I've been looking on-line trying to find this sort of possibility and the only prefab system I've found that has configurable RAID in a consumer NAS is the Buffalo Terrastation. I've seen lots of NAS devices but basically they are all just a single hard drive with a network connection.
I have not used one of these and do not know if it's any good, but like I said, I haven't seen any other options for a prefab system. I've priced out what it would cost to roll my own system like this and it ends up being only a tad more expensive to get a prefab device. Actually, I think the price dropped on the terrastation so I'm not sure that's true anymore.
Also, if you get something like this, you should seriously consider upgrading to gigabit Ethernet if you haven't already. I have a network mounted share for most of my files and it works pretty well, but when I try to do things like synchronize my ipod against it, it totally crawls. Having a networked file server works better if it doesn't feel like your files are on a network.
Actually, all Apple cares about is a Dell, or similar company selling Apple's for a few hundred bucks and undercutting Apple's hardware sales. They don't need to stop you from hacking it, they just need to stop other companies from being able to bundle it. So the barriers can be quite minimal.
Permafrost will keep the vault below freezing point
Great... say, I wonder if they've heard of global warming?:) I mean if this is a long term apres apocalypse type plan, maybe, just maybe, they might want to consider that issue. But credit to them, for having some long range vision.
The issue with running it virtually is performance. The software I want to run is a pretty huge performance hog. So any virtualization unless it's say 95%+ efficient, would probably suffer pretty badly.
Now I know that there are legitimate uses for Windows (CAD, games, etc) but why would you want to dual boot? A cheap windows machine can be made by your local shop for 400 bucks.
If I'm getting a laptop, I can't exactly carry two laptops just in case I need Windows
I'd much rather have a laptop running OSX than running Windows and I can only run OSX on Apple hardware. Besides, Apple does make some very nice hardware.
The issue with dual booting is that I have some software that simply does not exist for OSX and likely never will. The software is rather performance intensive and so virtualization is not a viable solution. Thus the need to dual boot. Eventually I hope to move completely away from using Windows at all, but for now, sometimes I have to use it.
Read this discussion and you'll see that it MIGHT be possible. That is, EFI has the ability to support a backward compatibility mode with BIOS dependent operating systems. So the answer to the question is that if Apple chose to enable this option, dual booting will be feasible. If they chose not to, then who knows.
It is absolutely in Apple's interest to allow this capability though. If the new Apple laptops support dual booting Windows then I will absolutely buy one. I've wanted to run OSX but there are something I need to run in Windows for. If I can't run in Windows at least part of the time, then I cannot justify buying one of their computers.
This is true if all of your purchases are through ITunes. But if you use ITunes for just music you ripped off of CD's, then purchase information would be insufficient. I don't know about most people but probaly > 95% of my music I use on my IPod came off my own CD's, not from ITunes.
My concern is a bit grander issue. It's not ITunes collecting information or Google collecting information, it is all of these companies all collecting the information and going... well I don't know where it's going. They all have legitimate reasons to collect the information and arguably their collection makes my experience as a consumer a bit smoother. But what happens with all this data in the long run?
The biggest hinderance to an effective police state is that it's very difficult to monitor what everybody is doing all of the time. The technology though is making this far more feasible. Cameras with facial recognition systems, gun shot detecting microphones (why not voices, keyword checks), and of course this vast repository of information about what we do on a day to day basis through websites, use of credit cards, etc.
This doesn't mean we are in a police state or that we necessarily will be in a police state, but I would argue that the barrier to entry is far lower than it used to be. That the tools available to do this are far more prevalent. That given the right chain of events, it's possible that all these tools of consumer convenience could be used against us. What if there was a major terrorist strike in this country that made 9/11 look minor by comparison? What new government powers would be requested and given? The government already has the ability to access most of the information I described above with minimal oversight, but they could take it further, creating a pervasive monitoring system that flags risky subjects.
So in the grand scheme, do I care if ITunes knows what music I listen to? No. But if I happen to listen to "George Bush Doesn't Like Black People" a bazillion times, I don't want it triggering some flag that launches a conversation between me and some somber gentleman in a dark suit that enjoys speaking in veiled threats.
I think there's a natural resistence to the use of magnets in the computer industry. I think it has something to do with hard drives reacting badly to them. Apple's the first I've seen to use small magnets for useful purposes. The latching mechanism on the power books is magnetic, the latch recesses inside the top, but then just as it approaches the bottom, a magnet pulls it out and allows it to latch. It's quite clever.
One detail I'd like to know...
on
A Look at Google DRM
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
What OS's will it support? If Google DRM runs on Linux, I will back it. I'm tired of not being able to get crap to work on Linux without some wierd hack.
$499 is a bit steep and as an amateur that'd just like an easy way to manage my photos, it's so not worth it. I'm wondering, are there any open source equivalents to these programs. There's GIMP as an equivalent (arguably) to Photoshop, but there's a host of photo management apps coming out and I don't know of an OSS equivalent.
Currently I use Picassa which is easy to use and good at keeping track of all my photos, but it doesn't have the most powerful selection of tools to do image correction. I prefer to do my edits in Picassa because it doesn't touch the original image and it makes it easy to undo and try different things. But to do really good color correction, etc, I need to use GIMP/Photoshop and it just gets annoying.
So anything out there that might give me more power like these tools but not cost me $499, or, ideally, be completely free:)
The all or nothing quality of digital code (as we currently know how to make it) trickles down into all systems we build with it.
What he seems to ignore is that there's a very good reason things have evolved the way they did. He whines about the command line, but given the power of systems at the time, there was no way to do some intuitive graphical interface. Would he have preferred punch cards?
Arguably the openness he seems to crave is a direct cause for the brittleness he decries. It's because the systems we used today went through an evolutionary process where things that were useless died and things that were useful got locked in. Command lines might be complex and unintuitive but damned if they aren't amazingly efficient when you need them.
Computer language cannot be like human language because the interpretation he values requires vast amounts of processing power. It's as though he'd just like to pretend that there's not a practical physical reality that we have to deal with. The command line might seem ugly but it's way better than punch cards, non? Sure the interfaces we have today could be better, but in time they will be better. Some day we may be able to interact with computers in a more natural language way like they do on Star Trek, but it will be because the physical hardware has developed sufficiently to support it.
Not only can printers do this but the scanners have been doing this since at least 1997. I remember we played with this stuff in a computer lab on campus when I was in College. I'm guessing this is a dupe but I don't really feel like searching through almost a decade of Slashdot to find the link:)
Do you really want to have personal interactions with lawyers?:)
So I'm wondering if they have a patent on it. If they have a patent on it, then they could write an arsenal of lawsuit bots and nobody could defend themselves because they'd have to violate the patent. They could rule the world! MUAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!
The most common problems I've had with laptops of all stripes have been the display, the power connector and the battery wearing out. I've owned or extensively used two compaqs, a Toshiba, a 12" G3 Ibook and a 17" G4 Powerbook.
The first compaq I owned was a business class yacht of a laptop that was decent. I ran into power connector issues with it and the display eventually started blanking out because the connector would get loose.
The second compaq was a piece of junk. Had a memory problem I could never get solved even after repeated attempts to send it to compaq support. Just generally a mess which lead me to getting the Toshiba.
The Toshiba has been pretty solid. It's not a stellar laptop but it's been pretty reliable. Did have the fan die on it but was able to get it fixed under the warranty pretty easily. Oh yeah and the power supply died but I replaced it with a 3rd party universal adapter that works like a charm.
The two apple laptops I owned were really solid. I had some display problems with the G3 ibook, but haven't had a single problem with the powerbook yet. Also, as a purely aesthetic thing, the apple laptops just look better after a couple years of abuse. Well, correction, the powerbook does. The ibook, being that white chicklet plastic stuff is all dirty and scuffed looking.
At the end of the day, we don't play games for social interaction... We play games to escape.'
Ummmm, no, actually, at the end of the day, I play the game I play because of the social interaction. There's a group of friends I play with and that's how I socialize with them and frankly, the only reason I stick with this game and keep paying a monthly fee is because it's how I hang out with these friends.
What's next will be that software will come with your computer even if you don't need it or want it. You'll pay for it when you pay for the computer, even if you don't need it. Oh... wait, nevermind, Microsoft beat them to that one.
Yeah this is a clear cut case of them using their monopoly position to undercut Sony. A part of Sony's big gamble on the PS3 is that they can establish the market dominance of BluRay for HD media. What we are witnessing here is Microsoft's counter move, using their dominance of desktops to for HD-DVD as the standard.
The notion of ID, that some things may be created by an intelligent agent, isn't invalid. An example I've seen mentioned is the notion of the roundup ready corn. Evolution does not explain roundup ready corn because it was made in a lab through, what one might describe as, intelligent design.
If one was to find a kernel of roundup ready and tried to figure out how regular corn had evolved into roundup ready you'd hit a brick wall because it didn't evolve. Does that mean evolution doesn't exist? No. Does that mean a deity made roundup ready? No. I think it's worth discussing in the context of a science classroom because it illustrates the practical limits of science, that no scientist would refute. There are some things that will forver beyond the ability of science to explain, and that's okay.
To be clear, I recognize that 99.8% of the people promoting ID are trying to find a breach through which to ram christian theological explanations for creation. These people are fools though because every time this has happened throughout history. Science has eventually expanded to understand the things that were supposedly only the realm of God before.
This is the thing, for any given body of information, the number of people interested in a subject will likely be proportional to the number of people willing to write about it at length. Realms of information that are particularly obscure won't get much treatment, but then again, will anybody be reading it. On the other hand, Wikipedia has two huge advantages when dealing with obscure topics:
1) If there are people with expertise out there, they can just add the information anytime they want to with ease. So there's very little barrier to keep even the most obscure topics from getting covered.
2) There's no practical limit on the amount of information that can be added because it's all on some big server.
My suspicion is that, going forward, independent foundations will work with Wikipedia to update the information on the more obscure topics. Let's say you're with the AASCR (The American Association of Sumarian Cunieform Researchers), and you want to make sure that the often misunderstood history of cunieform is available to the public, you can pay some researchers to write a few articles on the subject for wikipedia.
The assumption there would be that one was deliberately attempting to reduce the statistical error rate. But given that the articles in question were chosen at random, it seems rather unlikely that this was the case. I don't think anybody is bored enough to go through and add fluff to articles just to bump up their accuracy stats.
Having said that this gets down to the quantitative versus qualitative measures. Does less errors and a greater volume reflect a more carefully written and considered article? Or does it reflect a lack of depth which makes itself less prone to errors.
The only theoretical drawback to Wikipedia is that anybody could write an article and thus may not be informed on the subject, or may have biases. Having said that, there's no reason that the same cannot be said of a printed encyclopedia. Furthermore, in the case of a printed one, there's no feedback or correction mechanism. So even that drawback isn't as big of a deal, and an awareness of that possibility gets you more into the mindset of double checking the facts, which is a good thing.
Frankly though my favorite thing about wikipedia is the version control. I saw some people talking about a political conspiracy the other day that sounded brand new. I went to Wikipedia and it had thorough documentation of the issue. When I looked at the revisions, I discovered that the original information they had went back to 2003 at least. So it's nothing new.
I'm waiting for one of these car companies to discover new uses for buggy whips in the powering of cars. A diesel-electric hybrid with buggy whip injection or some such. Then all those tales of the last buggy whip makers will have to be rewritten.
Bad programmers...
on
Java Is So 90s
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Languages don't cause bad programs to be written -- bad programmers do! It's just a sign of the decline in pure programming skills.
Right and guns don't people, people kill people, but it's a lot easier to kill people if you've got a gun, non? I think it can be legitmately said that the nature of Java is better lended to well structured code. It doesn't mean you can't write well structured Perl, but on the average, people will write better code in Java than they will in Perl. Sure, a good programmer can write good stuctured code in any language, but you have to accept the reality that there's far more demand for code than there are top notch coders. That doesn't reflect a decline in pure programming skills, it reflects a vast increase in the need for people with any skill at all.
I find these language debates kinda dumb, frankly. Here's the thing, with everything being web based, it doesn't matter a lick what you run it on. If Java works best for you, great. If LAMP works best for you, great. Personally I prefer LTPJ (Linux, Tomcat, PostgreSQL, Java), but then I know Java a lot better and I know how to make it do neat tricks I'd have to learn over again in PHP. Besides, can you even write threads in PHP?
But if you all websites work with the same browsers and all websites communicate with eachother in the same way, the code could be running off of punch cards for all it matters. In the long run that openness will tend towards minimizing the influence of any one platform or company. People will go with the tools that suit them best.
Articles like this one are even more stupid than the debate because it's clear they do no understand the technology. They talk about people using Linux and Apache as though that means they couldn't be using Java. In the end, you can totally mix and match Apache, Linux, Java, PHP, etc, to best suit the environment you're working with. But of course that doesn't make for as interesting an article, does it?
Another thing to consider is that as backcatalogue sales decline, the music industry's revenue is going to be increasingly erratic as it becomes more depdenent on individual releases throughout the year to make money. It's becoming more like the film industry where a couple bad bets on some summer stinkers can really hurt the bottom line of a company.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been looking on-line trying to find this sort of possibility and the only prefab system I've found that has configurable RAID in a consumer NAS is the Buffalo Terrastation. I've seen lots of NAS devices but basically they are all just a single hard drive with a network connection.
I have not used one of these and do not know if it's any good, but like I said, I haven't seen any other options for a prefab system. I've priced out what it would cost to roll my own system like this and it ends up being only a tad more expensive to get a prefab device. Actually, I think the price dropped on the terrastation so I'm not sure that's true anymore.
Also, if you get something like this, you should seriously consider upgrading to gigabit Ethernet if you haven't already. I have a network mounted share for most of my files and it works pretty well, but when I try to do things like synchronize my ipod against it, it totally crawls. Having a networked file server works better if it doesn't feel like your files are on a network.
Actually, all Apple cares about is a Dell, or similar company selling Apple's for a few hundred bucks and undercutting Apple's hardware sales. They don't need to stop you from hacking it, they just need to stop other companies from being able to bundle it. So the barriers can be quite minimal.
Permafrost will keep the vault below freezing point
:)
Great... say, I wonder if they've heard of global warming?
I mean if this is a long term apres apocalypse type plan, maybe, just maybe, they might want to consider that issue. But credit to them, for having some long range vision.
The issue with running it virtually is performance. The software I want to run is a pretty huge performance hog. So any virtualization unless it's say 95%+ efficient, would probably suffer pretty badly.
Now I know that there are legitimate uses for Windows (CAD, games, etc) but why would you want to dual boot? A cheap windows machine can be made by your local shop for 400 bucks.
If I'm getting a laptop, I can't exactly carry two laptops just in case I need Windows
I'd much rather have a laptop running OSX than running Windows and I can only run OSX on Apple hardware. Besides, Apple does make some very nice hardware.
The issue with dual booting is that I have some software that simply does not exist for OSX and likely never will. The software is rather performance intensive and so virtualization is not a viable solution. Thus the need to dual boot. Eventually I hope to move completely away from using Windows at all, but for now, sometimes I have to use it.
Read this discussion and you'll see that it MIGHT be possible. That is, EFI has the ability to support a backward compatibility mode with BIOS dependent operating systems. So the answer to the question is that if Apple chose to enable this option, dual booting will be feasible. If they chose not to, then who knows.
It is absolutely in Apple's interest to allow this capability though. If the new Apple laptops support dual booting Windows then I will absolutely buy one. I've wanted to run OSX but there are something I need to run in Windows for. If I can't run in Windows at least part of the time, then I cannot justify buying one of their computers.
This is true if all of your purchases are through ITunes. But if you use ITunes for just music you ripped off of CD's, then purchase information would be insufficient. I don't know about most people but probaly > 95% of my music I use on my IPod came off my own CD's, not from ITunes.
My concern is a bit grander issue. It's not ITunes collecting information or Google collecting information, it is all of these companies all collecting the information and going... well I don't know where it's going. They all have legitimate reasons to collect the information and arguably their collection makes my experience as a consumer a bit smoother. But what happens with all this data in the long run?
The biggest hinderance to an effective police state is that it's very difficult to monitor what everybody is doing all of the time. The technology though is making this far more feasible. Cameras with facial recognition systems, gun shot detecting microphones (why not voices, keyword checks), and of course this vast repository of information about what we do on a day to day basis through websites, use of credit cards, etc.
This doesn't mean we are in a police state or that we necessarily will be in a police state, but I would argue that the barrier to entry is far lower than it used to be. That the tools available to do this are far more prevalent. That given the right chain of events, it's possible that all these tools of consumer convenience could be used against us. What if there was a major terrorist strike in this country that made 9/11 look minor by comparison? What new government powers would be requested and given? The government already has the ability to access most of the information I described above with minimal oversight, but they could take it further, creating a pervasive monitoring system that flags risky subjects.
So in the grand scheme, do I care if ITunes knows what music I listen to? No. But if I happen to listen to "George Bush Doesn't Like Black People" a bazillion times, I don't want it triggering some flag that launches a conversation between me and some somber gentleman in a dark suit that enjoys speaking in veiled threats.
I think there's a natural resistence to the use of magnets in the computer industry. I think it has something to do with hard drives reacting badly to them. Apple's the first I've seen to use small magnets for useful purposes. The latching mechanism on the power books is magnetic, the latch recesses inside the top, but then just as it approaches the bottom, a magnet pulls it out and allows it to latch. It's quite clever.
What OS's will it support? If Google DRM runs on Linux, I will back it. I'm tired of not being able to get crap to work on Linux without some wierd hack.
$499 is a bit steep and as an amateur that'd just like an easy way to manage my photos, it's so not worth it. I'm wondering, are there any open source equivalents to these programs. There's GIMP as an equivalent (arguably) to Photoshop, but there's a host of photo management apps coming out and I don't know of an OSS equivalent.
:)
Currently I use Picassa which is easy to use and good at keeping track of all my photos, but it doesn't have the most powerful selection of tools to do image correction. I prefer to do my edits in Picassa because it doesn't touch the original image and it makes it easy to undo and try different things. But to do really good color correction, etc, I need to use GIMP/Photoshop and it just gets annoying.
So anything out there that might give me more power like these tools but not cost me $499, or, ideally, be completely free
My favorite quote:
The all or nothing quality of digital code (as we currently know how to make it) trickles down into all systems we build with it.
What he seems to ignore is that there's a very good reason things have evolved the way they did. He whines about the command line, but given the power of systems at the time, there was no way to do some intuitive graphical interface. Would he have preferred punch cards?
Arguably the openness he seems to crave is a direct cause for the brittleness he decries. It's because the systems we used today went through an evolutionary process where things that were useless died and things that were useful got locked in. Command lines might be complex and unintuitive but damned if they aren't amazingly efficient when you need them.
Computer language cannot be like human language because the interpretation he values requires vast amounts of processing power. It's as though he'd just like to pretend that there's not a practical physical reality that we have to deal with. The command line might seem ugly but it's way better than punch cards, non? Sure the interfaces we have today could be better, but in time they will be better. Some day we may be able to interact with computers in a more natural language way like they do on Star Trek, but it will be because the physical hardware has developed sufficiently to support it.
Not only can printers do this but the scanners have been doing this since at least 1997. I remember we played with this stuff in a computer lab on campus when I was in College. I'm guessing this is a dupe but I don't really feel like searching through almost a decade of Slashdot to find the link :)
Do you really want to have personal interactions with lawyers? :)
So I'm wondering if they have a patent on it. If they have a patent on it, then they could write an arsenal of lawsuit bots and nobody could defend themselves because they'd have to violate the patent. They could rule the world! MUAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!
The most common problems I've had with laptops of all stripes have been the display, the power connector and the battery wearing out. I've owned or extensively used two compaqs, a Toshiba, a 12" G3 Ibook and a 17" G4 Powerbook.
The first compaq I owned was a business class yacht of a laptop that was decent. I ran into power connector issues with it and the display eventually started blanking out because the connector would get loose.
The second compaq was a piece of junk. Had a memory problem I could never get solved even after repeated attempts to send it to compaq support. Just generally a mess which lead me to getting the Toshiba.
The Toshiba has been pretty solid. It's not a stellar laptop but it's been pretty reliable. Did have the fan die on it but was able to get it fixed under the warranty pretty easily. Oh yeah and the power supply died but I replaced it with a 3rd party universal adapter that works like a charm.
The two apple laptops I owned were really solid. I had some display problems with the G3 ibook, but haven't had a single problem with the powerbook yet. Also, as a purely aesthetic thing, the apple laptops just look better after a couple years of abuse. Well, correction, the powerbook does. The ibook, being that white chicklet plastic stuff is all dirty and scuffed looking.
Yeah this comment cracks me up:
... We play games to escape.'
At the end of the day, we don't play games for social interaction
Ummmm, no, actually, at the end of the day, I play the game I play because of the social interaction. There's a group of friends I play with and that's how I socialize with them and frankly, the only reason I stick with this game and keep paying a monthly fee is because it's how I hang out with these friends.
They don't know a damn thing about video games.
What's next will be that software will come with your computer even if you don't need it or want it. You'll pay for it when you pay for the computer, even if you don't need it. Oh... wait, nevermind, Microsoft beat them to that one.
Yeah this is a clear cut case of them using their monopoly position to undercut Sony. A part of Sony's big gamble on the PS3 is that they can establish the market dominance of BluRay for HD media. What we are witnessing here is Microsoft's counter move, using their dominance of desktops to for HD-DVD as the standard.
The notion of ID, that some things may be created by an intelligent agent, isn't invalid. An example I've seen mentioned is the notion of the roundup ready corn. Evolution does not explain roundup ready corn because it was made in a lab through, what one might describe as, intelligent design.
If one was to find a kernel of roundup ready and tried to figure out how regular corn had evolved into roundup ready you'd hit a brick wall because it didn't evolve. Does that mean evolution doesn't exist? No. Does that mean a deity made roundup ready? No. I think it's worth discussing in the context of a science classroom because it illustrates the practical limits of science, that no scientist would refute. There are some things that will forver beyond the ability of science to explain, and that's okay.
To be clear, I recognize that 99.8% of the people promoting ID are trying to find a breach through which to ram christian theological explanations for creation. These people are fools though because every time this has happened throughout history. Science has eventually expanded to understand the things that were supposedly only the realm of God before.
This is the thing, for any given body of information, the number of people interested in a subject will likely be proportional to the number of people willing to write about it at length. Realms of information that are particularly obscure won't get much treatment, but then again, will anybody be reading it. On the other hand, Wikipedia has two huge advantages when dealing with obscure topics:
1) If there are people with expertise out there, they can just add the information anytime they want to with ease. So there's very little barrier to keep even the most obscure topics from getting covered.
2) There's no practical limit on the amount of information that can be added because it's all on some big server.
My suspicion is that, going forward, independent foundations will work with Wikipedia to update the information on the more obscure topics. Let's say you're with the AASCR (The American Association of Sumarian Cunieform Researchers), and you want to make sure that the often misunderstood history of cunieform is available to the public, you can pay some researchers to write a few articles on the subject for wikipedia.
The assumption there would be that one was deliberately attempting to reduce the statistical error rate. But given that the articles in question were chosen at random, it seems rather unlikely that this was the case. I don't think anybody is bored enough to go through and add fluff to articles just to bump up their accuracy stats.
Having said that this gets down to the quantitative versus qualitative measures. Does less errors and a greater volume reflect a more carefully written and considered article? Or does it reflect a lack of depth which makes itself less prone to errors.
The only theoretical drawback to Wikipedia is that anybody could write an article and thus may not be informed on the subject, or may have biases. Having said that, there's no reason that the same cannot be said of a printed encyclopedia. Furthermore, in the case of a printed one, there's no feedback or correction mechanism. So even that drawback isn't as big of a deal, and an awareness of that possibility gets you more into the mindset of double checking the facts, which is a good thing.
Frankly though my favorite thing about wikipedia is the version control. I saw some people talking about a political conspiracy the other day that sounded brand new. I went to Wikipedia and it had thorough documentation of the issue. When I looked at the revisions, I discovered that the original information they had went back to 2003 at least. So it's nothing new.
I'm waiting for one of these car companies to discover new uses for buggy whips in the powering of cars. A diesel-electric hybrid with buggy whip injection or some such. Then all those tales of the last buggy whip makers will have to be rewritten.
Languages don't cause bad programs to be written -- bad programmers do! It's just a sign of the decline in pure programming skills.
Right and guns don't people, people kill people, but it's a lot easier to kill people if you've got a gun, non? I think it can be legitmately said that the nature of Java is better lended to well structured code. It doesn't mean you can't write well structured Perl, but on the average, people will write better code in Java than they will in Perl. Sure, a good programmer can write good stuctured code in any language, but you have to accept the reality that there's far more demand for code than there are top notch coders. That doesn't reflect a decline in pure programming skills, it reflects a vast increase in the need for people with any skill at all.
I find these language debates kinda dumb, frankly. Here's the thing, with everything being web based, it doesn't matter a lick what you run it on. If Java works best for you, great. If LAMP works best for you, great. Personally I prefer LTPJ (Linux, Tomcat, PostgreSQL, Java), but then I know Java a lot better and I know how to make it do neat tricks I'd have to learn over again in PHP. Besides, can you even write threads in PHP?
But if you all websites work with the same browsers and all websites communicate with eachother in the same way, the code could be running off of punch cards for all it matters. In the long run that openness will tend towards minimizing the influence of any one platform or company. People will go with the tools that suit them best.
Articles like this one are even more stupid than the debate because it's clear they do no understand the technology. They talk about people using Linux and Apache as though that means they couldn't be using Java. In the end, you can totally mix and match Apache, Linux, Java, PHP, etc, to best suit the environment you're working with. But of course that doesn't make for as interesting an article, does it?
Another thing to consider is that as backcatalogue sales decline, the music industry's revenue is going to be increasingly erratic as it becomes more depdenent on individual releases throughout the year to make money. It's becoming more like the film industry where a couple bad bets on some summer stinkers can really hurt the bottom line of a company.