Most people are lazy. Most people will take the path of least resistance to get what they want. If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is, but people still want to believe it could be true.
I believe the reason p2p apps are so popular is because people just want their stuff (a large part of it is tainted). They really don't care or even want to know that they are sharing stuff on their computer. They will only care about it when it affects them personally. That could be from the pocket book or in very few cases lawsuits.
As a contrast to the above, I prefer BitTorrent precisely because it is so easy to control what I share. I feel a strong sense of community when I am sharing something through BT. I frequently check the connections and think, "That's somebody enjoying the same thing I do. I'll keep the connection open that much longer".
The only time I will run eMule are those times the particular episode of whichever Anime I am looking for doesn't have a well seeded torrent. And even then, I always engage in leeching activity with that p2p network. The shared directory is always cleaned out and only the one file I am getting gets shared. Then 2 days later when the transfer finally finishes (if I'm lucky), I seed it with BT for about a week. So others can enjoy the content without having to worry about whatever else they may be sharing.
I am probably just 1 guy who prefers p2p the BT way, but I would like to think that there are others who feel the same way.:)
Yes. Yes they are. Yes they did have a class action suit against them in which they got ruled against - hard.
This was their solution. Seriously castrate everybody on the system such that anybody who is even moderately active will exceed the FAP.
Oh yeah. It's easy to complain about the system. Most of that stems from non realistic expectations from a satellite connection.
If all I did was browse the Internet and did a few emails, the system would be good. But since I like to *gasp* download and enjoy multimedia *horror* my usage is seriously curtailed and my costs are astronomical (comparitively). Even downloading is painful, since most servers expect sub 600 ms response times and will simply refuse to transfer to links slower than that (more accurately, the packets time out and the TCP stack can't compensate). The DIRECWAY NOC tries to get around this with tricks to the TCP window and other params to the stack. They even do some pre-acking inside the satellite itself or on real popular downloads, they cache it somewhere local to their network. But not much can be done on the delivering end. And this is where most of the problems come from.
Let me tell you, BitTorrent is my friend now much more than it was in the past. Sometimes that is the only way to get something. Linux ISOs for example.
Still, painful as it is - sat technology is pretty cool and it is better than dialup.
Satellite access
on
Broadband Bits
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Having recently moved into a rural area from a densely populated area, I checked into all the options for getting any kind of broadband.
Wireless DSL was looking good until we found out that the location of the broadcasting tower and where we were had an electrical substation smack in the middle of line of site. No dice for that. Can't get through. WAAAAyyy too noisy.
So this past month, I took the plunge and purchased DIRECWAY satellite service. The cost is outragious (I had cable access before in the city), $1000 to get the dish/sat transponder/sat modem and to have Hughes flip the damn switch, another $350 to get the dish installed, and a measely $100 a month to have the service. For 2 years mind you, that's how long the required length of contract is. They never mention that part until you listen to the agreement recording to confirm your purchase.
The Fair Access Policy (such as it is) is even worse. I purchased the middle tier plan - 500meg download in 4 hours (sliding window). Now when I was on cable up in the city, online was my only entertainment, and I used it, quite heavily. The cable company never complained and the particular subnet I was on didn't have a lot of active nodes. But this FAP for the sat system is annoying the holy hell out of me. Heck, the available download speed from the service is 900mbps. That means I can blow the FAP in roughly 10 minutes (math mavens don't crucify me).
If you exceed the FAP, the download speed is clamped to 24kbps. It takes about 8 hours to reset. I've got a courtesy Hughes gonad squeezer making sure that I'm a good little boy.
So all in all, I payed nearly 2000$ for always on dialup service with higher latency. (*balloons* *confetti*)
If the 'Fringle' screwdriver is the most used and widely supported tool, then of course that is what a *business* person is going to use.
Seriously, I do believe that people have lost perspective.
The grandparent is correct in all aspects. If your client base requires those bits of functionality, then your business damn well better provide the defacto standards for software tools to get the job done efficiently.
Now. If you are a prosumer or serious hobbyist, then knock yourself out and fiddle all you like. In fact, the market needs blokes like you. Competition and all that.
In Minnesota, me and a friend had to travel to nearly the middle of the state from the twin cities to get a reasonably good view of the Milky Way. Even out there it was pretty amazing to look at. It must be glorious to see it from Africa.
Anyway, the name of the tow next to the area we stopped was Cosmos.
I agree with this completely. Let the punishment fit the crime (as it were).
If this was widely known this would be a bigger deterent than almsot anything. Take away their source of enjoyment. That is the language kids understand.
1st infraction: Parental notification. 2nd infraction: 1 year removal of computer use for said household. 3rd infraction: 5 year mark on record to disallow any Internet connection by any guardian or parent of said child. 4th infraction: permanent ban of computers for said individual.
While astronomy does need another Copernicus, the times are different today. Most everything cosmologists discuss is theory these days. Only after the mathamatical models provide sufficient backing data, experiements are performed. Namely because these experiements are so costly.
I do agree all this dark matter seems like hand waving. Part of that is a lack of understanding on my part. But to be fair, even the cosmologists don't even have a handle on what they are talking about.
Totally agreed. When/. first started out, they seem to have a self impuned edict to be at least correct in the stories that were posted - regardless of the viewpoint.
Now all it is push something onto the voracious readers to satiate their needling desire to comment about shit.
The moderation system is a joke, people who feel the need to fill an empty desire to impress equally dipshitty people know how to abuse it. These things need to be tracked on a user by user basis and those users banned. But even worse is the god damn story editors. I read at +4 and the amount of garbage on this site has sky rocketed. The same jokes are recycled and only funny to the small community (such as it is) that is/. And the self deprecating 'humor' to favor mod points is equally annoying.
Who in the hell in their right mind would pay to read this site is beyond me.
It's the "a little goes a long way" paradigm. There's not a car lock that will stop a sophisticated thief who wants your car, but it stops 90% of the punters. Same with locks on doors and copy protection on computer games and gaming consoles. There are likely professional car thieves who also wonder out loud why the car manufacturers don't just give up because it's a losing battle, etc., but it's not going to happen, either.
Except in the case of digital data protection schemes on the Internet, just *one* person who cracks that scheme and releases it out on the 'net makes that crack available to literally millions of people. Not so in the physical realm. There it takes time to get the word around, and get the idea implemented in new areas for it to be useful.
The Internet gets rid of that nasty in the middle step and makes it all instant. A little does not go a long way on the Internet in terms of prevention.
I see this as a start to offsetting the corruptness that people can use the courts for. The courts will never be 100%, they can't be. It is a manmade entity. As such, man can always find a way to subvert it.
The efforts of OSRM are a way to open the examination of IP laws and defunct lawsuits to a distributed community effort. If they can make a little green on the way, I say good for them. They have the right idea about using the many eyes concept to keep people honest. The dishonest ones that persist, have to stand up to severe scrutiny.
This could even be the start of a wave of community efforts that serve the common good. I see nothing wrong with this.
Let's make it easy for Real
on
Real Problems
·
· Score: 1
Dear Real,
Despite your stated quandry of balancing the premium version and the free version, the solution is simple:
Make both buttons on the download webpage the same size. Same icon format and all. The only thi9ng making them different should be the word Premium and Free. Perhaps different colors.
Problem solved. Any users who miss the free version have nobody to blame but themselves.
The premium version should sell itself based on good features and consumer friendly options Regardless what your high paid marketing goons think, people will pay for quality.
There is no way I want my personal email forever in someone else's colocation storage site.. If the allure of having it there in the first place is taken away, then there isn't a point. Other than to abuse the 1gig storage limit.
Nice honeypot. All it will take is somebody favorable to the MPAA or New Line or somebody along that lineage to connect to this torrent, get the IPS of who is transferring it - BLAMO! Instant lawsuits.
Assuming your girlfriend even likes games, let alone role playing games, I would suggest the game Everquest.
Normally I wouldn't wish that form of crack on anybody, having just broke the habit myself. But it has been said that all EQ is is just a chat client with graphics. To a large extent, that is true. The chat interface in EQ is probably the best of any modern MMORPG out today. It has had over 3 years to be fine tuned. The latest patch coming out will require DX9 and a fairly beefy machine to run effectively.
Look into it if you and your's like that type of genre.
Apple simply does the best job at making a product that does it's intended function the best of any computer product out in the market. iTunes does music jukeboxing, CD ripping/burning, and a largly acceptable from of DRM correctly, smartly, and almost without fail. In every reproach. Apple listens to their customers and actively innovates for them, Apple market share is a happy byproduct of the process.
Let's see somebody say the same thing about Microsoft thruthfully. Do that, and I'll happy to sell you this plot o' land...
The movie studios want this! They absolutely hate the fact that rental stores can make money of THEIR movies. Once again, it's all about the studios want the entire money revenue. From box office to after realease video sales.
As everyone in hollywood knows, this is very old news. Perhaps the underground ice was melted too fast and it has started to spill onto the martian landscape. Can't rush terrforming you know. Well, that and Quatto has finally gone mad.:)
This is another attempt to have technology police human behavior. It hasn't worked in the past, why should it work now? I agree that SMTP could be made a lot more secure for the commercial Internet
but as advanced and smooth as the interface is it's the unfortunate truth that it is still hard to do anything meaningful with a Mac
LOL. This argument is always funny to me. This is personal opinion backup up with status quo. Yes, follow the crowd and do the standard thing. I do realize that a LOT of businesses out there HAVE to have Windows machines. As those are the only platforms where their customized solutions or business grade support plans exist.
For those computer positions where Rendevous would be a good thing(tm) and not impede business, why not? Slowly but surely, this might even make more of an competative playing field when it comes to computers used in the business world. And how would that be a bad thing? Having some really cool business / integration apps for the Mac platform will be good and further increase the acceptance.
I agree that the current market is going to try and put games on phones. But I ask you, WHY? - other than the obvious "this is a new way to fleece the customers".
I am an avid gamer, but I cannot not even imagine playing a quality game on a phone. Reasons:
1) Note I said quality. No, this doesn't mean the latest and greatest graphics or AI. The old arcade games almost fill the bill, but my game tastes have progressed beyond "Galaga", "Tempest", and "Asteroids". 2) Even if there is a good game I might want to play on a mobile phone, how long do you think I could actually play it? Battery life in mobile phones is pretty pathetic.
Sony is putting out a version of Everquest for a mobile phone. It is still in the proposed state, but they are already hyping it. Hell, the protocol for the game doesn't even exist yet, it's still being actively developed.
I realize that the marketing will target a much younger consumer than codgy old me, but there are still lots of hurdles before the gaming industry can enter the mobile phone industry with style.
-FlynnMP3
Re:What Google and investors in it should think ab
on
Google vs. Evil
·
· Score: 1
There is a certain sect of investors and big business types that do not care what the user thinks. If the bottom line can be improved to the point of extreme profits for a while while gutting the company values, so be it. Those investors can always jump ship when appropriate and glom onto another startup company that looks good.
This is why I generally detest big business, they do not look out for the users, even though they say they do. It's a two-faced lie.
Slashdot Mirror
Most people are lazy. Most people will take the path of least resistance to get what they want. If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is, but people still want to believe it could be true.
:)
I believe the reason p2p apps are so popular is because people just want their stuff (a large part of it is tainted). They really don't care or even want to know that they are sharing stuff on their computer. They will only care about it when it affects them personally. That could be from the pocket book or in very few cases lawsuits.
As a contrast to the above, I prefer BitTorrent precisely because it is so easy to control what I share. I feel a strong sense of community when I am sharing something through BT. I frequently check the connections and think, "That's somebody enjoying the same thing I do. I'll keep the connection open that much longer".
The only time I will run eMule are those times the particular episode of whichever Anime I am looking for doesn't have a well seeded torrent. And even then, I always engage in leeching activity with that p2p network. The shared directory is always cleaned out and only the one file I am getting gets shared. Then 2 days later when the transfer finally finishes (if I'm lucky), I seed it with BT for about a week. So others can enjoy the content without having to worry about whatever else they may be sharing.
I am probably just 1 guy who prefers p2p the BT way, but I would like to think that there are others who feel the same way.
Yes. Yes they are. Yes they did have a class action suit against them in which they got ruled against - hard.
This was their solution. Seriously castrate everybody on the system such that anybody who is even moderately active will exceed the FAP.
Oh yeah. It's easy to complain about the system. Most of that stems from non realistic expectations from a satellite connection.
If all I did was browse the Internet and did a few emails, the system would be good. But since I like to *gasp* download and enjoy multimedia *horror* my usage is seriously curtailed and my costs are astronomical (comparitively). Even downloading is painful, since most servers expect sub 600 ms response times and will simply refuse to transfer to links slower than that (more accurately, the packets time out and the TCP stack can't compensate). The DIRECWAY NOC tries to get around this with tricks to the TCP window and other params to the stack. They even do some pre-acking inside the satellite itself or on real popular downloads, they cache it somewhere local to their network. But not much can be done on the delivering end. And this is where most of the problems come from.
Let me tell you, BitTorrent is my friend now much more than it was in the past. Sometimes that is the only way to get something. Linux ISOs for example.
Still, painful as it is - sat technology is pretty cool and it is better than dialup.
Having recently moved into a rural area from a densely populated area, I checked into all the options for getting any kind of broadband.
Wireless DSL was looking good until we found out that the location of the broadcasting tower and where we were had an electrical substation smack in the middle of line of site. No dice for that. Can't get through. WAAAAyyy too noisy.
So this past month, I took the plunge and purchased DIRECWAY satellite service. The cost is outragious (I had cable access before in the city), $1000 to get the dish/sat transponder/sat modem and to have Hughes flip the damn switch, another $350 to get the dish installed, and a measely $100 a month to have the service. For 2 years mind you, that's how long the required length of contract is. They never mention that part until you listen to the agreement recording to confirm your purchase.
The Fair Access Policy (such as it is) is even worse. I purchased the middle tier plan - 500meg download in 4 hours (sliding window). Now when I was on cable up in the city, online was my only entertainment, and I used it, quite heavily. The cable company never complained and the particular subnet I was on didn't have a lot of active nodes. But this FAP for the sat system is annoying the holy hell out of me. Heck, the available download speed from the service is 900mbps. That means I can blow the FAP in roughly 10 minutes (math mavens don't crucify me).
If you exceed the FAP, the download speed is clamped to 24kbps. It takes about 8 hours to reset. I've got a courtesy Hughes gonad squeezer making sure that I'm a good little boy.
So all in all, I payed nearly 2000$ for always on dialup service with higher latency. (*balloons* *confetti*)
I'm moving as soon as I can muster it.
If the 'Fringle' screwdriver is the most used and widely supported tool, then of course that is what a *business* person is going to use.
Seriously, I do believe that people have lost perspective.
The grandparent is correct in all aspects. If your client base requires those bits of functionality, then your business damn well better provide the defacto standards for software tools to get the job done efficiently.
Now. If you are a prosumer or serious hobbyist, then knock yourself out and fiddle all you like. In fact, the market needs blokes like you. Competition and all that.
In Minnesota, me and a friend had to travel to nearly the middle of the state from the twin cities to get a reasonably good view of the Milky Way. Even out there it was pretty amazing to look at. It must be glorious to see it from Africa.
Anyway, the name of the tow next to the area we stopped was Cosmos.
No lie. Ironic and appropriate. Heh
-FlynnMP3
I agree with this completely. Let the punishment fit the crime (as it were).
If this was widely known this would be a bigger deterent than almsot anything. Take away their source of enjoyment. That is the language kids understand.
1st infraction: Parental notification.
2nd infraction: 1 year removal of computer use for said household.
3rd infraction: 5 year mark on record to disallow any Internet connection by any guardian or parent of said child.
4th infraction: permanent ban of computers for said individual.
While astronomy does need another Copernicus, the times are different today. Most everything cosmologists discuss is theory these days. Only after the mathamatical models provide sufficient backing data, experiements are performed. Namely because these experiements are so costly.
I do agree all this dark matter seems like hand waving. Part of that is a lack of understanding on my part. But to be fair, even the cosmologists don't even have a handle on what they are talking about.
Totally agreed. When /. first started out, they seem to have a self impuned edict to be at least correct in the stories that were posted - regardless of the viewpoint.
/. And the self deprecating 'humor' to favor mod points is equally annoying.
Now all it is push something onto the voracious readers to satiate their needling desire to comment about shit.
The moderation system is a joke, people who feel the need to fill an empty desire to impress equally dipshitty people know how to abuse it. These things need to be tracked on a user by user basis and those users banned. But even worse is the god damn story editors. I read at +4 and the amount of garbage on this site has sky rocketed. The same jokes are recycled and only funny to the small community (such as it is) that is
Who in the hell in their right mind would pay to read this site is beyond me.
It's the "a little goes a long way" paradigm. There's not a car lock that will stop a sophisticated thief who wants your car, but it stops 90% of the punters. Same with locks on doors and copy protection on computer games and gaming consoles. There are likely professional car thieves who also wonder out loud why the car manufacturers don't just give up because it's a losing battle, etc., but it's not going to happen, either.
Except in the case of digital data protection schemes on the Internet, just *one* person who cracks that scheme and releases it out on the 'net makes that crack available to literally millions of people. Not so in the physical realm. There it takes time to get the word around, and get the idea implemented in new areas for it to be useful. The Internet gets rid of that nasty in the middle step and makes it all instant. A little does not go a long way on the Internet in terms of prevention.
I see this as a start to offsetting the corruptness that people can use the courts for. The courts will never be 100%, they can't be. It is a manmade entity. As such, man can always find a way to subvert it.
The efforts of OSRM are a way to open the examination of IP laws and defunct lawsuits to a distributed community effort. If they can make a little green on the way, I say good for them. They have the right idea about using the many eyes concept to keep people honest. The dishonest ones that persist, have to stand up to severe scrutiny.
This could even be the start of a wave of community efforts that serve the common good. I see nothing wrong with this.
Dear Real,
Despite your stated quandry of balancing the premium version and the free version, the solution is simple:
Make both buttons on the download webpage the same size. Same icon format and all. The only thi9ng making them different should be the word Premium and Free. Perhaps different colors.
Problem solved. Any users who miss the free version have nobody to blame but themselves.
The premium version should sell itself based on good features and consumer friendly options Regardless what your high paid marketing goons think, people will pay for quality.
Regards,
People with a Brain
There is no way I want my personal email forever in someone else's colocation storage site.. If the allure of having it there in the first place is taken away, then there isn't a point. Other than to abuse the 1gig storage limit.
This idea needs a rethink. Even if it is true.
Nice honeypot. All it will take is somebody favorable to the MPAA or New Line or somebody along that lineage to connect to this torrent, get the IPS of who is transferring it - BLAMO! Instant lawsuits.
Have fun!
Assuming your girlfriend even likes games, let alone role playing games, I would suggest the game Everquest.
Normally I wouldn't wish that form of crack on anybody, having just broke the habit myself. But it has been said that all EQ is is just a chat client with graphics. To a large extent, that is true. The chat interface in EQ is probably the best of any modern MMORPG out today. It has had over 3 years to be fine tuned. The latest patch coming out will require DX9 and a fairly beefy machine to run effectively.
Look into it if you and your's like that type of genre.
Good god nooooOOOOOooo!
That's all we need. Is more information polution.
The one nice thing about cell phones is telemarketers don't call them. It may happen someday, but hopefully not while I am alive.
LOL. Mod of parent post is Score:0 Funny.
Irony: God's way of providing choice.
Apple simply does the best job at making a product that does it's intended function the best of any computer product out in the market. iTunes does music jukeboxing, CD ripping/burning, and a largly acceptable from of DRM correctly, smartly, and almost without fail. In every reproach. Apple listens to their customers and actively innovates for them, Apple market share is a happy byproduct of the process.
Let's see somebody say the same thing about Microsoft thruthfully. Do that, and I'll happy to sell you this plot o' land...
-FlynnMP3
Insert witty saying here
What is really sad, is that I would probably buy your movie. Well, the extended version anyway. /sigh
The movie studios want this! They absolutely hate the fact that rental stores can make money of THEIR movies. Once again, it's all about the studios want the entire money revenue. From box office to after realease video sales.
Expect level 70 in the next consumer rapi^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hexpansion.
As everyone in hollywood knows, this is very old news. Perhaps the underground ice was melted too fast and it has started to spill onto the martian landscape. Can't rush terrforming you know. Well, that and Quatto has finally gone mad. :)
This is another attempt to have technology police human behavior. It hasn't worked in the past, why should it work now? I agree that SMTP could be made a lot more secure for the commercial Internet
but as advanced and smooth as the interface is it's the unfortunate truth that it is still hard to do anything meaningful with a Mac
LOL. This argument is always funny to me. This is personal opinion backup up with status quo. Yes, follow the crowd and do the standard thing. I do realize that a LOT of businesses out there HAVE to have Windows machines. As those are the only platforms where their customized solutions or business grade support plans exist.
For those computer positions where Rendevous would be a good thing(tm) and not impede business, why not? Slowly but surely, this might even make more of an competative playing field when it comes to computers used in the business world. And how would that be a bad thing? Having some really cool business / integration apps for the Mac platform will be good and further increase the acceptance.
-FlynnMP3
"Imagine I said something witty here."
I agree that the current market is going to try and put games on phones. But I ask you, WHY? - other than the obvious "this is a new way to fleece the customers".
I am an avid gamer, but I cannot not even imagine playing a quality game on a phone. Reasons:
1) Note I said quality. No, this doesn't mean the latest and greatest graphics or AI. The old arcade games almost fill the bill, but my game tastes have progressed beyond "Galaga", "Tempest", and "Asteroids".
2) Even if there is a good game I might want to play on a mobile phone, how long do you think I could actually play it? Battery life in mobile phones is pretty pathetic.
Sony is putting out a version of Everquest for a mobile phone. It is still in the proposed state, but they are already hyping it. Hell, the protocol for the game doesn't even exist yet, it's still being actively developed.
I realize that the marketing will target a much younger consumer than codgy old me, but there are still lots of hurdles before the gaming industry can enter the mobile phone industry with style.
-FlynnMP3
There is a certain sect of investors and big business types that do not care what the user thinks. If the bottom line can be improved to the point of extreme profits for a while while gutting the company values, so be it. Those investors can always jump ship when appropriate and glom onto another startup company that looks good.
This is why I generally detest big business, they do not look out for the users, even though they say they do. It's a two-faced lie.
-FlynnMP3