I have to say, inclusion of this song would be just foolish. Why not include The Joker as well, because of the word "gangster" in the phrase "gangster of love"? Well, I suppose f*ckedcompany isn't an authenticated news source, maybe this is just alleged stupidity.
I think we should promote the usage of open systems - like linux boxes - for widespread playing and processing of media, in liu of "industry standard" dvd/pvr/cd/etc devices. Such promotion would help competition, and bring prices down... but more importantly, hardware manufacturers will be more reluctant to make stealth changes to hardware if there is a large user base of open standard systems that will take notice and be alienated. Example: if it is true that there are dvd players that will only play encrypted media, it may be only a matter of time until all dvd players are like that.
I feel it is in bad taste to suggest that the deaths of CEOs/CTOs/CFOs of various companies is any more horrific or noteworthy than the deaths of codewriters, bricklayers, piano players, or anyone else.
There is nothing here to appeal to people who already know and like Windows.
Humorous yet serious point: don't be too quick to equate those who know windows with those who like it. I know windows, and have a long list of things windows could easily do much better if only it had a little competition.
and it's certainly not going to appeal to people who don't like windows either.
You don't offer any support for this statement. I'll just go down as saying that I disagree.
However, you can't sell [greater fraud protection via technology] in the US, because US consumers are already protected against credit card fraud by law. What's the value to consumers or merchants?
The value is tremendous. I personally know people who have been the victims of credit card fraud, and it is a nightmare that goes on and on. On paper it may seem like the only cost to consumers is $50, but the official statistic is that the average consumers spend 175 hours of their time trying to straighten out the mess that credit fraud wreaks upon their lives. Sometimes the saga takes years to unfold, and in the meantime the impact on their abilities to purchase houses and cars is compromised significantly. In a very real sense, credit card fraud doesn't really ever stop affecting a person; it merely ebbs to a level acceptable by the weary and embittered victim.
This is all caused by credit card companies looking the other way on this issue. They don't encourage consumers to come up with a passphrase any more secure than their mothers' maiden names. The mailing address on a credit account can be fraudulently changed with a simple phone call; if you want to get any higher a level of security, you have to opt into that security by contacting all the major credit institutions and pretending that you've been a fraud victim... and even then, the added security basically amounts to a requirement that someone fraudulently write in with a forged signature to change the mailing address.
Before you ask, I already have a boyfriend and he's more of a man than you'll ever be.
hey... that part about him being more of a man than me really hurt my feelings... I need a hug from someone...
preferably someone with large headlights
My point is that if/when something better than Google comes along, you should think twice before changing your homepage. When choosing a company, it's not just who provides the best product in the short term, you have to take into account long term as well.
I agree with the above philosophically, but on a practical level I don't know how one could go about trying to divine whether a new service is in the "bait" phase of bait-and-switch or not. Fact is, even the company itself may not know; sometimes the switch comes because the company didn't make it trying to execute Plan A, and Plan B is to sell out to advertisers or some acquisition. Anyone have either logic or heuristics to offer as far as trying to navigate these situations?
...the present spate of bad laws are based on the assumption that corporations have an entitlement to make a profit on distributing things digitally. And it's that sense of entitlement that results in laws that violate our constitutional rights
A simiar related point: another slashdotter once pointed out that despite perceptions to the contrary, capitalism does NOT confer the right to make a profit; it confers the right to TRY to make a profit. This is an important distinction.
We rely too heavily on organizations like EPIC and the EFF to do our work for us and we should be ashamed of that.
Be careful of using the term "ashamed"... I'm not sure it conveys the right sentiment. I agree that we should be cautious about relying on said organizations to be able to do everything that needs doing, but the notion of being ashamed of this as a status quo (if it is the status quo, no knowledge there) is a pretty alien one to me. Instead of seeking to motivate people through shame, I suspect that motivating them through self-concern, or (taken to an extreme) outrage, might resonate more fully.
I am writing to state my strong disapproval of the arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov at your behest. The DMCA is a severely flawed law; the restrictions it imposes on communication are too costly to society to warrant the meager and temporary benefits it confers on corporations.
Because of Adobe's prominent role in the arrest, I have become highly motivated to put my free time into the development of free software, such as the Gimp, that will replace Adobe software. I will also be stating my views in public forums, as well as advising companies for whom I consult to migrate toward free software that replaces Adobe products. When corporations start arresting people in an attempt to achieve security through obscurity and fear of communication, it becomes recognized that said company needs to be taken down a large notch. I am only too happy to oblige.
There are many others who feel like I do, and who are likewise capable of doing something about it. I hope that in the long run, Adobe has the vision to join and uplift the community of users and developers who comprise Adobe's lifeblood, instead of fighting them. Fighting them will only ensure that Adobe is ultimately relegated to the category of once-great software companies who desperately clung to dying business models and became a cautionary tale.
Of course on the flip-side there are very important advantages that women hold over men...
Women are more caring and nurturing than men, probably keeping the world sane in the process... Women are more understanding than men and are more ameanable to concensus forming...
They also have much nicer hooters, don't forget that.
My post was directed at... the slashdot editor, not any particular slashdot readers.
Ah, I get it. Thank you for clarifying. I do like your point about expecting (or at least hoping) that the editors will hold themselves to the kinds of standards you'd find in paid-for media. I feel that way too, and too often an a tad disappointed when the/. editors use articles as a call to insurgence amongst peers, instead of emphasizing facts and the moderated presentation thereof.
I'm sorry I was cranky, I haven't had nearly enough sleep in the past six months and sometimes it comes through. Note to self: don't write any more cranky-grams til caught up on sleep.
No matter what three they pick, they're going to get slammed here on slashdot.
Ok it's official: I've gotten tired of comments like the above where someone thinks there's something profound and revelatory about the notion that skepticism is a common practice amongst slashdot readers. Just because that's the case doesn't mean we're all operating on reflexes only. There used to be acknowledgement that this condition was known as having independent thought and taste.
Michael, you sound like you're frustrated. However, there's only so much latitude that such frustration warrants, and as a review of a game I'd give your article a 0. If instead you'd posed this as a general discussion about game quality in general (with the pertinent example being MystIII), maybe that would have some merit. As it is, the worthwhile parts of this thread have essentially become that... but it's the mark of a bad slashdot editor to rely on his articles and how he frames them having to be rescued. Try to be a tad professional.
Why does it seem that most people spend most of their time hoping for something bad to happen to Microsoft? If there's a security problem with a Microsoft product, it's not a *good* thing..."!
I would only agree with the above viewpoint if either
1) Microsoft was open source, or
2) Microsoft was a benevolent dictator
Neither is the case. Microsoft is pushing a closed, proprietary system with the goals of making as much money as possible, even if it means drastically reducing peoples' quality of life and compromising their rights on a widespread scale. In my opinion most companies operate on the same bottom line basis as Microsoft, and would be attempting to perpetrate similar ills on the world if they had the means... but Microsoft is among the very few companies holding the reigns on a highly closed system in a monopoly on a product that does not have much elasticity of demand (from a realistic corporate or home use perspective). Microsoft is further assisted by the fact that most people don't even understand the upstream issues; they simply endure a lousy end-result experience.
(sorry to be off-topic but...)
I've heard many phrasings of this joke, and I've always found them abrasive and stupid. I only find this to be worth pointing out because some people seem to think the joke is somehow profound. All variants of this joke gloss over the fact that her equipment (fishing rod, etc) doesn't have any use other than the reason alleged in the joke; his equipment does. More importantly, she could have chosen not to have her equipment with her.
A while back, there were a series of pictures making the rounds with the title "I look like my dog" (you can still find these in a search of the web). Pairs of pictures each showed one person and one dog, and they did indeed look quite a lot like each other, with the help of some creative styling. Inspired by this, I set out to make a similar series titled "I eat like my dog", wherein I'd pose eating out of dishes on the ground. The problem was I could not find a single picture of a dog eating on the net! I looked for 45 minutes before I gave up.
He mentions early in the article that there is a small amount of overhead... because of CPU time and accessing the hard disk. Why then does he scale the overhead percentage-wise with each of his tests? That overhead... should stay exactly the same
In addition to calculations and disk access, there's also overhead that is dependent on the line speed; specifically, the link access times (avoiding collisions with the other end accessing the medium) and the transmission time for checksums and the other minutia that make up headers. It may have been this to which his calculations referred.
The Open Media Initiative (OMI) would promote the following values:
Technological measures restricting duplication of any data may not exist.
Technological measures restricting usage of any data, regardless of the type of data or the intended use, shall not exist.
Technological measures to record or report to third parties usage, duplication, or any other activity directly or indirectly involving said data shall not exist.
I think this is an excellent initiative.
In addition to on-box labeling, OMI could also supply web access to disclosures of the license agreements found inside the box or encountered upon running the software. The OMI could further supply brief online analyses or categorizations of such agreements, a la Consumer Reports.
And (as Schwab further notes in posting #176) OMI could list on the website the software that had been voluntarily submitted for scrutiny, vs software the OMI took it upon itself to examine without the company's cooperation. This would get around the need to "convince" enough vendors to get on board at the early side.
In addition to no _technological_ measures restricting or enacting the items in the list above, it would be good to note what legal/contractual restrictions accompany the software. For example, there might be no technological restriction on duplicating data, but a legal restriction might be buried somewhere in the accompanying legal agreement.
Caution is warranted in the usage of the term "data". For example, if the OMI certifies that a piece of software does not have restrictions on the duplication of data, a company trying to do an end run around this might emphasize a distinction between "code" and (non-executable) "data" that could make things sticky. It might be best to state that there is not restriction on duplication of the software itself as well as any data operated upon, provided said duplication is in accord with fair use.
To stimulate the marketplace advantages of further product differentiation, it might be interesting to also monitor the following attributes (some of which overlap or expand on the above list), and decide on a disclosure mechanism flexible enough to notate them on the outside of a box:
Whether the vendor forsakes (disavows any legal standing to, and any technical provisions for) shutting down or restricting usage of the product.
Whether the vendor forsakes the collection of information (via network transaction or otherwise) unless said information collection is the explicit consumer-side purpose of the product and is understood to be so at the time of purchase
Whether the vendor proposes product usage agreements that are not disclosed prior to the time of purchase; and a rough categorization of what any such agreements entail.
Whether the product and any accompanying agreements restrict "fair use" in any way. (DVDs would fail this in the current legal state of affairs).
Whether a hardware dongle is required for operation.
Whether advertising is encountered (e.g., AOL bombards its users).
Whether the product attempts automatic updates; if so, whether it allows the user to configure whether auto updates occur (bonus points for having default setting be OFF); and whether the user approval is required for individual update attempts.
Whether there is transfer of ownership of data used (e.g., iTools' heavyhanded assertion of Apple's ownership of all data stored via iTools!).
Whether the product requires registration to operate.
Whether the product requires registration for support.
As suggested elsewhere, I'd guess that the EFF might be interested.
The simple fact is that copyright establishes ownership.
If there's anything that evolving technologies and related analyses should be teaching you, it's that the notion of copyright is not a universal truth. It is instead an economic construct that is highly dependent on its technological and societal substrate for validity. Copyright's purpose is the betterment of life for the masses, and exactly how to go about that is guaranteed to change over time. The issues are rich, subtle, controversial... anything but "simple".
This is a country which has built itself up on the image of the man alone and unhampered, the cowboy, going out to stake his claim on territory and land.
Some of us didn't grow up wearing Lil' Cowboy Brand chaps and watching John Wayne movies. I even have a sensitive side! I regard "American" to be about striving for equality in an imperfect world, not about heroism.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.gangster-of-love.com/songhits.html
I have to say, inclusion of this song would be just foolish. Why not include The Joker as well, because of the word "gangster" in the phrase "gangster of love"? Well, I suppose f*ckedcompany isn't an authenticated news source, maybe this is just alleged stupidity.
I think we should promote the usage of open systems - like linux boxes - for widespread playing and processing of media, in liu of "industry standard" dvd/pvr/cd/etc devices. Such promotion would help competition, and bring prices down... but more importantly, hardware manufacturers will be more reluctant to make stealth changes to hardware if there is a large user base of open standard systems that will take notice and be alienated. Example: if it is true that there are dvd players that will only play encrypted media, it may be only a matter of time until all dvd players are like that.
I feel it is in bad taste to suggest that the deaths of CEOs/CTOs/CFOs of various companies is any more horrific or noteworthy than the deaths of codewriters, bricklayers, piano players, or anyone else.
Humorous yet serious point: don't be too quick to equate those who know windows with those who like it. I know windows, and have a long list of things windows could easily do much better if only it had a little competition.
and it's certainly not going to appeal to people who don't like windows either.
You don't offer any support for this statement. I'll just go down as saying that I disagree.
When I first read it, I thought it said "the only way to beat bullets is to stand up to them." I thought wow, SOMEBODY really liked The Matrix.
Right on. Every election there are only two presidential candidates, and that hasn't made anyone claim that America isn't a democracy.
The value is tremendous. I personally know people who have been the victims of credit card fraud, and it is a nightmare that goes on and on. On paper it may seem like the only cost to consumers is $50, but the official statistic is that the average consumers spend 175 hours of their time trying to straighten out the mess that credit fraud wreaks upon their lives. Sometimes the saga takes years to unfold, and in the meantime the impact on their abilities to purchase houses and cars is compromised significantly. In a very real sense, credit card fraud doesn't really ever stop affecting a person; it merely ebbs to a level acceptable by the weary and embittered victim.
This is all caused by credit card companies looking the other way on this issue. They don't encourage consumers to come up with a passphrase any more secure than their mothers' maiden names. The mailing address on a credit account can be fraudulently changed with a simple phone call; if you want to get any higher a level of security, you have to opt into that security by contacting all the major credit institutions and pretending that you've been a fraud victim... and even then, the added security basically amounts to a requirement that someone fraudulently write in with a forged signature to change the mailing address.
hey... that part about him being more of a man than me really hurt my feelings... I need a hug from someone... preferably someone with large headlights
I agree with the above philosophically, but on a practical level I don't know how one could go about trying to divine whether a new service is in the "bait" phase of bait-and-switch or not. Fact is, even the company itself may not know; sometimes the switch comes because the company didn't make it trying to execute Plan A, and Plan B is to sell out to advertisers or some acquisition. Anyone have either logic or heuristics to offer as far as trying to navigate these situations?
A simiar related point: another slashdotter once pointed out that despite perceptions to the contrary, capitalism does NOT confer the right to make a profit; it confers the right to TRY to make a profit. This is an important distinction.
Be careful of using the term "ashamed"... I'm not sure it conveys the right sentiment. I agree that we should be cautious about relying on said organizations to be able to do everything that needs doing, but the notion of being ashamed of this as a status quo (if it is the status quo, no knowledge there) is a pretty alien one to me. Instead of seeking to motivate people through shame, I suspect that motivating them through self-concern, or (taken to an extreme) outrage, might resonate more fully.
Dear Adobe,
I am writing to state my strong disapproval of the arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov at your behest. The DMCA is a severely flawed law; the restrictions it imposes on communication are too costly to society to warrant the meager and temporary benefits it confers on corporations.
Because of Adobe's prominent role in the arrest, I have become highly motivated to put my free time into the development of free software, such as the Gimp, that will replace Adobe software. I will also be stating my views in public forums, as well as advising companies for whom I consult to migrate toward free software that replaces Adobe products. When corporations start arresting people in an attempt to achieve security through obscurity and fear of communication, it becomes recognized that said company needs to be taken down a large notch. I am only too happy to oblige.
There are many others who feel like I do, and who are likewise capable of doing something about it. I hope that in the long run, Adobe has the vision to join and uplift the community of users and developers who comprise Adobe's lifeblood, instead of fighting them. Fighting them will only ensure that Adobe is ultimately relegated to the category of once-great software companies who desperately clung to dying business models and became a cautionary tale.
Sincerely,
A member of the community
They also have much nicer hooters, don't forget that.
oops, did I say that or only think it?
Ah, I get it. Thank you for clarifying. I do like your point about expecting (or at least hoping) that the editors will hold themselves to the kinds of standards you'd find in paid-for media. I feel that way too, and too often an a tad disappointed when the /. editors use articles as a call to insurgence amongst peers, instead of emphasizing facts and the moderated presentation thereof.
I'm sorry I was cranky, I haven't had nearly enough sleep in the past six months and sometimes it comes through. Note to self: don't write any more cranky-grams til caught up on sleep.
Ok it's official: I've gotten tired of comments like the above where someone thinks there's something profound and revelatory about the notion that skepticism is a common practice amongst slashdot readers. Just because that's the case doesn't mean we're all operating on reflexes only. There used to be acknowledgement that this condition was known as having independent thought and taste.
Michael, you sound like you're frustrated. However, there's only so much latitude that such frustration warrants, and as a review of a game I'd give your article a 0. If instead you'd posed this as a general discussion about game quality in general (with the pertinent example being MystIII), maybe that would have some merit. As it is, the worthwhile parts of this thread have essentially become that... but it's the mark of a bad slashdot editor to rely on his articles and how he frames them having to be rescued. Try to be a tad professional.
I would only agree with the above viewpoint if either
1) Microsoft was open source, or
2) Microsoft was a benevolent dictator
Neither is the case. Microsoft is pushing a closed, proprietary system with the goals of making as much money as possible, even if it means drastically reducing peoples' quality of life and compromising their rights on a widespread scale. In my opinion most companies operate on the same bottom line basis as Microsoft, and would be attempting to perpetrate similar ills on the world if they had the means... but Microsoft is among the very few companies holding the reigns on a highly closed system in a monopoly on a product that does not have much elasticity of demand (from a realistic corporate or home use perspective). Microsoft is further assisted by the fact that most people don't even understand the upstream issues; they simply endure a lousy end-result experience.
Because closed-architecture game boxes (and computers and appliances) are headed towards being information gathering consumer monitoring devices.
(sorry to be off-topic but...) I've heard many phrasings of this joke, and I've always found them abrasive and stupid. I only find this to be worth pointing out because some people seem to think the joke is somehow profound. All variants of this joke gloss over the fact that her equipment (fishing rod, etc) doesn't have any use other than the reason alleged in the joke; his equipment does. More importantly, she could have chosen not to have her equipment with her.
A while back, there were a series of pictures making the rounds with the title "I look like my dog" (you can still find these in a search of the web). Pairs of pictures each showed one person and one dog, and they did indeed look quite a lot like each other, with the help of some creative styling. Inspired by this, I set out to make a similar series titled "I eat like my dog", wherein I'd pose eating out of dishes on the ground. The problem was I could not find a single picture of a dog eating on the net! I looked for 45 minutes before I gave up.
In addition to calculations and disk access, there's also overhead that is dependent on the line speed; specifically, the link access times (avoiding collisions with the other end accessing the medium) and the transmission time for checksums and the other minutia that make up headers. It may have been this to which his calculations referred.
But lying to a federal judge IS a crime.
I think this is an excellent initiative. In addition to on-box labeling, OMI could also supply web access to disclosures of the license agreements found inside the box or encountered upon running the software. The OMI could further supply brief online analyses or categorizations of such agreements, a la Consumer Reports.
And (as Schwab further notes in posting #176) OMI could list on the website the software that had been voluntarily submitted for scrutiny, vs software the OMI took it upon itself to examine without the company's cooperation. This would get around the need to "convince" enough vendors to get on board at the early side.
In addition to no _technological_ measures restricting or enacting the items in the list above, it would be good to note what legal/contractual restrictions accompany the software. For example, there might be no technological restriction on duplicating data, but a legal restriction might be buried somewhere in the accompanying legal agreement.
Caution is warranted in the usage of the term "data". For example, if the OMI certifies that a piece of software does not have restrictions on the duplication of data, a company trying to do an end run around this might emphasize a distinction between "code" and (non-executable) "data" that could make things sticky. It might be best to state that there is not restriction on duplication of the software itself as well as any data operated upon, provided said duplication is in accord with fair use.
To stimulate the marketplace advantages of further product differentiation, it might be interesting to also monitor the following attributes (some of which overlap or expand on the above list), and decide on a disclosure mechanism flexible enough to notate them on the outside of a box:
- Whether the vendor forsakes (disavows any legal standing to, and any technical provisions for) shutting down or restricting usage of the product.
- Whether the vendor forsakes the collection of information (via network transaction or otherwise) unless said information collection is the explicit consumer-side purpose of the product and is understood to be so at the time of purchase
- Whether the vendor proposes product usage agreements that are not disclosed prior to the time of purchase; and a rough categorization of what any such agreements entail.
- Whether the product and any accompanying agreements restrict "fair use" in any way. (DVDs would fail this in the current legal state of affairs).
- Whether a hardware dongle is required for operation.
- Whether advertising is encountered (e.g., AOL bombards its users).
- Whether the product attempts automatic updates; if so, whether it allows the user to configure whether auto updates occur (bonus points for having default setting be OFF); and whether the user approval is required for individual update attempts.
- Whether there is transfer of ownership of data used (e.g., iTools' heavyhanded assertion of Apple's ownership of all data stored via iTools!).
- Whether the product requires registration to operate.
- Whether the product requires registration for support.
As suggested elsewhere, I'd guess that the EFF might be interested.I know I am.
If there's anything that evolving technologies and related analyses should be teaching you, it's that the notion of copyright is not a universal truth. It is instead an economic construct that is highly dependent on its technological and societal substrate for validity. Copyright's purpose is the betterment of life for the masses, and exactly how to go about that is guaranteed to change over time. The issues are rich, subtle, controversial... anything but "simple".
This is a country which has built itself up on the image of the man alone and unhampered, the cowboy, going out to stake his claim on territory and land.
Some of us didn't grow up wearing Lil' Cowboy Brand chaps and watching John Wayne movies. I even have a sensitive side! I regard "American" to be about striving for equality in an imperfect world, not about heroism.