Yes, homogeneous. Do you have anywhere near to the ethnic minority population levels as the U.S.? I think not.
Per capita I think Toronto beats the US ass in ethnic minority population in condenced areas. 4+ million people, with very large chineese, greek, jewish, african, and east indian minority cultures among others.
Not because of the nature of the people, just because when you have a large groups of people with foreign cultures clustered together, it makes for a more balkanized culture, where people don't share the same values, and makes assimilation into the mainstream culture more difficult.
And so I quoth from a well known Canadian beer commercial: "I belive in diversity, not assimilation." Up here we don't advocate the "Melting Pot" that you people to the south do, we respect, enjoy, and benifit from people keeping their own cultures. Yes, Toronto is extremely balkanized culture wise, but it's also one hell of a city for it.
As far as microsoft's "integration" of a web browser into their operating system. I don't believe this is a valid excuse to break up the empire. In many respects, integration is a benefit to the consumer. (While IE may not be the best implementation) I don't believe that you can honestly say that this is a valid monopolistic practice. No one is forcing the consumer to use IE, they're just making it slightly more convenient, and everpresent. If i don't want to use IE (assuming i would use windows for anything other than a few games), then I can just opt not to click on that little blue E.
If IE could be uninstalled, I'd agree with you, but it can't be, and thats the problem. Windows loads IE on startup, the damn thing is always there running whether you want it or not, so contrary to your "you're not forced to use it" the simple truth is, YES YOU ARE. If you use Win95 OSR2 or any windows after that, you are forced to use IE, you are forced to let it suck up your RAM and CPU cycles, and you are forced to reboot when the fucking thing crashes and bluescreens you. Integration a benifit, my ass.
As far as monopolistic business practices otherwise. Would you step to the front of the room please if you would have done any different (open source developers, you don't count because you're not entirely greedy:P ) The point is that M$ followed valid business practices. While some of these may have been a little shady (such as altering some industry standards to make them proprietary), none of these practices are illegal.
Not illegal? You think the judge is pretty much ordering the breakup just because he wants to? No. Anti-trust law is quite a valid law, and MS broke that law. No, I wouldn't have done most of what MS has. I wouldn't have made DrDos "incompatible" with Win3.x, I wouldn't have bought Stac and fired everyone, I wouldn't have integrated IE with the damn OS (put it on the installation CD if the user wants to install it yes, integrated it with the OS no.), I wouldn't have forced OEM's to buy Windows, to put the IE icon on the desktop stock, I wouldn't have persued the development of MS-Bob, I wouldn't have broke off ties with IBM over OS/2.
Microsoft didn't become the company it is today because it played "fair" and it certainly didn't become the most popular OS in the world because it sucked.
They didn't become the most popular OS in the world because it was any good either.
Just one question and heavens knows I'm not trying to defend MicroShaft because if the answer to my question is no then I think it is just one more example of evil. But the OS (if you can call winders a OS) cds that come with most OEM systems say on the "for sale with a new pc only" now is selling those on ebay a violation of that clause? How binding is that clause? I agree that if it is binding etc. that it really sucks.
That only covers retail sale by OEM's. Nothing is stopping you from buying that and auctioning it off. I'm pretty sure the OEM's are under contract to only sell those with new systems to get their "Microsoft Discount", but if you buy that system with the software, you can turn around and resell the software without the computer, thats First Sale.
One of those two cards should do you well...the Matrox G200 has a better quality picture.
He said work WELL, not leak 5 megs of ram every time you open/close an XMMS OpenGL plugin.
The nVidia drivers are crap, and they're really slow comming up to speed. I own a TNT1 and I wouldn't recommend buying one if your main platform is X. Go with a Matrox/3Dfx card.
Of course, going by your logic, Sun doesn't make any hardware either. They have subcontractors who do that for them.
Thats right.
And Red Hat doesn't make anything except a colorful shrinkwrapped box.
And some scriptin croft and proprietary packaging schemes, of course.
Pretty much, except for any software made by those coders they hired...
Wow, an AC who actually understands business.
The name of the game is to be as profitable as possible, you don't do that by making stuff yourself, you do that by getting others to cheaply, then packaging it as your own.
The article says that the US was pressurising the EU not to go ahead with the move. Why did CmdrTaco say that the "US is pissed"? What further indications are there in the article that the US is indeed pissed?
And you think they'd be pressuring the EU not to go ahead with it if they liked it? No. The article stated rather nicely that the US government is... pissed.
It's bad for record companies too, but I think we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I know this site is full of freakish free software advocates, but as a software developer, I'll tell you right now, you don't pay me to make software, I don't fucking make software. The same should go for artists. You don't pay them to make music, then they don't fucking make music, or, if they do, they certainly don't give it to you.
Before you go jumping into some conclusion stating it is fact, please show us some evidence.
1 - There is no evidence that music piracy hurts artists or record companies, infact, there is a wealth of evidence to show the opposite.
2 - MP3's have been around for a good 5 years, last year ALONE the RIAA posted a 1.4 BILLION dollar sales increase in record sales.
3 - Our friends Metallica even encouraged theft and underground bootlegging, look where it got them. They've made millions.
4 - Audio casettes, VHS tapes, and other media have enabled end users to pirate both music and video, there seems to be no hurt being done to the RIAA or MPAA because of this.
Now the reasons for the above are quite obvious:
1 - Those who wouldn't be able to afford to purchase the media in the first place are the ones most likely to engage in piracy, therefore there is no net loss to the artist.
2 - People are generally "good", if they find music they especially like, through MP3's or other means, they want to support the artist and purchase the music. I have done this, I know many people who have done this.
3 - Music piracy, through napster or other means, is one hell of a free publicity machine, it gets the music heard to more people, and therefore to more potential buyers.
No one has ever shown me where "piracy" has really hurt music artists, programmers, etc. Sure you could say one instance of unlawful copying = one sale gone, but it doesn't always add up to that, and there are other factors.
Network Associates, makers of McAfee Virus Scan, among other things, have a "hidden" account on their ftp site which enables you to download their retail software for free, basically sanctioning piracy. I spoke with someone from the company, they told me the rationale was that people would download it, like it, then recommend it to be used at their work, and the company would buy site licenses. Piracy isn't always bad it would seem.
Software piracy runs rampant, but there's no shortage of game titles on the shelf at Electronic Boutique.
This article is amazing, this guy Lemos really "gets it". Not only does he know that DeCSS is NOT about piracy at all but about playing, he informs that the Evil DVD group want to force people to watch ads before they see the main menu.
I'm not sure how influential this ZD's investor site is, but this is definately very good press that goes towards people with money.
You can't possibly consider a virus writer to be an artist? I'm sure that some of code they produce is elegant, or at least quite advanced and technical. But to call the result of that work 'art' is just fallacy.
It is my understanding that by naming your post Microsoft has sworn, under oath, that your post violates the DMCA. If you can show that your post has not violated the DMCA then i would have thought that Microsoft will be open to being found in violation of purjury laws...
Can this be used against them?
Probably, I broke no laws, and I can prove it.
Now what about defamation of character? That I'm a law breaker? Hrmm..
Being one of the named (hey you bright microsoft lusers, you forgot to capitalized my L!) I certainly don't want my post yanked, I did nothing which violated any law.
I simply stated that to get past the End User License Agreement for the Microsoft "embrace and extend" kerberos spec file located h ere is to just open it in winzip and extract it.
I mean, what possible law could I have violated, being a Canadian citizen and all? These comments belong to me, not Slashdot, if MS has a problem with them, then you talk to me.
The file is freely downloadable by anyone, in an easy to extract and read format, I thought this is what MS wanted? If not they would never have done it.
Now as for people posting the text to the file in whole, well, that's a copyright violation, and MS needs to go ahead and sue those people (comments belong to the poster), but as an unmoderated forum, slashdot is no party to it.
What if the same thing happened on an unmoderated group on usenet? How are you going to yank it after it's out there? You going to sue the news servers? No, you sue the person who did it.
MS is just making this worse for themselves, the whole kerberos thing would probably have just dissapeared and would have been forgotten by the majority, but now by doing this, they rehash it and just make it worse for themselves, next thing you know there will be mirrors upon mirrors of the pdf file everywhere. I personally am thinking of rewriting the document in my own words to hand off to the kerberos guys now, which I didn't even think about before.
Microsoft, you really know how to shoot yourself in the foot. Kudos.
The Euopean Union tonight unanimously agreed to create the toplevel internet domain ".eu". Our France correspondant went on record stating "Ewww!". Puzzling isn't it?
Elsewhere around the globe the United Guatamala Hegemony is going to lobby for the toplevel domain ".ugh", while the Urguay National Federation plans on aquiring ".unf".
Sources close to the Micronesia Open Organization say they would enjoy ".moo" but it looks like they would be turned down as they aren't big enough to aquire it, unlike the Hundouras Organization of Tribbles who want ".hot" and the Guam Rightously Inspired Troll Service who want ".grits".
Kudos to the LAME guys! I use LAME myself and am very thankful that you guys kept the project going and have made it so far as to replace all of the ISO code!
Now, new names:
LAME An MP3 Encoder LAME Amazing MP3 Encoder LAME Acronym, Must Elaborate LAME Autonomous MP3 Encoder LAME Another MP3 Encoder LAME Anybodies MP3 Encoder
But that's beside the point. The fact that it re-initializes the directory structure and allocation tables is nowhere near as big of an issue as the fact that it erases all data on the drive!!!!
Usually it doesn't actually. The data is still there but inaccessable because the OS just reset the allocation tables. You're not really losing the data, you're losing the ability to access the data in the intended mannor, its a byproduct.
Heh, I don't really care. Let the corporate sites go down, it doesn't bother me one bit. Ad banners are really just a glorified pyramid scheme. The Big sites are the only ones making any money, they sell banner ads to smaller sites, who sell banner ads to smaller sites, ad nauseum.
So who cares? The internet isn't, and shouldn't be, one large corporate strip mall. Right now we have all kinds of corporate noise camoflaguing any real useful information (which is almost allways not on a site with banner ads). So what if the fat gets trimmed? Who cares? The information density of the net will rise.
When you pay for your internet conenction you are paying for a connection, not the content. Thats the fundamental basis of the internet, if you remove the capability for content providers to make money you remove once chunk of the web, you will just be left with hobby sites, pay sites, charity sites and online stores.
Good, I like that, we all seem to forget slashdot was, and arguably better when it was, a hobby site. If the larger content providers go down because they base their business on such an easily foiled revenue stream then THEY DON'T DESERVE TO BE IN BUSINESS. I pay for my bandwidth, I choose what I do with my bandwidth, if I don't want ads, and I don't want spam in my inbox, and if I don't want to see slashdot posts from the user "JamesSharmon" then I will damn well filter them out at my lesiure, and not you, or anyone else, is going to tell me I'm stealing because of it.
If this were to really happen you would run the risk of moving into an arms race between website designers trying to squeeze their banners past the checks (in order to gain ad-revenue) and the browser hackers trying to eliminate them. Now obviously there is little to stop individuals from patching browsers, proxies etc.. Themselves but really and truly is this not steeling from the web publishers?
See previous threads on this, it is obviously not stealing.
1. People pay for their internet connection, if anyone is stealing its the publishers stealing bandwidth from users and using it to make money for themselves.
2. They chose to make it their source of revenue, they can find other ways to do it.
3. Filtering spam isn't stealing, changing the channel during commercials isn't stealing, using a TiVo isn't stealing, not looking at a billboard isn't stealing, how is filtering banner ads?
4. Lynx views 0 graphics, do people who use lynx steal because they don't see the ads?
Your methodology is draconian. What you're suggesting is forcing people to pay for their internet connection and bandwidth to view these banner ads, taking time and money away from users to make the publishers money. This is fair, how?
They should get rid of it, instead of just removing it from the menu. While there could probably be legitimate uses, it is obviously intended to block advertising. This is not right. Some content on the internet is free, but some content you must pay for. Viewing advertisements it paying with your time. If you can block out advertisements, you are no longer paying. You are essentially stealing.
I pay for my internet account, I pay for my bandwidth, I pay for my email box, yet when I decide how I want to use it, I'm stealing? What planet did you come from? I'm STEALING if I don't allow ads I DON'T want wasting bandwidth I PAID for? Who moderated this guy to insightful? I'd like to show him what stealing really is.
Why go through all the pain of reverse-engineering a video codec and then NOT releasing it under a truly free license? Why should the Stallman disciples have all the fun? Please, let's not infect the Mac platform with the GNU public virus! Make it available under the BSD license or a similar free license.
I agree the GPL would be too restrictive and would hinder the adoption of the "open" codec among companies, but I don't think the BSD license is the way to go. A company could "embrace and extend" and break compatibility (Real for example) to force people to use THEIR player, etc. Instead I propose using the LGPL, the codec would stay clean, commercial apps could link to it, and everyone is happy.
Look, if you're going to get frosted over people who (to you) misuse the word "hacker", why on Earth would you turn right around and start misappropriating the word "cracker?" Cracker, as it relates to computers, never had the meaning that the annoyed hackers are trying to foist on it.
A Cracker, as it relates to computers, is someone who maliciously breaks security systems. Now these security systems could be within programs (copy protection), computers themselves (firewalls or gaining root), etc. I fail to see where this meaning was never used before? Even the small programs which these people make to break copy protection are called "cracks". Why should it be a different word when they're doing the same thing?
I think that is a rather stupid statement. By your logic my clothes keep cancer away because as long as I've been wearing them I haven't had cancer.
And they very well might.
They may sheild your skin from sunlight helping to prevent menlanoma, certain fabrics may absorb free radicals so they do not enter your body through respiration, etc.
What possible evidence do you have that MP3's had any thing to do with record sales last year?? anything?? maybe more people are listening to music, maybe there are more kids out there now than before that like britny spears(gag) Maybe the record industry has found a better advirtising method(not MP3) makeing a broad assumption that MP3's are what caused the increse is just a little over simplfied.
Your question is very valid, and in writing my question (which I did before the "live chat" on yahoo as there was where I asked it, and was rejected) I thought about your exact question. Maybe it was a different kind of advertizing, etc.
But really, that holds no water. All ads have been pretty much the same for the past 5 years or so. I dare anyone to name a new form of media that has contributed heavily to record sales.
More people listening to music? Well it is true that the global population is at an alltime high of in excess of 6 billion people, however in industrialized 1st world contries (North America, Europe, etc) there is actually a negative population growth. These figures in sales are only from the US.
Not only did sales increase last year, but so did the price of CD's. In reviewing my numbers I seem to be off by about 88.6 billion dollars, the revenue increase is actually 1.4 billion last year (1999).
Now, since its not more people listening to music (all people listen to music, some just don't buy it) as there is a negative population growth in the US from where these numbers are from, and that advertising has been the same for the last 5 years, something else must be driving the sales increase.
There is one possible factor you didn't mention, and that is people may have a larger disposable income. Yes, this is probably a factor, however from my experience with me NEVER buying CD's before last year, and only buying CD's of music I liked from MP3's, and also talking with many people who did the same, I belive this is playing a factor in that sales increase also. Most definately not the ONLY factor, but a major contributor
MP3's have been around for atleast 5 years. Many people, myself included, have bought CD's because we've heard tracks from MP3's. I bought S&M because of MP3's I've heard off of the album, I also bought 5 other CD's last year because of it. The only CD player I have is my CD-ROM drive in my computer, so I usually do not buy them at all. With the RIAA posting a 12.3% 90 billion dollar sales INCREASE last year, these two peices of information would suggest that MP3's are generating even MORE sales for artists through "word of mouth" promotion. From this information, how do you justify your actions, and how can you even say you're doing it for the benifit of all artists, as your actions would seem to be doing the opposite?
I went there, being the naive internet luser I apparently am, thinking some good was going to come out of it, boy was I wrong.
Let me tell you what I experienced:
1. All the questions the moderator asked were strangely written by PEOPLE WHO WERN'T THERE.
2. All the questions, except the second one, I think, were truely weak, as if written entirely by lawyers to solicit the kind of answers they wanted to be heard.
3. The band never saw any of the public chat going on.
4. My very thought out question about me buying S&M because I heard an mp3 off of it, and that the RIAA posted a 12.3% 90 billion dollar sales increase last year, was not asked.
5. The thing didn't even last a full hour.
6. Metallica thinks that Napster is apparently providing the content and not the users. Lars said a few times they wanted "napster to take us off their lists".
7. Metallica apparently has a gripe about napster sponsoring Limp Bizkit (they said it was wrong that this large company was paying Limp Bizkit to perform, and not the kids). Even though I don't like Limp Bizkit, isn't this what all record labels do? And don't other bands take on sponsors?
8. Lars says "it isn't about the money" on one line, but says "napster is a middle man cutting us out" on another. Which is it?
9. Metallica wants the government to police the internet, they want congress to bring out new laws against this, and they think what they're doing is for the good of all artists, they clearly stated their goal, to put Napster out of business.
In conclusion, I belive this "live chat" was one hell of a fabrication, kudos to Yahoo for duping alot of people into showing up and wasting their time so we can hear uninformed idiots (Metallica) rant.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, homogeneous. Do you have anywhere near to the ethnic minority population levels as the U.S.? I think not.
Per capita I think Toronto beats the US ass in ethnic minority population in condenced areas. 4+ million people, with very large chineese, greek, jewish, african, and east indian minority cultures among others.
Not because of the nature of the people, just because when you have a large groups of people with foreign cultures clustered together, it makes for a more balkanized culture, where people don't share the same values, and makes assimilation into the mainstream culture more difficult.
And so I quoth from a well known Canadian beer commercial: "I belive in diversity, not assimilation." Up here we don't advocate the "Melting Pot" that you people to the south do, we respect, enjoy, and benifit from people keeping their own cultures. Yes, Toronto is extremely balkanized culture wise, but it's also one hell of a city for it.
-- iCEBaLM
As far as microsoft's "integration" of a web browser into their operating system. I don't believe this is a valid excuse to break up the empire. In many respects, integration is a benefit to the consumer. (While IE may not be the best implementation) I don't believe that you can honestly say that this is a valid monopolistic practice. No one is forcing the consumer to use IE, they're just making it slightly more convenient, and everpresent. If i don't want to use IE (assuming i would use windows for anything other than a few games), then I can just opt not to click on that little blue E.
:P ) The point is that M$ followed valid business practices. While some of these may have been a little shady (such as altering some industry standards to make them proprietary), none of these practices are illegal.
If IE could be uninstalled, I'd agree with you, but it can't be, and thats the problem. Windows loads IE on startup, the damn thing is always there running whether you want it or not, so contrary to your "you're not forced to use it" the simple truth is, YES YOU ARE. If you use Win95 OSR2 or any windows after that, you are forced to use IE, you are forced to let it suck up your RAM and CPU cycles, and you are forced to reboot when the fucking thing crashes and bluescreens you. Integration a benifit, my ass.
As far as monopolistic business practices otherwise. Would you step to the front of the room please if you would have done any different (open source developers, you don't count because you're not entirely greedy
Not illegal? You think the judge is pretty much ordering the breakup just because he wants to? No. Anti-trust law is quite a valid law, and MS broke that law. No, I wouldn't have done most of what MS has. I wouldn't have made DrDos "incompatible" with Win3.x, I wouldn't have bought Stac and fired everyone, I wouldn't have integrated IE with the damn OS (put it on the installation CD if the user wants to install it yes, integrated it with the OS no.), I wouldn't have forced OEM's to buy Windows, to put the IE icon on the desktop stock, I wouldn't have persued the development of MS-Bob, I wouldn't have broke off ties with IBM over OS/2.
Microsoft didn't become the company it is today because it played "fair" and it certainly didn't become the most popular OS in the world because it sucked.
They didn't become the most popular OS in the world because it was any good either.
-- iCEBaLM
Just one question and heavens knows I'm not trying to defend MicroShaft because if the answer to my question is no then I think it is just one more example of evil. But the OS (if you can call winders a OS) cds that come with most OEM systems say on the "for sale with a new pc only" now is selling those on ebay a violation of that clause? How binding is that clause? I agree that if it is binding etc. that it really sucks.
That only covers retail sale by OEM's. Nothing is stopping you from buying that and auctioning it off. I'm pretty sure the OEM's are under contract to only sell those with new systems to get their "Microsoft Discount", but if you buy that system with the software, you can turn around and resell the software without the computer, thats First Sale.
-- iCEBaLM
A copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of an MP3 is indistinguishable from the original MP3.
But the MP3 (taking into account standard 128 - 160 kbps, stereo, 44khz) is always distinguishable from the CD.
-- iCEBaLM
One of those two cards should do you well...the Matrox G200 has a better quality picture.
He said work WELL, not leak 5 megs of ram every time you open/close an XMMS OpenGL plugin.
The nVidia drivers are crap, and they're really slow comming up to speed. I own a TNT1 and I wouldn't recommend buying one if your main platform is X. Go with a Matrox/3Dfx card.
-- iCEBaLM
Of course, going by your logic, Sun doesn't make any hardware either. They have subcontractors who do that for them.
Thats right.
And Red Hat doesn't make anything except a colorful shrinkwrapped box.
And some scriptin croft and proprietary packaging schemes, of course.
Pretty much, except for any software made by those coders they hired...
Wow, an AC who actually understands business.
The name of the game is to be as profitable as possible, you don't do that by making stuff yourself, you do that by getting others to cheaply, then packaging it as your own.
-- iCEBaLM
Give me a break...
The article says that the US was pressurising the EU not to go ahead with the move. Why did CmdrTaco say that the "US is pissed"? What further indications are there in the article that the US is indeed pissed?
And you think they'd be pressuring the EU not to go ahead with it if they liked it? No. The article stated rather nicely that the US government is... pissed.
-- iCEBaLM
Guys, Napster is BAD for artists. It is!
It's bad for record companies too, but I think we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I know this site is full of freakish free software advocates, but as a software developer, I'll tell you right now, you don't pay me to make software, I don't fucking make software. The same should go for artists. You don't pay them to make music, then they don't fucking make music, or, if they do, they certainly don't give it to you.
Before you go jumping into some conclusion stating it is fact, please show us some evidence.
1 - There is no evidence that music piracy hurts artists or record companies, infact, there is a wealth of evidence to show the opposite.
2 - MP3's have been around for a good 5 years, last year ALONE the RIAA posted a 1.4 BILLION dollar sales increase in record sales.
3 - Our friends Metallica even encouraged theft and underground bootlegging, look where it got them. They've made millions.
4 - Audio casettes, VHS tapes, and other media have enabled end users to pirate both music and video, there seems to be no hurt being done to the RIAA or MPAA because of this.
Now the reasons for the above are quite obvious:
1 - Those who wouldn't be able to afford to purchase the media in the first place are the ones most likely to engage in piracy, therefore there is no net loss to the artist.
2 - People are generally "good", if they find music they especially like, through MP3's or other means, they want to support the artist and purchase the music. I have done this, I know many people who have done this.
3 - Music piracy, through napster or other means, is one hell of a free publicity machine, it gets the music heard to more people, and therefore to more potential buyers.
No one has ever shown me where "piracy" has really hurt music artists, programmers, etc. Sure you could say one instance of unlawful copying = one sale gone, but it doesn't always add up to that, and there are other factors.
Network Associates, makers of McAfee Virus Scan, among other things, have a "hidden" account on their ftp site which enables you to download their retail software for free, basically sanctioning piracy. I spoke with someone from the company, they told me the rationale was that people would download it, like it, then recommend it to be used at their work, and the company would buy site licenses. Piracy isn't always bad it would seem.
Software piracy runs rampant, but there's no shortage of game titles on the shelf at Electronic Boutique.
-- iCEBaLM
This article is amazing, this guy Lemos really "gets it". Not only does he know that DeCSS is NOT about piracy at all but about playing, he informs that the Evil DVD group want to force people to watch ads before they see the main menu.
I'm not sure how influential this ZD's investor site is, but this is definately very good press that goes towards people with money.
-- iCEBaLM
You can't possibly consider a virus writer to be an artist? I'm sure that some of code they produce is elegant, or at least quite advanced and technical. But to call the result of that work 'art' is just fallacy.
Unfortunately, destruction is creative.
-- iCEBaLM
It is my understanding that by naming your post Microsoft has sworn, under oath, that your post violates the DMCA. If you can show that your post has not violated the DMCA then i would have thought that Microsoft will be open to being found in violation of purjury laws...
Can this be used against them?
Probably, I broke no laws, and I can prove it.
Now what about defamation of character? That I'm a law breaker? Hrmm..
-- iCEBaLM
Being one of the named (hey you bright microsoft lusers, you forgot to capitalized my L!) I certainly don't want my post yanked, I did nothing which violated any law.
I simply stated that to get past the End User License Agreement for the Microsoft "embrace and extend" kerberos spec file located h ere is to just open it in winzip and extract it.
I mean, what possible law could I have violated, being a Canadian citizen and all? These comments belong to me, not Slashdot, if MS has a problem with them, then you talk to me.
The file is freely downloadable by anyone, in an easy to extract and read format, I thought this is what MS wanted? If not they would never have done it.
Now as for people posting the text to the file in whole, well, that's a copyright violation, and MS needs to go ahead and sue those people (comments belong to the poster), but as an unmoderated forum, slashdot is no party to it.
What if the same thing happened on an unmoderated group on usenet? How are you going to yank it after it's out there? You going to sue the news servers? No, you sue the person who did it.
MS is just making this worse for themselves, the whole kerberos thing would probably have just dissapeared and would have been forgotten by the majority, but now by doing this, they rehash it and just make it worse for themselves, next thing you know there will be mirrors upon mirrors of the pdf file everywhere. I personally am thinking of rewriting the document in my own words to hand off to the kerberos guys now, which I didn't even think about before.
Microsoft, you really know how to shoot yourself in the foot. Kudos.
-- iCEBaLM
The Euopean Union tonight unanimously agreed to create the toplevel internet domain ".eu". Our France correspondant went on record stating "Ewww!". Puzzling isn't it?
Elsewhere around the globe the United Guatamala Hegemony is going to lobby for the toplevel domain ".ugh", while the Urguay National Federation plans on aquiring ".unf".
Sources close to the Micronesia Open Organization say they would enjoy ".moo" but it looks like they would be turned down as they aren't big enough to aquire it, unlike the Hundouras Organization of Tribbles who want ".hot" and the Guam Rightously Inspired Troll Service who want ".grits".
-- iCEBaLM
Kudos to the LAME guys! I use LAME myself and am very thankful that you guys kept the project going and have made it so far as to replace all of the ISO code!
Now, new names:
LAME An MP3 Encoder
LAME Amazing MP3 Encoder
LAME Acronym, Must Elaborate
LAME Autonomous MP3 Encoder
LAME Another MP3 Encoder
LAME Anybodies MP3 Encoder
-- iCEBaLM
But that's beside the point. The fact that it re-initializes the directory structure and allocation tables is nowhere near as big of an issue as the fact that it erases all data on the drive!!!!
Usually it doesn't actually. The data is still there but inaccessable because the OS just reset the allocation tables. You're not really losing the data, you're losing the ability to access the data in the intended mannor, its a byproduct.
Dos even had an "unformat" command.
-- iCEBaLM
Heh, I don't really care. Let the corporate sites go down, it doesn't bother me one bit. Ad banners are really just a glorified pyramid scheme. The Big sites are the only ones making any money, they sell banner ads to smaller sites, who sell banner ads to smaller sites, ad nauseum.
So who cares? The internet isn't, and shouldn't be, one large corporate strip mall. Right now we have all kinds of corporate noise camoflaguing any real useful information (which is almost allways not on a site with banner ads). So what if the fat gets trimmed? Who cares? The information density of the net will rise.
-- iCEBaLM
When you pay for your internet conenction you are paying for a connection, not the content. Thats the fundamental basis of the internet, if you remove the capability for content providers to make money you remove once chunk of the web, you will just be left with hobby sites, pay sites, charity sites and online stores.
Good, I like that, we all seem to forget slashdot was, and arguably better when it was, a hobby site. If the larger content providers go down because they base their business on such an easily foiled revenue stream then THEY DON'T DESERVE TO BE IN BUSINESS. I pay for my bandwidth, I choose what I do with my bandwidth, if I don't want ads, and I don't want spam in my inbox, and if I don't want to see slashdot posts from the user "JamesSharmon" then I will damn well filter them out at my lesiure, and not you, or anyone else, is going to tell me I'm stealing because of it.
-- iCEBaLM
If this were to really happen you would run the risk of moving into an arms race between website designers trying to squeeze their banners past the checks (in order to gain ad-revenue) and the browser hackers trying to eliminate them. Now obviously there is little to stop individuals from patching browsers, proxies etc.. Themselves but really and truly is this not steeling from the web publishers?
See previous threads on this, it is obviously not stealing.
1. People pay for their internet connection, if anyone is stealing its the publishers stealing bandwidth from users and using it to make money for themselves.
2. They chose to make it their source of revenue, they can find other ways to do it.
3. Filtering spam isn't stealing, changing the channel during commercials isn't stealing, using a TiVo isn't stealing, not looking at a billboard isn't stealing, how is filtering banner ads?
4. Lynx views 0 graphics, do people who use lynx steal because they don't see the ads?
Your methodology is draconian. What you're suggesting is forcing people to pay for their internet connection and bandwidth to view these banner ads, taking time and money away from users to make the publishers money. This is fair, how?
-- iCEBaLM
They should get rid of it, instead of just removing it from the menu. While there could probably be legitimate uses, it is obviously intended to block advertising. This is not right. Some content on the internet is free, but some content you must pay for. Viewing advertisements it paying with your time. If you can block out advertisements, you are no longer paying. You are essentially stealing.
I pay for my internet account, I pay for my bandwidth, I pay for my email box, yet when I decide how I want to use it, I'm stealing? What planet did you come from? I'm STEALING if I don't allow ads I DON'T want wasting bandwidth I PAID for? Who moderated this guy to insightful? I'd like to show him what stealing really is.
-- iCEBaLM
Why go through all the pain of reverse-engineering a video codec and then NOT releasing it under a truly free license? Why should the Stallman disciples have all the fun? Please, let's not infect the Mac platform with the GNU public virus! Make it available under the BSD license or a similar free license.
I agree the GPL would be too restrictive and would hinder the adoption of the "open" codec among companies, but I don't think the BSD license is the way to go. A company could "embrace and extend" and break compatibility (Real for example) to force people to use THEIR player, etc. Instead I propose using the LGPL, the codec would stay clean, commercial apps could link to it, and everyone is happy.
-- iCEBaLM
Look, if you're going to get frosted over people who (to you) misuse the word "hacker", why on Earth would you turn right around and start misappropriating the word "cracker?" Cracker, as it relates to computers, never had the meaning that the annoyed hackers are trying to foist on it.
A Cracker, as it relates to computers, is someone who maliciously breaks security systems. Now these security systems could be within programs (copy protection), computers themselves (firewalls or gaining root), etc. I fail to see where this meaning was never used before? Even the small programs which these people make to break copy protection are called "cracks". Why should it be a different word when they're doing the same thing?
-- iCEBaLM
I think that is a rather stupid statement. By your logic my clothes keep cancer away because as long as I've been wearing them I haven't had cancer.
And they very well might.
They may sheild your skin from sunlight helping to prevent menlanoma, certain fabrics may absorb free radicals so they do not enter your body through respiration, etc.
Clothes may indeed help prevent against cancer.
-- iCEBaLM
What possible evidence do you have that MP3's had any thing to do with record sales last year?? anything?? maybe more people are listening to music, maybe there are more kids out there now than before that like britny spears(gag) Maybe the record industry has found a better advirtising method(not MP3) makeing a broad assumption that MP3's are what caused the increse is just a little over simplfied.
Your question is very valid, and in writing my question (which I did before the "live chat" on yahoo as there was where I asked it, and was rejected) I thought about your exact question. Maybe it was a different kind of advertizing, etc.
But really, that holds no water. All ads have been pretty much the same for the past 5 years or so. I dare anyone to name a new form of media that has contributed heavily to record sales.
More people listening to music? Well it is true that the global population is at an alltime high of in excess of 6 billion people, however in industrialized 1st world contries (North America, Europe, etc) there is actually a negative population growth. These figures in sales are only from the US.
Not only did sales increase last year, but so did the price of CD's. In reviewing my numbers I seem to be off by about 88.6 billion dollars, the revenue increase is actually 1.4 billion last year (1999).
Now, since its not more people listening to music (all people listen to music, some just don't buy it) as there is a negative population growth in the US from where these numbers are from, and that advertising has been the same for the last 5 years, something else must be driving the sales increase.
There is one possible factor you didn't mention, and that is people may have a larger disposable income. Yes, this is probably a factor, however from my experience with me NEVER buying CD's before last year, and only buying CD's of music I liked from MP3's, and also talking with many people who did the same, I belive this is playing a factor in that sales increase also. Most definately not the ONLY factor, but a major contributor
-- iCEBaLM
MP3's have been around for atleast 5 years. Many people, myself included, have bought CD's because we've heard tracks from MP3's. I bought S&M because of MP3's I've heard off of the album, I also bought 5 other CD's last year because of it. The only CD player I have is my CD-ROM drive in my computer, so I usually do not buy them at all. With the RIAA posting a 12.3% 90 billion dollar sales INCREASE last year, these two peices of information would suggest that MP3's are generating even MORE sales for artists through "word of mouth" promotion. From this information, how do you justify your actions, and how can you even say you're doing it for the benifit of all artists, as your actions would seem to be doing the opposite?
I went there, being the naive internet luser I apparently am, thinking some good was going to come out of it, boy was I wrong.
Let me tell you what I experienced:
1. All the questions the moderator asked were strangely written by PEOPLE WHO WERN'T THERE.
2. All the questions, except the second one, I think, were truely weak, as if written entirely by lawyers to solicit the kind of answers they wanted to be heard.
3. The band never saw any of the public chat going on.
4. My very thought out question about me buying S&M because I heard an mp3 off of it, and that the RIAA posted a 12.3% 90 billion dollar sales increase last year, was not asked.
5. The thing didn't even last a full hour.
6. Metallica thinks that Napster is apparently providing the content and not the users. Lars said a few times they wanted "napster to take us off their lists".
7. Metallica apparently has a gripe about napster sponsoring Limp Bizkit (they said it was wrong that this large company was paying Limp Bizkit to perform, and not the kids). Even though I don't like Limp Bizkit, isn't this what all record labels do? And don't other bands take on sponsors?
8. Lars says "it isn't about the money" on one line, but says "napster is a middle man cutting us out" on another. Which is it?
9. Metallica wants the government to police the internet, they want congress to bring out new laws against this, and they think what they're doing is for the good of all artists, they clearly stated their goal, to put Napster out of business.
In conclusion, I belive this "live chat" was one hell of a fabrication, kudos to Yahoo for duping alot of people into showing up and wasting their time so we can hear uninformed idiots (Metallica) rant.
-- iCEBaLM