Now I get it.... So basically it is a game of politics where you win by beating the system.
For the sake of greater understanding I will point out two things, and then a very not-concise draft-quality discussion of Nomic, which you are free to ignore.
1) Trying to "get" Nomic usually causes one to grow dizzy and pass out. As with most things, you'll eventually discover something about it that you hadn't noticed before, and suddenly "get it" much better than you did before. This cycle of enlightenment won't ever really stop, unless you're, like, the Buddha, or Don Knuth, or something.
2) "A game of politics where you win by beating the system." is a reasonable explaination of what Nomic begins as, when playing by the original rules. It is neither a literal interpretation of the rules, nor a adequate description of the possibilities of what the game may become.
(I point these things out because I find Nomic deeply interesting, not because I think anyone else is wrong for not seeing it this way.)
For instance, winning is itself defined by a rule. In Suber's original Nomic, the initial winning condition is to score 100 points, and another rule says that the winning condition can't be changed to anything other than scoring a number of points.
The literal approach would be to get as many proposals passed as possible, by giving the other players reasons to vote for them, and to be on the winning side of every other vote. This, itself, is a deep game.
The "beat the system" approach (which never fails to excite people new to the game) involves trying to create rule paradoxes or very primitive combos, or invoking loopholes. Often, though, the game devolves into a kind of tug-of-war between people trying to craft incorruptable rules (patching every hole) and people trying to win by some clever master stroke (arguing over what the definition of "is" is). The game is still very "play-to-win", and winning usually means making a number bigger or 'killing off' the other players. It is still zero-sum.
It's beyond this, you start getting into the really fun part. It basically happens when people consciously or unconsciously agree to cooperate. Winning ceases to be the point (even if it is, in the rules) -- it's about continuing play. It becomes non-zero-sum.
This takes some getting used to, but it makes for the most interesting and stimulating games.
What happens when you : eliminate the rule that says the game is over when one player wins? eliminate winning altogether? eliminate voting? eliminate the first rule, the one that says players must abide by the rules? At what point does it stop being a game?
The last example should highlight the fact that what happens is entirely dependent on the players.
If you ever watch group improvisation (comedy, theater, jazz, or just children playing), you might notice that it works because each player accepts what the other players give them.
If Actor A says to Actor B : "Hi, Doctor B!", then B immediately becomes a doctor. If Doctor B says "Hi, Nurse A!" right back, then A becomes a nurse, even if he wanted to be a patient.
When it doesn't work, it's usually because someone rejects what the other players give, or tries to steer the act in another direction. If I touch you and say "Tag, you're it!" and you say "Oh, no I'm not!", well then we've got a pretty crappy game of Tag.
This isn't to say you should just except any change that another player offers -- but rather that your criteria for accepting or rejecting them becomes more about fun, and continuing the game, than than winning or losing. It's like having a conversation, not having an argument.
If you're interested in Nomic conceptually (rather than seeing it as "just" a game to be played) I can reccommend several books:
James Carse's Finite and Infinite Games, Herman Hesse's Magister Ludi, and Peter Suber's own The Paradox of Self-Amend
Windows may have very small number of good shortcuts, but overall, they're pretty half-assed. Yeah, you can minimize all windows, but you can't minimize one app's windows. You can open the Run box, but you can't get Properties. It feels like the people that chose the shortcuts haven't ever spoken to the people that designed the GUI.
I don't have a Windows box handy, but the one the most baffles me is the window/app closing shortcut : Alt+F4.
What sort of freakish mutant flipper must one have to find that even remotely comfortable? When I started using a Mac, I like many was overjoyed that the strokes for two of the most common actions (with app and window closing *separate*, like God intended) were perfectly positioned (Cmd+W / Cmd+Q for the under-initiated).
It all goes back to my overall theory that Microsoft's UI is designed by mutant flipper-people.
With safari all you get to do is to actually surf the site and see the RSS version of the page once you get there.
Uh, no. That's not true. Why didn't you just say "I haven't used it, so I'm talking out of my ass." instead of calling it "useless."
What is clever is having the RSS feed show up in your bookmarks or toolbar so you can scan the headlines and see if you want to read the article. That's what RSS was invented for. RIght now I have slashdot, BBC news and my del.icio.us bookmarks on my toolbar.
Yeah, Safari 2 can do this. It isn't clever. It's obvious. But unlike Firefox, you can *also* display any feed or folder of feeds as a searchable, sortable page. You know, like a real, actual RSS reader.
Quoth the FA: Sources who give journalists details of corruption or wrongdoing are traditionally protected by law, if the story is in the public's interest.
The sources rights are protected, not the sources secrecy.
"Recent corporate scandals involving WorldCom, Enron and the tobacco industry all undoubtedly involved the reporting of information that the companies involved would have preferred to remain unknown to the public," said the brief.
OSHA has this nice little PDF entitled Whistleblowers and Corporate Fraud that basically explains in one page what virtually all of the reporting on this case (not to mention comments on Slashdot) ignores : that the legal protections afforded in those other cases do not apply to this case.
A dead monkey with no brains at all could see that Appe v. Rumor Sites has nothing to do whistleblowing, the first amendment, or bloggers-v.-journalists.
I do not believe that a journalist should ever be compelled to compromise his source, even if the "whistle blower" or a person disclosing privileged information may be commiting an illegal act or a contract violation.
While it's true one can't be compelled to reveal sources most of the time (ie, just because someone doesn't like what you wrote), in a trade secret case (under the UTSA), the journalist is liable himself if he doesn't.
The problem with this (and the reason it isn't the way it works in reality) is that you can't claim to be a whistleblower (legaly) without being "revealed" -- but if you're protected, it's ok because ccording to federal whistleblower laws (which apparently nobody writing about this issue knows about), the person in question can't be discriminated against for being a whistleblower:
"Discrimination" can include the following actions: Firing or laying off Assigning to undesirable shifts Blacklisting Demoting Denying overtime or promotion Disciplining Denial of benefits Failure to hire or rehire Intimidation Transferring Reassigning work Reducing pay or hours -- The Whistleblower Program, OIA, OSHA
The unwritten part is that said company can't effectively sue you over it. I suppose they could use anything illegal you did against you, but that wouldn't be a winning case.
Basically:
normal journalism : don't have to reveal sources
trade secret case : have to reveal sources, who will get hosed (rightfully)
whistleblower case: have to reveal sources, but source will not get hosed.
So? people have been publishing leaks in newspapers for years, but since it's a blog it's up for grabs?
1) The Uniform Trade Secrets Act is a state law -- not all states define trade secrets the same way, and not all find fault with second-hand divulgance. (Though the "Uniform" part means that many states use the same law.)
2) Newspaper journalists have been compelled to reveal their sources many times in the past. Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
3) Publishing of trade secrets is a pretty rare thing in general -- we usually only hear about it when it involves criminal activity.
4) Federal whistleblower protection laws exist to protect leakers in cases of criminal activity. This article (any many others) completely ignores the fact that these laws exist. Just Google for "whistleblower protection".
That's why they had to go to court. You know, with a judge.
NO - It is the COMPANY's responsibility to ensure the data isn't leaked in the first place.
And they do that by requiring people to sign legaly binding agreements. Why can you not understand this?
And the Apple blogger in question didn't expose anything that would actually *harm* the company (like publishing some blueprints or source code).
Oh, so now *you* get to be the arbiter? You're basing your ideas of "trade secrets" on movies and TV. According to law, you know, in reality, and the state of California, a trade secret doesn't have to be "blueprints or source code".
He just published A COUPLE OF ROUMORS, come on.
According to court documents (you know, the court, which actually decides the case), it was much more than rumors.
Also "he" is misleading, when you consider that most, if not all of the defendants in question are business entities.
The RSS "feature" of safari is useless. Look at how clever firefox is in using RSS.
Clever? You can't even read RSS entries in Firefox (though I'm sure someone will post a link to some extention) -- all you get are headlines. There's nothing clever about being half-assed.
Not only can you do the exact same thing (as Firefox) in Safari, you also get to read entries, search them (in Safari and with Spotlight), and sort them, and you know, do things that most people that use RSS actually want to do.
They should just adopt firefox and use the safari team to fix finder.
The "industry" or better the consumers, do _not_ have a choice with the iPOD on what store to purchase from.
The iPod plays tracks downloaded from Magnatune just fine. There are other examples as well.
If I made a great movie but only offered it under _very_ restrictive formats, there would still be a lot of people who buy it. Not because they "support" or "accept" my restrictive format, but because they wanted to see a very good movie and be entertained.
The only way they have to voice their desires in the market is to buy or not buy. If they buy into the above example, it is because the desire for the film, minus the distaste for the DRM, is still worth enough to them. All else is unverifiable, untestable, even if it's commonly true.
If DRM is really the only issue, why isn't Magnatune outselling iTunes? The selection, obviously. Magnatune sells a different product than iTunes. If you want major label stuff without DRM, you're out of luck, because it's not for sale anywhere. Your examples ignore the fact that not all music is equal in the eyes of the consumer.
All we can do is keep educating, and hope that they listen.
How about trying to design software that doesn't make people stupid? Stop bombarding people with dialog boxes to the point of ignorance, for instance.
People, even smart people, make stupid mistakes all the time. The people that design (or forget to design) interfaces have a huge amount of power to encourage or mitigate these mistakes.
Hacker types on Slashdot tend to have some vague unease with this idea, but I see it as perfectly in line with what most seem to believe in. Why duplicate the effort of teaching each and every user? Why create so much room for lame tech support positions? Design it well from the start and the problem largely solves itself.
If it is what I think it is, which is a distro that is taylored toward EPIA, why make a whole distro and not just a tarball of linux drivers and tools?
All that's really involved in creating a "new" distribution is changing a few strings. Very, very, few distributions are from scratch these days.
I think the idea in this case is that it's better to put a disc in the box that says "Install me", rather than a bundle of packages that may or may not work, depending on what system you're running.
In any event, we all know that bundled software is probably crap, so it's kind of a moot point.
Imagine that... The internet actually getting used for one of its single most useful potentials - Preserving true and absolute freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech, in the US at least, is not absolute. Furthermore, it has absolutely nothing to do with this story. You're seeing oppression where it doesn't exist.
Now, if you believe in freedom of speech, I would presume you also believe in due process and the right to "a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed", or something like that (I don't know the relevant clause in Canada). The judge imposed the publication ban in order to protect this right.
If the entire planet doesn't agree with you, you lose.
This reeks of the worst kind of totalitarianism. I don't think you understand what it means.
What defines the difference between a blogger and a journalist? The fact a journalist is hired by a company?
Strawman. Many "journalist-bloggers" work for companies, and many "mainstream journalists" do not.
The key difference, in my mind, is that journalists have an established trade and a system of credentials. If bloggers wish to call themselves journalists, they should operate something like journalists generally do.
Would it make sense for a journalist to say "I'm just like a blogger, except I write for Big City Newspaper, instead of on the internet."?
Why trust a company over an individual?
Why trust an individual over a company? Do individuals not have biases, agendas to further?
In this case, people wouldn't have known if all we had for news were "mainstream journalists."
And now, thanks to a blogger, the defendant is going to have a harder time getting a fair trial.
You should be able to get land that is not connected to commercial interest (you can't charge for it) for free.
There are sandbox areas that you can build anything you want in, but that are erased daily. Additionally, anything you build you can carry off, so if you build a house or a gun or a spaceship in the sandbox, you can put it in your pocket and take it elsewhere.
There may be some limitations, but I've never run into them.
Consider the time it takes for a few people to make models, textures, write code, play test,, $500 dollars is a drop in the bucket compared to how much there time is worth.
The prize is $500 for each team member, but I think the more important thing is that people are already doing these things in SL for free, on their own time.
Also, the value of the land included in the prize is quite large to someone interested in developing in Second Life. 8 acres ordinarily goes for $125/mo. That's $1500 a year. (The second and third prizes get 5 and 3 acres, respectively.)
They really need to raise the prize amount if they want to attract outside people. This thing does sound really cool for people already into Second Life though.
One of the interesting things about Second Life is that the game's desirability comes almost entirely from user-created content. The better that content is, the more attractive the game will be to outsiders, whether they intend to develop anything or not. Offering interesting content to everyone is a much more effective strategy than offering cash prizes to a few. I think what they're trying to do is to accomplish the former by doing the latter.
In other words, a competition like this is more the ends than the means of attracting outside people.
Doesn't seem like many slashdot users are intersted in 2nd life, i bet because reading slashdot and EQ/WOW take up all their free time.
Actually, I suspect it's because very few people on Slashdot understand what Second Life is.
Plus as a subscription service 2nd life doesn't seem to offer much in the way of "fun" (in my opinion).
Just to play costs $10, one-time. The monthly price is only if you want to own land, which you don't have to do. I think most people don't.
Also, I would argue that Second Life doesn't seem fun just glancing at the page because most of the "game" aspects are user-created and owned. SL is much more of an "environment" than a game itself.
Anyways it seems hard to get people interested in developing for something they probably won't be able to enjoy, as only the winning team gets a free subsrciption.
Actually, it's the top three, but more importantly is the amount of land involved. The top prize includes 8 acres, which ordinarily costs $125 a month. The second and third get 5 and 3 acres respectively, and all of the teams get free land during the development time.
Land is valuable in large part because it can be used to make money, both in-game and in reality. A smart developer would use that 8 acres to build another game and charge to play it.
It seems more likely that any developers who could be doing this would find it much more rewarding to do Open Source work, after all they would get to use it after they were done.
Most of the people entering the competion will be people already developing in Second Life (of which there are a great many). They're basically providing an incentive and an opportunity to create something big, and then rewarding the winners with the opportunity to create something even bigger.
So, make a game, you get the copyright and ownership but 2ndL gets the financial benefients
What financial benefits? People create games in Second Life all the time, without prizes. The only difference here is that you are giving up some of your rights over you creation (right which, in any other game, you wouldn't have had to begin with). If you don't like the terms of the contest, don't enter.
(save for the prize money you get.)
The prizes also include a total of 16 acres of land in SL, which is not without value. In fact, enterprising users will probably see this as the greater prize.
There's also this part:
Each selected team will receive, for a period of up to three months, free temporary accounts for team members, free use of the Second Life development tools, and free use of approximately 3 acres of land in Second Life for the purpose of creating its proposed game and offering it for play by Second Life residents.
They are basically ensuring that it doesn't cost you anything to create your entry.
[I bet some pissed off employee will enjoy your face decorating their dartboard when you win with an idea they should have implemeted themselves]
This is doubtful. One of the "features" of SecondLife is that the overwhelming majority of the content is user-created. The developers are more interested in creating an environment for them to do so. This contest is an example -- they would rather have the users create the content.
The difference being that Blogger's spam isn't created by the people that run Blogger.
The uproar is over the fact that the lead developer and site maintainer of Wordpress was responsible for hosting the spammy pages. Even the page for donations has the hidden links.
The stated reason for this is to cover his costs and hire a full-time developer, but this raises a lot of questions about the need to do so -- What exactly are those costs? And is it really worth hiring a full-timer if it has to be funded with spam?
but i can't imagine posting bookmarks to a third-party website unless i was generally ok if for some reason they became public (accidental or otherwise), so maybe i'm agreeing with you.
Which brings me to the point I forgot to make in my first post, which is that you don't have to post every single thing you want to bookmark. Your web browser's bookmarks won't suddenly stop working if you use del.icio.us, et al.
In fact, I use my browser's bookmarks for exactly the things you listed (er, except the goatse) -- and it works out wonderfully. The links I keep in my browser are more like "things I use often that I want to get to in one click", while the things in del.icio.us are "things I might want to go back to later".
Hmmm. The de.lirio.us website is almost identical to the del.icio.us website. I know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all, but you'll probably want to change your site design...
What's really amazing is that in the course of copying it, the few things they changed all managed to make it look worse. I guess that's how you tell it's open source.
Slashdot Mirror
Now I get it. ... So basically it is a game of politics where you win by beating the system.
For the sake of greater understanding I will point out two things, and then a very not-concise draft-quality discussion of Nomic, which you are free to ignore.
1) Trying to "get" Nomic usually causes one to grow dizzy and pass out. As with most things, you'll eventually discover something about it that you hadn't noticed before, and suddenly "get it" much better than you did before. This cycle of enlightenment won't ever really stop, unless you're, like, the Buddha, or Don Knuth, or something.
2) "A game of politics where you win by beating the system." is a reasonable explaination of what Nomic begins as, when playing by the original rules. It is neither a literal interpretation of the rules, nor a adequate description of the possibilities of what the game may become.
(I point these things out because I find Nomic deeply interesting, not because I think anyone else is wrong for not seeing it this way.)
For instance, winning is itself defined by a rule. In Suber's original Nomic, the initial winning condition is to score 100 points, and another rule says that the winning condition can't be changed to anything other than scoring a number of points.
The literal approach would be to get as many proposals passed as possible, by giving the other players reasons to vote for them, and to be on the winning side of every other vote. This, itself, is a deep game.
The "beat the system" approach (which never fails to excite people new to the game) involves trying to create rule paradoxes or very primitive combos, or invoking loopholes. Often, though, the game devolves into a kind of tug-of-war between people trying to craft incorruptable rules (patching every hole) and people trying to win by some clever master stroke (arguing over what the definition of "is" is). The game is still very "play-to-win", and winning usually means making a number bigger or 'killing off' the other players. It is still zero-sum.
It's beyond this, you start getting into the really fun part. It basically happens when people consciously or unconsciously agree to cooperate. Winning ceases to be the point (even if it is, in the rules) -- it's about continuing play. It becomes non-zero-sum.
This takes some getting used to, but it makes for the most interesting and stimulating games.
What happens when you : eliminate the rule that says the game is over when one player wins? eliminate winning altogether? eliminate voting? eliminate the first rule, the one that says players must abide by the rules? At what point does it stop being a game?
The last example should highlight the fact that what happens is entirely dependent on the players.
If you ever watch group improvisation (comedy, theater, jazz, or just children playing), you might notice that it works because each player accepts what the other players give them.
If Actor A says to Actor B : "Hi, Doctor B!", then B immediately becomes a doctor. If Doctor B says "Hi, Nurse A!" right back, then A becomes a nurse, even if he wanted to be a patient.
When it doesn't work, it's usually because someone rejects what the other players give, or tries to steer the act in another direction. If I touch you and say "Tag, you're it!" and you say "Oh, no I'm not!", well then we've got a pretty crappy game of Tag.
This isn't to say you should just except any change that another player offers -- but rather that your criteria for accepting or rejecting them becomes more about fun, and continuing the game, than than winning or losing. It's like having a conversation, not having an argument.
If you're interested in Nomic conceptually (rather than seeing it as "just" a game to be played) I can reccommend several books:
James Carse's Finite and Infinite Games, Herman Hesse's Magister Ludi, and Peter Suber's own The Paradox of Self-Amend
Windows may have very small number of good shortcuts, but overall, they're pretty half-assed. Yeah, you can minimize all windows, but you can't minimize one app's windows. You can open the Run box, but you can't get Properties. It feels like the people that chose the shortcuts haven't ever spoken to the people that designed the GUI.
I don't have a Windows box handy, but the one the most baffles me is the window/app closing shortcut : Alt+F4.
What sort of freakish mutant flipper must one have to find that even remotely comfortable? When I started using a Mac, I like many was overjoyed that the strokes for two of the most common actions (with app and window closing *separate*, like God intended) were perfectly positioned (Cmd+W / Cmd+Q for the under-initiated).
It all goes back to my overall theory that Microsoft's UI is designed by mutant flipper-people.
With safari all you get to do is to actually surf the site and see the RSS version of the page once you get there.
Uh, no. That's not true. Why didn't you just say "I haven't used it, so I'm talking out of my ass." instead of calling it "useless."
What is clever is having the RSS feed show up in your bookmarks or toolbar so you can scan the headlines and see if you want to read the article. That's what RSS was invented for. RIght now I have slashdot, BBC news and my del.icio.us bookmarks on my toolbar.
Yeah, Safari 2 can do this. It isn't clever. It's obvious. But unlike Firefox, you can *also* display any feed or folder of feeds as a searchable, sortable page. You know, like a real, actual RSS reader.
That's lame, even lamer then lame it's retarded.
Sixteen, then?
Quoth the FA: Sources who give journalists details of corruption or wrongdoing are traditionally protected by law, if the story is in the public's interest.
The sources rights are protected, not the sources secrecy.
"Recent corporate scandals involving WorldCom, Enron and the tobacco industry all undoubtedly involved the reporting of information that the companies involved would have preferred to remain unknown to the public," said the brief.
OSHA has this nice little PDF entitled Whistleblowers and Corporate Fraud that basically explains in one page what virtually all of the reporting on this case (not to mention comments on Slashdot) ignores : that the legal protections afforded in those other cases do not apply to this case.
A dead monkey with no brains at all could see that Appe v. Rumor Sites has nothing to do whistleblowing, the first amendment, or bloggers-v.-journalists.
I do not believe that a journalist should ever be compelled to compromise his source, even if the "whistle blower" or a person disclosing privileged information may be commiting an illegal act or a contract violation.
While it's true one can't be compelled to reveal sources most of the time (ie, just because someone doesn't like what you wrote), in a trade secret case (under the UTSA), the journalist is liable himself if he doesn't.
The problem with this (and the reason it isn't the way it works in reality) is that you can't claim to be a whistleblower (legaly) without being "revealed" -- but if you're protected, it's ok because ccording to federal whistleblower laws (which apparently nobody writing about this issue knows about), the person in question can't be discriminated against for being a whistleblower:
"Discrimination" can include the following actions:
Firing or laying off
Assigning to undesirable shifts
Blacklisting
Demoting
Denying overtime or promotion
Disciplining
Denial of benefits
Failure to hire or rehire
Intimidation
Transferring
Reassigning work
Reducing pay or hours -- The Whistleblower Program, OIA, OSHA
The unwritten part is that said company can't effectively sue you over it. I suppose they could use anything illegal you did against you, but that wouldn't be a winning case.
Basically:
normal journalism : don't have to reveal sources
trade secret case : have to reveal sources, who will get hosed (rightfully)
whistleblower case: have to reveal sources, but source will not get hosed.
The judge in this case seems to be a very clear thinker in that respect.
I think this is the part of this whole saga that people can't get their heads around.
So? people have been publishing leaks in newspapers for years, but since it's a blog it's up for grabs?
1) The Uniform Trade Secrets Act is a state law -- not all states define trade secrets the same way, and not all find fault with second-hand divulgance. (Though the "Uniform" part means that many states use the same law.)
2) Newspaper journalists have been compelled to reveal their sources many times in the past. Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
3) Publishing of trade secrets is a pretty rare thing in general -- we usually only hear about it when it involves criminal activity.
4) Federal whistleblower protection laws exist to protect leakers in cases of criminal activity. This article (any many others) completely ignores the fact that these laws exist. Just Google for "whistleblower protection".
5) Re-read 4 until you get it.
There has to be some arbiter.
Yes, but NOT the company in question!
That's why they had to go to court. You know, with a judge.
NO - It is the COMPANY's responsibility to ensure the data isn't leaked in the first place.
And they do that by requiring people to sign legaly binding agreements. Why can you not understand this?
And the Apple blogger in question didn't expose anything that would actually *harm* the company (like publishing some blueprints or source code).
Oh, so now *you* get to be the arbiter? You're basing your ideas of "trade secrets" on movies and TV. According to law, you know, in reality, and the state of California, a trade secret doesn't have to be "blueprints or source code".
He just published A COUPLE OF ROUMORS, come on.
According to court documents (you know, the court, which actually decides the case), it was much more than rumors.
Also "he" is misleading, when you consider that most, if not all of the defendants in question are business entities.
And who sits in judgement of what speech is and isn't worthy of protection?
Uh, a judge, perhaps?
You know, someone whose job it is to interpret the law?
The RSS "feature" of safari is useless. Look at how clever firefox is in using RSS.
Clever? You can't even read RSS entries in Firefox (though I'm sure someone will post a link to some extention) -- all you get are headlines. There's nothing clever about being half-assed.
Not only can you do the exact same thing (as Firefox) in Safari, you also get to read entries, search them (in Safari and with Spotlight), and sort them, and you know, do things that most people that use RSS actually want to do.
They should just adopt firefox and use the safari team to fix finder.
You're like 15 years old, aren't you?
The "industry" or better the consumers, do _not_ have a choice with the iPOD on what store to purchase from.
The iPod plays tracks downloaded from Magnatune just fine. There are other examples as well.
If I made a great movie but only offered it under _very_ restrictive formats, there would still be a lot of people who buy it. Not because they "support" or "accept" my restrictive format, but because they wanted to see a very good movie and be entertained.
The only way they have to voice their desires in the market is to buy or not buy. If they buy into the above example, it is because the desire for the film, minus the distaste for the DRM, is still worth enough to them. All else is unverifiable, untestable, even if it's commonly true.
If DRM is really the only issue, why isn't Magnatune outselling iTunes? The selection, obviously. Magnatune sells a different product than iTunes. If you want major label stuff without DRM, you're out of luck, because it's not for sale anywhere. Your examples ignore the fact that not all music is equal in the eyes of the consumer.
All we can do is keep educating, and hope that they listen.
How about trying to design software that doesn't make people stupid? Stop bombarding people with dialog boxes to the point of ignorance, for instance.
People, even smart people, make stupid mistakes all the time. The people that design (or forget to design) interfaces have a huge amount of power to encourage or mitigate these mistakes.
Hacker types on Slashdot tend to have some vague unease with this idea, but I see it as perfectly in line with what most seem to believe in. Why duplicate the effort of teaching each and every user? Why create so much room for lame tech support positions? Design it well from the start and the problem largely solves itself.
Turn the lifetime of all DNS records to 0. This way they will not be cached, hence no poisoning issues
Indeed, let us destroy the internet with advice we got from an AC on Slashdot! Talk about "nuking the site from orbit", yeehaw.
I know jack crap about DNS, and this didn't sound right. Thank god for clueless moderators!
If it is what I think it is, which is a distro that is taylored toward EPIA, why make a whole distro and not just a tarball of linux drivers and tools?
All that's really involved in creating a "new" distribution is changing a few strings. Very, very, few distributions are from scratch these days.
I think the idea in this case is that it's better to put a disc in the box that says "Install me", rather than a bundle of packages that may or may not work, depending on what system you're running.
In any event, we all know that bundled software is probably crap, so it's kind of a moot point.
Imagine that... The internet actually getting used for one of its single most useful potentials - Preserving true and absolute freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech, in the US at least, is not absolute. Furthermore, it has absolutely nothing to do with this story. You're seeing oppression where it doesn't exist.
Now, if you believe in freedom of speech, I would presume you also believe in due process and the right to "a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed", or something like that (I don't know the relevant clause in Canada). The judge imposed the publication ban in order to protect this right.
If the entire planet doesn't agree with you, you lose.
This reeks of the worst kind of totalitarianism. I don't think you understand what it means.
What defines the difference between a blogger and a journalist? The fact a journalist is hired by a company?
Strawman. Many "journalist-bloggers" work for companies, and many "mainstream journalists" do not.
The key difference, in my mind, is that journalists have an established trade and a system of credentials. If bloggers wish to call themselves journalists, they should operate something like journalists generally do.
Would it make sense for a journalist to say "I'm just like a blogger, except I write for Big City Newspaper, instead of on the internet."?
Why trust a company over an individual?
Why trust an individual over a company? Do individuals not have biases, agendas to further?
In this case, people wouldn't have known if all we had for news were "mainstream journalists."
And now, thanks to a blogger, the defendant is going to have a harder time getting a fair trial.
You should be able to get land that is not connected to commercial interest (you can't charge for it) for free.
There are sandbox areas that you can build anything you want in, but that are erased daily. Additionally, anything you build you can carry off, so if you build a house or a gun or a spaceship in the sandbox, you can put it in your pocket and take it elsewhere.
There may be some limitations, but I've never run into them.
Consider the time it takes for a few people to make models, textures, write code, play test,, $500 dollars is a drop in the bucket compared to how much there time is worth.
The prize is $500 for each team member, but I think the more important thing is that people are already doing these things in SL for free, on their own time.
Also, the value of the land included in the prize is quite large to someone interested in developing in Second Life. 8 acres ordinarily goes for $125/mo. That's $1500 a year. (The second and third prizes get 5 and 3 acres, respectively.)
They really need to raise the prize amount if they want to attract outside people.
This thing does sound really cool for people already into Second Life though.
One of the interesting things about Second Life is that the game's desirability comes almost entirely from user-created content. The better that content is, the more attractive the game will be to outsiders, whether they intend to develop anything or not. Offering interesting content to everyone is a much more effective strategy than offering cash prizes to a few. I think what they're trying to do is to accomplish the former by doing the latter.
In other words, a competition like this is more the ends than the means of attracting outside people.
Doesn't seem like many slashdot users are intersted in 2nd life, i bet because reading slashdot and EQ/WOW take up all their free time.
Actually, I suspect it's because very few people on Slashdot understand what Second Life is.
Plus as a subscription service 2nd life doesn't seem to offer much in the way of "fun" (in my opinion).
Just to play costs $10, one-time. The monthly price is only if you want to own land, which you don't have to do. I think most people don't.
Also, I would argue that Second Life doesn't seem fun just glancing at the page because most of the "game" aspects are user-created and owned. SL is much more of an "environment" than a game itself.
Anyways it seems hard to get people interested in developing for something they probably won't be able to enjoy, as only the winning team gets a free subsrciption.
Actually, it's the top three, but more importantly is the amount of land involved. The top prize includes 8 acres, which ordinarily costs $125 a month. The second and third get 5 and 3 acres respectively, and all of the teams get free land during the development time.
Land is valuable in large part because it can be used to make money, both in-game and in reality. A smart developer would use that 8 acres to build another game and charge to play it.
It seems more likely that any developers who could be doing this would find it much more rewarding to do Open Source work, after all they would get to use it after they were done.
Most of the people entering the competion will be people already developing in Second Life (of which there are a great many). They're basically providing an incentive and an opportunity to create something big, and then rewarding the winners with the opportunity to create something even bigger.
So, make a game, you get the copyright and ownership but 2ndL gets the financial benefients
What financial benefits? People create games in Second Life all the time, without prizes. The only difference here is that you are giving up some of your rights over you creation (right which, in any other game, you wouldn't have had to begin with). If you don't like the terms of the contest, don't enter.
(save for the prize money you get.)
The prizes also include a total of 16 acres of land in SL, which is not without value. In fact, enterprising users will probably see this as the greater prize.
There's also this part:
They are basically ensuring that it doesn't cost you anything to create your entry.
[I bet some pissed off employee will enjoy your face decorating their dartboard when you win with an idea they should have implemeted themselves]
This is doubtful.
One of the "features" of SecondLife is that the overwhelming majority of the content is user-created. The developers are more interested in creating an environment for them to do so. This contest is an example -- they would rather have the users create the content.
This my friends, is how you get your ass beaten by every beret-wearing latte drinking graphic designer in the building.
Hey! I know plenty of graphic designers and almost half of them don't wear berets, you insensitive clod!
The difference being that Blogger's spam isn't created by the people that run Blogger.
The uproar is over the fact that the lead developer and site maintainer of Wordpress was responsible for hosting the spammy pages. Even the page for donations has the hidden links.
The stated reason for this is to cover his costs and hire a full-time developer, but this raises a lot of questions about the need to do so -- What exactly are those costs? And is it really worth hiring a full-timer if it has to be funded with spam?
It doesn't help his case that he's presently on vacation in Italy.
(I'm not trying to bash him personally -- just trying to clarify the issue for those that don't understand.)
but i can't imagine posting bookmarks to a third-party website unless i was generally ok if for some reason they became public (accidental or otherwise), so maybe i'm agreeing with you.
Which brings me to the point I forgot to make in my first post, which is that you don't have to post every single thing you want to bookmark. Your web browser's bookmarks won't suddenly stop working if you use del.icio.us, et al.
In fact, I use my browser's bookmarks for exactly the things you listed (er, except the goatse) -- and it works out wonderfully. The links I keep in my browser are more like "things I use often that I want to get to in one click", while the things in del.icio.us are "things I might want to go back to later".
Flamebait? Oh come on, it was funny!
Hmmm. The de.lirio.us website is almost identical to the del.icio.us website. I know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all, but you'll probably want to change your site design...
What's really amazing is that in the course of copying it, the few things they changed all managed to make it look worse. I guess that's how you tell it's open source.