>>... Record company executives make a living off of record sales...Artists don't.
If artists don't make money off record sales, then why do they keep signing contracts with record companies? What smart musicians do is to get in the CD business themselves.
I'm not especially interested in whether or nor the music industry survives.
How can any business steal from their customers when those customers willingly buy their products? Even if you argue that the products are overpriced, it isn't theft. If you think CD's cost too much, don't buy them.
>>...for centuries music and art were free or almost free and guess what..it survived...
Not accurate. Even if they don't sell tickets to their performances, musicians and artists must be compensated in some way for their production, otherwise they would not be able to support themselves. So, if you go see a free concert, for example, just remember that someone else is providing the resources, i.e., payment, that make it possible.
In any case, this issue is not about music and art. It is about the reproduction and distribution mechanism used to market music and art.
As I said elsewhere, sales and, hence, profits, only need to be reduced to the point that other lines of business become a more attractive investment. At that point, people will stop trying to sell CD's and DVD's because they can get a better return on their money selling something else.
And, no, it isn't ridiculous that the price of CD's and DVD's is more than the 3-5% you say the "hardware guys" accept as their profit. No one is interested in the hardware. A blank CD is no more attractive than 400 blank pages bound together as a book. It is the data and information, not the hardware, that people want. Would you by a DVD player if no DVD's were available?
I disagree that we gave "our culture" to corporations. Pop entertainment isn't much of a culture in the first place, so, even if your assertion was correct, I would not lament that fact.
It is not the responsibility of any corporation or other business to bring to the "masses" products you, or I, believe the "masses" ought to purchase. It is the responsiblity of businesses to try to sell, to as many individuals as possible, as many products as possible. If people don't like the affect of buying those products, then the blame rests with them, not the corporations.
Cassette tape didn't destroy the recorded music or movie business because it was a recording medium, not a distribution network. One person copying an album onto a tape poses no threat. One person copying a CD onto his server and offering it up to anyone with Internet access is a distinct threat.
I am not equating illegal copying with "zero legit sales". I am saying that, left unchecked, illegal copying will make it unprofitable to stay in the recorded music business. It is not necessary to reduce sales to zero. It is only necessary to reduce sales to the point at which it becomes more attractive to engage in another kind of business.
First impressions count, a lot. If the first thing someone sees after a Linux install is an amateurish looking desktop with an unappealing color scheme and ugly fonts, he has every right to conclude that the rest of the system was put together with equal lack of attention to detail and polish.
Logically, file sharing will eventually destroy the CD and DVD market. Why try to sell something people are just going to steal? So, ironically, no one will have anything to share anymore.
Personally, I don't believe anyone has a right to "share" the data on a CD or DVD unless that right was passed to you by the person who created the data. (I put quotes around share because use of that word is a deliberate attempt to whitewash what's really going on.)
If I don't own all rights to something I make (which , of course, I do, since it is impossible for anyone else to own those rights unless I transfer them), then I can't benefit from its production and reproduction. If I can't benefit by selling some of those rights, I'm likely to quit making things. So will almost everyone else, contrary to the naive opinions often expressed here that legitimate artists just want to give it all away and don't care about making a living.
As you well know, I did not say we should abandon space travel because it is too risky. I said I'd rather not risk any lives to repair an instrument that needs to be replaced, not repaired. I would not spend the money for a robotic repair mission, either.
The impetus to repair Hubble is coming from people who have a career stake in its survival and from lay people reacting emotionally to the images it produces. They would have us believe that the choice is between Hubble and nothing. That's wrong. Let Hubble go and replace it with something better. That's been the plan all along.
I'd prefer not risking any lives. I'd prefer replacing Hubble by carrying to fruition current plans for a new telescope. There's no reason to risk lives on a Hubble mission simply because lives are at risk on every Shuttle flight. The Hubble mission is significantly riskier because only one of the Shuttle vehicles is capable of reaching it. That means no possibility to rescue the crew if the Orbiter can't make reentry.
As for zero-G, the best solution is to dramatically shorten the amount of time it takes to get to Mars, or anyplace else. We desparately need a propulsion breakthrough that can produce speeds an order of magnitude faster than currently possible. Until then, the juryrigged solution will be lots of exercise and simulated gravity via centrifugal force.
As for Prince Henry, the only way for his sailors to learn to navigate on the ocean was to sail on the ocean. (In point of fact, they did tend to stay within sight of land.)
O'Keefe is following the recommendations of the CAIB. Would you have him ignore those recommendations only to lose another shuttle and crew trying to sustain an instrument that should be replaced, not repaired?
Hubble has been an extraordinary tool, but it was never intended to last forever.
The Shuttle has never had a serious purpose since NASA's preferred design was killed in the 1970's. It exists to sustain ISS, and ISS exists to sustain the Shuttle. Neither project serves the fundamental purpose of space travel, which is to take people from this planet to other places. Shuttle and ISS don't do that. They go in circles a few miles above the atmosphere. It is as if Prince Henry confined his ships to sailing in Portuguese waters within sight of land.
We need to admit that both ISS and Shuttle are bad ideas poorly implemented and move on. When the need for space stations and space trucks arises, organically, from efforts to explore space, then we will have a reason to build them.
>> As far as a conflict the US simply can't afford to let Taiwan be attacked.
Better Taiwan than New York and Los Angeles.
Although I suspect that economics, if that was the only motivator, would drive the U.S. to choose trade ties with Beijing over trade ties with Taiwan, there are many ways to to prevent an attack on Taiwan short of going to war against China.
I agree. But, so long as Beijing asserts, believably, that such a declaration would provoke a military response, Taiwan will remain under considerable pressure to maintain the status quo.
Because Beijing would consider any military support for Taiwan in such a war as equivalent to an attack on itself and would respond against the nation providing the assistance.
No country in the world has the military means to thwart an attack on Taiwan except the U.S. Personnally, I'm not willing to risk nuclear war over Taiwan.
Uh, no, the force that opposed the Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War was neither democratic or in power. They fled to Taiwan -- part of China -- in the waning days of the war when they were on the verge of defeat. Yes, Taiwan today is more democratic than the government in Beijing, but that government stance that Taiwan is a breakway rebellious province is rooted in history.
Remember, the Taiwanese have never declared complete independence. Why? Because they considers themselves to be the legitimate government of all of China. To declare independence would also mean giving up their claim to govern China.
>> They don't want to be "independent." They want to be China.
Excellent point.
Both of these regimes began as opposing sides in the Chinese civil war. From the point of view of the victors -- the government in Beijing -- Taiwan is a rebellious province occupied by the enemy in the waning days of that war. From the Taiwanese point of view, the Beijing government is illegitimate.
Since 1949, the Chinese government has rather consistently done everything it could to eliminate any references to Taiwanese independence. This includes a pledge to go to war against Taiwan if the island declares complete independence (renewed this year when a Taiwanese presidential candidate threatened to do just that). It also includes seemingly superficial things like this game. In other words, they have a consistent zero tolerance policy on this issue.
It wasn't advancing age that prompted Connery to leave Bond behind.
Connery is currently 74. He retired from the Bond franchise after "You Only Live Twice" in 1967, when he was 37. He played Bond again, at 53, in 1983's "Never Say Never Again".
I suspect that if Connery had stood to be paid as much as Ford gets paid to do Indiana Jones, his willingess to play Bond would have increased accordingly.
Your point about partioning is well taken. Windows and OSX suffer from the same problem when installed from scratch.
Here's the problem: They all assume the person doing the install knows what "partioning" means. That's an invalid assumption. Users are faced with dire warnings about the destruction of your hard drive and numerous unexplained option.
Some Linux installs try to avoid this by simply offering to "take over" the entire drive. That's a brute force approach that isn't attractive to many people.
Perhaps a middle approach might be to offer an "expert" option, but to present mainstream users with a display that simply says "Your disk(s) have ___ free space. How much of it do you want to use for Linux?" Some distros come close, but everyone I've seen still calls it "Partioning" and still displays scary warnings easily misinterpreted by users.
The linked story about the study says the research indicated that human activity increased the likelihood of the 2003 heatwave. That is not equivalent to a cause-and-effect relationship.
If Slashdot had the guts to practice real journalism, it would have told us who paid for this study. But, they won't do that because they're too damned opportunistic to do anything but lean on the work of others.
An admin's job is to make sure no IT problems rise to management's purview. That includes acting as a buffer between management and users. If this guy thought he was hired to play with computers, he's wrong.
I think he explained it rather well. XFCE has a bunch of little apps that don't come with Fluxbox or the other minimal window managers. If you use Fluxbox and add in those capabilities by running the equivalent individual programs, the only remaining difference is aesthetic.
In the end, asking if XFCE is better than Fluxbox, or if KDE is better than Gnome, is a bit like asking if blue is better than yellow. It all depends on what you like to look at, because if you want, for example, to put a clock on your desktop, you're gonna hafta run a clock program.
Not just MS admins. Every admin I've ever encountered has been as loathe to have his daily routine altered, regardless of whether the shop used MS or not.
Imagine the reaction if someone working in an all-Unix shop decides they want to run IE.
I've seen organizations set up a pool of alternative software that they are willing to support. Basically, they recognize that some employees have legitimate needs for specific programs that really don't need to be pushed out to every desktop. So, they set up a little server as a local repository for the alternatives they've tested and approved. Users can install at will from that server.
Slashdot Mirror
>> ... Record company executives make a living off of record sales...Artists don't.
If artists don't make money off record sales, then why do they keep signing contracts with record companies? What smart musicians do is to get in the CD business themselves.
I'm not especially interested in whether or nor the music industry survives.
>> ...stealing for years the fans of music...
...for centuries music and art were free or almost free and guess what..it survived...
How can any business steal from their customers when those customers willingly buy their products? Even if you argue that the products are overpriced, it isn't theft. If you think CD's cost too much, don't buy them.
>>
Not accurate. Even if they don't sell tickets to their performances, musicians and artists must be compensated in some way for their production, otherwise they would not be able to support themselves. So, if you go see a free concert, for example, just remember that someone else is providing the resources, i.e., payment, that make it possible.
In any case, this issue is not about music and art. It is about the reproduction and distribution mechanism used to market music and art.
As I said elsewhere, sales and, hence, profits, only need to be reduced to the point that other lines of business become a more attractive investment. At that point, people will stop trying to sell CD's and DVD's because they can get a better return on their money selling something else.
And, no, it isn't ridiculous that the price of CD's and DVD's is more than the 3-5% you say the "hardware guys" accept as their profit. No one is interested in the hardware. A blank CD is no more attractive than 400 blank pages bound together as a book. It is the data and information, not the hardware, that people want. Would you by a DVD player if no DVD's were available?
I disagree that we gave "our culture" to corporations. Pop entertainment isn't much of a culture in the first place, so, even if your assertion was correct, I would not lament that fact.
It is not the responsibility of any corporation or other business to bring to the "masses" products you, or I, believe the "masses" ought to purchase. It is the responsiblity of businesses to try to sell, to as many individuals as possible, as many products as possible. If people don't like the affect of buying those products, then the blame rests with them, not the corporations.
Cute, but no sale.
Cassette tape didn't destroy the recorded music or movie business because it was a recording medium, not a distribution network. One person copying an album onto a tape poses no threat. One person copying a CD onto his server and offering it up to anyone with Internet access is a distinct threat.
I am not equating illegal copying with "zero legit sales". I am saying that, left unchecked, illegal copying will make it unprofitable to stay in the recorded music business. It is not necessary to reduce sales to zero. It is only necessary to reduce sales to the point at which it becomes more attractive to engage in another kind of business.
First impressions count, a lot. If the first thing someone sees after a Linux install is an amateurish looking desktop with an unappealing color scheme and ugly fonts, he has every right to conclude that the rest of the system was put together with equal lack of attention to detail and polish.
Logically, file sharing will eventually destroy the CD and DVD market. Why try to sell something people are just going to steal? So, ironically, no one will have anything to share anymore.
Personally, I don't believe anyone has a right to "share" the data on a CD or DVD unless that right was passed to you by the person who created the data. (I put quotes around share because use of that word is a deliberate attempt to whitewash what's really going on.)
If I don't own all rights to something I make (which , of course, I do, since it is impossible for anyone else to own those rights unless I transfer them), then I can't benefit from its production and reproduction. If I can't benefit by selling some of those rights, I'm likely to quit making things. So will almost everyone else, contrary to the naive opinions often expressed here that legitimate artists just want to give it all away and don't care about making a living.
As you well know, I did not say we should abandon space travel because it is too risky. I said I'd rather not risk any lives to repair an instrument that needs to be replaced, not repaired. I would not spend the money for a robotic repair mission, either.
The impetus to repair Hubble is coming from people who have a career stake in its survival and from lay people reacting emotionally to the images it produces. They would have us believe that the choice is between Hubble and nothing. That's wrong. Let Hubble go and replace it with something better. That's been the plan all along.
I'd prefer not risking any lives. I'd prefer replacing Hubble by carrying to fruition current plans for a new telescope. There's no reason to risk lives on a Hubble mission simply because lives are at risk on every Shuttle flight. The Hubble mission is significantly riskier because only one of the Shuttle vehicles is capable of reaching it. That means no possibility to rescue the crew if the Orbiter can't make reentry.
As for zero-G, the best solution is to dramatically shorten the amount of time it takes to get to Mars, or anyplace else. We desparately need a propulsion breakthrough that can produce speeds an order of magnitude faster than currently possible. Until then, the juryrigged solution will be lots of exercise and simulated gravity via centrifugal force.
As for Prince Henry, the only way for his sailors to learn to navigate on the ocean was to sail on the ocean. (In point of fact, they did tend to stay within sight of land.)
O'Keefe is following the recommendations of the CAIB. Would you have him ignore those recommendations only to lose another shuttle and crew trying to sustain an instrument that should be replaced, not repaired?
Hubble has been an extraordinary tool, but it was never intended to last forever.
The Shuttle has never had a serious purpose since NASA's preferred design was killed in the 1970's. It exists to sustain ISS, and ISS exists to sustain the Shuttle. Neither project serves the fundamental purpose of space travel, which is to take people from this planet to other places. Shuttle and ISS don't do that. They go in circles a few miles above the atmosphere. It is as if Prince Henry confined his ships to sailing in Portuguese waters within sight of land.
We need to admit that both ISS and Shuttle are bad ideas poorly implemented and move on. When the need for space stations and space trucks arises, organically, from efforts to explore space, then we will have a reason to build them.
Has the official position of either government changed? They are the players in this game.
>> As far as a conflict the US simply can't afford to let Taiwan be attacked.
Better Taiwan than New York and Los Angeles.
Although I suspect that economics, if that was the only motivator, would drive the U.S. to choose trade ties with Beijing over trade ties with Taiwan, there are many ways to to prevent an attack on Taiwan short of going to war against China.
I agree. But, so long as Beijing asserts, believably, that such a declaration would provoke a military response, Taiwan will remain under considerable pressure to maintain the status quo.
Because Beijing would consider any military support for Taiwan in such a war as equivalent to an attack on itself and would respond against the nation providing the assistance.
No country in the world has the military means to thwart an attack on Taiwan except the U.S. Personnally, I'm not willing to risk nuclear war over Taiwan.
Uh, no, the force that opposed the Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War was neither democratic or in power. They fled to Taiwan -- part of China -- in the waning days of the war when they were on the verge of defeat. Yes, Taiwan today is more democratic than the government in Beijing, but that government stance that Taiwan is a breakway rebellious province is rooted in history.
Remember, the Taiwanese have never declared complete independence. Why? Because they considers themselves to be the legitimate government of all of China. To declare independence would also mean giving up their claim to govern China.
>> They don't want to be "independent." They want to be China.
Excellent point.
Both of these regimes began as opposing sides in the Chinese civil war. From the point of view of the victors -- the government in Beijing -- Taiwan is a rebellious province occupied by the enemy in the waning days of that war. From the Taiwanese point of view, the Beijing government is illegitimate.
Since 1949, the Chinese government has rather consistently done everything it could to eliminate any references to Taiwanese independence. This includes a pledge to go to war against Taiwan if the island declares complete independence (renewed this year when a Taiwanese presidential candidate threatened to do just that). It also includes seemingly superficial things like this game. In other words, they have a consistent zero tolerance policy on this issue.
...every day on Slashdot. Just take a look around.
/. gleefully pointing to a piece criticizing corporate types who can't write.
There's more than a touch of sad irony in
Ok. Bump that age up to 41.
It wasn't advancing age that prompted Connery to leave Bond behind.
Connery is currently 74. He retired from the Bond franchise after "You Only Live Twice" in 1967, when he was 37. He played Bond again, at 53, in 1983's "Never Say Never Again".
I suspect that if Connery had stood to be paid as much as Ford gets paid to do Indiana Jones, his willingess to play Bond would have increased accordingly.
Your point about partioning is well taken. Windows and OSX suffer from the same problem when installed from scratch.
Here's the problem: They all assume the person doing the install knows what "partioning" means. That's an invalid assumption. Users are faced with dire warnings about the destruction of your hard drive and numerous unexplained option.
Some Linux installs try to avoid this by simply offering to "take over" the entire drive. That's a brute force approach that isn't attractive to many people.
Perhaps a middle approach might be to offer an "expert" option, but to present mainstream users with a display that simply says "Your disk(s) have ___ free space. How much of it do you want to use for Linux?" Some distros come close, but everyone I've seen still calls it "Partioning" and still displays scary warnings easily misinterpreted by users.
The Slashdot headline is wrong (no surprise).
The linked story about the study says the research indicated that human activity increased the likelihood of the 2003 heatwave. That is not equivalent to a cause-and-effect relationship.
If Slashdot had the guts to practice real journalism, it would have told us who paid for this study. But, they won't do that because they're too damned opportunistic to do anything but lean on the work of others.
An admin's job is to make sure no IT problems rise to management's purview. That includes acting as a buffer between management and users. If this guy thought he was hired to play with computers, he's wrong.
I think he explained it rather well. XFCE has a bunch of little apps that don't come with Fluxbox or the other minimal window managers. If you use Fluxbox and add in those capabilities by running the equivalent individual programs, the only remaining difference is aesthetic.
In the end, asking if XFCE is better than Fluxbox, or if KDE is better than Gnome, is a bit like asking if blue is better than yellow. It all depends on what you like to look at, because if you want, for example, to put a clock on your desktop, you're gonna hafta run a clock program.
>> ...MS shops are often set in their ways.
Not just MS admins. Every admin I've ever encountered has been as loathe to have his daily routine altered, regardless of whether the shop used MS or not.
Imagine the reaction if someone working in an all-Unix shop decides they want to run IE.
I've seen organizations set up a pool of alternative software that they are willing to support. Basically, they recognize that some employees have legitimate needs for specific programs that really don't need to be pushed out to every desktop. So, they set up a little server as a local repository for the alternatives they've tested and approved. Users can install at will from that server.