When a software vendor (shareware or not) charges for the software they are effectivly saying that you will benifit from the use of their software. The value of that benifit is what they are charging you.
Windows gives you the benifit of operating a computer and a large assortment of software applications. Microsoft feels this benifit has a value of about $200.
Photoshop gives you the benifit of creating and manipulating digital images in an easy-to-use (subjective) environment. They feel this benifit is worth $600.
Games offer you some entertainment value and the distributors feel this is a value upwards of $100.
They have spent time, money, and effort to create that benifit. Shareware authors do this too. Yet people choose to reap the benifit of software without paying for that benifit.
The argument "I wouldn't have used it if I had to pay for it" is downright silly. If someone "steals" or "takes" a piece of software, it obviously has _some_ value otherwise what is the point of stealing it to begin with? If they take _any_ benifit from shareware/commercial software then they should pay for that benifit.
Don't like the price of the software? Fine. No one is stopping you from writing it yourself.
The MAC address on the Linksys cable/dsl routers are programmable. It's designed so that if the ISP requires their NIC (and thus, their HW addr) you can set the WAN port of the router to report that HW address.
Mine, currently, is 00:DE:AD:BE:EF:00.
Re:All I want is the connection
on
Broadband Obstacles
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
That's a very good point and explains the downfall of @home: spending money on useless services that nobody wants/needs/uses.
An ISP should provide:
connectivity, POP/SMTP/NNTP/DNS (things that NORMAL people don't host themselves), and some form of customer support.
An ISP should not provide:
Portal services (there are enough out there as it is), custom browsers (that they either won't support or require FOR support), and anything that is a useless extension that can be found elsewhere. Don't bloat the bill.
But these big companies are used to being a one-stop-wh0ring... umm... shopping place for all your Internet needs. In fact, they'd probably ship the Internet to you on CD or DVD if you asked nicely enough.
I know. I must be missing brain cells today. I really can't believe I made that mistake. I apologize to anyone who may have misinterpreted what I had said.
Why is it so important that the movie glue itself to the book so tightly that it becomes impossible to tell the story visually. I've been hearing people say one of two things: either it was a great movie and very enjoyable or it was crud because a certain part of the book was left on the cutting room floor.
Gene Siskel complained that one scene (with the Balrog) was extremly short in the book but played out longer on screen. Other people are complaining that their favourite parts of the book were omitted. My question is who cares as long as the movie tells the story.
Going into the theatre there are two kinds of people: those who have and those who have not read the book. I think those of us who have read and enjoyed the book have a different perspective than those who are seeing it all for the first time. I know what scenes are missing and how the book portrays the story differently. These are, afterall, completely different media and there are many that believe that large books such as LoTR cannot be conveyed on the screen - it is a world that exists in the mind of the reader. What I think often happens is that some readers create different understandings of the same material and, when presented with a conflicting view, become all too defensive.
There will never be a definitive Lord of the Rings movie that trancends the silver screen and gives everyone the full experience of the book. The movie is simply one person's description of the taste of the story. It is up to the individual to bite into the book.
I enjoyed the movie for all it's flaws and omissions because what it presented was clear and complete within iteself. I don't think it is necessary to add scenes back in simply to make it more closely resemble the words from the book.
"AFAIK, it's well within our rights to play an import game or movie on a chipped station."
The argument presented by many people is laughable at best. Yes, but is that "chipped" station legitmate. You are circumventing the copy-control methods of the device and are therefore breaking the law (under the DMCA). Isn't this the hurdle that DeCSS faced? Hmmm.
Has no one learned that big business runs the US and owns it's liberties?
Freedom is a delusion that pacifies the huddled masses. Democracy is a parlour trick and Justice is a farce.
I'm very pessimestic about using auto-update tools. In fact, I dispise most install tools. I remember DOS being easy - one directory for pretty much everything to do with the OS: C:\DOS. Simple? Yes. Organized? No.
So I'd end up with C:\DOS, C:\APPS, C:\GAMES, and C:\P0R... umm.. forget that last one.
I guess I just have a thing for knowing exactly what is on my system. Waste not, want not. I still remember having to carefully pick and choose to get what I wanted on my 1.2MB drive. Most distributions seem to treat harddrive space like water. All this in the name of compatability?
Back to my original point, about not liking updaters... I don't like the abstraction of chooing an app and letting it install it's dependancies itself. Yeah, that's a nice thing (and probably the best for the end users) but why can't I just have a nice page saying something like: "you need these packages to [install|use|have sex with] this package"?
Meh. I'm probably too anal retentavie on this issue, but when I look at the filesystem I do not want to be saying "what the hell is that?".
I guess I've been burned one too many times by updaters that accidently install older modules over newer ones simply because it didn't "know" better.
Incedently, I really like the Windows XP driver protection thing. To sum it up, if you attempt to install a non-certified driver, a dialog essentially tells you that 'installing this driver may f**k up your computer. Install anyway?" (Am I the _only_ one who thinks that this was the original, developer, text for that dialog? hehe.)
Nevermind me, I'm just an incoherant babbling idiot. Move along.
Having a low UID just shows you were on/. when it was still cool. Now it means about the same as karma... zlich. (I migrated myself over to the shack, and have ignored this account mostly).
The point is that an _automated_ system is not subject to the same rules as a _manual_ system.
In an _automated_ system, you are a carrier of information and you have no control over it. Because you have no control over the content I believe that you are not liable for it.
In a system where you start editing/deleting/censoring posts, you essentailly endorse the ones that remain and are, therefore, liable for the content.
According to this, there is now precident for a "public forum" rule.
Under the DMCA section 512,
"'' 512. Limitations on liability relating to material online
''(a) TRANSITORY DIGITAL NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS.--A service
provider shall not be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided
in subsection (j), for injunctive or other equitable relief, for infringement
of copyright by reason of the provider's transmitting,
routing, or providing connections for, material through a system or
network controlled or operated by or for the service provider, or by
reason of the intermediate and transient storage of that material in
the course of such transmitting, routing, or providing connections,
if--
20
''(1) the transmission of the material was initiated by or at
the direction of a person other than the service provider;
''(2) the transmission, routing, provision of connections, or
storage is carried out through an automatic technical process
without selection of the material by the service provider;
''(3) the service provider does not select the recipients of the
material except as an automatic response to the request of another
person;
''(4) no copy of the material made by the service provider in
the course of such intermediate or transient storage is maintained
on the system or network in a manner ordinarily accessible
to anyone other than anticipated recipients, and no such
copy is maintained on the system or network in a manner ordinarily
accessible to such anticipated recipients for a longer period
than is reasonably necessary for the transmission, routing,
or provision of connections; and
''(5) the material is transmitted through the system or network
without modification of its content."
In other words: as long as you don't modify, censor, alter, redirect, or otherwise tamper with the content you are a public forum and are safe from lawsuits (well, they can sue, but you'll have a legal defense).
Define "inappropriate stuff". If the process is automated, then there is nothing you can do. However, if you (or any moderator) has subjective privieldge over what is and what is not appropriate, then the line is blurred.
There is obviously useless stuff, "f1r57 p057", links to inappropriate websites, and the sort. But if it isn't an automated process, then subjectivity can interfere with moderation.
What happens when someone simply pisses you off? Do you abuse your power and delete their post? What if the users start to withold posting out of fear of being "edited" or censored.
Perhaps write a clearly defined policy regarding what is and what is not acceptable. Adhere to that policy very strictly and make sure everyone is completly aware of it. Then, when some big wig company asks you to censor/change something, just wave your policy at them.
My point was that when you look at the work of Douglas Adams, you know that HE did it and it was HIS achievement. I'm not saying that I'm not interested in what he had started, but he never finished it - gave it that final polish. It might be the greatest of his works, but it could also be the worst. And what if someone decides to tinker with it before it is released? How do we know that this was genuinely his?
I'm actually more curious about the movie that was supposedly being worked on. What affect his death has had on any of it's production.
Legally you can also cause ingury to the estate by releasing an unautorized/unfinished work. The work of Douglas Adams should be remembered as HE left it. Not some revisonist history where we strive to get a peek at what might have been.
I don't know if I'd enjoy reading an unfinished book. I think the Dune series did something similar where the son of the author took some unfinished manuscripts and churned out House Atradies and House Harkonnen.
Perhaps someone could provide an ending? A close friend perhaps? Meh.. as long as they did it for reasons other than profitability I think I'd take a look.
But without an ending... hmmm.. Imagine what the dictionary would be like if you never found out that the zedbra did it!
I don't/care/ what lusers think. In fact, most users should be using whatever does what they need it to do (be it Windows, Linux, BeOS, whatever).
Quite frankly I am fucking tired of people trying to be the next Microsoft. Redhat, Caldera, Corel, whatever... and it's not even about the money. Look at distributions like Slackware...
Get it through your heads - there doesn't have to be one cure-all operating system that everyone has to use in order to be 'uber-l33t'.
Business doesn't give a rats ass about technical specs, as long as the total system is a benefit to the company.
On another forum, a few minutes ago, someone asked about setting up a small mail server (maybe 20 users or so). The typical smart-ass answer of "install linux with sendmail/postfix/intermail/whatever" came across. The guy said he needed it done ASAP and would rather just do it on NT. Is there anything wrong with doing that? Umm.. no.
My original point (which has been moderated into oblivion, as I assume this will be too) is that it doesn't make ANY rational sense to be trying to get a MALICIOUS program running on your system.
Public opinion means jack shit if it doesn't work the way it is supposed to. As long as it works, is reliable, and is (relativly speaking) easy to maintain, who cares what makes it go.
Yeah, this article reeks of "*hyuck* *hyuck* look what I can do"...
WINE supporters have finally ported the single most popular Windows application to WINE. It took a lot of work and years of research and determined effort, but it can finally be put to rest. Yes, thanks to the efforts of hackers world-wide, Linux is now capable of running Virus programs designed for Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
When a software vendor (shareware or not) charges for the software they are effectivly saying that you will benifit from the use of their software. The value of that benifit is what they are charging you.
Windows gives you the benifit of operating a computer and a large assortment of software applications. Microsoft feels this benifit has a value of about $200.
Photoshop gives you the benifit of creating and manipulating digital images in an easy-to-use (subjective) environment. They feel this benifit is worth $600.
Games offer you some entertainment value and the distributors feel this is a value upwards of $100.
They have spent time, money, and effort to create that benifit. Shareware authors do this too. Yet people choose to reap the benifit of software without paying for that benifit.
The argument "I wouldn't have used it if I had to pay for it" is downright silly. If someone "steals" or "takes" a piece of software, it obviously has _some_ value otherwise what is the point of stealing it to begin with? If they take _any_ benifit from shareware/commercial software then they should pay for that benifit.
Don't like the price of the software? Fine. No one is stopping you from writing it yourself.
The MAC address on the Linksys cable/dsl routers are programmable. It's designed so that if the ISP requires their NIC (and thus, their HW addr) you can set the WAN port of the router to report that HW address.
Mine, currently, is 00:DE:AD:BE:EF:00.
That's a very good point and explains the downfall of @home: spending money on useless services that nobody wants/needs/uses.
An ISP should provide:
connectivity, POP/SMTP/NNTP/DNS (things that NORMAL people don't host themselves), and some form of customer support.
An ISP should not provide:
Portal services (there are enough out there as it is), custom browsers (that they either won't support or require FOR support), and anything that is a useless extension that can be found elsewhere. Don't bloat the bill.
But these big companies are used to being a one-stop-wh0ring... umm... shopping place for all your Internet needs. In fact, they'd probably ship the Internet to you on CD or DVD if you asked nicely enough.
Hey, I had nothing to do with this, so leave me out of it.
:-)
I know. I must be missing brain cells today. I really can't believe I made that mistake. I apologize to anyone who may have misinterpreted what I had said.
I can't believe I made that mistake. Please accept my apologies, I meant Roger Ebert.
Why is it so important that the movie glue itself to the book so tightly that it becomes impossible to tell the story visually. I've been hearing people say one of two things: either it was a great movie and very enjoyable or it was crud because a certain part of the book was left on the cutting room floor.
Gene Siskel complained that one scene (with the Balrog) was extremly short in the book but played out longer on screen. Other people are complaining that their favourite parts of the book were omitted. My question is who cares as long as the movie tells the story.
Going into the theatre there are two kinds of people: those who have and those who have not read the book. I think those of us who have read and enjoyed the book have a different perspective than those who are seeing it all for the first time. I know what scenes are missing and how the book portrays the story differently. These are, afterall, completely different media and there are many that believe that large books such as LoTR cannot be conveyed on the screen - it is a world that exists in the mind of the reader. What I think often happens is that some readers create different understandings of the same material and, when presented with a conflicting view, become all too defensive.
There will never be a definitive Lord of the Rings movie that trancends the silver screen and gives everyone the full experience of the book. The movie is simply one person's description of the taste of the story. It is up to the individual to bite into the book.
I enjoyed the movie for all it's flaws and omissions because what it presented was clear and complete within iteself. I don't think it is necessary to add scenes back in simply to make it more closely resemble the words from the book.
It's an opinion, that is all.
Who was it that said "always leave them wanting more"?
:)
Very fitting in this case, don't you think?
Region 42 of course.
:P
I live north of the US border. And yes, upon closer inspection you did indicate that you lived in the UK (my gaffe).
"AFAIK, it's well within our rights to play an import game or movie on a chipped station."
The argument presented by many people is laughable at best. Yes, but is that "chipped" station legitmate. You are circumventing the copy-control methods of the device and are therefore breaking the law (under the DMCA). Isn't this the hurdle that DeCSS faced? Hmmm.
Has no one learned that big business runs the US and owns it's liberties?
Freedom is a delusion that pacifies the huddled masses. Democracy is a parlour trick and Justice is a farce.
You know, that is starting to wear thin. Really thin.
I'm very pessimestic about using auto-update tools. In fact, I dispise most install tools. I remember DOS being easy - one directory for pretty much everything to do with the OS: C:\DOS. Simple? Yes. Organized? No.
So I'd end up with C:\DOS, C:\APPS, C:\GAMES, and C:\P0R... umm.. forget that last one.
I guess I just have a thing for knowing exactly what is on my system. Waste not, want not. I still remember having to carefully pick and choose to get what I wanted on my 1.2MB drive. Most distributions seem to treat harddrive space like water. All this in the name of compatability?
Back to my original point, about not liking updaters... I don't like the abstraction of chooing an app and letting it install it's dependancies itself. Yeah, that's a nice thing (and probably the best for the end users) but why can't I just have a nice page saying something like: "you need these packages to [install|use|have sex with] this package"?
Meh. I'm probably too anal retentavie on this issue, but when I look at the filesystem I do not want to be saying "what the hell is that?".
I guess I've been burned one too many times by updaters that accidently install older modules over newer ones simply because it didn't "know" better.
Incedently, I really like the Windows XP driver protection thing. To sum it up, if you attempt to install a non-certified driver, a dialog essentially tells you that 'installing this driver may f**k up your computer. Install anyway?" (Am I the _only_ one who thinks that this was the original, developer, text for that dialog? hehe.)
Nevermind me, I'm just an incoherant babbling idiot. Move along.
Having a low UID just shows you were on /. when it was still cool. Now it means about the same as karma... zlich. (I migrated myself over to the shack, and have ignored this account mostly).
:)
Humbily awaiting the return of the shack...
The point is that an _automated_ system is not subject to the same rules as a _manual_ system.
In an _automated_ system, you are a carrier of information and you have no control over it. Because you have no control over the content I believe that you are not liable for it.
In a system where you start editing/deleting/censoring posts, you essentailly endorse the ones that remain and are, therefore, liable for the content.
According to this, there is now precident for a "public forum" rule.
Under the DMCA section 512,
"'' 512. Limitations on liability relating to material online
''(a) TRANSITORY DIGITAL NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS.--A service
provider shall not be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided
in subsection (j), for injunctive or other equitable relief, for infringement
of copyright by reason of the provider's transmitting,
routing, or providing connections for, material through a system or
network controlled or operated by or for the service provider, or by
reason of the intermediate and transient storage of that material in
the course of such transmitting, routing, or providing connections,
if--
20
''(1) the transmission of the material was initiated by or at
the direction of a person other than the service provider;
''(2) the transmission, routing, provision of connections, or
storage is carried out through an automatic technical process
without selection of the material by the service provider;
''(3) the service provider does not select the recipients of the
material except as an automatic response to the request of another
person;
''(4) no copy of the material made by the service provider in
the course of such intermediate or transient storage is maintained
on the system or network in a manner ordinarily accessible
to anyone other than anticipated recipients, and no such
copy is maintained on the system or network in a manner ordinarily
accessible to such anticipated recipients for a longer period
than is reasonably necessary for the transmission, routing,
or provision of connections; and
''(5) the material is transmitted through the system or network
without modification of its content."
In other words: as long as you don't modify, censor, alter, redirect, or otherwise tamper with the content you are a public forum and are safe from lawsuits (well, they can sue, but you'll have a legal defense).
Define "inappropriate stuff". If the process is automated, then there is nothing you can do. However, if you (or any moderator) has subjective privieldge over what is and what is not appropriate, then the line is blurred.
There is obviously useless stuff, "f1r57 p057", links to inappropriate websites, and the sort. But if it isn't an automated process, then subjectivity can interfere with moderation.
What happens when someone simply pisses you off? Do you abuse your power and delete their post? What if the users start to withold posting out of fear of being "edited" or censored.
Perhaps write a clearly defined policy regarding what is and what is not acceptable. Adhere to that policy very strictly and make sure everyone is completly aware of it. Then, when some big wig company asks you to censor/change something, just wave your policy at them.
I guess.
"...it essentially reflects the fact that Microsoft doesn't have to produce another disc" (emphasis mine).
What about the packaging, manual, shipping (of a box as opposed to a single document), packaging, handling, etc.
The article continues with "For buyers, 'it's partly a convenience, partly a price break,' he says."
The statement is accurate. It is essentially the total cost of producing another disc (including the packaging and whatnot).
My point was that when you look at the work of Douglas Adams, you know that HE did it and it was HIS achievement. I'm not saying that I'm not interested in what he had started, but he never finished it - gave it that final polish. It might be the greatest of his works, but it could also be the worst. And what if someone decides to tinker with it before it is released? How do we know that this was genuinely his?
I'm actually more curious about the movie that was supposedly being worked on. What affect his death has had on any of it's production.
Just an opinion is all.
Yes, but you can tarnish the memory.
Legally you can also cause ingury to the estate by releasing an unautorized/unfinished work. The work of Douglas Adams should be remembered as HE left it. Not some revisonist history where we strive to get a peek at what might have been.
I don't know if I'd enjoy reading an unfinished book. I think the Dune series did something similar where the son of the author took some unfinished manuscripts and churned out House Atradies and House Harkonnen.
Perhaps someone could provide an ending? A close friend perhaps? Meh.. as long as they did it for reasons other than profitability I think I'd take a look.
But without an ending... hmmm.. Imagine what the dictionary would be like if you never found out that the zedbra did it!
"Most guys do..."
So, what version of gcc do I need to compile this thing? And is it compatable with X?
I guess everything will be explained in the README or INSTALL... hrmm...
Quake 3 is the biggest game out there on Windows
I think their motivation becomes clear if you change it to:
Quake 3 is the biggest game out there on Windows used for benchmarking.
ahhhh..
I don't /care/ what lusers think. In fact, most users should be using whatever does what they need it to do (be it Windows, Linux, BeOS, whatever).
Quite frankly I am fucking tired of people trying to be the next Microsoft. Redhat, Caldera, Corel, whatever... and it's not even about the money. Look at distributions like Slackware...
Get it through your heads - there doesn't have to be one cure-all operating system that everyone has to use in order to be 'uber-l33t'.
Business doesn't give a rats ass about technical specs, as long as the total system is a benefit to the company.
On another forum, a few minutes ago, someone asked about setting up a small mail server (maybe 20 users or so). The typical smart-ass answer of "install linux with sendmail/postfix/intermail/whatever" came across. The guy said he needed it done ASAP and would rather just do it on NT. Is there anything wrong with doing that? Umm.. no.
My original point (which has been moderated into oblivion, as I assume this will be too) is that it doesn't make ANY rational sense to be trying to get a MALICIOUS program running on your system.
Public opinion means jack shit if it doesn't work the way it is supposed to. As long as it works, is reliable, and is (relativly speaking) easy to maintain, who cares what makes it go.
Yeah, this article reeks of "*hyuck* *hyuck* look what I can do"...
Bah.
Oh, so funny is what you want...
WINE supporters have finally ported the single most popular Windows application to WINE. It took a lot of work and years of research and determined effort, but it can finally be put to rest. Yes, thanks to the efforts of hackers world-wide, Linux is now capable of running Virus programs designed for Windows.
:D