Of course, we should boycott artists and record companies that use copy protection (playback protection?). But we should do it in a way that causes the most inconvenience for the stores and record companies:
Buy the record as usual. Keep the receipt.
Return the record the next day, claiming that it doesn't work. Get a second disc, "just to see if that works".
Return the second one as well, and claim a refund. Say that you've found out that the copy protection interferes with your CD players. You don't have to mention computers or copying, just say that it doesn't work.
Make sure the record store notifies the record company instead of just putting the record back on the shelf.
The store is obliged to pay the refund when the product doesn't work. A "copy protected" disc is not a CD, even if it's (misleadingly) sold as one.
I heard that the latest, copy protected, Robin Williams album was sold in more than 100.000 copies in my country. No more than 10 discs were returned. Let's make that number higher!
Re:What good is this distro?
on
Libranet 2.8 Review
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
It didn't fail because of 533 MHz and 128 MB RAM, it failed because of some incompatible hardware. Thats's a big difference, and claiming that Libranet draws too much resources is simply ridiculous.
Be careful with your quoting as well. Your mix of article quotes and personal comments is really misleading.
Beverages containing excessive amounts of caffeine are not allowed for sale in Norway. The author just meant to say that there is a limit to how much caffeine a drink is allowed to contain.
Actually, by Norwegian standards, it should become 1 234,5 (should be a non-breaking space in there, but Slashdot wouldn't let me), but 1.234,5 is very common as well.
Nobody will drop their IT infrastructure right away. But once in a while, every company switches software systems. 10 years ago, you had DOS, OS/2, Windows 3.x, Novell, etc. 5 years ago, you had Windows NT, Windows 9x, etc. Now you've got Windows 2000/XP. Even within the Microsoft Windows 9x/NT product line, there are huge differences both from an end user point of view and from an infrastructure point of view.
No matter what you choose next time you upgrade, there will be transitioning costs. Even if you have to spend $20.000 more on software adapting and staff training when choosing Linux, you might save $50.000 on licenses. Do the math!
Your boss knows this, that's the really nice part. If the company's IT department can't save money by switching to open source, then they're all incompetent and should be fired;-)
What's really funny is that more and more bosses are pushing open source these days. They've heard a speech, or read an article, claiming Linux is a huge cost-saver. You might have to spend a little more on adapting the software and training the staff, but that's nothing compared to the license costs. Besides, the transition from DOS to Windows, and later from Windows 3.x to Windows 9x, was just as large.
Any company switches software systems regularly. Next time, it'd be foolish not to consider open source alternatives.
Sticking with the old system will always be the cheapest in a shorter time-frame. If the boss knows that Linux will save the company lots of money on a three-year basis, and you still claim that Microsoft is the better alternative, then you will get fired.
- It's open source - So you can modify it to do what you want it to do. This, of course, takes time and money, and there isn't a company you can go to and pay them to do it.
Of course it takes time and money. If a company spends $50.000 on commercial software, they should compare that to spending $50.000 adapting free software. It might be worth it, and it might not. Not doing the math is just foolish.
... and of course there are companies that can do this! This is open source, anyone can do it, remember?
We used to be able to tell which carrier someone had (nice when trying to guess the cost of the call) but now we can't anymore..
Well, the current trend (Norway) is a simpler pricing scheme, where the charge is the same regardless of the network operator. It's all for the benefit of the customer, really, which is quite nice;-)
I wonder, does RAM faults develop over time, or are they introduced in manufacturing? That is, if you have some bad RAM, and correct it with Linux BadRAM, can you then be reasonably safe you won't get more faults?
Dead pixels on LCD screens are like this, if you don't have any dead pixels, you'll never get any. But how about RAM?
Yeah, we should all switch to OpenOffice. I had a 20,000 row, 13 MB Excel file, which I resaved in OpenOffice Calc format. It came out at a sweet 640 KB;-)
Geeks seem to have a weird fascination for strange spellings. "-ces" is the traditional plural ending of Latin words ending in "x". Obviously, "Unix" does not originate from Latin, and "Unices" is thus nothing but a (bad) joke. (The same applies to "emacsen", and there are a few others around as well.)
My 1991 16 MHz 386sx (a mid-range home PC from Brother) came with a built-in 512 KB Trident VGA card. I used to run Windows 3.0 in 800x600 on that one (only 16 colours).
The model preceding the one I've got had only half the video RAM, but still VGA. I think your memory is slightly skewed.
Wouldn't this just give SCO an unbelievably bad reputation among "common users"? I'd think it would be better to create a good impression by playing along with Linux rather than playing against it.
And if SCO should change its mind, and become Linux-friendly -- how can Linux users ever trust the company again?
9-4. Books and other teaching aides
In subjects other than Norwegian, one can only use books and other teaching aides that are available in Bokmål and Nynorsk at the same time and same price. (misspellings/misunderstandings corrected)
... and there's a silly exception to this law that specifically covers office software. That's about to change now.
Imagine if the OO.o translation had the norwegian equivalent of "all your base are belong to us" for example.
It doesn't, thankfully. But that's mainly because the Norwegian OpenOffice.org translations are done by experienced open source translators who are hired to work full-time. www.openofficeorg.no.
You're perfectly right, much open source software is badly translated. Skulelinux is trying to do a better job. And as with all open source: If you're not satisfied, you can at least improve it yourself.
That's exactly what some Norwegian counties did with OpenOffice.org. They hire open source translators to do the translations, and it costs much less than buying MS Office licenses for the schools. (MS Office was additionally only available in one of the two Norwegian languages, but seems to be changing now. I wonder why;-)
I can easily imagine this in place of my car stereo. Not just for music, but also navigation etc. Just put on a specialized front panel and/or hook it up to a small touch screen on the dashboard. The CD/DVD player could be nice to keep, though. 12 V power should work quite well in cars.
OK, I can agree with your observations on PalmOS and Symbian excellence. But where did you get the idea that Symbian is "basic" and PalmOS is for "power users"?
Palm has always strived for simplicity, which has been a successfull approach indeed. Symbian is an operating system of more modern design, though: Highly efficient, 32 bit, multitasking, etc. Symbian draws on nearly 20 years of PDA experience, going back to the 1984 Psion Organiser, so the PDA capabilities on offer are well on par with Palm's.
Yes, PalmOS is great, and so is Symbian. I just don't think "power" Palm and "basic" Symbian is a correct characterization.
When this patch recently was included in Debian's freetype package, TrueType fonts became significantly more blurred on my 1024×768 LCD screen. Rebuilding with the patch disabled (and the bytecode interpreter turned on again) restored my fonts to normal.
My point is that what looks good on my LCD monitor may look totally different on a hi-res 1600×1200 LCD or a normal CRT monitor. These things should be configurable, since there are different compile-time settings which give the best results on different screens.
Sub-pixel aliasing - is configurable, which is good.
Bytecode interpreter - is determined at compile-time, because of patent issues? That's not good:( (It does make a great difference, especially on small font sizes.)
"Ft slight" hack - is applied at compile-time, but should be made configurable when (if) included in the main freetype sources.
Anti-aliasing in general is very configurable, down to deciding which fonts in which sizes and variants should be anti-aliased. Great!
What we need is a very configurable freetype, with good configuration/preview tools; and a general understanding of the highly different effects on different displays.
Opera does not only reformat the page, it also tries to filter out any irrelevant images. Decorations and ads are discarded, while navigational images are replaced with text links. Opera will certainly be the best option for low-bandwidth mobile users, and even usable on "normal" 9.600 bps GSM.
A month ago, I browsed the web with Opera on a Nokia 9210. I didn't realise the browser wasn't even released yet. Come to think of it, he who owned the 9210 was an Opera employee...
A quite interesting contrast is the site of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. There are quite a lot of interesting technical info on those pages.
This page was not the official site, in fact there were no official site at all. But some Norwegian computer and news companies built the site. IBM, the "official information provider", was not happy with the unofficial site (or the connection with Sun), but they provided none themselves.
Places like North America that already have a huge transportation infrastructure would find it expensive to implement one of these, good to see that some European countries are testing them out now.
We Europeans are 50 years behind in development, or what? Well, I guess I can contribute with one of my own prejudices:
Everything's big in America. Wide roads and huge cars. Every American town looks the same, with those typical suburban areas with straight roads and big houses (and barbeques in the back yard). In Europe, on the other hand, we have to shape our cities to make them fit alongside mountains, rivers and coastlines. No two European cities look the same.
I don't mean to be arrogant, this is my impression of North America. I hope I'm not right.
My point (which is the exact opposite of Rackemup's) is that a transport system like the one described should be much easier to build in American cities than in Europe. (I'm thinking of the stereotype American city which just grows as big as it needs to be, as opposed to European cities that are formed by the terrain and restricted by thousands of years of history.)
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, we should boycott artists and record companies that use copy protection (playback protection?). But we should do it in a way that causes the most inconvenience for the stores and record companies:
The store is obliged to pay the refund when the product doesn't work. A "copy protected" disc is not a CD, even if it's (misleadingly) sold as one.
I heard that the latest, copy protected, Robin Williams album was sold in more than 100.000 copies in my country. No more than 10 discs were returned. Let's make that number higher!
It didn't fail because of 533 MHz and 128 MB RAM, it failed because of some incompatible hardware. Thats's a big difference, and claiming that Libranet draws too much resources is simply ridiculous.
Be careful with your quoting as well. Your mix of article quotes and personal comments is really misleading.
Beverages containing excessive amounts of caffeine are not allowed for sale in Norway. The author just meant to say that there is a limit to how much caffeine a drink is allowed to contain.
Actually, by Norwegian standards, it should become 1 234,5 (should be a non-breaking space in there, but Slashdot wouldn't let me), but 1.234,5 is very common as well.
Nobody will drop their IT infrastructure right away. But once in a while, every company switches software systems. 10 years ago, you had DOS, OS/2, Windows 3.x, Novell, etc. 5 years ago, you had Windows NT, Windows 9x, etc. Now you've got Windows 2000/XP. Even within the Microsoft Windows 9x/NT product line, there are huge differences both from an end user point of view and from an infrastructure point of view.
No matter what you choose next time you upgrade, there will be transitioning costs. Even if you have to spend $20.000 more on software adapting and staff training when choosing Linux, you might save $50.000 on licenses. Do the math!
Your boss knows this, that's the really nice part. If the company's IT department can't save money by switching to open source, then they're all incompetent and should be fired ;-)
What's really funny is that more and more bosses are pushing open source these days. They've heard a speech, or read an article, claiming Linux is a huge cost-saver. You might have to spend a little more on adapting the software and training the staff, but that's nothing compared to the license costs. Besides, the transition from DOS to Windows, and later from Windows 3.x to Windows 9x, was just as large.
Any company switches software systems regularly. Next time, it'd be foolish not to consider open source alternatives.
Sticking with the old system will always be the cheapest in a shorter time-frame. If the boss knows that Linux will save the company lots of money on a three-year basis, and you still claim that Microsoft is the better alternative, then you will get fired.
- It's open source - So you can modify it to do what you want it to do. This, of course, takes time and money, and there isn't a company you can go to and pay them to do it.
Of course it takes time and money. If a company spends $50.000 on commercial software, they should compare that to spending $50.000 adapting free software. It might be worth it, and it might not. Not doing the math is just foolish.
... and of course there are companies that can do this! This is open source, anyone can do it, remember?
We used to be able to tell which carrier someone had (nice when trying to guess the cost of the call) but now we can't anymore ..
Well, the current trend (Norway) is a simpler pricing scheme, where the charge is the same regardless of the network operator. It's all for the benefit of the customer, really, which is quite nice ;-)
I wonder, does RAM faults develop over time, or are they introduced in manufacturing? That is, if you have some bad RAM, and correct it with Linux BadRAM, can you then be reasonably safe you won't get more faults?
Dead pixels on LCD screens are like this, if you don't have any dead pixels, you'll never get any. But how about RAM?
Yeah, we should all switch to OpenOffice. I had a 20,000 row, 13 MB Excel file, which I resaved in OpenOffice Calc format. It came out at a sweet 640 KB ;-)
Geeks seem to have a weird fascination for strange spellings. "-ces" is the traditional plural ending of Latin words ending in "x". Obviously, "Unix" does not originate from Latin, and "Unices" is thus nothing but a (bad) joke. (The same applies to "emacsen", and there are a few others around as well.)
My 1991 16 MHz 386sx (a mid-range home PC from Brother) came with a built-in 512 KB Trident VGA card. I used to run Windows 3.0 in 800x600 on that one (only 16 colours).
The model preceding the one I've got had only half the video RAM, but still VGA. I think your memory is slightly skewed.
Wouldn't this just give SCO an unbelievably bad reputation among "common users"? I'd think it would be better to create a good impression by playing along with Linux rather than playing against it.
And if SCO should change its mind, and become Linux-friendly -- how can Linux users ever trust the company again?
A log of the changes Apple has made to KHTML was just posted to a KDE mailing list: http://lists.kde.org/?l=kfm-devel&m=10419691231632 6&w=2
9-4. Books and other teaching aides
In subjects other than Norwegian, one can only use books and other teaching aides that are available in Bokmål and Nynorsk at the same time and same price.
(misspellings/misunderstandings corrected)
... and there's a silly exception to this law that specifically covers office software. That's about to change now.
It doesn't, thankfully. But that's mainly because the Norwegian OpenOffice.org translations are done by experienced open source translators who are hired to work full-time. www.openofficeorg.no.
You're perfectly right, much open source software is badly translated. Skulelinux is trying to do a better job. And as with all open source: If you're not satisfied, you can at least improve it yourself.
That's exactly what some Norwegian counties did with OpenOffice.org. They hire open source translators to do the translations, and it costs much less than buying MS Office licenses for the schools. (MS Office was additionally only available in one of the two Norwegian languages, but seems to be changing now. I wonder why ;-)
I can easily imagine this in place of my car stereo. Not just for music, but also navigation etc. Just put on a specialized front panel and/or hook it up to a small touch screen on the dashboard. The CD/DVD player could be nice to keep, though. 12 V power should work quite well in cars.
OK, I can agree with your observations on PalmOS and Symbian excellence. But where did you get the idea that Symbian is "basic" and PalmOS is for "power users"?
Palm has always strived for simplicity, which has been a successfull approach indeed. Symbian is an operating system of more modern design, though: Highly efficient, 32 bit, multitasking, etc. Symbian draws on nearly 20 years of PDA experience, going back to the 1984 Psion Organiser, so the PDA capabilities on offer are well on par with Palm's.
Yes, PalmOS is great, and so is Symbian. I just don't think "power" Palm and "basic" Symbian is a correct characterization.
When this patch recently was included in Debian's freetype package, TrueType fonts became significantly more blurred on my 1024×768 LCD screen. Rebuilding with the patch disabled (and the bytecode interpreter turned on again) restored my fonts to normal.
My point is that what looks good on my LCD monitor may look totally different on a hi-res 1600×1200 LCD or a normal CRT monitor. These things should be configurable, since there are different compile-time settings which give the best results on different screens.
What we need is a very configurable freetype, with good configuration/preview tools; and a general understanding of the highly different effects on different displays.
Opera does not only reformat the page, it also tries to filter out any irrelevant images. Decorations and ads are discarded, while navigational images are replaced with text links. Opera will certainly be the best option for low-bandwidth mobile users, and even usable on "normal" 9.600 bps GSM.
You know there's something wrong when the title "two towers" make you think of September 11th instead of Tolkien :( And I'm not even American...
A month ago, I browsed the web with Opera on a Nokia 9210. I didn't realise the browser wasn't even released yet. Come to think of it, he who owned the 9210 was an Opera employee...
Anyway, a beta version of Opera for the 9210 (the old model, not the new 9210i) is available from this news group: news://news.my-communicator.com/My-9210.binaries.e nglish
A quite interesting contrast is the site of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. There are quite a lot of interesting technical info on those pages.
This page was not the official site, in fact there were no official site at all. But some Norwegian computer and news companies built the site. IBM, the "official information provider", was not happy with the unofficial site (or the connection with Sun), but they provided none themselves.
We Europeans are 50 years behind in development, or what? Well, I guess I can contribute with one of my own prejudices:
Everything's big in America. Wide roads and huge cars. Every American town looks the same, with those typical suburban areas with straight roads and big houses (and barbeques in the back yard). In Europe, on the other hand, we have to shape our cities to make them fit alongside mountains, rivers and coastlines. No two European cities look the same.
I don't mean to be arrogant, this is my impression of North America. I hope I'm not right.
My point (which is the exact opposite of Rackemup's) is that a transport system like the one described should be much easier to build in American cities than in Europe. (I'm thinking of the stereotype American city which just grows as big as it needs to be, as opposed to European cities that are formed by the terrain and restricted by thousands of years of history.)
This is one of two:
Guess what?