Marketing a notebook to French-Canadians isn't as simple as selling them to the citizens of France. Native French users typically only use variations of "surrender", while the Canadians are prone to more complex language use.
Ack! No! I was kidding! Put down the butter knife!
I think that, in any sort of event with open registration, you're fooling yourself if you don't think you're subject to covert surveillance. What would your opinion be if a private person, not a member of the media, used a hidden video camera to tape the proceedings?
Dateline NBC is an obnoxious show but come on, we've already achieved the surveillance society, and big brother, little brother and all the brothers around and in between are watching you.
basically the entire software industry, even the open source parts, would fall apart without it.
Sort of like the coal gas industries fell apart when Edison started making light bulbs? And no, I don't think the open-source industries would collapse given the elimination of copyright. Users and businesses will still need support. Why do you think they would?
Not to mention, for US$200 you can get better than an OLPC in processing power, once you discard the display. If they're stuck on getting the price as low as possible, and there are enough TV sets around for people to use them, the proper price point is IMO ~$80.
Basically, torrents 'die' after a week or so, and hosting your own torrents is nontrivial and far from automatic like it is with older P2P networks.
BitTorrent wasn't designed to be used without dedicated seeds for each torrent; the fact that torrents work so well without one is a testament to BitTorrent's robustness. It really isn't that much more difficult to run one or more dedicated seed servers than it is to put up a tracker, and consumes less bandwidth than an HTTP server. Please remember BitTorrent was designed to enhance the performance of a standard server-based site, not to put up public trackers and let people upload torrents and seed willy-nilly.
People in the United States downloading torrents tracked on The Pirate Bay are certainly in danger. And I'm sure plenty of torrents there are sourced from here in the US, or in other countries where doing so is illegal. So no, my argument is not pointless.
Classical distribution systems like Napster and Morpheus are a bit safer, since people are connected to individual sources rather than to scads of them. It's easier to collect peer data on BitTorrent.
Speaking as a BitTorrent client developer, I have to opine that BitTorrent is a terrible way to distribute pirated content. All the things that make it a good tool for distributing LEGITIMATE content work against it when what's being shipped around is against the law; it's too easy to track down the people involved in downloading and uploading it, and any attempt to limit that significantly reduces the network's ability to handle the load.
The only reason BitTorrent is being used is because there are plenty of scofflaws out there who want to share this data, and BitTorrent works great to amplify their efforts. Tracking down the initial sources is a bit difficult but not impossible, but there are a myriad of other sources waiting in the wings.
Scoffing the law is a grand tradition in the United States; from moonshiners, to ignoring the double-nickel speed limit on the roads, we've turned our noses up at laws which, while they may have some social benefit, we feel they restrict us too harshly. Often those laws wind up causing more problems than they solve; ask someone who wound up poisoned by ethylene glycol from an illegal alcohol still made from a car's radiator.
In this case we have people being sued, fined and jailed for trading long strings of ones and zeros. The "intellectual property" owners tell us these strings belong to them, even though those strings can vary enormously (re-encoding video alters the data entirely) they still assert ownership. One innocuous file on one's desktop may spell disaster. But with hundreds of millions of people around the world throwing them around, it's practically impossible to stop.
One website returning to life doesn't really mean that much in terms of what's being traded, but it is indeed a symbol showing how futile the fight to enforce the ownership of ideas is; after all, how can one own an idea?
It has to do with the article because, if I and other people are going to torpedo non-adware versions of MS Works, how attractive will an advertising-supported version be?
Actually, I think you may be right, as well. But I stand by my statement. In the next few years all new job applicants are going to want to have Vista on their resumes, and it's a good idea for students to get some experience in it. Experience in Linux is valuable as well, and may be more valuable as time goes on, but I doubt Vista is going to disappear.
Like Jay Leno, I guess you've never had to commute to work. It's bad enough dragging your butt into the city every morning and back out at night. Adding a squishy floor that feels like walking through mush is gonna be worse than taking away red staplers, it'll drive people to shooting sprees.
That's trademarks, not copyright. And I don't know if that applies outside the US, since enforcement can obviously be spotty there. Further, the trademark would be properly applied, if on an illegal product.
Actually what we call "graphite" in pencils is actually mostly clay with carbon embedded in it. I don't think the carbon is even mostly in graphite form.
And that's not even talking about the fact that Alexa's toolbar is pretty much spyware. How many Slashdot readers are giddy to install spyware? You either? Big surprise.
I'd mod your article redundant, but I believe the point does need emphasizing.
Because a lot of countries are much more strict concerning pornography, and are likely to eschew the whole computing thing if the kids are seeing hooh-hahs and breastuses and weenies. I think censorware is more distasteful than pr0n, myself, but I understand where the OLPC people are coming from.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't there an equivalent to AdBlock for IE? Maybe we can get them to block IE too!
Actually, I think they've gotten themselves Slashdotted.
FWIS The "ionic wind" takes place inside a sealed chamber, no ozone would be leaking out.
Marketing a notebook to French-Canadians isn't as simple as selling them to the citizens of France. Native French users typically only use variations of "surrender", while the Canadians are prone to more complex language use.
Ack! No! I was kidding! Put down the butter knife!
My favorite social hack.
I think that, in any sort of event with open registration, you're fooling yourself if you don't think you're subject to covert surveillance. What would your opinion be if a private person, not a member of the media, used a hidden video camera to tape the proceedings?
Dateline NBC is an obnoxious show but come on, we've already achieved the surveillance society, and big brother, little brother and all the brothers around and in between are watching you.
basically the entire software industry, even the open source parts, would fall apart without it.
Sort of like the coal gas industries fell apart when Edison started making light bulbs? And no, I don't think the open-source industries would collapse given the elimination of copyright. Users and businesses will still need support. Why do you think they would?
Not to mention, for US$200 you can get better than an OLPC in processing power, once you discard the display. If they're stuck on getting the price as low as possible, and there are enough TV sets around for people to use them, the proper price point is IMO ~$80.
Basically, torrents 'die' after a week or so, and hosting your own torrents is nontrivial and far from automatic like it is with older P2P networks.
BitTorrent wasn't designed to be used without dedicated seeds for each torrent; the fact that torrents work so well without one is a testament to BitTorrent's robustness. It really isn't that much more difficult to run one or more dedicated seed servers than it is to put up a tracker, and consumes less bandwidth than an HTTP server. Please remember BitTorrent was designed to enhance the performance of a standard server-based site, not to put up public trackers and let people upload torrents and seed willy-nilly.
People in the United States downloading torrents tracked on The Pirate Bay are certainly in danger. And I'm sure plenty of torrents there are sourced from here in the US, or in other countries where doing so is illegal. So no, my argument is not pointless.
Classical distribution systems like Napster and Morpheus are a bit safer, since people are connected to individual sources rather than to scads of them. It's easier to collect peer data on BitTorrent.
Speaking as a BitTorrent client developer, I have to opine that BitTorrent is a terrible way to distribute pirated content. All the things that make it a good tool for distributing LEGITIMATE content work against it when what's being shipped around is against the law; it's too easy to track down the people involved in downloading and uploading it, and any attempt to limit that significantly reduces the network's ability to handle the load.
The only reason BitTorrent is being used is because there are plenty of scofflaws out there who want to share this data, and BitTorrent works great to amplify their efforts. Tracking down the initial sources is a bit difficult but not impossible, but there are a myriad of other sources waiting in the wings.
Scoffing the law is a grand tradition in the United States; from moonshiners, to ignoring the double-nickel speed limit on the roads, we've turned our noses up at laws which, while they may have some social benefit, we feel they restrict us too harshly. Often those laws wind up causing more problems than they solve; ask someone who wound up poisoned by ethylene glycol from an illegal alcohol still made from a car's radiator.
In this case we have people being sued, fined and jailed for trading long strings of ones and zeros. The "intellectual property" owners tell us these strings belong to them, even though those strings can vary enormously (re-encoding video alters the data entirely) they still assert ownership. One innocuous file on one's desktop may spell disaster. But with hundreds of millions of people around the world throwing them around, it's practically impossible to stop.
One website returning to life doesn't really mean that much in terms of what's being traded, but it is indeed a symbol showing how futile the fight to enforce the ownership of ideas is; after all, how can one own an idea?
It has to do with the article because, if I and other people are going to torpedo non-adware versions of MS Works, how attractive will an advertising-supported version be?
I just bought an HP laptop. It came with a trialware version of MS Office and a (non-adware) copy of MS Works.
...
Guess which I uninstalled? Office, or Works?
You guessed it, I zapped BOTH! Then installed OO.o.
Actually, I think you may be right, as well. But I stand by my statement. In the next few years all new job applicants are going to want to have Vista on their resumes, and it's a good idea for students to get some experience in it. Experience in Linux is valuable as well, and may be more valuable as time goes on, but I doubt Vista is going to disappear.
Students are going to have to learn how to use Vista, so might as well dump 'em in at the deep end...
Like Jay Leno, I guess you've never had to commute to work. It's bad enough dragging your butt into the city every morning and back out at night. Adding a squishy floor that feels like walking through mush is gonna be worse than taking away red staplers, it'll drive people to shooting sprees.
I'd rather we brought it back to the 18 year time horizon and let it be. Trying to legislate the ownership of ideas is stupid.
That's trademarks, not copyright. And I don't know if that applies outside the US, since enforcement can obviously be spotty there. Further, the trademark would be properly applied, if on an illegal product.
Actually what we call "graphite" in pencils is actually mostly clay with carbon embedded in it. I don't think the carbon is even mostly in graphite form.
From the above article.
And that's not even talking about the fact that Alexa's toolbar is pretty much spyware. How many Slashdot readers are giddy to install spyware? You either? Big surprise.
I'd mod your article redundant, but I believe the point does need emphasizing.
I hope they revamp their wireless sharing system so people can play the music as it streams in; it seems silly to not have that feature.
Though I doubt Microsoft would drop their stupid DRM system, which is why I still wouldn't buy one...
Because a lot of countries are much more strict concerning pornography, and are likely to eschew the whole computing thing if the kids are seeing hooh-hahs and breastuses and weenies. I think censorware is more distasteful than pr0n, myself, but I understand where the OLPC people are coming from.
Heh. It's bad enough they've managed to piss off all their real customers, now they're in the process of pissing off future Congresscritters. 9_9
Only in a very complicated scenario. Usually it's Charlie in the middle. Though some people will prefer to use Zaphod...