Agreed! Begining hacking - to increase the capability or features of your system - is one thing, but out-and-out theft is another thing entirely.
I, also, applaud DirecTV's actions and I rejoice at the thought of all those poor, poor little crooks missing the Superbowl. Awww, I'm playing a teeny violin for them.
"Cruel and inhuman punishments are being carefully described in tiny paragraphs so they don't conflict with the Constitution - which, itself, is being modified in order to accommodate The Future..."
- Frank Zappa (The Central Scrutinizer, "Joes's Garage, Act I")
As usual, the film industry is going to point to this example and say "See? We tried to do a fantasy genre movie, but it bombed! People don't want this stuff."
I don't understand - CDDB the system existed before CDDB the company. The CDDB code was written before the ocmpany even existed. If that doesn't count as Prior Art, what does?
Very doubtful this will happen - here's why...
on
Linux to Fragment?
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· Score: 1
If Linux were to fragment, first of all I think the Linux community would be up in arms, boycott whoever did it, and developers would not develop for the fragmented flavor.
Second, too many big companies have spent too much money on Linux by now to allow this to happen, since having one stable, compatible operating system that competes with M$ is the whole reason they got involved in the first place. They are doubtless very aware that any fragmentation would defeat the whole purpose and ruin all their efforts by allowing the critics to say "Ah ha! Told you so!" and scare away a great many customers.
Third, what reason would anyone have to fragment it? Ask yourself: what could anyone add to a new version that would 1) be so amazingly good that people would abandon standard versions for it, 2) was a feature that couldn't possible be added to standard Linux, and 3) couldn't be done much more easily, cheaply, and without alienating anyone, by simply releasing the source or selling the binary commercially?
The 30-second skip is a MAJOR feature, and almost 100% of the reason I bought a Replay. It should not be underestimated, because it gives you
a resource more valuable than gold: TIME.
When I watch programs on Replay and a commercial comes on, I just hit the skip button 5 times (occaisionally 7 times), and whammo - I'm at the show again. No overshooting, no FF or RW, you're just there - bingo. Now I can easily watch an hour-long show in 40 minutes without ever futzing around with FF and overshoots.
It's no accident that Tivo will never have this capability - they're too much in bed with the "force you to watch commercials and sell all your private data while charging you for the priviledge" crowd.
Hmm, let's see...
Tivo: No 30-second skip, commercials are still a PITA.
Tivo: seeling your private data to marketers
Tivo: Making you pay for the priviledge, a *minimum* of $200
Replay: 3-second skips saves scads of timeand frustration
Replay: Doesn't (yet) sell individually-identifiable data to 3rd parties
Replay: NO extra fees, ever.
What do you think about "third" party candidates - who are on more than enough ballots to win a presidential election - being kept out of the debates?
Do you feel that the "big two" parties are afraid of exposing the country to views other than their own? If they aren't, they why don't they welcome all parties into the political process?
I think Jon is a bit muddled here on exactly what point he's trying to make. If he's saying "no one cares about politics anymore", then I agree with him wholeheartedly. If he's trying to say "politics don't make any difference", then I couldn't disagree more. I read his article as closely as I could, but which position he holds still isn't clear to me.
Saying "politics doesn't matter anymore" is clearly foolish, and I don't think Jon is a fool, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that wasn't his point. After all, politics affect us greatly in every way, every day - from how much money we have to what books we can read. It affects every aspect of our lives, financially, personally, socially, and so on. There's no disputing that politics has a huge effect on us.
That being said, I believe Jon's point was that fewer and fewer people follow, or care about politics. This, in contrast, is deonstrably true. So in that sense, and that sense only, politics are "mattering" less to individuals bcause so many people either feel that "my vote can't change anything, so why bother", or "all politicians are scum", or they feel too busy to bother, or they're just generally angry at the system, or whatever. For any or all of those reasons, people are becoming less and less involved in the political system, just hoping and trusting that "someone is in Washington taking care of it". They have a sense that nothing really bad can happen, and if it starts to, "the government" will take care of it. In short, citizens have sold their franchise and voice in exchange for the comfort of ignorance and the pormise that someone else will take care of everything. I don't need to point out to anyone here how dangerous that kind fo thinking is.
What is really happening in politics is this: the fewer people involved in the process, the more power gets concentrated in the hands of those who still do care enough to participate. And, unfortunately, those people often tend to be the fanatical, one-issue zealots. More and more, the political system is being dominated by, and policy is being made by, those who are extreme enough on an issue to get off their asses and do something.
We have to remember that people always have the government that they deserve. As Amerians, we have collectively given up our freedom in exchange for promises to be left alone in our comfy cocoons, undisturbed by thorny issues: "Just keep the cable TV and pizza coming, and I don't give a damn what you do out there." And therefore, we deserve a government that doesn't respect us or our rights.
It's been said, correctly, that "America is at that awkward stage where it's too late to work within the system, and too early to shoot the bastards." The entrenched powers-that-be have no interest in ever giving up that power, and since Congress controls all the laws, there's no way they would ever pass a law limiting their power. The one and only big miastake the founders made when writing the constitution was giving Congress the power to police itself and make its own rules. When the only body that can control Congress is Congress, the conlict of interest couldn't be more clear.
Sadly, there's only one solution, and it seems extrememly distasteful at first: we will simply have to adopt "direct democracy", whether we like it or not. Every person is allowed to vote on every issue, electronically. Representative democracy was originally structured the way it is primarily because direct democracy wasn't really possible when the fastest news could travel was by horse. Now we have the technical cpabaility for everyone to vote on everything, and as sucky as system as it would be, it will still be better than the current one.
Yes, I hear everyone saying "But most people are morons! They don't know anything about the issues! They will be swayed by demagogues and fleeting passions!". We, OK, yes - they will be. But the question is, will they be swayed any more than the people in congress? Could they do any worse?
Originally congress was supposed to be a buffer between the people and the law, carefully considering laws objectively to see if they were good for the country in the long term. But we all know it's been quite a long time - if ever - since congress has actually been objective. Laws are passed or not passed based not on how good they are for the country, but how good they are for congressmen's careers. So, if we're going to have laws passed based on self-interest, shouldn't be our own self-interest and not some congressman's?
All the objections to "Direct democracy", that The People Are An Ass, are true. But the fact is that Congressmen are bigger asses, and they are asses in greedy, personal, self-enriching ways. Better to have the people voting for their own selfish self-interest than the congress, for theirs.
One area where "Open-Sourcing" books would work wonderfully is in the field of textbooks. Most people know how ridiculously expensive textbooks are, but few know the reasons and the politics behind why they are so expensive - the cozy "sweetheart" deals between publishers and many professors, the claims of publishers that new editions are required for subjects that change very slowly (basic chemistry) or not at all (ancient literature). And we've seen here on Slashdot how publishers of "electronic textbooks" are now trying to even prevent students from selling abck their books by making them electronic and forbidding transferral. After all, every used textbook bought is money from the publisher's pocket.
The Open Source community has many rspected experts within its ranks, and the idea that "information wants to be fre" - certainly, valuable educational infomation - fits right in with the Open Source philosophy. We all agree how important eduation is, so having Open Source textbooks would be a great boon to struggling students who currently have to spend as much as $100 or more for a single textbook. All it would take would be several experts getting together to write the work, and then GPL'ing it, then updating it only as needed. And of course the Open Source method of constant peer review would catch errors in text and ensure the completness and acuracy of the information, while weeding out overly "political" positions and keeping books to "just the facts".
One thing to remember is that "Open Source" books would have one fundamentaladvantage over the current "E-books": you are perfectly allowed to rpint them out and read them on paper if you prefer - if you don't want to read the book on a screen, just download it and print it out. Colleges especially could benefit from this, perhaps providing a cheap means to print and bind open-sorce textbooks for their students.
Yeah, sue Harvard. Reeeeeal good idea. A school that routinely turns out a large percentage of what are considered the best lawyers in the business. ("good" as in skilled, not as in "morals":)
Hell, probably half the RIAA's lawyers would have to remove themselves from the case due to conflict of interest with their alma mater.
One of the beauties of the Linux world is that even as comanies and distributions and come and go, as long as they open-source the stuff they do, even if they die, the good parts of what thev's done get left behind and aded to Linux overall, making it better. This process seems similar to evolution, or maybe the accretion that forms coral reefs.
If "Company A" writes "Awesome Install Program X", and open-sources it, then even if Company A later dies, the good work still remains behind and gets added to the body of Linux code, improving future versions. In this way, good code still gets passed on even if individual distributions may go away.
Nice attitude, pal: "I don't care if I don't have to read Katz, I want to censor him so no one else can read him, either!
For the record, I've been playing RPGs for even longer than you - I played the very, very first Basic D&D back in the early 80's. And I say that in the places where you're not completely incoherent, you're wrong. Who says White Wolf didn't intend their games to have even a hint of politicvs to them? Do you you think writers live in a vacuum? What makes you think that the game themes don't reflect the opinions of the writers at all?
It's also very telling that your mailto is set to "Go flame someone who cares", while you're busy writing flames yourself. Just another indication of "I want to be able to do it, but not let other people do it."
Good thing we have you around to decide what we can and can't read, and it sure is fair of you to spout flames at people but prevent any response by putting your fingers in your ears and humming "I can heeearrr youuuu!" like a 4-year-old.
Yeah, paypal is great - for those who can use it. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who PayPal has decided they don't want as customers.
You think you won't have any problems because you have a perfect credit rating, and the closest you've ever been to credit card fraud is rading about it in the paper? Think again. PayPal uses a separate"fraud prevention" company that has its own mysterious, secret rules for who's an "acceptable risk" or not. It doesn't matter if you've never had even the tiniest problem with your credit or cards - if they decide, for whatever bizarre reason known only to them, that your card is a "risk", you can forget about using PayPal. And you can forget about ever finding out the mysterious reason that you've been rejected.
And PayPal couldn't care less. First, they try as hard as they can to blame it on your bank. When you finally prove that there's no problem with yoru bank, they hem and haw and beat around the bush and give you all kinds of doubletalk. When you ask them "why was my card rejected? What's the problem?" they simply have no answer.
I wouldn't use PayPal now even if they allowed my card, because clearly they couldn't care less about customer service or being open and honest with their customers.
Oh, please. Just because something is attributed to anonymous sources is no reason to automatically believe it isn't true. OK, maybe it's not. And maybe it is. But your jumping to the conclusion that "if it's anonymous, it must be false" is pathetic.
And, I might add, this is far from the first time we've heard reports like this. There's plenty of independent validation - nothing rock-solid and 100% verifiable, but collectively they add up.
Finally, what makes you think these things aren't true? Do you believe MS's products are so wonderful that they can replace anything? Do you have a hard time believing that NT isn't up to the heavy-duty tasks of Real Computing(tm)?
Maybe there's no reason to believe this it true, but there's also no reason to believe it isn't.
The best answer to this, which has already been suggested in other places: Open-Source textbooks. The textbook industry makes huge profits by constantly coming out with new editions and using various tactics (both "carrot" and "stick") to get professors to require the new edition. Obviously, it's in their best interest to prevent the selling of used textbooks as much as possible.
The truth is, though, that the content of most textbooks - certainly, not inroductory-level ones - doesn't need to change much at all. How different is the information contained in a ten-year-old "Chemistry 101" textbook or a history or literature text from the content of today? Not much, unless you're reading the "newly revised to make Poltically Correct Morons Happy" history books or something.
Open Source Textbooks are a simple idea: get a bunch of qualified people together to collaborate on a "definitive" text that's well-written, contains all the necessary information, and the put it up on the Net in various formats (PDF/text/HTML/whatever) for students to read online, download and read offline, or simply print out. When it's decided that enough new information has become available to warrant a new "edition" (version), then the changes are made and the 2.0 version posted.
In this way, we could remove the profit from the greedy textbook industry and at the same time save students a lot of money which they may not have. Textbooks are a huge expense for students, and the textbook industry charges insane amounts for them. It's a nice racket - on the one hand, they claim they have to charge a lot to cover the expenses of new editions, and on the other hand, they try to make it as hard as possible to buy used copies, and use every trick in the book (pun intended) to force professors into requiring the latest editions of text when the older editions are still 100% usable.
Having a full set of excellent Open-Source textbooks, written by prominent people in their fields and used by forward-thinking (and student-considering) professors could greatly enhance education by not only making it cheaper to be a student, but also making the works available to the interested general public.
I believe there is a project like this already underway, but I don't have the information at hand. Anyone who's interested, write me and I'll see if I can find it and send it along.
Don't be a buffoon, John - no one on Slashdot has ever condoned, or approved of, the dissemination of "kiddie porn" in any way. I've been reading Slashdot for years, and nothing I've ever read here, posted either by the maintainers or users, could be construed to mean that they approve of "kiddie porn", or oppose prosecution of the scumbags who deal it.
Just because people question the methods used to find such things doesn't mean they approve of it.
Wow, free email addreses, you don't say! What a cool and novel idea! Good thing USPS thought of it first! And there are so many compelling reasons to have another mailbox filled with nothing but spam!
I agree it will be the biggest spam tool ever, but who would ever use it? Anyone with a net connection can already get all the free email addresses they want, so what possible reason would there be for anyone to even care about their 'USPS' email address?
So they'll give me one. Televangelist scam artist conman assholes send me free Holy Cornmeal and Anointing Oil, too, but that doesn't make me do anything with it but toss it in the garbage. They can't force you to check your USPS email, or to not route it to/dev/null. Better yet, set your MTA up to bounce everything right back.
Just ignore it. Let their mail servers overflow with unread spam. BFD. Sit back and watch the fun as the whole thing collapses under the weight of spam that's read by no one but the spammers who wrote it.
I know it's probably asking too much of John Carmack, after all he and Id have done for Linux (and don't think it isn't appreciated, Guys!) - but maybe Id should simply put it in their publishing contracts that the Linux version MUST be released in the retail outlets at exactly the same time as the Windoze version. A company like Loki could never get away with this, but who could stand up to Id? What publisher would want to risk losing the publishing contract for a game like "Doom III" just because they insisted on delaying the Linux version? They'd stand to lose a lot of money, and for what?
I hate to ask for "more!" after the pioneering work by the Id crew, but if we let the game industry treat Linux users like second-class citizens, we'll never get any respect. I think Id should put their foot down and say, "Look, you'll release the Linux version at the same time as the Windows version, or we'll give the deal to any one of the many other publishers who'd love to have our games on any terms."
I never saw the point in this. Yeah, the *concept* of a libertarian state/data haven is very strong, but why spend $1 billion to build something that floats? There are tons of tiny little countries that are poor but own hundreds of islands. Just go to one of them, offer them a couple million dollars for an uninhabited island of a few square miles, and secede from their country (with their permission). Declare yourself a new country, in possession of dirt. If you need more space, buy a couple more islands - they don't even have to be in the same ocean.
But why not? That's my question. Why would Loki have an NDA about sales figures? I might be able to understand if sales sucked, and they want ed to cover it up, but I have a feeling sales are at least moderately good, if not exceptionally good. And if so, why not brag about it? What's the big secret?
You're ridiculous. It's been a year since I had *any* problem installaing a game, and for a year before *that* it was only minor problems. If you have games "trash" your system, all that means is that you need to learn something about computers.
Yeah, I feel the same way. I used to be obsessed with getting the very latest-and greatest, bleeding-edge graphics hardware. I'd spend whatever it took to get the card that had the best numbers that week. But of course I always got royally screwed when it came to drivers, especially for Linux. Either there would be no XF86 server, or crappy Windoze drivers, or no Linux support at all.
Feh! I'm sick and tired of it. Graphic card manufacturers, listen up: from now on, I'm buying whichever card has the best Linux support, PERIOD.
Now that there are good games for Linux, and more coming all the time, this is of critical importance to me. When there were no games for Linux, I could get by with half-assed X support. But now Linux support is going to be my first and most important criteria for selecting a graphics card, and I don't care if your speed numbers are supposedly a little faster. I'd rather have a card that *works* and only gets 59 frames per second instead of 61.
The most ridiculous and incomprehensible thing is that video card manufacturers have an opportunity to greatly increase their sales, for FREE, by doing nothing more than giving out information that does no one ANY good except people who want to make their product work better. They could spend less on engineering, more on software support, and increase profits. Talk about the Pointy-Haired Legions!
Katz often makes some sense, but in this case he has totally swallowed the liberal, PC, hippie-crunchy party line. He's 100% WRONG. The so-called "protesters" had absolutely NO idea what they were supposed to be protesting. They just had some kind of vague "capitalism is bad" notion, and too much time on their hands between lattes.
Yuppies should wake up and realize that politics are something you have as a belief, not something you march about because it's fashionable and they guy across the hall is doing it, and you can chat with him after the protest (whatever it was about, who knows?) and maybe get some business from him for you web design firm.
I have ZERO respect for the "protesters". they were morons who had no idea what message, if any, tehy were trying to get across. Whatever they may or may not have intended, the message which came across loud and clear was "We are idiots. We are out here for fun. Ignore us. We're just looking for something exciting to chat about at the next cocktail party."
J. Tang is exactly right. Carmack and Id are trying to send a message to the retailers. And remember, retailers are stupid. They don't know squat about computers, and how many Marketing-Droids at Walmart HQ know what an "Operating system" is? If you went to them and said "look at these web logs! Look how many linux binaries were downloaded! look how many cards were sent in!", they would just give you a blank look and say "Duh?"
They only know one thing: Units. Specifically, "SKU's" (stock keeping units). that's how they internally track sales of products. If their little Excel spreadsheets show them that a certain SKU has sold well, then they will order more in the future.
So Carmack is doing exactly the right thing by putting the Linux version in a separate box, and I for one will absolutely wait until I see a Linux box on the shelf, even if it take 2 months after the Windows release (I've waited this long already, and I have the demo version to play). If I know that it's out but I don't see a Linux version on the shelf, the I will tell the store manager that I am leaving to buy it somewhere else.
People, we have to do this with the first 50 or so Linux games that get sold at retail. If we don't, and we wimp out and just buy the windows versions, then we will fulfill our own prophecy and never have great games for Linux.
The only other think that I think Id could and should do is use its marketing clout to get distributors and retailers to treat the Linux version fairly. They should release the Linux version FIRST, and the, when they see it on the shelves, only THEN release the Windows version. they should go to distributors and say "We have the hottest new game in a long time. We're Id. If you want it, then treat Linux fairly."
Huh. You should feel lucky that you have as much security as an actual password! My investment accounts with Fidelity are protected by the combination of my SSN and a *4-digit PIN!*. That's right - all anyone has to do is get my SSN (how tough is that these days) and guess 4 digits, and they can wipe out every penny of my retirement savings (or anyone else's at Fidelity).
Does Fidelity give a damn? No way. Why not? because they have so many legal disclimers and exclusions buried in the boilerplate of their service agreement that their CEO could abscond to a desert island with everyone's money and laugh at us, and we wouldn't be able to hold them liable. They accept no responsibility for anything bad happening to you through their own mistakes, so this just isn't an issue for them.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed! Begining hacking - to increase the capability or features of your system - is one thing, but out-and-out theft is another thing entirely.
I, also, applaud DirecTV's actions and I rejoice at the thought of all those poor, poor little crooks missing the Superbowl. Awww, I'm playing a teeny violin for them.
No mercy for thieves.
"Cruel and inhuman punishments are being carefully described in tiny paragraphs so they don't conflict with the Constitution - which, itself, is being modified in order to accommodate The Future..."
- Frank Zappa (The Central Scrutinizer, "Joes's Garage, Act I")
As usual, the film industry is going to point to this example and say "See? We tried to do a fantasy genre movie, but it bombed! People don't want this stuff."
I don't understand - CDDB the system existed before CDDB the company. The CDDB code was written before the ocmpany even existed. If that doesn't count as Prior Art, what does?
Second, too many big companies have spent too much money on Linux by now to allow this to happen, since having one stable, compatible operating system that competes with M$ is the whole reason they got involved in the first place. They are doubtless very aware that any fragmentation would defeat the whole purpose and ruin all their efforts by allowing the critics to say "Ah ha! Told you so!" and scare away a great many customers.
Third, what reason would anyone have to fragment it? Ask yourself: what could anyone add to a new version that would 1) be so amazingly good that people would abandon standard versions for it, 2) was a feature that couldn't possible be added to standard Linux, and 3) couldn't be done much more easily, cheaply, and without alienating anyone, by simply releasing the source or selling the binary commercially?
The 30-second skip is a MAJOR feature, and almost 100% of the reason I bought a Replay. It should not be underestimated, because it gives you
a resource more valuable than gold: TIME.
When I watch programs on Replay and a commercial comes on, I just hit the skip button 5 times (occaisionally 7 times), and whammo - I'm at the show again. No overshooting, no FF or RW, you're just there - bingo. Now I can easily watch an hour-long show in 40 minutes without ever futzing around with FF and overshoots.
It's no accident that Tivo will never have this capability - they're too much in bed with the "force you to watch commercials and sell all your private data while charging you for the priviledge" crowd.
Hmm, let's see...
Tivo: No 30-second skip, commercials are still a PITA.
Tivo: seeling your private data to marketers
Tivo: Making you pay for the priviledge, a *minimum* of $200
Replay: 3-second skips saves scads of timeand frustration
Replay: Doesn't (yet) sell individually-identifiable data to 3rd parties
Replay: NO extra fees, ever.
To me it's a no-brainer.
What do you think about "third" party candidates - who are on more than enough ballots to win a presidential election - being kept out of the debates?
Do you feel that the "big two" parties are afraid of exposing the country to views other than their own? If they aren't, they why don't they welcome all parties into the political process?
Saying "politics doesn't matter anymore" is clearly foolish, and I don't think Jon is a fool, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that wasn't his point. After all, politics affect us greatly in every way, every day - from how much money we have to what books we can read. It affects every aspect of our lives, financially, personally, socially, and so on. There's no disputing that politics has a huge effect on us.
That being said, I believe Jon's point was that fewer and fewer people follow, or care about politics. This, in contrast, is deonstrably true. So in that sense, and that sense only, politics are "mattering" less to individuals bcause so many people either feel that "my vote can't change anything, so why bother", or "all politicians are scum", or they feel too busy to bother, or they're just generally angry at the system, or whatever. For any or all of those reasons, people are becoming less and less involved in the political system, just hoping and trusting that "someone is in Washington taking care of it". They have a sense that nothing really bad can happen, and if it starts to, "the government" will take care of it. In short, citizens have sold their franchise and voice in exchange for the comfort of ignorance and the pormise that someone else will take care of everything. I don't need to point out to anyone here how dangerous that kind fo thinking is.
What is really happening in politics is this: the fewer people involved in the process, the more power gets concentrated in the hands of those who still do care enough to participate. And, unfortunately, those people often tend to be the fanatical, one-issue zealots. More and more, the political system is being dominated by, and policy is being made by, those who are extreme enough on an issue to get off their asses and do something.
We have to remember that people always have the government that they deserve. As Amerians, we have collectively given up our freedom in exchange for promises to be left alone in our comfy cocoons, undisturbed by thorny issues: "Just keep the cable TV and pizza coming, and I don't give a damn what you do out there." And therefore, we deserve a government that doesn't respect us or our rights.
It's been said, correctly, that "America is at that awkward stage where it's too late to work within the system, and too early to shoot the bastards." The entrenched powers-that-be have no interest in ever giving up that power, and since Congress controls all the laws, there's no way they would ever pass a law limiting their power. The one and only big miastake the founders made when writing the constitution was giving Congress the power to police itself and make its own rules. When the only body that can control Congress is Congress, the conlict of interest couldn't be more clear.
Sadly, there's only one solution, and it seems extrememly distasteful at first: we will simply have to adopt "direct democracy", whether we like it or not. Every person is allowed to vote on every issue, electronically. Representative democracy was originally structured the way it is primarily because direct democracy wasn't really possible when the fastest news could travel was by horse. Now we have the technical cpabaility for everyone to vote on everything, and as sucky as system as it would be, it will still be better than the current one.
Yes, I hear everyone saying "But most people are morons! They don't know anything about the issues! They will be swayed by demagogues and fleeting passions!". We, OK, yes - they will be. But the question is, will they be swayed any more than the people in congress? Could they do any worse?
Originally congress was supposed to be a buffer between the people and the law, carefully considering laws objectively to see if they were good for the country in the long term. But we all know it's been quite a long time - if ever - since congress has actually been objective. Laws are passed or not passed based not on how good they are for the country, but how good they are for congressmen's careers. So, if we're going to have laws passed based on self-interest, shouldn't be our own self-interest and not some congressman's?
All the objections to "Direct democracy", that The People Are An Ass, are true. But the fact is that Congressmen are bigger asses, and they are asses in greedy, personal, self-enriching ways. Better to have the people voting for their own selfish self-interest than the congress, for theirs.
One area where "Open-Sourcing" books would work wonderfully is in the field of textbooks. Most people know how ridiculously expensive textbooks are, but few know the reasons and the politics behind why they are so expensive - the cozy "sweetheart" deals between publishers and many professors, the claims of publishers that new editions are required for subjects that change very slowly (basic chemistry) or not at all (ancient literature). And we've seen here on Slashdot how publishers of "electronic textbooks" are now trying to even prevent students from selling abck their books by making them electronic and forbidding transferral. After all, every used textbook bought is money from the publisher's pocket.
The Open Source community has many rspected experts within its ranks, and the idea that "information wants to be fre" - certainly, valuable educational infomation - fits right in with the Open Source philosophy. We all agree how important eduation is, so having Open Source textbooks would be a great boon to struggling students who currently have to spend as much as $100 or more for a single textbook. All it would take would be several experts getting together to write the work, and then GPL'ing it, then updating it only as needed. And of course the Open Source method of constant peer review would catch errors in text and ensure the completness and acuracy of the information, while weeding out overly "political" positions and keeping books to "just the facts".
One thing to remember is that "Open Source" books would have one fundamentaladvantage over the current "E-books": you are perfectly allowed to rpint them out and read them on paper if you prefer - if you don't want to read the book on a screen, just download it and print it out. Colleges especially could benefit from this, perhaps providing a cheap means to print and bind open-sorce textbooks for their students.
Hell, probably half the RIAA's lawyers would have to remove themselves from the case due to conflict of interest with their alma mater.
One of the beauties of the Linux world is that even as comanies and distributions and come and go, as long as they open-source the stuff they do, even if they die, the good parts of what thev's done get left behind and aded to Linux overall, making it better. This process seems similar to evolution, or maybe the accretion that forms coral reefs.
If "Company A" writes "Awesome Install Program X", and open-sources it, then even if Company A later dies, the good work still remains behind and gets added to the body of Linux code, improving future versions. In this way, good code still gets passed on even if individual distributions may go away.
For the record, I've been playing RPGs for even longer than you - I played the very, very first Basic D&D back in the early 80's. And I say that in the places where you're not completely incoherent, you're wrong. Who says White Wolf didn't intend their games to have even a hint of politicvs to them? Do you you think writers live in a vacuum? What makes you think that the game themes don't reflect the opinions of the writers at all?
It's also very telling that your mailto is set to "Go flame someone who cares", while you're busy writing flames yourself. Just another indication of "I want to be able to do it, but not let other people do it."
Good thing we have you around to decide what we can and can't read, and it sure is fair of you to spout flames at people but prevent any response by putting your fingers in your ears and humming "I can heeearrr youuuu!" like a 4-year-old.
You think you won't have any problems because you have a perfect credit rating, and the closest you've ever been to credit card fraud is rading about it in the paper? Think again. PayPal uses a separate"fraud prevention" company that has its own mysterious, secret rules for who's an "acceptable risk" or not. It doesn't matter if you've never had even the tiniest problem with your credit or cards - if they decide, for whatever bizarre reason known only to them, that your card is a "risk", you can forget about using PayPal. And you can forget about ever finding out the mysterious reason that you've been rejected.
And PayPal couldn't care less. First, they try as hard as they can to blame it on your bank. When you finally prove that there's no problem with yoru bank, they hem and haw and beat around the bush and give you all kinds of doubletalk. When you ask them "why was my card rejected? What's the problem?" they simply have no answer.
I wouldn't use PayPal now even if they allowed my card, because clearly they couldn't care less about customer service or being open and honest with their customers.
And, I might add, this is far from the first time we've heard reports like this. There's plenty of independent validation - nothing rock-solid and 100% verifiable, but collectively they add up.
Finally, what makes you think these things aren't true? Do you believe MS's products are so wonderful that they can replace anything? Do you have a hard time believing that NT isn't up to the heavy-duty tasks of Real Computing(tm)?
Maybe there's no reason to believe this it true, but there's also no reason to believe it isn't.
The truth is, though, that the content of most textbooks - certainly, not inroductory-level ones - doesn't need to change much at all. How different is the information contained in a ten-year-old "Chemistry 101" textbook or a history or literature text from the content of today? Not much, unless you're reading the "newly revised to make Poltically Correct Morons Happy" history books or something.
Open Source Textbooks are a simple idea: get a bunch of qualified people together to collaborate on a "definitive" text that's well-written, contains all the necessary information, and the put it up on the Net in various formats (PDF/text/HTML/whatever) for students to read online, download and read offline, or simply print out. When it's decided that enough new information has become available to warrant a new "edition" (version), then the changes are made and the 2.0 version posted.
In this way, we could remove the profit from the greedy textbook industry and at the same time save students a lot of money which they may not have. Textbooks are a huge expense for students, and the textbook industry charges insane amounts for them. It's a nice racket - on the one hand, they claim they have to charge a lot to cover the expenses of new editions, and on the other hand, they try to make it as hard as possible to buy used copies, and use every trick in the book (pun intended) to force professors into requiring the latest editions of text when the older editions are still 100% usable.
Having a full set of excellent Open-Source textbooks, written by prominent people in their fields and used by forward-thinking (and student-considering) professors could greatly enhance education by not only making it cheaper to be a student, but also making the works available to the interested general public.
I believe there is a project like this already underway, but I don't have the information at hand. Anyone who's interested, write me and I'll see if I can find it and send it along.
Don't be a buffoon, John - no one on Slashdot has ever condoned, or approved of, the dissemination of "kiddie porn" in any way. I've been reading Slashdot for years, and nothing I've ever read here, posted either by the maintainers or users, could be construed to mean that they approve of "kiddie porn", or oppose prosecution of the scumbags who deal it. Just because people question the methods used to find such things doesn't mean they approve of it.
Wow, free email addreses, you don't say! What a cool and novel idea! Good thing USPS thought of it first! And there are so many compelling reasons to have another mailbox filled with nothing but spam!
/dev/null. Better yet, set your MTA up to bounce everything right back.
I agree it will be the biggest spam tool ever, but who would ever use it? Anyone with a net connection can already get all the free email addresses they want, so what possible reason would there be for anyone to even care about their 'USPS' email address?
So they'll give me one. Televangelist scam artist conman assholes send me free Holy Cornmeal and Anointing Oil, too, but that doesn't make me do anything with it but toss it in the garbage. They can't force you to check your USPS email, or to not route it to
Just ignore it. Let their mail servers overflow with unread spam. BFD. Sit back and watch the fun as the whole thing collapses under the weight of spam that's read by no one but the spammers who wrote it.
Big whoop.
I know it's probably asking too much of John Carmack, after all he and Id have done for Linux (and don't think it isn't appreciated, Guys!) - but maybe Id should simply put it in their publishing contracts that the Linux version MUST be released in the retail outlets at exactly the same time as the Windoze version. A company like Loki could never get away with this, but who could stand up to Id? What publisher would want to risk losing the publishing contract for a game like "Doom III" just because they insisted on delaying the Linux version? They'd stand to lose a lot of money, and for what?
I hate to ask for "more!" after the pioneering work by the Id crew, but if we let the game industry treat Linux users like second-class citizens, we'll never get any respect. I think Id should put their foot down and say, "Look, you'll release the Linux version at the same time as the Windows version, or we'll give the deal to any one of the many other publishers who'd love to have our games on any terms."
I never saw the point in this. Yeah, the *concept* of a libertarian state/data haven is very strong, but why spend $1 billion to build something that floats? There are tons of tiny little countries that are poor but own hundreds of islands. Just go to one of them, offer them a couple million dollars for an uninhabited island of a few square miles, and secede from their country (with their permission). Declare yourself a new country, in possession of dirt. If you need more space, buy a couple more islands - they don't even have to be in the same ocean.
But why not? That's my question. Why would Loki have an NDA about sales figures? I might be able to understand if sales sucked, and they want ed to cover it up, but I have a feeling sales are at least moderately good, if not exceptionally good. And if so, why not brag about it? What's the big secret?
You're ridiculous. It's been a year since I had *any* problem installaing a game, and for a year before *that* it was only minor problems. If you have games "trash" your system, all that means is that you need to learn something about computers.
Yeah, I feel the same way. I used to be obsessed with getting the very latest-and greatest, bleeding-edge graphics hardware. I'd spend whatever it took to get the card that had the best numbers that week. But of course I always got royally screwed when it came to drivers, especially for Linux. Either there would be no XF86 server, or crappy Windoze drivers, or no Linux support at all.
Feh! I'm sick and tired of it. Graphic card manufacturers, listen up: from now on, I'm buying whichever card has the best Linux support, PERIOD.
Now that there are good games for Linux, and more coming all the time, this is of critical importance to me. When there were no games for Linux, I could get by with half-assed X support. But now Linux support is going to be my first and most important criteria for selecting a graphics card, and I don't care if your speed numbers are supposedly a little faster. I'd rather have a card that *works* and only gets 59 frames per second instead of 61.
The most ridiculous and incomprehensible thing is that video card manufacturers have an opportunity to greatly increase their sales, for FREE, by doing nothing more than giving out information that does no one ANY good except people who want to make their product work better. They could spend less on engineering, more on software support, and increase profits. Talk about the Pointy-Haired Legions!
Katz often makes some sense, but in this case he has totally swallowed the liberal, PC, hippie-crunchy party line. He's 100% WRONG. The so-called "protesters" had absolutely NO idea what they were supposed to be protesting. They just had some kind of vague "capitalism is bad" notion, and too much time on their hands between lattes.
Yuppies should wake up and realize that politics are something you have as a belief, not something you march about because it's fashionable and they guy across the hall is doing it, and you can chat with him after the protest (whatever it was about, who knows?) and maybe get some business from him for you web design firm.
I have ZERO respect for the "protesters". they were morons who had no idea what message, if any, tehy were trying to get across. Whatever they may or may not have intended, the message which came across loud and clear was "We are idiots. We are out here for fun. Ignore us. We're just looking for something exciting to chat about at the next cocktail party."
They only know one thing: Units. Specifically, "SKU's" (stock keeping units). that's how they internally track sales of products. If their little Excel spreadsheets show them that a certain SKU has sold well, then they will order more in the future.
So Carmack is doing exactly the right thing by putting the Linux version in a separate box, and I for one will absolutely wait until I see a Linux box on the shelf, even if it take 2 months after the Windows release (I've waited this long already, and I have the demo version to play). If I know that it's out but I don't see a Linux version on the shelf, the I will tell the store manager that I am leaving to buy it somewhere else.
People, we have to do this with the first 50 or so Linux games that get sold at retail. If we don't, and we wimp out and just buy the windows versions, then we will fulfill our own prophecy and never have great games for Linux.
The only other think that I think Id could and should do is use its marketing clout to get distributors and retailers to treat the Linux version fairly. They should release the Linux version FIRST, and the, when they see it on the shelves, only THEN release the Windows version. they should go to distributors and say "We have the hottest new game in a long time. We're Id. If you want it, then treat Linux fairly."
Huh. You should feel lucky that you have as much security as an actual password! My investment accounts with Fidelity are protected by the combination of my SSN and a *4-digit PIN!*. That's right - all anyone has to do is get my SSN (how tough is that these days) and guess 4 digits, and they can wipe out every penny of my retirement savings (or anyone else's at Fidelity).
Does Fidelity give a damn? No way. Why not? because they have so many legal disclimers and exclusions buried in the boilerplate of their service agreement that their CEO could abscond to a desert island with everyone's money and laugh at us, and we wouldn't be able to hold them liable. They accept no responsibility for anything bad happening to you through their own mistakes, so this just isn't an issue for them.
Pisses me off!