Now unless I have been living in an alternate universe for the past year, Napster is not successful. They've spent millions of dollars obtaining lots of eyeballs, but the one thing the dot-comm massacre has shown us is that eyeballs do not necessarily transform into revenue
Why does something have to be a money machine to be considered a success? Napster is MASSIVELY successfull. It makes no money. Unfortunatley the US is dominated by people who think selfish greed and the pursuit of money are the only measure of success. Your comments simply make me sick. Wake up and realize you are a citizen not a consumer, a member of a community and not just an employee. P2P filesharing will be very successfull, and will make no one money. Good.
Im sure one of the reasons they are 'permitted' to succeed is because they are allowed to ride in Micro$oft's 'sidecar'. Without ties to Microsoft, they wouldnt be considered 'friendly'. Instead they would be a target of some embrace/extinguish scheem employeed by the Redmontonian Monster. There is little doubt that Corel will now enjoy a similar privilage. No better case than the 'if you cant beat them; join them.'. Its almost too perfect. Will the US DOJ look at this and think "we certainly like that MS helps in the life support of all its dead competitors" or "they OWN parts of all their competition. Collusion must be occuring". I think the latter. M$ is doomed by doing this. Unless the US Gov is as corrupt as I think it is - in which case this will all be allowed to continue.
But here's the best question, will Apple be permitted to.NETize their OS? Will IE/Office mean that the runtime _must_ be present? Rendering the Apple 'choice' a non sequitur.
So you like getting screwed by the RIAA/MPAA and all the rest of the monopolist pigs? No? Then:
Do you -really- believe that non-voting has anything to do with the influence they have? Office/IE aside, dont you think that being OWNERS of the company they can say to the board "If you make this decision/direction we will sell the stock." I was understood they owned greater than 10% of the company - if anyone knows actual value please clarify but a chunk of that size could move the stock significantly. Basically, they have undo influence on the company which is supposed to be its major desktop alternative.. Apple is defently ruled by M$. Like Gore/Bush, they (MS & Apple (and now Corel)) are conspiring to present a single option.
But they don't seem interested in world domination so much anymore.
With MS owning such a chunk of Apple - what would be the point of competing with yourself? Im sure Apple's desire to really _GROW_ and take over the world is simply put down by the MS influence in the company. Same goes for Corel, they will maintain their forward motion.. adding features to apps.. but you'll _NEVER_ see another* ground breaking, truly innovative product from Apple or Corel. The twisted part about all this is Microsoft really now _OWNS_ most of its competition... the US DOJ should break them up into 12 companies to introduce some better dynamics into the SW industry.
*Im not sure how OSX fits into all this... im sure MS will have planned the reason why it wont affect the MS goosestep.
NET isn't subscription based office software..NET is a runtime, its closest competitor is Java. So basically you'll have a virtual machine that runs on any OS, that supports components and programs written in any language. A.NET runtime on Linux would be pretty cool - if it works as well as they say, you could write a Python or Perl app that would run on Windows or any other OS that had the.NET VM installed.
Great - so now everything will run against the Microsoft layer above linux, VMS, *nix, BeOS ect ect. Of course none will perform as well as the Windows version and people will say "thats becuase the OS is crap". Terrific.
The point is very simple... that Democracy is broken and corrupt. Corporate issues and the protection of profit schemes at any cost is the order of the day. And if they do it in England you can bet that the vulture corporatists in the States will 'pick up on a good thing'...
I completely disagree with this guy - keep up the good work. I dont think he 'gets it'. By putting 7.0 'out there' you will push the implementation of the solutions... moving us all forward -quicker-. Release early - release often. The reality is we dont even have to pay for 7.0 - we can all wait for 7.1 then buy a boxed cd. So if the 'stability' is an issue, stay @ 6.2 until 7.1 then buy yourself a box... otherwise simply make the 'features' you _need_.
Oh, and Ummm Bob, thanks for not filtering your letter through the mindless-pr-markatroid-bs department. This group can smell pr-speak a mile away, and you did the right thing by not pushing that BS on us.
This will be redundant, troll or something else: but I am at an absolute loss...
wtf are they thinking? the world is going to . What they should start doing is testing embryos in the womb - and charge different rates for birth, or better just terminate the ones without blonde hair and blue eyes (excluding the left-handed babies... you know what kind of trouble it is to stock left and right handed child scissors in pre-school... you can send your left handed child, but alas you must pay more...)
Read the article, this crap is why Ralph is running - then tell your friends/neighbours/coworkers to:
, it's just that, for a global (world-wide, earth-encompassing) search, fragmenting humanity's free-MP3 library under these various services will make certain rare bits harder to find
I dont agree. Napster/Gnutella et al are exploding in the numbers of users. Ill bet that the Napster usage is on demand simply by searching this 'mojonation' or 'napster' or 'wrapster' thing"
We havent 'peaked' yet - there are more than enough new Napster users to make up for the defectors to other systems... for now.
incendiarism n : malicious burning to destroy property; "the British term for arson is fire-raising"... But teletextual turns up only a few references to the article mentioned by Katz in this search.. so wtf if 'teletextual'...?
Does this mean we are all engaging in some kind of freudian-youwannadoyourmomma-twisted-virtual-sex-p lay? Ewwhhh gross. Ill never feel the same way about/. again... Ewwhhhh double gross.
It's the same kind of thing where you get goods labeled "Organic". Well, of course it's organic. It has carbon in it doesn't it? All part of the dumbing down of society I'm afraid
Im sure you are joking - but in case you aren't.. when you see "Organic" at the grocer it means that the product was grown/raised without the chemical soup that is unnecessarily dumped on EVERYTHING other than the items labeled as "organic" at your grocer. This is a Good Thing(TM)
Please see this link for some information regarding Organic Food Products. And try and support responsible food products - buy Organic!
Are you trying to defend racist jokes?
ummm I will.
Lighten up. Dont take yourself so damn seriously. If you dont find it funny say so, but dont try and shut someone down simply because you dont agree... ever heard the concept of free speech? That includes speech you dont find 'comfortable'. Remember - I may find YOUR opinions offensive - thus I must ask you to stop saying things like "Are you trying to defend racist jokes? because I find that idea very uncomfortable. I find it discriminatory. I dont believe you should be allowed to express that opinion.
see how it works.. how many times must this be explained... some sheeple will never learn...Wake the fuck up buddy; Friday Night Sitcoms are NOT REALITY.
I'd like to ask you how you stand on federal bill 602P," moderator Marcia Kramer, a correspondent for WCBS-TV, told the two rivals. I really can't blame the two senate candidates. Im sure not every politician in the US have memorized all pending Bill#s. This twit from "WCBS-TV" (emphasis mine) should be laughed right out of her job. Instead of hiring talking-head-bimbos and their Ken-Doll counterparts, why cant COMPETENT journalists be hired? Attractive isnt she? The sheeple respond well to pretty-journalists.
[ogg-caveman-speak] Pretty Pictures...good - Big Words and Serious talk...bad[/ogg-caveman-speak].
Im not saying you are incapable of intelligence if you are an attractive women, im saying that the likely hood (statistically) is less. Better odds that you are A) attractive or B) intelligent (same goes for men..*)I am beginning to think that the concept that 'all men are created equal' is going to be the downfall of the US. Fact is all men are NOT created equal. If decisions (at all levels) are going to continue to be made to play to the middle 60% of the population (sheeple) who arent capable of making minor decisions in their own lives were doomed. The sheeple continue to overwhelm the decisions made for the good of all (including themselves)... funny thing is most sheeple arent capable of understanding the argument let alone capable of rendering an informed, well-argued decision. I suggest the imposition of a test, like a drivers test, administered before any person is allowed to vote or participate in anything of consiquence be it nonprofit, governmental elections, town-council, BoyScout administration council - whatever.
This article will come as no surprise to anyone here. Any network that is not wholly controlled by you should be assumed to be monitored. Be that with sniffer/loggers, ping sweeps for entity discovery, or email screens. Do not trust any network. Encrypt anything of consequence. At work I may be the master of a couple class c subnets, but the powers that be who _own_ that ip space (the ClassA i live in..) may not hold my personal liberty in as high regard as I do.
Even if not a part of some master-monitoring program designed to monitor all employees, you can assume some monitoring goes on; im guilty of it. Just thing about the last time you snooped around using your operator/root/admin accounts/priv on the various boxes you 'own'. You have done it out of your voyeuristic desires - now imagine that its not being down to you.. hard isnt it.
Get Ralph in the Debates! Tell your friends/neighbours/relatives to:
From the title image at their website I can identify the "logo's" of the OS's that will be presented at this event; except for the ? below, anyone care to enlighten me.
Amiga, OS/2, ?, GNU/Linux, *BSD, ?, BeOS
Wait a minute here... if Napster gets in bed with the RIAA for a subscription service, I will not join. If Napster were offering WAV's of complete tracks, and EVERY song is available from an album (ie no songs present from an album unless all are - keeping you from just being offered 'some stuff' or the 'commercials' for the rest of the physical CD) then I might think about paying $3-5 per year . MP3's are lossy, the recording just isnt as good as a CD, it is painfully obvious on decent stereo equipment, but MP3 (ogg vorbis) is mostly acceptable. I can dload WAV's and burn CD's for archive and encode/burn MP3's at will for 'time shift' or 'media shift'. (IANALthankfuckinggod). If the RIAA thinks they are going to use their collusive oligopoly to maintain artificial control on the music industry they are wrong.
The RIAA enslaves artists and their patrons. Has everyone read the Courtney Love article at salon? If you or everyone you know hasnt read this article, please do.
The RIAA were necessary in a time where reproduction and distribution costs/logistics were sufficiently high enough to allow them to 'add value'.The RIAA is a dinosaur. Technology has made their 'value' == 0. Let them die, they've already made enough money... the corporatist pigs. The anti-IP MP3 'warriors' have the RIAA on the ropes. They are winning this battle. If not legally, they are effectively. Let the RIAA buy more US legislation, let them stop selling CD's in place of 'SDMI CDs', let them demand everyone buys a new CD player... when the sheeple wake up and say "no way, I want my music from artists, you no longer have business here"
Before all the flamethrowers fire up, rememeber to read Courtney Love's article.. the present system exploits ARTISTS more than its customers. Stop buying anything from RIAA/MPAA members, they are trying to enslave modern culture... and thats a Bad Thing(TM)
"I believe my son was a victim of the dot-com boom," said David Bunnell, the 53-year-old chief executive of Upside Media..."I knew he was drinking a lot and taking uppers to stay awake. I didn't think it was much of a problem. I didn't see it."
"Everyone has coke, especially up north," said a chief executive of a Los Angeles-based dot-com..."If your friends don't have it, or your [banker] doesn't have it, then it's a phone call away. It's like ordering a martini. It's no big deal."
"I see programmers who start their day by stirring meth into their cup of coffee," said the Rev. Katherine O'Connell, a clinical psychologist and interfaith minister
"Want to know how easy it is to score a gram of coke? My friend and I recently went to a bar in Venice Beach where everyone there was a dot-commer," said a PR manager for a entertainment firm. "My friend asked the doorman where she could get some coke. One minute and $60 later, she had a gram."
"He was always so clean, I never worried about him getting into serious drugs," said Bunnell. "His mother's a drug and alcohol counselor. We never saw this coming."
"It was pretty clear he had a substance-abuse problem," said a former Upside editorial staffer. "Given the intensity of the [dot-com] community, it's not surprising."
[Conspiracy-on] Who/What is responsible for this sentimental, cliché, over dramatic propaganda? Do people with money do crazy things with drugs? Yes. Does this have to do with 'dot-com' mania? No. What social force is this article trying to further? Why have I read this same damned article 10^987 times before? WTF? [Conspiracy-Off
Reality: Like the article says: "drug usage is America is at an all time low" (paraphrase). Thats the bottom line. Reality: Stupid people take stupid destructive drugs: Using cocaine like your fucking invincible is idiotic. Thats why learned, intelligent, adjusted, capable people never take cocaine/heroin. It is tremendously addictive, and that means YOU TOO WILL BE A VICTIM. An example of Darwinism if you may... Reality: The motivation behind this 'expose' shocker of a story we have here is not an altruistic display of worry. This is meant to further some campaign, wrought by some 'body', for some purpose, if not to simply sell ad-exposure to sheeple. The unfortunate thing is this poor guy who obviously didn't know his ass-from a hole in the ground is responsible for his own death. Period. If I gave this same idiot a gun would he play russian roulette for jollies? There are a million idiotic self destructive things you can do to yourself, and none of the motivations is the Internet.
What the hell is this article really trying to tell the public...?
BTW: My apologies to anyone who knew him personally. Im sure this article is not even speaking to the person he was (for better or worse as is always the case).
Use Democracy! Tell your friends/neighbours/relatives/co-workers to:
As a representative of the other North Americans that are NOT 'American' I am offended. I believe you owe Canada and ALL Canadians an apology. How dare you accuse Canadians of being a clueless Yankee. Just to let you know, Canadians dislike loud-mouth, know-nothing, brash, myopic, clue-less Americans just a little more than most. The following countries are tired of being accused of being Clueless North Americans simply because The Stinking USA happens to be near:
CUBA (End the Embargo!), Greenland, Mexico, Jamaica, Haiti, DM, Puerto Rico (god help them soon), Belice, Bahamas, Panama, Bermuda, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, Costa Rica & El Salvador Are all owed an apology.
Do the world (and yourselves) a favour Yankee; tell your relatives/neighbours/friends to:
The AirBoard seems interesting enough, but has two major faults:
1) Memory Stick - the BetaMax of Flash Memory - doomed to failure, and destined to take all its 'supporters' devices to the scrap yard, and money with them.
2) Sony's Home Network AV/IT Gateway yadda yadda yadda - have these people never heard of TCP/IP & Ethernet? USB/IEE1394/Bluetooth etc? Like I need a home full of proprietary Networked devices. I wouldn't even consider buying any Sony product that requires another SONY device to 'communicate'. What the hell are they thinking?
Attention Sony: Stop trying to take over the world w/ your proprietary BS! First adopters (the/. Geek crowd) are a little smarter than that, have you never heard of GNU/Linux or OpenSource? Try and replicate the ideals displayed there, you'll thank us for it.
What do you do if you dont own a television - but still want to see this show?
I stream all my media, what is the holdup of full broadcast of TV stations via the internet? This is that same problem I have with BattleBots - I want desperately to see these programs, but I dont own a television.
Is anyone aware of a URL (ftp/wrapster/gnutella/freenet) where the full shows (BattleBots, Junkyard Wars, ScrapHeap Challenge) are contained? Has anyone recorded and digitized the programs?
Help a fellow geek out - someone please please please provide a link to any or all of these programs in their entirety...
Especially countries that don't prize free speech the way the US does.
HEheheheheheh - thats damned funny. You dont seem to understand;
This -IS- the way the US prizes free speech*
This 'policy' is a result of the US involvement (strong-arming) the Olympic Experience. If the speech is contrary to corporate profits, its not allowed. See DeCSS court rulings for an example, or the DMCA, or the action against Napster: these are American 'values'. Hheheheh, thats the funniest post on/. all day.
* I will concede that this may not mean the 'citizens' of America, but it surely is the policy of their government and lawmakers...why is this the case?
Wake up America, do the citizens of the planet (yourself included) a favour, tell your friends/relatives/neighbours to:
one giant fucking commercial financed by telecommunications companies and sportswear. It's pathetic and it makes me sick.
I must give the Aussies credit. Next time you are watching an Olympic event - have a look around the stadium. You'll see nary a single advert. I noticed this straight off, and make comment to some of my companions. We actually were unable to see a ad at the sporting venues. Everything is simply covered very tasteful "Sydney 2000" white text on a pale blue (fuscia?) background. Now, I know someone will say: "No way man, look at 'yadda yadda yadda'", but I was unable to locate one. Now, try to recall the games in Atlanta, remember that? The whole place looked like a billboard.
Thank you Australia. You have done a terrific job of making the sporting events/venues 'advert-free'. Im very impressed.
Slashdot Mirror
Now unless I have been living in an alternate universe for the past year, Napster is not successful. They've spent millions of dollars obtaining lots of eyeballs, but the one thing the dot-comm massacre has shown us is that eyeballs do not necessarily transform into revenue
Why does something have to be a money machine to be considered a success? Napster is MASSIVELY successfull. It makes no money. Unfortunatley the US is dominated by people who think selfish greed and the pursuit of money are the only measure of success. Your comments simply make me sick. Wake up and realize you are a citizen not a consumer, a member of a community and not just an employee. P2P filesharing will be very successfull, and will make no one money. Good.
Im sure one of the reasons they are 'permitted' to succeed is because they are allowed to ride in Micro$oft's 'sidecar'. Without ties to Microsoft, they wouldnt be considered 'friendly'. Instead they would be a target of some embrace/extinguish scheem employeed by the Redmontonian Monster. There is little doubt that Corel will now enjoy a similar privilage. No better case than the 'if you cant beat them; join them.'. Its almost too perfect. Will the US DOJ look at this and think "we certainly like that MS helps in the life support of all its dead competitors" or "they OWN parts of all their competition. Collusion must be occuring". I think the latter. M$ is doomed by doing this. Unless the US Gov is as corrupt as I think it is - in which case this will all be allowed to continue.
.NETize their OS? Will IE/Office mean that the runtime _must_ be present? Rendering the Apple 'choice' a non sequitur.
But here's the best question, will Apple be permitted to
So you like getting screwed by the RIAA/MPAA and all the rest of the monopolist pigs? No? Then:
Do you -really- believe that non-voting has anything to do with the influence they have? Office/IE aside, dont you think that being OWNERS of the company they can say to the board "If you make this decision/direction we will sell the stock." I was understood they owned greater than 10% of the company - if anyone knows actual value please clarify but a chunk of that size could move the stock significantly. Basically, they have undo influence on the company which is supposed to be its major desktop alternative.. Apple is defently ruled by M$. Like Gore/Bush, they (MS & Apple (and now Corel)) are conspiring to present a single option.
But they don't seem interested in world domination so much anymore.
With MS owning such a chunk of Apple - what would be the point of competing with yourself? Im sure Apple's desire to really _GROW_ and take over the world is simply put down by the MS influence in the company. Same goes for Corel, they will maintain their forward motion.. adding features to apps.. but you'll _NEVER_ see another* ground breaking, truly innovative product from Apple or Corel. The twisted part about all this is Microsoft really now _OWNS_ most of its competition... the US DOJ should break them up into 12 companies to introduce some better dynamics into the SW industry.
*Im not sure how OSX fits into all this... im sure MS will have planned the reason why it wont affect the MS goosestep.
NET isn't subscription based office software. .NET is a runtime, its closest competitor is Java. So basically you'll have a virtual machine that runs on any OS, that supports components and programs written in any language. A .NET runtime on Linux would be pretty cool - if it works as well as they say, you could write a Python or Perl app that would run on Windows or any other OS that had the .NET VM installed.
Great - so now everything will run against the Microsoft layer above linux, VMS, *nix, BeOS ect ect. Of course none will perform as well as the Windows version and people will say "thats becuase the OS is crap". Terrific.
The point is very simple... that Democracy is broken and corrupt. Corporate issues and the protection of profit schemes at any cost is the order of the day. And if they do it in England you can bet that the vulture corporatists in the States will 'pick up on a good thing'...
Bob, if your listening:
I completely disagree with this guy - keep up the good work. I dont think he 'gets it'. By putting 7.0 'out there' you will push the implementation of the solutions... moving us all forward -quicker-. Release early - release often. The reality is we dont even have to pay for 7.0 - we can all wait for 7.1 then buy a boxed cd. So if the 'stability' is an issue, stay @ 6.2 until 7.1 then buy yourself a box... otherwise simply make the 'features' you _need_.
Oh, and Ummm Bob, thanks for not filtering your letter through the mindless-pr-markatroid-bs department. This group can smell pr-speak a mile away, and you did the right thing by not pushing that BS on us.
This will be redundant, troll or something else: but I am at an absolute loss...
wtf are they thinking? the world is going to . What they should start doing is testing embryos in the womb - and charge different rates for birth, or better just terminate the ones without blonde hair and blue eyes (excluding the left-handed babies... you know what kind of trouble it is to stock left and right handed child scissors in pre-school... you can send your left handed child, but alas you must pay more...)
Read the article, this crap is why Ralph is running - then tell your friends/neighbours/coworkers to:
, it's just that, for a global (world-wide, earth-encompassing) search, fragmenting humanity's free-MP3 library under these various services will make certain rare bits harder to find
I dont agree. Napster/Gnutella et al are exploding in the numbers of users. Ill bet that the Napster usage is on demand simply by searching this 'mojonation' or 'napster' or 'wrapster' thing"
We havent 'peaked' yet - there are more than enough new Napster users to make up for the defectors to other systems... for now.
incendiarism n : malicious burning to destroy property; "the British term for arson is fire-raising"...
But teletextual turns up only a few references to the article mentioned by Katz in this search.. so wtf if 'teletextual'...?
Does this mean we are all engaging in some kind of freudian-youwannadoyourmomma-twisted-virtual-sex-p lay? Ewwhhh gross. Ill never feel the same way about /. again... Ewwhhhh double gross.
It's the same kind of thing where you get goods labeled "Organic". Well, of course it's organic. It has carbon in it doesn't it? All part of the dumbing down of society I'm afraid
Im sure you are joking - but in case you aren't.. when you see "Organic" at the grocer it means that the product was grown/raised without the chemical soup that is unnecessarily dumped on EVERYTHING other than the items labeled as "organic" at your grocer.
This is a Good Thing(TM)
Please see this link for some information regarding Organic Food Products. And try and support responsible food products - buy Organic!
Are you trying to defend racist jokes?
ummm I will.
Lighten up. Dont take yourself so damn seriously. If you dont find it funny say so, but dont try and shut someone down simply because you dont agree... ever heard the concept of free speech ? That includes speech you dont find 'comfortable'.
Remember - I may find YOUR opinions offensive - thus I must ask you to stop saying things like "Are you trying to defend racist jokes? because I find that idea very uncomfortable. I find it discriminatory. I dont believe you should be allowed to express that opinion.
see how it works.. how many times must this be explained... some sheeple will never learn...Wake the fuck up buddy; Friday Night Sitcoms are NOT REALITY.
I'd like to ask you how you stand on federal bill 602P," moderator Marcia Kramer, a correspondent for WCBS-TV, told the two rivals.
I really can't blame the two senate candidates. Im sure not every politician in the US have memorized all pending Bill#s. This twit from "WC BS -TV" (emphasis mine) should be laughed right out of her job. Instead of hiring talking-head-bimbos and their Ken-Doll counterparts, why cant COMPETENT journalists be hired? Attractive isnt she? The sheeple respond well to pretty-journalists.
[ogg-caveman-speak] Pretty Pictures...good - Big Words and Serious talk...bad[/ogg-caveman-speak].
Im not saying you are incapable of intelligence if you are an attractive women, im saying that the likely hood (statistically) is less. Better odds that you are A) attractive or B) intelligent (same goes for men..*)I am beginning to think that the concept that 'all men are created equal' is going to be the downfall of the US. Fact is all men are NOT created equal. If decisions (at all levels) are going to continue to be made to play to the middle 60% of the population (sheeple) who arent capable of making minor decisions in their own lives were doomed. The sheeple continue to overwhelm the decisions made for the good of all (including themselves)... funny thing is most sheeple arent capable of understanding the argument let alone capable of rendering an informed, well-argued decision. I suggest the imposition of a test, like a drivers test, administered before any person is allowed to vote or participate in anything of consiquence be it nonprofit, governmental elections, town-council, BoyScout administration council - whatever.
*Spare me the accusations of sexism.
This article will come as no surprise to anyone here. Any network that is not wholly controlled by you should be assumed to be monitored. Be that with sniffer/loggers, ping sweeps for entity discovery, or email screens. Do not trust any network. Encrypt anything of consequence. At work I may be the master of a couple class c subnets, but the powers that be who _own_ that ip space (the ClassA i live in..) may not hold my personal liberty in as high regard as I do.
Even if not a part of some master-monitoring program designed to monitor all employees, you can assume some monitoring goes on; im guilty of it. Just thing about the last time you snooped around using your operator/root/admin accounts/priv on the various boxes you 'own'. You have done it out of your voyeuristic desires - now imagine that its not being down to you.. hard isnt it.
Get Ralph in the Debates!
Tell your friends/neighbours/relatives to:
You can use Hushmail for free which will encrypt your web-based-email-usage.
Where can I get -credible- data to prove that Apache can outperform IIS?
NOT in an advertisment from Dell for starters...
From the title image at their website I can identify the "logo's" of the OS's that will be presented at this event; except for the ? below, anyone care to enlighten me.
Amiga, OS/2, ?, GNU/Linux, *BSD, ?, BeOS
Nader bounced from convention even though he had a ticket! Tell your neighbours/friends/relatives:
Wait a minute here... if Napster gets in bed with the RIAA for a subscription service, I will not join. If Napster were offering WAV's of complete tracks, and EVERY song is available from an album (ie no songs present from an album unless all are - keeping you from just being offered 'some stuff' or the 'commercials' for the rest of the physical CD) then I might think about paying $3-5 per year . MP3's are lossy, the recording just isnt as good as a CD, it is painfully obvious on decent stereo equipment, but MP3 (ogg vorbis) is mostly acceptable. I can dload WAV's and burn CD's for archive and encode/burn MP3's at will for 'time shift' or 'media shift'. (IANALthankfuckinggod). If the RIAA thinks they are going to use their collusive oligopoly to maintain artificial control on the music industry they are wrong.
The RIAA enslaves artists and their patrons. Has everyone read the Courtney Love article at salon? If you or everyone you know hasnt read this article, please do.
The RIAA were necessary in a time where reproduction and distribution costs/logistics were sufficiently high enough to allow them to 'add value'.The RIAA is a dinosaur. Technology has made their 'value' == 0. Let them die, they've already made enough money... the corporatist pigs. The anti-IP MP3 'warriors' have the RIAA on the ropes. They are winning this battle. If not legally, they are effectively. Let the RIAA buy more US legislation, let them stop selling CD's in place of 'SDMI CDs', let them demand everyone buys a new CD player... when the sheeple wake up and say "no way, I want my music from artists, you no longer have business here"
Before all the flamethrowers fire up, rememeber to read Courtney Love's article.. the present system exploits ARTISTS more than its customers.
Stop buying anything from RIAA/MPAA members, they are trying to enslave modern culture... and thats a Bad Thing(TM)
"I believe my son was a victim of the dot-com boom," said David Bunnell, the 53-year-old chief executive of Upside Media..."I knew he was drinking a lot and taking uppers to stay awake. I didn't think it was much of a problem. I didn't see it."
"Everyone has coke, especially up north," said a chief executive of a Los Angeles-based dot-com..."If your friends don't have it, or your [banker] doesn't have it, then it's a phone call away. It's like ordering a martini. It's no big deal."
"I see programmers who start their day by stirring meth into their cup of coffee," said the Rev. Katherine O'Connell, a clinical psychologist and interfaith minister
"Want to know how easy it is to score a gram of coke? My friend and I recently went to a bar in Venice Beach where everyone there was a dot-commer," said a PR manager for a entertainment firm. "My friend asked the doorman where she could get some coke. One minute and $60 later, she had a gram."
"He was always so clean, I never worried about him getting into serious drugs," said Bunnell. "His mother's a drug and alcohol counselor. We never saw this coming."
"It was pretty clear he had a substance-abuse problem," said a former Upside editorial staffer. "Given the intensity of the [dot-com] community, it's not surprising."
[Conspiracy-on]
Who/What is responsible for this sentimental, cliché, over dramatic propaganda? Do people with money do crazy things with drugs? Yes. Does this have to do with 'dot-com' mania? No. What social force is this article trying to further? Why have I read this same damned article 10^987 times before? WTF?
[Conspiracy-Off
Reality: Like the article says: "drug usage is America is at an all time low" (paraphrase). Thats the bottom line.
Reality: Stupid people take stupid destructive drugs: Using cocaine like your fucking invincible is idiotic. Thats why learned, intelligent, adjusted, capable people never take cocaine/heroin. It is tremendously addictive, and that means YOU TOO WILL BE A VICTIM. An example of Darwinism if you may...
Reality: The motivation behind this 'expose' shocker of a story we have here is not an altruistic display of worry. This is meant to further some campaign, wrought by some 'body', for some purpose, if not to simply sell ad-exposure to sheeple. The unfortunate thing is this poor guy who obviously didn't know his ass-from a hole in the ground is responsible for his own death. Period. If I gave this same idiot a gun would he play russian roulette for jollies? There are a million idiotic self destructive things you can do to yourself, and none of the motivations is the Internet.
What the hell is this article really trying to tell the public...?
BTW: My apologies to anyone who knew him personally. Im sure this article is not even speaking to the person he was (for better or worse as is always the case).
Use Democracy! Tell your friends/neighbours/relatives/co-workers to:
As a representative of the other North Americans that are NOT 'American' I am offended. I believe you owe Canada and ALL Canadians an apology. How dare you accuse Canadians of being a clueless Yankee. Just to let you know, Canadians dislike loud-mouth, know-nothing, brash, myopic, clue-less Americans just a little more than most. The following countries are tired of being accused of being Clueless North Americans simply because The Stinking USA happens to be near:
CUBA (End the Embargo!), Greenland, Mexico, Jamaica, Haiti, DM, Puerto Rico (god help them soon), Belice, Bahamas, Panama, Bermuda, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, Costa Rica & El Salvador Are all owed an apology.
Do the world (and yourselves) a favour Yankee; tell your relatives/neighbours/friends to:
The AirBoard seems interesting enough, but has two major faults:
/. Geek crowd) are a little smarter than that, have you never heard of GNU/Linux or OpenSource? Try and replicate the ideals displayed there, you'll thank us for it.
1) Memory Stick - the BetaMax of Flash Memory - doomed to failure, and destined to take all its 'supporters' devices to the scrap yard, and money with them.
2) Sony's Home Network AV/IT Gateway yadda yadda yadda - have these people never heard of TCP/IP & Ethernet? USB/IEE1394/Bluetooth etc? Like I need a home full of proprietary Networked devices. I wouldn't even consider buying any Sony product that requires another SONY device to 'communicate'. What the hell are they thinking?
Attention Sony: Stop trying to take over the world w/ your proprietary BS! First adopters (the
Tell your neighbours/friends/relatives to:
What do you do if you dont own a television - but still want to see this show?
...
I stream all my media, what is the holdup of full broadcast of TV stations via the internet? This is that same problem I have with BattleBots - I want desperately to see these programs, but I dont own a television.
Is anyone aware of a URL (ftp/wrapster/gnutella/freenet) where the full shows (BattleBots, Junkyard Wars, ScrapHeap Challenge) are contained? Has anyone recorded and digitized the programs?
Help a fellow geek out - someone please please please provide a link to any or all of these programs in their entirety
Especially countries that don't prize free speech the way the US does.
/. all day.
HEheheheheheh - thats damned funny. You dont seem to understand;
This -IS- the way the US prizes free speech*
This 'policy' is a result of the US involvement (strong-arming) the Olympic Experience. If the speech is contrary to corporate profits, its not allowed. See DeCSS court rulings for an example, or the DMCA, or the action against Napster: these are American 'values'. Hheheheh, thats the funniest post on
* I will concede that this may not mean the 'citizens' of America, but it surely is the policy of their government and lawmakers...why is this the case?
Wake up America, do the citizens of the planet (yourself included) a favour, tell your friends/relatives/neighbours to:
one giant fucking commercial financed by telecommunications companies and sportswear. It's pathetic and it makes me sick.
I must give the Aussies credit. Next time you are watching an Olympic event - have a look around the stadium. You'll see nary a single advert. I noticed this straight off, and make comment to some of my companions. We actually were unable to see a ad at the sporting venues. Everything is simply covered very tasteful "Sydney 2000" white text on a pale blue (fuscia?) background. Now, I know someone will say: "No way man, look at 'yadda yadda yadda'", but I was unable to locate one. Now, try to recall the games in Atlanta, remember that? The whole place looked like a billboard.
Thank you Australia. You have done a terrific job of making the sporting events/venues 'advert-free'. Im very impressed.