1. Losing the pointless duplication of declarations in.h files. In fact, you would not need.h files anymore except for backwards compatibility. 'Course you'd lose the ability to make a header file do different things based on defined symbols, but that would be an advance IMHO.
Someone must not have been paying atttention in their OOP and OOD classes. Headers are for other programmers, so they know the interface they are to use when programming with that module, WITHOUT laying bare the sum total of the module's source code. Very necessary if you're in the business of selling precompiled libraries you don't want copied. They also do serve a compiler function, but that could be removed to speed things up as you've stated.
2. Virtual methods can be determined by the linker, so the programmer no longer needs to specify virtual-ness at all.
Again, back to class for you! Imagien, if you will, a VERY sensitive public function in a class, it manipulates the private member variables in a low level manner, and ALL or at least MOST of the other functions count on it to do so. Now imagine fscking with that function by letting Joe Random Coder make it virtual at will. Frightening thoughts.
I hate to be so blunt, this isn't meant as a flame, per se, but a little research into the reasoning can go a long way with some of these things.
I had the same thoughts, but then I recalled some of the facts about Chernobyl. I don't recall the exact radius of uninhabitable land, but it is a fairly huge area, and it is quite possible both Philadelphia and New York City would have to be abandoned if TMI were to go up in a big way. Of course, considering the fact that TMI rests on a river emptying into the Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore and Washington D.C. would not go untouched either.
Basically, there was a reason TMI was a big deal, since a VERY large portion of the US East Coast population would have been in danger.
Well, there are a few of us who would like to use the capabilities given us by our systems, like say setting up our own mail server [maybe I'm alone in this, but I hate my e-mail's fate being in someone else's hands], or how about a smallish web site that still has full functionality for CGI et al? Maybe not every last person needs every sort of server, but why should only the privaledged few get to control the digital printing presses?
my reply: Good thing you aren't a lawyer, else you might get lynched [for the record, IANAL either, but such a broad interpretation of the law at hand is somewhat disturbing]
Its a question of markets, and who the 'common' customers in those markets are. OpenGL[tm, to satisfy the bloodsuckers] has two markets:
1. Game players
2. Game creators
Now, the average game player MAY confuse OpenGL with OpenIL, however OpenIL is not likely to appear in the same context as OpenGL [i.e. on the side of a box for a 3D game]. OpenIL is not targeted a J. Random Gamer.
Game creators, on the other hand, may take note of, and make use of, OpenIL [though, if it is GPL'd that likelyhood drops], but they could also be reasonably expected by any sane person to know the difference. If they didn't, I know *I* wouldn't buy a game from them.
Now, SGI does have enough to bring about a lawsuit, hence the questioner's fear. Personally [previosu disclaimer applies of course] I think he could win with a good lawyer, but that is likely beyond his means or desire. My suggestion to him, to avoid having to change the name entirely and tons of documentation with it, is to go from OpenIL to OIL. Same initials, SGI ought to shut up, and makes a handy, easily pronouncable acronym besides:)
Actually, you need to distinguish between a common AI [artificial intelligence] and what is typically meant by the term, which would more properly be called an ACI [autonomous computer intelligence]. Why? Well, we already have 'AI' of a sort, at least in limited scope. Intelligence is a many leveled and varied word. The real issue is sentience, hence the 'autonomous' part. An ACI would be self aware, self determining, like other sentient beings. A simple AI simply does what it is told and nothing more [within a given set of parameters. Check the AI for games. It IS all deterministic, its just really well specified, so it seems to act nearly like a human player].
Coomon use of 'AI' seems to connote 'ACI', hence the confusion. You use AI in the correct, specific sense, the article uses it in the more generally accepted sense.
So in order to avoid the problems that this will cause, just remember that if someone approaches with open gunports, they are hostile.
Not true necessarily. I forget which Sci-Fi show I saw it on, but that exact assumption nearly led to a war [the race in question flew with totally open weapons ports/systems, to them it was like coming out with your hands up, the other people could see precisely what you were packing {incidentally, I think the origin of the handshake follows similar reasoning}]
Two things would be needed for a first contact: [assuming they or we already knew how to communicate with one another]
1. No assumptions, simply take it as it comes.
2. An ability to let conflicting values slide. So long as they don't plan to push whatever it is they do that we don't like on us, we should ignore it as much as we can. Their culture, their business.
You know, I hadn't known the problem was this big...
Of course, my main beef is that Northpoint going south has claimed, at least temporarily, a favored site of mine. www.eyrie.net was running of Northpoint DSL... hell , I was in mid post on their discussion board when it went FUBAR. [for those in the dark, www.eyrie.net was {and will be, if/when it goes back up} the home of Eyrie Productions Unlimited, the warped minds behind the Undocumented Features fanfic, as well as several other reasonably large projects.]
You know, I hope all this 'market shakedown' stuff is finished soon, I want reliable broadband with decent upstream damnit!
It is a luxury, but not as much as you might think. For one thing, if your job involves the net, having good access to the net is very very useful [say you're a web developer, having a way to check your company's pages on an outside connection is handy]. Also, if you use open source software, a fat pipe becomes a blessing from above [ever try to download a whole CD ISO over a modem?]. So, sure, right now it isn't a necessity, but then again, according to the government, neither is transportation.[I guess everyone ought to be able to walk to where they work, or they shouldn't have a job, right?]
OK, so anyone who wants to get decent download speeds and ping times, and maybe wants to run there own mail server or some other small time upstream sort of thing, has to move into a city? What is this, some sort of technological segregation? "Oh, I'm sorry, if you want to play Quake 3 online with a decent ping, you have to live near crack houses." If you don't want to be connected that's fine, but don't force your neighbors to have to move if they want a fatter pipe.
hehe, you are not alone in your distaste for her vocal talents. As a matter of fact, the horrible power her voice weilds shows up in the [damned longest, and quite possibly best] fanfic called Undocumented Features. check www.eyrie.net for all the text files [including the description of how Minmei's singing nearly dooms the whole universe].
Let's take a quick look at your arguements, shall we?
Your starving student arguement has one glaring flaw: most are. Unless you were born into to money, you have to work damned hard to get through college, and you DO NOT GET PAID A DIME the entire time you are there. 4 years or more of work, NO monetary compensation. Those who have plenty of money do it one of two ways, both of which apply to any artist. Frist, they are simply born into a wealthy family. Second, they have to work outside of classes in order to support themselves, and often pay for their very education.
Ok, on to your false assumption that all artists would stare if they didn't get megabucks from CD's etc. etc. One, see above methods for surviving through a hardship till you make your name. Two, they at least can get paid to play small venues, while they are still learning even, which while not much, is more than any college student will ever be paid, so that puts them ahead, doesn't it?
I'm not sure I can argue with your last statement, as, even though you meant it tongue in cheek, I find it rather true none the less, with the addendum that the contributution be useful. If you code something useful for, say , Linux. A patch that fixes the kernel on something obscure like an old Cyrix chip, say, you ought to send it out to be incorporated into the main body of work. After all, hundreds of folks created and gave to you that which you now use to create further, so its only fair to continue the cycle.
And so we reach the crux of the issue: rarity. Musical talent was difficult to obtain and hard to share, for many many years, as few had the time and will to learn to play, and until recently no way to distribute but live performance. Now, we generally have more time to learn, hence more aspiring musicians [and thereby more music] and many distribution channels that allow those talents to be shared easily and painlessly. And yet, in spite of this decrease in rarity, those involved in music make more money than ever before, and want still more money beyond that [which is greed by definition. If you have enough, and yet desire more, you are beign greedy. Most humans are at various times, so it is natural and forgivable, but being continuously and unrepentantly greedy is not]. I don't, and have never argued that musicians and other artists of various types should be paid like everyone else, but the key words are *everyone else*. Yes, they are talented, but aren't many many people at a great many things? There are few truly masterful surgeons in the world, none of which are paid as well as some entertainers are. Somewhere in there, I see an imbalance that needs correcting.
Customers do not ask for Windows, they simply do not know enough to ask not to have it.
Inconvenient, maybe, costly? In the short term, yes, but over the long term, nope. Consider the cost of 100 Win2k licences, plus a Server varient to plug them all into. Now consider the cost of upgrades for each of those machines, over say a 10 year period. The software costs alone would easily reach 6 figures, maybe 7. Free software, meanwhile, would require a retrainign cost initially, but incur 0 software costs there after. The savinf after 10 years would be significant, and as time passed, would grow larger with each upgrade cycle. The simple fact is, most businesses are too short-sighted to think on that scale, they only see the initial training costs, and maybe look a year or two ahead, not seeing the bigger picture. Beside that, if somehow M$ fails in the future, they have no way to upgrade the saftware on their own, meanwhile OSS is user maintainable ad infinitum if need be. It is a simple lack of the big picture, much the same trouble you appear to be suffering from with your interminable rantings. [Apologies in advance for the ad hominem, but frustration wears one thin after a while, and for the life of me I fail to grasp why you are so enamored with things as they are that you do not want to move on to things as they could be]
True, new versions get better, much as roadbuilding technology gets better in time, leading to tougher roads. Thus, when a road is repaired, much like an upgrade, the result is a superior road. And, like a road, as technology ages, it gets worse [less compatible, less reliable, less functional]. Hence, the analogy is valid. [though, I do not know the roads in your area, they may well use the same old technology in rebuilding them, leading to your view of the matter, but that is the fault of those having the contruction done improperly.]
I thought I just got done explaining this elsewhere, but...
For one thing, it isn't a matter of deserving the content, its more a form of civil disobedience. Big Music bends customers over at the cash register, so lots of customers say "fsck this" and leech mp3s. Maybe, just maybe, if Big Music would stop anal violating the pocket books of the customers, the allure of mp3s would diminish. I mean, the difference between $20 and free is a lot, but if CD's were a more realistically priced $10 new, $5 old/used, the time spent waiting for those mp3's to be sucked through the modem might not seem worth it. Of course, it would be best of Big Music choked on its own greenback vomit, but some things are destined to remain only dreams.
You make an invalid assumption that being talented == being irreplacable. The simple fact is, virtually anyone can be replaced. There may be 3 or 4 people on earth who can't, for everyone else, a workable substitute could be found and trained. And it is exactly that fear of being replaced that keeps the artists locked into the rape cycle. Of course they don't use guns, the use worse, they use fear. Mental violence is quite often the worst kind, and also is quite often the most powerful.
You continuous ad hominem attacks grow tiring, but you raise a point I simply can't leave alone. You say people are willing to pay M$ prices. That is not correct. The cost of M$ software is hidden, by and large, from the end user. Windows, Office, and a few other programs come bundled with PC's, and most business users do NOT know how much all that software on their systems cost. To them, it simply came with everything else. The only reason I can see that business hasn't gone to free software tools is that the user base, not realizing how much their Windows habit is costing the company, would complain about the retraining. The company doesn't want, for whatever reason, to deal with the psychological issues of migrating. Its similar to when road work needs to be done. No one is ahppy with the existing roads, but its what they are used to. When the government goes to fix the roads, the transition is painful, since lanes are closed, speeds reduced, etc. People complain a lot during such construction. Likewise, moving to free software would be an improvement in infrastructure, but the backlash due to the cyber equivalent of lane closing is more than they feel like dealing with. Otherwise, I'd imagine businesses by the boatload would gladly switch to freely available tools, thereby saving huge amounts of money that currently gets shipped to M$ by the truckload every time upgrade season occurs.
Oh, BTW, there are plenty of non-physcial menas of commiting rape. Blackmail, drugs, psychological tortures... it would all still be considered rape. In my view, M$ and many of the media industries use a combination of psychological torture and blackmail to get people to spend money, hence it is rape.
Riiight, radio... have you actually LISTENED to the radio lately? On that, I think I can rest my case
Concerts, yup, that's a cheap way to get music... $40 for the cheap seats, what a bargain. Now, if the artist is NOT on the RIAA bandwagon, then I don't mind so much, kind of a combo of supporting justice AND gettign music, so it stops being a rip off.
.RTF... [hysterical laughter] you'll have to excuse me, you see, for a moment I thought you were serious when you expected people [in this case, non technical, barely able to turn the machine on people] to do anything more than see that extension and send it back saying they don't know what it is.
It isn't guilt, if I felt guilty, I'd stop, I'm not that soulless. More than anything, its a sore ass that's tired of being raped.
Impoverish? If musicians got paid on par with programmers, say, and on the same terms, that'd be no problem, and they wouldn't be poor by any means. You don't need megabux just to feed your kids and have a decent home theater set up. Besides, most musician now don't get much anyway, except from shows. So gettign rid of the whole ugly mess and starting over would be better for all of us.
It is also not the duty of other men to engage in the financial equivalent of anal rape for a profit, but they do that all the time.
On you comment about what is vital, culture is valuable, those who do not share common experiences have difficulty communicating and cooperating. Hence, culture, and by extension music [since it is a piece of culture] becomes necessary in some sense. Whole albums? no. A song here or there, just to keep current? Yup. As for M$ software, yeah, I really like not being able to communicate with most of the sheeple in the world. Since M$ refuses to open their formats, and most businesses are too lazy/clueless to use non-M$ software, in order to do business, one is forced to use the commonly used tools. So in some sense M$ has become almost a necessity. [If you doubt me about cluelessness, simply read http://rinkworks.com/stupid/ and you will see ] If the playing field were fair, simply not buying would be enough, but on an unfair field, you have to use underground tactics.
I won't even go near your nick... as for the rest, you must've misread what I was saying. I'm not against being payed, I'm against folks being payed more than once for the same work. I write code, I get paid to wirte the code. I stop writing the code, I stop getting paid. Musician writes cool songs, gets paid. These days, he stops writing, and can keep getting paid. See my problem with the system here?
The key arguement you bring up is FAIR. Take a quick peak at CD prices? Fair? I think not [its why I haven't bought a CD in 2 years]. Take a look at the cost of ANY M$ product? Aagain, fair? I think not. If you refuse me a fair price, I will not buy. I you refuse me a fair price for something I need to survive [in both the physical and mental senses] I will fight you for it. To expect a fair price is one thing, to expect to be paid repeatedly, ad infinitum, is quite another.
...I've got to hit Mr. Joy over the head with it several times.
His assumption that Napster/Napster like entities will 'destroy the ecosystem' of industries like books and music makes a few invalid assumptions [yes, I know they've probably come up here before, but so long as there are the clueless, we must continue distributing the clue]
1. All those who create do so merely for the purpose of making money, and as a result, removing that possibility means no one will ever create again.
Well now, and I thought I was cynical. Simple fact is, most who create solely to make money create inferior items. The true craftsmen [of anything] create because something inside them motivates them to do so. Its why many, many bands are far better before they became popular, its why much of the philosophy of mankind was conceived and written before copyrights were a wet dream in some lawyers loins, and its why open source software exists today. To attach art[and I mean art in the sense of any well crafted item] so closely with greed is to debase those who create. As a programmer, I take actual offense, and I would as a musician or a poet.
2. If folks give [music/text/software] away, those who make it have no way to make money.
Well, here he defeated his own arguements, by statign that software has become about service. Well, maybe its time for writing and music to become about service as well [you know, like the used to be a long time ago, before somone could create one above average collection of songs and retire?]. He basically gives a way for anyone who has been Napsterized to make a living, so how can the ecosystem collapse?
Yeah yeah, the moderators will hate me for this, but really it hasn't gone far enough.
I for one am sick and tired of big companies trying to tell me what I can do with X, Y, or Z product after I've already purchased it. Hell, some companies [*cough*MPAA*cough*] want to tell me WHERE I can do things with their products [what? you don't live in region X? well, sorry, all your region X DVD's are useless, you can suck us off now]. I had liked Creative Labs, but this little jukebox issue has made up my mind to never purchase from them again. All companies who willingly support content access restriction must be eliminated, the sooner the better for all of us. I was going to buy more CD's, I was going to get a DVD player [the tech itself is plenty cool], but the lawsuit happy morons can all starve to death for all I care now. If you solve your problems with lawyers, you aren't worthy of my time or money.
The issue is that with Carnivore [or whatever they call it today] yuo can automate the 'subversive element' search. Collect email, search for "G. W. Sucks", record offending email, audit their taxes, perhaps see if they have any unpaid parking tickets in Idaho, etc. etc. Computers make figuring out who to harass so much easier for the powers that be, and that is something to fear. At least with voice taps, they had to pay a guy to sit there and listen to all the conversations, making casual browsing for subversive items much harder.
Well, I'd really like the text and/or URL of said reg hack, but really, since Windows touts itself as a 'user friendly' environment, such things shouldn't be needed. Personally, I don't mind mucking around in the registry, but lots of folks do. Admitedly, LInux is no better here, but they flat out tell you that you need to do or deal with such things at least. M$ just whistles and looks the other way.
As for BSOD, I don't get THOSE too much, but I do get lockups of various degrees as my memory leaks away. Hopefully the situation will improve when I up my mem size [128 now, 384 soon]. As for Win2k, anyone know where I can get a copy [full install] for under $50? If not, M$ is ripping folks off yet again.
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1. Losing the pointless duplication of declarations in .h files. In fact, you would not need .h files anymore except for backwards compatibility. 'Course you'd lose the ability to make a header file do different things based on defined symbols, but that would be an advance IMHO.
Someone must not have been paying atttention in their OOP and OOD classes. Headers are for other programmers, so they know the interface they are to use when programming with that module, WITHOUT laying bare the sum total of the module's source code. Very necessary if you're in the business of selling precompiled libraries you don't want copied. They also do serve a compiler function, but that could be removed to speed things up as you've stated.
2. Virtual methods can be determined by the linker, so the programmer no longer needs to specify virtual-ness at all.
Again, back to class for you! Imagien, if you will, a VERY sensitive public function in a class, it manipulates the private member variables in a low level manner, and ALL or at least MOST of the other functions count on it to do so. Now imagine fscking with that function by letting Joe Random Coder make it virtual at will. Frightening thoughts.
I hate to be so blunt, this isn't meant as a flame, per se, but a little research into the reasoning can go a long way with some of these things.
-={(Astynax)}=-
I had the same thoughts, but then I recalled some of the facts about Chernobyl. I don't recall the exact radius of uninhabitable land, but it is a fairly huge area, and it is quite possible both Philadelphia and New York City would have to be abandoned if TMI were to go up in a big way. Of course, considering the fact that TMI rests on a river emptying into the Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore and Washington D.C. would not go untouched either.
Basically, there was a reason TMI was a big deal, since a VERY large portion of the US East Coast population would have been in danger.
-={(Astynax)}=-
Well, there are a few of us who would like to use the capabilities given us by our systems, like say setting up our own mail server [maybe I'm alone in this, but I hate my e-mail's fate being in someone else's hands], or how about a smallish web site that still has full functionality for CGI et al? Maybe not every last person needs every sort of server, but why should only the privaledged few get to control the digital printing presses?
-={(Astynax)}=-
my reply: Good thing you aren't a lawyer, else you might get lynched [for the record, IANAL either, but such a broad interpretation of the law at hand is somewhat disturbing]
Its a question of markets, and who the 'common' customers in those markets are. OpenGL[tm, to satisfy the bloodsuckers] has two markets:
1. Game players
2. Game creators
Now, the average game player MAY confuse OpenGL with OpenIL, however OpenIL is not likely to appear in the same context as OpenGL [i.e. on the side of a box for a 3D game]. OpenIL is not targeted a J. Random Gamer.
Game creators, on the other hand, may take note of, and make use of, OpenIL [though, if it is GPL'd that likelyhood drops], but they could also be reasonably expected by any sane person to know the difference. If they didn't, I know *I* wouldn't buy a game from them.
Now, SGI does have enough to bring about a lawsuit, hence the questioner's fear. Personally [previosu disclaimer applies of course] I think he could win with a good lawyer, but that is likely beyond his means or desire. My suggestion to him, to avoid having to change the name entirely and tons of documentation with it, is to go from OpenIL to OIL. Same initials, SGI ought to shut up, and makes a handy, easily pronouncable acronym besides:)
-={(Astynax)}=-
Actually, you need to distinguish between a common AI [artificial intelligence] and what is typically meant by the term, which would more properly be called an ACI [autonomous computer intelligence]. Why? Well, we already have 'AI' of a sort, at least in limited scope. Intelligence is a many leveled and varied word. The real issue is sentience, hence the 'autonomous' part. An ACI would be self aware, self determining, like other sentient beings. A simple AI simply does what it is told and nothing more [within a given set of parameters. Check the AI for games. It IS all deterministic, its just really well specified, so it seems to act nearly like a human player].
Coomon use of 'AI' seems to connote 'ACI', hence the confusion. You use AI in the correct, specific sense, the article uses it in the more generally accepted sense.
-={(Astynax)}=-
So in order to avoid the problems that this will cause, just remember that if someone approaches with open gunports, they are hostile.
Not true necessarily. I forget which Sci-Fi show I saw it on, but that exact assumption nearly led to a war [the race in question flew with totally open weapons ports/systems, to them it was like coming out with your hands up, the other people could see precisely what you were packing {incidentally, I think the origin of the handshake follows similar reasoning}]
Two things would be needed for a first contact: [assuming they or we already knew how to communicate with one another]
1. No assumptions, simply take it as it comes.
2. An ability to let conflicting values slide. So long as they don't plan to push whatever it is they do that we don't like on us, we should ignore it as much as we can. Their culture, their business.
-={(Astynax)}=-
You know, I hadn't known the problem was this big...
Of course, my main beef is that Northpoint going south has claimed, at least temporarily, a favored site of mine. www.eyrie.net was running of Northpoint DSL... hell , I was in mid post on their discussion board when it went FUBAR. [for those in the dark, www.eyrie.net was {and will be, if/when it goes back up} the home of Eyrie Productions Unlimited, the warped minds behind the Undocumented Features fanfic, as well as several other reasonably large projects.]
You know, I hope all this 'market shakedown' stuff is finished soon, I want reliable broadband with decent upstream damnit!
-={(Astynax)}=-
It is a luxury, but not as much as you might think. For one thing, if your job involves the net, having good access to the net is very very useful [say you're a web developer, having a way to check your company's pages on an outside connection is handy]. Also, if you use open source software, a fat pipe becomes a blessing from above [ever try to download a whole CD ISO over a modem?]. So, sure, right now it isn't a necessity, but then again, according to the government, neither is transportation.[I guess everyone ought to be able to walk to where they work, or they shouldn't have a job, right?]
-={(Astynax)}=-
OK, so anyone who wants to get decent download speeds and ping times, and maybe wants to run there own mail server or some other small time upstream sort of thing, has to move into a city? What is this, some sort of technological segregation? "Oh, I'm sorry, if you want to play Quake 3 online with a decent ping, you have to live near crack houses." If you don't want to be connected that's fine, but don't force your neighbors to have to move if they want a fatter pipe.
-={(Astynax)}=-
hehe, you are not alone in your distaste for her vocal talents. As a matter of fact, the horrible power her voice weilds shows up in the [damned longest, and quite possibly best] fanfic called Undocumented Features. check www.eyrie.net for all the text files [including the description of how Minmei's singing nearly dooms the whole universe].
-={(Astynax)}=-
Let's take a quick look at your arguements, shall we?
Your starving student arguement has one glaring flaw: most are. Unless you were born into to money, you have to work damned hard to get through college, and you DO NOT GET PAID A DIME the entire time you are there. 4 years or more of work, NO monetary compensation. Those who have plenty of money do it one of two ways, both of which apply to any artist. Frist, they are simply born into a wealthy family. Second, they have to work outside of classes in order to support themselves, and often pay for their very education.
Ok, on to your false assumption that all artists would stare if they didn't get megabucks from CD's etc. etc. One, see above methods for surviving through a hardship till you make your name. Two, they at least can get paid to play small venues, while they are still learning even, which while not much, is more than any college student will ever be paid, so that puts them ahead, doesn't it?
I'm not sure I can argue with your last statement, as, even though you meant it tongue in cheek, I find it rather true none the less, with the addendum that the contributution be useful. If you code something useful for, say , Linux. A patch that fixes the kernel on something obscure like an old Cyrix chip, say, you ought to send it out to be incorporated into the main body of work. After all, hundreds of folks created and gave to you that which you now use to create further, so its only fair to continue the cycle.
-={(Astynax)}=-
And so we reach the crux of the issue: rarity. Musical talent was difficult to obtain and hard to share, for many many years, as few had the time and will to learn to play, and until recently no way to distribute but live performance. Now, we generally have more time to learn, hence more aspiring musicians [and thereby more music] and many distribution channels that allow those talents to be shared easily and painlessly. And yet, in spite of this decrease in rarity, those involved in music make more money than ever before, and want still more money beyond that [which is greed by definition. If you have enough, and yet desire more, you are beign greedy. Most humans are at various times, so it is natural and forgivable, but being continuously and unrepentantly greedy is not]. I don't, and have never argued that musicians and other artists of various types should be paid like everyone else, but the key words are *everyone else*. Yes, they are talented, but aren't many many people at a great many things? There are few truly masterful surgeons in the world, none of which are paid as well as some entertainers are. Somewhere in there, I see an imbalance that needs correcting.
-={(Astynax)}=-
Customers do not ask for Windows, they simply do not know enough to ask not to have it.
Inconvenient, maybe, costly? In the short term, yes, but over the long term, nope. Consider the cost of 100 Win2k licences, plus a Server varient to plug them all into. Now consider the cost of upgrades for each of those machines, over say a 10 year period. The software costs alone would easily reach 6 figures, maybe 7. Free software, meanwhile, would require a retrainign cost initially, but incur 0 software costs there after. The savinf after 10 years would be significant, and as time passed, would grow larger with each upgrade cycle. The simple fact is, most businesses are too short-sighted to think on that scale, they only see the initial training costs, and maybe look a year or two ahead, not seeing the bigger picture. Beside that, if somehow M$ fails in the future, they have no way to upgrade the saftware on their own, meanwhile OSS is user maintainable ad infinitum if need be. It is a simple lack of the big picture, much the same trouble you appear to be suffering from with your interminable rantings. [Apologies in advance for the ad hominem, but frustration wears one thin after a while, and for the life of me I fail to grasp why you are so enamored with things as they are that you do not want to move on to things as they could be]
True, new versions get better, much as roadbuilding technology gets better in time, leading to tougher roads. Thus, when a road is repaired, much like an upgrade, the result is a superior road. And, like a road, as technology ages, it gets worse [less compatible, less reliable, less functional]. Hence, the analogy is valid. [though, I do not know the roads in your area, they may well use the same old technology in rebuilding them, leading to your view of the matter, but that is the fault of those having the contruction done improperly.]
-={(Astynax)}=-
I thought I just got done explaining this elsewhere, but...
For one thing, it isn't a matter of deserving the content, its more a form of civil disobedience. Big Music bends customers over at the cash register, so lots of customers say "fsck this" and leech mp3s. Maybe, just maybe, if Big Music would stop anal violating the pocket books of the customers, the allure of mp3s would diminish. I mean, the difference between $20 and free is a lot, but if CD's were a more realistically priced $10 new, $5 old/used, the time spent waiting for those mp3's to be sucked through the modem might not seem worth it. Of course, it would be best of Big Music choked on its own greenback vomit, but some things are destined to remain only dreams.
-={(Astynax)}=-
You make an invalid assumption that being talented == being irreplacable. The simple fact is, virtually anyone can be replaced. There may be 3 or 4 people on earth who can't, for everyone else, a workable substitute could be found and trained. And it is exactly that fear of being replaced that keeps the artists locked into the rape cycle. Of course they don't use guns, the use worse, they use fear. Mental violence is quite often the worst kind, and also is quite often the most powerful.
-={(Astynax)}=-
You continuous ad hominem attacks grow tiring, but you raise a point I simply can't leave alone. You say people are willing to pay M$ prices. That is not correct. The cost of M$ software is hidden, by and large, from the end user. Windows, Office, and a few other programs come bundled with PC's, and most business users do NOT know how much all that software on their systems cost. To them, it simply came with everything else. The only reason I can see that business hasn't gone to free software tools is that the user base, not realizing how much their Windows habit is costing the company, would complain about the retraining. The company doesn't want, for whatever reason, to deal with the psychological issues of migrating. Its similar to when road work needs to be done. No one is ahppy with the existing roads, but its what they are used to. When the government goes to fix the roads, the transition is painful, since lanes are closed, speeds reduced, etc. People complain a lot during such construction. Likewise, moving to free software would be an improvement in infrastructure, but the backlash due to the cyber equivalent of lane closing is more than they feel like dealing with. Otherwise, I'd imagine businesses by the boatload would gladly switch to freely available tools, thereby saving huge amounts of money that currently gets shipped to M$ by the truckload every time upgrade season occurs.
Oh, BTW, there are plenty of non-physcial menas of commiting rape. Blackmail, drugs, psychological tortures... it would all still be considered rape. In my view, M$ and many of the media industries use a combination of psychological torture and blackmail to get people to spend money, hence it is rape.
-={(Astynax)}=-
Riiight, radio... have you actually LISTENED to the radio lately? On that, I think I can rest my case
.RTF... [hysterical laughter] you'll have to excuse me, you see, for a moment I thought you were serious when you expected people [in this case, non technical, barely able to turn the machine on people] to do anything more than see that extension and send it back saying they don't know what it is.
Concerts, yup, that's a cheap way to get music... $40 for the cheap seats, what a bargain. Now, if the artist is NOT on the RIAA bandwagon, then I don't mind so much, kind of a combo of supporting justice AND gettign music, so it stops being a rip off.
It isn't guilt, if I felt guilty, I'd stop, I'm not that soulless. More than anything, its a sore ass that's tired of being raped.
-={(Astynax)}=-
Impoverish? If musicians got paid on par with programmers, say, and on the same terms, that'd be no problem, and they wouldn't be poor by any means. You don't need megabux just to feed your kids and have a decent home theater set up. Besides, most musician now don't get much anyway, except from shows. So gettign rid of the whole ugly mess and starting over would be better for all of us.
-={(Astynax)}=-
It is also not the duty of other men to engage in the financial equivalent of anal rape for a profit, but they do that all the time.
On you comment about what is vital, culture is valuable, those who do not share common experiences have difficulty communicating and cooperating. Hence, culture, and by extension music [since it is a piece of culture] becomes necessary in some sense. Whole albums? no. A song here or there, just to keep current? Yup. As for M$ software, yeah, I really like not being able to communicate with most of the sheeple in the world. Since M$ refuses to open their formats, and most businesses are too lazy/clueless to use non-M$ software, in order to do business, one is forced to use the commonly used tools. So in some sense M$ has become almost a necessity. [If you doubt me about cluelessness, simply read http://rinkworks.com/stupid/ and you will see ] If the playing field were fair, simply not buying would be enough, but on an unfair field, you have to use underground tactics.
-={(Astynax)}=-
I won't even go near your nick... as for the rest, you must've misread what I was saying. I'm not against being payed, I'm against folks being payed more than once for the same work. I write code, I get paid to wirte the code. I stop writing the code, I stop getting paid. Musician writes cool songs, gets paid. These days, he stops writing, and can keep getting paid. See my problem with the system here?
-={(Astynax)}=-
The key arguement you bring up is FAIR. Take a quick peak at CD prices? Fair? I think not [its why I haven't bought a CD in 2 years]. Take a look at the cost of ANY M$ product? Aagain, fair? I think not. If you refuse me a fair price, I will not buy. I you refuse me a fair price for something I need to survive [in both the physical and mental senses] I will fight you for it. To expect a fair price is one thing, to expect to be paid repeatedly, ad infinitum, is quite another.
-={(Astynax)}=-
...I've got to hit Mr. Joy over the head with it several times.
His assumption that Napster/Napster like entities will 'destroy the ecosystem' of industries like books and music makes a few invalid assumptions [yes, I know they've probably come up here before, but so long as there are the clueless, we must continue distributing the clue]
1. All those who create do so merely for the purpose of making money, and as a result, removing that possibility means no one will ever create again.
Well now, and I thought I was cynical. Simple fact is, most who create solely to make money create inferior items. The true craftsmen [of anything] create because something inside them motivates them to do so. Its why many, many bands are far better before they became popular, its why much of the philosophy of mankind was conceived and written before copyrights were a wet dream in some lawyers loins, and its why open source software exists today. To attach art[and I mean art in the sense of any well crafted item] so closely with greed is to debase those who create. As a programmer, I take actual offense, and I would as a musician or a poet.
2. If folks give [music/text/software] away, those who make it have no way to make money.
Well, here he defeated his own arguements, by statign that software has become about service. Well, maybe its time for writing and music to become about service as well [you know, like the used to be a long time ago, before somone could create one above average collection of songs and retire?]. He basically gives a way for anyone who has been Napsterized to make a living, so how can the ecosystem collapse?
Sometimes, you wonder about people.
-={(Astynax)}=-
Yeah yeah, the moderators will hate me for this, but really it hasn't gone far enough.
I for one am sick and tired of big companies trying to tell me what I can do with X, Y, or Z product after I've already purchased it. Hell, some companies [*cough*MPAA*cough*] want to tell me WHERE I can do things with their products [what? you don't live in region X? well, sorry, all your region X DVD's are useless, you can suck us off now]. I had liked Creative Labs, but this little jukebox issue has made up my mind to never purchase from them again. All companies who willingly support content access restriction must be eliminated, the sooner the better for all of us. I was going to buy more CD's, I was going to get a DVD player [the tech itself is plenty cool], but the lawsuit happy morons can all starve to death for all I care now. If you solve your problems with lawyers, you aren't worthy of my time or money.
-={(Astynax)}=-
The issue is that with Carnivore [or whatever they call it today] yuo can automate the 'subversive element' search. Collect email, search for "G. W. Sucks", record offending email, audit their taxes, perhaps see if they have any unpaid parking tickets in Idaho, etc. etc. Computers make figuring out who to harass so much easier for the powers that be, and that is something to fear. At least with voice taps, they had to pay a guy to sit there and listen to all the conversations, making casual browsing for subversive items much harder.
-={(Astynax)}=-
Well, I'd really like the text and/or URL of said reg hack, but really, since Windows touts itself as a 'user friendly' environment, such things shouldn't be needed. Personally, I don't mind mucking around in the registry, but lots of folks do. Admitedly, LInux is no better here, but they flat out tell you that you need to do or deal with such things at least. M$ just whistles and looks the other way.
As for BSOD, I don't get THOSE too much, but I do get lockups of various degrees as my memory leaks away. Hopefully the situation will improve when I up my mem size [128 now, 384 soon]. As for Win2k, anyone know where I can get a copy [full install] for under $50? If not, M$ is ripping folks off yet again.
-={(Astynax)}=-