The problem is really that the readers put up with it. Specifically, that we reward magazines for running rave review in every issue purely to tempt you to pick them up. Imagine a games mag with the cover page: "All the games reviewed this month suck." Would you buy it? Probably not, but that's exactly the kind of issue you should buy.
Hmmm, does anyone know of an actual honest game mag? I should think that if someone created a magazine with the express purpose of honesty and not pandering to game companies, that people would come to trust it. Truth breeds confidence and would probably propell such a mag into a top rated position so that game companies would be begging to get their ads in there if they felt they had a good game. Such a magazine could make up the difference of the companies that would not run ads with charging more for the companies that do.
I.e. "We got a good review from Gametruth Magazine!" "Awsome, we'll sell millions. Call them up and run an ad."
Why everybody here seems to be so opposed to diversification in fees based on used resources? The bandwidth is not a unlimited resource.
Wow, was that an intentional Haiku? It was perfect!
Uhh, yeah, to stay on topic, I say give the people unlimited bandwidth!
Re:great book, but no conclusion
on
Browsing Alone
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· Score: 2
The book suggests
about a dozen causes, but none really clinches
it. Nor do the sum of of clauses explain things.
The trend of less civic participation began long
before the InterNet became popular, so I wouldn't
blame the net.
C. S. Lewis once wrote a book called The Great Divorce. In it, he portrays Hell as a place where the people in it can have whatever they want. The people in Hell choose to move further and further away from each other, building bigger and bigger mansions full of nice things. On the outskirts of Hell, every person lives alone and completely isolated and miserable. Interesting that our current cities begin to mimic this behavior, almost like a prediction.
I don't think Lewis was anti-technology in this, I think he was making a point about the human heart. If you remove the (apparent) need for other people by replacing it with objects, then people tend to isolate themselves because it is easier than dealing with relationships.
In the book, several people actually escape Hell because they realize they need to change their hearts.
I would suggest we keep the technology, but make an effort as individuals to seek real human community as well.
It's the same argument you've been hearing for years about why pirating software is ok. In your scenerio, the guy on the subway paid for that paper. If I steal it from him, he will have to spend more money buying a second copy for himself. If I download some 1's and 0's arranged in a pleasent way, I'm not really taking anything from anyone.
But again, if every single person in the city made a copy of the man on the subway's newspaper, then the newspaper would go out of business. So you cannot say it is not taking anything from anyone. In a sense, this case takes something away from everyone, i.e. the continuation of newspaper we all want.
Maybe the newspaper needs a new business model to deal with the new technology, but let's not pretend that use of that technology is unharmful.
Where's the revenue growth to be found? Ancillary services beyond the basic download-some-music flat-rate service are one option. Flat-rate models will support periodic price increases if the perceived value is there: I'm unlikely to gripe too much if the service goes from $15/month to $17/month in a year's time if I'm finding it valuable.
Interesting point. You know, my view is, the more free something is (as in speech not beer) the more potential for growth there is. If these guys were to do it right, flat fee with unlimited downloads, I think many many more songs would get out to the people.
What I mean is, people tire of the same old thing after a while and they look for something new- so they will stick with the service because they can constantly update different music every month. This has the potential of giving more bands more access to more people, instead of the artificial ClearChannel induced restrictions that are now pissing everyone off.
If only the RIAA would release their tight grip, everyone would win (including them). More bands, more songs, more money for everyone. Freedom always produces more prosperity. Just ask the Soviet Union.
Diablo II automatically updated software when you logged onto Battle.net....People who bought something 4 years ago with a certain promise of functionality deserve to be able to keep that functionality
Hmmm. But if you buy a piece of software that depends on the internet, how long should a company support it? Let's say interest for battle.net fell off dramatically in four years, so that only a few hundred people were playing it. Should the company continue to support the service? Should they support it after twenty years? I'm not trying to nix your point, which is valid, it just got me thinking.
Oddly, some of the newsgroups seem to be missing. In the 80's rec.arts.startrek was the most prolific group in the entire usenet and it absolutely does not exist in its original form (it was eventually broken up).
Perhaps the original groups that were broken up before 1995 have not been added to the new archive. If so, this is a pretty major oversight. Or perhaps some of the groups were deemed irrelevant?
Fighter pilots that go off mission on a whim? Can you say serious lack of discipline? They get shot down in enemy territory, and our hero leaves his injured buddy out in the open in broad daylight? Then he moves around during the day? This is some of the most idiotic military procedures ever shown. If our military was really like this, Osama Bin Ladin would now be our president.
Of course, our hero is completely impervious to explosions and has the superhuman ability to dodge bullets. And for some reason the director thought that realistic battle action involves shaking the camera around so much that you can't really see what's happening. Saving Private Ryan this was not.
Think about it. If they were called digits from di- for two, don't you think that it would be called dinary instead of bi nary?
Well, it is language, not math, we are really discussing. And language isn't always known for it's logic. The prefix di does mean two in some instances. Hydrogen-dioxide for one. We don't call it Hydrogen-bioxide do we? Anyway, you were right and I was wrong in regard to my initial post so somebody feel free to take my one karma point away:-)
Setun operated on numbers composed of 18 ternary digits, or trits
Awww...they shied away from the obvious choice, tits.
Just to be more serious and perferctionistic about it. Shouldn't the word digit in this case be a trigit? Since the very word digit is prefaced with di which means two? I guess I could be wrong about that, but it seems to make sense.
I for one need to test my software on Linux Systems. Yellowdog makes this possible on my TiBook. Its also fast and not as irritating to use as OSX when installing software- especially software designed for Gnome or KDE.
Your question perhaps is why somebody would choose one or the other. However Yaboot allows multi-OS booting on Mac hardware. At boot time I can choose OSX, Linux, OS9, or a CD as my OS of choice. Its pretty awesome and impresses the hell out of people:-)
Do you think eventually we will have devices that record our entire lives, moment by moment, and then use some kind of AI to edit them into a kind of hilite of our lives up to that point replete with music to go along with it?
Do you think that eventually everyone will have a soundtrack playing in their head that keeps in sync with the situation you are in, so your life seems more like a movie than reality? E.g. when your wife says she is divorcing you, some kind of dramatic soap opra type music plays suddenly.
Re:The views of a Muslim in NY
on
More WTC News
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· Score: 1
It is, for that reason, that I have a great deal of respect for Islam and its followers. Maybe their religion teaches a need for violence at times. But a) that removes one layer of hypocrisy when a follower feels it necessary to resort to violence to preserve a way of life he values, and b) the followers do seem to be very loyal to their idea of God (Allah), and for that I am very grateful, even if I might disagree over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Probably too late to reply to this and expect anyone to read it but anyway...
Your dilemma is not that bad I think. The point in question is not defense of a nation state but defense of the religion itself. The Bible allows and even recommends adherance to your country's laws (Roman 13:1-10) which might include military service, but it does not command violence in defense of Christianity. In fact it is clear that we should die rather than kill in defense of our faith. Islam has direct commands to defend by violence the Islamic faith itself.
I think this has much to do with the belief that Islam is a religion tied in very much with the world. It is the goal of Islam to create Islamic nation states over the entire planet. Christianity views all Christians as citizens of heaven who inhabit the world but we are never called upon by the Bible to bring about Christian nation states. Jesus said the Kingdom of God is within us, not anywhere physically present.
Re:The views of a Muslim in NY
on
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· Score: 1
Yes in some areas Islam spread by military conquest, but there are many other places where it spreaded (sp?) because of commerce and merchants, along the silk road, in central asia till China, in Africa too.
Dude, Islam was initially spread by military conquest. The very founder of Islam used violence to spread it. Muhammed conquered the cities of Mecca and Medina with military might. Islam has no problem using military force to achieve certain objectives (emphasis on certain- i.e. not ALL). The founder of the religion itself used military conquest as a tool to spread the religion.
Christianity, has had it's holy war too what do you call "crusades" ?
Jesus died on a cross instead of fighting back. I challenge you to find justification for the crusades in the teachings of Jesus Christ. I challenge you to find one instance where he advocated military violence in the spread or defense of Christianity. It aint there. He said "turn the other cheek". The teachings of Christianity are to do good to your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. The crusades were a political war done in the name of Christ- much like a lot of the "Christian Nation" crap we hear in our own era. These things are not Christianity.
Again, I stress that Islam and Christianity are very different in these and other areas. The whole "religions are all the same" line is really only a mantra used by those who have never done any comparitive studies.
Re:The views of a Muslim in NY
on
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·
· Score: 1
I took this as if you'd written "Christianity was [initially] spread...", because that seemed clear to me in context.
Yes that was what I meant. Thank you for your post. I am regretting not putting that word in both sentences now. I thought, however, that most slashdotters would have regarded it contextually.
Again, as others have pointed out, my focus was on the teachings of the two religions. Islam does teach that one can take punitive measures against an opponant of Islam (again - it does not teach that killing innocents is ok). Christianity of course teaches that we should "turn the other cheek" which is the opposite of Islam.
I also wanted to make the point that despite the wishes of many, all reglions do NOT teach the same basic things. This is one of those major differences.
Oh, caveat: I don't think Islam teaches personal revenge- rather a societal (Umma) defense against infidels- aka Jihad.
Re:The views of a Muslim in NY
on
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· Score: 2
They probably didn't teach you in Sunday School that most of continental Europe (outside the borders of the Roman Empire) was "Christianized" at swordpoint.
You probably did not read my post very carefully. I said:
Christianity has no call to arms in its defense (despite the actions of so called Christians in the dark ages)
I was discussing the initial spread of Christianity compared to the initial spread of Islam. I realize that so called Christians have converted at swordpoint (and worse). But the fact reamains that Islam does have a call to arms in its theology and Christianity does not. Its a pity my original post got modded down since I have said nothing contrary to the truth. Unfortunately certain facts irritate eccumencial post-modernists who want to pretend that all religious beliefs are the same even though they are not.
Re:The views of a Muslim in NY
on
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· Score: 0
But by no means, can a muslim country attack another country (muslim or not) as an act of Jihad. That is incorrect. the basics of islam are similar to christianity. Believe in one god. In arabic the word god is Allah. The god is the same between all three religions. jews, muslims and christians pray to the same god. That is very important to understand. But a true muslim is humble, not greedy, not arrogant and never shows jealousy. Tolerance, helping neighbours of any race, creed, or religion is the first thing.
Before I say this, let me say that I am apalled that any person would attack Muslims in this country in any way because of the actions of a few evil people. Having said that however, I am tired of the comparisons of Islam to Christianity. Islam and Christianity are very different. Notably in the fact that Islam was spread initially by military conquest. Christianity was spread by word of mouth and people willing to die for it- but not fight for it with violence. As such, Islam does not have a problem with militarism. Christianity has no call to arms in its defense (despite the actions of so called Christians in the dark ages). Islam allows for military defense of its ideology (yes I know Jihad does not mean holy war exclusively, but it does allow for it).
Again, I do not saction any action of violence against innocents and I know that Isalm does not allow for violence against innocents. But Islam allows for violence against its opponents and Christianity does not. So lets not kid ourselves and say they are the same.
Linux is a great way to put older Mac Hardware to use!
Can I just say that it is also a great way to put *NEW* Mac Hardware to use. I installed LinuxPPC on my Titanium Powerbook G4 and it rocks. You wanna put Dell Notebook Linux users to shame. Show them how you can triple boot Mac OS 9, Mac OSX, and Linux on a Tibook (using yaboot). And how you can run Mac OS 9 in an X window using MacOnLinux and then bring up Virtual PC to run Windows. All that plus an awsome screen and formfactor makes for some jealous x86 users.
Well I guess I'll shut up now and wait for the mod down from the anti-PPC people.
Spacewar, for all its charm, never really made it past the eyes of a few hundred geeks.
Spacewar did come out later after the pong craze. I remember playing it with my brother at an amusement park. We played until we were out of money. Things that were cooler than pong about it:
Vector graphics with really thin lines
Fantasy factor- you could pretend you were in a spaceship instead of pretending you were on a tennis court
Cool options like the black hole
I can't remember if this was before or after Space Invaders but I think it was before.
But the fact is that Outlook, ISS, and various other products didn't even have security as an afterthought, it was just no thought at all. The charge shouldn't be "kill the virus writers", it should be "stop buying unsecure software".
According to your logic, shouldn't the charge be instead "kill the makers of unsecure software?"
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is really that the readers put up with it. Specifically, that we reward magazines for running rave review in every issue purely to tempt you to pick them up. Imagine a games mag with the cover page: "All the games reviewed this month suck." Would you buy it? Probably not, but that's exactly the kind of issue you should buy.
Hmmm, does anyone know of an actual honest game mag? I should think that if someone created a magazine with the express purpose of honesty and not pandering to game companies, that people would come to trust it. Truth breeds confidence and would probably propell such a mag into a top rated position so that game companies would be begging to get their ads in there if they felt they had a good game. Such a magazine could make up the difference of the companies that would not run ads with charging more for the companies that do.
I.e. "We got a good review from Gametruth Magazine!" "Awsome, we'll sell millions. Call them up and run an ad."
Why everybody here seems to be so opposed
to diversification in fees based on used
resources?
The bandwidth is not a unlimited resource.
Wow, was that an intentional Haiku? It was perfect!
Uhh, yeah, to stay on topic, I say give the people unlimited bandwidth!
C. S. Lewis once wrote a book called The Great Divorce. In it, he portrays Hell as a place where the people in it can have whatever they want. The people in Hell choose to move further and further away from each other, building bigger and bigger mansions full of nice things. On the outskirts of Hell, every person lives alone and completely isolated and miserable. Interesting that our current cities begin to mimic this behavior, almost like a prediction.
I don't think Lewis was anti-technology in this, I think he was making a point about the human heart. If you remove the (apparent) need for other people by replacing it with objects, then people tend to isolate themselves because it is easier than dealing with relationships.
In the book, several people actually escape Hell because they realize they need to change their hearts.
I would suggest we keep the technology, but make an effort as individuals to seek real human community as well.
But again, if every single person in the city made a copy of the man on the subway's newspaper, then the newspaper would go out of business. So you cannot say it is not taking anything from anyone. In a sense, this case takes something away from everyone, i.e. the continuation of newspaper we all want.
Maybe the newspaper needs a new business model to deal with the new technology, but let's not pretend that use of that technology is unharmful.
Interesting point. You know, my view is, the more free something is (as in speech not beer) the more potential for growth there is. If these guys were to do it right, flat fee with unlimited downloads, I think many many more songs would get out to the people.
What I mean is, people tire of the same old thing after a while and they look for something new- so they will stick with the service because they can constantly update different music every month. This has the potential of giving more bands more access to more people, instead of the artificial ClearChannel induced restrictions that are now pissing everyone off.
If only the RIAA would release their tight grip, everyone would win (including them). More bands, more songs, more money for everyone. Freedom always produces more prosperity. Just ask the Soviet Union.
Hmmm. But if you buy a piece of software that depends on the internet, how long should a company support it? Let's say interest for battle.net fell off dramatically in four years, so that only a few hundred people were playing it. Should the company continue to support the service? Should they support it after twenty years? I'm not trying to nix your point, which is valid, it just got me thinking.
Those who don't care right now might feel differently about this when their wife's lawyer supoenas Microsoft for their Playboy channel records...
Hmmm, check your posting headers and see if you have
in them. Google states that they will honor the no archive header.
Oddly, some of the newsgroups seem to be missing. In the 80's rec.arts.startrek was the most prolific group in the entire usenet and it absolutely does not exist in its original form (it was eventually broken up).
Perhaps the original groups that were broken up before 1995 have not been added to the new archive. If so, this is a pretty major oversight. Or perhaps some of the groups were deemed irrelevant?
Realistic? Hardly.
Fighter pilots that go off mission on a whim? Can you say serious lack of discipline? They get shot down in enemy territory, and our hero leaves his injured buddy out in the open in broad daylight? Then he moves around during the day? This is some of the most idiotic military procedures ever shown. If our military was really like this, Osama Bin Ladin would now be our president.
Of course, our hero is completely impervious to explosions and has the superhuman ability to dodge bullets. And for some reason the director thought that realistic battle action involves shaking the camera around so much that you can't really see what's happening. Saving Private Ryan this was not.
Does that include Godel's theorem?
Well, it is language, not math, we are really discussing. And language isn't always known for it's logic. The prefix di does mean two in some instances. Hydrogen-dioxide for one. We don't call it Hydrogen-bioxide do we? Anyway, you were right and I was wrong in regard to my initial post so somebody feel free to take my one karma point away :-)
Ahhh, I see it is just a coincidence then. Well, I've been wrong before...
Awww...they shied away from the obvious choice, tits.
Just to be more serious and perferctionistic about it. Shouldn't the word digit in this case be a trigit? Since the very word digit is prefaced with di which means two? I guess I could be wrong about that, but it seems to make sense.
I for one need to test my software on Linux Systems. Yellowdog makes this possible on my TiBook. Its also fast and not as irritating to use as OSX when installing software- especially software designed for Gnome or KDE.
Your question perhaps is why somebody would choose one or the other. However Yaboot allows multi-OS booting on Mac hardware. At boot time I can choose OSX, Linux, OS9, or a CD as my OS of choice. Its pretty awesome and impresses the hell out of people :-)
Do you think eventually we will have devices that record our entire lives, moment by moment, and then use some kind of AI to edit them into a kind of hilite of our lives up to that point replete with music to go along with it?
Do you think that eventually everyone will have a soundtrack playing in their head that keeps in sync with the situation you are in, so your life seems more like a movie than reality? E.g. when your wife says she is divorcing you, some kind of dramatic soap opra type music plays suddenly.
Probably too late to reply to this and expect anyone to read it but anyway...
Your dilemma is not that bad I think. The point in question is not defense of a nation state but defense of the religion itself. The Bible allows and even recommends adherance to your country's laws (Roman 13:1-10) which might include military service, but it does not command violence in defense of Christianity. In fact it is clear that we should die rather than kill in defense of our faith. Islam has direct commands to defend by violence the Islamic faith itself.
I think this has much to do with the belief that Islam is a religion tied in very much with the world. It is the goal of Islam to create Islamic nation states over the entire planet. Christianity views all Christians as citizens of heaven who inhabit the world but we are never called upon by the Bible to bring about Christian nation states. Jesus said the Kingdom of God is within us, not anywhere physically present.
Yes in some areas Islam spread by military conquest, but there are many other places where it spreaded (sp?) because of commerce and merchants, along the silk road, in central asia till China, in Africa too.
Dude, Islam was initially spread by military conquest. The very founder of Islam used violence to spread it. Muhammed conquered the cities of Mecca and Medina with military might. Islam has no problem using military force to achieve certain objectives (emphasis on certain- i.e. not ALL). The founder of the religion itself used military conquest as a tool to spread the religion.
Christianity, has had it's holy war too what do you call "crusades" ?
Jesus died on a cross instead of fighting back. I challenge you to find justification for the crusades in the teachings of Jesus Christ. I challenge you to find one instance where he advocated military violence in the spread or defense of Christianity. It aint there. He said "turn the other cheek". The teachings of Christianity are to do good to your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. The crusades were a political war done in the name of Christ- much like a lot of the "Christian Nation" crap we hear in our own era. These things are not Christianity.
Again, I stress that Islam and Christianity are very different in these and other areas. The whole "religions are all the same" line is really only a mantra used by those who have never done any comparitive studies.
Yes that was what I meant. Thank you for your post. I am regretting not putting that word in both sentences now. I thought, however, that most slashdotters would have regarded it contextually.
Again, as others have pointed out, my focus was on the teachings of the two religions. Islam does teach that one can take punitive measures against an opponant of Islam (again - it does not teach that killing innocents is ok). Christianity of course teaches that we should "turn the other cheek" which is the opposite of Islam.
I also wanted to make the point that despite the wishes of many, all reglions do NOT teach the same basic things. This is one of those major differences.
Oh, caveat: I don't think Islam teaches personal revenge- rather a societal (Umma) defense against infidels- aka Jihad.
You probably did not read my post very carefully. I said:
I was discussing the initial spread of Christianity compared to the initial spread of Islam. I realize that so called Christians have converted at swordpoint (and worse). But the fact reamains that Islam does have a call to arms in its theology and Christianity does not. Its a pity my original post got modded down since I have said nothing contrary to the truth. Unfortunately certain facts irritate eccumencial post-modernists who want to pretend that all religious beliefs are the same even though they are not.
Before I say this, let me say that I am apalled that any person would attack Muslims in this country in any way because of the actions of a few evil people. Having said that however, I am tired of the comparisons of Islam to Christianity. Islam and Christianity are very different. Notably in the fact that Islam was spread initially by military conquest. Christianity was spread by word of mouth and people willing to die for it- but not fight for it with violence. As such, Islam does not have a problem with militarism. Christianity has no call to arms in its defense (despite the actions of so called Christians in the dark ages). Islam allows for military defense of its ideology (yes I know Jihad does not mean holy war exclusively, but it does allow for it).
Again, I do not saction any action of violence against innocents and I know that Isalm does not allow for violence against innocents. But Islam allows for violence against its opponents and Christianity does not. So lets not kid ourselves and say they are the same.
CNN is reporting that Kabul is under attack. Pretty swift retaliation I would say...
Linux is a great way to put older Mac Hardware to use!
Can I just say that it is also a great way to put *NEW* Mac Hardware to use. I installed LinuxPPC on my Titanium Powerbook G4 and it rocks. You wanna put Dell Notebook Linux users to shame. Show them how you can triple boot Mac OS 9, Mac OSX, and Linux on a Tibook (using yaboot). And how you can run Mac OS 9 in an X window using MacOnLinux and then bring up Virtual PC to run Windows. All that plus an awsome screen and formfactor makes for some jealous x86 users.
Well I guess I'll shut up now and wait for the mod down from the anti-PPC people.
Spacewar did come out later after the pong craze. I remember playing it with my brother at an amusement park. We played until we were out of money. Things that were cooler than pong about it:
I can't remember if this was before or after Space Invaders but I think it was before.
But the fact is that Outlook, ISS, and various other products didn't even have security as an afterthought, it was just no thought at all. The charge shouldn't be "kill the virus writers", it should be "stop buying unsecure software".
According to your logic, shouldn't the charge be instead "kill the makers of unsecure software?"