my kids through the school is horrible. Think of it as the RIAA guy walking my kid to school for a couple of days. --Fuck that! I am the parent and they are not.
The day they decide to play that game in my school is the day we go out for ice cream and talk about the real world a little, their place in it, and who exactly the school works for and why this sort of thing is wrong.
The school is not their broadcast arena. We pay for the schools and should have considerable influence over the nature of the education.
Bottom line: The schools work for us, not the government or the RIAA. We pay to have them help us educate our kids, not raise them.
I plan to take this article to my school and let them know my kids will not be attending this program and that I resent the idea of my school being turned into a potential mouthpiece.
You judge me with regard to entitlement. It's a hasty judgement that detracts from your other point.
Man, I have never been entitled to anything period. Growing up, I had nothing but what I earned. One does not get anything unless they earn it. The driving is a right/privilige thing is getting hashed above, so I am not going to rehash again here, but I will say this:
I have worked hard for everything I have. Dig though my comment history for a little more on that. There are attitudes sinking this country, but mine is clearly not one of them.
The parent of this post has my intent, flawed as it may be, correct.
I posted above after thinking on this for a while. Driving may not be a natural right, but it is more than a simple privilige because of the affect it has on other more clearly defined natural rights.