This whole anti-French thing is getting really old, particularly now that it turns out that they were pretty much on-the-money about the unreliability of the intelligence on Saddam's WMDs.
I can't believe people are moderating this down as flamebait. This is proof positive, if it were still needed, that any incisive criticism of one of the/. sacred cows (Apple being top of the list) gets censored with flamebait moderations.
How sad that some Slashdotters put their adoration of all things Apple above the fair use rights that are trampled by DRM.
Apparently you agree in some part if you just relayed them. I mean, if they were rubish, you wouldn't post 'em, right?
Um, no - I think a quick lesson in rhetoric is needed here. It is actually possible to quote someone's opinion without necessarily agreeing with it.
My point is that/.'s coverage of Apple is one-sided (both in the stories the editors select, and in the general trend of moderation). This doesn't imply that I necessarily advocate the other side, just that I would prefer a more balanced debate.
Firstly, note that I was pointing out opinions you won't hear on/., not endorsing those opinions.
Personally I think the most valid criticism is that Apple describe iTunes as being fair to artists whereas in most cases the artist only makes a tiny fraction of each sale. Yes, this might be due to the artist signing a dumb contract with their label, but its Apple's choice to describe this as "fair".
Downhill Battle have a nice suggestion on that page I linked to, iTunes should clearly indicate the amount of each sale that goes to the artists. That way consumers can choose to support record labels that give artists a fair deal over those that don't.
Do Apple have to pay for all the free advertising and advocacy they get
on Slashdot? I mean, lets take a look at some of the opinions you
won't hear on Slashdot (from here):
It's too expensive
Let's start simple: the iTunes Music Store is not a good value for
customers. Apple says many users are buying whole "albums" for $8-$12
each. That's less than the $16 store price, but used CDs at Amazon or
ebay cost $5, and those come with liner notes. If you don't care about
liner notes, you can burn the CD from a friend for 25 cents and send the
musician a buck. In both cases, you end up with a real CD, and you can
always use iTunes to rip it onto your computer or mp3 player. And you
don't have to deal with restrictions on how you use it.
If you build a shiny new house on a landfill it still
stinks
Apple says iTunes is "better than free" because it's "fair to the
artists and record labels." That's simply not true. First of all, Apple
gets 3 times as much money as musicians from each sale. Apple takes a
35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering
how little they have to do. Record labels receive the other 65% of each
sale. Of this, major label artists will end up with only 8 to 14 cents
per song, depending on their contract. Many of them will never Artists
Get Ripped Off. even see this paltry share because they have to pay for
producers and recording costs, both of which can be enormous. Until the
musician "recoups" these costs, when you buy an iTunes song, the label
gives them nothing.
Nothing changed
So why does iTunes give artists such a raw deal? Because it's the exact
same deal that artists have always gotten from the big five record
companies. Despite huge new efficiencies created by internet
distribution --no CDs to make, no distributors to store and ship them,
no CD stores to build and run-- artists receive the same pathetic cut.
That is the disaster of iTunes. Instead of using this new medium to
empower musicians and their fans, it helps the record industry cartel
perpetuate the exploitation. Apple might say it's not their fault: after
all, they didn't write the unfair record contracts. But when Apple
supports and profits from an obviously unfair system, while telling
customers that it's "fair to the artists", they are just as guilty. For
years, Apple Computer has built a reputation for straightforward
business. So if Apple honestly believes that the iTunes system is fair
for artists, we challenge them to display the artist's cut next to each
song and let their customers decide.
Keeping progress at bay
iTunes is just a shiny new facade for the ugly, exploitative system that
has managed music for the past 50 years. Thanks to peer to peer
filesharing, we finally have a chance to break the major record label
system-- but every iTunes user who pays 90 cents on the dollar to
middlemen props up the old regime and delays the day when corporations
finally lose their stranglehold on music. Now that's something to feel
guilty about.
Now, I don't claim to agree with all of these criticisms, but it does bug
me how fawning and sycophantic many/. editors and posters are towards
Apple.
...Stop pandering to the centralised media producers. We are already doing them a big favor by granting them a monopoly over the airwaves, why should we grant them further control by denying us the freedom to exercise our fair use rights over digitally transmitted content, a freedom we have had since 1984?
It seems that Linux has been playing catch up for some years now in terms of user interface, and with the advent of OSX - it now has a whole new mountain to climb.
Where are the free software projects investigating next generation UI concepts? Is Linux too wedded to the old ways of doing things to compete with commercial vendors like Apple? It seems to me that the Linux UI community has been very busy trying to emulate the functionality of yesterday's commercial desktops, when it should be pioneering new approaches and UI innovations, thus leap-frogging Apple and others.
it's very much "not done" to change your stance after a political agreement has been reached, but there are no juridical hurdles which prevent you from doing that.
Given the underhanded tactics? used to get this passed in the first place, I think the actions of the Dutch are more than justified.
So they were for being against opposing patents. This is your brain on drugs.
The EU's politicians have come up with a great way to prevent those pesky voters from interfering with their important work; they the whole system by which laws are passed so damn complicated that nobody but them has the time to understand it.
Our only option is to get into their warped way of thinking, and what better way to start than by using their language in/. stories!;-)
I think the deal is that they have a "political vote", but the actual binding vote can only take place once the document has been translated into all EU languages. Historically the second vote has been a formality, but the big deal here is that the Dutch have demonstrated that if a Minister has voted against the wishes of their government in the Council, that vote can be changed.
This is not only good for software patents, but its also a step forward for accountability in the EU.
This may seem like flamebait, but they throw the
first stone right there on
From the Mono
website:
...However, the Java runtime systems commonly available on Linux lack
the performance that customers demand, and Java applications do not conform
to the Linux GUI look and feel.
If these are the best justification for.NET over Java, then they are
pretty weak.
As has been pointed out ad tedium in various Java-related discussions on/. - Java's early reputation for poor performance may have been
justified in the 1.0 and 1.1 days, but modern Java VMs employ
sophisticated JIT compilers which gives it comparable performance to
natively compiled languages like C++, and easily matches.NET's CLR
performance. Java's bytecode and.NET's bytecode are not that different, the main differences are in the APIs.
Which brings us on to the second justification for.NET over Java, native GUIs, which is even weaker. Java-Gnome does the same thing as
Mono's GTK bindings, offering exactly the same GUI abilities, and SWT offers a truely
cross-platform GUI API with a native look and feel on each platform it
runs on.
TRUTH is a non-biased, exhaustive analysis of a topic.
No, truth is the opposite of lying, which is stating things as facts which aren't true. I have yet to see a single fact in F911 that has been proven false.
The fact that you think there is any such thing as a non-biased analysis suggests naivity. Everything is biased, the only question is whether you are biased in the same way.
I'm sure there are exaggerations and perhaps outright lies in the movie
Why would you assume that? This is one of the most fact-checked movie in history, it had to be or the right wing would have the perfect excuse to dismiss it as lies. I haven't heard a single criticism of the facts it states that hasn't been effectively rebutted by Moore.
Lets think about this. This is the guy that saw the Internet (or what became the Internet) and decided that the one thing this wonderful new decentralized network needed was a
highly centralized system for mapping host names to IP addresses - thus
eventually creating all the problems we are now experiencing with ICANN?
Actually the meta-Godwin's law was created by people who cannot debate with logic and must resort to emotional (invoking Hitler) rhetoric. As illustrated by your use of ad hominem arguments and straw man fallicies, you would be one of them.
No, it was created by people who are sick of smug idiots like you who refer to Godwin's law but don't actually understand it.
Why don't you read Godwin's law? If you did you would realise that it doesn't say "anyone who mentions Hitler in a debate is automatically wrong".
Oh no! Mozilla versus Opera, on/. that is almost as bad as Galdalf versus Arthur Dent or Apple versus Linux!
Expect to see large parts of the Internet go down as slashdotters everywhere spontaneously combust due to an inability to reconcile two opposing knee-jerk reactions.
Slashdot Mirror
How sad that some Slashdotters put their adoration of all things Apple above the fair use rights that are trampled by DRM.
My point is that /.'s coverage of Apple is one-sided (both in the stories the editors select, and in the general trend of moderation). This doesn't imply that I necessarily advocate the other side, just that I would prefer a more balanced debate.
Personally I think the most valid criticism is that Apple describe iTunes as being fair to artists whereas in most cases the artist only makes a tiny fraction of each sale. Yes, this might be due to the artist signing a dumb contract with their label, but its Apple's choice to describe this as "fair".
Downhill Battle have a nice suggestion on that page I linked to, iTunes should clearly indicate the amount of each sale that goes to the artists. That way consumers can choose to support record labels that give artists a fair deal over those that don't.
Let's start simple: the iTunes Music Store is not a good value for customers. Apple says many users are buying whole "albums" for $8-$12 each. That's less than the $16 store price, but used CDs at Amazon or ebay cost $5, and those come with liner notes. If you don't care about liner notes, you can burn the CD from a friend for 25 cents and send the musician a buck. In both cases, you end up with a real CD, and you can always use iTunes to rip it onto your computer or mp3 player. And you don't have to deal with restrictions on how you use it.
Apple says iTunes is "better than free" because it's "fair to the artists and record labels." That's simply not true. First of all, Apple gets 3 times as much money as musicians from each sale. Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do. Record labels receive the other 65% of each sale. Of this, major label artists will end up with only 8 to 14 cents per song, depending on their contract. Many of them will never Artists Get Ripped Off. even see this paltry share because they have to pay for producers and recording costs, both of which can be enormous. Until the musician "recoups" these costs, when you buy an iTunes song, the label gives them nothing.
So why does iTunes give artists such a raw deal? Because it's the exact same deal that artists have always gotten from the big five record companies. Despite huge new efficiencies created by internet distribution --no CDs to make, no distributors to store and ship them, no CD stores to build and run-- artists receive the same pathetic cut. That is the disaster of iTunes. Instead of using this new medium to empower musicians and their fans, it helps the record industry cartel perpetuate the exploitation. Apple might say it's not their fault: after all, they didn't write the unfair record contracts. But when Apple supports and profits from an obviously unfair system, while telling customers that it's "fair to the artists", they are just as guilty. For years, Apple Computer has built a reputation for straightforward business. So if Apple honestly believes that the iTunes system is fair for artists, we challenge them to display the artist's cut next to each song and let their customers decide.
iTunes is just a shiny new facade for the ugly, exploitative system that has managed music for the past 50 years. Thanks to peer to peer filesharing, we finally have a chance to break the major record label system-- but every iTunes user who pays 90 cents on the dollar to middlemen props up the old regime and delays the day when corporations finally lose their stranglehold on music. Now that's something to feel guilty about.
Now, I don't claim to agree with all of these criticisms, but it does bug me how fawning and sycophantic many /. editors and posters are towards
Apple.
...Stop pandering to the centralised media producers. We are already doing them a big favor by granting them a monopoly over the airwaves, why should we grant them further control by denying us the freedom to exercise our fair use rights over digitally transmitted content, a freedom we have had since 1984?
Will /. editors never learn?
Where are the free software projects investigating next generation UI concepts? Is Linux too wedded to the old ways of doing things to compete with commercial vendors like Apple? It seems to me that the Linux UI community has been very busy trying to emulate the functionality of yesterday's commercial desktops, when it should be pioneering new approaches and UI innovations, thus leap-frogging Apple and others.
Our only option is to get into their warped way of thinking, and what better way to start than by using their language in /. stories! ;-)
I think the deal is that they have a "political vote", but the actual binding vote can only take place once the document has been translated into all EU languages. Historically the second vote has been a formality, but the big deal here is that the Dutch have demonstrated that if a Minister has voted against the wishes of their government in the Council, that vote can be changed.
This is not only good for software patents, but its also a step forward for accountability in the EU.
As has been pointed out ad tedium in various Java-related discussions on /. - Java's early reputation for poor performance may have been
justified in the 1.0 and 1.1 days, but modern Java VMs employ
sophisticated JIT compilers which gives it comparable performance to
natively compiled languages like C++, and easily matches .NET's CLR
performance. Java's bytecode and .NET's bytecode are not that different, the main differences are in the APIs.
Which brings us on to the second justification for .NET over Java, native GUIs, which is even weaker. Java-Gnome does the same thing as
Mono's GTK bindings, offering exactly the same GUI abilities, and SWT offers a truely
cross-platform GUI API with a native look and feel on each platform it
runs on.
The fact that you think there is any such thing as a non-biased analysis suggests naivity. Everything is biased, the only question is whether you are biased in the same way.
There is a pretty good response to this article here. Not sure if Moore himself has responded yet.
If you have specific issues with the facts in this film them lets hear them.
Lets think about this. This is the guy that saw the Internet (or what became the Internet) and decided that the one thing this wonderful new decentralized network needed was a highly centralized system for mapping host names to IP addresses - thus eventually creating all the problems we are now experiencing with ICANN?
And we should respect his opinion why?
Why don't you read Godwin's law? If you did you would realise that it doesn't say "anyone who mentions Hitler in a debate is automatically wrong".
Congratulations.
* "The first person to misapply Godwin's law in a discussion is automatically deemed a complete idiot"
They have a word for that, its called appeasement.
They tried it with Hitler before World War II. It didn't work.
Expect to see large parts of the Internet go down as slashdotters everywhere spontaneously combust due to an inability to reconcile two opposing knee-jerk reactions.