And if they just tax digital downloads, piracy is going to effing skyrocket - I'm not buying music from iTunes at $1.08 a song (I've only bought a few songs at 99c as it is - I'd consider it as an actual piracy alternative at about 49c a song with one-minute previews, provided 0% of it goes to the RIAA).
If you're not paying for downloaded music today, why would adding a tax to the price do anything to the levels of piracy? Everything I've seen has suggested that downloading illegally copied material has been consistently increasing, even as legal download services have been growing; there's not much evidence that iTunes and the like have actually reduced the amount of piracy.
This is one of those areas that I'd seriously consider relocating to not deal with the BS.
You're going to leave the country over a tax that you wouldn't pay anyway?
They have no right to tax us on stuff that they have zero involvement in (which as far as I'm concerned is eveything buy property and income),
Since when does the government have more involvement in my income (an arrangement between private individuals or organizations where they give me money in exchange for my work) than they do in sales? I don't completely oppose income tax, but trying to pretend that the government has some natural right to the money I earn really annoys me.
I just want to say -- thanks! I read all those books when I was a kid, and recently thought of them... but couldn't remember for the life of me any details or what the title of the series was. (Well, actually, I did remember that the character's name was "Danny", but of course that's the name of the hero in probably half of all children's books.) It was really beginning to bother me.
I've actually thought of creating a bot that would search for old articles on the same subject as a new post (heck, you could just have it search for dupes), and then reposts high-scoring posts from the old article. With a little bit of work designing the algorithm to choose posts, I bet that such a bot would max out its karma in short order.
Not, of course, that it would be demonstrating any sort of intelligence. But that's kind of a requirement for posting to Slashdot anyway.
Now you want to sue people because they write software that doesn't work as well as you'd like? I can't wait for the rush of lawsuits against sourceforge projects...
10x? So if Im getting 72 fps on UT2007, I can expect 720 fps as a result of this technology? damn, that's quite an improvement!
Most likely the 10x figure is for a program which is only using the CPU for the processing that they are proposing to offload onto the graphics card. (They've also probably chosen whatever benchmark shows this in the best light, of course.) In a real game, there is quite a bit of stuff going on that isn't directly related to the physics of graphical effects, so you won't see a real-world speedup of 10x. I wouldn't be suprised, however, if we saw a 50-100% increase in framerates in real games.
That site has lots of data on lots of things. Like that pretty much every crater on the earth and the moon is caused by electrical discharges. And that electricity is the "energy" that makes stars shine. And that comet tails are due to electrical discharge. And that electric forces rather than gravity shape the solar system and galaxies. And... well, pretty much all the nonsense that the electric universe people keep raving about.
The right to not be counted after accepting a EULA is Amendment 47 to the Slashdot constitution. It's between Amendment 46, the right to read Slashdot at work, and Amendment 48, the right to eat Cheetos without getting fat.
And I don't remember ANY SNES/Genesis games costing over $60. The vast majority released at $50.
Well, to be fair, due to inflation, $50 in the SNES era is worth about the same as $60 today, perhaps a little more. So by that measure, the prices haven't really changed. You would do better to compare them to previous-generation games (most of those started at $50, too, so the price goes up by $10.)
I suspect that those who were willing to pay $50 for the latest games a year ago will be willing to pay $60 now. Those of us who are more money-conscious aren't paying fifty dollars for a game anyway; we wait a year for them to drop to twenty.
What planet are you from where the extremists in support of all the causes you mentioned aren't just as loudmouthed as the ones who aren't? (Well, except for the mistreated sheep thing, which I haven't heard anything about either way.)
The Digital Music News blogger, Ray Beckerman, claims to be a defence attorney in the case in which the RIAA made this argument. I'd rate this as at least a semi-credible source.
Yeah, because lawyers are known for always being truthful. Unless, of course, they're hired by somebody you don't like, in which case they're scum-sucking parasites. If the RIAA actually claimed this, then why didn't he at least quote their words?
OK, I've now looked at that too. That document is not one filed by the RIAA, rather, it is from the lawyer who represents one of the people sued by them. Actual quote from the document:
As mentioned above, the complaint alleges three forms of activity purportedly constituting copyright infringement - (1) downloading copyrighted files, (2) distributing such files to the public, and/or (3) making such files available for distribution to others.
From the context of the rest of the paper, it is quite clear that the "copyrighted files" referred to are ones to which the record companies actually own the copyright.
In other words, your document doesn't show them saying anything like what is claimed by this story. How about you actually find one that does? (For starters, try looking for something actually written by the RIAA or its lawyers if you want to show that they said something.)
The article links to a blog (Techdirt) that says exactly the same thing as the Slashdot post. The Techdirt post links to another blog (Digital Music News) which says about the same thing, though at least apparently the Techdirt poster had the decency to reword the summary. There are no links to any even semi-credible source (like, say, the documents where they supposedly said this.)
Could Slashdot at least wait until there's actually some proof before posting this crap?
I'm not quite sure what you mean... are you saying that because a "$1.00 plus tax" item should cost $1.08, and the closest you can get is $1.10, that selling it at that price wouldn't be allowed? If so, I really don't think that's much of an issue. Right now, taxes in my area are something like 7.75%, so that $1.00 item should "really" cost $1.0775... but there's no problem with rounding to the nearest penny. I can't see any reason why rounding $1.08 to $1.10 is really any different.
Of course, there are laws that prohibit that on the books today (I believe those are what you are referring to, right?), but compared to the effort of getting rid of pennies in the first place, changing those laws to allow rounding to the nickle rather than the penny is pretty trivial.
The guys at the store will tell him "Look, this is a Celeron, made by Intel, the people who makes Pentiums". Not that fancy AMD hax0r thing. Anyway, that's my opinion, I may be wrong, but...
Well, maybe, but that doesn't have much to do with the brand recognition of Pentiums. The guys at the store could just as easily say that the AMD chip is just as good as the Pentium, and the customer would be as happy to buy it as to buy a Celeron.
In any case, since when do salesmen sell people computers based on what the processor name is? Most people want a computer with a GigaHertz and 180 MegaWatts. As long as it's got numbers by it that are bigger than the last computer they had, they'll buy it.
When did our esteemed/. gatekeepers become the equivalent of Jack Elrod and Johnny Hart from the comics page, coasting on their few laurels and not paying much attention?
Well, from my/. experience... it started at least by 1999.
What kind of advice -- both technical and theoretical -- would you give us on conducting a deep and objective study on the Unix desktop, that can be useful for the developers and the OSS community?"
Well, for starters... don't bother ask Slashdot. (Who wants to bet that Cliff made this submission up to get a flamewar started?)
They are breeding mindless consumerism, and making the life of any parent that has to take their children shopping with them hell. It's bad enough when kids try and grab boxes as you push by, but having the boxes TELLING the children to pick them up is even worse.
The fault there is with parents that refuse to instill discipline in their children. If your kids are grabbing products off the shelves, you're to blame for the problem, not the advertisers.
To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222. It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years.
Although the do not call list helped for a little while, all of the companies get around it now by "taking surveys" -- generally, their survey consists of saying "Do you want to buy overpriced product X?" Until the "do not call" really means "do not call," these lists aren't going to do anything. Of course, you should sign up anyway, so that you can at least file complaints when they call you.
Until then, I recommend that everyone at least attempt to waste as much of the telemarketer's time as possible. Act interested without agreeing to anything, and ask lots of questions. Sure, it's a pain, but I would bet that if even five or ten percent of people did it, telemarketing would become so unprofitable that they would at least have to change their tactics.
Typically, authors hold the copyright for their work. So if all of these others love the idea so much, then why doesn't Google just ask for permission?
You have no difference between watching a copied or an original movie on your PC monitor or TV...
No difference? For most people (please note that I say 'most,' not 'all'), it's a choice between watching on a 17-inch screen in their den sitting on an office chair, with tiny computer speakers, compared to sitting in your living room on the couch, with a screen twice as large, and a good chance that you've got a decent sound system to go along with it. And yet, downloading movies and watching them on your PC is still tremendously popular.
The only people that should have those worries are those producing pure reference books...
Spoken like someone who has no idea of how many illegally copied books you can find online. Although it doesn't doesn't get as much press -- mostly, I would guess, because the total amount of money and the size of the audience is so much smaller than for music and movies -- digitized versions of all sorts of books are available and traded on usenet and filesharing networks. The notion that people wouldn't bother to get those books easier and quicker via Google's service is laughable.
These probably would not fall under fair use; although whether the use is commercial or not is relevant to determine whether or not it's "fair use," it's not the only requirement. Probably slightly more importantly, using many of the cartoon characters would also violate trademark law. The same goes for cartoon tattoos.
Of course, both of these are probably under the radar for the copyright and trademark holders.
Debian & Debian derivatives. Since that covers 3/4ths of all distros, I'm just going to stop there.
Debian includes lots of stuff under other licenses in the base (for instance, BSD-licensed software.) There's also a fair amount of software under more restrictive licenses available, though it gets relegated to the non-free section. And, of course, the Debian-derived distributions include anything they want, including non-GPL / non-"free" programs.
In other words, you're wrong. I'm not aware of any full distribution that includes only GPL software.
As far as being unchanged goes, the old revisions of articles are available on Wikipedia. When citing it, you should be giving the date that it was retrieved, or possibly even the URL to the particular revision you are quoting. (I don't know if those URLs are stable or not.)
However, I do think you were perfectly right that she shouldn't be using Wikipedia as her sole source of any information -- finding the original source of the information is a much better idea.
Slashdot Mirror
No Child Left Behind is an old, outdated program. The new one is much improved.
I just want to say -- thanks! I read all those books when I was a kid, and recently thought of them ... but couldn't remember for the life of me any details or what the title of the series was. (Well, actually, I did remember that the character's name was "Danny", but of course that's the name of the hero in probably half of all children's books.) It was really beginning to bother me.
Not, of course, that it would be demonstrating any sort of intelligence. But that's kind of a requirement for posting to Slashdot anyway.
Now you want to sue people because they write software that doesn't work as well as you'd like? I can't wait for the rush of lawsuits against sourceforge projects...
That site has lots of data on lots of things. Like that pretty much every crater on the earth and the moon is caused by electrical discharges. And that electricity is the "energy" that makes stars shine. And that comet tails are due to electrical discharge. And that electric forces rather than gravity shape the solar system and galaxies. And ... well, pretty much all the nonsense that the electric universe people keep raving about.
The right to not be counted after accepting a EULA is Amendment 47 to the Slashdot constitution. It's between Amendment 46, the right to read Slashdot at work, and Amendment 48, the right to eat Cheetos without getting fat.
I suspect that those who were willing to pay $50 for the latest games a year ago will be willing to pay $60 now. Those of us who are more money-conscious aren't paying fifty dollars for a game anyway; we wait a year for them to drop to twenty.
What planet are you from where the extremists in support of all the causes you mentioned aren't just as loudmouthed as the ones who aren't? (Well, except for the mistreated sheep thing, which I haven't heard anything about either way.)
In other words, your document doesn't show them saying anything like what is claimed by this story. How about you actually find one that does? (For starters, try looking for something actually written by the RIAA or its lawyers if you want to show that they said something.)
Could Slashdot at least wait until there's actually some proof before posting this crap?
Of course, there are laws that prohibit that on the books today (I believe those are what you are referring to, right?), but compared to the effort of getting rid of pennies in the first place, changing those laws to allow rounding to the nickle rather than the penny is pretty trivial.
In any case, since when do salesmen sell people computers based on what the processor name is? Most people want a computer with a GigaHertz and 180 MegaWatts. As long as it's got numbers by it that are bigger than the last computer they had, they'll buy it.
Until then, I recommend that everyone at least attempt to waste as much of the telemarketer's time as possible. Act interested without agreeing to anything, and ask lots of questions. Sure, it's a pain, but I would bet that if even five or ten percent of people did it, telemarketing would become so unprofitable that they would at least have to change their tactics.
Typically, authors hold the copyright for their work. So if all of these others love the idea so much, then why doesn't Google just ask for permission?
Of course, both of these are probably under the radar for the copyright and trademark holders.
In other words, you're wrong. I'm not aware of any full distribution that includes only GPL software.
However, I do think you were perfectly right that she shouldn't be using Wikipedia as her sole source of any information -- finding the original source of the information is a much better idea.