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User: Skarecrow77

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  1. Re:lame on David Lowery On the Ethics of Music Piracy · · Score: 1

    I dont' disagree with you in the least. There is a large hole in the author's arguement where he simply glosses over the extreme length-of-time that copyright exists, and that there is no end in sight.

    nobody's perfect, and there is no perfect defense of his side of the debate (or of our side, really).

    I'm saying that his other arguements, many of them valid points of consideration in the debate, are being completely swept under the rug by people who want to put their fingers in their ears and say "la la la I can't hear you you're wrong!".

    This is a complex debate and anybody willing to completely disregard either side of it doesn't truly understand the debate. I'm saying that the author of TFA is presenting intelligent and articulate examples of his side of the debate, and they are worth discussing, not dismissing. you can never truly win a debate by dismissing, only by explaining where the oposition is wrong.

  2. Re:for artists? on David Lowery On the Ethics of Music Piracy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Also, in a society that considers government to represent and be "of and for the people", perhaps if some large enough percentage do something or see nothing wrong with other people doing something - it de-facto isn't wrong, and ought to be legal?

    Because that arguement legalized slavery.

    Some things are just -wrong- even if enough selfish people want to do it.

    Note, I'm not equating filesharing with slavery (because I know that the downmodders have their finger on the button). I'm saying that the arguement you're using to promote filesharing is a very weak one, and you need to latch on to the better ones if you hope to make your point.

  3. Re:for artists? on David Lowery On the Ethics of Music Piracy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A. I don't think that's what GP was saying,
    and
    B... risking the ire of the single-minded legion of modders in this thread:

    why the fuck does digital distribution need to run on scarcity economics? It's not scarce, so it's not valuable? Why, just because it's trivial to copy music digitally, is digital music now considered to have little-to-no value?

    If you're asking why -artifical scarcity- needs to be implimented in this scenario, I would guess that you already know the answer to that, but just for the sake of arguement, it is because of the tragedy of the commons. None of us wants to pay for music when it is freely available. I know I don't. But all of us not paying for music has long term devastating impact on the production of music as it currently exists.

    And of course all attempts at artifical scarcity are failing... and not necessarily because they're wrong.

    The music industry will change. That's a given. It's probably unavoidable at this point. The question that the author of TFA is posing isn't a "what can I do to legislate people away from doing what they're doing" but "how can I properly explain to people what they, not the RIAA, are doing to the music and musicians they say they love". He is pointing out that changing the way that music is created and that society treats artists is the tyranny of the majority. We are forcing these changes not because it's "the right thing to do" but simply because it's in our own intrest, and we vastly outnumber them.

  4. Re:for artists? on David Lowery On the Ethics of Music Piracy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think you're arguing this from the wrong point of view. There are many valid arguements on this side of the issue, but "it's easy to do so it shouldn't be wrong" is not one of them.

  5. Re:lame on David Lowery On the Ethics of Music Piracy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He's actually the founder of an indie rock band and a college professor.

    He's using math and real-world industry-specific experience to attempt to find real world solutions to complex arguements. He makes several valid points about the network of websites, software, and hardware surrounding the music-should-be-free and copying-is-not-a-crime debates, arguements that are difficult to find a valid rebuttal to. I know because I'm trying to do so.

    Perhaps you should read more than the first few paragraphs. You may not agree with him, but he knows what he's talking about.

  6. Re:TV vs. movie on The Hobbit's Higher Frame Rate To Cost Theater Operators · · Score: 2

    Why can't you be both?

    Why can't I want 72+ fps in my games yet appreciate the qualities that make film seem like film? One of the few things left that make movies seem like movies is the framerate. I can't stand watching anything original filmed in 24fps play on a 120hz tv with their special framerate-intrapolating software turned on. it's horrible. It turns something that was created as a work of art (let's assume I'm watching a good film) at 24fps look like something that the BBC spent 2 weeks and $20,000 on at 60fps.

  7. Re::3 on The Hobbit's Higher Frame Rate To Cost Theater Operators · · Score: 0

    google "motion blur"

  8. Re:Quintuple play on The U.N.'s Push for Power Over the Internet · · Score: 3, Insightful

    and then in 12 years (or two governmental adminsitrations from now), comcast renames themselves and then repurchases their xfinity division... either that, or AT&T (bellsouth much?) does.

  9. Re:Welcome to the internet on FunnyJunk Sues the Oatmeal Over TM and "Incitement To Cyber-Vandalism" · · Score: 5, Informative

    Amusement value of that statement aside, I don't doubt that his company employs/retains one hell of an expensive legal team, who are no doubt kept quite busy.

    for every site like facebook or youtube that "makes it", how many sites are there that go under not because of lack of good ideas, or good management, but because of legal action (be it legit or otherwise)?

    To this day I still remember the story of small upstart hardware manufacturer Aureal, who in the late 90s/early 2000s produced the first true competitor to Creative Lab's dominance of the PC sound card market. The hardware was cheaper, the features were more advanced, and the company was a hell of a lot better to deal with. Creative Lab's solution was to sue, sue, and sue some more. Aureal won every single time, but the cost of continiously defending themselves pushed them into bankruptcy, where they were purchased for pennies on the dollar... by Creative Labs.

    so yeah, fuck that.

  10. Re:I'll worry on Will IBM's Watson Kill Your Career? · · Score: 2

    42 already is the answer.

    I don't think you understand what the question is.

  11. Re:obligatory xkcd.... on How Many Seconds Would It Take To Crack Your Password? · · Score: 1

    my source was apparently flawed as all hell then.

  12. Re:Didn't they fire that scientist? on CERN: Neutrinos Respect Cosmic Speed Limit · · Score: 2

    and they outnumbers us, and they vote.

    that scares me more than any horror move I've ever seen (except paranormal activity, that shit's just creepy)

  13. Re:Didn't they fire that scientist? on CERN: Neutrinos Respect Cosmic Speed Limit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A real problem with this line of thinking "this is how science moves forward" is that the public at large has no idea how science actually works. they view it as another religion. "well stephen hawking said this, so it must be true"

    A disturbing number of people see this sort of situation not as a validation of scientific method, but as an indication of failure.

    The discussion goes as follows:
    "remember when they told us that they'd discovered particles that went faster than lightspeed?"
    "yeah, there were all these press releases and stories in the newspaper and on cnn and shit about how they could go back in time now and maybe warp speed is possible"
    "right, and then they were all like 'oops, our bad, we fucked up, we can't go warp speed after all'. i wonde rhow often they're fucking up like this and we just don't know it. I bet it happens a lot. I wonder how much other shit the scientists told us was true where they're doing bad experiments"

    There are a frightening number of these people, and you can't tell me I'm wrong because you know them too.

  14. Re:Password input is too simple on How Many Seconds Would It Take To Crack Your Password? · · Score: 1

    If I had to do that shit every time I sat down at my laptop (which I lock every time I get up, which happens a lot), I'd fucking kill myself. it's already annoying enough having to type in my 22 character password every time I sit down.

    hell we're only a few years away from real-time retina and dna scanners anyway, at which point passwords will be obsolete... at least, that's what gattaca told me.

  15. Re:Link on How Many Seconds Would It Take To Crack Your Password? · · Score: 2

    I'd never be able to remember if it was 16 "a"s or if it was 17 "a"s.

  16. Re:obligatory xkcd.... on How Many Seconds Would It Take To Crack Your Password? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    let's say you know 100% for sure that somebody is using xkcd's method.

    there are 15,222 words in the english language according to oxford english dictionary. how many are common 5, 6, and 7 letter words? hard to say for sure. I think 3000 or 4000 would be a good conservative guess, what do you think? let's say 3000 to err on the side of caution.

    how many combinations of common 5,6, and 7 letter words does that give us to build a password based on xkcd's suggestion?
    3000^4
    that's 8.1 x 10^13 discrete combinations, counting the ability to reuse the same word.

    I'm asuming you didn't build a plaintext dictionary with all those possible combinations... at 1 byte per letter, and an average of 6 bytes per component word, that's 4.86 x 10^14 bytes, or a 442 terrabyte dictionary file. where the hell are you storing that?

    no, i'm assuming you probably built a program specifically to build combinations of component words and brute force using that. sure that will eventually work, after it goes through its 8.1 x 10^13 itterartions (worst case)... but hell, why are you trying to crack that hard a password when there are thousands out people out there whose password is just "Password1"? the club doesn't make your car theftproof, it just makes it less inviting to the thief than the car next to it. you don't need to outrun the lion, you just need to outrun the slowest person in your group.

    and this is all assuming:
    1. you somehow -know- which password generation method the person is using
    2. they didn't do what I do with that method, and throw a few uppercase and numbers in there anyway.

  17. Re:Crappy AMD drivers?! on AMD/ATI Video Drivers: Unsafe At Any Speed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    depends on your definition of failure.

    if gnu/linux was aiming to become the predominant desktop OS, displacing microsoft, then it certainly has failed

    if gnu/linux was aiming to beocme a major player in the arena, maybe not the overall leader but boasting enough of a market percentage that it couldn't be successfully ignored or neglected by software devlopers and hardware OEMs, then yeah... it's probably failing at that too.

    if gnu/linux was aiming to become a viable alternative to the market leaders for people who care about free software and people who care about being in full control of their own OS, well it has become a rousing success at that.

  18. Re:Crappy AMD drivers?! on AMD/ATI Video Drivers: Unsafe At Any Speed · · Score: 2

    The GTX 400 series was indeed very power hungry, with one GTX480 eating nearly as much power as two of the equivilent ATI cards. I know firsthand, I have two computers with GTX 470s and they heat up the upstairs loft so much the house's AC can't keep up in the summer. put those two computers into sleep mode, no problem.

    The GTX 500 series was a significant improvement on power draw and heat dissapation.

    the GTX 600 series is downright reasonable. go read a few reviews.

  19. Re:Crappy AMD drivers?! on AMD/ATI Video Drivers: Unsafe At Any Speed · · Score: 2

    so you're crying about fanboys, while running around fanboying. typical.

    all fanboys suck. end of story. mint vs ubuntu, google vs apple, nintendo vs sega, fuckin coke vs pepsi... if you're on one side of an arguement, and you can't see the cons of your own side as well as the pros of the other side, you don't really understand the arguement and you shouldn't be speaking.

  20. Re:Crappy AMD drivers?! on AMD/ATI Video Drivers: Unsafe At Any Speed · · Score: 4, Funny

    wow. somehow click on the wrong reply button and reply to myself. so i look like an idiot. bah, i'm going to lunch.

  21. Re:Crappy AMD drivers?! on AMD/ATI Video Drivers: Unsafe At Any Speed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    crying about fanboys while running around fanboying. typical.

    all fanboys suck. end of story. mint vs ubuntu, google vs apple, nintendo vs sega, fuckin coke vs pepsi... if you're on one side of an arguement, and you can't see the cons of your own side as well as the pros of the other side, you don't really understand the arguement and you shouldn't be speaking.

  22. Re:Crappy AMD drivers?! on AMD/ATI Video Drivers: Unsafe At Any Speed · · Score: 1

    then nivida has vastly improved them since the last time I used them (early 2010), at which point "they install" was about the best thing that could be said for them... as long as you add "just make sure not to update your kernal" to the end.

  23. Re:Crappy AMD drivers?! on AMD/ATI Video Drivers: Unsafe At Any Speed · · Score: 2, Insightful

    this is actually the most honest assessment of operating systems i've seen in a long time.

    to be fair, the phrase "in their own way" should be tacked on to the end, because windows, linux, and osx do not suck in the same ways.

  24. Shumway? on Mozilla's Open Source Project Shumway To Translate SWF To HTML5 · · Score: 3, Funny

    ALF, is that you?

  25. Re:Uhm, so we're at war now with Iran? on Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran · · Score: 4, Informative

    that's exactly why this isn't anything even close to offical. even assuming Panetta told his underlings what "really happened" (which itself sounds a bit dodgy for the director of the freakin CIA), second-hand or third-hand info is suspect as hell.