Blame Canada. Actually blame the RIAA. When Napster went into business CD sales spiked, the rampant trading of sound files generated increased interest in new and old music. When the RIAA's case against Napster became public CD sales dropped, do the math. CD sales dropped, because Napster users started boycotting the RIAA, not because the could get the music for free, but because they were offended by the RIAAs tactics. Unfortunately the Napster community has no public spokesperson to get their message out, so only the RIAAs version of the facts is made public. In the long run, everyone will lose.
On the other hand it would be possible to make the ultimate in clean bombs, a microfusion powered hydrogen bomb. Remove fission from the equation and you have a greatly reduced half life.
and not a moment too soon
on
Voyager Eulogy
·
· Score: 1
It's hard to morn a series that was originally pitched as "Gilligan's Island" in space, without the humor.
I also found it disturbing that Clark appeared to be missing from the review as many of the images are his, most distinctly the monolith which is a reoccuring image throughout Clark's work, much of which predates 2001. The other people that seem to be left out are the special effects people, George Pal and Heinlein. Heinlein, I hear you say, many of the images, specifically the space scenes, and the Discovery were borrowed from George Pal's film of Heinlein's "Destination Moon". As a side note, having worked in the fx business, I know that models are often built with what is at hand, and therefore, the resemblance to shower tiles may have a more practical explination.
Diesel cars were very common in the seveties and eighties but were fazed out due to their inability to meet polution standards. The reason they were not as popular as conventional gas engines was performance. Americans have always had a greater fixation with acceleration than the europeans. The reason the europeans are showing such high fuel economy numbers has more to do with polution standards than the use of diesel fuel. If you look at their gas engines you'll see they are much more effiecent than their american counter parts. Another reason for the high effeciency of european destined cars is simply the fact that they spend $5 to $10 a gallon for gas. This makes you a lot more willing to put up with reduced performance to get greater economy.
A similar but unrelated question is "when should the corporate veil be pierced for investors in a corporation that commits criminal acts?" Shouldn't the investors/shareholders - who are the OWNERS be held responsible for the actions of the organization they are a part of? People would THINK a lot more on Wall Street if they were, and perhaps the mindless and ruthless actions of Transnational Corporations would be help back somewhat if the investors knew they would be liable (criminally or civily) for them...
Let's get a grip here, the stock holders are victims in these type of situations, they were conned into believing these were legitimate businesses. You think the little old lady who loses her life savings because the company she was advised to invest in is fruadulant, hasn't been punished enough? Obviously, people who invest in Philip Morris, Smith & Wesson, or Budwiser are knowingly contributing to the destruction of thousands of people (That's assuming that they knowingly invested in thoses companies, a large percentage of people invest through mutual funds and investment groups, and are not given specific investment information), but they have no reason to believe the companies are involved in criminal activity. If you make people criminally responsible for the companies they invest in, then you may very well make the risk of investment too great. It's one thing to risk your money, it's another to risk going to jail. (If I'm going to jail, I want it to be for something I did, not because I made an unlucky call on the market.) Investment in new, small, and little known corporations would drop off, stifling competition and inovation, leading to global econimic collapse. And that's just stupid.
Actually the difference between big Government and big business is who they are responsible to. The Government is responsible to the people, where as big business is responsible to their stock holders. I can't help thinking that the Government will be more inclined to have my best interests at heart.
if you can transmit enough energy to power a city, you can also transmit enough power to destroy a city. there is also the question of leakage. even if you use a maser format to transmit the energy, there will be a certain amount of bleed over. a standard satellite broadcasts 5 watts of signal, a dss about 35 watts. a solar satellite broadcasting a few megawatts may very well blank out all other satellite communication.
for the 1% that actually know how to use outlook and all it's tools this will be an inconvience and a down grade, for the rest it will be an improvement. Remember, these are entertainment people, not IT people. They don't understand computers and don't want to. As a tech support rep for an isp, I am swamped by calls from people who are angry because they have to use a real e-mail client that doesn't do their thinking for them. never underestimate the ignorance of the american people.
and therefore good for mars. despite all the advancements in communications, weather, gps, computers, superconductors, metallurgy, and many other daily household conveniences that we take for granted that are directly attributable to NASA's research and space missions, the public in general, and the conservatives in specific don't believe the investment is worth it. projects like the coffee watching have the dual benefit of showing the commercial value of space to those with no future vision as well as providing revenue for NASA. given the present administration, it will most likely become very important for NASA to become more and more self sufficient in the near future if they are to survive at all.
if more kids committed suicide for injustices in the school system, maybe the system will change
This is a clear violation of our civil rights
on
Is Law Copyrighted?
·
· Score: 1
Unfortunately to contest the law, one must first violate the law, and then contest the law. It is the building code that is illegal, not the copyright. If you are required to pay $300 to view a law, then that law fails to meet equal access requirements of the constitution. I also question the not for profit status of the organization holding the copyright. If you are not for profit, then by definition your products are public domain and you don't need copyright. This is clearly also a case of fraud.
I don't know about your town, but there's one in the center of my town. The city of Burbank developed around the Burbank airport, the San Fernando valley developed around the Van Nuys airport. In fact the number of airports in the L.A. county is staggering. What didn't happen was wide spread use of personal aircraft, and this is a direct result of government control, i.e.: the FAA.
2. Lack of pollution
Though it is true that we have not completely eliminated pollution, there have been many significant strides in pollution control similar to the ones he predicted.
3. Cheap electrical heating
Well there is Seattle which heats almost exclusively with hydroelectrically produced electricity.
4. Factories burning gas
In fact, the majority of our power plants burn gas, clean burning coal or natural gas.
5. Highways with different decks for different speeds
Though the use of multi tiered highways has yet to become common, there are areas where the tiers are used as express lanes, and express lanes themselves as well as carpool lanes are very common.
6. Roads reserved exclusively for business traffic
I believe that what he was referring to as business traffic, was trucks, and there are quite a few dedicated truck routes.
7. Widespread use of nuclear generating stations in Canada and South America
Though nuclear power is outlawed in Canada, the French seem to be willing to sell nuclear power plants to anyone willing to pay for them. There was no way for the gentleman to foresee such disasters as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, that have dampened the enthusiasm for nuclear power
10. Use of lightweight metals in large building construction
This is actually very common
11. Use of plastics to construct houses
Plastics are heavily used in the construction of prefab housing though not to the extent described
13. Houses that cost $36,000 (year 2000 dollars) and last only 25 years
They're called mobile homes.
14. Chemical removal of facial hair
Hair removal compounds are readily available and in common use, men are just resistant to change.
15. Use of plastic plates that decompose at temperatures above 250 F
There are many manufacturers of biodegradable plastic plates, though why he thought anyone would be willing to dispose of these at home is beyond me.
17. Paper tablecloths that are burned after use
Again very common in areas that allow incineration of waste.
18. Loss of culinary skills due to all food being delivered "fresh frozen"
What, you don't own a microwave? (the industrial ovens he was referring to)
19. Processes to turn wood pulp and sawdust into edible foods
Though work is still going on to utilize the proteins from wood by-products, the FDA does allow a certain percentage of sawdust as filler in ground beef and other products.
21. Videophones in every home
What, you don't own a web cam either?
22. Using computers to generate forecasts (people still make the calls)
Using data compiled and correlated by computers
25. $36,000 (year 2000 dollars) to fly from Chicago to Paris
The price of a ticket on the concord is about $9,000, and I'm sure if you wanted to, you could get it up to $36,000
31. Physical signs of aging no longer apparent
Raquel Welch is over 60, if you can afford it, you can look young
What I think is real telling is his statement that what would prevent many of these things from coming about, would be resistance from corporations who have an interest in outdated technologies (such as the oil companies). He also vastly underestimated the power of computers, but he was basing is projections on existing technologies, and the simi conducter was still a couple years away.
I just wish they had applied that philosophy to OSX itself. Personally I'm waiting for gen 2 OSX without the 9.1 shell, you shouldn't need 128 meg of ram just to run the OS.
ok, i admit i've always had a problem with the whole "save the earth" angle. not only is the concept absurd, it obfuscates the real problem which is quality of life and human rights, for current and future generations. and there is a strong argument for the fact that it is a problem of distribution rather than overpopulation. but it is unconscionable to expend so many resources creating a new life, when there are so many dying due to a lack of resources, especially when you consider that, that new life will consume 10 to 20 times the resources that an existing life will in say ethiopia. we should be spending our resources relocating the children from places where the resources are insufficient to support the current population to places where there is a surplus of resources.
spend hundreds more just for "priority access" to get the kind of minimal support that's standard in other businesses,
what other businesses? when you buy a car, do you call up ford and expect them to teach you how to drive a car? you buy a vcr, do you call the manufacturer and expect them to set the clock for you, and then explain how to install your sattelite dish, and repair your dishwasher? name one company outside of IT and computers, that responds to email or snail mail in 6 to 24 hours? as always you talk from ignorance.
a great deal of the problem, of course, is the fault of the retailer. they happily sell products to consumers, without even a cursory explination as to what it is, much less how to use it, or hook it up. but it really comes down to money and ignorance on the part of the consumer. the bulk of tech support calls are operational questions, or failures due to abuse, missuse, installation of incompatible software, and a complete missunderstanding as to what the product does, and was meant to do.
and if you haven't noticed, most tech and IT companies aren't turning a profit. why, because most consumers aren't willing to pay the real costs of the goods and services they recieve. tech support is expensive, the average tech support agent makes between $10 and $20 per hour, and is expected to have the expertise of a computer service person or computer consultant who makes $50 to $100 per hour, so to achieve this, the company spends another $10 to $20 per hour per tech in support systems to make the techs job possible. the average tech support call is 30 minutes to an hour. the average consumer who requires tech support, makes 10 to 15 calls over the life time of their product or service, over $500 worth of tech support. This is why Dell, who figures support costs into their product, can afford to offer top noch tech support. it is also why a Dell computer cost twice what other competeing products do. as i said before, you get what you pay for.
Having on call employees is a way for a company to have the equivalent of 3 employees for the price of one (ie: if you want 24 hour coverage, that requires 3 8 hr employees), or in extreme cases, 3 employees for the price of one part time employee. Which brings my first question. Do you work a normal 40 week and then are on call on your time off, or are you always on call. If the latter is true, get a real job, you're just being ripped off. If you are an actual full time employee, then on call status should be either voluntary, or compensated. Now I have worked in industries (such as the film industry) where you are on call all the time, on a voluntary basis, and the companies take this into consideration, (if you're not available, they call someone else, if you're enough, they stop calling you), but you really have to love your job a lot to put up with this, and you have to be well compensated when you do work. On the other hand, if enough people are willing to do the job for free, the company is not going to change their system. Also as the IT industry continues to collapse, jobs will become harder and harder to find, and compensation will become less and less. The glory days are over, and gone for good, if you are new into the industry, i suggest you go back to school and learn something else.
It's not possible to make a profit as an ISP, especially when dealing with DSL and Cable. Most of the fee for DSL goes to the telco, and what remains is not enough to pay for operating expenses (power, tech support, cust service, software, maintenance of the servers, megapops, and administration), much less for marketing. It is also very difficult to compete with the telco for DSL service as they provide all the provisioning, and give preferential treatment to their own customers (at one point there was a six month wait for provisioning through an isp, and only a week through the telco). ISPs make all their money from domain services, and selling advertising, very similar to magazine publishing, they don't make money off the subscribers, but the number of subscribers figures into the value of their advertising (your going to be more likely to advertise with an ISP that has 5 million subscribers, than one that has 50 thousand subscribers). With the collapse of the IT market, (IT will recover, but market confidence never will, companies will no longer be able to survive on blue sky) ISPs that are not able to find a way to show a profit are going to disappear. In the eventual shake out, we will be left with only the mega ISPs, the telcos, and the cable co.s (though I don't think cable will ever reach the market penetration to survive) and cost of service will go back up to a point when it is self maintaining.
It is important to remember that this is an explanation for why he writes what he does, and therefore the validity of his beliefs don't necessary count.
Unfortunately, his understanding of Japanese history and culture is about on a par with his understanding of computers. That is to say, he has an outsiders view, based on a minimum of factoids, and fleshed in with postulation and fantasy. Though I really don't believe that it is possible for a westerner to truly understand Japanese culture, the anglicized version of Japanese history as sketchy as it my be, is completely different than the Japanese version of Japanese history.
Let's get real, and stop panicing over irrelevent issues. First, if you declare your software public domain, you have reliquished your copyright. Secondly, there was no violation of the use policy, which is not binding in any case. The distributor could well argue that they were not in fact charging for the software, but for the media on which the software is contained, much the same as most of your linux distributions.
all content is copyrighted unless it is in public domain. It is napster's responsibilty to assertain that specific items are public domain, or aquire copyright from the copyright holder. this applies to everyone, even artists not represented by RIAA. This is the way the judgement should have been worded to begin with. Admittedly this would require artist who want to distribute their work over napster to add their work to the list of acceptable transfers, but it would protect artist who are not members of the RIAA, and don't wish to make their work public domain.
there never has been a net revolution. no consensus or secret agenda. like all unpopulated countries, the net was first settled by pioneers and individualists who believe that their individualism should be unfettered and unrestricted. eventually civilization moves in with all its rules, laws, governments, commercial and mercantile pursuits. as the net becomes more and more civilized, it will become more restrictive. the individualists won't go away, they will just be so outnumbered by conformists as to be insignificant, and it will become harder and harder to have your voice heard over the drone of the masses. it's evolution, not revolution, natural not by design.
actually what/.ers won't believe is that it is irrelevant what the data says. if you are an earthlink member, then they already have all you personal info, you gave it to them when you signed up. people are getting way too paranoid for their own good. since it only occurs at installation, the only possible data it could send would be necessary hardware and log in data.
the only similarity to the napster case is that it involves mp3s. there is no attempt to bypass copyright, deny copyright, or even deny copyright infringement. there is no attempt to not pay the copyright. what there is here, is a request for a ruling to set standard guidelines for payment on those copyrights. presumably to avoid having to negotiate a separate contract for each copyright holder, or at least provide a formula to proceed on. this is not about whether the artist should be paid, but about how much.
Slashdot Mirror
Blame Canada. Actually blame the RIAA. When Napster went into business CD sales spiked, the rampant trading of sound files generated increased interest in new and old music. When the RIAA's case against Napster became public CD sales dropped, do the math. CD sales dropped, because Napster users started boycotting the RIAA, not because the could get the music for free, but because they were offended by the RIAAs tactics. Unfortunately the Napster community has no public spokesperson to get their message out, so only the RIAAs version of the facts is made public. In the long run, everyone will lose.
On the other hand it would be possible to make the ultimate in clean bombs, a microfusion powered hydrogen bomb. Remove fission from the equation and you have a greatly reduced half life.
It's hard to morn a series that was originally pitched as "Gilligan's Island" in space, without the humor.
I also found it disturbing that Clark appeared to be missing from the review as many of the images are his, most distinctly the monolith which is a reoccuring image throughout Clark's work, much of which predates 2001. The other people that seem to be left out are the special effects people, George Pal and Heinlein. Heinlein, I hear you say, many of the images, specifically the space scenes, and the Discovery were borrowed from George Pal's film of Heinlein's "Destination Moon". As a side note, having worked in the fx business, I know that models are often built with what is at hand, and therefore, the resemblance to shower tiles may have a more practical explination.
Diesel cars were very common in the seveties and eighties but were fazed out due to their inability to meet polution standards. The reason they were not as popular as conventional gas engines was performance. Americans have always had a greater fixation with acceleration than the europeans. The reason the europeans are showing such high fuel economy numbers has more to do with polution standards than the use of diesel fuel. If you look at their gas engines you'll see they are much more effiecent than their american counter parts. Another reason for the high effeciency of european destined cars is simply the fact that they spend $5 to $10 a gallon for gas. This makes you a lot more willing to put up with reduced performance to get greater economy.
A similar but unrelated question is "when should the corporate veil be pierced for investors in a corporation that commits criminal acts?" Shouldn't the investors/shareholders - who are the OWNERS be held responsible for the actions of the organization they are a part of? People would THINK a lot more on Wall Street if they were, and perhaps the mindless and ruthless actions of Transnational Corporations would be help back somewhat if the investors knew they would be liable (criminally or civily) for them...
Let's get a grip here, the stock holders are victims in these type of situations, they were conned into believing these were legitimate businesses. You think the little old lady who loses her life savings because the company she was advised to invest in is fruadulant, hasn't been punished enough? Obviously, people who invest in Philip Morris, Smith & Wesson, or Budwiser are knowingly contributing to the destruction of thousands of people (That's assuming that they knowingly invested in thoses companies, a large percentage of people invest through mutual funds and investment groups, and are not given specific investment information), but they have no reason to believe the companies are involved in criminal activity. If you make people criminally responsible for the companies they invest in, then you may very well make the risk of investment too great. It's one thing to risk your money, it's another to risk going to jail. (If I'm going to jail, I want it to be for something I did, not because I made an unlucky call on the market.) Investment in new, small, and little known corporations would drop off, stifling competition and inovation, leading to global econimic collapse. And that's just stupid.
Actually the difference between big Government and big business is who they are responsible to. The Government is responsible to the people, where as big business is responsible to their stock holders. I can't help thinking that the Government will be more inclined to have my best interests at heart.
if you can transmit enough energy to power a city, you can also transmit enough power to destroy a city. there is also the question of leakage. even if you use a maser format to transmit the energy, there will be a certain amount of bleed over. a standard satellite broadcasts 5 watts of signal, a dss about 35 watts. a solar satellite broadcasting a few megawatts may very well blank out all other satellite communication.
for the 1% that actually know how to use outlook and all it's tools this will be an inconvience and a down grade, for the rest it will be an improvement. Remember, these are entertainment people, not IT people. They don't understand computers and don't want to. As a tech support rep for an isp, I am swamped by calls from people who are angry because they have to use a real e-mail client that doesn't do their thinking for them. never underestimate the ignorance of the american people.
and therefore good for mars. despite all the advancements in communications, weather, gps, computers, superconductors, metallurgy, and many other daily household conveniences that we take for granted that are directly attributable to NASA's research and space missions, the public in general, and the conservatives in specific don't believe the investment is worth it. projects like the coffee watching have the dual benefit of showing the commercial value of space to those with no future vision as well as providing revenue for NASA. given the present administration, it will most likely become very important for NASA to become more and more self sufficient in the near future if they are to survive at all.
if more kids committed suicide for injustices in the school system, maybe the system will change
Unfortunately to contest the law, one must first violate the law, and then contest the law. It is the building code that is illegal, not the copyright. If you are required to pay $300 to view a law, then that law fails to meet equal access requirements of the constitution. I also question the not for profit status of the organization holding the copyright. If you are not for profit, then by definition your products are public domain and you don't need copyright. This is clearly also a case of fraud.
Not all of your misses are misses.
1. Airports in the center of town
I don't know about your town, but there's one in the center of my town. The city of Burbank developed around the Burbank airport, the San Fernando valley developed around the Van Nuys airport. In fact the number of airports in the L.A. county is staggering. What didn't happen was wide spread use of personal aircraft, and this is a direct result of government control, i.e.: the FAA.
2. Lack of pollution
Though it is true that we have not completely eliminated pollution, there have been many significant strides in pollution control similar to the ones he predicted.
3. Cheap electrical heating
Well there is Seattle which heats almost exclusively with hydroelectrically produced electricity.
4. Factories burning gas
In fact, the majority of our power plants burn gas, clean burning coal or natural gas.
5. Highways with different decks for different speeds
Though the use of multi tiered highways has yet to become common, there are areas where the tiers are used as express lanes, and express lanes themselves as well as carpool lanes are very common.
6. Roads reserved exclusively for business traffic
I believe that what he was referring to as business traffic, was trucks, and there are quite a few dedicated truck routes.
7. Widespread use of nuclear generating stations in Canada and South America
Though nuclear power is outlawed in Canada, the French seem to be willing to sell nuclear power plants to anyone willing to pay for them. There was no way for the gentleman to foresee such disasters as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, that have dampened the enthusiasm for nuclear power
10. Use of lightweight metals in large building construction
This is actually very common
11. Use of plastics to construct houses
Plastics are heavily used in the construction of prefab housing though not to the extent described
13. Houses that cost $36,000 (year 2000 dollars) and last only 25 years
They're called mobile homes.
14. Chemical removal of facial hair
Hair removal compounds are readily available and in common use, men are just resistant to change.
15. Use of plastic plates that decompose at temperatures above 250 F
There are many manufacturers of biodegradable plastic plates, though why he thought anyone would be willing to dispose of these at home is beyond me.
17. Paper tablecloths that are burned after use
Again very common in areas that allow incineration of waste. 18. Loss of culinary skills due to all food being delivered "fresh frozen"
What, you don't own a microwave? (the industrial ovens he was referring to)
19. Processes to turn wood pulp and sawdust into edible foods
Though work is still going on to utilize the proteins from wood by-products, the FDA does allow a certain percentage of sawdust as filler in ground beef and other products.
21. Videophones in every home
What, you don't own a web cam either?
22. Using computers to generate forecasts (people still make the calls)
Using data compiled and correlated by computers
25. $36,000 (year 2000 dollars) to fly from Chicago to Paris
The price of a ticket on the concord is about $9,000, and I'm sure if you wanted to, you could get it up to $36,000
31. Physical signs of aging no longer apparent
Raquel Welch is over 60, if you can afford it, you can look young
What I think is real telling is his statement that what would prevent many of these things from coming about, would be resistance from corporations who have an interest in outdated technologies (such as the oil companies). He also vastly underestimated the power of computers, but he was basing is projections on existing technologies, and the simi conducter was still a couple years away.
I just wish they had applied that philosophy to OSX itself. Personally I'm waiting for gen 2 OSX without the 9.1 shell, you shouldn't need 128 meg of ram just to run the OS.
ok, i admit i've always had a problem with the whole "save the earth" angle. not only is the concept absurd, it obfuscates the real problem which is quality of life and human rights, for current and future generations. and there is a strong argument for the fact that it is a problem of distribution rather than overpopulation. but it is unconscionable to expend so many resources creating a new life, when there are so many dying due to a lack of resources, especially when you consider that, that new life will consume 10 to 20 times the resources that an existing life will in say ethiopia. we should be spending our resources relocating the children from places where the resources are insufficient to support the current population to places where there is a surplus of resources.
spend hundreds more just for "priority access" to get the kind of minimal support that's standard in other businesses,
what other businesses? when you buy a car, do you call up ford and expect them to teach you how to drive a car? you buy a vcr, do you call the manufacturer and expect them to set the clock for you, and then explain how to install your sattelite dish, and repair your dishwasher? name one company outside of IT and computers, that responds to email or snail mail in 6 to 24 hours? as always you talk from ignorance.
a great deal of the problem, of course, is the fault of the retailer. they happily sell products to consumers, without even a cursory explination as to what it is, much less how to use it, or hook it up. but it really comes down to money and ignorance on the part of the consumer. the bulk of tech support calls are operational questions, or failures due to abuse, missuse, installation of incompatible software, and a complete missunderstanding as to what the product does, and was meant to do.
and if you haven't noticed, most tech and IT companies aren't turning a profit. why, because most consumers aren't willing to pay the real costs of the goods and services they recieve. tech support is expensive, the average tech support agent makes between $10 and $20 per hour, and is expected to have the expertise of a computer service person or computer consultant who makes $50 to $100 per hour, so to achieve this, the company spends another $10 to $20 per hour per tech in support systems to make the techs job possible. the average tech support call is 30 minutes to an hour. the average consumer who requires tech support, makes 10 to 15 calls over the life time of their product or service, over $500 worth of tech support. This is why Dell, who figures support costs into their product, can afford to offer top noch tech support. it is also why a Dell computer cost twice what other competeing products do. as i said before, you get what you pay for.
Having on call employees is a way for a company to have the equivalent of 3 employees for the price of one (ie: if you want 24 hour coverage, that requires 3 8 hr employees), or in extreme cases, 3 employees for the price of one part time employee. Which brings my first question. Do you work a normal 40 week and then are on call on your time off, or are you always on call. If the latter is true, get a real job, you're just being ripped off. If you are an actual full time employee, then on call status should be either voluntary, or compensated. Now I have worked in industries (such as the film industry) where you are on call all the time, on a voluntary basis, and the companies take this into consideration, (if you're not available, they call someone else, if you're enough, they stop calling you), but you really have to love your job a lot to put up with this, and you have to be well compensated when you do work. On the other hand, if enough people are willing to do the job for free, the company is not going to change their system. Also as the IT industry continues to collapse, jobs will become harder and harder to find, and compensation will become less and less. The glory days are over, and gone for good, if you are new into the industry, i suggest you go back to school and learn something else.
this article was posted about 2 months ago
It's not possible to make a profit as an ISP, especially when dealing with DSL and Cable. Most of the fee for DSL goes to the telco, and what remains is not enough to pay for operating expenses (power, tech support, cust service, software, maintenance of the servers, megapops, and administration), much less for marketing. It is also very difficult to compete with the telco for DSL service as they provide all the provisioning, and give preferential treatment to their own customers (at one point there was a six month wait for provisioning through an isp, and only a week through the telco). ISPs make all their money from domain services, and selling advertising, very similar to magazine publishing, they don't make money off the subscribers, but the number of subscribers figures into the value of their advertising (your going to be more likely to advertise with an ISP that has 5 million subscribers, than one that has 50 thousand subscribers). With the collapse of the IT market, (IT will recover, but market confidence never will, companies will no longer be able to survive on blue sky) ISPs that are not able to find a way to show a profit are going to disappear. In the eventual shake out, we will be left with only the mega ISPs, the telcos, and the cable co.s (though I don't think cable will ever reach the market penetration to survive) and cost of service will go back up to a point when it is self maintaining.
It is important to remember that this is an explanation for why he writes what he does, and therefore the validity of his beliefs don't necessary count.
Unfortunately, his understanding of Japanese history and culture is about on a par with his understanding of computers. That is to say, he has an outsiders view, based on a minimum of factoids, and fleshed in with postulation and fantasy. Though I really don't believe that it is possible for a westerner to truly understand Japanese culture, the anglicized version of Japanese history as sketchy as it my be, is completely different than the Japanese version of Japanese history.
Let's get real, and stop panicing over irrelevent issues. First, if you declare your software public domain, you have reliquished your copyright. Secondly, there was no violation of the use policy, which is not binding in any case. The distributor could well argue that they were not in fact charging for the software, but for the media on which the software is contained, much the same as most of your linux distributions.
all content is copyrighted unless it is in public domain. It is napster's responsibilty to assertain that specific items are public domain, or aquire copyright from the copyright holder. this applies to everyone, even artists not represented by RIAA. This is the way the judgement should have been worded to begin with. Admittedly this would require artist who want to distribute their work over napster to add their work to the list of acceptable transfers, but it would protect artist who are not members of the RIAA, and don't wish to make their work public domain.
there never has been a net revolution. no consensus or secret agenda. like all unpopulated countries, the net was first settled by pioneers and individualists who believe that their individualism should be unfettered and unrestricted. eventually civilization moves in with all its rules, laws, governments, commercial and mercantile pursuits. as the net becomes more and more civilized, it will become more restrictive. the individualists won't go away, they will just be so outnumbered by conformists as to be insignificant, and it will become harder and harder to have your voice heard over the drone of the masses. it's evolution, not revolution, natural not by design.
actually what /.ers won't believe is that it is irrelevant what the data says. if you are an earthlink member, then they already have all you personal info, you gave it to them when you signed up. people are getting way too paranoid for their own good. since it only occurs at installation, the only possible data it could send would be necessary hardware and log in data.
the only similarity to the napster case is that it involves mp3s. there is no attempt to bypass copyright, deny copyright, or even deny copyright infringement. there is no attempt to not pay the copyright. what there is here, is a request for a ruling to set standard guidelines for payment on those copyrights. presumably to avoid having to negotiate a separate contract for each copyright holder, or at least provide a formula to proceed on. this is not about whether the artist should be paid, but about how much.