It does cost money to record and distribute music that sounds good. The point is, it doesn't cost as much as the majors would have us believe. The stuff put out by the fiercely independend company Dischord (Fugazi etc) always costs quite a bit less than your average Britney Spears cd.
Which brings up the following: these high prices serve to pay for the insane amount of merchandising and commercial exposure that is needed to get talentless (but big boobied) nobodies public attention they would have never had if there wasn't some media mogul behind them. It's all a matter of perspective. The last Michael Jackson album caused the record company a severe loss despite having sold a few million copies. Why? They spent an insane amount of cash on promotion, based on the assumption that it would tens of millions of copies. Meanwhile, a small independent company can get much, much richer by selling half a million copies, simply because they don't spend so much on video's, cardboard cutouts etc (Alan McGee of Creation fame recently managed to buy a BBC radiostation, for chrissakes).
So yes, it costs money to record and distribute music that sounds good...but not that much.
You, or Gregory Benford is absolutely right. Compare this to the way scholars have been studying the middle ages recently. Noone really cares about the brilliant scholastic discussions hunchbacked medieaval monks have spent a lifetime committing to paper..what we are interested in is the "junk" that creeps up through the dogma in their books, i.e. brief moments in which something of daily life in their time shows through, for example when they're attributing behavioral patterns to Jesus or his disciples that we know can't have been exhibited by them because we now have a fairly solid understanding of life in ancient Palestine. Based on this knowledge, we can figure out that what those monks described in works that were meant to live through eternity must've been the fad of the day in 13th century Avignon.
The point is this: there is no way for us to know what future generations will want to learn about us, so we can only hope they'll find enough 1990's trendiness in this to make it interesting for them.
Or consider this: to us, the fall of the Berlin Wall was a monumentous experience. But over a long period, it won't be important. "Thousands of years ago, there was a 50yrs cold war going on..there was a wall and then it fell and the war was over." Doesn't the 100 years war between England and France seem insignificant to us now, after only 5, 600 years?
This endeavour will only benefit our ego's. "See, we've left our mark." 10000 years from now, humans will be studying AOL cd's (as another poster pointed out), and they will consider them to be much more important as artifacts of late 20th century life than any Bill Joy article or time capsule.
I've forgotten exactly who, but ASP was definitely a technology developed by someone else, which was later bought up by Microsoft. Check for yourself, I'm too busy coding an ASP-page for Greengrocer Bob.
Flamebait, huh? Now I could be as constructive as a certain Anon Coward in this thread and state that you're all on crack, but I won't. I'm assuming the person who moderated this down is misguided rather than a drug-addict. In certain commercial environments, such as those where it helps to be MCSE even though you *know* it doesn't mean a thing, really, ASP is a good thing. Rapid prototyping, rapid development for simple apps and, best of all, a very easy interface (ok-so there is no such thing as an easy interface to Access, but still, ASP is the least gruesome) to Access-databases (millions of small to mediumsized businesses use those, at least here in Europe). Flamebait or not, there's a lot of developers who actually do feel ASP is pretty good. Small wonder: it wasn't developed by Microsoft.
Yesterday and today people have been going on and on about how PC Expo is "so Windows oriented".
Funny..a Dutch newspaper (NRC Handelsblad) today ran a fairly large article that stated the exact opposite: how PC Expo was a complete Linux/Transmeta affair. And no, the people who write for this newspaper are not Linux zealots at all...in the same article they stated that Linus Torvalds is one of the founders of Transmeta.
I guess this article shows that Linux is becoming more prominent and mainstream..there wasn't a word about the huge Microsoft presence.
How about/. stop whining about the size of the Microsoft booth compared to that of Red Hat and how there's still people on this planet who don't use this vastly superior operating system?
This may be an unpopular opinion here on Slashdot, but if you consider Microsoft's target audience, integrating I.E. into Windows was actually quite a smart thing to do (yes, I know they did it for the wrong reasons, i.e. to stamp out Netscape, but still...).
Most people use their home pc's (MS's main target) to type letters, play games and surf the web. So it's kind of convenient if your gaming interface, wordprocessor and webbrowser all work together in your OS. It saves you from having to figure out a different user interface (Netscape 6/Mozilla/Whatever), which, for most users, is a Good Thing. In fact, they should have integrated MS-Works/Office into Windows as well (well, they have, try installing Office 2000 and see how many of your original system DLL's are replaced) but I suppose they figured out they could make more money by selling it separately. As it turns out, though, for most home pc's this doesn't make much of a difference, since your average Compaq/Dell/Gateway pc comes with Windows and MS-Works pre-installed, so as far as your mom is concerned it is integrated with the OS.
Microsoft is actually moving towards creating a well rounded, userfriendly (compared to Linux or Mac-aka-the-root-of-all-evil) IA-OS. Everything you need is there, all they need to do is to come up with a kind of thin-client system (X-box plus?) to stuff it on and they'll make millions in the market of "we hate computers but we kind of like all that tasty porn on the internet" people. At least, if it weren't Microsoft they would...BSOD's are not acceptable to grandma.
"Well, Miranda, why don't you tell our viewers what makes these superb knives so special."
"OK. Bob, as you will see each UNIQUE! HANDCRAFTED! COLLECTORS ITEM! uses a wide variety of exotic materials including:
Premium Wooly Mammoth ivory Premium ancient walrus ivory Fossil Cave Bear canines Extinct Stellar's Seacow bone Fossil Dinosaur bone Black Coral Baculite (fossil ammonite - beautiful patterns) Fossil Whale bone Fossil Palm wood Musk Ox horn Pietersite (blue/gold/red) Lapis Lazuli stone (deep royal blue) Azurite/Malachite stone (blue and green) Sodalite stone (blue with white veins) Jade (various shades of green and black) Snakewood, ironwood, ebony, rosewood, bog oak, bloodwood, burls Plus other exotic woods, antler, horn and stones
And don't forget, Bob, THE SELECTION IS ALWAYS GROWING!"
"That's right, Miranda, and you know what the best thing is?"
"No, Bob, tell me."
"For a mere USD 3500, one of these great pieces can be YOURS! Dial 1-800-SUCKER NOW! and we'll send you an extra PlasmaStove at no extra cost with your order!"
"Wow, Bob! That's amazing! Such a great deal! Why, I'll order mine RIGHT NOW!"
I just got mine today. It says "Made in Taiwan" on the shaft.
As always, most posters scream without having read the article in question. Maybe a little digest would help...
What they're saying is this:
The copyright in and associated with all material, including without limitation all informational text, photographs, illustrations, artwork, software, music, sound, photographs, graphics, audio, video, messages, files, documents, images or other materials (collectively, the "Materials"), whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, at or on the Property, as well as all derivative works, is held by Apogee or by the original creator of the material and is protected by copyright, trademark and other intellectual property laws.
Ok, boys and girls, what they're talking about here is material such as screenshots, original logo's and the like. They have paid their employees good money to create these screenshots and logo's, and they think it's only fair that they decide how this stuff is used. Let's not get into a "copyright is evil" debate here but let's take a deep breath and realise that all companies and artists use copyright to protect their creations.
Now, what is it they want you to do with these copyrighted items?
you will be granted a limited license to use the Marks and Materials for personal, informational, and non-commercial purposes to promote Apogee's games, provided that such use conforms to the criteria set forth below
They are kind enough to allow you to use their logo's and screenshots on your personal 1337 G4M3RZ site. This is very kind of them: not every company allows just about everyone to use their copyrighted material. Try it: post some screenshots of, say, Half-Life that you haven't obtained permission to use for on a site that gets some traffic (and hence attention). Sierra will force you to take them off as soon as they see them.
They would, however, like to have some say as to how this material is being used. By law, they have a right to this, seeing as that they own the copyright to it (once again, no "copyright sux & I'm 1337 H4X0R so I know" flame wars please"). These terms are as follows:
3. You may not use the Marks in banner advertisements or other internet advertising mediums
Fair, right? They own the copyright to them, so if you're making money (banner ads) by using them, you'll have to okay it with them first (and probably pay).
4. You are not allowed to vary the spelling, add or delete hyphens (even for normal hyphenation at the end of a line of text), make one word two, or use a possessive or plural form of the Marks.
"Uhm..does that mean I can't write `Apogee's new game'?" I doubt it. I think they mean that you can't mangle their trademarked brandnames. This is not to prevent Joe Gamer from making typos on his website, but probably to prevent anyone from luring traffic to a site called "ap-ogee.com" or from producing a game called "duke nuke'em". You may think this is absurd, but whole industries revolve around producing cheap imitations of hot-selling stuff and trying to get away with it by changing a trademarked brandname in some small way. A friend of mine once accidentally bought a video of a movie called "The Lion's King", for example. So I'd say this clause shows some smart thinking on the side of their lawyers as to how they can prevent this kind of stuff from happening. It's only there so they can take action against anyone who makes money by mangling their trademarks.
5. You may not use the Marks in a derogatory or defamatory manner, or in any negative context. Such use will terminate your license to use the Marks.
Another post on this topic contained a copy of an email sent by some Apogee-employee who said that what this clause means is that you can't spice up your Nazi-fetish homepage with Apogee logo's to make it seem as if Apogee condone National Socialism. Notice the use of language in the original clause, if you will. The words used are quite strong: "derogatory" and "defamatory". They're not talking about less than positive reviews here, they're talking about Nazi's, kiddieporn and Apogee hate-sites. Once again, they own the copyright to all their logo's, brandnames etc, so if they don't want you to use their stuff on a Nazi, porn or Apogee hate site, they have a right to forbid you to do it. I'd say it's fair. In fact, this clause is similar to the law that protects you from slander. Sure, that may seem to go against your right to free speech at first sight, but what it really does is protect your right to remain free from harm and unjust accusations.
6. You may not use the Marks as part of any third party products, services or trade name, without Apogee's express written permission.
Oh no...that means it's illegal to put an Apogee logo on my crap game-cd that will be given away with every pack of OatBran...just when I thought it was such a clever idea of me, seeing as that millions of people will buy more OatBran because they think it comes with a free Apogee game!
7. You may not use the Marks in a manner that is likely to cause confusion with, dilute or damage the reputation or image of Apogee or any of its products.
This is saying the same thing as points 4, 5 and 6, worded slightly differently to make sure that they've covered all the possible forms of copyright infringement.
8.The Marks, or any portion thereof, may not be used by you or any third party as a domain name or as part of or incorporated in to a domain name. If you learn of such unauthorized use, please inform us.
Now this is evil...they're saying you can't generate traffic to your site because you've used (part of) one of their copyrighted "Marks". This form of copyright infringement happens a lot, so it's kind of smart of them to explicitly forbid you to do it (try typing: www.macronedia.com instead of www.macromedia.com and see where you end up, for example). I'm not sure how this clause would hold up in court, however, and I'm certain it doesn't mean a thing outside of the US, so I'm guessing it's fairly safe to register www.apogee.tm (Turkmenistan).
The rest of the licence covers the procedures you need to follow if you want to use their copyrighted material. There's also a list of the Marks they own. Nothing shocking, really.
The point of this little expose is that the license does not, in my mind, contain anything shockingly Orwellian. It's the same kind of license that bookpublishers, painters, musicians (which is why Metallica is sueing Napster: Napster is making money by allowing millions of people to infringe Metallica's copyrights), software companies, etc. use to protect the investments they've made in promoting a brand or creating something. I'd say this is hardly something to get so worked up about.
This is actually quite a good idea...most kids who want to program probably only do because they want to make games. And from what I've seen of VB, BASIC (now those were the days) isn't very good for this anymore. There is, however, an unlikely alternative. I've recently come across a good piece of software that just might make programming fun. It's calledA4 3D GameStudio
It's a commercial, albeit very cheap (standard version costs USD 40 or so) set of tools for creating, well, 3D games. It comes with a scripting language that kind of resembles C++ and Java (it's object oriented, among others), so it's useful for introducing concepts that are common in other, serious languages. Using this package could serve as a gentle introduction to the horrors of real-world programming (:-) ). If you only want a simple FPS where you just shoot everything that moves (stands still, actually), you don't need to program anything at all, but if you want to do more fancy stuff, like create reasonably intelligent opponents, or add in those lovely Q3A jump pods, you'll have to write a script. So ideally your kids will pick up more skills because they demand more from their piece of software.
Don't worry that your kids will first need to become graphic artists, either. The package uses the same native format as Quake and Quake II, so they can pick up landscapes, models and textures for free on sites like planet quake. Also, the package can be used for more than "just games": apparently someone wrote a drumcomputer with it.
Last but not least, the package comes with a good online manual and reference for the scripting language.
I admit, this may seem like an odd suggestion, but if you want something that is fun and reasonably challenging, 3D Gamestudio is actually not such a bad idea.
If I understand this correctly, the reason the judge forbade Bidders Edge to crawl eBay is that eBay told Bidders Edge not to do it but they did anyway. So it seems fair to me: if I ask you not to keep following me around and you keep doing it, I take you to court to get a restraint order slapped on you.
Whether it's a smart move by eBay to do this is an entirely different matter, however. Apparently all the experts agree that in the near future all transactions on the internet will be mediated by robots, which search out the best deal on the product you want to buy. So as far as the consumer is concerned, it makes no difference if a book comes from Amazon or Barnes and Noble, he'll just get it where his robot tells him it's cheapest. Most probably, he won't even know it's from a certain retailer until he looks at the box in which it was sent to him. Probably he won't care very much even then. At this moment, there's already a number of services that operate on this principle: Bidders Edge does it for auctions, and in NL there's a site called ElCheapo that lets you find the best deal on products ranging from airplane tickets to records.
By banning a robot-service from their site, eBay is, in effect, shutting itself off from the way business will be transacted in the near future. They will not merely lose some ad revenue, as is the case now, but they will lose all their customers.
If this really is what they want to do, I'd say let them.
I doubt it. When I looked at zeldman.com (never heard of the man before), all I saw was a neat, well-designed website. It looked good (except for the lame-ass intro) and I managed to find my way around, so what's the problem?
Breaking the status bar? I'm sorry to break it to you, but no one really uses the status bar except for the few who actually know there's something of interest to be found there. How do you think those pr0n/ultimatewarez sites make a living? And as for the orange-as a designer I can tell you "there'th going to be a lot of orangeth thith theathon, hun". So the comment was correct..in six months time every website will be orange, and the hipster ones will have moved on to something else.
Then there's the small font: I'm browsing at 1024x768 on a 15" screen right now and I found the font perfectly legible, seeing as that it's Verdana (the one thing Microsoft ever got right). Of course on a linux machine this font isn't standard, but get a TTF plugin and install this font as it makes viewing a properly designed website much, much more pleasant.
As for the links, I don't know what the ***** you're talking about: in the commercial world, an intriguing link is supposed to entice visitors to click on it, and it usually works this way. Of course, if you're running a site for connoisseurs like most/. readers (who, browsing with lynx, probably haven't seen a decently designed website in ages: sorry to break it to you guys, but the web is turning into a commercial free-for-all; it's too bad but you'll have to learn to live with it) you'll want to avoid tactics like these.
I don't have any questions, however, because: he's running a connoisseur site that indulges in commercial behavior (it's a site I could sell to one of my clients easily) and his use of oranges and yellow "ith tho latht thentury-we're all moving to the drab greenth now:-)". Nevertheless, keep your geek rantings to yourself, as they are not relevant at all in the world of commerce, which is probably where this guy makes a living. Meanwhile, I'll just keep throwing karma points away (surprised I have any left).
First of all: I don't like your music very much, but who cares since millions of people do. I'm just saying this so no one will be mistakenly saying I'm posting this cos "Metallica Rocks Ass, dude!"
I just read the chat transcript and thought you (or your lawyers, who cares?) had some good points:
Napster is a big machine funded by big money. They are trying to smokescreen everyone into thinking this is a free thing for the fans. It's a cheap ploy, in trying to associate free and Napster together. Napster is a big machine. The person who invented Napster is an employee of the big machine as we speak.
You're absolutely right, Napster is trying to become a big corporation by facilitating piracy. You didn't make it absolutely clear, however, why you're going after 300,000 users instead of Napster directly. You're backed by a big, wealthy company. Why don't you just take Napster the company to court and sue their balls off over facilitating an illegal activity, i.e. piracy? You said it was because Napster dared you to find users who shared copyrighted Metallica songs, but why bother taking the (costly, i would imagine) detour to go after the users if you could have just dragged Napster to court and be done with it?
This is not a change in attitude whatsoever. WE have always and will always continue to condone allowing people to record our concerts, to freely trade live concerts, interview. This is not what it is about, it's about the master recording that we have recorded and written and clearly own.
Actually, that makes a whole lot of sense, though you can't possibly maintain that you yourselves, way, way back when you were poor, have never copied a copyrighted album before... again, go after the company, and you would have my sympathy, as well as the sympathy of your fans, I'd guess. Is it really worth it to alienate people who are your fans over something like this?
They could have asked us, and we could have shared in the distribution and it could have been done properly.
That's probably the most constructive remark I've heard in this debate so far. Have you actually asked Napster to cooperate in a scheme like this, where they would pay for every copy of a song that got pirated through their service, and maybe have their users pay for these expenses as a kind of monthly subscription at all? How about dragging them to court if they refuse a scheme like this to enforce it?
That's it. I'm off to listen once more to the Buzzcocks songs I just downloaded through Napster. Guess which cd's I'm going to buy tomorrow....
Instead of being like Off spring, Limp Bizkit and Chuck D and realizing that a paradigm shift is taking place.
This is probably very hard for them to do, seeing as that they have become "mainstream" artists, unlike Limp Bizkit and Chuck D (Offspring? well...leaving Epitaph was treachery so fuck 'em:-) ). I personally make music for a very select audience of audiophiles who simply must have everything that comes out in this genre (minimalist experimental techno, in case you were wondering, no link, though, fuck you!). For me it doesn't make a difference whether I mp3 my songs or not, but I do, because :
The people who like my music very much will probably already own the records and be too lazy to mp3 them themselves, or they will get the mp3 and get the record because in this genre everything ends up being a collectors item.
The people who kinda like it would never have bought the record (yes, record, as in vinyl, as in good sound quality) anyway, but, hey, I've made them happy by giving them something to listen to as background music for a short while.
For Metallica, this is not an option. They are not underground/independent artists by a long shot: they depend on the corporate machinery staying in place to make $$$$$. Hence they have no choice but to go after Napster users who endager this corporate machinery. I've always said Metallica was corporate Schmock, now they've conveniently proved it for me.
And if you're out to fuck the system, what are you doing with that Metallica cd in your stereo anyways?
That's the first knowledgeable post I've seen on this topic so far.
Just to clarify, though, only so the "geeks who" did "sleep through the eighties" know what you're talking about without following the link:
Dischord records (owned by Ian Mackaye (sp?) of Fugazi fame) puts a notice on all their records and cd's that they are available for a certain price (much lower than the fixed price for major label crap cd's) directly from Dischord itself. Meaning, that if you find one of those cd's at your local dealer and it costs more than the price they mention, you can just write down the address in the booklet that's lying around for all to see at the offending dealer and get it direct from the company itself. I'm no Dischord/Fugazi fan by a long shot (worst gig of 1994: Fugazi) but this seems to me to be a good, legitimate way to break the power of the majors. And it's ideas like this which in the long run will have the most effect on breaking the power of those evil corporate rockola's. Do you have any idea how popular Fugazi is at all? They sell more records than Britney Spears (people download Britney Spears songs) and the only reason they don't fill up stadiums is because they want to. They're doing something right, and Metallica isn't. I, for one, have been boycotting Metallica since, well, always, actually.
They suck. Big Black kicks their lame ass, and they sell/sold their records for USD 7.00 a piece. In Europe, that's cheaper than downloading all the songs.
Russian politicians dont even have to pretend to be honest. All it takes is a bitch like Valentini to pass a briefcase of money to Putin and/or the head of the Moscow milita and associated Gangsters (the Russian ones I mean) and those servers vanish before you can type "shutdown -h now".
Possibly. On the other hand, Russia likes to be treated as somewhat of a superpower. Hence, the US and the West in general have to be very careful about what they dictate to them, because everytime they do, the result is a more or less severe diplomatic crisis (Bosnia, Kosovo). If it appears that outside forces and especially the US have forced the Russian government into something, the very influential Russian right wing gets more than a little upset and threatens to abandon important projects such as arms reduction (though a third world country, Russia still has a large nuclear arsenal) or to disrupt proceedings in the UN security council by using their veto powers. I don't think the US government or the corporations where the real money is coming from, like oil companies and, for some strange reason, banana companies (Honduras) are willing to risk upsetting Russia over something relatively minor. Why do you think the US government/Microsoft hasn't adamantly protested the widespread use of illegal copies of Windows in Russia?
And there is all the foreign aid that goes to Russia from the US/IMF/Europe.
There's not a whole lot of it left, because Russia refuses to do what the US/IMF/Europe tells them to do. Clearly, they're not very impressed.
Hell the US paid the Russians/Soviets to ditch their comrades in East-Germany. Whats a few servers by comparison?
This happened ten years ago when Russia was still the Soviet Union and a superpower, and ruled by a man of reason (i.e. Gorbachev). You'll find that things have changed quite a bit since then.
Nirvana, at the height of their popularity, were not allowed to use their own mix for In Utero.
Not true. Nirvana had In Utero recorded by Steve Albini, as he is a true genius at recording nasty guitar rock. Mr. Albini is not, however, a genius at letting vocalists be heard, and since Kurt Cobain kinda valued his voice being heard, he was more than happy to let the excellent recordings be remixed by someone other than Steve Albini.
Other than that I agree with you. Major labels suck. All of the time.
What I don't like is JavaScript's half-hearted sandbox. First of all, the navigator object and it's ilk should not exist. Becuase it does, JavaScript goes beyond scripting DOM objects in the page, and starts to control the browser (and thus my computer) itself.
It depends. The navigator object can have some uses. On the other hand, if you're just doing mouse-overs, it's not really very necessary. Perhaps the solution is to enable the user to turn off access to certain objects, instead of the current all-or-nothing approach. The question is, though, whether the average user would understand what it all means.
Second, we have Microsoft's retarded security implementation in Outlook and Outlook Express. I certainly don't want to grant e-mail scripting control over my mail client. But the only way to prevent this is to disable scripting in the "Internet Zone", because of the way IE looks at the world.
Check the security lists. There are numerous "get your e-mail address" and "browse local files" exploits in both IE and Netscape for which the only solution is to disable Scripting. Should I grant this sort of access to my machine just to get some mouseovers and open() links? Is it really worth it? Maybe you think so, but I'll just surf somewhere else, or once in a while, use IE's zones feature.
I assume these "exploits" serve some purpose: to make life easier on the average user. I've known people who just wouldn't understand that they could partake of "this Internet thing" by simply double-clicking on the IE-icon on their desktop. The average user is stupid, needs to have a simple life and probably has nothing to hide. This doesn't mean that the non-average user does, but if you care enough about your security, you'll probably figure out a way to tweak the settings of your browser in such a way as to accomodate your security. Or at least, you should be given the option to. So I do agree with you...the scripting engine needs some work, but right now, for most users, it's better than nothing at all.
It's just that I get sick of all this Bleeding Edge/JavaScript/etc bashing all the time that is so popular among 1337 HAX0RS and Jakob Nielsen (who has an ugly site). "Dynamic HTML" has its uses, especially in the real world, where you have to sell your stuff.
And yes, Netscape sucks. Very big. If I say "border=0" I MEAN "border=0". Among other gripes.
Personally, I think the advent of JavaScript is a Good Thing. Monitors weren't made for looking at static research papers and photo albums. The performance of dead trees in this area is much more convincing, and much easier on the eyes. Like it or not, the web is most suited for quick, graphic (yes, superficial, if you insist) presentation. JavaScript is actually quite helpful in creating attractive, simple to use web presentations. A simple OnMouseOver-script can greatly enhance the usability of your site. As the user base of the Internet has shifted from scientists and computerfreaks to Ordinary Men and Women, validation of user-entered data on forms has greatly increased: another area in which JavaScript is extremely useful. As the democratization (infantilization) of the net progresses, the use of JavaScript and other non-HTML-techniques like XML/XSL, CSS and even (**gasp**) Active Server Pages, will increase, so W3C and Microsoft (and, to a lesser extent, Netscape) have been right to give more support to these techniques.
Also, I'm totally unaware of any serious risk involved in viewing pages with active content (except for ActiveX of course). Feel free to enlighten me, though.
---and one more thing---
The poster you replied to mentioned he/she/who cares turns JavaScript off because it crashes Gnome. You yourself state that you turn JavaScript off to keep Netscape running. It seems to me like the problem isn't JavaScript but the applications you use. Gnome, to the best of my knowledge, is still more or less beta software, and as for Netscape: they might have had the lead in the early days of the commercialization of the web, but they sure as hell have lost it now. Netscape's compliance with W3C standards is much worse than IE4 and IE5. Often Netscape refuses to perform perfectly acceptable JavaScripts for no apparent reason. Also, Netscape will be brought to a crashing halt by normal HTML for no reason at all. It's almost as if they want to be killed of by Microsoft.
Nearly everybody who uses the system is usually distributing the 100% over no more than six choices in increments rounded to 5 or 10 percent
I don't mean to put you down, but requiring visitors to do this is in itself an example of a badly designed user interface. Unless you're a numbers-loving idiot savant, such a task is very annoying to perform. The stuff you put on your website must be really worthwile for your visitors to attempt this at all.
Of course one must respect Robert Moog for having invented Moog synthesizers. They sound amazingly well; too bad we've heard all the sounds it can possibly make a thousand times each by now. But don't blame him for that, just like you don't blame Bob Mould for Better than Ezra and such.
But, as much as he should be respected, his remarks about an ongoing trend towards simplified interfaces were way off mark. With very little experience, you can get a bunch of very decent sounds out of a Moog or (especially) a Minimoog. Just sit down and twiddle some knobs, and you've got instant Kraftwerk. It is very difficult, however, to program your own sounds into a modern synth, such as a Korg Z1 or a good software synthesizer like Generator. There's simply too many buttons to push. It's also much more difficult to sequence your notes and effects with software like Logic Audio (Cubase, well, that's indeed used to get Britney going. The Masters - Aphex Twin, Autechre, Funkstorung - use Logic because it's so much more flexible) than it is to play single-note leads on a keyboard.
To me, this remark sounds like it's coming from someone who doesn't know what he's talking about. Sure, he was very knowledgable and in touch with his times when he made the synthesizers he's known for, but by today's standards a moog-filter is hardly high-tech, and extremely unstable, as anyone who's used one can attest to. Times have moved on since then, however, and it sounds like Robert Moog hasn't moved on with them. Not that that should detract from his technological genius, but it is true. It took a genius to figure out the Moog synthesizer in the sixties, nowadays all it takes is a bunch of moderately paid engineers at a large-ish company to program the exact same sound into software (Generator) or a DSP chip (Nord Modular/Micro-modular, both of which are considerably cheaper and more flexible than any Moog ever was).
True, though. Due to some Quantummechanical quirk (I don't know which, as I'm no physics buff), the above is definitely true and it has been observed in laboratories. You can find the links if you try (;-) ). Einstein was right, in the same way that Isaac Newton was right: only on a certain level of perception. You, as a person, will grow infinitely fat if you travel at light speed. So will a particle. The quantum state of a particle will not, however. Actually, they don't really travel. But then I don't know the details. All I know for sure is that Einstein didn't always get it right.
I am of the opinion that the bourgeoisie(correct spelling) are the middle class, not the rich. In Marxist theory, it was the bourgeoisie that were opposed to the 'masses', not the rich.
Not quite. The reason Marx pitted the bourgeoisie (the upper middle class) against the masses is that in his day the upper classes (the nobility) were on the decline. Marx correctly foretold that the power of the nobility would eventually disappear, leaving the upper middle class as the only enemy of 'the masses'. He correctly foresaw that 'the rich', in the very near future, would not be the effete and gouty aristocrats, but the newly rich factory owners. There would be no more, or very few peasants left whose enemy is the noble landlord. Instead, all the poor would flock to the cities to become enslaved in the factories of the bourgeoisie.
If you look at the development of economics in the century-and-a-half since Das Kapital, you'll find that Marx is proved right time and time again. The rich (today, it's us, the digerati. This whole Linux vs. Micro$oft debate is a quibble amongst the rich, face it) get richer, the poor (nowadays often ex-factory workers, as factory workers get laid off more and more) get poorer and poorer.
Can someone tell me why it is useful to overclock a cpu or why it is useful to spend USD 1000 on the world's fastest Pentium? This is a genuine question, not intended as flamebait: it really puzzles me. Isn't it much more important to have your peripheral components, such as RAM and HD speed sorted out if you want to improve performance?
Besides, I used to have an overclocked Celeron and it made the system incredibly unstable. Personally, I think increased stability improves performance much more than a few unstable extra MHz-es worth of processor speed.
As far as I can tell, every site that offers Be 5 or Be software is down or unreachable, despite there being an enormous amount of mirrors. Does this mean that everyone and their mom is downloading BeOS + Apps now? It would seem that way..which means that the chances of Linux gaining a stronghold on the desktop market have just been dealt a very strong blow. I managed to get Be up and running in 5 minutes, four of which where needed to unpack the archive, restart Windows (which really does feel like Windoze now). Soundcard detected, connected to the Internet (yup, I'm typing this in NetPositive) and all. The first time I installed Linux it took me more than five HOURS to get everything working. Actually, more like five days before I got the WinModem and SBLive to work. I guess as far as an end-user is concerned, Be is superior. I'm not talking about servers and such, for which Linux still can't be beat, but as far as desktop machines are concerned, Bill Gates needs to be very, Very afraid.
Slashdot Mirror
It does cost money to record and distribute music that sounds good. The point is, it doesn't cost as much as the majors would have us believe. The stuff put out by the fiercely independend company Dischord (Fugazi etc) always costs quite a bit less than your average Britney Spears cd.
Which brings up the following: these high prices serve to pay for the insane amount of merchandising and commercial exposure that is needed to get talentless (but big boobied) nobodies public attention they would have never had if there wasn't some media mogul behind them. It's all a matter of perspective. The last Michael Jackson album caused the record company a severe loss despite having sold a few million copies. Why? They spent an insane amount of cash on promotion, based on the assumption that it would tens of millions of copies. Meanwhile, a small independent company can get much, much richer by selling half a million copies, simply because they don't spend so much on video's, cardboard cutouts etc (Alan McGee of Creation fame recently managed to buy a BBC radiostation, for chrissakes).
So yes, it costs money to record and distribute music that sounds good...but not that much.
You, or Gregory Benford is absolutely right. Compare this to the way scholars have been studying the middle ages recently. Noone really cares about the brilliant scholastic discussions hunchbacked medieaval monks have spent a lifetime committing to paper..what we are interested in is the "junk" that creeps up through the dogma in their books, i.e. brief moments in which something of daily life in their time shows through, for example when they're attributing behavioral patterns to Jesus or his disciples that we know can't have been exhibited by them because we now have a fairly solid understanding of life in ancient Palestine. Based on this knowledge, we can figure out that what those monks described in works that were meant to live through eternity must've been the fad of the day in 13th century Avignon.
The point is this: there is no way for us to know what future generations will want to learn about us, so we can only hope they'll find enough 1990's trendiness in this to make it interesting for them.
Or consider this: to us, the fall of the Berlin Wall was a monumentous experience. But over a long period, it won't be important. "Thousands of years ago, there was a 50yrs cold war going on..there was a wall and then it fell and the war was over." Doesn't the 100 years war between England and France seem insignificant to us now, after only 5, 600 years?
This endeavour will only benefit our ego's. "See, we've left our mark." 10000 years from now, humans will be studying AOL cd's (as another poster pointed out), and they will consider them to be much more important as artifacts of late 20th century life than any Bill Joy article or time capsule.
I've forgotten exactly who, but ASP was definitely a technology developed by someone else, which was later bought up by Microsoft. Check for yourself, I'm too busy coding an ASP-page for Greengrocer Bob.
Flamebait, huh? Now I could be as constructive as a certain Anon Coward in this thread and state that you're all on crack, but I won't. I'm assuming the person who moderated this down is misguided rather than a drug-addict. In certain commercial environments, such as those where it helps to be MCSE even though you *know* it doesn't mean a thing, really, ASP is a good thing. Rapid prototyping, rapid development for simple apps and, best of all, a very easy interface (ok-so there is no such thing as an easy interface to Access, but still, ASP is the least gruesome) to Access-databases (millions of small to mediumsized businesses use those, at least here in Europe). Flamebait or not, there's a lot of developers who actually do feel ASP is pretty good. Small wonder: it wasn't developed by Microsoft.
Yesterday and today people have been going on and on about how PC Expo is "so Windows oriented".
/. stop whining about the size of the Microsoft booth compared to that of Red Hat and how there's still people on this planet who don't use this vastly superior operating system?
Funny..a Dutch newspaper (NRC Handelsblad) today ran a fairly large article that stated the exact opposite: how PC Expo was a complete Linux/Transmeta affair. And no, the people who write for this newspaper are not Linux zealots at all...in the same article they stated that Linus Torvalds is one of the founders of Transmeta.
I guess this article shows that Linux is becoming more prominent and mainstream..there wasn't a word about the huge Microsoft presence.
How about
This may be an unpopular opinion here on Slashdot, but if you consider Microsoft's target audience, integrating I.E. into Windows was actually quite a smart thing to do (yes, I know they did it for the wrong reasons, i.e. to stamp out Netscape, but still...).
Most people use their home pc's (MS's main target) to type letters, play games and surf the web. So it's kind of convenient if your gaming interface, wordprocessor and webbrowser all work together in your OS. It saves you from having to figure out a different user interface (Netscape 6/Mozilla/Whatever), which, for most users, is a Good Thing. In fact, they should have integrated MS-Works/Office into Windows as well (well, they have, try installing Office 2000 and see how many of your original system DLL's are replaced) but I suppose they figured out they could make more money by selling it separately. As it turns out, though, for most home pc's this doesn't make much of a difference, since your average Compaq/Dell/Gateway pc comes with Windows and MS-Works pre-installed, so as far as your mom is concerned it is integrated with the OS.
Microsoft is actually moving towards creating a well rounded, userfriendly (compared to Linux or Mac-aka-the-root-of-all-evil) IA-OS. Everything you need is there, all they need to do is to come up with a kind of thin-client system (X-box plus?) to stuff it on and they'll make millions in the market of "we hate computers but we kind of like all that tasty porn on the internet" people. At least, if it weren't Microsoft they would...BSOD's are not acceptable to grandma.
"Well, Miranda, why don't you tell our viewers what makes these superb knives so special."
"OK. Bob, as you will see each UNIQUE! HANDCRAFTED! COLLECTORS ITEM! uses a wide variety of exotic materials including:
Premium Wooly Mammoth ivory
Premium ancient walrus ivory
Fossil Cave Bear canines
Extinct Stellar's Seacow bone
Fossil Dinosaur bone
Black Coral
Baculite (fossil ammonite - beautiful patterns)
Fossil Whale bone
Fossil Palm wood
Musk Ox horn
Pietersite (blue/gold/red)
Lapis Lazuli stone (deep royal blue)
Azurite/Malachite stone (blue and green)
Sodalite stone (blue with white veins)
Jade (various shades of green and black)
Snakewood, ironwood, ebony, rosewood, bog oak, bloodwood, burls
Plus other exotic woods, antler, horn and stones
And don't forget, Bob, THE SELECTION IS ALWAYS GROWING!"
"That's right, Miranda, and you know what the best thing is?"
"No, Bob, tell me."
"For a mere USD 3500, one of these great pieces can be YOURS! Dial 1-800-SUCKER NOW! and we'll send you an extra PlasmaStove at no extra cost with your order!"
"Wow, Bob! That's amazing! Such a great deal! Why, I'll order mine RIGHT NOW!"
I just got mine today. It says "Made in Taiwan" on the shaft.
As always, most posters scream without having read the article in question. Maybe a little digest would help...
What they're saying is this:
The copyright in and associated with all material, including without limitation all informational text, photographs, illustrations, artwork, software, music, sound, photographs, graphics, audio, video, messages, files, documents, images or other materials (collectively, the "Materials"), whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, at or on the Property, as well as all derivative works, is held by Apogee or by the original creator of the material and is protected by copyright, trademark and other intellectual property laws.
Ok, boys and girls, what they're talking about here is material such as screenshots, original logo's and the like. They have paid their employees good money to create these screenshots and logo's, and they think it's only fair that they decide how this stuff is used. Let's not get into a "copyright is evil" debate here but let's take a deep breath and realise that all companies and artists use copyright to protect their creations.
Now, what is it they want you to do with these copyrighted items?
you will be granted a limited license to use the Marks and Materials for personal, informational, and non-commercial purposes to promote Apogee's games, provided that such use conforms to the criteria set forth below
They are kind enough to allow you to use their logo's and screenshots on your personal 1337 G4M3RZ site. This is very kind of them: not every company allows just about everyone to use their copyrighted material. Try it: post some screenshots of, say, Half-Life that you haven't obtained permission to use for on a site that gets some traffic (and hence attention). Sierra will force you to take them off as soon as they see them.
They would, however, like to have some say as to how this material is being used. By law, they have a right to this, seeing as that they own the copyright to it (once again, no "copyright sux & I'm 1337 H4X0R so I know" flame wars please"). These terms are as follows:
3. You may not use the Marks in banner advertisements or other internet advertising mediums
Fair, right? They own the copyright to them, so if you're making money (banner ads) by using them, you'll have to okay it with them first (and probably pay).
4. You are not allowed to vary the spelling, add or delete hyphens (even for normal hyphenation at the end of a line of text), make one word two, or use a possessive or plural form of the Marks.
"Uhm..does that mean I can't write `Apogee's new game'?" I doubt it. I think they mean that you can't mangle their trademarked brandnames. This is not to prevent Joe Gamer from making typos on his website, but probably to prevent anyone from luring traffic to a site called "ap-ogee.com" or from producing a game called "duke nuke'em". You may think this is absurd, but whole industries revolve around producing cheap imitations of hot-selling stuff and trying to get away with it by changing a trademarked brandname in some small way. A friend of mine once accidentally bought a video of a movie called "The Lion's King", for example. So I'd say this clause shows some smart thinking on the side of their lawyers as to how they can prevent this kind of stuff from happening. It's only there so they can take action against anyone who makes money by mangling their trademarks.
5. You may not use the Marks in a derogatory or defamatory manner, or in any negative context. Such use will terminate your license to use the Marks.
Another post on this topic contained a copy of an email sent by some Apogee-employee who said that what this clause means is that you can't spice up your Nazi-fetish homepage with Apogee logo's to make it seem as if Apogee condone National Socialism. Notice the use of language in the original clause, if you will. The words used are quite strong: "derogatory" and "defamatory". They're not talking about less than positive reviews here, they're talking about Nazi's, kiddieporn and Apogee hate-sites. Once again, they own the copyright to all their logo's, brandnames etc, so if they don't want you to use their stuff on a Nazi, porn or Apogee hate site, they have a right to forbid you to do it. I'd say it's fair. In fact, this clause is similar to the law that protects you from slander. Sure, that may seem to go against your right to free speech at first sight, but what it really does is protect your right to remain free from harm and unjust accusations.
6. You may not use the Marks as part of any third party products, services or trade name, without Apogee's express written permission.
Oh no...that means it's illegal to put an Apogee logo on my crap game-cd that will be given away with every pack of OatBran...just when I thought it was such a clever idea of me, seeing as that millions of people will buy more OatBran because they think it comes with a free Apogee game!
7. You may not use the Marks in a manner that is likely to cause confusion with, dilute or damage the reputation or image of Apogee or any of its products.
This is saying the same thing as points 4, 5 and 6, worded slightly differently to make sure that they've covered all the possible forms of copyright infringement.
8.The Marks, or any portion thereof, may not be used by you or any third party as a domain name or as part of or incorporated in to a domain name. If you learn of such unauthorized use, please inform us.
Now this is evil...they're saying you can't generate traffic to your site because you've used (part of) one of their copyrighted "Marks". This form of copyright infringement happens a lot, so it's kind of smart of them to explicitly forbid you to do it (try typing: www.macronedia.com instead of www.macromedia.com and see where you end up, for example). I'm not sure how this clause would hold up in court, however, and I'm certain it doesn't mean a thing outside of the US, so I'm guessing it's fairly safe to register www.apogee.tm (Turkmenistan).
The rest of the licence covers the procedures you need to follow if you want to use their copyrighted material. There's also a list of the Marks they own. Nothing shocking, really.
The point of this little expose is that the license does not, in my mind, contain anything shockingly Orwellian. It's the same kind of license that bookpublishers, painters, musicians (which is why Metallica is sueing Napster: Napster is making money by allowing millions of people to infringe Metallica's copyrights), software companies, etc. use to protect the investments they've made in promoting a brand or creating something. I'd say this is hardly something to get so worked up about.
This is actually quite a good idea...most kids who want to program probably only do because they want to make games. And from what I've seen of VB, BASIC (now those were the days) isn't very good for this anymore. There is, however, an unlikely alternative. I've recently come across a good piece of software that just might make programming fun. It's calledA4 3D GameStudio
:-) ). If you only want a simple FPS where you just shoot everything that moves (stands still, actually), you don't need to program anything at all, but if you want to do more fancy stuff, like create reasonably intelligent opponents, or add in those lovely Q3A jump pods, you'll have to write a script. So ideally your kids will pick up more skills because they demand more from their piece of software.
It's a commercial, albeit very cheap (standard version costs USD 40 or so) set of tools for creating, well, 3D games. It comes with a scripting language that kind of resembles C++ and Java (it's object oriented, among others), so it's useful for introducing concepts that are common in other, serious languages. Using this package could serve as a gentle introduction to the horrors of real-world programming (
Don't worry that your kids will first need to become graphic artists, either. The package uses the same native format as Quake and Quake II, so they can pick up landscapes, models and textures for free on sites like planet quake. Also, the package can be used for more than "just games": apparently someone wrote a drumcomputer with it.
Last but not least, the package comes with a good online manual and reference for the scripting language.
I admit, this may seem like an odd suggestion, but if you want something that is fun and reasonably challenging, 3D Gamestudio is actually not such a bad idea.
If I understand this correctly, the reason the judge forbade Bidders Edge to crawl eBay is that eBay told Bidders Edge not to do it but they did anyway. So it seems fair to me: if I ask you not to keep following me around and you keep doing it, I take you to court to get a restraint order slapped on you.
Whether it's a smart move by eBay to do this is an entirely different matter, however. Apparently all the experts agree that in the near future all transactions on the internet will be mediated by robots, which search out the best deal on the product you want to buy. So as far as the consumer is concerned, it makes no difference if a book comes from Amazon or Barnes and Noble, he'll just get it where his robot tells him it's cheapest. Most probably, he won't even know it's from a certain retailer until he looks at the box in which it was sent to him. Probably he won't care very much even then. At this moment, there's already a number of services that operate on this principle: Bidders Edge does it for auctions, and in NL there's a site called ElCheapo that lets you find the best deal on products ranging from airplane tickets to records.
By banning a robot-service from their site, eBay is, in effect, shutting itself off from the way business will be transacted in the near future. They will not merely lose some ad revenue, as is the case now, but they will lose all their customers.
If this really is what they want to do, I'd say let them.
I doubt it. When I looked at zeldman.com (never heard of the man before), all I saw was a neat, well-designed website. It looked good (except for the lame-ass intro) and I managed to find my way around, so what's the problem?
/. readers (who, browsing with lynx, probably haven't seen a decently designed website in ages: sorry to break it to you guys, but the web is turning into a commercial free-for-all; it's too bad but you'll have to learn to live with it) you'll want to avoid tactics like these.
:-)". Nevertheless, keep your geek rantings to yourself, as they are not relevant at all in the world of commerce, which is probably where this guy makes a living. Meanwhile, I'll just keep throwing karma points away (surprised I have any left).
Breaking the status bar? I'm sorry to break it to you, but no one really uses the status bar except for the few who actually know there's something of interest to be found there. How do you think those pr0n/ultimatewarez sites make a living? And as for the orange-as a designer I can tell you "there'th going to be a lot of orangeth thith theathon, hun". So the comment was correct..in six months time every website will be orange, and the hipster ones will have moved on to something else.
Then there's the small font: I'm browsing at 1024x768 on a 15" screen right now and I found the font perfectly legible, seeing as that it's Verdana (the one thing Microsoft ever got right). Of course on a linux machine this font isn't standard, but get a TTF plugin and install this font as it makes viewing a properly designed website much, much more pleasant.
As for the links, I don't know what the ***** you're talking about: in the commercial world, an intriguing link is supposed to entice visitors to click on it, and it usually works this way. Of course, if you're running a site for connoisseurs like most
I don't have any questions, however, because: he's running a connoisseur site that indulges in commercial behavior (it's a site I could sell to one of my clients easily) and his use of oranges and yellow "ith tho latht thentury-we're all moving to the drab greenth now
First of all: I don't like your music very much, but who cares since millions of people do. I'm just saying this so no one will be mistakenly saying I'm posting this cos "Metallica Rocks Ass, dude!"
I just read the chat transcript and thought you (or your lawyers, who cares?) had some good points:
Napster is a big machine funded by big money. They are trying to smokescreen everyone into thinking this is a free thing for the fans. It's a cheap ploy, in trying to associate free and Napster together. Napster is a big machine. The person who invented Napster is an employee of the big machine as we speak.
You're absolutely right, Napster is trying to become a big corporation by facilitating piracy. You didn't make it absolutely clear, however, why you're going after 300,000 users instead of Napster directly. You're backed by a big, wealthy company. Why don't you just take Napster the company to court and sue their balls off over facilitating an illegal activity, i.e. piracy? You said it was because Napster dared you to find users who shared copyrighted Metallica songs, but why bother taking the (costly, i would imagine) detour to go after the users if you could have just dragged Napster to court and be done with it?
This is not a change in attitude whatsoever. WE have always and will always continue to condone allowing people to record our concerts, to freely trade live concerts, interview. This is not what it is about, it's about the master recording that we have recorded and written and clearly own.
Actually, that makes a whole lot of sense, though you can't possibly maintain that you yourselves, way, way back when you were poor, have never copied a copyrighted album before... again, go after the company, and you would have my sympathy, as well as the sympathy of your fans, I'd guess. Is it really worth it to alienate people who are your fans over something like this?
They could have asked us, and we could have shared in the distribution and it could have been done properly.
That's probably the most constructive remark I've heard in this debate so far. Have you actually asked Napster to cooperate in a scheme like this, where they would pay for every copy of a song that got pirated through their service, and maybe have their users pay for these expenses as a kind of monthly subscription at all? How about dragging them to court if they refuse a scheme like this to enforce it?
That's it. I'm off to listen once more to the Buzzcocks songs I just downloaded through Napster. Guess which cd's I'm going to buy tomorrow....
...that noone really cares. thousands of metallica songs offered for download. why is beyond me though
This is probably very hard for them to do, seeing as that they have become "mainstream" artists, unlike Limp Bizkit and Chuck D (Offspring? well...leaving Epitaph was treachery so fuck 'em
For Metallica, this is not an option. They are not underground/independent artists by a long shot: they depend on the corporate machinery staying in place to make $$$$$. Hence they have no choice but to go after Napster users who endager this corporate machinery. I've always said Metallica was corporate Schmock, now they've conveniently proved it for me.
And if you're out to fuck the system, what are you doing with that Metallica cd in your stereo anyways?
That's the first knowledgeable post I've seen on this topic so far.
Just to clarify, though, only so the "geeks who" did "sleep through the eighties" know what you're talking about without following the link:
Dischord records (owned by Ian Mackaye (sp?) of Fugazi fame) puts a notice on all their records and cd's that they are available for a certain price (much lower than the fixed price for major label crap cd's) directly from Dischord itself. Meaning, that if you find one of those cd's at your local dealer and it costs more than the price they mention, you can just write down the address in the booklet that's lying around for all to see at the offending dealer and get it direct from the company itself. I'm no Dischord/Fugazi fan by a long shot (worst gig of 1994: Fugazi) but this seems to me to be a good, legitimate way to break the power of the majors. And it's ideas like this which in the long run will have the most effect on breaking the power of those evil corporate rockola's. Do you have any idea how popular Fugazi is at all? They sell more records than Britney Spears (people download Britney Spears songs) and the only reason they don't fill up stadiums is because they want to. They're doing something right, and Metallica isn't. I, for one, have been boycotting Metallica since, well, always, actually.
They suck. Big Black kicks their lame ass, and they sell/sold their records for USD 7.00 a piece. In Europe, that's cheaper than downloading all the songs.
Russian politicians dont even have to pretend to be honest. All it takes is a bitch like Valentini to pass a briefcase of money to Putin and/or the head of the Moscow milita and associated Gangsters (the Russian ones I mean) and those servers vanish before you can type "shutdown -h now".
Possibly. On the other hand, Russia likes to be treated as somewhat of a superpower. Hence, the US and the West in general have to be very careful about what they dictate to them, because everytime they do, the result is a more or less severe diplomatic crisis (Bosnia, Kosovo). If it appears that outside forces and especially the US have forced the Russian government into something, the very influential Russian right wing gets more than a little upset and threatens to abandon important projects such as arms reduction (though a third world country, Russia still has a large nuclear arsenal) or to disrupt proceedings in the UN security council by using their veto powers. I don't think the US government or the corporations where the real money is coming from, like oil companies and, for some strange reason, banana companies (Honduras) are willing to risk upsetting Russia over something relatively minor. Why do you think the US government/Microsoft hasn't adamantly protested the widespread use of illegal copies of Windows in Russia?
And there is all the foreign aid that goes to Russia from the US/IMF/Europe.
There's not a whole lot of it left, because Russia refuses to do what the US/IMF/Europe tells them to do. Clearly, they're not very impressed.
Hell the US paid the Russians/Soviets to ditch their comrades in East-Germany. Whats a few servers by comparison?
This happened ten years ago when Russia was still the Soviet Union and a superpower, and ruled by a man of reason (i.e. Gorbachev). You'll find that things have changed quite a bit since then.
Nirvana, at the height of their popularity, were not allowed to use their own mix for In Utero.
Not true. Nirvana had In Utero recorded by Steve Albini, as he is a true genius at recording nasty guitar rock. Mr. Albini is not, however, a genius at letting vocalists be heard, and since Kurt Cobain kinda valued his voice being heard, he was more than happy to let the excellent recordings be remixed by someone other than Steve Albini.
Other than that I agree with you. Major labels suck. All of the time.
What I don't like is JavaScript's half-hearted sandbox. First of all, the navigator object and it's ilk should not exist. Becuase it does, JavaScript goes beyond scripting DOM objects in the page, and starts to control the browser (and thus my computer) itself.
It depends. The navigator object can have some uses. On the other hand, if you're just doing mouse-overs, it's not really very necessary. Perhaps the solution is to enable the user to turn off access to certain objects, instead of the current all-or-nothing approach. The question is, though, whether the average user would understand what it all means.
Second, we have Microsoft's retarded security implementation in Outlook and Outlook Express. I certainly don't want to grant e-mail scripting control over my mail client. But the only way to prevent this is to disable scripting in the "Internet Zone", because of the way IE looks at the world.
Check the security lists. There are numerous "get your e-mail address" and "browse local files" exploits in both IE and Netscape for which the only solution is to disable Scripting. Should I grant this sort of access to my machine just to get some mouseovers and open() links? Is it really worth it? Maybe you think so, but I'll just surf somewhere else, or once in a while, use IE's zones feature.
I assume these "exploits" serve some purpose: to make life easier on the average user. I've known people who just wouldn't understand that they could partake of "this Internet thing" by simply double-clicking on the IE-icon on their desktop. The average user is stupid, needs to have a simple life and probably has nothing to hide. This doesn't mean that the non-average user does, but if you care enough about your security, you'll probably figure out a way to tweak the settings of your browser in such a way as to accomodate your security. Or at least, you should be given the option to. So I do agree with you...the scripting engine needs some work, but right now, for most users, it's better than nothing at all.
It's just that I get sick of all this Bleeding Edge/JavaScript/etc bashing all the time that is so popular among 1337 HAX0RS and Jakob Nielsen (who has an ugly site). "Dynamic HTML" has its uses, especially in the real world, where you have to sell your stuff.
And yes, Netscape sucks. Very big. If I say "border=0" I MEAN "border=0". Among other gripes.
Let the subtraction of karma points begin.
Personally, I think the advent of JavaScript is a Good Thing. Monitors weren't made for looking at static research papers and photo albums. The performance of dead trees in this area is much more convincing, and much easier on the eyes. Like it or not, the web is most suited for quick, graphic (yes, superficial, if you insist) presentation. JavaScript is actually quite helpful in creating attractive, simple to use web presentations. A simple OnMouseOver-script can greatly enhance the usability of your site. As the user base of the Internet has shifted from scientists and computerfreaks to Ordinary Men and Women, validation of user-entered data on forms has greatly increased: another area in which JavaScript is extremely useful. As the democratization (infantilization) of the net progresses, the use of JavaScript and other non-HTML-techniques like XML/XSL, CSS and even (**gasp**) Active Server Pages, will increase, so W3C and Microsoft (and, to a lesser extent, Netscape) have been right to give more support to these techniques.
Also, I'm totally unaware of any serious risk involved in viewing pages with active content (except for ActiveX of course). Feel free to enlighten me, though.
---and one more thing---
The poster you replied to mentioned he/she/who cares turns JavaScript off because it crashes Gnome. You yourself state that you turn JavaScript off to keep Netscape running. It seems to me like the problem isn't JavaScript but the applications you use. Gnome, to the best of my knowledge, is still more or less beta software, and as for Netscape: they might have had the lead in the early days of the commercialization of the web, but they sure as hell have lost it now. Netscape's compliance with W3C standards is much worse than IE4 and IE5. Often Netscape refuses to perform perfectly acceptable JavaScripts for no apparent reason. Also, Netscape will be brought to a crashing halt by normal HTML for no reason at all. It's almost as if they want to be killed of by Microsoft.
Nearly everybody who uses the system is usually distributing the 100% over no more than six choices in increments rounded to 5 or 10 percent
I don't mean to put you down, but requiring visitors to do this is in itself an example of a badly designed user interface. Unless you're a numbers-loving idiot savant, such a task is very annoying to perform. The stuff you put on your website must be really worthwile for your visitors to attempt this at all.
Of course one must respect Robert Moog for having invented Moog synthesizers. They sound amazingly well; too bad we've heard all the sounds it can possibly make a thousand times each by now. But don't blame him for that, just like you don't blame Bob Mould for Better than Ezra and such.
But, as much as he should be respected, his remarks about an ongoing trend towards simplified interfaces were way off mark. With very little experience, you can get a bunch of very decent sounds out of a Moog or (especially) a Minimoog. Just sit down and twiddle some knobs, and you've got instant Kraftwerk. It is very difficult, however, to program your own sounds into a modern synth, such as a Korg Z1 or a good software synthesizer like Generator. There's simply too many buttons to push. It's also much more difficult to sequence your notes and effects with software like Logic Audio (Cubase, well, that's indeed used to get Britney going. The Masters - Aphex Twin, Autechre, Funkstorung - use Logic because it's so much more flexible) than it is to play single-note leads on a keyboard.
To me, this remark sounds like it's coming from someone who doesn't know what he's talking about. Sure, he was very knowledgable and in touch with his times when he made the synthesizers he's known for, but by today's standards a moog-filter is hardly high-tech, and extremely unstable, as anyone who's used one can attest to. Times have moved on since then, however, and it sounds like Robert Moog hasn't moved on with them. Not that that should detract from his technological genius, but it is true. It took a genius to figure out the Moog synthesizer in the sixties, nowadays all it takes is a bunch of moderately paid engineers at a large-ish company to program the exact same sound into software (Generator) or a DSP chip (Nord Modular/Micro-modular, both of which are considerably cheaper and more flexible than any Moog ever was).
True, though. Due to some Quantummechanical quirk (I don't know which, as I'm no physics buff), the above is definitely true and it has been observed in laboratories. You can find the links if you try ( ;-) ). Einstein was right, in the same way that Isaac Newton was right: only on a certain level of perception. You, as a person, will grow infinitely fat if you travel at light speed. So will a particle. The quantum state of a particle will not, however. Actually, they don't really travel. But then I don't know the details. All I know for sure is that Einstein didn't always get it right.
Not quite. The reason Marx pitted the bourgeoisie (the upper middle class) against the masses is that in his day the upper classes (the nobility) were on the decline. Marx correctly foretold that the power of the nobility would eventually disappear, leaving the upper middle class as the only enemy of 'the masses'. He correctly foresaw that 'the rich', in the very near future, would not be the effete and gouty aristocrats, but the newly rich factory owners. There would be no more, or very few peasants left whose enemy is the noble landlord. Instead, all the poor would flock to the cities to become enslaved in the factories of the bourgeoisie.
If you look at the development of economics in the century-and-a-half since Das Kapital, you'll find that Marx is proved right time and time again. The rich (today, it's us, the digerati. This whole Linux vs. Micro$oft debate is a quibble amongst the rich, face it) get richer, the poor (nowadays often ex-factory workers, as factory workers get laid off more and more) get poorer and poorer.
Besides, I used to have an overclocked Celeron and it made the system incredibly unstable. Personally, I think increased stability improves performance much more than a few unstable extra MHz-es worth of processor speed.
As far as I can tell, every site that offers Be 5 or Be software is down or unreachable, despite there being an enormous amount of mirrors. Does this mean that everyone and their mom is downloading BeOS + Apps now? It would seem that way..which means that the chances of Linux gaining a stronghold on the desktop market have just been dealt a very strong blow. I managed to get Be up and running in 5 minutes, four of which where needed to unpack the archive, restart Windows (which really does feel like Windoze now). Soundcard detected, connected to the Internet (yup, I'm typing this in NetPositive) and all. The first time I installed Linux it took me more than five HOURS to get everything working. Actually, more like five days before I got the WinModem and SBLive to work. I guess as far as an end-user is concerned, Be is superior. I'm not talking about servers and such, for which Linux still can't be beat, but as far as desktop machines are concerned, Bill Gates needs to be very, Very afraid.