as is the case with your linked post, since it was never moderated in the first place. Most of the time I get modded down it's because I've made a legitimate *answer* to a post like this, and get modded down as Offtopic, sometimes even though the original might have been modded *up.*
Of course, our entire converse here is legitimately Offtopic because it's a meta-subject, which aren't recognized as "legit", at least by most modders.
It's a funny Slashdot world, ain't it?
The best you can do is use your frail and fallable human judgment and hope it all comes out in the wash, which *is* the actual design intent.
a +1 troll rating would be a good thing to have. The post is a true work of art, consisting of clearly factual, reasonably stated points, and still maintaining its essential "trollness."
There's no way to even tell it's a troll until you're most of the way through it.
the easiest way to get a job at a games company is to be a *physicist.*
Here's your course work for your first sememster as a games programing major:
*English* 101 Physics 101 Calc 101 Intro to Computer Science - which will consist mostly of theory, but don't worry, you'll get to write "Hello World!" in four different languages.
about this and still manage not to touch on the two great facts that make the case relevant is beyond me. One of the facts MS has already been convicted of criminal behaviour in, and the other is an ongoing civil matter.
How you managed to construct your straw man is also a bit puzzling to me.
In any case, your post is completely unresponsive to the point of mine. This isn't entirely your fault though, since I never explicitly stated it, leaving it to the intelligence of the reader to figure it out.
that I, in essence, disagree with, nor was there anything in my original post to suggest there was. About the only thing we might have to "argue" over is the precise fraction of a penny certain pages are worth.
Given some of your comments though, I would make this addendum. Have you ever wondered why soda machines don't have windows on them, but newspaper vending machines *do*?
I'll note that Salon observably knows the answer to this question and, ironically, I'm not sure the NYT does.
Nor is the answer entirely unique to the media industry.
did I say anything even vaguely like, " Micropaymensts suck", or " I'll never pay for web content.
By the way, you're already sllowed to make print copies of web pages, just as you may type out the "content" of any book you've actually purchased or tape a TV show for "time shifting". You just can't *distribute* what you've printed.
On the other hand I can by a professionally printed and bound copy of Walden in a Dover Thrift edition for a buck. This is one of the reasons why making books available online will have only a marginal impact on sales, because it's cheaper the *buy* the book than download and print it.
I *said* a commercial web page has to compete on price and value. And it does.
you then *own* the magazine. You can store it, read it years later, cut it up and decorate your room with it, burn it for heat, whatever. Hell, in many magzines the ads themselves are actually valuable "content" worth both reading and saving.
If you buy the right magazines you can even store them for a while and then resell them for a profit better than what you'll get by putting your money in CD's.
A magzine isn't just "content." It's a *thing.* And it's yours. And it may well even be an *investment.*
There are damned few web pages even worth the saving.
Now look at newspapers, and format perhaps more akin to web pages than a magazine. $0.50 will buy you almost more "content" than you can absorb on a daily basis.
Tell me, how muchs is each *story* worth in a newspaper? Rather less than a penny. And you can *still* roll the paper up and use it as an aritficial log afterwards, or mulch your garden with it.
If the web really wishes to compete with print on delivering "content" on a commercial basis than it has to do so by offering better value at a *lower* price.
Having a *thing* is part of the value of print. The "content" of a web page is nearly worthless, the cost of delivering it is irrellevant to that.
so much stuff that's, like, super top secret - if you know this we'll have to kill you, you'ld think she would have come across the concept of *page two.*
I mean, really. Anyone considering a deal with MS that involves the transfer, licensing, ownership of IP to Microsoft should click their heels together three times and say:
"Spyglass, Spyglass, Spyglass."
It's not like MS hasn't been caught redhanded pulling this sort of crap before.
As they say. On the other hand, have you ever tried to curl up with a good CRT and mini tower? Hell, I haven't even been able to curl up with a good laptop, although lord knows I've tried. I've also noticed that a book's batteries never run down, an admirable quality.
No doubt about it. The *best* solution is to have a hard copy and an electronic copy and make use of each where each is best. Particularly for technical books, where I think this model not only has promise, but ought to work like a frickin' charm.
in any form that can be at least "ripped" to ASCII by an open source tool we'll be alright.
You have to admit though that there's irony in having Open Source (tm) books being published in everybodies most hated MS propriatary file format.
Of course, note that I'm not saying which "side" the irony jabs its pointy little head into. I wonder if use of the.doc format for OSS texts will "infect" MS's own documents made with the same tool. At least it's a thought worth having a chuckle over.
KFG
I have green books, I have blue books, I have. . .
on
25 Years of O'Reilly Books
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
pink books. I also have brown books, mint books an orange book and one book that doesn't really have any color at all.
Yeah, I've got a couple red books and a handful of "bumble bee" books from the "other guys," but none of them are day to day usable like the O'Reillys. Even where I've found the odd book a bit superior for first contact with a particular subject it's the O'Reilly's that end up being my prefered reference down the road.
But most of all no other computer tech books give me the pure *pleasure* of O'Reilly books. I love books. I've always loved books. When I was two and could first answer on my own the question, " What would you like for your birthday?" I said, "Books!"
O'Reilly books aren't just manuals. They're honest to goodness, God almighty *Books.* No one else seems quite able to pull this off ( although New Riders is starting to get close).
If I could only take one tech book to a desert island it would be an O'Reilly because they're the only books of the genre just plain worth *reading*.
Not only are the "eight hundred pound gorilla" books generally inferior to the O'Reilly offerings, but you have to break their "studier" bindings to make them actually usable at the keyboard.
I bless O'Reilly every day for this little, and for them more expensive to produce, nicety, even if the odd page does fall out of some of the older and more well thumbed volumes.
no one would know the replacements weren't *exact*, would they?
How many millions do they intend to spend to replicate every ding and pidgeon dropping aquired over decades and not intended by the original artist in the first place?
When you total your car, you can have it fixed or you can buy a new one, but attempting to *duplicate* the old one down to the placement of the least little old molocule not only pretty much defines "prohibitively expensive", but A: Isn't possible, and B: As an idea is just plain doofey.
Slashdot Mirror
as is the case with your linked post, since it was never moderated in the first place. Most of the time I get modded down it's because I've made a legitimate *answer* to a post like this, and get modded down as Offtopic, sometimes even though the original might have been modded *up.*
Of course, our entire converse here is legitimately Offtopic because it's a meta-subject, which aren't recognized as "legit", at least by most modders.
It's a funny Slashdot world, ain't it?
The best you can do is use your frail and fallable human judgment and hope it all comes out in the wash, which *is* the actual design intent.
KFG
Larry, I like you and all, but what on earth has email over the *internet* got to do with the national level?
KFG
in that capacity that has influenced my opinion.
KFG
in 1937. It's still going strong on television.
Maybe you just need to take up watching soaps?
KFG
the cast and crew to continue to be able to feed their families? Helping starts with one child and one family at a time.
Support Farscape, for the children.
KFG
Or maybe less, judging from commercial content.
KFG
a +1 troll rating would be a good thing to have. The post is a true work of art, consisting of clearly factual, reasonably stated points, and still maintaining its essential "trollness."
There's no way to even tell it's a troll until you're most of the way through it.
A brilliant piece of work.
KFG
the easiest way to get a job at a games company is to be a *physicist.*
Here's your course work for your first sememster as a games programing major:
*English* 101
Physics 101
Calc 101
Intro to Computer Science - which will consist mostly of theory, but don't worry, you'll get to write "Hello World!" in four different languages.
KFG
what do you think the difference between a "First God Smiter" and a "First Person Shooter" is?
None that I can see.
There's a way around nearly every idiotic bias,at least for those with the intelligence to be game designers in the first place.
KFG
their dragon collection?
KFG
about this and still manage not to touch on the two great facts that make the case relevant is beyond me. One of the facts MS has already been convicted of criminal behaviour in, and the other is an ongoing civil matter.
How you managed to construct your straw man is also a bit puzzling to me.
In any case, your post is completely unresponsive to the point of mine. This isn't entirely your fault though, since I never explicitly stated it, leaving it to the intelligence of the reader to figure it out.
I appear to have acted in error.
KFG
that I, in essence, disagree with, nor was there anything in my original post to suggest there was. About the only thing we might have to "argue" over is the precise fraction of a penny certain pages are worth.
Given some of your comments though, I would make this addendum. Have you ever wondered why soda machines don't have windows on them, but newspaper vending machines *do*?
I'll note that Salon observably knows the answer to this question and, ironically, I'm not sure the NYT does.
Nor is the answer entirely unique to the media industry.
KFG
in the DMCA. The DMCA is a "loophole" in *copyright law.* You have to understand that fact clearly.
The loophole in the DMCA is that if you take steps to *protect* your digital data new, and otherwise unsupportable, laws apply.
If you do not do so the "old" law that allows you tape a show on VHS applies.
This may well be a relevant story if people don't understand this, but it's hardly a surprise.
KFG
did I say anything even vaguely like, " Micropaymensts suck", or " I'll never pay for web content.
By the way, you're already sllowed to make print copies of web pages, just as you may type out the "content" of any book you've actually purchased or tape a TV show for "time shifting". You just can't *distribute* what you've printed.
On the other hand I can by a professionally printed and bound copy of Walden in a Dover Thrift edition for a buck. This is one of the reasons why making books available online will have only a marginal impact on sales, because it's cheaper the *buy* the book than download and print it.
I *said* a commercial web page has to compete on price and value. And it does.
KFG
you then *own* the magazine. You can store it, read it years later, cut it up and decorate your room with it, burn it for heat, whatever. Hell, in many magzines the ads themselves are actually valuable "content" worth both reading and saving.
If you buy the right magazines you can even store them for a while and then resell them for a profit better than what you'll get by putting your money in CD's.
A magzine isn't just "content." It's a *thing.* And it's yours. And it may well even be an *investment.*
There are damned few web pages even worth the saving.
Now look at newspapers, and format perhaps more akin to web pages than a magazine. $0.50 will buy you almost more "content" than you can absorb on a daily basis.
Tell me, how muchs is each *story* worth in a newspaper? Rather less than a penny. And you can *still* roll the paper up and use it as an aritficial log afterwards, or mulch your garden with it.
If the web really wishes to compete with print on delivering "content" on a commercial basis than it has to do so by offering better value at a *lower* price.
Having a *thing* is part of the value of print. The "content" of a web page is nearly worthless, the cost of delivering it is irrellevant to that.
KFG
Yeah, a good inflatable sheep will do that for you.
KFG
so much stuff that's, like, super top secret - if you know this we'll have to kill you, you'ld think she would have come across the concept of *page two.*
But Noooooooooooooooooooo!
KFG
I mean, really. Anyone considering a deal with MS that involves the transfer, licensing, ownership of IP to Microsoft should click their heels together three times and say:
"Spyglass, Spyglass, Spyglass."
It's not like MS hasn't been caught redhanded pulling this sort of crap before.
KFG
You just ate the entire sum of human knowledge. Nice work Sparky. Now you might want to go looking for a Tums and start polishing up your resume.
KFG
As they say. On the other hand, have you ever tried to curl up with a good CRT and mini tower? Hell, I haven't even been able to curl up with a good laptop, although lord knows I've tried. I've also noticed that a book's batteries never run down, an admirable quality.
No doubt about it. The *best* solution is to have a hard copy and an electronic copy and make use of each where each is best. Particularly for technical books, where I think this model not only has promise, but ought to work like a frickin' charm.
KFG
in any form that can be at least "ripped" to ASCII by an open source tool we'll be alright.
.doc format for OSS texts will "infect" MS's own documents made with the same tool. At least it's a thought worth having a chuckle over.
You have to admit though that there's irony in having Open Source (tm) books being published in everybodies most hated MS propriatary file format.
Of course, note that I'm not saying which "side" the irony jabs its pointy little head into. I wonder if use of the
KFG
pink books. I also have brown books, mint books an orange book and one book that doesn't really have any color at all.
Yeah, I've got a couple red books and a handful of "bumble bee" books from the "other guys," but none of them are day to day usable like the O'Reillys. Even where I've found the odd book a bit superior for first contact with a particular subject it's the O'Reilly's that end up being my prefered reference down the road.
But most of all no other computer tech books give me the pure *pleasure* of O'Reilly books. I love books. I've always loved books. When I was two and could first answer on my own the question, " What would you like for your birthday?" I said, "Books!"
O'Reilly books aren't just manuals. They're honest to goodness, God almighty *Books.* No one else seems quite able to pull this off ( although New Riders is starting to get close).
If I could only take one tech book to a desert island it would be an O'Reilly because they're the only books of the genre just plain worth *reading*.
KFG
it is at least for a reason. They *open flat.*
Not only are the "eight hundred pound gorilla" books generally inferior to the O'Reilly offerings, but you have to break their "studier" bindings to make them actually usable at the keyboard.
I bless O'Reilly every day for this little, and for them more expensive to produce, nicety, even if the odd page does fall out of some of the older and more well thumbed volumes.
KFG
no one would know the replacements weren't *exact*, would they?
How many millions do they intend to spend to replicate every ding and pidgeon dropping aquired over decades and not intended by the original artist in the first place?
When you total your car, you can have it fixed or you can buy a new one, but attempting to *duplicate* the old one down to the placement of the least little old molocule not only pretty much defines "prohibitively expensive", but A: Isn't possible, and B: As an idea is just plain doofey.
KFG
George Washington chopping down a cherry tree, Santa Claus or how the "Pilgrim Fathers" founded America for freedom?
That kind of politically correct crap.
You don't think of that stuff as "politically correct"?
See how well they've done it?
KFG