Wouldn't it be cool if paperback books came with a little mini-CD in a sleeve in the back with the book's complete text in plain-old-ASCII format?
I'm not talking necessarily the new Tom Clancy novel -- more like if I want to find where a quote from "The Prince" was, I don't wanna thumb through the whole book looking for it... I can just load up the text in my favorite editor and do a search... heck, you could even make a deal with Cliff's Notes to include an electronic version on the mini-CD for all the lazy students out there..:)
This is an interesting question.. I wonder if people have too quickly jumped to the conclusion that the online auction houses don't really have a responsibility to respond to local laws.
To an extent, I think they do. What if someone in Amsterdam were to post an ounce of marijuana on eBay? It would get taken down, because it's not legal to sell here. We're obviously respecting US laws. Now, granted, the French are pretty silly - but they *may* have a legitimate gripe about having their laws respected.
PS -- Just kidding about that silly French remark..:)
The version of the java swingset demo program I have has an easter egg in it. Go search in your/jdk1.2/demo/jfc directory for *.java containing text "easter" (they make it pretty easy!:)
SwingSet.java looks like the spot where it gets activated. Sure, it's still fun to find opensource easter eggs!! 1/2 the fun is tracing the code to figure out how to set 'em off!!
Anyone who thinks you can run a company based entirely on *product* and *engineering* need only look at Iridium.
They engineered a product that worked perfectly -- that no one *wanted*.
While I'm sure that they had some sort of marketing dept., obviously no one sat down to determine the customer base, break down the demographics, and select and poll a target audience.
My point being, it may seem like you could keep a company going w/o non-engineers, but *trust me*, they fulfill a definite role in the "new" business model as well as the old.
I remember seeing a quote someone had posted that supposedly had come from an online chat with you guys quite a while ago. The poster had asked something along the lines of "How do you guys feel about online MP3 distribution of your songs?".
The reply, from "jaymz" and I think "kirk" was "We don't give a f***!".
My question : 1) Did this interview really take place, or is this guy just basically putting words in your mouth? (I've seen enough bogus "quotes" to take that kind of stuff with a grain of salt).
2) If it did take place, what made you change your opinion? Was it just that piracy wasn't as rampant at that point? Was it that you didn't have a solid grasp of the technology, and have since grown to understand it better? Did corporate reel you in? Or something else entirely?
--------------- I just wanna add that I've been a Metallica fan for a long time. I own (almost) all of your albums, have been to several shows, and my favorite t-shirt in the world is a ragged-out old "Ride the Lightning" tee. When I saw that quote, I felt proud to support a band who thought it was important that a depressed kid hear "Fade to Black" and know that he's not the only one in the world who's felt that way. A band who felt it important that someone mulling over the realities of war could hear the inciteful commentary of "Disposable Heroes" or "For Whom the Bell Tolls". A band who put the message and the music before the buck. Everyone needs to make a living, but for God's sake, you don't need to cut the throats of kids who just wanna hear your message in the process.
I've been a Metallica fan for a long time. I've been a geek for longer. Please don't draw the line, and don't make me choose.
When they originally released their album "Garage Days Revisited", they included the price of the album in the title (so the official title was something like "Garage Days Revisited - the $4.95 LP"). The reasoning was that if they named it that, people selling their music couldn't screw the kids out of an extra buck at the stores. They used to put the fans and the music before the glitz and the profits....
In Metallica's defense, they *were* only doing what Napster said - provide them the names of pirates, who will be removed from the system. Besides that, if you post information to a public system, even under an alias, I can't see how you could call searching the public system invasion of "privacy" - the shares are up for *everyone* to see! I don't think anybody made any promises that using an alias on the Internet somehow guarantees privacy.
Unless, of course, Metallica's violated the anti-reverse-engineering clause of the DMCA..:)
Here's an interesting legal question for the lawyers out there who read slashdot (I know you guys are out there!!).. My girlfriend is starting a dance studio. To be able to play music on CDs for the kids to dance to, she was to pay ASCAP/BMI a yearly licensing fee (something on the order of $500 / year). My question is, since she's paying a music licensing fee, can I download MP3's for her to use at her studio? Or is she basically just purchasing an extension of the rights she receives when she buys a CD? Or, more probable, have I not provided enough info for anyone to grasp what it is I'm talking about?:)
Sure, the rocket car story is pretty suspect, but it *did* make for an interesting re-telling, no?
I e-mailed the link over to the urban legends page guys at www.snopes.com. Just sent it as an FYI, since they track that kind of stuff, and got a pretty nasty response from them. Yikes!
Oh well, time for them to look into adding some fiber to the diet, I guess..:)
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I'm not talking necessarily the new Tom Clancy novel -- more like if I want to find where a quote from "The Prince" was, I don't wanna thumb through the whole book looking for it... I can just load up the text in my favorite editor and do a search... heck, you could even make a deal with Cliff's Notes to include an electronic version on the mini-CD for all the lazy students out there.. :)
Best of both worlds...
It read more like a book review with a couple of quotes thrown in from the author....
It'd be nice if that were true! Recent crackdowns on online gambling might suggest otherwise, however.
To an extent, I think they do. What if someone in Amsterdam were to post an ounce of marijuana on eBay? It would get taken down, because it's not legal to sell here. We're obviously respecting US laws. Now, granted, the French are pretty silly - but they *may* have a legitimate gripe about having their laws respected.
PS -- Just kidding about that silly French remark.. :)
Whatever happened to the right of a consumer to create a single archival backup of software that he/she has purchased??
The version of the java swingset demo program I have has an easter egg in it. Go search in your /jdk1.2/demo/jfc directory for *.java containing text "easter" (they make it pretty easy! :)
SwingSet.java looks like the spot where it gets activated. Sure, it's still fun to find opensource easter eggs!! 1/2 the fun is tracing the code to figure out how to set 'em off!!
Sid.
Quantum computing will eventually collapse out these polynomially "hard" problems so they can be solved almost instantly, and it won't matter anymore.
*Tsk!* *Tsk!*
That reeks of a DMCA violation! :)
They engineered a product that worked perfectly -- that no one *wanted*.
While I'm sure that they had some sort of marketing dept., obviously no one sat down to determine the customer base, break down the demographics, and select and poll a target audience.
My point being, it may seem like you could keep a company going w/o non-engineers, but *trust me*, they fulfill a definite role in the "new" business model as well as the old.
Sid
The reply, from "jaymz" and I think "kirk" was "We don't give a f***!".
My question :
1) Did this interview really take place, or is this guy just basically putting words in your mouth? (I've seen enough bogus "quotes" to take that kind of stuff with a grain of salt).
2) If it did take place, what made you change your opinion? Was it just that piracy wasn't as rampant at that point? Was it that you didn't have a solid grasp of the technology, and have since grown to understand it better? Did corporate reel you in? Or something else entirely?
---------------
I just wanna add that I've been a Metallica fan for a long time. I own (almost) all of your albums, have been to several shows, and my favorite t-shirt in the world is a ragged-out old "Ride the Lightning" tee. When I saw that quote, I felt proud to support a band who thought it was important that a depressed kid hear "Fade to Black" and know that he's not the only one in the world who's felt that way. A band who felt it important that someone mulling over the realities of war could hear the inciteful commentary of "Disposable Heroes" or "For Whom the Bell Tolls". A band who put the message and the music before the buck. Everyone needs to make a living, but for God's sake, you don't need to cut the throats of kids who just wanna hear your message in the process.
I've been a Metallica fan for a long time. I've been a geek for longer. Please don't draw the line, and don't make me choose.
In Metallica's defense, they *were* only doing what Napster said - provide them the names of pirates, who will be removed from the system. Besides that, if you post information to a public system, even under an alias, I can't see how you could call searching the public system invasion of "privacy" - the shares are up for *everyone* to see! I don't think anybody made any promises that using an alias on the Internet somehow guarantees privacy.
Unless, of course, Metallica's violated the anti-reverse-engineering clause of the DMCA.. :)
Here's an interesting legal question for the lawyers out there who read slashdot (I know you guys are out there!!).. My girlfriend is starting a dance studio. To be able to play music on CDs for the kids to dance to, she was to pay ASCAP/BMI a yearly licensing fee (something on the order of $500 / year). My question is, since she's paying a music licensing fee, can I download MP3's for her to use at her studio? Or is she basically just purchasing an extension of the rights she receives when she buys a CD? Or, more probable, have I not provided enough info for anyone to grasp what it is I'm talking about? :)
I e-mailed the link over to the urban legends page guys at www.snopes.com. Just sent it as an FYI, since they track that kind of stuff, and got a pretty nasty response from them. Yikes!
Oh well, time for them to look into adding some fiber to the diet, I guess.. :)