And yet my (US) government regularly bombards me with "Anti-drug" or "infect-truth" commercials on radio and television which routinely accuse *me* of actively supporting terrorism when I purchase some joints, or accuse me of "helping to murder this family" (with picture of Mom, Dad, and Child face down on floor, etc)
We can take a cut into the Federal Budget Deficit by getting rid of those commercials.
I really like reading the Harry Potter series. They keep getting better and better as she goes along. I would reccommend them above anything I've read lately.
I also like Robert Jordan. (I'm echoing what many have already said here). I've only read one of his books though (the first book in the Wheel Of Time). I really liked it and will be reading more of them.
Ursula Le Guin is pretty good too. I heard she's still writing. The Earthsea Series is quite good, especially the first book, The Wizard of Earthsea. I also think The Left Hand of Darkness was good.
Ray Bradbury is always good, but not recent, as is C.S. Lewis. There are other obvious classics 1984 by Orwell and A Brave New World by Huxley. Those are two of my all time favorites.
I don't like Adam Smith too much. The first book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was good, very funny if a bit childish, but I couldn't stomach the second one at all. People really like him for some reason though.
I also like R.A. Salvatore. He's one of my favorites currently. I've seen some comments about him that would indicate he sucks. I've read all of his books about his dark elf character Drittz Do'Urden, and have enjoyed them. They are not serious, have a lot of action, and are pretty fun. They are sometimes funny. He weaves a pretty rich world of characters and adventures. The particular books I'm talking about are set in the TSR world of Forgotten Realms.
If you want a taste of his work the Dark Elf Trilogy is a good place to start. The Icewind Dale Trilogy predates it, but they are not particularly dependant.
Here is a list of the works that follow Drittz Do'Urden.
1. Icewind Dale Trilogy
a. The Crystal Shard
b. Streams of Silver
c. The Halfling's Gem 2. The Dark Elf Trilogy
a. Homeland
b. Sojurn
c. Exile 3. Legacy of The Dark Elf Series
a. Legacy
b. Starless Night
c. Seige of Darkness
d. Passage To Dawn 4. Next Series (don't remember the name)
a. The Silent Blade
b. The Spine of the World
c. Servant of the Shard
d. The Sword Coast
Also, you mentioned you've read Weis and Hickman. You may want to read The Legends series. I remember really enjoying those, but its been years ago.
I think my degree from an accredited University is good enough. If you couple that with my experience as a software engineer I don't think I should have to provide any more qualifications.
If someone doesn't want to hire me they don't have to.
However, if it were in my best interest to get something like a PE (Professional Engineer) certification I would probably do so. I guess it just isn't right now.
Be careful how you use that word. The popular use of it tends to refer to the Democrats. That's just plain wrong.
Liberal in its stricter sense refers to a Libertarian belief (e.g. free market, individual rights, small government). The article in question does actually fit this defintion of liberal, but actually some of the others do too. See this article if you don't believe me.
Democrats are not liberals they are socialists in disguise.
Try explaining to a 12 year old girl with $20.00 burning in her pocket why she shouldn't buy the Britney Spears CD all her friends have because it's 'crippled'.
It'd be a nice time to give a lesson in doing something for a cause rather that just indulging your latest whim.
People continue to mention the NRA, (who actually provides online service), in a negative light here. However, the NRA is probably the staunchest supporter of the Constitution, especially the First and Second Amendments.
I'll leave the Second Amendment out of this discussion, as this discussion is definitely a First Amendment issue.
It seems to me that the Democrats are most aligned to the anti-freedom agenda. Unless I am mistaken, all of the mentioned bills that actually became laws were signed by a Democratic president. Wait, don't mention all of the violations of my right to bear arms that he signed into law. Oh yeah, right, we aren't talking about the Second Amendment.
That Clinton signed these bills may be a mere conicidence though. I suspect that ignorance, (or maybe something much more insidious), rules the day with technology laws. Most of the people in office are older and because of that I think have a lesser understanding of technology. For God's sake, Al Gore thought he created the Internet!
Also, you'll notice that the DMCA, which is probably the most oppressive bill on the list had support from both Republicans than Democrats. You'll also notice that COPA had a much larger Republican sponsorship. I would say this was probably because their constituency is made up largely of religious zealots. All I can say is thats the part of the Republican party that reeks. Well, that and their environmental record.
In the end all of this comes down to freedom so I would urge you to support freedom in all flavors. You can't say "take their guns", but "I want to keep my speech". If you do, our rights will be whittled away one by one until we have nothing. We must pay the price of freedom, responsibility for our own actions, and HARSH penalties for those who shirk reponsibility. The Republicans usually have that right.
All that aside, we are being sold out. Here's how:
The media, which is owned by big powerful companies is supposed to watch the government for abuses. However, the parent corporations of these media outlets have been pursuading our government toward abuse. Because of this the media has a huge conflict of interest. (This is obvious right?). This could be why we don't hear about these things on the nightly news.
Corporations are poised to steal our whole political process. They are doing a very good job of it already. All I ask you is, what have you done about it today?
Are there any issues that are universal in the Slashdot community besides what is pushed by the EFF, and GNU? (If even these are?) I known we are not all Libertarians. I'm not anway, and based upon other peoples comments, there are others who are not. However, how do you all feel about the first section first section, of the Libertarian Platform, entitled "Individual Rights and Civil Order"? You can reply here or email me about this directly. Maybe we can have a little more organization. I think that most of us here are pro electronic freedom and pro electronic privacy. What else matters? The link above describes much of what I believe. I remember reading it and saying, yeah, yeah, they've got it. Then I read the part on economics... ouch.
I used to do crap like that. Once a woman called me and I ripped into her about how she has a crappy job, how no one wants her calling, and that all she did was bug people. I don't remeber all the details, but it was pretty brutal. I used to do this to all telemarketers that called me.
Well this woman broke down crying, and you know what I felt bad for her. Lest your forget, there are REAL people on the other end of the line. I don't do that kind of stuff anymore. I just tell them I don't want what they have, and to remove my number.
Two wrongs don't make a right... yup, that's what my dad used to tell me.
Here is a quote from the Darwin Website:
We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of Darwin 6.0.1, the Open Source core underlying Mac OS X v10.2 "Jaguar". The Darwin kernel features many enhancements from FreeBSD 4.4 and the KAME IPv6/IPsec code, and is one of the first Open Source operating system releases to be built using GCC 3.1. Darwin 6.0.1 features improved support for POSIX threads and adds several reentrant C library functions, as well as numerous new and updated libraries including ncurses, bzip, and SASL. Darwin now uses bash as the default/bin/sh, and adds python and ruby as scripting languages.
We are updating the Darwin Tools package enabling you to build Darwin components on top of Mac OS X itself. [Sep 23 2002]
You are correct. My company, with four employees, pays taxes. We are also government contractors and are developing software that we plan to commercialize one day soon, and only a portion of it was funded through government contracts.
It is chocked full of new ideas and is in my opinion cutting edge software in the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) world. See our website if you have further interest.
But to get to the point, I think that if a company expends resources (time or money) in developing revolutionary software that they should not be forced to do anything with it, GPL or otherwise. Its more about the ideas, and less about the code here for these types of things. We are not contracted for our ideas by the government. We are contracted for a product, and we provide it.
When software becomes commodity, (when it ceases to be innovative), it should be Open Sourced. By that time, a company would have recouped their investment on it. For example Operating Systems and Office Tools fall into this catagory. However, we should not legislate these things, but let individuals make their own decisions.
For new things, people need some initiative to innovate or they won't. Didn't the failure of communism already prove that to us.
That position is quite arrogant. I mean, do they think people realy want their crummy game system that bad. They're the ones who are going to be hurt if the whole Austrailian population won't have the opportunity to buy one. I'd say let them keep their stupid gaming consoles.
Microsoft is this huge upstart in a very mature industry. They just walk in and start demanding things, and changing things (for the worse) by bitching about mod chips and crying about IP.
Also, anyone reading this who has an XBox. Plain and simple, you're an idiot. Why would you ever support that company with your hard-earned money.
Not at all! I imagine having a computer in your car would be like trying to talk on three or more cell phones all at once, and most people I've seen are too inept to talk into one.
Not a bad idea. There are tons of independent record labels out there... Dr. Strange Hopless
and BYO to name a few. Mostly punk rock, but if you're into that kind of stuff it's great. In fact punks have been subverting the RIAA for the last 25 years at least... (late 70s). Granted some have "sold-out" to those interests, but there are many bands, labels, zines, etc.. that have stayed pure. Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedy's comes to mind as having a very strong stance, but there are others as well.
I think when you say you want to start your own label you have to consider a few things. One you have to record, and produce all records. You also have to come up with ways to distribute them. Mordam is an independent distributor that I can think of. The RIAA won't let you piggyback on their distribution mechanism, whatever it is. Of course then you have to expose your artists (i.e. advertise).
It's a tough business to get into, and isn't likely to make anyone a penny, but it could be done.:)
My band has just self-produced a record. It's in a homemade sleeve and was burnt on my CD burner at home... It cost about 50 cents per CD. We gave them away. It took a day to produce 50 of them complete with jacket, CD, and artwork.
There are lots of places that will produce CDs for you though. Usually around $1.00 to $1.50 a piece, but there is a minimum order of like 1000 to get that kind of price. Some friends of mine have just done that. It worked out good for them, but now they gotta sell 1000 CDs.
Dr. Strange I believe put out a HOW-TO like document for producing a record/CD/tape. You could probably get it on the web-site or by email. I recieved it via USPS a few years back.
Meanwhile, I think it makes a lot of sense to boycott the RIAA and all their artists. Are you up to the challange? I've been doing it for years, although I will admit that my weakness for heavy metal makes me slip up here at there. Other than that its really not to hard. Most mainstream bands suck ass anyway. So, stop listening to radio, MTV, buying records (from RIAA types), or anything else to do with them. I recommend talk radio as a substitute to music in the car.
In the end however, it's all about LOCAL music. You can find a wealth of great music that is locally performed, and produced. That of course means that what I hear won't be what you hear, but never-the-less you'll find good stuff in your town. It's all over mine.
The other solution is to learn to like punk rock. It's ALMOST all independent these days. Big exceptions I think being Epitaph and maybe Fat Wreck Chords, but they are the fat cats. There are tons of little labels out there.
My band has GPL'd our music. I'm not sure what that means, but we wanted to give it away, and not risk having someone else make money off it, at least without our direct consent.
Now for the shameless plug. Go to loslosers.com for a sampling.
I implore anyone with the talent and forsight to give me a legal, viable alternative to this music monopoly.
Ok. Go to bars/other spaces that play music in your town and watch there. Buy CDs from the local artists and forget about the big-time music industry. You'll find the local scene in your town is probably pretty good. The one in Albuquerque, NM is... And if I can say that then people is most US cities probably can as well.
I've put it in another post, but also try to buy from independent labels. There is music beyond what is played on the radio. It's a whole wide world.
Some sites are blatently foul, and should be blocked for the benefit of the population.
Yeah, but who are you to decide what is blatantly foul? Who is anyone to decide? It starts with child porn and ends where? You can't start something like that.
We don't like this. So let's put our money where our mouths are. Stop buying from them, and stop buying from their sponsors. Stop listening to the radio stations that broadcast their crap, and encourage others to do the same. This kind of shit has to stop.
Yes, what I'm saying is boycott the music industry.
I don't listen to the radio anymore (pop music sucks anyway). I go and watch local bands in bars, and buy their CDs from them. It's good stuff too. You can always find someone in your area doing good stuff.
Also, there are tons of independent record labels. They also have good music. Buy from them.
I would agree with you about the games part, and most people I know have their computers almost 100% for games (they are mostly in their 20s though). They would never use Linux because they can't play Baulder's Gate, Warcraft III, or whaterver.
However, there are many people, say our moms that don't play games. They mostly use the internet, email, and word processing. Linux is perfect for that. In fact, that's pretty much all I do if you append development, and tinkering with the OS to it. If we bring more of these people under the fold the rest should follow.
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you are the government, you can use the software for free.
I live in a democratic republic, in a way I am the government.
And yet my (US) government regularly bombards me with "Anti-drug" or "infect-truth" commercials on radio and television which routinely accuse *me* of actively supporting terrorism when I purchase some joints, or accuse me of "helping to murder this family" (with picture of Mom, Dad, and Child face down on floor, etc)
We can take a cut into the Federal Budget Deficit by getting rid of those commercials.
A gun, on the other hand is primarily used for propelling lead at a high speed towards living things in order to cause them to cease living.
No I would say most guns are primarily used to put holes in trash or paper tagets. Well, that's what mine are used for anyway.
Sometimes hunting, but I shoot probably 10,000 more pieces of trash a year than I do animals....
You should think about that real hard.
-Craig
Do you think your "well-regulated militia" really stands a chance if the US Armed Forces can be turned on its citizens?
Nope, but it's better to die fighting for your beliefs that to live a coward.
And, yes, engineer's should be cogniscent of what they are developing and it's possible uses.
-Craig
I really like reading the Harry Potter series. They keep getting better and better as she goes along. I would reccommend them above anything I've read lately.
:)
I also like Robert Jordan. (I'm echoing what many have already said here). I've only read one of his books though (the first book in the Wheel Of Time). I really liked it and will be reading more of them.
Ursula Le Guin is pretty good too. I heard she's still writing. The Earthsea Series is quite good, especially the first book, The Wizard of Earthsea. I also think The Left Hand of Darkness was good.
Ray Bradbury is always good, but not recent, as is C.S. Lewis. There are other obvious classics 1984 by Orwell and A Brave New World by Huxley. Those are two of my all time favorites.
I don't like Adam Smith too much. The first book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was good, very funny if a bit childish, but I couldn't stomach the second one at all. People really like him for some reason though.
I also like R.A. Salvatore. He's one of my favorites currently. I've seen some comments about him that would indicate he sucks. I've read all of his books about his dark elf character Drittz Do'Urden, and have enjoyed them. They are not serious, have a lot of action, and are pretty fun. They are sometimes funny. He weaves a pretty rich world of characters and adventures. The particular books I'm talking about are set in the TSR world of Forgotten Realms.
If you want a taste of his work the Dark Elf Trilogy is a good place to start. The Icewind Dale Trilogy predates it, but they are not particularly dependant.
Here is a list of the works that follow Drittz Do'Urden.
1. Icewind Dale Trilogy
a. The Crystal Shard
b. Streams of Silver
c. The Halfling's Gem
2. The Dark Elf Trilogy
a. Homeland
b. Sojurn
c. Exile
3. Legacy of The Dark Elf Series
a. Legacy
b. Starless Night
c. Seige of Darkness
d. Passage To Dawn
4. Next Series (don't remember the name)
a. The Silent Blade
b. The Spine of the World
c. Servant of the Shard
d. The Sword Coast
Also, you mentioned you've read Weis and Hickman. You may want to read The Legends series. I remember really enjoying those, but its been years ago.
That's my 2 cents.
-Craig
I think my degree from an accredited University is good enough. If you couple that with my experience as a software engineer I don't think I should have to provide any more qualifications.
If someone doesn't want to hire me they don't have to.
However, if it were in my best interest to get something like a PE (Professional Engineer) certification I would probably do so. I guess it just isn't right now.
Ahh, finally someone with some sound economics in this discussion.
Yes, labor creates value. All wealth in the world is a product of someone's labor. Adam Smith wrote that over 200 years ago.
The gap between what that value and what they're being paid is going into someone else's pocket.
Specifically, profits and rent. All costs of a product can be factored into one of these three catagories: labor, rent or profit.
liberal
Be careful how you use that word. The popular use of it tends to refer to the Democrats. That's just plain wrong.
Liberal in its stricter sense refers to a Libertarian belief (e.g. free market, individual rights, small government). The article in question does actually fit this defintion of liberal, but actually some of the others do too. See this article if you don't believe me.
Democrats are not liberals they are socialists in disguise.
This Legal Persons crap was bought and paid for by the corporations a long time ago. It's time we took it back.
Amen!
Try explaining to a 12 year old girl with $20.00 burning in her pocket why she shouldn't buy the Britney Spears CD all her friends have because it's 'crippled'.
It'd be a nice time to give a lesson in doing something for a cause rather that just indulging your latest whim.
-Craig
People continue to mention the NRA, (who actually provides online service), in a negative light here. However, the NRA is probably the staunchest supporter of the Constitution, especially the First and Second Amendments.
I'll leave the Second Amendment out of this discussion, as this discussion is definitely a First Amendment issue.
It seems to me that the Democrats are most aligned to the anti-freedom agenda. Unless I am mistaken, all of the mentioned bills that actually became laws were signed by a Democratic president. Wait, don't mention all of the violations of my right to bear arms that he signed into law. Oh yeah, right, we aren't talking about the Second Amendment.
That Clinton signed these bills may be a mere conicidence though. I suspect that ignorance, (or maybe something much more insidious), rules the day with technology laws. Most of the people in office are older and because of that I think have a lesser understanding of technology. For God's sake, Al Gore thought he created the Internet!
Also, you'll notice that the DMCA, which is probably the most oppressive bill on the list had support from both Republicans than Democrats. You'll also notice that COPA had a much larger Republican sponsorship. I would say this was probably because their constituency is made up largely of religious zealots. All I can say is thats the part of the Republican party that reeks. Well, that and their environmental record.
In the end all of this comes down to freedom so I would urge you to support freedom in all flavors. You can't say "take their guns", but "I want to keep my speech". If you do, our rights will be whittled away one by one until we have nothing.
We must pay the price of freedom, responsibility for our own actions, and HARSH penalties for those who shirk reponsibility. The Republicans usually have that right.
All that aside, we are being sold out. Here's how:
The media, which is owned by big powerful companies is supposed to watch the government for abuses. However, the parent corporations of these media outlets have been pursuading our government toward abuse. Because of this the media has a huge conflict of interest. (This is obvious right?). This could be why we don't hear about these things on the nightly news.
Corporations are poised to steal our whole political process. They are doing a very good job of it already. All I ask you is, what have you done about it today?
Are there any issues that are universal in the Slashdot community besides what is pushed by the EFF, and GNU? (If even these are?) I known we are not all Libertarians. I'm not anway, and based upon other peoples comments, there are others who are not. However, how do you all feel about the first section first section, of the Libertarian Platform, entitled "Individual Rights and Civil Order"? You can reply here or email me about this directly. Maybe we can have a little more organization. I think that most of us here are pro electronic freedom and pro electronic privacy. What else matters? The link above describes much of what I believe. I remember reading it and saying, yeah, yeah, they've got it. Then I read the part on economics... ouch.
Thats my three cents.
-Craig
I used to do crap like that. Once a woman called me and I ripped into her about how she has a crappy job, how no one wants her calling, and that all she did was bug people. I don't remeber all the details, but it was pretty brutal. I used to do this to all telemarketers that called me.
Well this woman broke down crying, and you know what I felt bad for her. Lest your forget, there are REAL people on the other end of the line. I don't do that kind of stuff anymore. I just tell them I don't want what they have, and to remove my number.
Two wrongs don't make a right... yup, that's what my dad used to tell me.
-Craig
Darwin is not open source.
/bin/sh, and adds python and ruby as scripting languages.
Here is a quote from the Darwin Website:
We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of Darwin 6.0.1, the Open Source core underlying Mac OS X v10.2 "Jaguar". The Darwin kernel features many enhancements from FreeBSD 4.4 and the KAME IPv6/IPsec code, and is one of the first Open Source operating system releases to be built using GCC 3.1. Darwin 6.0.1 features improved support for POSIX threads and adds several reentrant C library functions, as well as numerous new and updated libraries including ncurses, bzip, and SASL. Darwin now uses bash as the default
We are updating the Darwin Tools package enabling you to build Darwin components on top of Mac OS X itself. [Sep 23 2002]
GPL no, open source yes...
-Craig
You are a consumer.
To the powers that be,
we are no more that amoebae.
coporations pay taxes too
You are correct. My company, with four employees, pays taxes. We are also government contractors and are developing software that we plan to commercialize one day soon, and only a portion of it was funded through government contracts.
It is chocked full of new ideas and is in my opinion cutting edge software in the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) world. See our website if you have further interest.
But to get to the point, I think that if a company expends resources (time or money) in developing revolutionary software that they should not be forced to do anything with it, GPL or otherwise. Its more about the ideas, and less about the code here for these types of things. We are not contracted for our ideas by the government. We are contracted for a product, and we provide it.
When software becomes commodity, (when it ceases to be innovative), it should be Open Sourced. By that time, a company would have recouped their investment on it. For example Operating Systems and Office Tools fall into this catagory. However, we should not legislate these things, but let individuals make their own decisions.
For new things, people need some initiative to innovate or they won't. Didn't the failure of communism already prove that to us.
That position is quite arrogant. I mean, do they think people realy want their crummy game system that bad. They're the ones who are going to be hurt if the whole Austrailian population won't have the opportunity to buy one. I'd say let them keep their stupid gaming consoles.
Microsoft is this huge upstart in a very mature industry. They just walk in and start demanding things, and changing things (for the worse) by bitching about mod chips and crying about IP.
Also, anyone reading this who has an XBox. Plain and simple, you're an idiot. Why would you ever support that company with your hard-earned money.
-Craig
are distractions like this really a good idea?
Not at all! I imagine having a computer in your car would be like trying to talk on three or more cell phones all at once, and most people I've seen are too inept to talk into one.
-Craig
Hrmmm.....
:)
Not a bad idea. There are tons of independent record labels out there...
Dr. Strange
Hopless
and BYO to name a few. Mostly punk rock, but if you're into that kind of stuff it's great. In fact punks have been subverting the RIAA for the last 25 years at least... (late 70s). Granted some have "sold-out" to those interests, but there are many bands, labels, zines, etc.. that have stayed pure. Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedy's comes to mind as having a very strong stance, but there are others as well.
I think when you say you want to start your own label you have to consider a few things. One you have to record, and produce all records. You also have to come up with ways to distribute them. Mordam is an independent distributor that I can think of. The RIAA won't let you piggyback on their distribution mechanism, whatever it is. Of course then you have to expose your artists (i.e. advertise).
It's a tough business to get into, and isn't likely to make anyone a penny, but it could be done.
My band has just self-produced a record. It's in a homemade sleeve and was burnt on my CD burner at home... It cost about 50 cents per CD. We gave them away. It took a day to produce 50 of them complete with jacket, CD, and artwork.
There are lots of places that will produce CDs for you though. Usually around $1.00 to $1.50 a piece, but there is a minimum order of like 1000 to get that kind of price. Some friends of mine have just done that. It worked out good for them, but now they gotta sell 1000 CDs.
Dr. Strange I believe put out a HOW-TO like document for producing a record/CD/tape. You could probably get it on the web-site or by email. I recieved it via USPS a few years back.
Meanwhile, I think it makes a lot of sense to boycott the RIAA and all their artists. Are you up to the challange? I've been doing it for years, although I will admit that my weakness for heavy metal makes me slip up here at there. Other than that its really not to hard. Most mainstream bands suck ass anyway. So, stop listening to radio, MTV, buying records (from RIAA types), or anything else to do with them. I recommend talk radio as a substitute to music in the car.
In the end however, it's all about LOCAL music. You can find a wealth of great music that is locally performed, and produced. That of course means that what I hear won't be what you hear, but never-the-less you'll find good stuff in your town. It's all over mine.
The other solution is to learn to like punk rock. It's ALMOST all independent these days. Big exceptions I think being Epitaph and maybe Fat Wreck Chords, but they are the fat cats. There are tons of little labels out there.
My band has GPL'd our music. I'm not sure what that means, but we wanted to give it away, and not risk having someone else make money off it, at least without our direct consent.
Now for the shameless plug. Go to loslosers.com
for a sampling.
Might be a good way to get rid of nuclear waste...
I mean, we don't shoot it into space now because if we had a "Challenger" like incident with nuclear waste aboard we'd be pretty fucked.
With a space elevator that all changes. We can get it into orbit then blast it into the sun!
-Craig
You can blame Bush for appointing Ashcroft. But who can we blame for Congress? The American people.
I couldn't agree with you any more on this one.
Yeah, but they all suck, someone's gotta win.
I advocate registering to vote, going to vote, and leaving a blank ballot. Except for offices that you truly believe one of the candidates worthwhile.
yup.
Couldn't visit the site with Opera. Had to start up netscape to look at the site... what a drag.
I implore anyone with the talent and forsight to give me a legal, viable alternative to this music monopoly.
Ok. Go to bars/other spaces that play music in your town and watch there. Buy CDs from the local artists and forget about the big-time music industry. You'll find the local scene in your town is probably pretty good. The one in Albuquerque, NM is... And if I can say that then people is most US cities probably can as well.
I've put it in another post, but also try to buy from independent labels. There is music beyond what is played on the radio. It's a whole wide world.
Some sites are blatently foul, and should be blocked for the benefit of the population.
Yeah, but who are you to decide what is blatantly foul? Who is anyone to decide? It starts with child porn and ends where? You can't start something like that.
-Craig
Look,
We don't like this. So let's put our money where our mouths are. Stop buying from them, and stop buying from their sponsors. Stop listening to the radio stations that broadcast their crap, and encourage others to do the same. This kind of shit has to stop.
Yes, what I'm saying is boycott the music industry.
I don't listen to the radio anymore (pop music sucks anyway). I go and watch local bands in bars, and buy their CDs from them. It's good stuff too. You can always find someone in your area doing good stuff.
Also, there are tons of independent record labels. They also have good music. Buy from them.
Anyway,
That's my two cents.
Later.
-Craig
The home apps aren't there (read: games).
I would agree with you about the games part, and most people I know have their computers almost 100% for games (they are mostly in their 20s though). They would never use Linux because they can't play Baulder's Gate, Warcraft III, or whaterver.
However, there are many people, say our moms that don't play games. They mostly use the internet, email, and word processing.
Linux is perfect for that. In fact, that's pretty much all I do if you append development, and tinkering with the OS to it. If we bring more of these people under the fold the rest should follow.
-Craig