eh...i'll give you 50/50. Napster is theft, plain and simple, but more importantly it has opened people's eyes to a new way to do business. And although I do consider it theft, I see it in the same light as the misdeeds of Robin Hood...stealing from the rich to give to the poor. There's no reason that a cd should cost $17. Were it $5-10, yeah, no problem, I'm there. If Napster does adopt the pay-per-month thing, i'll be first in line to sign up for it. Clear conscience and music? Where do I sign...
I'm sorry, I really feel no guilt about kicking these people out of the country after their visa's have expired. They were told they could come over for X years, at the end they would no longer be welcome. If their greencard gets processed in time, fine. If not, get out. You knew the rules, don't break them.
If you do, you're nothing but a common criminal and should be punished as one.
So we're one step closer to actually having the gargoyles from Snow Crash? Cool. I always wanted to have a full computer on me at all times, if for no other reason than to be able to bill more hours for work:)
I really do believe in the freedom to disseminate information freely, to express your thoughts and distribute them accordingly. But really, what is this technology going to be used for primarily? Probably something illegal. This would be a great system if it wasn't coming out RIGHT NOW. With what's happening with Napster, GNUtella and the fight between big business and, well, us, people are going to view this as is a system that will be able to thwart Big Brother, aka the government and big business.
I'm not sure that we have all this information that needs to be distributed right now and can't be. Sure, make the argument of DeCSS being illegal. Who DOESN'T have a copy that wants one? Napster, which will probably be declared illegal and shut down, is still running.
Ofcourse we need to protect the freedom of speech, especially in a medium like the Internet. I just hope it's done legally. Establish precedents and prove why information should be shared.
Eh...no, see, I disagree. We need the title cracker, though it will never be used correctly, to differentiate good and bad. Not to mention that a vast majority of 'evil hackers' are NOT hackers in the slightest. We know them as script kiddies and lamers, mostly. I don't really want these people called 'evil hackers' or having anything to do with hackers at all. They have their own classification, and it suits them fine.
Man, I can remember when everyone looked at me kinda funny for putting a K6-2/350 chip in my computer. AMD wasn't doing much, their processors weren't as fast as Intel's, blah, blah blah. I think I need to make a few phone calls:P
Question...whatever happened to 3dNow? Did it just never catch on or what? I remember thinking it could have been a great technology, on processor 3d modeling stuff. Sounded like something gaming companies would have jumped on. Is it even included in the new Athlons?
Let me preface this (possible flame) with this: I like Linux. I think it's better for networking than Windows.
That being said, Windows is really not THAT bad. You have to know what you're running on it, true, but it's the same way with Linux. The problem is that NT installs a LOT of stuff for you. You have to go back through and configure stuff, turn stuff off, turn monitoring on, etc.
I ran a Windows NT server at a college that was the software distro for the entire campus and never was hacked. You'd think a college serverwith no firewall would be a prime target, no? Well, I turned off just about everything except what I needed...web server, ftp with VERY controlled access, a little file sharing and the rest was shut off to the world. I then monitored it through system logs and if I saw something not right, I checked it out.
Not saying that holes don't exist, but I think people (especially on/.) tend to jump down NT's throat about security. If you REALLY want to jump on NT, do it for the right reasons...resource hogging.
When AOL trialed an unlimited access account in the UK they trialed it first in several groups. Each group was offered a totally different price. This practise is not uncommon, the only difference with Amazon is that they got noticed.
Along the same lines, let me use the example of Maxim. Maxim is a magazine in the US that is great, I've been getting it for years. Recently they told me that my subscription was running out, and said "Pay $24.00 to renew". I was going to, but forgot. Then I noticed that online it was 22.00 to renew, so I did it there. Then I got an ad saying that to subscribe to Maxim was 17.00. Did I get upset? Not really, I was looking for convenience and for that I paid. I kicked myself in the ass for not checking around a little more, and that's exactly what you should do if you fell 'victim' to this Amazon 'plot'.
Am I the only person that doesn't see a real problem with what Amazon did? Okay, yes, giving something to someone for a lower price than someone else for no good reason is bad, slightly unethical, but look at it this way...
When I shop for something online, I spend at least an hour looking for the best price. I check at least 5 sites, a couple of auction sites, not to mention that big blue covered thing called the Real World, and when I find the best price, I take it. Assuming Amazon gives the lowest price, who cares if someone else got an item for less than you? Welcome to Consumerism 101, it happens. Somebody mentioned airline tickets the other day, perfect example. You could have paid half what the person sitting next to you paid, you could have also paid double. Shop around first!
"If they were doing research, that's something that costs money," he said. "They can't expect to do research for free all the time."
It's their system, if you don't like it, don't use it. As much as I disapprove of recent Amazon actions, it's still their right to tweak their own system.
Actually, I have to agree with you on this one. It's not that there should be a special group of people that judge technical cases, but rather we should make the general public a little more aware to the conditions behind technology.
Having a seperate panel for tech cases would be like having a seperate panel for black people and white people, Indian and European. Not quite fair to either group.
If this happens (which it probably will given recent happenings) I just hope they take the time to do it CORRECTLY. Knowing the world, in a few years someone will invent Bookster and we'll have Random House Publishing suing everyone they can get their hands on.
Seriously though, I love how these companies really want to put their stuff online, then , we didn't do this correctly, so we're suing you all because we screwed up in the development stage. Makes you think big business is taking its development process from the government:)
I think I'll get the CD mp3 players, and to hell with the visor integration
You know I was thinking about this...how hard would it be to make one of these things? I'm guessing they have them on the market and I've just never seen them or they haven't been marketed well. I'm not talking about something that plays mp3's in a flash card, but instead something that would take a CDR that had mp3's on it in either Win/*nix operating system, read the files and play them. Have I just completely missed this? I mean, it would be really simple to incorporate a small processor, use a PROM to store the OS and functionality and then hook up some external controls. This way we could just burn 180 mp3's onto a cd and pop it in. Total cost: about $20. Then sell this thing for a bundle.
Man, forget microprocessor system design, THAT's what our senior design project should have been:)
"When people hear this, they will see MP3 in a new light,"
Why? We've had portable mp3 players before, just not integrated with a palm...I guess now we can take these into meetings and not only pretend to be taking down notes with them, but also pretend to be listening! Pretty snazzy...
trb
--
Here's something I didn't know about but now desperately need!
Re:Are you completely fucked in the head???
on
Lawsuits Suck
·
· Score: 1
grr...nonono...the web has changed the way we look at the internet. It's no longer people looking to talk about something socially unacceptable in an acceptable forum. The people who are causing the problems on the web AREN'T the geeks who started the web. I know plenty of people who can barely check their email that are using Napster to download 100's of songs per day. They aren't ADDING anythign to the web, they're only taking. Suddenly, being on the web is 'cool', it's not just for those geeks that want to discuss nerdy topics like how to mod their wwiv bbs system (256 colors mod? cool!!)
And furthermore, if you consider what those "gormless bunch of dorks who couldn't deal with anything", did through the life's work, I think you might be a little more appreciative of the rights we currently have online.
Not to say we should stop worrying about online rights, but we might want to choose our battles a little more carefully or else be labeled cyberpunks that don't care about the legal system.
I'm not saying I want to live in denial of the real world, I'm saying that there are times I want out of it. An escape is not a denial, it's just a change of scenery. Are you saying you've never gone to the beach to get away from work? Same thing, you're not denying that you have work, you just don't want to go to it for a few days and relax. The internet was originally the same way, before it became so popular for the masses. People weren't denyhing their real life, they were just forgetting about it for a time.
The technical elite of the Internet are smug and self-satisfied, confident in their position in -- and their control of -- this brave new world they have created. But the blind narcissism that leads geeks to confuse "can be done" with "will be allowed" is disastrously naive. Lawyers and politicians and those who hold the reigns of real power are going to use that hubris to eat the medium alive, snapping off bits to chew on at their pleasure.
But he's forgetting something, the 'can be done' attitude is what will prevail for a simple reason: short of shutting down the net, you can't stop information from being transmitted. It's the same in the case against Napster. Just because you shut one program down doesn't mean you've solved the problem.
You can scan for bit patterns all you want, someone's just gonna come up with a new way to organize those bits. As long as the information is allowed to pass from point A to point B, you can check it all you want, but if the information is well hidden, it's gonna get through. Not that it's ethical to steal music or software, but it's going to happen. Thankfully I think most of us agree that the good parts of the net outweigh the bad. When that is no longer true, then we can really worry.
I thought one of the reasons the internet was created was because the geeks wanted a place that WASN'T the real world...
I know that's why I started dialing BBS's back in the 80's. You could find discussions that DIDN'T revolve around real world issues. I could talk to people about writing software or about how this new protocol called zmodem was the fastest transfer available. I mean, it wasn't cool to be a computer geek back then, but that's why we liked the 'net' (if you can call a bunch of 300-2400 baud modems a net).
I think a main problem with the net is that it has become way to chic, people seem to forget who and what was originally on it.
How does this affect International trade? I mean, I know you have to pay import/export taxes and such, but wouldn't this make things even more bizarre?
Imagine this: a company sells a product in only one country becase they get a higher kickback, and people buy it and have to pay import taxes to bring it back to their home. Or perhaps I'm missing the point here...
Just because the majority of users speak a non-english language doesn't mean that english WON'T be the language of choice. Let's face it...America develops the most stuff for the web here. America created the darned thing (thank you Gore), and I'm not sure who is the most connected of countries, but given that we're larger than a good number of countries I'd say we have the most connections (maybe not percentage wise, but whatever).
Not that I want to compare America running the Internet to the power struggle in Africa, but remember the numbers there during apartide? What, 10-20% of the population was white and they were controlling the other 80%? Numbers don't matter, it's who has the power...
How bout they just contract with a few of us for a couple hundred thousand each and we'll do it? We'll save them money and make some easy cash, sounds perfect...
...considering the pool of computer people the government employs. After having worked at a DOD contractor for a few years during college, I realized that many of the people who work there have no clue about anything technical involving a computer. Too many managers, not enough techies.
Slashdot Mirror
--trb
--trb
If you do, you're nothing but a common criminal and should be punished as one.
--trb
--trb
I'm not sure that we have all this information that needs to be distributed right now and can't be. Sure, make the argument of DeCSS being illegal. Who DOESN'T have a copy that wants one? Napster, which will probably be declared illegal and shut down, is still running.
Ofcourse we need to protect the freedom of speech, especially in a medium like the Internet. I just hope it's done legally. Establish precedents and prove why information should be shared.
--trb
Making an online version of The Sims. This is MUDding at it's finest. MUDding with much, much better graphics. Thank god I'm out of school...
--trb
--trb
Question...whatever happened to 3dNow? Did it just never catch on or what? I remember thinking it could have been a great technology, on processor 3d modeling stuff. Sounded like something gaming companies would have jumped on. Is it even included in the new Athlons?
--trb
That being said, Windows is really not THAT bad. You have to know what you're running on it, true, but it's the same way with Linux. The problem is that NT installs a LOT of stuff for you. You have to go back through and configure stuff, turn stuff off, turn monitoring on, etc.
I ran a Windows NT server at a college that was the software distro for the entire campus and never was hacked. You'd think a college serverwith no firewall would be a prime target, no? Well, I turned off just about everything except what I needed...web server, ftp with VERY controlled access, a little file sharing and the rest was shut off to the world. I then monitored it through system logs and if I saw something not right, I checked it out.
Not saying that holes don't exist, but I think people (especially on /.) tend to jump down NT's throat about security. If you REALLY want to jump on NT, do it for the right reasons...resource hogging.
Just my HO.
--trb
Along the same lines, let me use the example of Maxim. Maxim is a magazine in the US that is great, I've been getting it for years. Recently they told me that my subscription was running out, and said "Pay $24.00 to renew". I was going to, but forgot. Then I noticed that online it was 22.00 to renew, so I did it there. Then I got an ad saying that to subscribe to Maxim was 17.00. Did I get upset? Not really, I was looking for convenience and for that I paid. I kicked myself in the ass for not checking around a little more, and that's exactly what you should do if you fell 'victim' to this Amazon 'plot'.
--trb
When I shop for something online, I spend at least an hour looking for the best price. I check at least 5 sites, a couple of auction sites, not to mention that big blue covered thing called the Real World, and when I find the best price, I take it. Assuming Amazon gives the lowest price, who cares if someone else got an item for less than you? Welcome to Consumerism 101, it happens. Somebody mentioned airline tickets the other day, perfect example. You could have paid half what the person sitting next to you paid, you could have also paid double. Shop around first!
"If they were doing research, that's something that costs money," he said. "They can't expect to do research for free all the time."
It's their system, if you don't like it, don't use it. As much as I disapprove of recent Amazon actions, it's still their right to tweak their own system.
--trb
Having a seperate panel for tech cases would be like having a seperate panel for black people and white people, Indian and European. Not quite fair to either group.
--trb
Why do I have a feeling that the DeCSS is going to become like the Descolada virus from the Ender's game series? --trb
Seriously though, I love how these companies really want to put their stuff online, then , we didn't do this correctly, so we're suing you all because we screwed up in the development stage. Makes you think big business is taking its development process from the government :)
--trb
I think it's more along the lines of selling the rights to use the domain name than it is selling the actual domain name. --trb
You know I was thinking about this...how hard would it be to make one of these things? I'm guessing they have them on the market and I've just never seen them or they haven't been marketed well. I'm not talking about something that plays mp3's in a flash card, but instead something that would take a CDR that had mp3's on it in either Win/*nix operating system, read the files and play them. Have I just completely missed this? I mean, it would be really simple to incorporate a small processor, use a PROM to store the OS and functionality and then hook up some external controls. This way we could just burn 180 mp3's onto a cd and pop it in. Total cost: about $20. Then sell this thing for a bundle.
Man, forget microprocessor system design, THAT's what our senior design project should have been :)
trb
Why? We've had portable mp3 players before, just not integrated with a palm...I guess now we can take these into meetings and not only pretend to be taking down notes with them, but also pretend to be listening! Pretty snazzy...
trb
--
Here's something I didn't know about but now desperately need!
And furthermore, if you consider what those "gormless bunch of dorks who couldn't deal with anything", did through the life's work, I think you might be a little more appreciative of the rights we currently have online.
Not to say we should stop worrying about online rights, but we might want to choose our battles a little more carefully or else be labeled cyberpunks that don't care about the legal system.
trb
trb
But he's forgetting something, the 'can be done' attitude is what will prevail for a simple reason: short of shutting down the net, you can't stop information from being transmitted. It's the same in the case against Napster. Just because you shut one program down doesn't mean you've solved the problem.
You can scan for bit patterns all you want, someone's just gonna come up with a new way to organize those bits. As long as the information is allowed to pass from point A to point B, you can check it all you want, but if the information is well hidden, it's gonna get through. Not that it's ethical to steal music or software, but it's going to happen. Thankfully I think most of us agree that the good parts of the net outweigh the bad. When that is no longer true, then we can really worry.
trb
I know that's why I started dialing BBS's back in the 80's. You could find discussions that DIDN'T revolve around real world issues. I could talk to people about writing software or about how this new protocol called zmodem was the fastest transfer available. I mean, it wasn't cool to be a computer geek back then, but that's why we liked the 'net' (if you can call a bunch of 300-2400 baud modems a net).
I think a main problem with the net is that it has become way to chic, people seem to forget who and what was originally on it.
trb
Imagine this: a company sells a product in only one country becase they get a higher kickback, and people buy it and have to pay import taxes to bring it back to their home. Or perhaps I'm missing the point here...
Not that I want to compare America running the Internet to the power struggle in Africa, but remember the numbers there during apartide? What, 10-20% of the population was white and they were controlling the other 80%? Numbers don't matter, it's who has the power...
How bout they just contract with a few of us for a couple hundred thousand each and we'll do it? We'll save them money and make some easy cash, sounds perfect...
...considering the pool of computer people the government employs. After having worked at a DOD contractor for a few years during college, I realized that many of the people who work there have no clue about anything technical involving a computer. Too many managers, not enough techies.