There are TENS OF THOUSANDS of CDs out there that are good from beginning to end.
If you're taking what you see in the display cases in the front of the electronics section at Wal-Mart, and applying it to every act in the music industry, you're painting an unrealistic picture and missing out on a lot of damn good music.
Maybe more people would buy food and drinks at the concession stands if y'all would start charging reasonable prices. $3 for a tub of popcorn that cost you 20 cents to buy, prepare, and sell is, quite frankly, offensive.
Given the choice between buying a box of Junior Mints for $2 or buying the exact same box at Target for 95 cents before the show and smuggling it in, you can guess which one will happen.
The gist of your original argument was that the DOJ has nothing better to do than go after companies who fail to make large donations to certain political parties, am I right? And that other large companies got off the hook because they were better than MS at playing the political game?
Don't you think that the DOJ has more important things to do than shake down corporations for cash?
> They basically are forcing the DOJ to settle
> because they have no real case for breakup.
Nonsense. Here's your clue: breakup is not the only remedy that can be considered for a company that abuses its monopoly power -- and the findings of fact in this case certainly indicate that MS did that. Just because the recommendation for breakup was foolish doesn't mean that MS should or must get off with a mere slap on the wrist.
> In 1995 there wasnt a credible threat to MS's
> monopoly if you believe it exisited
EXACTLY. Jesus Christ.
MS is not and was never on trial for its business practices today. It was on trial for its business practices six years ago, practices which have been found to be unlawful. And now, they must pay the price. It doesn't matter how MS has behaved since then.
> MS doesnt have a monopoly, and certainly not
> with XP. Ask RMS what OS he uses on his
> desktop PC. Or Malda, or Roblimo.
Ask 1000 people what operating system came pre-installed on their brand new computer. Ask if any of them tried to buy a PC with a different OS installed, or no OS at all.
Check the access logs of every large web site in the country. 95% of users on a Microsoft OS. 85% using Microsoft Internet Explorer.
> The public is on MS's side (82% favorable
> rating!)
Source?
> politics and the judicial system are not
> seperate, which is something that the rest of
> accepted years ago.
You left some words out of that sentence. May I suggest it was "...us cynical conspiracy-loving Slash-holes..."?
"Everybody" did not use DOS back in the "good old days" -- before the World Wide Web made pretty pictures from all over the world available, back when a decent computer system cost $2000 instead of $800, back when 14.4kbps was "high speed" -- a lot fewer people were using computers than are using them today.
I also used DOS almost exclusively on my old 486 PC, but it had less to do with the superlativeness of the DOS shell than it did with the suckitude of the Windows 3.1 environment.
> The warrant notice scares me the most. Does that
> mean that I can be arrested and then not
> be presented with a warrant, or that my house
> could be searched and I could not be presented
> with a warrant?
If my reading of it is correct, those situations could occur, but they would have to have had a warrant granted to them beforehand, and will have to show you the warrant eventually.
So, for instance, they couldn't search your house, find something incriminating, and then ask for a warrant after the fact.
I completely support rehabilitation efforts to make more people productive members of society, but... do we really need a glut of entry-level web developers right now?
There's already more than enough mediocre HTML talent out there. No company is hiring Frontpage jockeys for $60K/yr anymore -- at least, no company that will still be around in 2 years.
Why not teach these kinds some skills that aren't tied in to a temporary fad in a volatile industry? Something like ad sales, or accounting, which doesn't have the buzzword prestige of "web developing", but there's plenty of demand for and always will be.
OS/2 lost the Windows-compatibility battle because it only ran Win3.1 binaries. All the latest software started being written for Win95/NT only.
This included a little killer app called Netscape.
(Not that you could run a web browser on Warp anyway, unless you paid $100 extra for the Warp Connect edition that came with a TCP stack.)
Minidiscs are the defacto standard medium for amateur bootleggers
WARNING: another hacker/cracker semantics war coming on...
Please don't refer to people who record live music performances as "bootleggers". Bootleggers are the people on the street selling poorly-made copies of commercial CDs for profit.
Audience tapers often tape only for their own personal use, or for the benefit of a web of traders in which no profit is made. Tapers often record live shows with express permission from the artist, and will not distribute copies of commercial releases.
The word "bootlegger" has negative connotations which are not applicable to every guy in a crowd with a Minidisc recorder in his pocket.
I would recommend against painting an absurd scenario that will never happen as described, and then following that up with the sentence "Absurd as it may sound, this reality may soon exist."
Help me! I just bought a car and it won't drive me anywhere! All these wheels and levers and pedals are "counter-intuitive"! I thought maybe it was broken so I traded it in for a different car, and some of the knobs were in DIFFERENT PLACES!
Everything has a learning curve. Just because new users have to take the time to learn Windows's desktop environment does not mean that the environment lacks usability.
(There ARE valid complaints about the Windows desktop model, but "counter-intuitive" isn't one of them. The only intuitive interface is the nipple, and why the hell hasn't anyone designed a nipple-based operating system yet???)
The reason no one's implemented it yet it because it's unworkable.
How do you measure the intoxication of the driver? Analyze the air inside the cabin? Won't work if any of the passengers have been drinking. No more designated drivers?
Force the driver to blow into a mouthpiece every time before he or she can drive? No one will buy a car like that.
What about exhaustion? I don't have concrete numbers, but I would bet that more accidents are cause by drivers falling asleep at the wheel than by drivers drunk on alcohol.
> A book is a perfect example of a proper user
> interface that has undergone hundreds of
> years of refinement. The title is at the top,
> relevant information is in the corners, and the
> page (or screen, if you will) is dominated by
> the body of the data.
And the page numbers (useful metadata) are at the BOTTOM of every page. This would be your status bar.
> "Well, what about non-Western cultures??? Are we
> just going to leave them out???" because the
> answer is YES. Let them come up with their own
> design. We do it our way, they do it their way.
Because it would be FAR too difficult to add 5 lines of code to your gui that says "If $locale is non-Western, put program menu on left side of the screen instead of right"...
> All programs that exist on the system can be
> listed in a single pull-down menu.
Maybe on your 10-year-old Amiga, they can. My desktop system has maybe 150-200 different apps and applets installed. At the very least, cascading menus are a must.
> Suppose you want to delete some junk--Fine. You
> need a filemanager. Not a filemanager, a
> browser, a text editor, a Trashcan, and a
> "delete" command.
What if you need to view a webpage? You need a browser. What if you need to edit some text? You need a text editor...
> Installation of new apps was a snap, and it all
> worked out of the box.
The out-of-box experience has nothing to do with the design of the UI. But of course, you knew that. But you mentioned it anyway.
I'm sure AmigaDOS is a useful model for a user interface, and I'm sure there's lots of people who would enjoy using such a UI. But you're stating your own personal preferences as if they were scientific fact, and that's nonsense.
Ass. Can't you express yourself without using an exclamation mark at the end of every other sentence and making ad hominem attacks about someone's mother?
The legal aid departments of major universities do not exist for the purpose of assisting students who buy busted hard drives for themselves. Sure, a law student fresh out of school might be willing to work pro bono on a case like this, in order to get name recognition, but what would be the first thing he or she would do? That's right, find out whether the problem is widespread or just a random occurence for this one person. Maybe this would be done by talking to OEMs that use the part; maybe it would be done by Asking Slashdot.
Posting 'ALL 75GXP HARD DRIVES ARE DEFECTIVE' would have been at least inaccurate, and possibly slanderous. Do you even care what the truth is?
I'm sure you have a good record in settling thinks you're unhappy with, but have you ever considered the possibility that this is not because of your leet persuasion skills, but because you're an abrasive blowhard that people would rather not have to talk to?
> 1.So how should artists afford to prosecute
> multi-million dolar VC funded companies like
> Napster or companies that are outside the
> United?
LOL @ U for thinking any company whose main product is a file-sharing system will ever be worth multi-millions of dolars.
Also, if you're the artist and you have a strong enough case, you'll be able to find legal representation that won't bankrupt you.
> 2.If you are an artist with the choice of
> getting a major label deal and maybe making a
> profit if you sell over a million copies (or
> being in debt otherwise) or making no money from
> the spread of your music while being popular
> among the fans that don't pay for your music,
> what would you choose?
I AM an artist, and I'm more concerned with making quality music than selling a million copies. Thus I would choose the latter. What, was that not the answer you were expecting?
> 3.Eventually, when CD burners, Minidiscs and car
> MP3 players become cheap and popular enough,
How much cheaper and more popular do they need to get?
> how do you propose artists make a living in this
> new world order?
The same way every musician that's not in the Billboard 100 makes money right now; get a Real Job. Art is a priceless gift to the world, not a commodity; no one should expect to make a living off it.
> Don't keep data on this thing that's worth
> dismemberment, because scary terrorist-types
> will cut your fingers off.
Would this scanning system also recognize a wanger-print? The only problem would be having to unzip your pants each time you want to turn your computer on...
Slashdot Mirror
> In the movie industry, Actors get paid a lot of
> money,
Most don't.
> In the music industry, Artists get paid sweet
> FA, they obviously don't have a union,
They don't?
Blah blah blah, bitch bitch bitch, moan moan bitch.
There are TENS OF THOUSANDS of CDs out there that are good from beginning to end.
If you're taking what you see in the display cases in the front of the electronics section at Wal-Mart, and applying it to every act in the music industry, you're painting an unrealistic picture and missing out on a lot of damn good music.
Maybe more people would buy food and drinks at the concession stands if y'all would start charging reasonable prices. $3 for a tub of popcorn that cost you 20 cents to buy, prepare, and sell is, quite frankly, offensive.
Given the choice between buying a box of Junior Mints for $2 or buying the exact same box at Target for 95 cents before the show and smuggling it in, you can guess which one will happen.
The gist of your original argument was that the DOJ has nothing better to do than go after companies who fail to make large donations to certain political parties, am I right? And that other large companies got off the hook because they were better than MS at playing the political game?
Don't you think that the DOJ has more important things to do than shake down corporations for cash?
> They basically are forcing the DOJ to settle
> because they have no real case for breakup.
Nonsense. Here's your clue: breakup is not the only remedy that can be considered for a company that abuses its monopoly power -- and the findings of fact in this case certainly indicate that MS did that. Just because the recommendation for breakup was foolish doesn't mean that MS should or must get off with a mere slap on the wrist.
> In 1995 there wasnt a credible threat to MS's
> monopoly if you believe it exisited
EXACTLY. Jesus Christ.
MS is not and was never on trial for its business practices today. It was on trial for its business practices six years ago, practices which have been found to be unlawful. And now, they must pay the price. It doesn't matter how MS has behaved since then.
> MS doesnt have a monopoly, and certainly not
> with XP. Ask RMS what OS he uses on his
> desktop PC. Or Malda, or Roblimo.
Ask 1000 people what operating system came pre-installed on their brand new computer. Ask if any of them tried to buy a PC with a different OS installed, or no OS at all.
Check the access logs of every large web site in the country. 95% of users on a Microsoft OS. 85% using Microsoft Internet Explorer.
> The public is on MS's side (82% favorable
> rating!)
Source?
> politics and the judicial system are not
> seperate, which is something that the rest of
> accepted years ago.
You left some words out of that sentence. May I suggest it was "...us cynical conspiracy-loving Slash-holes..."?
"Everybody" did not use DOS back in the "good old days" -- before the World Wide Web made pretty pictures from all over the world available, back when a decent computer system cost $2000 instead of $800, back when 14.4kbps was "high speed" -- a lot fewer people were using computers than are using them today.
I also used DOS almost exclusively on my old 486 PC, but it had less to do with the superlativeness of the DOS shell than it did with the suckitude of the Windows 3.1 environment.
> [...] I think we're going into the error of
> solid state memory.
>
> Yes, this will lead to big problems if there
> are power outages etc. [...]
Are the power outages what make it an error?
> The warrant notice scares me the most. Does that
> mean that I can be arrested and then not
> be presented with a warrant, or that my house
> could be searched and I could not be presented
> with a warrant?
If my reading of it is correct, those situations could occur, but they would have to have had a warrant granted to them beforehand, and will have to show you the warrant eventually.
So, for instance, they couldn't search your house, find something incriminating, and then ask for a warrant after the fact.
I completely support rehabilitation efforts to make more people productive members of society, but... do we really need a glut of entry-level web developers right now?
There's already more than enough mediocre HTML talent out there. No company is hiring Frontpage jockeys for $60K/yr anymore -- at least, no company that will still be around in 2 years.
Why not teach these kinds some skills that aren't tied in to a temporary fad in a volatile industry? Something like ad sales, or accounting, which doesn't have the buzzword prestige of "web developing", but there's plenty of demand for and always will be.
OS/2 lost the Windows-compatibility battle because it only ran Win3.1 binaries. All the latest software started being written for Win95/NT only.
This included a little killer app called Netscape.
(Not that you could run a web browser on Warp anyway, unless you paid $100 extra for the Warp Connect edition that came with a TCP stack.)
Please don't refer to people who record live music performances as "bootleggers". Bootleggers are the people on the street selling poorly-made copies of commercial CDs for profit.
Audience tapers often tape only for their own personal use, or for the benefit of a web of traders in which no profit is made. Tapers often record live shows with express permission from the artist, and will not distribute copies of commercial releases.
The word "bootlegger" has negative connotations which are not applicable to every guy in a crowd with a Minidisc recorder in his pocket.
I would recommend against painting an absurd scenario that will never happen as described, and then following that up with the sentence "Absurd as it may sound, this reality may soon exist."
Help me! I just bought a car and it won't drive me anywhere! All these wheels and levers and pedals are "counter-intuitive"! I thought maybe it was broken so I traded it in for a different car, and some of the knobs were in DIFFERENT PLACES!
Everything has a learning curve. Just because new users have to take the time to learn Windows's desktop environment does not mean that the environment lacks usability.
(There ARE valid complaints about the Windows desktop model, but "counter-intuitive" isn't one of them. The only intuitive interface is the nipple, and why the hell hasn't anyone designed a nipple-based operating system yet???)
Yeah right, like I'm really going to believe that an EE student lives with girls.
(+2, Funny)
The reason no one's implemented it yet it because it's unworkable.
How do you measure the intoxication of the driver? Analyze the air inside the cabin? Won't work if any of the passengers have been drinking. No more designated drivers?
Force the driver to blow into a mouthpiece every time before he or she can drive? No one will buy a car like that.
What about exhaustion? I don't have concrete numbers, but I would bet that more accidents are cause by drivers falling asleep at the wheel than by drivers drunk on alcohol.
Settle down Beavis.
All the previous poster said was:
1) Perl is useful
2) People with CS degrees tend to look down on Perl
How you got "if you like to use Perl you're a moron" out of that is a mystery to me.
Microsoft is also going to sue you for violating their patent on buffer overrun design flaws.
Yeah, but the comparison is MEMORY per unit of currency.
:-)
$20 worth of RAM gets you 256MB of memory. $200 worth of hard drive comes with maybe 1MB of onboard cache.
Thus:
RAM is 12.8MB of memory per dollar.
HDD is 0.005MB of memory per dollar.
So, technically, he's right
> A book is a perfect example of a proper user
> interface that has undergone hundreds of
> years of refinement. The title is at the top,
> relevant information is in the corners, and the
> page (or screen, if you will) is dominated by
> the body of the data.
And the page numbers (useful metadata) are at the BOTTOM of every page. This would be your status bar.
> "Well, what about non-Western cultures??? Are we
> just going to leave them out???" because the
> answer is YES. Let them come up with their own
> design. We do it our way, they do it their way.
Because it would be FAR too difficult to add 5 lines of code to your gui that says "If $locale is non-Western, put program menu on left side of the screen instead of right"...
> All programs that exist on the system can be
> listed in a single pull-down menu.
Maybe on your 10-year-old Amiga, they can. My desktop system has maybe 150-200 different apps and applets installed. At the very least, cascading menus are a must.
> Suppose you want to delete some junk--Fine. You
> need a filemanager. Not a filemanager, a
> browser, a text editor, a Trashcan, and a
> "delete" command.
What if you need to view a webpage? You need a browser. What if you need to edit some text? You need a text editor...
> Installation of new apps was a snap, and it all
> worked out of the box.
The out-of-box experience has nothing to do with the design of the UI. But of course, you knew that. But you mentioned it anyway.
I'm sure AmigaDOS is a useful model for a user interface, and I'm sure there's lots of people who would enjoy using such a UI. But you're stating your own personal preferences as if they were scientific fact, and that's nonsense.
-Poot
Anyone who posts a comment containing the word "Beowulf" will be shot.
Including me.
Uh-oh.
Ass. Can't you express yourself without using an exclamation mark at the end of every other sentence and making ad hominem attacks about someone's mother?
The legal aid departments of major universities do not exist for the purpose of assisting students who buy busted hard drives for themselves. Sure, a law student fresh out of school might be willing to work pro bono on a case like this, in order to get name recognition, but what would be the first thing he or she would do? That's right, find out whether the problem is widespread or just a random occurence for this one person. Maybe this would be done by talking to OEMs that use the part; maybe it would be done by Asking Slashdot.
Posting 'ALL 75GXP HARD DRIVES ARE DEFECTIVE' would have been at least inaccurate, and possibly slanderous. Do you even care what the truth is?
I'm sure you have a good record in settling thinks you're unhappy with, but have you ever considered the possibility that this is not because of your leet persuasion skills, but because you're an abrasive blowhard that people would rather not have to talk to?
woof yourself, bitch.
> Most artists sell all rights to their music to
> their recording/distribution company. Not just
> the Britneys, the real artists too.
Um, most artists don't HAVE recording/distribution companies.
> 1.So how should artists afford to prosecute
> multi-million dolar VC funded companies like
> Napster or companies that are outside the
> United?
LOL @ U for thinking any company whose main product is a file-sharing system will ever be worth multi-millions of dolars.
Also, if you're the artist and you have a strong enough case, you'll be able to find legal representation that won't bankrupt you.
> 2.If you are an artist with the choice of
> getting a major label deal and maybe making a
> profit if you sell over a million copies (or
> being in debt otherwise) or making no money from
> the spread of your music while being popular
> among the fans that don't pay for your music,
> what would you choose?
I AM an artist, and I'm more concerned with making quality music than selling a million copies. Thus I would choose the latter. What, was that not the answer you were expecting?
> 3.Eventually, when CD burners, Minidiscs and car
> MP3 players become cheap and popular enough,
How much cheaper and more popular do they need to get?
> how do you propose artists make a living in this
> new world order?
The same way every musician that's not in the Billboard 100 makes money right now; get a Real Job. Art is a priceless gift to the world, not a commodity; no one should expect to make a living off it.
Pause Technologies does not have a patent on the idea of being able to pause a live TV stream.
They have a patent on a mechanism, a process, an implementation of one way that an end user can appear to pause and resume viewing a live TV stream.
Whether Tivo used this patented implementation in their own designs is something for the courts to decide.
-Poot
> Don't keep data on this thing that's worth
> dismemberment, because scary terrorist-types
> will cut your fingers off.
Would this scanning system also recognize a wanger-print? The only problem would be having to unzip your pants each time you want to turn your computer on...
This Computer Bowl story is true, BTW. I saw it on TV shortly after it happened. I marked out.