people are starting to see that the windows treadmill is a trap. once you get sucked into a windows way of life, upgrades and re-installs and tweaks and fixes all seem to be 'normal' ways to use the computer
Whilst I agree to some point, there are still plenty of people who use Windows 95 and 98 and shouldn't be considered stuck in the "windows treadmill".
The real treadmill is the hardware one for games. If you want to keep up with the latest and greatest games you have to fork out the cash for the faster better hardware.
People spend far more on this than they do on their operating system (which is generally the one they got with the PC and the one that is on there when the PC dies or is canned for a newer, faster one).
So whilst i agree with you that there is a treadmill, it's not really as much of a trap as you make it out to be.
I've been skiing now for 5 years. Last year I decided to try Snowboarding for a bit.
(Mods: this is on topic - bear with me)
So off I went to France. It was beautiful, perfect snow, lovely mountains, perfect pistes. I put on my snowboard and started to learn.
The problem I came across was that I couldn't do anything I wanted to. I could see where I wanted to go (I wanted to hit the slopes dammit!) but I completely lacked the skill required to get there.
After half a day, I'm ashamed to say I gave up. I was only there for 3 days and i'd wasted some of that precious time getting absolutely nowhere. So I put on my ski's, hit the reds and blacks and had a fantastic 2.5 days.
Linux is like that for me. I like it, I want to use it, the problem is that I think of it as a tool to do something else and I just end up getting frustrated because i can't do the boring things really quickly because i'm too ingraned in the Windows way of doing it.
I can change the display resolution quickly in Windows. I have to faff about in Linux. I can install items in Windows with a few point and clicks. Everything i've tried to install under Linux has botched up through my own general incompetance. The very basic of things takes 5 times as long and I get frustrated and eventually switch back to Windows (I still can't dial up under Linux, it refuses to recognise my external Hayes modem and KPPP dies horribly with some error message - the Gnome one hangs on startup).
Whilst Linux on the desktop might not be totally there, it's biggest problem is not that, but of people like me who don't have the patience to learn how to do the things (that they can do really quickly under Windows) differently.
There was a product -- I don't remember the name -- which was supposed to be a module you could drop into a conventional 35mm film camera that would turn it into a digital camera. It never materialized, of course.
I'm given to understand that in England they spell the word color with a u (colour). Don't ask why, I don't know that. I'd argue that either answer is correct given that both spellings are common.
To be really pedantic "colour" is British English and used throughout the rest of the world, whereas "color" is American English and only used in the USA and Canada. Therefore, it would probably be more anal to say that "colour" is the more proper way since it hasn't been modified for the Americans.
However, props to you for considering that both be valid. I know a large number of Americans who would consider that because "colour" isn't spelt the American way, it's wrong.
"Clearly, something monumental must be going on in the world of computing for these technology titans simultaneously to discover something that is so profound and yet so hard to name.'"
But if you have no idea what it is how can you claim it to be profound? Remember the Segway?
Your point is correct, but the reason the article calls it "profound" is because it's being slightly sarcastic.
Shocking for The Economist I know, but it does happen.
Because, unless you hadn't noticed, in this day and age its heading closer and closer to the situation where everyone is presumed guily until proven innocent.
Far better to insure yourself just in case you get in a sticky situation than sit back and "hope" that justice prevails - because time and time again we've seen that it doesn't work out quite that way.
I guess some people will not truely understand the different between copyright infringment and piracy until they are killed on the high seas by people with eye patches who go "Arrrrg!"
Not necessarily. In the UK at least.
I was speaking to a lawyer friend of mine and he was explaining that "theft" is an extremely complex area of the law and it is entirely possible that if a judge decided that what you have done should be classed as theft, then that is what you'll get charged under.
Couple of examples: British Rail vs a ticket tout. British Rail claimed that the ticket tout was stealing (theft) from them by reselling tickets. Despite the fact that the tickets had been legitimately bought and could be used over and over again - they claimed that it was theft of potential revenues. They won.
One other example: If you managed to find a way to take money from other peoples bank accounts and put it into yours. Technically until you take out the money, you haven't stolen anything. It's just an additional number of zeros added to the end of your bank balance. However - in the eyes of the law, you have stolen and you can be tried and sent to prison for theft (and people have) even though you haven't actually stolen anything.
What I'm trying to say is that although Slashdotters like to think that "theft" and "copyright infringement" are two completely seperate and distinct things (and even I think that too), the law regarding the two is a lot more complex and often means that they cross heavily into each other.
In summary: In the UK at least, when people talk about theft of music by digital copying, they're not completely wrong - but they aren't completely right either.
I noticed this happening yesterday on my WinXP machine. After clicking Start->Programs and right-clicking on any icon, c:\windows\explorer.exe attempts to connect to crl.verisign.com [198.49.161.200], port 80.
I noticed this yesterday on my Win2k machine. Occasionally the dialer would appear asking me if I wanted to connect to the internet.
How did you stop it doing so? My PC is no-where near a phone line so I can't get it to dial up.
The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S
Even if they all suddenly would work for half the salary overnight, HP would have to reduce the price of their products too in order to ensure that people can afford to purchase them.
In other words, their percentage profit on an item would stay the same. The fact that educated workers can demand a higher salary in the US means that corporations can get away with providing more expensive goods. In many other countries, you'd never be able to sell something at US prices.
You make money like everything in the GNU/FOSS movement...by charging for services, installation, operation.
The problem is, if your application is well designed and well documented (as in documentation for users - not just code comments) then there should be little to no need for users to require support for installation and operation.
Which only leaves you coding new features. Which if you code is suitably well written and commented, then it might be cheaper for them to do the majority of small things internally and leave you completely out of the loop.
Digital tv means providers can finally start to monitor who is watching what and when, this means they get to build up massive databases of viewing patterns. Combine this with an increased level of profiling and we get targeted advertising. The great joy of been told what we want according to what we watch and whatever random data the advertising companies have bought.
Actually I quite like the idea of targetted advertising. I'd be more interested in adverts of technology gadgets, restaurants, sports and mens fashion than be fed adverts of sanitary towels, washing up liquids, baby toys (that really wet themselves) and pension schemes.
i.e. 3000/256. As I work for a webhosting company, I know that bandwidth can only be bought symetrically (you can't buy an incomming DS3 with an outboung T-1). So, why do they cap your upload speeds so low?
I'm sure there is a more technical answer than this but one reason would be to make running a server rather slow which would force you to look at a better (and more expensive) package.
MusicBrainz::Client and AudioFile::Identify::MusicBrainz were not used because MusicBrainz appears to be a less comprehensive database of released CDs than FreeDB.
True, but the point of MusicBrainz is not to hold a database of released CD's but more snapshots of MP3 tracks.
At the moment, without MusicBrainz I cannot automatically populate my ID3 tags with the information about an album unless I get it out of the cupboard and type the details in myself.
MusicBrainz allows me to do all this without any access to the CD's
Slashdot Mirror
Whilst I agree to some point, there are still plenty of people who use Windows 95 and 98 and shouldn't be considered stuck in the "windows treadmill".
The real treadmill is the hardware one for games. If you want to keep up with the latest and greatest games you have to fork out the cash for the faster better hardware.
People spend far more on this than they do on their operating system (which is generally the one they got with the PC and the one that is on there when the PC dies or is canned for a newer, faster one).
So whilst i agree with you that there is a treadmill, it's not really as much of a trap as you make it out to be.
(Mods: this is on topic - bear with me)
So off I went to France. It was beautiful, perfect snow, lovely mountains, perfect pistes. I put on my snowboard and started to learn.
The problem I came across was that I couldn't do anything I wanted to. I could see where I wanted to go (I wanted to hit the slopes dammit!) but I completely lacked the skill required to get there.
After half a day, I'm ashamed to say I gave up. I was only there for 3 days and i'd wasted some of that precious time getting absolutely nowhere. So I put on my ski's, hit the reds and blacks and had a fantastic 2.5 days.
Linux is like that for me. I like it, I want to use it, the problem is that I think of it as a tool to do something else and I just end up getting frustrated because i can't do the boring things really quickly because i'm too ingraned in the Windows way of doing it.
I can change the display resolution quickly in Windows. I have to faff about in Linux. I can install items in Windows with a few point and clicks. Everything i've tried to install under Linux has botched up through my own general incompetance. The very basic of things takes 5 times as long and I get frustrated and eventually switch back to Windows (I still can't dial up under Linux, it refuses to recognise my external Hayes modem and KPPP dies horribly with some error message - the Gnome one hangs on startup).
Whilst Linux on the desktop might not be totally there, it's biggest problem is not that, but of people like me who don't have the patience to learn how to do the things (that they can do really quickly under Windows) differently.
And it still hasn't.
Stand up Silicon Film Technologies ...
Whoopses. Sky over here in the UK is heavily plugging Jake 2.0 which is due to start in February.
Nothing like starting to watch a series which has already been canned!
Because they make money from it, their advertisers make money from it and therefore their advertisers use it more.
It's not really strange at all - outside the Slashdot-world people really do click on those links, which, by definition, means that it's effective.
To be really pedantic "colour" is British English and used throughout the rest of the world, whereas "color" is American English and only used in the USA and Canada. Therefore, it would probably be more anal to say that "colour" is the more proper way since it hasn't been modified for the Americans.
However, props to you for considering that both be valid. I know a large number of Americans who would consider that because "colour" isn't spelt the American way, it's wrong.
I know the one :o)
But if you have no idea what it is how can you claim it to be profound? Remember the Segway?
Your point is correct, but the reason the article calls it "profound" is because it's being slightly sarcastic.
Shocking for The Economist I know, but it does happen.
Annoys the hell out of me.
No-one seems to have modded it up to a point where people might start actually seeing it.
Because, unless you hadn't noticed, in this day and age its heading closer and closer to the situation where everyone is presumed guily until proven innocent.
Far better to insure yourself just in case you get in a sticky situation than sit back and "hope" that justice prevails - because time and time again we've seen that it doesn't work out quite that way.
Not necessarily. In the UK at least.
I was speaking to a lawyer friend of mine and he was explaining that "theft" is an extremely complex area of the law and it is entirely possible that if a judge decided that what you have done should be classed as theft, then that is what you'll get charged under.
Couple of examples: British Rail vs a ticket tout. British Rail claimed that the ticket tout was stealing (theft) from them by reselling tickets. Despite the fact that the tickets had been legitimately bought and could be used over and over again - they claimed that it was theft of potential revenues. They won.
One other example: If you managed to find a way to take money from other peoples bank accounts and put it into yours. Technically until you take out the money, you haven't stolen anything. It's just an additional number of zeros added to the end of your bank balance. However - in the eyes of the law, you have stolen and you can be tried and sent to prison for theft (and people have) even though you haven't actually stolen anything.
What I'm trying to say is that although Slashdotters like to think that "theft" and "copyright infringement" are two completely seperate and distinct things (and even I think that too), the law regarding the two is a lot more complex and often means that they cross heavily into each other.
In summary: In the UK at least, when people talk about theft of music by digital copying, they're not completely wrong - but they aren't completely right either.
Mmmmmmmmmm .... pie.
You can do that already with Google:
A search for "Microsoft is evil" gets you 600,000 pages.
A search for "Microsoft is good" gets you 3,590,000 pages.
Therefore Microsoft is more good than evil.
Err ... that wasn't quite the answer I was expecting.
(cue sounds of joke falling apart...)
I noticed this yesterday on my Win2k machine. Occasionally the dialer would appear asking me if I wanted to connect to the internet.
How did you stop it doing so? My PC is no-where near a phone line so I can't get it to dial up.
Even if they all suddenly would work for half the salary overnight, HP would have to reduce the price of their products too in order to ensure that people can afford to purchase them.
In other words, their percentage profit on an item would stay the same. The fact that educated workers can demand a higher salary in the US means that corporations can get away with providing more expensive goods. In many other countries, you'd never be able to sell something at US prices.
Pity it's not a DVD player as I stack 8 odd movies onto one disk - but if it works, it's quite some piece of kit.
The problem is, if your application is well designed and well documented (as in documentation for users - not just code comments) then there should be little to no need for users to require support for installation and operation.
Which only leaves you coding new features. Which if you code is suitably well written and commented, then it might be cheaper for them to do the majority of small things internally and leave you completely out of the loop.
Actually I quite like the idea of targetted advertising. I'd be more interested in adverts of technology gadgets, restaurants, sports and mens fashion than be fed adverts of sanitary towels, washing up liquids, baby toys (that really wet themselves) and pension schemes.
I'm sure there is a more technical answer than this but one reason would be to make running a server rather slow which would force you to look at a better (and more expensive) package.
True, but the point of MusicBrainz is not to hold a database of released CD's but more snapshots of MP3 tracks.
At the moment, without MusicBrainz I cannot automatically populate my ID3 tags with the information about an album unless I get it out of the cupboard and type the details in myself.
MusicBrainz allows me to do all this without any access to the CD's
However I've paused a track and carried on working on something else. 20 minutes later ... "Winamp has generated errors and will be shut down".
So I'm back to Winamp 2. Close but no cigar. I'll check back on it in about 6 months time.
Hear hear! Too true. You'd never see anyone do anything like that.
Funnily enough, I wrote some more insightful, interesting and funny comments about this article here :o)
But I thought an iPod was lame?
Whats with the radical change of opinion?
Excellent, thanks very much! I had a quick play and didn't think that much of it - I think I'll have a go and see what I can do.
If I get anything that works, i'll let you know!