If you read Billy West's FAQ before asking a question, you won't repeat things that he's been asked before, and make us all look like a bunch of uneducated monkeys without cooling hats!
when interviewed during the last presidential campaign, you were asked by an interviewer if you had a role model. To this you replied that Jesus was the closest that you had to one.
During your tenure as Governor of Texas, more people were killed in Texas prisons, enacting the death penalty, than during the tenure of any previous Governor in modern times. You presided over an execution nearly every two weeks from the moment you took office.
Considering the commandment of 'Thou shalt not kill' directly from God, and considering Jesus' stance on killing, how do you explain this glaring discrepancy between 'do as I say, not as I do'?
you would think by now germany would know better..
Bans don't work in the long run..
Fro example the ban on nazism in Germany forced everything underground in which the German police have to expend more hours than otherwise to keep track and monitor theri actions..if they weren't banned everyone woudl know what they are doing due to the fact that they woudl be out in the open in public view..
I'm not sure how much you know about Germany; for all I know, you may be German yourself. Whilst I am German, and whilst I don't support bans on violent games, I honestly believe that banning the open display of Nazi symbols, the Hitler salute, and the organization of radical fascist parties is a good thing.
Right now, 20 people will jump on that statement and scream that bans don't help, that you need to have everything out in the open, that it's great and fabulous to have radicals integrated into society, etc.
And that's all fabulous. And wrong. The Nazis in Germany came to power through democratic means. Although behind-the-scenes wrangling happened that ultimately allowed Hitler to become Chancellor without a genuine popular mandate, the NSDAP was one of the most, if not the most popular party in 1933. Through democratic means. They then used the democratic mandate they'd gained without illegal means to dismantle the Weimar Republic. (France allowed the National Front to enter local governments here and there, and local councils in certain regions of France have already seen an alarming rise in incidents where radical right-wingers successfully removed a variety of critical works from public libraries, critical newspapers from circulation, etc. Critical of their neo-fascist tactics that restrict democratic expression, mind you. Of course someone will go on about how ironic it is that it is those very fascist who are banning things, just like Germany is banning stuff, but they need a serious reality check.)
That's why radical groups are banned. That's why they have to operate underground. That's why Germany is quite keen to ban 'ideas' (I can hear the flames already) and things that are 'dangerous'.
Because people in general are easily seduced by things that make them feel good about themselves. Hitler told Germans that they were special and superior.
Thus, you want to make sure that radical groups that want to dismantle democracy are not allowed a popular mandate. You do not want to legitimize them by allowing them to exist in the public sphere. You do not want to allow them to become coalition partners, to enter local governments, and to slowly subvert and destroy freedom, tolerance, and democracy.
Because that's what they want.
And they're not going to get it. We've been there, we're not going back. We like democracy, we like freedom, we like being able to say whatever we want without being locked up, we don't want to be herded into camps because of our racial distinctions or religious beliefs, and we sure as fuck don't want to let radicals who want to destroy all of that back into the limelight.
So go on all you want about 'bans are bad!' and 'information wants to be free!'. Naivety will only get you so far, and jackbooted thugs will exploit all of it quite happily while you sit there letting them take away everything you hold dear.
Alex St Andrews
See also my earlier comments at: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23633&cid =2549 958 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23633&cid =2550 035
Here're some direct links to the pictures, without having to jump through hoops. (TechTV's not particulary standards-compliant site that crashed Konq on me once; the dreadful JS that is used for *everything*; the pop-ups required to get to the pictures; the slowness of the site)
Please no Karma claims; I'm at the cap - it's just a much more convenient way to get to the actual images.
The 'silly' link titles are TechTV's, not mine. You may have to copy/paste the shortcuts into your URL bar in case TechTV's site plays nasty with image linking from other sites. (I don't think it does, though)
Apparently, the author of this post abhors censorship of unwelcome ideas if his opponents are doing it...
I could try to explain the difference between:
1. Banning propaganda solely intended to cause the breakdown and destruction of a democratic system, and spreading of hate
2. Banning things you disagree with.
The things being banned are the former. Material that is intended to incite people into overthrowing a democratic system. It's not that I disagree with it (I do), it's securing everything that allows us to be the way we are.
There's no irony. It's very sad that people don't seem to understand that. Sure, Hitler burned books and imprisoned/killed people who disagreed with him. The fundamental difference is that he wanted to take away everybody's rights; the reason hate speech is being banned is because it's trying to replicate the situation in which everybody's rights would be taken away.
Right now, 300 of you are probably starting to write replies, all in the vein of..
Free speech doesn't end where you disagree with what the other person has to say. You can't muzzle people just because they're evil or stupid. Information wants to be free, even if it'll be misused. etc.
To all of those people - will you please not talk about things you don't understand? It's very easy to talk about freedom of speech whilst being very far away from the real issues, posting comfortably over your DSL link. Right here, right now, teenagers are being seduced into neo-fascist ideological groups every day. In France alone, there are local governments which have started banning books and newspapers that oppose them; Germany saw hundreds of attacks on blacks and non-Germans, with many of them dying in the attacks.
People were burned to death in their sleep.
There's a deep-seated strain of virulent fascism in Europe that's been intermittently expressed in politics and popular culture for most of the 20th century. Hitler and Mussolini didn't come out nowhere - there were fascist governments in many European countries because the authoritarian tradition instilled by the former feudal/royal systems was a fertile breeding ground for fascists.
Sure, Germany and Italy lost the war. That doesn't change the fact that Italy has a Prime Minister with strong ties to the fascist right. That doesn't change the fact that neo-Nazi skinhead groups in Germany are getting more and more support from stupid teeangers every day. Jewish cemeteries are being defaced. Blacks are attacked, asylum seeker homes are burned down.
What's that have to do with freedom of speech? Someone once said that in order to stop the hate, you'd have to kill all the grandmothers. (paraphrasing badly, basically in order to stop having hate passed on through generation)
Hitler's autobiography Mein Kampf (My Struggle) remains banned in Germany. Even though public education in Germany is far better than in the US, with history being one of the most thoroughly-taught subjects, and the Nazi regime being thoroughly exposed as the evil that it was, a small minority will still flock to neo-fascist ideals. They will use everything they can as propaganda material. They will find followers - probably not many, but enough. People are being killed by those 'few' followers. Hate is being spread. A lot of harm has been done to Europe through politics of hate, wars have been started, millions and millions have been killed.
The internet is difficult to regulate. Neo-nazis use it to co-ordinate their activities unchecked, and to spread as much hate-filled material through the net as possible. You can't make accessing it impossible, but you can make accessing it illegal. You can make it illegal to spread false propaganda that's only intended to harm people and cause harm. You have to try.
Most of you haven't lived through the type of hate that's being spread by the hate speech being banned. It's easy to be an armchair critic. It's easy to criticize. Please don't. I know many of you will say that the only way to fight this is by allowing the complete and unfettered flow of information, with public education taking center stage to show the people how wrong all of that hate speech is. Sure. That has been done, for more than half a century now. But a small minority persists, a small minority causing a disproportionate amount of evil.
Yes, we have to be very careful not to let matters escalate too much - after all, who watches the watchment? It's important to note that banning hate speech is an approach that crosses party lines in Europe: in Germany, both the ruling Socialist/Green coalition and the right- and left-wing opposition are strongly in favour of dealing harshly with neo-Nazis.
In closing, hate speech is a genuine problem. There are very, very few solutions to dealing with it, and trying to criminalize its flow is one of the few approaches we have.
Maybe you want to think about that next time you make fun of France banning Yahoo! nazi auctions. A lot of the stuff auctioned off could conceivably be worn by people burning down houses simply because they didn't like the skin colour of the people living in them.
I just dunno. My value system is mightily screwed up here, guys.
Pixar == Disney distribution == Disney == bad.
but
Pixar == nifty films == good!
but
Pixar == Steve Jobs == Apple == bad!
but
Apple == iPod == lame?
(this is where it gets confusing)
Pixar (also) == Linux == geeky == GOOD!
but
Linux == Pixar films == more money to MPAA == BAD!
but
Linux == less money to Bill Gates == GOOD!
but
Pixar == Apple == Sorenson Codec == BAD!
but
Sorenson Codec == Good Quality at Reasonable Size == GOOD!
but
Pixar == Apple != Linux == BAD!
but
Apple == OSX == BSD == GOOD!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaargh!
Thinking in more than one direction is really confusing. Someone post something about MS embracing and extending something, even if it's just an elastic band. Please? I need my world to be set right again.
Maybe a frogurt?
Alex
Why this is a good change
on
Slashdot Updates
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Funny how things change. About a year or two ago, people would have been up in arms about any changes to Slashdot that would commercialize it to such an extent. The OSDN 'brand building' bar, the upcoming large ads, the mere thought of a paid subscription model, etc.
Sure, information wants to be free. But it's NOT free as in beer.
As an aside, anyone notice how hard VA is trying to move people towards Newsforge? The banners exclaiming that Newsforge has twice as many news stories per day as Slashdot and LinuxToday combined? Now the brand building banner, etc? To me, this smacks of at least partial desperation; trying to create something that people will recognize and flock back to, even if the parent company should go bankrupt.
Sure, Slashdot is popular. Lots of people read it. But it is also becoming more and more stigmatized as the battlefield of business-ignorant fanatics. People who are worthless to any business, thus advertising to them is less productive than, say, advertising on a big, serious-looking site, with a more professional-looking design. With less hysterical stories about losing our rights to privacy and pirating music, and more stories about, for instance, "Caldera target[ting] developers with latest workstation", which is an actual Newsforge headline.
One of these two sites is somewhat appealing to business, and thus to advertisers. One of them is easier to sell as serious newsmedia. One of them has a heavy editorial hand, columns, and no negative image of being filles with Linux fanboys and other unwashed freaks.
The other one is Slashdot.
Somehow, I feel that OSDN is trying to direct as much traffic towards its more 'serious' site as possible, leaving Slashdot as a more 'hobbyist' site than anything else. Obviously they can't do anything directly about it, or those aforementioned fanboys (yeah, I'm one of them) would screaming bloody murder. But it can 'integrate' Slashdot into its OSDN thingee, adding bars, and big adverts, and subscription programs, and watering it down from its original incarnation.
Sure, it's necessary to survive economically, to some extent. But ultimately, Slashdot doesn't pay. It takes quite a lot of hardware, and SIGNIFICANT bandwidth. How much do you think VA makes on those Thinkgeek banners? To make up for the black hole of cash that is/. they either have to get the rabid fanboys to subscribe (big fat chance), or accept the new banners. As the fanboys will still read Slashdot (blah blah webwasher blah modified hosts blah), the more business-focused clients will possibly refocus on Newsforge over which OSDN has a lot more control.
But then maybe it's just a mad conspiracy theory.
And let me repeat: information may want to be free, but that's NOT free as in beer.
The above comment is wrong, the site is NOT slashdotted [yet]. Thanks for providing the Google text link, though - thereby relieving the server of serving the.pdf file. However, if you want to print or save the article, go for the.pdf file, it's a much better option.
Now back to our regularly scheduled karmawhoring activities:-)
The article specifically states that those lawyers MIGHT BE operating under instructions from Adobe. The thing is, since this is a civil issue, not a criminal issue, they don't really have to say. Basically, someone from Adobe could simply have picked up the phone and faxed those lawyers a copy of Adobe's trademark registration, and a hardcopy of the KIllustrator website.
That's all it takes, unfortunately. Adobe at the time of the article's writing wouldn't respond whether it had initiated the 'Abmahnung' or not, and the lawyers wouldn't tell, either.
Besides - think about it. Adobe would be portrayed as insufferably evil if it had taken matters directly via their own lawyers. By using Germany's somewhat lax 'I warn you, you pay me' system, they can smile benevolently and be silent without any bad press. (computer press aside)
In Germany, we have what is called an 'Abmahnung'. This is basically a 'Warning', and can be issued by pretty much anyone who operates a law office of any kind. This 'Abmahnung' is part of the German law system; if you spot any kind of infringement on copyright / trademark or even trade law, you can issue a warning to the infringing party, and send them a bill for your costs. This is extremely common, and a whole law industry subsides on it. Usually, the infringement warnings can be quite justified, but sometimes people get overzealous in their quest for cash.
An example is if you use what's called 'improper' advertisements - in Germany, you're not allowed to use unfair adverts; 'unfair' is considered anything comparative, e.g. you're not allowed to say 'Our car has a higher top speed, better acceleration, and a lower price than the BMW 325i, the Volvo S60, and the Mercedes 230.' If you did, you'd get an 'Abmahnung', even if BMW, Volvo, and DaimlerChrysler didn't sue immediately.
So yeah, it's a sucky system. German society is very free and open in most respects (what'd be considered porn (tits, penises, etc) can be seen on normal network TV and nude beaches are very common, but the BUSINESS system and laws are stuck in the middle ages, biased heavily towards big business. (a bit like Japan, to be honest)
Sorry if this veered off towards explaining German business practices and society too much, but it's important to understand what's going on. Somebody's spotted a trademark infringement and pounced on it. And make no mistake about it: if the guy sues, he'll lose. Hell, so would I if I made a spreadsheet app called KExcel and distributed it, often as part of for-pay packages. (like Linux distros) To 'excel' is a simple word, and can't be trademarked, but in respect to spreadsheets, it can be protected. Brand dilution. It sucks, but that's how it works.
I hope you get to read this. You made a very well-thought-out argument there, and many of your points (in fact nearly all) are correct. They don't apply to my original view, though - let me explain.
your response to the last post and your basic premise is not only fundamentally flawed, but actually harmful and insensitive
That's true. It was never meant to be sensitive - what China did was insensitive, the world's reaction to it is insensitive (making China the US most favoured nation, trade-wise, etc), and everybody's approach to it is insensitive, because in the end, it won't matter. I was using Native American extermination - their culture surviving in much a way that Tibetan culture survives now - as my example. I am not saying that it's right, I am saying that in the long term, the plight of the Tibetans and Tibet will be similar to that of Polynesians (?) and Native Americans; they will be absorbed into a greater whole, and only rudiments of their society and culture will continue to exist.
That is what I was referring to as a socio-geographical fact. I don't like it. I'm predicting what I think the future will look like.
you need to protest against it and do your best to both prevent it happening again and rectify the situation if possible
this is a similar situation. the only difference is that china is a large nuclear power that no-one is strong enough to stand against, for fear of consequences
That's what makes it a s-g fact. This is why comparing it to Nazi Germany is wrong. Nazi Germany could be beaten or persuaded to change (we saw which one happened). I reiterate my earlier point: without nuking China off the face of the planet, they will forever occupy Tibet and insist that Taiwan is part of China. They won't relinquish that. That is what I was referring to when I was pointing out a socio-geographical fact. We can't change that. I'd love to, but we can't.
It's a bit like a murder perpetrated by the highest-up General in the US Army, with the Army standing behind him, and refusing to let any consequences affect him, down to protecting him from those in government who should be able to remove him. It won't happen. Police cars don't cut it against tanks.
and the claim that china has been conquering it's weaker neighbours since before western culture developed still does not justify it
But you're RIGHT, it doesn't! That won't change the fact that they'll use that excuse, and due to the aformentioned and much-invoked s-g facts we won't be able to do squat about it. That's why the Tibetan will become like the Native American. Hell, in 20 years the Chinese will probably put out a coin or a bill with the Dalai Lama's face on it, the same way that the dollar had a Native American's face on it.
I could also mention that there is a new 'Dalai Lama', more or less appointed by the Chinese. And that Tibetan religious culture is being assimilated to accept him. And that this will, in the end, (unfortunately) work.
i think that the argument comes down to: the would may be shit, but you don't have to accept it. shout and stamp your little feet when the would is being crap and eventually it'll improve
No. You need big feet to stomp. Ideally, to stomp on. Not even many little feet will help, open source methodology fails here. I am honestly convinced that not even a democratic Chinese government would not relinquish Tibet and their claim to Taiwan.
And yes, it's fucking depressing that some things won't change because that's how they've always been. But that's how many things in life are. Maturity and adulthood means knowing which things in life can be changed, and which can't.
thanks for your answer. I'd like to refer you to my earlier post, from which I quote: "it's a socio-geographical fact right now that won't change."
And it is. Tibet has been assimilated into China, forcefully and wrongly, but it has. From a sociological point of view, the Chinese view Tibet as part of their country, and there's nothing anybody else can do about it. From a geographical point of view, nobody has any influence whatsoever over that region of the world, apart from China. It's called empire-building, which is what China has always been - an Empire, made of smaller regions. I abhor what happened to the people of Tibet, but we can't do jack about it. We never could. We never will be. It's not in our power. We'd have to nuke all of China to get them to relinquish anything, and even then, they probably wouldn't without force.
Do you understand that? It has nothing to do with the Nazis. Invoking the Nazis in an argument and comparing your discussion partner to the people who let them do their thing is a sure way to end the discussion. It's called the 'Invoking Hitler' argument.
Now it's nice that you ignored my point about Native Americans. How about giving them back their homelands? Or how about giving Northern Ireland back to the Republic of Ireland? Socio-geographical facts, old boy. Big countries, weaker, small, non-developed neighbours. Assimilation. Empire-building. As I said, China's been doing it for longer than people like us have eaten from bowls not made of our enemies' skulls.
Well, they do say 'they laughed at Tesla, Edison, and Einstein.' Unfortunately, they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. Alex Chiu strikes me as being closer to Bozo than any of the aforementioned.
However...
Some of the things he said actually struck very close to the core of things, simply because political correctness nowadays completely prevents many people from thinking them.
Here's one:
If you say Tibetans are not Chinese because they have their own language and culture, let me ask you this: Is Hawaii part of USA?
Reminding me of an old Onion article, that one is very true - Hawaii was pretty much assimilated after being occupied and used as a military base.
And about the notion of the peace-loving, religious, harmony-seeking Tibet being occupied by the evil Chinese - that's not total bunk, but a lot of it is nonsense. The Dalai Lama may be a nice guy, and a lot of atrocities did happen in Tibet, but Tibet is part of China and will forever be - it's a socio-geographical fact right now that we won't change. Complaining about that is a bit like complaining about Native Americans being murdered.
Sorry if this came out a bit flame-like, but I feel very strongly about certain things like the US' incessant complaints about human rights when people are being locked up right here and nowbecause they try to expose Scientology as the murderous cult they are. Human rights are a very complex issue, and China does have more than one billion people living in a country much less developed than the US. The US struggled with overpopulated inner-city ghettoes where human rights are an afterthought, but continues to point out the issues in countries that are struggling with gigantic problems.
How would the oh-so horrible blackouts in California look like if 300 million people lived there? Compare that to the populous regions of China?
Again, sorry if this drifted off-topic. I'll read and answer to responses, though. Thanks.
Would it be that surprising to find Windows soon available "for non-commericial use"?
Yes. It'd be an incredible event. MS has used its OS as its main tool for leverage over OEMs, hardware manufacturers, etc. The second it becomes free for 'home' use (or whatever), OEMs don't have to ship it anymore, which means they save a bundle of cash, and aren't tied into restrictive trade agreements with MS anymore, since everybody can just pick up a free copy of Windows for non-commercial use. Heck, I bet you could probably get free copies of Windows for just shipping costs from everywhere. Giving up its main means of leverage would be ludicrous.
And as an aside: The REAL reason why BeOS, QNX and others are free for 'personal' use is simple. They are the hunters, going after the market leader. Not necessarily everywhere, but certainly in certain niches. Not everybody wants to use BeOS, but for people who deal with media a lot (MacOS, IRIX?), it could be an alternative. And look, those people can run BeOS for free, at home. Wonder if they'll want to use it at work as well?
Solaris is another thing entirely. Yeah, it's semi-free (I think Sun still charge $50 or so for 'media costs'), but the reason why Solaris was made free for personal use is because Linux is destroying any kind of 'personal/home' UNIX base there ever was. If you want UNIX at home or just to try for a small, non-commercial server.. hell, xyzBSD or Linux are ideal choices. If Solaris is free, though, some people might reconsider. And if you need the much-hyped 'enterprise OS features' that both Sun and MS claim Linux/xyzBSD don't have, Solaris has a 'big-league' image.
In the end, it's pretty simple: why would they want to give it away? BECAUSE THEY HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE. VERY few people were actually BUYING BeOS or QNX for personal (ie non-commercial) use. Solaris was a different thing in academia etc. but the big money is with servicing contracts and hardware anyway. QNX is a purely professional embedded platform so far. So NOBODY has anything to lose from making it free for non-commercial use - rather the opposite: they entice people to try it, and ideally to use it in professional situations, where Sun/QNX/Be *will* get money.
Now, look at it again: Why would MS ever dream of making one of its cash cows free? They only have to lose. They've been able to *raise* the price of their software - over the last 10 years, the only part of a computer that's become more expensive is the OS, namely WindowsXYZ!
Windows for free. Good lord. What next, RMS agrees to work for the MS PR division?
Napster has always been a business entity - the deal with BMG was struck for that very reason. Shawn Fanning, the cap-wearing GenY-er who is always prominent in the Napster media stories barely owns a couple of percent of Napster, Inc. They just trot him out to promote a 'cool' image, for obvious reasons: lots of people will side with Napster as long as they see them as being some plucky underdogs giving music for free to be shared amongst kids who look just like good ol' Shawn.
Reality check. Napster's owned and run by a bunch of your typical faceless suit-wearing executives. They run Napster not because they want to share music for free with college kids, but because they hold the keys to the Napster user database, and through that a distribution model that could destroy the business model of many record companies.
So Napster's not a business entity now that they struck a deal with BMG. They struck the deal so they could get a brief break from legal feuding, and present a more friendly face to all those judges. Now they can legitimately claim that they really want to make deals with record companies, and that they're the good guys. It also split the RIAA, with one of their biggest suporters suddenly going renegade. Next time Hank Barry (CEO) and Shawn Fanning (Founder) are interviewed, or sit in front of a judge, they can shrug helplessly and smile, pointing at how they struck a deal with BMG: why then don't all of the other companies want to co-operate?
So please - cut all the pro-napster propaganda. Those guys are out to make money, and the reason why Napster's still free is because every hour they don't charge, they sign up another 1000 guys and put them in their database. If and when they ever go 100% commercial, at least a dozen of those thousand/hour WILL sign up... and that's a couple dozen million bucks a month for Napster, Inc.
And hey, look - they got the customers, and deals with record labels, too. Swell, eh?
The P4 isn't a chip for you and me. Wanna know why?
* In almost all kinds of applications, it is slower than an Athlon T-Bird 1.2 Ghz, and that's from a P4 1.4Ghz. Even overclocked to 1.7ghz, it's still slower.
* Almost all applications - meaning pretty much everything involving a floating point unit, including CAD, raw calculations, Office apps, and Unreal Tournament - are slower than on the lower-clocked and cheaper Athlong. Oh, and I forgot: It is atrociously slow compiling anything with gcc.
* The much slower P3s actually beat it in speed at many real-life applications.
* Tom's review compares it encoding a long DivX movie in high quality with a 1.2Ghz Athlon. The P4 needs twice as long at some tests.
* You can get a 1Ghz Athlon for less than $300 in some places, with Athlon prices dropping weekly. A 1.4Ghz P4 will cost around $1000. Prices won't be dropping anytime soon.
* The P4 needs a new socket, doesn't always play nice with all types of memory, its socket is of course incompatible with everything, it needs gigantic coolers which NECESSITATE new cases, where old cases are simply too narrow. That's right, many old cases (ATX format) simply won't take a P4+cooler.
* The P4 will not come with a multi-CPU chipset anytime soon. In fact, the P4 right now and in the next few months will definitely be a no-MP tool. MP Athlons are just around the corner, and so is the 266mhz FSB Athlon chipset for use with superfast DDR memory. Rambus, anyone?
And if you read the reviews, the only thing it's actually faster than the Athlons is at Quake3. Seeing how many buying decisions are made by completely irrelevant Q3 scores, this may be a very bad thing.
And yes, the incessant pro-AMD propagande isn't good, but have a look at face intel to see why intel really isn't a good company. Maybe that will explain some of the hostility.
I'm afraid the 'answers' below aren't actually funny. They're what the candidates truly believe. Check www.issues2000.org for confirmation, they're more or less paraphrasing what Gore and Bush have said before. As Lando said.. here goes nothing.
Q: The War on Drugs has been a consistently neglected topic in discussions surrounding this federal election. My question is, do you believe the War on Drugs has been an unqualified success, and if not, what would you change about it if elected president? Gore: We must protect the young. We must fight drug dealers. Harsher sentences for those who corrupt the young. Etc. Marijuana will not be legalized, Science says it isn't proper. Lead a national crusade against drugs. More $ to fight drugs. Yes, he did pot himself, like 'young people today.'
Bush: Drug on wars has failed with this administration, need to fight a bigger war on drugs, mroe money for fighting this evil. Full background drug use checks for appointees are necessary. Supports military package to Columbia to fight drug supply.
The truth: The war on drugs has failed. US stats show that 75% of all drug users are white, whereas 75% of people imprisoned on drugs offences are black. Criminalization doesn't reduce drug use. Sending weapons to Columbia will turn the country into even more of a civil warzone than it is now. Would Bush be a better man if he'd spent 10 years in prison for snorting cocaine when he was young?
Q: What will you do to protect the rights of atheists and those who hold minority faiths, such as Wicca, Santaria, Shinto, et al?
Gore: Believes in personal approaches to religion, etc.
Bush: When asked who his idol/hero was, answered 'Jesus'. Is in discrepancy with the bible - has put 145 to death under his rule as Gov. of Texas, yet bible claims thou shalt not kill.
The truth: Gore tries to appear tolerant, Bush has to answer to the vast right wing of the Republicans, who are puppets of the Christian right.
Q: With the surplus, everyone has been saying "Let's have a tax cut, Let's have a tax cut." In the meantime, Alan Greenspan and friends are trying to keep inflation and the speed of the growing economy in check so it doesn't burst. Which they are doing by raising interest rates periodically. (6 times this year) A tax cut flies in the face of what Greenspan is trying to do. A tax cut will inject more money into the economy and do what Greenspan is preventing. Why is a tax cut so big? Wouldn't the money be better spent on the deficit so when worse times roll along, a tax cut can be easily given by not paying as much on the debt?
Gore: Doesn't want any tax cuts right now, although future tax reform should give tax breaks to people earning less than $100k, working families, middle class. Wants to end tax marriage penalty.
Bush: Wants to give tax cuts benefitting principally the 10% richest in the country. Claims lower income people benefit more from taxes than the rich.
The truth: Gore says what he thinks will be popular. Bush actually wants to make rich people pay less taxes, to appeal to corporations, etc.
Q: Some people, especially those that favor '3-rd' party candidates, have called for the ending of the electoral college system to be replaced by a simple purely popular vote, or at least allowing for splitting the electoral votes by each state. The best recent example was the Bush-Clinton election. Clinton received 43% of the popular vote (but a sufficient majority of the electoral vote), whereas Perot got at least 10% of the popular vote but zero electoral votes. If memory serves, Vermont is the only state which does currently allow for its votes to be split; if someone wins 60% of the Vermont popular vote, they get 2 votes and the 40% candidate gets 1. This in contrast to California, where someone can get 51% of the popular vote, and therefore gets 53 (or whatever it is nowadays) electoral votes. What is your position on this issue?
Gore: Doesn't want to end electoral college, but wants to look into alternatives.
Bush: Doesn't know. Alternatives, yes...
The truth: Both oppose alternatives but don't say so. In tight elections, swing voters decide everything, and have so far brought victories to both Clinton and Bush Sr in surprise results. This will be the tightest election ever, if the polls are right. Do the math. They would have to completely rebuild their parties' campaign/spending machines to match any changes.
Q: In this age of the Internet, intellectual property has become a very important concept to many people. Many companies make their living on the artificial scarcity provided by intellectual property laws, selling information that they have either created or aggregated. Some others, mostly in the Free Software world, make their living seemingly in spite of these laws, selling their services based on information that is freely given. Do you feel that out current system of intellectual property is a good one? Which parts of it (e.g. trademarks, patents, copyrights) do you feel are well suited to the world of the Internet and which do you think need to be changed (and, if changes are needed, what changes are needed)?
Gore: Supports intellectual property, but wants to see exactly who is getting what in those money/artist relationships, and what damage Napster is doing.
Bush: Supports innovative new ways of music distributions but wants 'artist's rights protected'. His party would crucify him if he didn't try to ban Napster, as they get massive soft money from record companies, etc. The RIAA/MPAA rely on corporate-friendly Republican congresses to pass their dubious laws.
The truth: Both don't want to piss off young voters, which is why they dance around the issue. Bush would be quicker to ban everything suspicious that might upsets corporations.
Q: Many tech people think that strong encryption is one of the best ways we have to protect freedom both now and for future generations. For example to preserve information that future not so friendly governments may think we don't need to have and to make sure that things we want to have remain private remain private. Given this what would you do to help preserve our right to privacy through the use of strong encryption? Also in a related question what are your thoughts and what do you plan to do about the fact that we can not export many forms of strong encryption? Gore: Doesn't really know, but supports people's right to use what he pioneered. Will look into this. Democrat presidents relaxed crypto exports laws, etc.
Bush: Republicans consider any technological advance, like crypto, to be weaponry that must be horded and protected. Rep-controlled Congress sees no problem with Carnivore.
The truth: Both oppose crypto for everyone, as they're dubious of what people would do, and how that'd be monitored by the state. However, Gore will try to protect people's rights more, sensing pressure from his party and the Left.
Q: In the last year or so we have seen a tremendous escalation in the quantity and size of political protests against globalization and the rising power of corporate multi-nationals. Do you believe that these people have reason to be concerned? If you do believe that they have reason for concern, what steps would you take as president to deal with their concerns?
Gore: Wants to protect consumers' rights, etc, but thinks violence is the wrong way to protest.
Bush: Doesn't understand what the fuss is about, must protect companies from economic damage, must monitor trouble-makers.
The truth: Both are afraid of companies putting the thumb-screws on if there's too much trouble, and are afraid of America's image. Both remember the 60s protests, especially Gore.
Q: Would you renew funding of programs to research and develop global defense systems against asteroids or other such threats from space? Gore: Doesn't know. Probably not.
Bush: Absolutely loves idea of resurrecting 'Star Wars' programme, putting defense systems into space. The only problem: He wants the weapons to point downwards, to defend the US.
The truth: Bush wants to increase military budget a lot, although all weapons would point at us, rather than the other way 'round. Probably would find no money after that for any other space things, including NASA. Gore wants to fund NASA more, which is where the money *might* come from.
Q: I'm very concerned with the future of the country, and about what our national mission seems to be. Looking back through American history, every period seems to have a defining popular mission - like the "manifest destiny" movement in the 19th century, the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. During these times, there would be one struggle or idea that captivated the attention of the nation, sort of providing a national mission. I'm a little confused as I look around today. What is our mission? To me, it seems to be "to watch TV and use the Internet." What would you say the defining national mission of today is? What should it be? Furthermore, how would you show this in your activities as a lawmaker? (For instance, if our national mission is the pursuit of science, then would you increase funding for scientific pursuits in the budget?)
Gore: Has as his mission to improv quality of life, provide good future for Americans, protect environment, empower citizens.
Bush: Has as his mission to restore traditional values to America, preside over a healthy, economic country, fight all unwholesome influences.
The truth: Neither of them has a clue about true social undercurrents: Gore is concerned over environmental issues, and where we will all be in 30 years. Bush is concerned with restoring proper values, and protecting the people from that what is evil, like childrens' hearts turning black on the Internet.
The final conclusion: Have a look at www.issues2000.org which will show you all candidates' positions and their quotations on relevant issues. This will be a very, very tight election.
The PlayStation, like most consoles, is a loss leader. Sony isn't making a lot of money selling them, in fact, it's highly likely that they are losing a small amount in the US. In Britain, the PS2 will cost about $100 more, but then the market's smaller, and a lot of additional costs are higher.
However, Sony has a monopoly on selling licenses for the PS[2]. If you want to code for it, first you need to fork over a lot of cash for a development kit (ie. tens and tens of thousands of dollars), which in effect is little more than a Linux box with funky things thrown in.
Then, you need to give Sony lots more cash. In fact, they make money with every game sold, because they do per-copy licensing. So, for doing *absolutely nothing*, Sony gets money from the publishers of PS2 games. Sorry, correction: For allowing them to develop for PS2. In return for allowing them to develop for PS2, Sony gives developers binding contracts which often ban them from developing for other competing systems. Ever wonder why Electronic Arts games don't get published on the Dreamcast? EA didn't want to piss off their moneycow, PS and now PS2.
MS may be portrayed as the evil empire, but they have nothing on Sony or Nintendo. Hell, you should have seen the lawsuits flying when software makers dared to try to publish games for Nintendo/Sony without getting licenses...
Imagine that: Microsoft suing you as a coder because you wrote a game for Windows - without giving them money. Most of Sony's profits in the last few years or so were from PS-related licensing. They didn't make any money from the hardware.. but raked it in when it comes to software.
The US has a reasonably well-deregulated telecommunications and internet business. However, the second-biggest Internet market, in Europe, is still dominated by former state monopolies, lack of local flat rate phone fees, badly-developed net infrastructures, and general exploitation of customers.
And into this environment, Andy Mueller-Maguhn was elected 'Region 2 Director for Europe'. Yes, Andy Mueller-Maguhn. The former head of the German Chaos Computer Club, a team regularly posting information about cracking phone cards, cable TV decoders, and computer security information. They're the German '2600' equivalent, reviled and detested by state institutions, telecomms companies, etc. They're the rebels of the underground.
And now their former head is the Director of the European division of ICANN. Imagine Eric Corley (Emmanuel Goldstein) being the head of the US ICANN. Now imagine what important aspect this brings to ICANN in Europe.
The GameCube tech demo movie is also available as an.mpeg file, playable via your favourite OSS movie player. Die Sorenson codecs, die! P-)
The file is right here, a zipped mpeg. It's a direct download off ZDNET's servers, which should handle the load effortlessly. *grin*
The tech demo shows some nice, although pre-rendered scenes featuring the inevitable Pokemon, a waverace game, some scened from a 3D shooter demo, and an X-Wing.
This is post No. 250 or so in this thread, so there's little hope it will ever be read. But as Lando Calrissian said: Here goes nothing..
Lars (Metallica's drummer) did not do an U-Turn on the matter of downloadable music. His role in the whole affair has been distorted to such a disgusting degree that it pains me to even see his name mentioned in the same sentence as 'Napster'.
As Slashdot reported a month ago, in a Slashdot interview with the man HIMSELF, and not some public relations idiot, he states that it's all about control. Did you hear that?
CONTROL
He doesn't care about the record companies. He hates them as much as everybody else, yeah, even the much-quoted Courtney Love.
As Morpheus famously stated, The Matrix is about control. Record companies, the RIAA, and the MPAA as well, if you want to open that can of worms, are about control. They want to regulate YOUR access to music that they didn't even create. They want to regulate the ARTIST'S means of getting their music to you. They want to CONTROL both the artists and the consumer.
I once worked in a record store - and you know those overpriced CDs you complain about? We sold them for about $13-$14. How much did we pay to the distributors, which in turn were often owned by the same record companies that produced those records? About $12-$13. We were lucky to make little over a dollar per CD sold. That was the price, we couldn't do anything about it - even buying in bulk didn't lower our prices significantly. And from that measly dollar profit, multiplied by however many CDs we sold, of course, the store owner had to pay the people working there (let's say $7/hour, plus the tax on that he/I have to pay, of course), the rent for the store, cost for maintaining the store, utilities, etc. Even CDNOW doesn't sell normal 'newer' CDs much cheaper than your usual store; whereas books can be discounted heavily, CDs are a different matter altogether.
Why? Because the record companies have control over the industry. Mainstream music is tied up by four or five major labels; if you don't get signed to one of them, you have no mainstream chance, your CD will never be distributed to millions of storeshelves all over the country, and the nation's eyeballs will instead be attached to Britney Spear's bellybutton on her next trashy CD, because that's who the record labels are pushing right now.
And now to Lars: Read his interview. What he doesn't want is for others to have control over Metallica's music. Yeah, it's free - but free as in beer does not mean free as in speech! Any student of RMS and ESR should understand it - there's a major difference in attitudes. Freedom to listen/use/whatever software or music doesn't make it free. Music on Napster isn't free - to be honest, it's controlled by Napster's databases. If Napster's VC-controlled bosses decide to introduce a monthly flat fee for using Napster, say, $5... would you do it? Hell, most people would. For five bucks, you can download as much as you want. [of course, with all the other current alternatives popping up, this becomes less and less attractive]. But the fatc of the matter is that Napster's estimated 20 million users would probably go for it - which would, even after fraud, etc, is counted in, account for a multi-million dollar business per month. Why? Because Napster has control over the distribution of that music. That's what Lars doesn't want, that's what they didn't do too much about it when it was just websites and ftp sites, and that's why Napster is a thorn in the eyes of some musicians as well as some record companies: Yeah, sure, the record companies hate the notion of being made obsolete by any little record store with a fast internet connection and a CD burner. Wouldn't you like to come to a store and pick up those CDs for $2 instead of $12? We could burn them for you, at a cost of less than $0.40, and still make more profit than we do now.. and lots of people would go for it, simply for convenience's sake. Many end consumers would simply just download the hit single they heard on the radio, in CD quality, or just get a compilation CD of current hit singles, anyway.
Frightening thoughts for the record companies. Unpleasant thoughts for Lars Ulrich.. because other people are still controlling the distribution channels. And Metallica, like anybody else, were dirt poor for a LONG time. Even now, they don't have as much money as lots of people think: Remember Courtney's rant? The record companies are pocketing 90%++ of the money made of a CD. You're lucky to get less than $1 per CD sold, and then about 40% of that goes to taxes. Etc.
Lars and Metallica distribute some music on their own website. Good for them. They control the music. I think that's the best thing I've heard so far. And once Metallica have finished their record agreements (and you can be CERTAIN that right now Metallica HAVE to produce a certain number of records for their current label or they will get sued like Prince, George Michael, and the Smashing Pumpkins got sued by THEIR record labels), they can start distribuing their own music any way they want.
More power to them, I say. The sooner we get the power to control music away from the record labels, and to the artists themselves, the sooner the entire cultural landscape will change.
Unusual little point in the interview I couldn't help but notice: Until now, MS has tried to milk the cash cow by locking the industry into proprietary standards that weren't usable without MS tools, MS platforms, etc. Examples would be COM+, OLE, ActiveX, VB, MFC, J++ extensions, etc.
Oddly, they seem to have taken a slightly different route this time: Yeah, they still want you to run Win2000, upgrade to Windows.NET, and be locked into their services, etc - but language-wise, they have opened up their new language - the base of all of those new services and platforms. To quote from the interview:
I might point out that we're taking a true open standards approach with ECMA. When and if ECMA actually arrives at a standard for C# and a common language infrastructure, the result will be available under ECMA's copyright and licensing policies, which are truly open. Any customer, and any person, will be able to license the ECMA C# standard, subset it, superset it, and they won't have to pay royalties. They'll be able take it and go implement it on any platform or any device. We fully expect people to do that. That is something fundamentally different from our competitors who wandered around the standards bodies, looking for someone to rubber-stamp their proprietary languages.
The ECMA, if it ratifies the C# standard, will be in charge of at least trying to assure that MS can't mess with the specifications too much, such as to break platform/language interoperability. I'm as astonished as everybody else about Microsoft's sudden commitment to open and certified standards. Maybe they're aiming to have everybody use their language and platform - thereby creating a viable long-term solution that'd keep MS in business even if they were split up or if computing moved in a different direction, rather than attempting to make as much money as possible in the short term.
Slashdot Mirror
Good news, everyone!
If you read Billy West's FAQ before asking a question, you won't repeat things that he's been asked before, and make us all look like a bunch of uneducated monkeys without cooling hats!
And that wouldn't be good news at all!
http://www.billywest.com/index4.htm is where you find his FAQ. I've already seen a post moderated to 5 that asked questions answered there.
Mr Bush,
when interviewed during the last presidential campaign, you were asked by an interviewer if you had a role model. To this you replied that Jesus was the closest that you had to one.
During your tenure as Governor of Texas, more people were killed in Texas prisons, enacting the death penalty, than during the tenure of any previous Governor in modern times. You presided over an execution nearly every two weeks from the moment you took office.
Considering the commandment of 'Thou shalt not kill' directly from God, and considering Jesus' stance on killing, how do you explain this glaring discrepancy between 'do as I say, not as I do'?
Thank you for your answer.
you would think by now germany would know better..
Bans don't work in the long run
Fro example the ban on nazism in Germany forced everything underground in which the German police have to expend more hours than otherwise to keep track and monitor theri actions..if they weren't banned everyone woudl know what they are doing due to the fact that they woudl be out in the open in public view..
I'm not sure how much you know about Germany; for all I know, you may be German yourself. Whilst I am German, and whilst I don't support bans on violent games, I honestly believe that banning the open display of Nazi symbols, the Hitler salute, and the organization of radical fascist parties is a good thing.
Right now, 20 people will jump on that statement and scream that bans don't help, that you need to have everything out in the open, that it's great and fabulous to have radicals integrated into society, etc.
And that's all fabulous. And wrong. The Nazis in Germany came to power through democratic means. Although behind-the-scenes wrangling happened that ultimately allowed Hitler to become Chancellor without a genuine popular mandate, the NSDAP was one of the most, if not the most popular party in 1933. Through democratic means. They then used the democratic mandate they'd gained without illegal means to dismantle the Weimar Republic. (France allowed the National Front to enter local governments here and there, and local councils in certain regions of France have already seen an alarming rise in incidents where radical right-wingers successfully removed a variety of critical works from public libraries, critical newspapers from circulation, etc. Critical of their neo-fascist tactics that restrict democratic expression, mind you. Of course someone will go on about how ironic it is that it is those very fascist who are banning things, just like Germany is banning stuff, but they need a serious reality check.)
That's why radical groups are banned. That's why they have to operate underground. That's why Germany is quite keen to ban 'ideas' (I can hear the flames already) and things that are 'dangerous'.
Because people in general are easily seduced by things that make them feel good about themselves. Hitler told Germans that they were special and superior.
Thus, you want to make sure that radical groups that want to dismantle democracy are not allowed a popular mandate. You do not want to legitimize them by allowing them to exist in the public sphere. You do not want to allow them to become coalition partners, to enter local governments, and to slowly subvert and destroy freedom, tolerance, and democracy.
Because that's what they want.
And they're not going to get it. We've been there, we're not going back. We like democracy, we like freedom, we like being able to say whatever we want without being locked up, we don't want to be herded into camps because of our racial distinctions or religious beliefs, and we sure as fuck don't want to let radicals who want to destroy all of that back into the limelight.
So go on all you want about 'bans are bad!' and 'information wants to be free!'. Naivety will only get you so far, and jackbooted thugs will exploit all of it quite happily while you sit there letting them take away everything you hold dear.
Alex
St Andrews
See also my earlier comments at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23633&ci
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23633&ci
Here're some direct links to the pictures, without having to jump through hoops. (TechTV's not particulary standards-compliant site that crashed Konq on me once; the dreadful JS that is used for *everything*; the pop-ups required to get to the pictures; the slowness of the site)
Please no Karma claims; I'm at the cap - it's just a much more convenient way to get to the actual images.
Xbox screws
Warning
Pat sizes thing up
Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey
Just a couple more to go
Under the hood
Hard Drive
The motherboard
These hands have killed Athlons
CPU central
Intel inside
The 'silly' link titles are TechTV's, not mine. You may have to copy/paste the shortcuts into your URL bar in case TechTV's site plays nasty with image linking from other sites. (I don't think it does, though)
Alex T-B
St Andrews
Don't hammer the server too much, though. There're limited login spaces, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue.
Gameplay movies:
MPEG file
Zipped File
The demo is available from here..
3dgamers [download link]
or here
FilePlanet [download link]
No accusations re: Karma, please. I'm at the cap. And Wizardry 6 and 7 were the best RPGs I've ever played.
Alex T-B
St Andrews
Apparently, the author of this post abhors censorship of unwelcome ideas if his opponents are doing it...
I could try to explain the difference between:
1. Banning propaganda solely intended to cause the breakdown and destruction of a democratic system, and spreading of hate
2. Banning things you disagree with.
The things being banned are the former. Material that is intended to incite people into overthrowing a democratic system. It's not that I disagree with it (I do), it's securing everything that allows us to be the way we are.
There's no irony. It's very sad that people don't seem to understand that. Sure, Hitler burned books and imprisoned/killed people who disagreed with him. The fundamental difference is that he wanted to take away everybody's rights; the reason hate speech is being banned is because it's trying to replicate the situation in which everybody's rights would be taken away.
Alex T-B
St Andrews
Right now, 300 of you are probably starting to write replies, all in the vein of..
Free speech doesn't end where you disagree with what the other person has to say. You can't muzzle people just because they're evil or stupid. Information wants to be free, even if it'll be misused. etc.
To all of those people - will you please not talk about things you don't understand? It's very easy to talk about freedom of speech whilst being very far away from the real issues, posting comfortably over your DSL link. Right here, right now, teenagers are being seduced into neo-fascist ideological groups every day. In France alone, there are local governments which have started banning books and newspapers that oppose them; Germany saw hundreds of attacks on blacks and non-Germans, with many of them dying in the attacks.
People were burned to death in their sleep.
There's a deep-seated strain of virulent fascism in Europe that's been intermittently expressed in politics and popular culture for most of the 20th century. Hitler and Mussolini didn't come out nowhere - there were fascist governments in many European countries because the authoritarian tradition instilled by the former feudal/royal systems was a fertile breeding ground for fascists.
Sure, Germany and Italy lost the war. That doesn't change the fact that Italy has a Prime Minister with strong ties to the fascist right. That doesn't change the fact that neo-Nazi skinhead groups in Germany are getting more and more support from stupid teeangers every day. Jewish cemeteries are being defaced. Blacks are attacked, asylum seeker homes are burned down.
What's that have to do with freedom of speech? Someone once said that in order to stop the hate, you'd have to kill all the grandmothers. (paraphrasing badly, basically in order to stop having hate passed on through generation)
Hitler's autobiography Mein Kampf (My Struggle) remains banned in Germany. Even though public education in Germany is far better than in the US, with history being one of the most thoroughly-taught subjects, and the Nazi regime being thoroughly exposed as the evil that it was, a small minority will still flock to neo-fascist ideals. They will use everything they can as propaganda material. They will find followers - probably not many, but enough. People are being killed by those 'few' followers. Hate is being spread. A lot of harm has been done to Europe through politics of hate, wars have been started, millions and millions have been killed.
The internet is difficult to regulate. Neo-nazis use it to co-ordinate their activities unchecked, and to spread as much hate-filled material through the net as possible. You can't make accessing it impossible, but you can make accessing it illegal. You can make it illegal to spread false propaganda that's only intended to harm people and cause harm. You have to try.
Most of you haven't lived through the type of hate that's being spread by the hate speech being banned. It's easy to be an armchair critic. It's easy to criticize. Please don't. I know many of you will say that the only way to fight this is by allowing the complete and unfettered flow of information, with public education taking center stage to show the people how wrong all of that hate speech is. Sure. That has been done, for more than half a century now. But a small minority persists, a small minority causing a disproportionate amount of evil.
Yes, we have to be very careful not to let matters escalate too much - after all, who watches the watchment? It's important to note that banning hate speech is an approach that crosses party lines in Europe: in Germany, both the ruling Socialist/Green coalition and the right- and left-wing opposition are strongly in favour of dealing harshly with neo-Nazis.
In closing, hate speech is a genuine problem. There are very, very few solutions to dealing with it, and trying to criminalize its flow is one of the few approaches we have.
Maybe you want to think about that next time you make fun of France banning Yahoo! nazi auctions. A lot of the stuff auctioned off could conceivably be worn by people burning down houses simply because they didn't like the skin colour of the people living in them.
Alex T-B
St Andrews
I just dunno. My value system is mightily screwed up here, guys.
Pixar == Disney distribution == Disney == bad.
but
Pixar == nifty films == good!
but
Pixar == Steve Jobs == Apple == bad!
but
Apple == iPod == lame?
(this is where it gets confusing)
Pixar (also) == Linux == geeky == GOOD!
but
Linux == Pixar films == more money to MPAA == BAD!
but
Linux == less money to Bill Gates == GOOD!
but
Pixar == Apple == Sorenson Codec == BAD!
but
Sorenson Codec == Good Quality at Reasonable Size == GOOD!
but
Pixar == Apple != Linux == BAD!
but
Apple == OSX == BSD == GOOD!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaargh!
Thinking in more than one direction is really confusing. Someone post something about MS embracing and extending something, even if it's just an elastic band. Please? I need my world to be set right again.
Maybe a frogurt?
Alex
Funny how things change. About a year or two ago, people would have been up in arms about any changes to Slashdot that would commercialize it to such an extent. The OSDN 'brand building' bar, the upcoming large ads, the mere thought of a paid subscription model, etc.
/. they either have to get the rabid fanboys to subscribe (big fat chance), or accept the new banners. As the fanboys will still read Slashdot (blah blah webwasher blah modified hosts blah), the more business-focused clients will possibly refocus on Newsforge over which OSDN has a lot more control.
Sure, information wants to be free. But it's NOT free as in beer.
As an aside, anyone notice how hard VA is trying to move people towards Newsforge? The banners exclaiming that Newsforge has twice as many news stories per day as Slashdot and LinuxToday combined? Now the brand building banner, etc? To me, this smacks of at least partial desperation; trying to create something that people will recognize and flock back to, even if the parent company should go bankrupt.
Sure, Slashdot is popular. Lots of people read it. But it is also becoming more and more stigmatized as the battlefield of business-ignorant fanatics. People who are worthless to any business, thus advertising to them is less productive than, say, advertising on a big, serious-looking site, with a more professional-looking design. With less hysterical stories about losing our rights to privacy and pirating music, and more stories about, for instance, "Caldera target[ting] developers with latest workstation", which is an actual Newsforge headline.
One of these two sites is somewhat appealing to business, and thus to advertisers. One of them is easier to sell as serious newsmedia. One of them has a heavy editorial hand, columns, and no negative image of being filles with Linux fanboys and other unwashed freaks.
The other one is Slashdot.
Somehow, I feel that OSDN is trying to direct as much traffic towards its more 'serious' site as possible, leaving Slashdot as a more 'hobbyist' site than anything else. Obviously they can't do anything directly about it, or those aforementioned fanboys (yeah, I'm one of them) would screaming bloody murder. But it can 'integrate' Slashdot into its OSDN thingee, adding bars, and big adverts, and subscription programs, and watering it down from its original incarnation.
Sure, it's necessary to survive economically, to some extent. But ultimately, Slashdot doesn't pay. It takes quite a lot of hardware, and SIGNIFICANT bandwidth. How much do you think VA makes on those Thinkgeek banners? To make up for the black hole of cash that is
But then maybe it's just a mad conspiracy theory.
And let me repeat: information may want to be free, but that's NOT free as in beer.
WARNING:
.pdf file. However, if you want to print or save the article, go for the .pdf file, it's a much better option.
:-)
The above comment is wrong, the site is NOT slashdotted [yet]. Thanks for providing the Google text link, though - thereby relieving the server of serving the
Now back to our regularly scheduled karmawhoring activities
Alex T-B
St Andrews
The article specifically states that those lawyers MIGHT BE operating under instructions from Adobe. The thing is, since this is a civil issue, not a criminal issue, they don't really have to say. Basically, someone from Adobe could simply have picked up the phone and faxed those lawyers a copy of Adobe's trademark registration, and a hardcopy of the KIllustrator website.
That's all it takes, unfortunately. Adobe at the time of the article's writing wouldn't respond whether it had initiated the 'Abmahnung' or not, and the lawyers wouldn't tell, either.
Besides - think about it. Adobe would be portrayed as insufferably evil if it had taken matters directly via their own lawyers. By using Germany's somewhat lax 'I warn you, you pay me' system, they can smile benevolently and be silent without any bad press. (computer press aside)
Alex T-B
St Andrews
Hey
In Germany, we have what is called an 'Abmahnung'. This is basically a 'Warning', and can be issued by pretty much anyone who operates a law office of any kind. This 'Abmahnung' is part of the German law system; if you spot any kind of infringement on copyright / trademark or even trade law, you can issue a warning to the infringing party, and send them a bill for your costs. This is extremely common, and a whole law industry subsides on it. Usually, the infringement warnings can be quite justified, but sometimes people get overzealous in their quest for cash.
An example is if you use what's called 'improper' advertisements - in Germany, you're not allowed to use unfair adverts; 'unfair' is considered anything comparative, e.g. you're not allowed to say 'Our car has a higher top speed, better acceleration, and a lower price than the BMW 325i, the Volvo S60, and the Mercedes 230.' If you did, you'd get an 'Abmahnung', even if BMW, Volvo, and DaimlerChrysler didn't sue immediately.
So yeah, it's a sucky system. German society is very free and open in most respects (what'd be considered porn (tits, penises, etc) can be seen on normal network TV and nude beaches are very common, but the BUSINESS system and laws are stuck in the middle ages, biased heavily towards big business. (a bit like Japan, to be honest)
Sorry if this veered off towards explaining German business practices and society too much, but it's important to understand what's going on. Somebody's spotted a trademark infringement and pounced on it. And make no mistake about it: if the guy sues, he'll lose. Hell, so would I if I made a spreadsheet app called KExcel and distributed it, often as part of for-pay packages. (like Linux distros) To 'excel' is a simple word, and can't be trademarked, but in respect to spreadsheets, it can be protected. Brand dilution. It sucks, but that's how it works.
Alex T-B
St Andrews
Hey,
I hope you get to read this. You made a very well-thought-out argument there, and many of your points (in fact nearly all) are correct. They don't apply to my original view, though - let me explain.
your response to the last post and your basic premise is not only fundamentally flawed, but actually harmful and insensitive
That's true. It was never meant to be sensitive - what China did was insensitive, the world's reaction to it is insensitive (making China the US most favoured nation, trade-wise, etc), and everybody's approach to it is insensitive, because in the end, it won't matter. I was using Native American extermination - their culture surviving in much a way that Tibetan culture survives now - as my example. I am not saying that it's right, I am saying that in the long term, the plight of the Tibetans and Tibet will be similar to that of Polynesians (?) and Native Americans; they will be absorbed into a greater whole, and only rudiments of their society and culture will continue to exist.
That is what I was referring to as a socio-geographical fact. I don't like it. I'm predicting what I think the future will look like.
you need to protest against it and do your best to both prevent it happening again and rectify the situation if possible
this is a similar situation. the only difference is that china is a large nuclear power that no-one is strong enough to stand against, for fear of consequences
That's what makes it a s-g fact. This is why comparing it to Nazi Germany is wrong. Nazi Germany could be beaten or persuaded to change (we saw which one happened). I reiterate my earlier point: without nuking China off the face of the planet, they will forever occupy Tibet and insist that Taiwan is part of China. They won't relinquish that. That is what I was referring to when I was pointing out a socio-geographical fact. We can't change that. I'd love to, but we can't.
It's a bit like a murder perpetrated by the highest-up General in the US Army, with the Army standing behind him, and refusing to let any consequences affect him, down to protecting him from those in government who should be able to remove him. It won't happen. Police cars don't cut it against tanks.
and the claim that china has been conquering it's weaker neighbours since before western culture developed still does not justify it
But you're RIGHT, it doesn't! That won't change the fact that they'll use that excuse, and due to the aformentioned and much-invoked s-g facts we won't be able to do squat about it. That's why the Tibetan will become like the Native American. Hell, in 20 years the Chinese will probably put out a coin or a bill with the Dalai Lama's face on it, the same way that the dollar had a Native American's face on it.
I could also mention that there is a new 'Dalai Lama', more or less appointed by the Chinese. And that Tibetan religious culture is being assimilated to accept him. And that this will, in the end, (unfortunately) work.
i think that the argument comes down to: the would may be shit, but you don't have to accept it. shout and stamp your little feet when the would is being crap and eventually it'll improve
No. You need big feet to stomp. Ideally, to stomp on. Not even many little feet will help, open source methodology fails here. I am honestly convinced that not even a democratic Chinese government would not relinquish Tibet and their claim to Taiwan.
And yes, it's fucking depressing that some things won't change because that's how they've always been. But that's how many things in life are. Maturity and adulthood means knowing which things in life can be changed, and which can't.
ATB (email me: xugumadNOSPAM@yahooremoveme.com)
Hey flip-flop,
thanks for your answer. I'd like to refer you to my earlier post, from which I quote: "it's a socio-geographical fact right now that won't change."
And it is. Tibet has been assimilated into China, forcefully and wrongly, but it has. From a sociological point of view, the Chinese view Tibet as part of their country, and there's nothing anybody else can do about it. From a geographical point of view, nobody has any influence whatsoever over that region of the world, apart from China. It's called empire-building, which is what China has always been - an Empire, made of smaller regions. I abhor what happened to the people of Tibet, but we can't do jack about it. We never could. We never will be. It's not in our power. We'd have to nuke all of China to get them to relinquish anything, and even then, they probably wouldn't without force.
Do you understand that? It has nothing to do with the Nazis. Invoking the Nazis in an argument and comparing your discussion partner to the people who let them do their thing is a sure way to end the discussion. It's called the 'Invoking Hitler' argument.
Now it's nice that you ignored my point about Native Americans. How about giving them back their homelands? Or how about giving Northern Ireland back to the Republic of Ireland? Socio-geographical facts, old boy. Big countries, weaker, small, non-developed neighbours. Assimilation. Empire-building. As I said, China's been doing it for longer than people like us have eaten from bowls not made of our enemies' skulls.
Comments appreciated.
ATB
Well, they do say 'they laughed at Tesla, Edison, and Einstein.' Unfortunately, they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. Alex Chiu strikes me as being closer to Bozo than any of the aforementioned.
However...
Some of the things he said actually struck very close to the core of things, simply because political correctness nowadays completely prevents many people from thinking them.
Here's one:
If you say Tibetans are not Chinese because they have their own language and culture, let me ask you this: Is Hawaii part of USA?
Reminding me of an old Onion article, that one is very true - Hawaii was pretty much assimilated after being occupied and used as a military base.
And about the notion of the peace-loving, religious, harmony-seeking Tibet being occupied by the evil Chinese - that's not total bunk, but a lot of it is nonsense. The Dalai Lama may be a nice guy, and a lot of atrocities did happen in Tibet, but Tibet is part of China and will forever be - it's a socio-geographical fact right now that we won't change. Complaining about that is a bit like complaining about Native Americans being murdered.
Sorry if this came out a bit flame-like, but I feel very strongly about certain things like the US' incessant complaints about human rights when people are being locked up right here and nowbecause they try to expose Scientology as the murderous cult they are. Human rights are a very complex issue, and China does have more than one billion people living in a country much less developed than the US. The US struggled with overpopulated inner-city ghettoes where human rights are an afterthought, but continues to point out the issues in countries that are struggling with gigantic problems.
How would the oh-so horrible blackouts in California look like if 300 million people lived there? Compare that to the populous regions of China?
Again, sorry if this drifted off-topic. I'll read and answer to responses, though. Thanks.
ATB
The Quicktime video (Sorenson?) showing the Gekkomat in action with someone scaling a wall is here.
It's a 4.2 MB file, which I haven't had any luck playing yet.
Alex T-B
St Andrews
Would it be that surprising to find Windows soon available "for non-commericial use"?
Yes. It'd be an incredible event. MS has used its OS as its main tool for leverage over OEMs, hardware manufacturers, etc. The second it becomes free for 'home' use (or whatever), OEMs don't have to ship it anymore, which means they save a bundle of cash, and aren't tied into restrictive trade agreements with MS anymore, since everybody can just pick up a free copy of Windows for non-commercial use. Heck, I bet you could probably get free copies of Windows for just shipping costs from everywhere. Giving up its main means of leverage would be ludicrous.
And as an aside: The REAL reason why BeOS, QNX and others are free for 'personal' use is simple. They are the hunters, going after the market leader. Not necessarily everywhere, but certainly in certain niches. Not everybody wants to use BeOS, but for people who deal with media a lot (MacOS, IRIX?), it could be an alternative. And look, those people can run BeOS for free, at home. Wonder if they'll want to use it at work as well?
Solaris is another thing entirely. Yeah, it's semi-free (I think Sun still charge $50 or so for 'media costs'), but the reason why Solaris was made free for personal use is because Linux is destroying any kind of 'personal/home' UNIX base there ever was. If you want UNIX at home or just to try for a small, non-commercial server.. hell, xyzBSD or Linux are ideal choices. If Solaris is free, though, some people might reconsider. And if you need the much-hyped 'enterprise OS features' that both Sun and MS claim Linux/xyzBSD don't have, Solaris has a 'big-league' image.
In the end, it's pretty simple: why would they want to give it away? BECAUSE THEY HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE. VERY few people were actually BUYING BeOS or QNX for personal (ie non-commercial) use. Solaris was a different thing in academia etc. but the big money is with servicing contracts and hardware anyway. QNX is a purely professional embedded platform so far. So NOBODY has anything to lose from making it free for non-commercial use - rather the opposite: they entice people to try it, and ideally to use it in professional situations, where Sun/QNX/Be *will* get money.
Now, look at it again: Why would MS ever dream of making one of its cash cows free? They only have to lose. They've been able to *raise* the price of their software - over the last 10 years, the only part of a computer that's become more expensive is the OS, namely WindowsXYZ!
Windows for free. Good lord. What next, RMS agrees to work for the MS PR division?
Alex T-B
St Andrews
Napster has always been a business entity - the deal with BMG was struck for that very reason. Shawn Fanning, the cap-wearing GenY-er who is always prominent in the Napster media stories barely owns a couple of percent of Napster, Inc. They just trot him out to promote a 'cool' image, for obvious reasons: lots of people will side with Napster as long as they see them as being some plucky underdogs giving music for free to be shared amongst kids who look just like good ol' Shawn.
Reality check. Napster's owned and run by a bunch of your typical faceless suit-wearing executives. They run Napster not because they want to share music for free with college kids, but because they hold the keys to the Napster user database, and through that a distribution model that could destroy the business model of many record companies.
So Napster's not a business entity now that they struck a deal with BMG. They struck the deal so they could get a brief break from legal feuding, and present a more friendly face to all those judges. Now they can legitimately claim that they really want to make deals with record companies, and that they're the good guys. It also split the RIAA, with one of their biggest suporters suddenly going renegade. Next time Hank Barry (CEO) and Shawn Fanning (Founder) are interviewed, or sit in front of a judge, they can shrug helplessly and smile, pointing at how they struck a deal with BMG: why then don't all of the other companies want to co-operate?
So please - cut all the pro-napster propaganda. Those guys are out to make money, and the reason why Napster's still free is because every hour they don't charge, they sign up another 1000 guys and put them in their database. If and when they ever go 100% commercial, at least a dozen of those thousand/hour WILL sign up... and that's a couple dozen million bucks a month for Napster, Inc.
And hey, look - they got the customers, and deals with record labels, too. Swell, eh?
Alex T-B
St Andrews
The P4 isn't a chip for you and me. Wanna know why?
* In almost all kinds of applications, it is slower than an Athlon T-Bird 1.2 Ghz, and that's from a P4 1.4Ghz. Even overclocked to 1.7ghz, it's still slower.
* Almost all applications - meaning pretty much everything involving a floating point unit, including CAD, raw calculations, Office apps, and Unreal Tournament - are slower than on the lower-clocked and cheaper Athlong. Oh, and I forgot: It is atrociously slow compiling anything with gcc.
* The much slower P3s actually beat it in speed at many real-life applications.
* Tom's review compares it encoding a long DivX movie in high quality with a 1.2Ghz Athlon. The P4 needs twice as long at some tests.
* You can get a 1Ghz Athlon for less than $300 in some places, with Athlon prices dropping weekly. A 1.4Ghz P4 will cost around $1000. Prices won't be dropping anytime soon.
* The P4 needs a new socket, doesn't always play nice with all types of memory, its socket is of course incompatible with everything, it needs gigantic coolers which NECESSITATE new cases, where old cases are simply too narrow. That's right, many old cases (ATX format) simply won't take a P4+cooler.
* The P4 will not come with a multi-CPU chipset anytime soon. In fact, the P4 right now and in the next few months will definitely be a no-MP tool. MP Athlons are just around the corner, and so is the 266mhz FSB Athlon chipset for use with superfast DDR memory. Rambus, anyone?
And if you read the reviews, the only thing it's actually faster than the Athlons is at Quake3. Seeing how many buying decisions are made by completely irrelevant Q3 scores, this may be a very bad thing.
And yes, the incessant pro-AMD propagande isn't good, but have a look at face intel to see why intel really isn't a good company. Maybe that will explain some of the hostility.
Alex T-B
St Andrews
I'm afraid the 'answers' below aren't actually funny. They're what the candidates truly believe. Check www.issues2000.org for confirmation, they're more or less paraphrasing what Gore and Bush have said before. As Lando said.. here goes nothing.
Q: The War on Drugs has been a consistently neglected topic in discussions surrounding this federal election. My question is, do you believe the War on Drugs has been an unqualified success, and if not, what would you change about it if elected president?
Gore: We must protect the young. We must fight drug dealers. Harsher sentences for those who corrupt the young. Etc. Marijuana will not be legalized, Science says it isn't proper. Lead a national crusade against drugs. More $ to fight drugs. Yes, he did pot himself, like 'young people today.'
Bush: Drug on wars has failed with this administration, need to fight a bigger war on drugs, mroe money for fighting this evil. Full background drug use checks for appointees are necessary. Supports military package to Columbia to fight drug supply.
The truth: The war on drugs has failed. US stats show that 75% of all drug users are white, whereas 75% of people imprisoned on drugs offences are black. Criminalization doesn't reduce drug use. Sending weapons to Columbia will turn the country into even more of a civil warzone than it is now. Would Bush be a better man if he'd spent 10 years in prison for snorting cocaine when he was young?
Q: What will you do to protect the rights of atheists and those who hold minority faiths, such as Wicca, Santaria, Shinto, et al?
Gore: Believes in personal approaches to religion, etc.
Bush: When asked who his idol/hero was, answered 'Jesus'. Is in discrepancy with the bible - has put 145 to death under his rule as Gov. of Texas, yet bible claims thou shalt not kill.
The truth: Gore tries to appear tolerant, Bush has to answer to the vast right wing of the Republicans, who are puppets of the Christian right.
Q: With the surplus, everyone has been saying "Let's have a tax cut, Let's have a tax cut." In the meantime, Alan Greenspan and friends are trying to keep inflation and the speed of the growing economy in check so it doesn't burst. Which they are doing by raising interest rates periodically. (6 times this year) A tax cut flies in the face of what Greenspan is trying to do. A tax cut will inject more money into the economy and do what Greenspan is preventing. Why is a tax cut so big? Wouldn't the money be better spent on the deficit so when worse times roll along, a tax cut can be easily given by not paying as much on the debt?
Gore: Doesn't want any tax cuts right now, although future tax reform should give tax breaks to people earning less than $100k, working families, middle class. Wants to end tax marriage penalty.
Bush: Wants to give tax cuts benefitting principally the 10% richest in the country. Claims lower income people benefit more from taxes than the rich.
The truth: Gore says what he thinks will be popular. Bush actually wants to make rich people pay less taxes, to appeal to corporations, etc.
Q: Some people, especially those that favor '3-rd' party candidates, have called for the ending of the electoral college system to be replaced by a simple purely popular vote, or at least allowing for splitting the electoral votes by each state. The best recent example was the Bush-Clinton election. Clinton received 43% of the popular vote (but a sufficient majority of the electoral vote), whereas Perot got at least 10% of the popular vote but zero electoral votes. If memory serves, Vermont is the only state which does currently allow for its votes to be split; if someone wins 60% of the Vermont popular vote, they get 2 votes and the 40% candidate gets 1. This in contrast to California, where someone can get 51% of the popular vote, and therefore gets 53 (or whatever it is nowadays) electoral votes. What is your position on this issue?
Gore: Doesn't want to end electoral college, but wants to look into alternatives.
Bush: Doesn't know. Alternatives, yes...
The truth: Both oppose alternatives but don't say so. In tight elections, swing voters decide everything, and have so far brought victories to both Clinton and Bush Sr in surprise results. This will be the tightest election ever, if the polls are right. Do the math. They would have to completely rebuild their parties' campaign/spending machines to match any changes.
Q: In this age of the Internet, intellectual property has become a very important concept to many people. Many companies make their living on the artificial scarcity provided by intellectual property laws, selling information that they have either created or aggregated. Some others, mostly in the Free Software world, make their living seemingly in spite of these laws, selling their services based on information that is freely given. Do you feel that out current system of intellectual property is a good one? Which parts of it (e.g. trademarks, patents, copyrights) do you feel are well suited to the world of the Internet and which do you think need to be changed (and, if changes are needed, what changes are needed)?
Gore: Supports intellectual property, but wants to see exactly who is getting what in those money/artist relationships, and what damage Napster is doing.
Bush: Supports innovative new ways of music distributions but wants 'artist's rights protected'. His party would crucify him if he didn't try to ban Napster, as they get massive soft money from record companies, etc. The RIAA/MPAA rely on corporate-friendly Republican congresses to pass their dubious laws.
The truth: Both don't want to piss off young voters, which is why they dance around the issue. Bush would be quicker to ban everything suspicious that might upsets corporations.
Q: Many tech people think that strong encryption is one of the best ways we have to protect freedom both now and for future generations. For example to preserve information that future not so friendly governments may think we don't need to have and to make sure that things we want to have remain private remain private. Given this what would you do to help preserve our right to privacy through the use of strong encryption? Also in a related question what are your thoughts and what do you plan to do about the fact that we can not export many forms of strong encryption?
Gore: Doesn't really know, but supports people's right to use what he pioneered. Will look into this. Democrat presidents relaxed crypto exports laws, etc.
Bush: Republicans consider any technological advance, like crypto, to be weaponry that must be horded and protected. Rep-controlled Congress sees no problem with Carnivore.
The truth: Both oppose crypto for everyone, as they're dubious of what people would do, and how that'd be monitored by the state. However, Gore will try to protect people's rights more, sensing pressure from his party and the Left.
Q: In the last year or so we have seen a tremendous escalation in the quantity and size of political protests against globalization and the rising power of corporate multi-nationals. Do you believe that these people have reason to be concerned? If you do believe that they have reason for concern, what steps would you take as president to deal with their concerns?
Gore: Wants to protect consumers' rights, etc, but thinks violence is the wrong way to protest.
Bush: Doesn't understand what the fuss is about, must protect companies from economic damage, must monitor trouble-makers.
The truth: Both are afraid of companies putting the thumb-screws on if there's too much trouble, and are afraid of America's image. Both remember the 60s protests, especially Gore.
Q: Would you renew funding of programs to research and develop global defense systems against asteroids or other such threats from space?
Gore: Doesn't know. Probably not.
Bush: Absolutely loves idea of resurrecting 'Star Wars' programme, putting defense systems into space. The only problem: He wants the weapons to point downwards, to defend the US.
The truth: Bush wants to increase military budget a lot, although all weapons would point at us, rather than the other way 'round. Probably would find no money after that for any other space things, including NASA. Gore wants to fund NASA more, which is where the money *might* come from.
Q: I'm very concerned with the future of the country, and about what our national mission seems to be. Looking back through American history, every period seems to have a defining popular mission - like the "manifest destiny" movement in the 19th century, the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. During these times, there would be one struggle or idea that captivated the attention of the nation, sort of providing a national mission. I'm a little confused as I look around today. What is our mission? To me, it seems to be "to watch TV and use the Internet." What would you say the defining national mission of today is? What should it be? Furthermore, how would you show this in your activities as a lawmaker? (For instance, if our national mission is the pursuit of science, then would you increase funding for scientific pursuits in the budget?)
Gore: Has as his mission to improv quality of life, provide good future for Americans, protect environment, empower citizens.
Bush: Has as his mission to restore traditional values to America, preside over a healthy, economic country, fight all unwholesome influences.
The truth: Neither of them has a clue about true social undercurrents: Gore is concerned over environmental issues, and where we will all be in 30 years. Bush is concerned with restoring proper values, and protecting the people from that what is evil, like childrens' hearts turning black on the Internet.
The final conclusion: Have a look at www.issues2000.org which will show you all candidates' positions and their quotations on relevant issues. This will be a very, very tight election.
Alex T-B
St Andrews
The PlayStation, like most consoles, is a loss leader. Sony isn't making a lot of money selling them, in fact, it's highly likely that they are losing a small amount in the US. In Britain, the PS2 will cost about $100 more, but then the market's smaller, and a lot of additional costs are higher.
However, Sony has a monopoly on selling licenses for the PS[2]. If you want to code for it, first you need to fork over a lot of cash for a development kit (ie. tens and tens of thousands of dollars), which in effect is little more than a Linux box with funky things thrown in.
Then, you need to give Sony lots more cash. In fact, they make money with every game sold, because they do per-copy licensing. So, for doing *absolutely nothing*, Sony gets money from the publishers of PS2 games. Sorry, correction: For allowing them to develop for PS2. In return for allowing them to develop for PS2, Sony gives developers binding contracts which often ban them from developing for other competing systems. Ever wonder why Electronic Arts games don't get published on the Dreamcast? EA didn't want to piss off their moneycow, PS and now PS2.
MS may be portrayed as the evil empire, but they have nothing on Sony or Nintendo. Hell, you should have seen the lawsuits flying when software makers dared to try to publish games for Nintendo/Sony without getting licenses...
Imagine that: Microsoft suing you as a coder because you wrote a game for Windows - without giving them money. Most of Sony's profits in the last few years or so were from PS-related licensing. They didn't make any money from the hardware.. but raked it in when it comes to software.
Reality check, guys.
Alex T-B
St Andrews
Well now.
The US has a reasonably well-deregulated telecommunications and internet business. However, the second-biggest Internet market, in Europe, is still dominated by former state monopolies, lack of local flat rate phone fees, badly-developed net infrastructures, and general exploitation of customers.
And into this environment, Andy Mueller-Maguhn was elected 'Region 2 Director for Europe'. Yes, Andy Mueller-Maguhn. The former head of the German Chaos Computer Club, a team regularly posting information about cracking phone cards, cable TV decoders, and computer security information. They're the German '2600' equivalent, reviled and detested by state institutions, telecomms companies, etc. They're the rebels of the underground.
And now their former head is the Director of the European division of ICANN. Imagine Eric Corley (Emmanuel Goldstein) being the head of the US ICANN. Now imagine what important aspect this brings to ICANN in Europe.
Or, to quote Homer Simpson: Woohooo!
Alex T-B
St Andrews
The GameCube tech demo movie is also available as an .mpeg file, playable via your favourite OSS movie player. Die Sorenson codecs, die! P-)
The file is right here, a zipped mpeg. It's a direct download off ZDNET's servers, which should handle the load effortlessly. *grin*
The tech demo shows some nice, although pre-rendered scenes featuring the inevitable Pokemon, a waverace game, some scened from a 3D shooter demo, and an X-Wing.
Alex T-B
St Andrews
This is post No. 250 or so in this thread, so there's little hope it will ever be read. But as Lando Calrissian said: Here goes nothing..
Lars (Metallica's drummer) did not do an U-Turn on the matter of downloadable music. His role in the whole affair has been distorted to such a disgusting degree that it pains me to even see his name mentioned in the same sentence as 'Napster'.
As Slashdot reported a month ago, in a Slashdot interview with the man HIMSELF, and not some public relations idiot, he states that it's all about control. Did you hear that?
CONTROL
He doesn't care about the record companies. He hates them as much as everybody else, yeah, even the much-quoted Courtney Love.
As Morpheus famously stated, The Matrix is about control. Record companies, the RIAA, and the MPAA as well, if you want to open that can of worms, are about control. They want to regulate YOUR access to music that they didn't even create. They want to regulate the ARTIST'S means of getting their music to you. They want to CONTROL both the artists and the consumer.
I once worked in a record store - and you know those overpriced CDs you complain about? We sold them for about $13-$14. How much did we pay to the distributors, which in turn were often owned by the same record companies that produced those records? About $12-$13. We were lucky to make little over a dollar per CD sold. That was the price, we couldn't do anything about it - even buying in bulk didn't lower our prices significantly. And from that measly dollar profit, multiplied by however many CDs we sold, of course, the store owner had to pay the people working there (let's say $7/hour, plus the tax on that he/I have to pay, of course), the rent for the store, cost for maintaining the store, utilities, etc. Even CDNOW doesn't sell normal 'newer' CDs much cheaper than your usual store; whereas books can be discounted heavily, CDs are a different matter altogether.
Why? Because the record companies have control over the industry. Mainstream music is tied up by four or five major labels; if you don't get signed to one of them, you have no mainstream chance, your CD will never be distributed to millions of storeshelves all over the country, and the nation's eyeballs will instead be attached to Britney Spear's bellybutton on her next trashy CD, because that's who the record labels are pushing right now.
And now to Lars: Read his interview. What he doesn't want is for others to have control over Metallica's music. Yeah, it's free - but free as in beer does not mean free as in speech! Any student of RMS and ESR should understand it - there's a major difference in attitudes. Freedom to listen/use/whatever software or music doesn't make it free. Music on Napster isn't free - to be honest, it's controlled by Napster's databases. If Napster's VC-controlled bosses decide to introduce a monthly flat fee for using Napster, say, $5... would you do it? Hell, most people would. For five bucks, you can download as much as you want. [of course, with all the other current alternatives popping up, this becomes less and less attractive]. But the fatc of the matter is that Napster's estimated 20 million users would probably go for it - which would, even after fraud, etc, is counted in, account for a multi-million dollar business per month. Why? Because Napster has control over the distribution of that music. That's what Lars doesn't want, that's what they didn't do too much about it when it was just websites and ftp sites, and that's why Napster is a thorn in the eyes of some musicians as well as some record companies: Yeah, sure, the record companies hate the notion of being made obsolete by any little record store with a fast internet connection and a CD burner. Wouldn't you like to come to a store and pick up those CDs for $2 instead of $12? We could burn them for you, at a cost of less than $0.40, and still make more profit than we do now.. and lots of people would go for it, simply for convenience's sake. Many end consumers would simply just download the hit single they heard on the radio, in CD quality, or just get a compilation CD of current hit singles, anyway.
Frightening thoughts for the record companies. Unpleasant thoughts for Lars Ulrich.. because other people are still controlling the distribution channels. And Metallica, like anybody else, were dirt poor for a LONG time. Even now, they don't have as much money as lots of people think: Remember Courtney's rant? The record companies are pocketing 90%++ of the money made of a CD. You're lucky to get less than $1 per CD sold, and then about 40% of that goes to taxes. Etc.
Lars and Metallica distribute some music on their own website. Good for them. They control the music. I think that's the best thing I've heard so far. And once Metallica have finished their record agreements (and you can be CERTAIN that right now Metallica HAVE to produce a certain number of records for their current label or they will get sued like Prince, George Michael, and the Smashing Pumpkins got sued by THEIR record labels), they can start distribuing their own music any way they want.
More power to them, I say. The sooner we get the power to control music away from the record labels, and to the artists themselves, the sooner the entire cultural landscape will change.
Alex T-B
St Andrews
Unusual little point in the interview I couldn't help but notice: Until now, MS has tried to milk the cash cow by locking the industry into proprietary standards that weren't usable without MS tools, MS platforms, etc. Examples would be COM+, OLE, ActiveX, VB, MFC, J++ extensions, etc.
Oddly, they seem to have taken a slightly different route this time: Yeah, they still want you to run Win2000, upgrade to Windows
I might point out that we're taking a true open standards approach with ECMA. When and if ECMA actually arrives at a standard for C# and a common language infrastructure, the result will be available under ECMA's copyright and licensing policies, which are truly open. Any customer, and any person, will be able to license the ECMA C# standard, subset it, superset it, and they won't have to pay royalties. They'll be able take it and go implement it on any platform or any device. We fully expect people to do that. That is something fundamentally different from our competitors who wandered around the standards bodies, looking for someone to rubber-stamp their proprietary languages.
The ECMA, if it ratifies the C# standard, will be in charge of at least trying to assure that MS can't mess with the specifications too much, such as to break platform/language interoperability. I'm as astonished as everybody else about Microsoft's sudden commitment to open and certified standards. Maybe they're aiming to have everybody use their language and platform - thereby creating a viable long-term solution that'd keep MS in business even if they were split up or if computing moved in a different direction, rather than attempting to make as much money as possible in the short term.
Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Alex T-B
St Andrews