My celeron 433 isn't affected one bit by my running Kazaa.. methinks you may have a deeper problem.
Having said that, I long ago switched to Kazaalite. It loads about a million times faster (no ads) and of course, has no spyware or hidden p2p network.
Now, if you go into Electronics Boutique (who do mark their games up more than anyone else in town), you can find games for consoles for as much as $85, as the norm. That's fucking steep. I remember paying $55 or $60 for a game in most cases.
I'm remembering when the N64 came out, and everyone was decrying the cartridge format as being 'too expensive'. Yet, I was able to buy games for it for $70ish most of the time.
Now that everything's on CD, which cost pennies to press, games for the new systems cost MORE?!?!?!
Oh wait, and casettes are still cheaper than CD's. This has nothing to do with economics, and everything to do with companies being able to gouge whatever the hell they want from the consumer. Seriously, anyone else remember Sony and Sega's attacks on the N64? "Our games will be cheaper because we aren't using the obsolete and expensive cartridge format". Well, we see the truth now, don't we?
How many April Fools stories do we need? Besides it's past noon here!
You do of course realize that April Fool's day is precisely that... a DAY. The whole "it ends at noon" thing was just invented by teachers who were sick of losing an entire day of school due to pranks.
Along similar lines is "Halloween ends at 8pm (or any time really)" started by a lot of small towns, to keep kids from wandering the streets all night.
And no, this post ISN'T an April Fool's post.
And yes, I don't think it's quite necessary to spend a whole day posting nonsense. The entire point of an April Fool's is that you can't automatically spot it.
For example - I was working on making a Golf Tee out of compacted grass seed and plant fertilizer - this way, there would no longer be so many plastic and wood tees
You do realize, of course, that wood and plastics are organic materials?
Let's face it, Disney wouldn't exist as anything more than a memory, a name for one style of old cartoons, if it wasn't for one thing:
Old enough material is no longer covered by copyright.
Damn near every Disney success in the past 15 years (and even further back really, Snow White was 1939) is not only based on a previous work to a large degree, they make absolutely no bones about the fact that they're 'adapting' someone else's work.
They want copyright extended indefinitely? They wouldn't f**king EXIST if copyrights didn't expire eventually!
Correction: the legal fees alone could sink file traders. Innocent folks are in far less danger. This is bad why?
You assume that 'file traders' and 'innocent' couldn't be used in the same sentence.
Take someone who has never violated copyright in their life, but trades various public domain/their own files all the time, using damn near any software package. ($corporation)'s lawyer decides to initiate legal proceedings against all users of ($file_sharing_service).
Your innocent user now has thousands of dollars of legal fees, unless they can prove inability to pay for legal representation, and hasn't actually done anything wrong.
Perhaps what's worse is that this government program almost encourages piracy. Think about it. If you buy blank media whose price has been increased by a levy, you've got to rip some copyrighted material to get your money's worth. The artists are getting paid from the levy anyway, so you might as well steal their music, right?
I've tried. I really have. I've bought and paid for every damn thing of mine, all legally. I've also bought a hell of a lot of cd-r's, for backing up my legally made (ie: by me) software, photos, video, you name it. I've spent years watching everyone get in on the free ride, and I thought that somehow if I avoided it all, I wouldn't be caught in the backlash. I personally hate the recording industry, and as such, I've not bought anything released in years. Voting with my wallet, you could say. I've also voted to keep the current idiots in power AWAY from Ottawa each time (so much for that doing anything).
And now, the Federal Government is basically telling me to fuck off and die, because it knows that I must be pirating music!
That's it. I give. I hereby declare myself a wanton pirate, and will do my damndest to spread every bit of music that I can. Obviously the creators of it figure I pirate anyway, and would rather just make their money off of blank media, so they must not mind. The Government, having no right to even be involved in the issue, let alone taxing it, is also telling me to pirate all that I can. Fine. From hereon in, every single cdr I buy will be dedicated solely to the copying and distribution of pirated music.
Why were they released in Region 2 first, when they're far more known & popular in Region 1?
They aren't released where they're popular precisely because they are popular. The networks can still make a lot of cash selling syndication deals. The first season of the Simpsons, by this point, is so old and well-played that only the die hard fans will watch it anymore, hence the DVD release.
A really stupid model for those who actually LIKE the show, but it keeps the bucks rolling in....
you would think you've never seen a female computer programmer before!
Well, I pretty much haven't. I spend my days in lecture halls (just north of ND in fact, in Winnipeg) of about 150 people, maximum 5 of which are female. And of those, all 5 will say the same thing - they're in Computer Science because "it's a well-paying job".
But what got me excited was the videogame love, and of course the insane geekiness of actually posting on/.
If I have purchased all of Sarah McLachlan's albums (for examples sake) and if she were to release a "Best of" compilation, and I already own the CD's on which the songs that are part of that compiliation originally appeared, then go to USENET and download that "Best of" CD in mp3's, am I a thief?
No, but you are infringing on copyright. Amazingly enough, the compilation itself is covered under copyright. This sort of thing is how the damn phone book is considered copyrightable. The ordering and presentation of the songs on a "best of" cd is sufficient to pass copyright standards in most countries, separate from the copyright on the individual tracks.
The trick is to download the mp3s for the songs that you originally own (even though they're digitally identical to the "best of" ones), or to rip your own cds. See how tricky things get in the 'new' digital age? Things like this are what record companies want to stop in a big way - if everyone can make their own "best of" cd's... well, let's just say that for a long time (may even still be) the biggest selling album in the world was a little thing called "Best of the Eagles".
Since corps. and businesses can't vote per se, the thinking is that they should be able to help get politicans who agree with them elected.
And this is precisely what is the problem with campaign finances as they stand today. If a corporation wants to influence who gets elected, well guess what: there is a CEO. A CFO. A board of directors. Thousands of employees. You name it. If these people want their livelyhood protected, let THEM vote. Seeing as they already can, why should even more political pressure be allowed by a corporation?
Oh wait, that would make sense; I forgot we were talking about politics:)
Some positive thoughts (just to be a rebel)
on
Slashdot IRC Forum
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Wow, FAQs, multiple stories, 3 hours of IRC chat, and people still have 50 million questions, and at least half the comments so far are nothing more than whining and/or trolling.
Lighten up, people! It's a WEBSITE. A good one, one that I happen to find entertaining and informative, but it's still a website. 300,000+ users a day ain't chump change in the bandwidth game. Keeping a system alive to support that with very little downtime is itself quite an accomplishment (think of how many 'big name' sites have themselves been Slashdotted).
I have yet to actually see any of these 'new' ads, and something tells me I'll be ignoring them just as I would any other ad within a week. Don't like them? Cough up some dough. Don't like that? LEAVE. Why exactly do people keep posting 'I will not pay for a message board'? Fine, then go. Just please stop whining about it.
Every time I visit/., I still shake my head in wonder. Geeks who've made money online, and are still making money. Sometimes I wonder if it's just sour grapes from a lot of formerly-employed dot-commers... but let's face it: if Rob was such the uncaring asshole people make him out to be, he would have just sold Slashdot for a big chunk of change. Taco made something cool, made himself at least something of a career out of it, and is STILL DOING IT. Find me more than a handful of people who can claim that over the past 5 years. AND still will take 3 hours to sit on IRC of all the godforsaken holes in the universe to answer the same 5 questions repeatedly.
Oh well, that was rambling enough. Long story short, if you don't like it, make your own. Whining won't make it any better.
That's why I thought it was so good... especially in this day and age of continual recycling of entertainment, actually having the (imitation/copying/whatever) of a previous commercial really struck me as amusing. Pepsi ads from the 50's aren't very relevant today. Apple's '1984' ads are, if not moreso than last time.
Devil's advocate here, but downloading and installing several dozen freeware programs with each Windows install would really, really suck. And considering I usually re-install it at least once a year (no, I'm not claiming it's that GOOD of an OS:)... keeping up with that many separate apps just for really basic functionality would be a complete pain.
I happen to LIKE most if not all of the bundled applications/applets in Windows. I DO NOT like the fact that they cannot easily be changed if the user so chooses.
For starters, they don't kill/injure a dozen or more people, and the FBI isn't called in to deal with it. And chances are they don't slingshot themselves to death afterwards.
Without a doubt, this is the best advertising idea I have seen in years. My hat's off to you, sir/madam.
Of course, ads with moral content, not just made to sell more bright shiny things to drooling moronic consumers, don't really occur anymore. Except for Amnesty and Greenpeace *shudder*.
The original PONG didn't have any rom in it at all - in fact, it didn't use any ICs whatsoever. 100% discrete circuitry, much like the original Magnavox Odyssey. It's not really possible to emulate this. Later versions of PONG (all those millions of clones and 6-in-1 type games) had PONG on a chip - developed by GI iirc - which was basically the entire game logic and display routines in a nice tiny package. The units still tended to be large regardless.
As for MAME, as arcade PONG can't be emulated, the best you can hope for is a simulation. This was included in MAME several (dozen) versions back, but removed by the project head, as he considered simulation not in tune with what MAME is about. I believe the code is still in there, and as MAME is open-sourced, you can just uncomment the relevant parts and compile it with PONG. There also are binaries floating around with this code still enabled. But as for 'officially'... sadly, it ain't there.
I do know that in Canada, people on social assistance of any sort who win large amounts of money DO NOT get to keep it (at least not all of it). The casinos here in Winnipeg actually do check to see if you're a welfare recipient if you win anything large (over $1,000?) and you don't get all, if any of it.
Damn good idea IMHO, I've always wondered what the hell people were doing in a casino when they're so 'poor' that they need government assistance of any kind...
Considering the number of people who actually use their guns for legal purposes (hunting, sport) compared to the number of guns out there, I don't think this is too far from the truth.
Guns have one purpose: killing. Hell, at least cigarettes were originally designed to give some sort of an enjoyable sensation. And look what's happened to the tobacco companies..
You can't expect immature technologies to be viable to private companies
Yeah, the whole computer software industry sure failed to develop. Microsoft works much better as a government-run corporation.
Actually, for anyone here who thinks their monopoly stinks (rightly so), just imagine if they WERE government run and funded all these years. At least Windows (in theory) works, and the possibility exists for competition. Try making Linux illegal and see how far it gets.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone else find it extremely funny that someone called 'prisoner' also works for the RIAA? :)
My celeron 433 isn't affected one bit by my running Kazaa.. methinks you may have a deeper problem.
Having said that, I long ago switched to Kazaalite. It loads about a million times faster (no ads) and of course, has no spyware or hidden p2p network.
Now, if you go into Electronics Boutique (who do mark their games up more than anyone else in town), you can find games for consoles for as much as $85, as the norm. That's fucking steep. I remember paying $55 or $60 for a game in most cases.
I'm remembering when the N64 came out, and everyone was decrying the cartridge format as being 'too expensive'. Yet, I was able to buy games for it for $70ish most of the time.
Now that everything's on CD, which cost pennies to press, games for the new systems cost MORE?!?!?!
Oh wait, and casettes are still cheaper than CD's. This has nothing to do with economics, and everything to do with companies being able to gouge whatever the hell they want from the consumer. Seriously, anyone else remember Sony and Sega's attacks on the N64? "Our games will be cheaper because we aren't using the obsolete and expensive cartridge format". Well, we see the truth now, don't we?
How many April Fools stories do we need? Besides it's past noon here!
You do of course realize that April Fool's day is precisely that... a DAY. The whole "it ends at noon" thing was just invented by teachers who were sick of losing an entire day of school due to pranks.
Along similar lines is "Halloween ends at 8pm (or any time really)" started by a lot of small towns, to keep kids from wandering the streets all night.
And no, this post ISN'T an April Fool's post.
And yes, I don't think it's quite necessary to spend a whole day posting nonsense. The entire point of an April Fool's is that you can't automatically spot it.
I would rather we learn to make thing _organic_.
For example - I was working on making a Golf Tee out of compacted grass seed and plant fertilizer - this way, there would no longer be so many plastic and wood tees
You do realize, of course, that wood and plastics are organic materials?
Let's face it, Disney wouldn't exist as anything more than a memory, a name for one style of old cartoons, if it wasn't for one thing:
Old enough material is no longer covered by copyright.
Damn near every Disney success in the past 15 years (and even further back really, Snow White was 1939) is not only based on a previous work to a large degree, they make absolutely no bones about the fact that they're 'adapting' someone else's work.
They want copyright extended indefinitely? They wouldn't f**king EXIST if copyrights didn't expire eventually!
For the record, hard drive serial numbers are rather trivial to change.
And an awful lot of equipment nowadays either allows dynamic MAC changing, or ways to spoof it.
How exactly can you change a hard wired CPU serial number?
Correction: the legal fees alone could sink file traders. Innocent folks are in far less danger. This is bad why?
You assume that 'file traders' and 'innocent' couldn't be used in the same sentence.
Take someone who has never violated copyright in their life, but trades various public domain/their own files all the time, using damn near any software package. ($corporation)'s lawyer decides to initiate legal proceedings against all users of ($file_sharing_service).
Your innocent user now has thousands of dollars of legal fees, unless they can prove inability to pay for legal representation, and hasn't actually done anything wrong.
And you don't see why this is bad?
... the people firing them do.
Now fulfill my constitutional right to nuke Buckingham Palace, damnit!
Perhaps what's worse is that this government program almost encourages piracy. Think about it. If you buy blank media whose price has been increased by a levy, you've got to rip some copyrighted material to get your money's worth. The artists are getting paid from the levy anyway, so you might as well steal their music, right?
I've tried. I really have. I've bought and paid for every damn thing of mine, all legally. I've also bought a hell of a lot of cd-r's, for backing up my legally made (ie: by me) software, photos, video, you name it. I've spent years watching everyone get in on the free ride, and I thought that somehow if I avoided it all, I wouldn't be caught in the backlash. I personally hate the recording industry, and as such, I've not bought anything released in years. Voting with my wallet, you could say. I've also voted to keep the current idiots in power AWAY from Ottawa each time (so much for that doing anything).
And now, the Federal Government is basically telling me to fuck off and die, because it knows that I must be pirating music!
That's it. I give. I hereby declare myself a wanton pirate, and will do my damndest to spread every bit of music that I can. Obviously the creators of it figure I pirate anyway, and would rather just make their money off of blank media, so they must not mind. The Government, having no right to even be involved in the issue, let alone taxing it, is also telling me to pirate all that I can. Fine. From hereon in, every single cdr I buy will be dedicated solely to the copying and distribution of pirated music.
Happy now?
They aren't released where they're popular precisely because they are popular. The networks can still make a lot of cash selling syndication deals. The first season of the Simpsons, by this point, is so old and well-played that only the die hard fans will watch it anymore, hence the DVD release.
A really stupid model for those who actually LIKE the show, but it keeps the bucks rolling in....
Well, I pretty much haven't. I spend my days in lecture halls (just north of ND in fact, in Winnipeg) of about 150 people, maximum 5 of which are female. And of those, all 5 will say the same thing - they're in Computer Science because "it's a well-paying job".
But what got me excited was the videogame love, and of course the insane geekiness of actually posting on
Zelda fan AND female. Marry me. Pain optional.
No, but you are infringing on copyright. Amazingly enough, the compilation itself is covered under copyright. This sort of thing is how the damn phone book is considered copyrightable. The ordering and presentation of the songs on a "best of" cd is sufficient to pass copyright standards in most countries, separate from the copyright on the individual tracks.
The trick is to download the mp3s for the songs that you originally own (even though they're digitally identical to the "best of" ones), or to rip your own cds. See how tricky things get in the 'new' digital age? Things like this are what record companies want to stop in a big way - if everyone can make their own "best of" cd's... well, let's just say that for a long time (may even still be) the biggest selling album in the world was a little thing called "Best of the Eagles".
And this is precisely what is the problem with campaign finances as they stand today. If a corporation wants to influence who gets elected, well guess what: there is a CEO. A CFO. A board of directors. Thousands of employees. You name it. If these people want their livelyhood protected, let THEM vote. Seeing as they already can, why should even more political pressure be allowed by a corporation?
Oh wait, that would make sense; I forgot we were talking about politics
Wow, FAQs, multiple stories, 3 hours of IRC chat, and people still have 50 million questions, and at least half the comments so far are nothing more than whining and/or trolling.
/., I still shake my head in wonder. Geeks who've made money online, and are still making money. Sometimes I wonder if it's just sour grapes from a lot of formerly-employed dot-commers... but let's face it: if Rob was such the uncaring asshole people make him out to be, he would have just sold Slashdot for a big chunk of change. Taco made something cool, made himself at least something of a career out of it, and is STILL DOING IT. Find me more than a handful of people who can claim that over the past 5 years. AND still will take 3 hours to sit on IRC of all the godforsaken holes in the universe to answer the same 5 questions repeatedly.
Lighten up, people! It's a WEBSITE. A good one, one that I happen to find entertaining and informative, but it's still a website. 300,000+ users a day ain't chump change in the bandwidth game. Keeping a system alive to support that with very little downtime is itself quite an accomplishment (think of how many 'big name' sites have themselves been Slashdotted).
I have yet to actually see any of these 'new' ads, and something tells me I'll be ignoring them just as I would any other ad within a week. Don't like them? Cough up some dough. Don't like that? LEAVE. Why exactly do people keep posting 'I will not pay for a message board'? Fine, then go. Just please stop whining about it.
Every time I visit
Oh well, that was rambling enough. Long story short, if you don't like it, make your own. Whining won't make it any better.
I happen to LIKE most if not all of the bundled applications/applets in Windows. I DO NOT like the fact that they cannot easily be changed if the user so chooses.
Not to be an ass, but:
So what happens when they build slingshots?
For starters, they don't kill/injure a dozen or more people, and the FBI isn't called in to deal with it. And chances are they don't slingshot themselves to death afterwards.
Of course, ads with moral content, not just made to sell more bright shiny things to drooling moronic consumers, don't really occur anymore. Except for Amnesty and Greenpeace *shudder*.
As for MAME, as arcade PONG can't be emulated, the best you can hope for is a simulation. This was included in MAME several (dozen) versions back, but removed by the project head, as he considered simulation not in tune with what MAME is about. I believe the code is still in there, and as MAME is open-sourced, you can just uncomment the relevant parts and compile it with PONG. There also are binaries floating around with this code still enabled. But as for 'officially'... sadly, it ain't there.
Damn good idea IMHO, I've always wondered what the hell people were doing in a casino when they're so 'poor' that they need government assistance of any kind...
Guns have one purpose: killing. Hell, at least cigarettes were originally designed to give some sort of an enjoyable sensation. And look what's happened to the tobacco companies..
Yeah, the whole computer software industry sure failed to develop. Microsoft works much better as a government-run corporation.
Actually, for anyone here who thinks their monopoly stinks (rightly so), just imagine if they WERE government run and funded all these years. At least Windows (in theory) works, and the possibility exists for competition. Try making Linux illegal and see how far it gets.