I'd love to have an mp3 player without having to either run wiring from my computer to my living room where my stereo is (yes, I'm one of those
people that spend time away from the computer) or place a whiring beast PC in my stereo cabinet
If I might make a suggestion, I'd propose you pick up (if you have the money to spend) an X-10 mp3 anywhere setup. A small device that hooks up discretely to your reciever/stereo (via RCA jacks) and your PC. No wires, no fuss, just mp3's beamed directly to your sweet audio system. Yum!
----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
A PC, on the other hand, costs at least $800 to get the lowest consumer model possible.
Umm and these aren't really rigs that are aimed at the hardcore PC gamer, either. A true hard-core PC gamer would sneer at these "Honey, Let's Get A Computer So We Can Surf The Web" type computers which are aimed primarily at the lower income end of society which have previously been excluded from the "digital revolution". By creating these low-cost machines which sell to a larger market, they can make decent money off these machines.
While this might appeal to a very casual gamer (read: Solitaire, anyone?) I don't think that many serious gamers opt for these low-cost computers, unless they just use them for the base parts. Low-end gaming systems generally retail for over $1k, with the pure drool-machines costing more than some new cars:-P. Just a small point, but an important one. ----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
No more of that nerdy news!!!
This is what I come to this site for, left leaning political discussion that really matters!!!
YES! And no more of this stupid DMCA/UCTIA news either please! I don't care if they make owning a computer illegal as long as I know how many gigatexels the newest graphics card can handle! And no more of this SDMI/Napster crap either, music is for those arty-fartsy trust-fund hippies! The CPU fan and the sound of a hard drive swapping is the only music a real nerd needs! And what's with this stupid-ass "web site" crap, anyways? Slashdot should be a dial-up BBS with a bank of 8 300 baud modem lines! And for gods sake stop running all these articles about the outside world! I live in my parents basement and subsist through delivered pizza and mail-order! I don't care about anything that happens outside! This site should cater only to me! Not to mention that I'm too stupid to turn off a little box in my slashdot preferences!!!
Maybe Rob should just change the title to Slashdot: News for whiny little bitches. ----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Ahh, but the counterpoint to that argument is that for every player who buys a Bleem system to play legit bought disks, they're getting free licensing fees without losing money on the hardware. Food for thought...
----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Prior to my "retirement" not too long ago, I'd been on EFnet for close to eight years. THE DoSing a few years back was very different from today's DoSing, mainly due to intent. Before they introduced nick/channel timestamping, people would simply briefly DoS a server until it split, then ride back into the channel of their choice on the split server and desynch everything all to hell in an attempt to take over a channel. After a few years the admins really got their shit together and did some serious re-structuring in terms of routing, load balancing and server options like timestamping and tons of other stuff. The problem is that the server admins (or their employers) are getting sick of all the extra hassle that comes with running a server. Has EFnet seen worse? Yes, but those times were caused more by network design that wasn't really set up to handle the capacity, overloading of the servers, and exploits by small groups of people. Very different conditions from those faced by IRC admins today.
----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
I've had great experiences with DSL here in Nebraska. I get it through a local provider binary.net. They're a little more expensive than most of the other places in town (by 5 to 10 dollars a month or so) but on the upside there are NO monthly useage quotas (the other ISP's range from 1 to 2 gigs/month), have very few useage restrictions (no porn sites is about it), have competent admins who are all either Linux or BSD enthusiasts, good customer support and very reliable.
I think in the two or so years I've had DSL I've had maybe one outage that was the ISP's fault (router blew up), most of the rest are due to upstream issues with their NSP's or the local teleco, but those are also few and far between. To top it all off, since they're an under-advertised ISP in town and a little more expensive, most of the other DSL customers either sign up for the local teleco's plan or go with the town's major ISP. Which of course means less people hogging my bandwidth, which is always good.
As a disclaimer, I should add that I've never used cable (Time Warner, formerly CableVision has been unusually slow in rolling out digital cable/cable internet here in Lincoln) But from what I've heard cable internet quality of service provided can vary drastically from location to location. It also looks like the cable service they're going to roll out here is going to be even slower than the 384/128 that my "bargain-bin" DSL service offers. Hope this helps...
----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
How do they keep miniscule air currents
from causing even the littlest ripple? The platform is spinning, which will cause some air turbulence.
Quite simple really... mercury is very very heavy. It would take a lot of air to cause it to ripple, so if you can keep it in a relatively wind-free environment, you'll be fine. Vibrations during the rotation of the mercury would be a much greater concern, methinks.
----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
No, irc.ef.net was just one of the many servers that has been removed by network admins who don't want to deal with all the extra shit that running an IRC server involves. Running an IRC server on an EFnet sized network already involves significant overhead in terms of bandwidth and system resources. Add to this script kiddies kiddies who use DoS attacks to satisfy their own personal vendettas and suddenly the cost of running an IRC server far outweighs the benefits for many admins. That is what's causing the death of EFnet. ----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Yes, but now America is quickly moving to a "fuck everyone else, gimme my dollar!" society. We can always bring a bunch of new ones in. Hell, what would you do if you were CEO and had shareholders breathing down your neck? Lessee, you can keep a bunch of American workers, pay them their $X dollars a year, or you could replace them with qualified, hard working immigrants who'll work for half as much? If they actually become patriated they'll start demanding equal pay and all sorts of outrageous stuff! As long as they're not citizens, businesses can rape them all they want. Once they become a potential threat to the bottom line, deport 'em and bring in a fresh batch. Government-sanctioned sweat-shops, anyone? ----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Similarly, attempting to equate Godwin's Law with a point of logic is a non sequiter.
A small note, in my original post I wasn't trying to equate Godwin's Law with a point of logic, I was equating the use of Nazi-related symbolism (as per the original post to which I was replying) with a point of logic, which is that the original poster of the analogy was using an emotionally loaded concept (Nazi paraphenalia) to try and make a point which could have just as well have been made with a different analogy, as other posters have pointed out. It's this which Danse doesn't seem to grasp. I'll just leave it at that for now. ----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
As much as I feel that we are heading to a society that resembles Mark's prediction. I've always felt that there will be a breaking point where people
just won't stand for it anymore.
In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me -- and by that time there was nobody left to speak up.
-Martin Niemoller
I apologize in advance for invoking Godwin's Law. However, the author pretty much covers "hitting breaking points" much more succinctly than I ever could.
----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
However, when some Nazi-related idea or symbol is used simply to illustrate a point rather than to attack the
opposition, why should it be declared invalid?
Quite simple... in logic, it's what's known as using loaded terminology to make a (false) argument. Godwin's law applies here because using a Nazi-analogy (or reference to ideological works of Nazism) inherently invokes a negative response in people. Basically you're making an attempt at appealing to people's emotions, because your logic is flawed and standard rational argumentation won't get you anywhere. There are plenty of analogies that can be used to illustrate any point without invoking Godwin's law.
----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Umm Apple isn't threatening them with some sort of legal violation, they're simply going to yank the advertising dollars out from under the site's feet. If Apple doesn't agree with sites posting rumors, they're well within their rights to yank their support of these sites. No first amendmen violation whatsoever. This is not to say that I agree with these types of tactics, I'm just saying it's not a first amendment issue, it's a money issue.
----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
I believe that amazon was trying to patent the process of one-click shopping, not just copyright the software. If they have the copyright, I can write up my own version (from scratch) which also permits one-click shopping, as long as I don't use their code or anything like that. A copyright applies to something semi-tangible, like text (ie. a movie script, or a book, or source code, binaries, music, that kind of thing).
A patent, on the other hand, applies to a process, that is to say, if Amazon (to re-use this example again) patents a process which allows users to purchase items with one mouse click to a web page, than any other process which allows users to purchase with one mouse click on a web page are infringing on Amazon's patent. Hope this helps.
----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
From the blurb on their page it looks like they're talking about downloading/upgrading their own software, (eg. the actual jukebox player type thing, not the Linux kernel etc...) which they can license as they see fit. Nice try though =P
----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
The MPAA's not a corporation nor has a bottom line. It's an association that represents the interests of its members and the industries they are part of.
Irregardless of these types of quibbles, they're still trying to repeal or nullify current legislation which allows for time-shifting, which is considered 'fair-use' under current regulations. While masquerading as anti-piracy worries ("Oh no! Now with digital TV, they can make unlimited perfect digital copies just like mp3 and put us networks out of business") they're just trying to screw us out of another buck. ("Missed the last episode of Survivor XXVII? Sorry we didn't let you tape it, but you can buy a copy from us for only $29.99!"). Nader's starting to look better and better....
----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
I'd be more than willing to set up an archive for good posts like this, problem being that I don't
have time to browse/. all day anymore. If people were to submit them to me though, I'd be more than happy to archive them.
----
Dave MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Slashdot Mirror
I'd love to have an mp3 player without having to either run wiring from my computer to my living room where my stereo is (yes, I'm one of those people that spend time away from the computer) or place a whiring beast PC in my stereo cabinet
If I might make a suggestion, I'd propose you pick up (if you have the money to spend) an X-10 mp3 anywhere setup. A small device that hooks up discretely to your reciever/stereo (via RCA jacks) and your PC. No wires, no fuss, just mp3's beamed directly to your sweet audio system. Yum!
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Umm and these aren't really rigs that are aimed at the hardcore PC gamer, either. A true hard-core PC gamer would sneer at these "Honey, Let's Get A Computer So We Can Surf The Web" type computers which are aimed primarily at the lower income end of society which have previously been excluded from the "digital revolution". By creating these low-cost machines which sell to a larger market, they can make decent money off these machines.
While this might appeal to a very casual gamer (read: Solitaire, anyone?) I don't think that many serious gamers opt for these low-cost computers, unless they just use them for the base parts. Low-end gaming systems generally retail for over $1k, with the pure drool-machines costing more than some new cars :-P. Just a small point, but an important one.
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
There will always be some people that go against the grain, but what kind of a percentage do you think would drop from DSL back to modems?
:-)
You can have my DSL line when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
No more of that nerdy news!!!
This is what I come to this site for, left leaning political discussion that really matters!!!
YES! And no more of this stupid DMCA/UCTIA news either please! I don't care if they make owning a computer illegal as long as I know how many gigatexels the newest graphics card can handle!
And no more of this SDMI/Napster crap either, music is for those arty-fartsy trust-fund hippies! The CPU fan and the sound of a hard drive swapping is the only music a real nerd needs!
And what's with this stupid-ass "web site" crap, anyways? Slashdot should be a dial-up BBS with a bank of 8 300 baud modem lines!
And for gods sake stop running all these articles about the outside world! I live in my parents basement and subsist through delivered pizza and mail-order! I don't care about anything that happens outside! This site should cater only to me! Not to mention that I'm too stupid to turn off a little box in my slashdot preferences!!!
Maybe Rob should just change the title to Slashdot: News for whiny little bitches.
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Umm just FYI, in your .sig it should be beset, not bisect.
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Ahh, but the counterpoint to that argument is that for every player who buys a Bleem system to play legit bought disks, they're getting free licensing fees without losing money on the hardware. Food for thought...
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Prior to my "retirement" not too long ago, I'd been on EFnet for close to eight years. THE DoSing a few years back was very different from today's DoSing, mainly due to intent. Before they introduced nick/channel timestamping, people would simply briefly DoS a server until it split, then ride back into the channel of their choice on the split server and desynch everything all to hell in an attempt to take over a channel. After a few years the admins really got their shit together and did some serious re-structuring in terms of routing, load balancing and server options like timestamping and tons of other stuff. The problem is that the server admins (or their employers) are getting sick of all the extra hassle that comes with running a server. Has EFnet seen worse? Yes, but those times were caused more by network design that wasn't really set up to handle the capacity, overloading of the servers, and exploits by small groups of people. Very different conditions from those faced by IRC admins today.
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
I've had great experiences with DSL here in Nebraska. I get it through a local provider binary.net. They're a little more expensive than most of the other places in town (by 5 to 10 dollars a month or so) but on the upside there are NO monthly useage quotas (the other ISP's range from 1 to 2 gigs/month), have very few useage restrictions (no porn sites is about it), have competent admins who are all either Linux or BSD enthusiasts, good customer support and very reliable.
I think in the two or so years I've had DSL I've had maybe one outage that was the ISP's fault (router blew up), most of the rest are due to upstream issues with their NSP's or the local teleco, but those are also few and far between. To top it all off, since they're an under-advertised ISP in town and a little more expensive, most of the other DSL customers either sign up for the local teleco's plan or go with the town's major ISP. Which of course means less people hogging my bandwidth, which is always good.
As a disclaimer, I should add that I've never used cable (Time Warner, formerly CableVision has been unusually slow in rolling out digital cable/cable internet here in Lincoln) But from what I've heard cable internet quality of service provided can vary drastically from location to location. It also looks like the cable service they're going to roll out here is going to be even slower than the 384/128 that my "bargain-bin" DSL service offers. Hope this helps...
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
How do they keep miniscule air currents from causing even the littlest ripple? The platform is spinning, which will cause some air turbulence.
Quite simple really... mercury is very very heavy. It would take a lot of air to cause it to ripple, so if you can keep it in a relatively wind-free environment, you'll be fine. Vibrations during the rotation of the mercury would be a much greater concern, methinks.
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
No, irc.ef.net was just one of the many servers that has been removed by network admins who don't want to deal with all the extra shit that running an IRC server involves. Running an IRC server on an EFnet sized network already involves significant overhead in terms of bandwidth and system resources. Add to this script kiddies kiddies who use DoS attacks to satisfy their own personal vendettas and suddenly the cost of running an IRC server far outweighs the benefits for many admins. That is what's causing the death of EFnet.
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
A www.goatse.cx link is Informative??? Who the hell is moderating this? What are they smoking? And can I have some?
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Yes, but now America is quickly moving to a "fuck everyone else, gimme my dollar!" society. We can always bring a bunch of new ones in. Hell, what would you do if you were CEO and had shareholders breathing down your neck? Lessee, you can keep a bunch of American workers, pay them their $X dollars a year, or you could replace them with qualified, hard working immigrants who'll work for half as much? If they actually become patriated they'll start demanding equal pay and all sorts of outrageous stuff! As long as they're not citizens, businesses can rape them all they want. Once they become a potential threat to the bottom line, deport 'em and bring in a fresh batch. Government-sanctioned sweat-shops, anyone?
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Similarly, attempting to equate Godwin's Law with a point of logic is a non sequiter.
A small note, in my original post I wasn't trying to equate Godwin's Law with a point of logic, I was equating the use of Nazi-related symbolism (as per the original post to which I was replying) with a point of logic, which is that the original poster of the analogy was using an emotionally loaded concept (Nazi paraphenalia) to try and make a point which could have just as well have been made with a different analogy, as other posters have pointed out. It's this which Danse doesn't seem to grasp. I'll just leave it at that for now.
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
As much as I feel that we are heading to a society that resembles Mark's prediction. I've always felt that there will be a breaking point where people just won't stand for it anymore.
In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me -- and by that time there was nobody left to speak up.
-Martin Niemoller
I apologize in advance for invoking Godwin's Law. However, the author pretty much covers "hitting breaking points" much more succinctly than I ever could.
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
However, when some Nazi-related idea or symbol is used simply to illustrate a point rather than to attack the opposition, why should it be declared invalid?
Quite simple... in logic, it's what's known as using loaded terminology to make a (false) argument. Godwin's law applies here because using a Nazi-analogy (or reference to ideological works of Nazism) inherently invokes a negative response in people. Basically you're making an attempt at appealing to people's emotions, because your logic is flawed and standard rational argumentation won't get you anywhere. There are plenty of analogies that can be used to illustrate any point without invoking Godwin's law.
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
So in essence, what you're saying is that libraries just buy Playboy for the articles? :-)
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Someone please moderate this up =P It's about time we started using these stupid licenses to further the cause of Good!.
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Umm Apple isn't threatening them with some sort of legal violation, they're simply going to yank the advertising dollars out from under the site's feet. If Apple doesn't agree with sites posting rumors, they're well within their rights to yank their support of these sites. No first amendmen violation whatsoever. This is not to say that I agree with these types of tactics, I'm just saying it's not a first amendment issue, it's a money issue.
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
I can just see it now....
:-)
root@host#telnet box.host.org 25
Trying 123.244.244.244...
Connected to box.host.org.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 box.host.org ESMTP Sendmail 8.11.0/8.11.0/NOT DEBIAN I SWEAR!!!!! 8.11.0-1; Wed, 13 Sep 2000 13:47:29 -0500
Script Kiddie:Curses, foiled again!
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
I believe that amazon was trying to patent the process of one-click shopping, not just copyright the software. If they have the copyright, I can write up my own version (from scratch) which also permits one-click shopping, as long as I don't use their code or anything like that. A copyright applies to something semi-tangible, like text (ie. a movie script, or a book, or source code, binaries, music, that kind of thing).
A patent, on the other hand, applies to a process, that is to say, if Amazon (to re-use this example again) patents a process which allows users to purchase items with one mouse click to a web page, than any other process which allows users to purchase with one mouse click on a web page are infringing on Amazon's patent. Hope this helps.
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
From the blurb on their page it looks like they're talking about downloading/upgrading their own software, (eg. the actual jukebox player type thing, not the Linux kernel etc...) which they can license as they see fit. Nice try though =P
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
On the other hand, the Monkey Island games were classics. I still fondly remember the spitting contest...
:-)
How appropriate! You fight like a cow!
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Denying people anything on the premise that it could be used for harmful activities was the way Hitler conducted government.
D'oh! You were doing sooo well until you invoked Godwin's Law. Better luck next time.
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
The MPAA's not a corporation nor has a bottom line. It's an association that represents the interests of its members and the industries they are part of.
s/corporation/organization/g
s/bottom line/constituents bottom line/g
Irregardless of these types of quibbles, they're still trying to repeal or nullify current legislation which allows for time-shifting, which is considered 'fair-use' under current regulations. While masquerading as anti-piracy worries ("Oh no! Now with digital TV, they can make unlimited perfect digital copies just like mp3 and put us networks out of business") they're just trying to screw us out of another buck. ("Missed the last episode of Survivor XXVII? Sorry we didn't let you tape it, but you can buy a copy from us for only $29.99!"). Nader's starting to look better and better....
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
I'd be more than willing to set up an archive for good posts like this, problem being that I don't have time to browse /. all day anymore. If people were to submit them to me though, I'd be more than happy to archive them.
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss