>>>Saying patently false things about someone that you know are false *should* be a crime,
That sounds good in theory and might even work for awhile, until you get yourself some future president who resembles Mao Tse Tung. Said future president will define anything he doesn't like as "false" and imprison you. For example: "The communists killed hundreds in Tianneman Square." "No we didn't. That's libel. Welcome to prison."
You need to write your laws, not just for the present, but also so they cannot be abused by future tyrants. Libel/slander laws can and have been abused by governments to silence citizens.
>>>Unfortunately, this means that the person with the bigger mouth can just shout louder than the other guy.
Yes true, but when you demand evidence, and one of those guys cannot provide any, then it doesn't matter how loud they shout. It only makes the look like a fool, and then they will be dismissed as whackjobs (or trolls).
I and most people don't "rely" on Google at all. I have googlemail, but it's barely used and could be easily transferred to somewhere else like yahoomail, or hotmail, or my ISPs' mail service (verizon.net and isp.netscape.com).
I don't rely on their search engines either. Again there are plenty of replacements.
A lot of people have abandoned FM Music Radio for their Ipods, which plug directly into the dash stereo.
And it's only a matter of time until people ca hear last.fm or Pandora via their cellphones, and then old-fashioned analog radio might as well not exist.
>>>most print and tv news outlets are owned by major conglomerates who have them present a more-or-less unified message.
You forgot about the existence of FOX News. And the Libertarian News. And the Limbaugh Letter. And reason.com. And so on.
Unified? Hardly. Although the "more government and less individualism is better" viewpoint dominates ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, PBS*..... there is still a lot of variety out there in the free press. You can hear everything from communists to anarchists, if you simply search for them. (Or turn on your AM Radio.)
* * * Yes I know that people will object to this comment, but when Obamacare passes I won't be allowed to chose NOT to buy health insurance without getting fined ~$1000. I call that anti-individualism. I will be forced to conform like a paper cutout doll. (Or serf.)
Free speech should mean exactly that. You own your mouth, and nobody else should be able to muzzle it under any circumstances (unless you are inside their house or other private domain). Slander/libel laws shouldn't even exist. If you don't like what somebody is saying about you, then use your own mouth to tell those frakkers to "put up (evidence) or shut up".
>>>Consider that this is an industry that sells you a ringtone, then says you owe extra money when your phone rings because you just broadcast music in public. Stunning. >>>
Saying it is okay.
Bribing the politicians to give them the legal right to get paid for that "public performance", or else send you an extortionate letter for $5000, or drag you to court for a $100,000 fine......... that's the real problem.
These corporations have stolen the People's Government and turned it into the Corporations' government. They need to be shot. Quickly, quietly, but still dead.
Maybe they should hire cheaper producers and engineers.
Or here's a novel idea: Just put an artist in a room, with mic, and record direct to the hard drive. It doesn't get any cheaper than that, and it's how it used to be done back in the 1960s and earlier.
This is nothing new. These industries fought the grammophone, because nobody would buy sheet music anymore. As it turned-out, they were right but the loss of sales from sheet music was more than made-up by sales of cylinders and discs.
Then they fought the invention of FM radio, because they feared people would no longer listen to music on the AM stations. Again they were correct, but AM survived as the source for news and dialogue.
Now they are fighting digital streaming because they fear it will hurt FM radio and sales of discs. And again they're probably right, but they can still make a *lot* of money from internet ads and direct sales.
They need to stop being afraid of the future. Technology changes but they will still have a place to sell their warez.
They won't make any money. It will be just like the bad old days of the 1800s when artists like Edgar Allan Poe died in the streets. The horror. The horror./end sarcasm
So does this mean I can no longer watch free streaming content of Buffy and Gilmore Girls on thewb.com?:-(
They could have kept the "ad hoc" Mac environment even after the switched to Windows PCs.
Since they didn't, you are no longer making and apple-to-apple comparison,. You're making an apple-to-mango fruit comparison, from which you cannot draw any conclusion whatsoever.
>>>I can manipulate text files much much faster on the command line than I can in a GUI.
I can backup my entire movie collection from my internal harddrive to the external USB drive with a simple drag-and-drop, and just sit back and wait for it to finish. You really think you can type a command faster than the flick of my wrist??? Hardly.
.
>>I've been using GUIs since 1987. I've been using command lines since 1982. I still use both, on any OS I use (including my phone).
Ditto.
And I think GUIs are faster and easier to use, than having to memorize 300 different commands, plus their various options. I remember the bad old days of having to refer to a giant, heavy tome to find some esoteric -command switch. GUI eliminates that hassle. That was the whole point behind the inventing the GUI.
>>>You bought a computer for $300 in 2002? I don't seem to remember them being that cheap back then...
Oh yeah.
And not only were they $300 cheap, you could get them for FREE if you signed-up with MSN internet service provider. Sign a two-year-contract, get a $300 rebate off your machine, so that it was free. I didn't choose to do that, but could have.
>>>You could have not, and your machine could still run 10.2
No not really. Yes I CAN choose to restore my Mac to OS 10.2, but then I wouldn't be able to run Apple's latest software like Safari and Itunes, so in practical terms, you can't stay with 10.2. You have to upgrade to 10.5 minimum and that costs cash.
Yeah because they have no choice. Apple no longer supports any OS 10.4 or lower, so their users HAVE to upgrade. In contrast, even though Win98 is officially "end of life" most MS products still run on it just fine.
The reason the leaders of France and Australia want to censor/monitor the internet is the same reason President Obama wants to track/monitor our cellphones.
Control.
They want the power to run our lives, as if they were lords of the manor, and we were mere serfs.
I reject all conspiracies. I will put your theory into the same pile I put the 9/11 Truthers and FDR Knew about Pearl Harbor theories.
I don't see that maintaining Windows is any more difficult than maintaining Macs. At least that's not been my experience. Many of the problems I encounter are actually Mac-related, due to inability to run certain things (like RealPlayer inside Firefox to watch embedded videos).
>>>Actually, your pricing is bargain basement computers-at-Fry's-to-get-you-in-the-door pricing
Which is what a small business is likely to be running. Your secretary or HR rep doesn't need anything more than the AMD X2 with 3 gigabytes DRAM computer, which I used in my example.
>>>Total cost of ownership is much smaller for OS X
Is it? My Mac from 2002 to present cost me:
OS X 10.2 upgrade - $100 (aproximately) OS X 10.3 upgrade - $100 OS X 10.4 upgrade - $100 OS X 10.5 upgrade - $100 (I didn't want to upgrade but had to in order to make the latest Safari run)
My Windows XP-PC cost: Nothing. I have never spent a dime to upgrade it.
And of course there's the difference in initial price that I mentioned before: $300 versus $1500. As for free tools, due to Windows being the defacto standard, there are tons of tools you can download off the internet. I've never needed to buy a single piece of software for my PC, since people provide programs free as shareware-or-open source.
>>>don't give me that "you can pull up a terminal on it and run unix commands" bullshit.
AGREED. In my opinion if you HAVE to open a CLI to accomplish a task on your 2010 computer, then your GUI is a fail, and your OS is non-user-friendly. That's one of my frustrations with Linux - you have to *waste worktime* memorizing a bunch of esoteric commands to do simple tasks like install RealPlayer. Or find out how much memory your computer has. Or what processor it's using.
"IBM PC compatible" means you have a machine that can run programs from the original "IBM PC" machine. Mac OS can not do that. Linux OS can not do that. Commodore Amiga OS can not do that. But Windows (via the built-in MS-DOS emulator) can.
Slashdot Mirror
P.S.
>>>Saying patently false things about someone that you know are false *should* be a crime,
That sounds good in theory and might even work for awhile, until you get yourself some future president who resembles Mao Tse Tung. Said future president will define anything he doesn't like as "false" and imprison you. For example: "The communists killed hundreds in Tianneman Square." "No we didn't. That's libel. Welcome to prison."
You need to write your laws, not just for the present, but also so they cannot be abused by future tyrants. Libel/slander laws can and have been abused by governments to silence citizens.
>>>Unfortunately, this means that the person with the bigger mouth can just shout louder than the other guy.
Yes true, but when you demand evidence, and one of those guys cannot provide any, then it doesn't matter how loud they shout. It only makes the look like a fool, and then they will be dismissed as whackjobs (or trolls).
I and most people don't "rely" on Google at all. I have googlemail, but it's barely used and could be easily transferred to somewhere else like yahoomail, or hotmail, or my ISPs' mail service (verizon.net and isp.netscape.com).
I don't rely on their search engines either. Again there are plenty of replacements.
So let Google fail. Most users don't care.
A lot of people have abandoned FM Music Radio for their Ipods, which plug directly into the dash stereo.
And it's only a matter of time until people ca hear last.fm or Pandora via their cellphones, and then old-fashioned analog radio might as well not exist.
>>>most print and tv news outlets are owned by major conglomerates who have them present a more-or-less unified message.
You forgot about the existence of FOX News.
And the Libertarian News.
And the Limbaugh Letter.
And reason.com.
And so on.
Unified? Hardly. Although the "more government and less individualism is better" viewpoint dominates ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, PBS*..... there is still a lot of variety out there in the free press. You can hear everything from communists to anarchists, if you simply search for them. (Or turn on your AM Radio.)
*
*
* Yes I know that people will object to this comment, but when Obamacare passes I won't be allowed to chose NOT to buy health insurance without getting fined ~$1000. I call that anti-individualism. I will be forced to conform like a paper cutout doll. (Or serf.)
I concur.
Free speech should mean exactly that. You own your mouth, and nobody else should be able to muzzle it under any circumstances (unless you are inside their house or other private domain). Slander/libel laws shouldn't even exist. If you don't like what somebody is saying about you, then use your own mouth to tell those frakkers to "put up (evidence) or shut up".
>>>And how is this different from a fire or flood or theft that damages a CD collection?
CDs should be replaced for free too, since you've already paid for the music. Just pay for a nominal shipping fee.
>>>Consider that this is an industry that sells you a ringtone, then says you owe extra money when your phone rings because you just broadcast music in public. Stunning.
>>>
Saying it is okay.
Bribing the politicians to give them the legal right to get paid for that "public performance", or else send you an extortionate letter for $5000, or drag you to court for a $100,000 fine......... that's the real problem.
These corporations have stolen the People's Government and turned it into the Corporations' government. They need to be shot. Quickly, quietly, but still dead.
Maybe they should hire cheaper producers and engineers.
Or here's a novel idea: Just put an artist in a room, with mic, and record direct to the hard drive. It doesn't get any cheaper than that, and it's how it used to be done back in the 1960s and earlier.
This is nothing new. These industries fought the grammophone, because nobody would buy sheet music anymore. As it turned-out, they were right but the loss of sales from sheet music was more than made-up by sales of cylinders and discs.
Then they fought the invention of FM radio, because they feared people would no longer listen to music on the AM stations. Again they were correct, but AM survived as the source for news and dialogue.
Now they are fighting digital streaming because they fear it will hurt FM radio and sales of discs. And again they're probably right, but they can still make a *lot* of money from internet ads and direct sales.
They need to stop being afraid of the future. Technology changes but they will still have a place to sell their warez.
They won't make any money. It will be just like the bad old days of the 1800s when artists like Edgar Allan Poe died in the streets. The horror. The horror. /end sarcasm
So does this mean I can no longer watch free streaming content of Buffy and Gilmore Girls on thewb.com? :-(
Typo.
He meant to say, "The PPC laptop I bought in 2002 crashed several times a day - I went back to Windows 98 for its stability!"
They could have kept the "ad hoc" Mac environment even after the switched to Windows PCs.
Since they didn't, you are no longer making and apple-to-apple comparison,. You're making an apple-to-mango fruit comparison, from which you cannot draw any conclusion whatsoever.
Staples.com
>>>I can manipulate text files much much faster on the command line than I can in a GUI.
I can backup my entire movie collection from my internal harddrive to the external USB drive with a simple drag-and-drop, and just sit back and wait for it to finish. You really think you can type a command faster than the flick of my wrist??? Hardly.
.
>>I've been using GUIs since 1987. I've been using command lines since 1982. I still use both, on any OS I use (including my phone).
Ditto.
And I think GUIs are faster and easier to use, than having to memorize 300 different commands, plus their various options. I remember the bad old days of having to refer to a giant, heavy tome to find some esoteric -command switch. GUI eliminates that hassle. That was the whole point behind the inventing the GUI.
>>>You bought a computer for $300 in 2002? I don't seem to remember them being that cheap back then...
Oh yeah.
And not only were they $300 cheap, you could get them for FREE if you signed-up with MSN internet service provider. Sign a two-year-contract, get a $300 rebate off your machine, so that it was free. I didn't choose to do that, but could have.
>>>You could have not, and your machine could still run 10.2
No not really. Yes I CAN choose to restore my Mac to OS 10.2, but then I wouldn't be able to run Apple's latest software like Safari and Itunes, so in practical terms, you can't stay with 10.2. You have to upgrade to 10.5 minimum and that costs cash.
>>>Apple users seem to upgrade a lot faster
Yeah because they have no choice. Apple no longer supports any OS 10.4 or lower, so their users HAVE to upgrade. In contrast, even though Win98 is officially "end of life" most MS products still run on it just fine.
The reason the leaders of France and Australia want to censor/monitor the internet is the same reason President Obama wants to track/monitor our cellphones.
Control.
They want the power to run our lives, as if they were lords of the manor, and we were mere serfs.
I reject all conspiracies. I will put your theory into the same pile I put the 9/11 Truthers and FDR Knew about Pearl Harbor theories.
I don't see that maintaining Windows is any more difficult than maintaining Macs. At least that's not been my experience. Many of the problems I encounter are actually Mac-related, due to inability to run certain things (like RealPlayer inside Firefox to watch embedded videos).
>>>Actually, your pricing is bargain basement computers-at-Fry's-to-get-you-in-the-door pricing
Which is what a small business is likely to be running. Your secretary or HR rep doesn't need anything more than the AMD X2 with 3 gigabytes DRAM computer, which I used in my example.
>>>Total cost of ownership is much smaller for OS X
Is it? My Mac from 2002 to present cost me:
OS X 10.2 upgrade - $100 (aproximately)
OS X 10.3 upgrade - $100
OS X 10.4 upgrade - $100
OS X 10.5 upgrade - $100 (I didn't want to upgrade but had to in order to make the latest Safari run)
My Windows XP-PC cost: Nothing. I have never spent a dime to upgrade it.
And of course there's the difference in initial price that I mentioned before: $300 versus $1500. As for free tools, due to Windows being the defacto standard, there are tons of tools you can download off the internet. I've never needed to buy a single piece of software for my PC, since people provide programs free as shareware-or-open source.
>>>don't give me that "you can pull up a terminal on it and run unix commands" bullshit.
AGREED. In my opinion if you HAVE to open a CLI to accomplish a task on your 2010 computer, then your GUI is a fail, and your OS is non-user-friendly. That's one of my frustrations with Linux - you have to *waste worktime* memorizing a bunch of esoteric commands to do simple tasks like install RealPlayer. Or find out how much memory your computer has. Or what processor it's using.
Ridiculous.
>>>>>IBM PC-compatible
>>FYI: it's currently 2010.
FYI: Don't give a frak about your anal retentive nature
"IBM PC compatible" means you have a machine that can run programs from the original "IBM PC" machine. Mac OS can not do that. Linux OS can not do that. Commodore Amiga OS can not do that. But Windows (via the built-in MS-DOS emulator) can.