I believe the argument was that quality of music was dropping, and that was why sales had gone down.
And my counter-argument was "You dopes, music has always been terrible."
Occam's Razor suggest that the reason music sales slumped for the past few years is because the economy as a whole was in a slump. When the economy is bad, one of the first things struck from people's budgets is leisure products like CDs. It only makes sense that if the economy is recovering, CD sales will start to recover with it.
An album could technically go platinum in its first week if they do a run at the factory of 50,000 (or whatever) and put them straight on a truck.
That truck can't just drive around for a while and then go back to the pressing plant, though. Those CD's eventually have to be delivered to stores.
The processes vary, but in general vendors receive product shipments based on how much of the product they expect to sell. Thus if Wal-Mart places an order for a million units, it's because they think they'll sell about a million units. It seems like a difficult number to calculate but overpurchases are quite rare -- the Atari E.T. game being perhaps the most infamous example.
3) Install FireFox (no link needed) with the follofing userContent.css...
Is it really necessary to block ALL ads from the browser? Does this improve security in any way, or just remove a small annoyance?
For a lot of sites, advertising is an important revenue stream. The less revenue, the less quality content they can provide. Shouldn't you reward sites that use non-intrusive ads like vanilla banners and tiles, rather than taking their free lunch and potentially forcing them to have to the irritating popup/shoshkele/interstitial ad types to stay afloat?
The "idiots" computer is part of the Internet when it's connected.
No, the idiot's computer is part of the ISP's network. The ISP's network is then connected to the Internet.
The ISP has a duty to make sure the machines within its network play nice. If you don't like it, you can bypass the ISP and buy a T1 from whomever the ISP buys their bandwidth from.
Internet Service Providers and Network Access Providers are not the same thing.
Currenty, TLDs tell you nothing about the reputability of the domain owner -- anyone can get a domain at any TLD.
Well, except for.gov or.edu.
The registrars for those actually GIVE a crap, unlike the ones who let.com,.org, and.net go to shit because it meant they could make thrice as much money.
According to some documentation I read somewhere about BitTorrent (great source, huh), a BT client is supposed to allocate disk space for the full size of the file upon starting a transfer, replacing placeholder data with actual data as segments are received.
In practice, though, I don't think BT (Bram's official client, at least) actually does this.
This would be a relevant point if highend modeling and 3D game rendering had identical needs.
Right now DirectX is the superior framework for games, and OpenGL is the superior framework for "business" 3D modeling. There's no reason why the two can't coexist -- even on top of a shared OS platform.
Who still relies on salespeople for information about products?
We have the internet for comparison shopping now. The only reason we still need the surly teens in the blue vests any more is to open up the cage where they keep the expensive things once we tell them what we want, and then carry it up to the checkout for us. And that's the same whether the buyer is male or female.
How many liters of water, exactly, did she drink? From what I've heard, it takes something like 1/3 of one's body weight in water to cause water toxicity in a healthy person. More likely, the illicit drugs she was one were a significant contributing factor.
Legal ecstasy tablets probably would include an information sheet detailing safe usage practices and this would never have happened.
No, if there were legal ecstacy tabs that came with a safety information sheet, users would ignore the safety info and continue to do stupid shit. I mean, hell, twenty years of putting warning labels on cigarette packs detailing the health risks of smoking, and PEOPLE STILL SMOKE.
If the games are good enough and don't focus on the activities of penguins, this would be incentive for windows gamers to try linux and see the benefits...orrrrr they would just pirate the Windows version, like they always have.
"Without licensed DVD players for Linux and other operating systems, an entire class of computer users is completely cut off from viewing DVDs."
As far as I know, there has never been anything stopping some enterprising commercial software company from obtaining a license to do CSS decryption, developing a player application for Linux, and selling it.
"A DVD player for Linux" does not have to mean "a DVD player under [GPL|BSD|otherwise [Ff]ree] software licensng"...
No, but they DO control 100% of the APPLE desktop.
Nothing wrong with that, morally or legally. But it doesn't change the fact that if you wanted to release a media player for the Macintosh platform, you'd have a hard time overcoming the ubiquity of Quicktime.
But if you remember, there used to be a market for things like browsers and video playback software.
There also used to be a market for TCP/IP stacks and enhanced memory management software too, but I haven't seen a copy of Trumpet Winsock or QEMM386 for sale since about 1995.
There are just some things that OUGHT to be bundled with the core operating system.
Transactions? Exactly how many years behind the competition is OSS on that one?
Given that the huge commercial RDBMS's have existed since the 1970's, but most Open Source projects have really only taken off in the last 5ish years, I'd say OSS is doing a great job of catching up.
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I believe the argument was that quality of music was dropping, and that was why sales had gone down.
And my counter-argument was "You dopes, music has always been terrible."
Occam's Razor suggest that the reason music sales slumped for the past few years is because the economy as a whole was in a slump. When the economy is bad, one of the first things struck from people's budgets is leisure products like CDs. It only makes sense that if the economy is recovering, CD sales will start to recover with it.
An album could technically go platinum in its first week if they do a run at the factory of 50,000 (or whatever) and put them straight on a truck.
That truck can't just drive around for a while and then go back to the pressing plant, though. Those CD's eventually have to be delivered to stores.
The processes vary, but in general vendors receive product shipments based on how much of the product they expect to sell. Thus if Wal-Mart places an order for a million units, it's because they think they'll sell about a million units. It seems like a difficult number to calculate but overpurchases are quite rare -- the Atari E.T. game being perhaps the most infamous example.
3) Install FireFox (no link needed) with the follofing userContent.css...
Is it really necessary to block ALL ads from the browser? Does this improve security in any way, or just remove a small annoyance?
For a lot of sites, advertising is an important revenue stream. The less revenue, the less quality content they can provide. Shouldn't you reward sites that use non-intrusive ads like vanilla banners and tiles, rather than taking their free lunch and potentially forcing them to have to the irritating popup/shoshkele/interstitial ad types to stay afloat?
The "idiots" computer is part of the Internet when it's connected.
No, the idiot's computer is part of the ISP's network. The ISP's network is then connected to the Internet.
The ISP has a duty to make sure the machines within its network play nice. If you don't like it, you can bypass the ISP and buy a T1 from whomever the ISP buys their bandwidth from.
Internet Service Providers and Network Access Providers are not the same thing.
My house has been Windows-free since it was on the Internet (1983 or so).
Yeah, my computers were Windows-free in 1983 as well.
My least favorite Slashdot editor finally gets what's coming to him!
Currenty, TLDs tell you nothing about the reputability of the domain owner -- anyone can get a domain at any TLD.
.gov or .edu.
.com, .org, and .net go to shit because it meant they could make thrice as much money.
Well, except for
The registrars for those actually GIVE a crap, unlike the ones who let
I call dibs on registering the domain "butt.wipo".
According to some documentation I read somewhere about BitTorrent (great source, huh), a BT client is supposed to allocate disk space for the full size of the file upon starting a transfer, replacing placeholder data with actual data as segments are received.
In practice, though, I don't think BT (Bram's official client, at least) actually does this.
Wolfenstein 3D was FAR from "true 3D". Although the perspective was quasi-first-person, you still only had two axes of motion.
Nor was it the first -- heck, even Battlezone for the Atari 2600 used a similar method to approximate a 3D view.
This would be a relevant point if highend modeling and 3D game rendering had identical needs.
Right now DirectX is the superior framework for games, and OpenGL is the superior framework for "business" 3D modeling. There's no reason why the two can't coexist -- even on top of a shared OS platform.
i just don't understand why women have to simultaneously prove that they're both equal and special.
I guess you don't understand that your characterization doesn't apply to ALL women, either.
Who still relies on salespeople for information about products?
We have the internet for comparison shopping now. The only reason we still need the surly teens in the blue vests any more is to open up the cage where they keep the expensive things once we tell them what we want, and then carry it up to the checkout for us. And that's the same whether the buyer is male or female.
You also forget that in the store it print beautiful sample pages, but once you buy it and bring it home, it will barely ever put out anything.
Maaan. Where do you do YOUR printer shopping?
All the models I see on display are invariably unresponsive. I think there's something wrong with them.
How many liters of water, exactly, did she drink? From what I've heard, it takes something like 1/3 of one's body weight in water to cause water toxicity in a healthy person. More likely, the illicit drugs she was one were a significant contributing factor.
Legal ecstasy tablets probably would include an information sheet detailing safe usage practices and this would never have happened.
No, if there were legal ecstacy tabs that came with a safety information sheet, users would ignore the safety info and continue to do stupid shit. I mean, hell, twenty years of putting warning labels on cigarette packs detailing the health risks of smoking, and PEOPLE STILL SMOKE.
Even though everyone slags off Amiga, someone always buys it when it goes up for sale.
Who doesn't have twenty-three dollars they can afford to waste on a nostalgia purchase?
Terrible advice. Spinning hard drives can generate a lot of heat, which could easily scorch or set fire to an inappropriate type of foam.
Looks like the server just got Slashdotter 6,000 times faster than normal.
If the games are good enough and don't focus on the activities of penguins, this would be incentive for windows gamers to try linux and see the benefits ...orrrrr they would just pirate the Windows version, like they always have.
I mean, one or the other.
"Without licensed DVD players for Linux and other operating systems, an entire class of computer users is completely cut off from viewing DVDs."
As far as I know, there has never been anything stopping some enterprising commercial software company from obtaining a license to do CSS decryption, developing a player application for Linux, and selling it.
"A DVD player for Linux" does not have to mean "a DVD player under [GPL|BSD|otherwise [Ff]ree] software licensng"...
Apple doesn't control 90+ percent of the desktop.
No, but they DO control 100% of the APPLE desktop.
Nothing wrong with that, morally or legally. But it doesn't change the fact that if you wanted to release a media player for the Macintosh platform, you'd have a hard time overcoming the ubiquity of Quicktime.
RealNetworks demonstrated how to strip WMP from the OS.
Ironically, it's Real Player that's virtually impossible to strip from your system once installed, as anyone who has tried can attest.
But if you remember, there used to be a market for things like browsers and video playback software.
There also used to be a market for TCP/IP stacks and enhanced memory management software too, but I haven't seen a copy of Trumpet Winsock or QEMM386 for sale since about 1995.
There are just some things that OUGHT to be bundled with the core operating system.
Slashdot rule #12: comments on any story even remotely related to database systems will ultimately digress into a MySQL vs. PostgreSQL advocacy war.
Transactions? Exactly how many years behind the competition is OSS on that one?
Given that the huge commercial RDBMS's have existed since the 1970's, but most Open Source projects have really only taken off in the last 5ish years, I'd say OSS is doing a great job of catching up.