I was lucky enough to start out with a pretty brilliant DSL ISP (CapuNet) who were pretty damn awesome, but when they dumped residential service (seemingly like all others in my area) I had to go somewhere. The somewhere CapuNet offered me was the craptastical Earthlink, which I had no intention of climbing aboard. So, I looked into Speakeasy, and it seemed like that was the solution for me... and time has certainly proven this.
It doesn't hurt that a good half of my favorite shoutcast stations are now hosted by speakeasy... heh heh. Now all they need is a good goth station.
All my CDs go straight to MP3 when I get them, and then they go on the house music server, so I can access them in any room over the network.
No one is pirating these MP3s. I don't have enough of an upstream connection to do that! I'm using my music in the way of the future- these folks want to stick me in the past. Feh to them.
At least five times a week, I see some sort of windows based kiosk type device screwing up.
Recently:
The information terminals at MCI Center (they have never worked properly, to my knowledge- they are always off, talkatively crashed, or frozen.)
Newer Allfirst ATMs (which all use Windows 2000.)
The terminals at the Baltimore Convention Center (the OS keeps forgetting it has a touchscreen, oops.)
If I know what's running on something, that generally means I've seen it crash! The only Linux-based device I saw having problems was a group of web terminals at a New Jersey Turnpike rest area. But they were in a pretty deplorable state from all points, and those were just glorified PCs anyway (one was reporting a keyboard failure at the BIOS, no surprise since it seemed that someone had heavily worked it over with an ice pick)
I always have inaccessible boot device bluescreening problems under 2000. 98 does happily accept the other drive, but win2k seems to get far angrier. Perhaps I am missing something?
If the fight moves to technology, that's a fight that the individual can win.
I see, in the future, most Gnutella clients having a CPS minimum on files, just like most decent IRC file clients do. This is quite easy to route around.
Dishonesty in such a network can temporarily harm it, but just as in the case of spam, we make do and live.
In such a future, revolt would be a holy duty
on
What's The Future of DRM?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
The entire point of economics is to manage the scarce resources of life. The entire point of technology is to beat that scarcity.
What happens when that scarcity is made a relic of the past?
Folks like R. Buckminster Fuller thought about that. As a matter of fact, he believed that we've already eliminated most of physical want through industry, and it's just a few folks who want to continue to reap the personal benefits of a hierarchical society that keep anyone poor. I don't entirely agree with him, but an alchemical nanotech future would certainly threaten the hierarchy of the simple protection of life.
Would hierarchy nod its head and vacate its throne? Who knows.
We don't know if this future is even possible- but past experience has shown that whatever we humans dream tends to happen. It just takes time.
Debian's apt-get is the best realization of this future. It's a little scratchy around the edges- but there is where the real innovation in desktop OSes starts.
Of course, I recently switched to Slack because there's a deeper part of me that doesn't trust something so automatic...
A BDSM-ish Giger biomech picture. A writhing, streamlined, scaled thing being jammed into the maw of a once-human thing chained comfortably to a frosted plexiglass seat.
I can picture a culture of outcasts diligently working on cracking the encryption schemes used, in hidden monasteries and old warehouses, living off of pirated satellite connections and covert tunneling in other's data.
Neato. One might be able to write a "Canticle for Leibowitz" style book with this as the main idea...
Then go to look like you're winding up for a punch, but kick the guy in the balls instead.
Continue with, "Kicking you in the balls won't kill you, you'll live to regret it. That's direct self-defense. Civilization requires deliberation. I know why I kicked you in the balls, and can demonstrate that to anyone nearby. These witnesses know why I kicked you in the balls. Why is this different? Well, I haven't seen anyone demonstrate how bin Laden is guilty, couldn't we at the very least try him in absentia? Since we haven't, it's not obvious that he's doing the face-punching. Furthermore, did random Afghanis punch us in the face? No sir. They just want to live, just like the people in the WTC wanted to live. If you want to kill them just because that's the parameters the WTC attack set, well then do so, but don't pretend you're a magical paladin of justice. Find me someone to kick in the balls, but make sure he punched me in the face first."
Double thanks to those who went to college "because they had to", got business degrees, and then made it so that every entry level warehouse job seems to have "must have a bachelor's degree and the ability to lift 50 pounds" on it.
I'd be more than glad to tell the guy who buys said fictional car how to engage the James Bond smokescreens and the autocannon that I put on in a moment of paranoia, and how to take them off if he doesn't want to be liable for carrying military hardware. But those can be added and removed freely, like modules. The GPL says that you can indeed make closed modules. And so it would be the same if the fellow put his stereo in the car after I sold it to him, because a stereo component is a module.
I imagine there might be a case for a lawsuit if you made your car run on Russian rocket fuel or some such thing and didn't tell the guy you sold it to. So, integral modifications are already covered.
Can we get away from comparing apples to socket wrenches?
It all depends on what they say. If they say sales are falling, well, that's the way it is. But if they say sales are rising, well, rejoice! Next we'll have larger chocolate rations.
It was a new, and refreshing phenomenon. Back when Napster was a thrice a day Slashdot phenomenon, I couldn't block the whole Music category because I liked to hear about non-Napster related music things. Not that there were many, but a blanket Jon Katz style ban wasn't appropriate.
Now that it's rising from the grave, can we make a special "Napster" category so I never have to hear another goddamn thing about this particular silly company again? I'd love to hear stuff about filesharing and music licenses, but Napster's death and resurrection do not interest me.
Slashdot Mirror
I was lucky enough to start out with a pretty brilliant DSL ISP (CapuNet) who were pretty damn awesome, but when they dumped residential service (seemingly like all others in my area) I had to go somewhere. The somewhere CapuNet offered me was the craptastical Earthlink, which I had no intention of climbing aboard. So, I looked into Speakeasy, and it seemed like that was the solution for me... and time has certainly proven this.
It doesn't hurt that a good half of my favorite shoutcast stations are now hosted by speakeasy... heh heh. Now all they need is a good goth station.
All my CDs go straight to MP3 when I get them, and then they go on the house music server, so I can access them in any room over the network.
No one is pirating these MP3s. I don't have enough of an upstream connection to do that! I'm using my music in the way of the future- these folks want to stick me in the past. Feh to them.
At least five times a week, I see some sort of windows based kiosk type device screwing up.
Recently:
The information terminals at MCI Center (they have never worked properly, to my knowledge- they are always off, talkatively crashed, or frozen.)
Newer Allfirst ATMs (which all use Windows 2000.)
The terminals at the Baltimore Convention Center (the OS keeps forgetting it has a touchscreen, oops.)
If I know what's running on something, that generally means I've seen it crash! The only Linux-based device I saw having problems was a group of web terminals at a New Jersey Turnpike rest area. But they were in a pretty deplorable state from all points, and those were just glorified PCs anyway (one was reporting a keyboard failure at the BIOS, no surprise since it seemed that someone had heavily worked it over with an ice pick)
There's no oversight. The more effectively the movements of any individual can be tracked, the more likely he is to be surveilled for *any* reason.
Being in a public place does not excuse someone from stalking you.
Imagine the uses of such data to an unscrupulous cop, when we know full well that even current law enforcement databases are heavily misused!
The cops naturally focus on matters of importance, such as actual crimes. Camera recordings, on the other hand, do not discriminate.
It's the difference between being watched and being stalked. With cameras, who's to know what's happening?
All I have to do under such a society is become a kung fu master, and I'm always right in any argument?
Fucking awesome.
I always have inaccessible boot device bluescreening problems under 2000. 98 does happily accept the other drive, but win2k seems to get far angrier. Perhaps I am missing something?
then I'd have the equivalent of Mac System 7.0 in front of my house.
I guess you just aren't trying hard enough. It's proven very effective for me.
the "light" mode removes all of this frippery, except for the top banner ad.
If the fight moves to technology, that's a fight that the individual can win.
I see, in the future, most Gnutella clients having a CPS minimum on files, just like most decent IRC file clients do. This is quite easy to route around.
Dishonesty in such a network can temporarily harm it, but just as in the case of spam, we make do and live.
The entire point of economics is to manage the scarce resources of life. The entire point of technology is to beat that scarcity.
What happens when that scarcity is made a relic of the past?
Folks like R. Buckminster Fuller thought about that. As a matter of fact, he believed that we've already eliminated most of physical want through industry, and it's just a few folks who want to continue to reap the personal benefits of a hierarchical society that keep anyone poor. I don't entirely agree with him, but an alchemical nanotech future would certainly threaten the hierarchy of the simple protection of life.
Would hierarchy nod its head and vacate its throne? Who knows.
We don't know if this future is even possible- but past experience has shown that whatever we humans dream tends to happen. It just takes time.
Debian's apt-get is the best realization of this future. It's a little scratchy around the edges- but there is where the real innovation in desktop OSes starts.
Of course, I recently switched to Slack because there's a deeper part of me that doesn't trust something so automatic...
A BDSM-ish Giger biomech picture. A writhing, streamlined, scaled thing being jammed into the maw of a once-human thing chained comfortably to a frosted plexiglass seat.
Don't do that.
I can picture a culture of outcasts diligently working on cracking the encryption schemes used, in hidden monasteries and old warehouses, living off of pirated satellite connections and covert tunneling in other's data.
Neato. One might be able to write a "Canticle for Leibowitz" style book with this as the main idea...
Response: Say, "OK, have it your way".
Then go to look like you're winding up for a punch, but kick the guy in the balls instead.
Continue with, "Kicking you in the balls won't kill you, you'll live to regret it. That's direct self-defense. Civilization requires deliberation. I know why I kicked you in the balls, and can demonstrate that to anyone nearby. These witnesses know why I kicked you in the balls. Why is this different? Well, I haven't seen anyone demonstrate how bin Laden is guilty, couldn't we at the very least try him in absentia? Since we haven't, it's not obvious that he's doing the face-punching. Furthermore, did random Afghanis punch us in the face? No sir. They just want to live, just like the people in the WTC wanted to live. If you want to kill them just because that's the parameters the WTC attack set, well then do so, but don't pretend you're a magical paladin of justice. Find me someone to kick in the balls, but make sure he punched me in the face first."
Double thanks to those who went to college "because they had to", got business degrees, and then made it so that every entry level warehouse job seems to have "must have a bachelor's degree and the ability to lift 50 pounds" on it.
Hyperbole kills.
I was expecting some evil severed head to be the focus of this piece, given its title.
Oh well, we may feel like these things are created by giant, evil aliens deep in the earth's crust sometimes...
I'd be more than glad to tell the guy who buys said fictional car how to engage the James Bond smokescreens and the autocannon that I put on in a moment of paranoia, and how to take them off if he doesn't want to be liable for carrying military hardware. But those can be added and removed freely, like modules. The GPL says that you can indeed make closed modules. And so it would be the same if the fellow put his stereo in the car after I sold it to him, because a stereo component is a module.
I imagine there might be a case for a lawsuit if you made your car run on Russian rocket fuel or some such thing and didn't tell the guy you sold it to. So, integral modifications are already covered.
Can we get away from comparing apples to socket wrenches?
and I was about to buy it too... I guess I won't.
I'm inclined to just find out how I could send 20 bucks to the band itself... perhaps next time they are in town I shall go do that at the concert.
It all depends on what they say. If they say sales are falling, well, that's the way it is. But if they say sales are rising, well, rejoice! Next we'll have larger chocolate rations.
It all makes sense.
Sir, you are barking up the wrong tree. Metropolis Records sells for less than CD store prices, online (at http://www.industrial-music.com/)
It was a new, and refreshing phenomenon. Back when Napster was a thrice a day Slashdot phenomenon, I couldn't block the whole Music category because I liked to hear about non-Napster related music things. Not that there were many, but a blanket Jon Katz style ban wasn't appropriate.
Now that it's rising from the grave, can we make a special "Napster" category so I never have to hear another goddamn thing about this particular silly company again? I'd love to hear stuff about filesharing and music licenses, but Napster's death and resurrection do not interest me.
That would fit in with the general "The Gates Satan" theme here.
That would be nice if there were anything other than a ghost of an abstract noun to go to war with.
Find a real enemy, find a real target, find an opponent.
Don't show me ghosts.