WTF is up with the 'Flamebait' mod on my post ? Having compared specs before, saying a PC worth AU$3,000 would cost about US$1,500 is quite reasonable.
I get the point of these massive laptops - they're really just more convenient "portable computers" for people who want something that's all in one and easy to move from desk to desk.
However, what I really want (and I'm sure many would agree) is a small - 12" - 14" laptop that can drive *two* external monitors (I'd even be only marginally disappointed if it required disabling the internal screen to do so).
I'd really like a laptop to use (for work) as my only machine, but I'm way too used to having a pair of 21" LCDs to use anything smaller for real work.
I am somewhat surprised Apple hasn't brought out a machine capable of this - but then again I'd expect it to come from one of the less well known manufacturers (like Asus) first.
So what? It's just another corporation. People say bad things about all kinds of corporations.
The problem is not saying bad things about corporations, the problem is dismissing everything one particular corporation does for no other reason than a long-held bias against them.
I have a friend who hates anything made by GM. He is constantly pointing out various GM cars and telling me what piles of shit they are. You know what I don't feel the need to jump up and down and defend GM.
So if you _knew_ he was mistaken about one particular car being "bad", you wouldn't disagree ? Even if your friend's irrational bias was going to mislead someone else ?
I am just going by the moderation. Pro MS and pro windows posts get modded up to 5 more often then not.
But are overwhelmed in volume by anti-Windows and anti-Microsoft posts.
Who is more culturally advanced: a community in which one or two people in each family play instruments and entertainment revolves around them performing on weekends with family and friends at home parties, or a community where everyone listens to music on CDs, watches television and goes to nightclubs to dance to music from CDs on weekends?
Well, that depends...
(You are presenting a false dilemma.)
I'm not declaring one or the other the winner. I'm just saying it's not so tough to argue.
But you _are_ declaring one the winner - which is why I'm pointing out it's hard to argue that isolated, "unknown" artistic achievements are of greater cultural significant than those that awe and influence generations of viewers.
Just because the marketing of modern corporate entertainment is omnipresent doesn't mean we are more culturally advanced than any other period in our history, or that Los Angeles or London is more culturally advanced than a village in Botswana.
Well, I'd say we (as in "western society") _are_ more "culturally advanced", but I don't think it's got anything to do with mass-market media/entertainment.
In times and places without mass-market entertainment, people entertain themselves, and culture developed from that - and, in those cases, people use(d) their minds to entertain themselves (whether genius or otherwise), instead of turning their minds off to be entertained - which option bears more benefit for society?
I think it's inevitable that at some point in the near future, if MS stay in the OS game, then they will need to modularize Windows a lot more to make it manageable - that will have to lead to a lot of applications breaking, customers getting more angry and, perhaps, Linux and BSD becoming real viable alternatives in core enterprises where the likes of Exchange and MSSQL currently dominate.
Your assumption is broken. Windows *is* modular. Don't mistake a business decision (not selling a patchwork quilt of components instead of a platform) with technical capabilities.
I call BS. My main desktop machine (at home) is a mac mini G4 1.2 ghz with 1 gig of ram, running a fully up-to-date OS 10.4. It's quite capable as a development workstation, and rarely bogs down. I ran it for a year with 512 megs and even that was quite workable, as long as I didn't try to run netbeans and photoshop at the same time. I haven't had to worry about how much stuff is taking up memory since the upgrade to 1 gig.
Well, my 1Ghz, 768M iBook struggles to keep up with more than a couple of tabs in Safari, Thunderbird and a couple of Terminals open to my standards of responsiveness.
I only briefly tried OS X on my Mini before installing Windows MCE (and subsequently Vista) on it, but it was only marginally better in terms of responsiveness under a basic workload. I won't hold that against it, though, since it only has 512M of RAM.
Of course, that's just my assessment of "fast enough", but I can say that for anyone happy with G4-anything performance in OS X, a P3-class machine will run Vista *at least* as well, and likely better. If you find OS X acceptable on a 1.2Ghz Mini, Vista on a PC from the same era will fly.
I highly doubt you're actually a mac user.
I've been using Macs for over a decade. I'll be investing in a MacBook Pro (well, getting one through work) when Apple deign to release some based on Core 2.
Correct. Why can't Microsoft understand this? They spend so much time with the user interface, that the actually OS stuff (stable runtime environment, security, "revolutionary file system" gets put on the backburner.
Right. I guess that explains why the vast, vast majority of changes and improvements in Vista aren't part of the UI...
The problem with Microsoft is they don't spend *enough* time on the shell, not that they spend too much.
I'm sure Vista would be easier for anyone who has never used a computer, but just to find something as simple as the Run may aggrivate or at least make the seasoned Windows vetern go on a safari hunt or a quick Google groups search to see how to turn the new interface off for a clasic mode.
The "Seasoned Windows Veteran" wouldn't even notice that "Run" was missing from the Vista Start Menu, because he accesses it via Win+R. I know I certainly didn't realise it was gone until someone on Slashdot started whining about how it was going to require users "relearn Windows".
The problem people have spent time learning where things are, but when you change them it causes aggrivation of having to relearn it all over again.
Indeed. We should all still be using DOS 3.3 and be thankful for it !
Not to troll, and its nice that Windows users are getting these features, but how come no one ever calls MS out on the fact that Vista is basically still playing catch up to OS X, doesn't do it as well, and is probably going to be left in the dust when Leopard comes out?
Because anyone who has been in the industry for more than a few years and isn't a blathering fanboy (and they do enough "calling out" to make up for everyone else ten times over) knows that everyone "copies" everyone else, everyone reguarly (if not always frequently) comes out with new features others don't have and at some point, everyone has a technological lead over someone else.
You forgot that OS X does it on a third of the hardware.(except ram then only half)
You need a G5 with a gig or more of RAM to get anything approaching decent performance out of OS X, except under trivial load. This is quite comparable with the level of hardware you need to get a similar Vista 'experience'. OS X is an absolute pig compared to any other mainstream platform (although it's been getting faster - but from that slow there isn't anywhere to go but up).
The reason OS X "runs" (and I use the term loosely) on relatively low-end hardware is because when it came out such hardware was common (since Macs typically lag and are expensive in terms of raw power, and are upgraded less frequently). Vista's minimum spec is, similarly, for machines that are common at its release.
(Not to mention, Vista is doing more than OS X.)
If you have a PC with a Ghz+ CPU and a gigabyte or more of RAM, you can run Vista fine (and better than a Ghz-ish G4 will run OS X). If you had a particularly low end PC at the time it was bought, you might need to splash out on a US$30ish video card to get the fancy Aero GUI. If you've got a machine that's even remotely good at playing games, Vista will be more than fast enough and far faster than OS X on a similar Mac. Most Vista machines are going to come from new PC sales, anyway, not upgrades to existing machines.
AFAICT, we're not talking about average access patterns, we're talking about booting, which involves reading a specific set of files in a specific sequence. If latency is the only issue, it seems like you're better off ensuring that all of the boot data is contiguous and stored in the order it's needed, so that no seeking is required.
The post I responded to was asking about ReadyBoost, which is what Vista calls automatically putting swap on USB flash drives, not optimising boot times.
However, the booting argument is still valid, because during boot file reads tend to be frequent access to relatively small files, which is an access pattern where latency is important. Throughput is only good for big (multi-MB), long (several seconds or more) stream reads of single files.
I have always been greatly amused by this considering that the Australian accent is arguably the harshest of all the native English speaker accents and considering how impossible to understand "strine" can be if you're not a native
I conclude from this that you've never been to Scotland or Ireland.
I'll be the first to agree Australian _slang_ can be a bit difficult to get a grip on (and it's always great fund talking in rhyming slang with tourists around), but the *accent* is relatively easy to understand, compared to most.
APPLE doesn't allow retailers to handle complaints under warranty (which is their obligation under Fair Trading laws) -- you have to send your faulty iPod to APPLE yourself via Australia Post.
This is utter rubbish. My click-wheel iPod was fixed three times under warranty[0], and all I ever had to do was drop it into the nearest AppleCentre. I took it back to three different AppleCentres over the course of 15 months, all of which sent it back to Apple for me, none of which were the shop I'd originally purchased it from (not even in the same state).
[0] Now, having the thing replaced 3 times in 15 months (and it broke _again_ about 4 months after being replaced the last time - sadly out of warranty for good[1]) is a good reason to be angry about iPod quality...
[1] Perhaps foolishly, I have replaced it with an 8G Nano. We'll see if the lack of a hard disk makes them any more reliable...
Somehow I doubt the machines still running win98 and 2K are capable of running Vista w/o massive hardware upgrades.
If you have a PC with a >=1Ghz CPU and >=1G RAM, it will run Vista about as well as it runs XP. The only upgrade you might have to splash out on is a US$50 video card to run Aero, if the one you've got won't already do it.
Because the _latency_ of flash is dramatically lower than mechanical hard disks.
You are looking at throughput, not latency, which is _vastly_ more important when talking about average access patterns. This is why an older SCSI drive with markedly lower throughput, but significantly better latency, will often perform better (especially for things like swap).
(Not to mention, your estimate of a 7200rpm drive is pretty generous to the tune of nearly 2x real-life performance).
I understand that there are other factors in play when accessing the hard disk, but.. I digress. Is this supposed to be a cheap way for Joe Schmoe to upgrade performance?
Yes. More accurately, cheap *and easy*.
"Don't buy 1GB of RAM for $100, but a 1GB flash drive for $30 and get 1/109th of the performance upgrade!!"
Firstly, it's going to deliver a significantly better benefit than than.
Secondly, upgrading RAM requires opening the case and putting it in. Most people are not comfortable with opening the case in the first place, let alone mucking around inside the thing possibly breaking stuff.
Why do you get so worked up MS anyway? It's just another corporation, there are thousands of corporations. If I said Nissan, maytag, or rockport was a crappy corporation or made crappy products would you have a knipshiin about that?
Because the Slashdot community, in general, is critical of anything Microsoft does not because it's objectively bad, but because Microsoft did it.
Now does/. lean anti MS? I don't think so. There are a dozens if not hundreds of MS trolls, astro turfers and shills here on/.
Saying Slashdot doesn't have distinct anti-Microsoft slant is ridiculous on its face. One need look no further than the Bill Gates/Borg icon to see that.
Take a survey of the highest ranked posts and you will see that most of them are pro MS. Pro MS comments always get upmodded especially if the take the edge of by saying "sure they are unethical but.....".
I see you're one of the people for whom "not blatantly anti-Microsoft" is equivalent to "pro Microsoft".
You do bring up a good point, although I think you're overlooking what actually goes into "cover song" licensing. The royalty is not paid to any performer of the work (specifically), but to the writer of the song. Writers, who can be completely separate from the original or best-known performers (and stay in obscurity in the shadow of a well-known performance), would end up with their trade greatly devalued if they could not receive their due. At least with organizations like ASCAP and BMI, and statuatory licensing rates, performers can immediately know where they stand, without having to track down the original author, if they wish to perform a work.
I'm sure buggy whip sellers everywhere would feel their pain.
(I realise that sounds harsh, but I'm not trying to be callous - it's just a fact that over time, changes in society make some jobs irrelevant and/or significantly less valuable on average (while new jobs are created)).
Yes, of course, but where does it say that this entertainment/culture must come from the corporations, from Madonna or U2?
Nowhere.
(Not sure I see the relevance though...)
The culture generated by you with a banjo and a friend with a piano on a friday night in the living room is just as relevant and does as much or more to advance you as an individual and society as a whole as any CD you could buy in a store.
Well, I'd have to say it's eminently arguable whether a quick game of duelling banjos has the same cultural relevance as, say, Beethoven or Shakespeare...
I could argue that mass-market culture actually holds people back and inhibits personal growth and development, as it removes the need/desire for individuals to take the initiative and develop their own culture instead of having it handed to them.
I have to say I think you'd have a tough time arguing that. You're essentially saying that everyone is a creative genius, but being held back by popular culture, and I think that would be a pretty tough argument to support (in any fashion at all).
Some people simply aren't creatively or artistically gifted, just like others struggle with higher-level mathematics and still others couldn't keep a pencil and notepad neat on an empty desk.
I don't think it increases anyone's popularity because the people who download the songs already want them.
Are you seriously suggesting that every artist has an equal level of popularity ? That the upcoming band only a handful of people know the name of, with a single song on the airwaves for maybe a day or two, has the same following as bands like U2 ?
Probably because they saw the CD in store or saw an ad somewhere, [...]
Or maybe they just heard it. I can't say I've ever met anyone that's bought music based solely on what the CD looked like in the store.
[...] both of which were put there by the record company on behalf and at the request of the artist, who chose to ally with the label to distribute his music rather than take part in your imagined economy where all music is distributed freely in the hopes that someone buys a t-shirt or paypals whatever amount they see fit to paypal.
Funny, I haven't seen anyone with serious objections to copyright suggesting any such "economy". It's a pretty common strawman to pummel, though, so your response isn't unexpected.
It is telling that you require a metaphor to understand this situation and I do not, because I am not an imbecile.
I don't need any metaphor to "understand the situation", I merely gave an example of how something "free" can be "sold" because of little more than good marketing. Given your apparent mental capacities, I'm amazed the fact that people actual pay for bottled water doesn't make your head turn inside out.
(I would have thought that was obvious to anyone capable of directing a web browser towards Slashdot, but you've managed to undercut my expectations of intelligence by a good order of magnitude or two.)
I'm not even going to dignify that post with a response.
Too late, so you may as well make your time worth it and answer the question (which no-one riding the copyright gravy train ever seems to want to do, unsurprisingly).
By the way, in any corporation's ideal world, you would be charged a fee if you even looked at their product.
Undoubtedly. But there's no rationale for supporting that kind of model with businesses providing physical products or services, while there most certainly *is* for ones who rely on copyright (and the businesses relying on copyright are well on the way to making it a reality).
The RIAA would never sink so low, simply because the public backlash would kill them.
Right. Just like the public backlash against their blatant and gross abuses of copyright thus far has "killed them".
And it seems the only reason you're against copyright law is because it allows people to charge money for music.
Not at all. I'm against copyright because it's a broken model trying to artificially limit the supply of something with an inherently infinite supply to make it behave like physical property. I am all for people being charged for music, just not the restrictions on what they can do with that music afterwards.
The problem with the copyright business is they want their "product" to have the benefits of physical goods, but none of the drawbacks.
Slashdot Mirror
WTF is up with the 'Flamebait' mod on my post ? Having compared specs before, saying a PC worth AU$3,000 would cost about US$1,500 is quite reasonable.
A $3,000 Windows desktop?! Fucking gamers...
Note that's $3000 *Australian*, so that would translate to about a $1500 PC in the US.
I get the point of these massive laptops - they're really just more convenient "portable computers" for people who want something that's all in one and easy to move from desk to desk.
However, what I really want (and I'm sure many would agree) is a small - 12" - 14" laptop that can drive *two* external monitors (I'd even be only marginally disappointed if it required disabling the internal screen to do so).
I'd really like a laptop to use (for work) as my only machine, but I'm way too used to having a pair of 21" LCDs to use anything smaller for real work.
I am somewhat surprised Apple hasn't brought out a machine capable of this - but then again I'd expect it to come from one of the less well known manufacturers (like Asus) first.
So what? It's just another corporation. People say bad things about all kinds of corporations.
The problem is not saying bad things about corporations, the problem is dismissing everything one particular corporation does for no other reason than a long-held bias against them.
I have a friend who hates anything made by GM. He is constantly pointing out various GM cars and telling me what piles of shit they are. You know what I don't feel the need to jump up and down and defend GM.
So if you _knew_ he was mistaken about one particular car being "bad", you wouldn't disagree ? Even if your friend's irrational bias was going to mislead someone else ?
I am just going by the moderation. Pro MS and pro windows posts get modded up to 5 more often then not.
But are overwhelmed in volume by anti-Windows and anti-Microsoft posts.
Songs, however, are still being written by songwriters.
Fortunately, I'm not saying songs - or even songwriters - are obselete.
Who is more culturally advanced: a community in which one or two people in each family play instruments and entertainment revolves around them performing on weekends with family and friends at home parties, or a community where everyone listens to music on CDs, watches television and goes to nightclubs to dance to music from CDs on weekends?
Well, that depends...
(You are presenting a false dilemma.)
I'm not declaring one or the other the winner. I'm just saying it's not so tough to argue.
But you _are_ declaring one the winner - which is why I'm pointing out it's hard to argue that isolated, "unknown" artistic achievements are of greater cultural significant than those that awe and influence generations of viewers.
Just because the marketing of modern corporate entertainment is omnipresent doesn't mean we are more culturally advanced than any other period in our history, or that Los Angeles or London is more culturally advanced than a village in Botswana.
Well, I'd say we (as in "western society") _are_ more "culturally advanced", but I don't think it's got anything to do with mass-market media/entertainment.
In times and places without mass-market entertainment, people entertain themselves, and culture developed from that - and, in those cases, people use(d) their minds to entertain themselves (whether genius or otherwise), instead of turning their minds off to be entertained - which option bears more benefit for society?
Again, this is a false dilemma.
It really baffles me why they haven't added virtual desktop support yet. p.Because for most users, they're worse than useless.
At least XP had the NT kernel as a selling point.
Vista is Windows NT 6.0...
I think it's inevitable that at some point in the near future, if MS stay in the OS game, then they will need to modularize Windows a lot more to make it manageable - that will have to lead to a lot of applications breaking, customers getting more angry and, perhaps, Linux and BSD becoming real viable alternatives in core enterprises where the likes of Exchange and MSSQL currently dominate.
Your assumption is broken. Windows *is* modular. Don't mistake a business decision (not selling a patchwork quilt of components instead of a platform) with technical capabilities.
I call BS. My main desktop machine (at home) is a mac mini G4 1.2 ghz with 1 gig of ram, running a fully up-to-date OS 10.4. It's quite capable as a development workstation, and rarely bogs down. I ran it for a year with 512 megs and even that was quite workable, as long as I didn't try to run netbeans and photoshop at the same time. I haven't had to worry about how much stuff is taking up memory since the upgrade to 1 gig.
Well, my 1Ghz, 768M iBook struggles to keep up with more than a couple of tabs in Safari, Thunderbird and a couple of Terminals open to my standards of responsiveness.
I only briefly tried OS X on my Mini before installing Windows MCE (and subsequently Vista) on it, but it was only marginally better in terms of responsiveness under a basic workload. I won't hold that against it, though, since it only has 512M of RAM.
Of course, that's just my assessment of "fast enough", but I can say that for anyone happy with G4-anything performance in OS X, a P3-class machine will run Vista *at least* as well, and likely better. If you find OS X acceptable on a 1.2Ghz Mini, Vista on a PC from the same era will fly.
I highly doubt you're actually a mac user.
I've been using Macs for over a decade. I'll be investing in a MacBook Pro (well, getting one through work) when Apple deign to release some based on Core 2.
Correct. Why can't Microsoft understand this? They spend so much time with the user interface, that the actually OS stuff (stable runtime environment, security, "revolutionary file system" gets put on the backburner.
Right. I guess that explains why the vast, vast majority of changes and improvements in Vista aren't part of the UI...
The problem with Microsoft is they don't spend *enough* time on the shell, not that they spend too much.
I'm sure Vista would be easier for anyone who has never used a computer, but just to find something as simple as the Run may aggrivate or at least make the seasoned Windows vetern go on a safari hunt or a quick Google groups search to see how to turn the new interface off for a clasic mode.
The "Seasoned Windows Veteran" wouldn't even notice that "Run" was missing from the Vista Start Menu, because he accesses it via Win+R. I know I certainly didn't realise it was gone until someone on Slashdot started whining about how it was going to require users "relearn Windows".
The problem people have spent time learning where things are, but when you change them it causes aggrivation of having to relearn it all over again.
Indeed. We should all still be using DOS 3.3 and be thankful for it !
I can tell you that the latest version of OSX and MS Office, will run on a $100.00 used Mac.
Vista will run at least as well on a $100 PC as OS X does on a $100 Mac. Probably better.
Not to troll, and its nice that Windows users are getting these features, but how come no one ever calls MS out on the fact that Vista is basically still playing catch up to OS X, doesn't do it as well, and is probably going to be left in the dust when Leopard comes out?
Because anyone who has been in the industry for more than a few years and isn't a blathering fanboy (and they do enough "calling out" to make up for everyone else ten times over) knows that everyone "copies" everyone else, everyone reguarly (if not always frequently) comes out with new features others don't have and at some point, everyone has a technological lead over someone else.
You forgot that OS X does it on a third of the hardware.(except ram then only half)
You need a G5 with a gig or more of RAM to get anything approaching decent performance out of OS X, except under trivial load. This is quite comparable with the level of hardware you need to get a similar Vista 'experience'. OS X is an absolute pig compared to any other mainstream platform (although it's been getting faster - but from that slow there isn't anywhere to go but up).
The reason OS X "runs" (and I use the term loosely) on relatively low-end hardware is because when it came out such hardware was common (since Macs typically lag and are expensive in terms of raw power, and are upgraded less frequently). Vista's minimum spec is, similarly, for machines that are common at its release.
(Not to mention, Vista is doing more than OS X.)
If you have a PC with a Ghz+ CPU and a gigabyte or more of RAM, you can run Vista fine (and better than a Ghz-ish G4 will run OS X). If you had a particularly low end PC at the time it was bought, you might need to splash out on a US$30ish video card to get the fancy Aero GUI. If you've got a machine that's even remotely good at playing games, Vista will be more than fast enough and far faster than OS X on a similar Mac. Most Vista machines are going to come from new PC sales, anyway, not upgrades to existing machines.
AFAICT, we're not talking about average access patterns, we're talking about booting, which involves reading a specific set of files in a specific sequence. If latency is the only issue, it seems like you're better off ensuring that all of the boot data is contiguous and stored in the order it's needed, so that no seeking is required.
The post I responded to was asking about ReadyBoost, which is what Vista calls automatically putting swap on USB flash drives, not optimising boot times.
However, the booting argument is still valid, because during boot file reads tend to be frequent access to relatively small files, which is an access pattern where latency is important. Throughput is only good for big (multi-MB), long (several seconds or more) stream reads of single files.
I have always been greatly amused by this considering that the Australian accent is arguably the harshest of all the native English speaker accents and considering how impossible to understand "strine" can be if you're not a native
I conclude from this that you've never been to Scotland or Ireland.
I'll be the first to agree Australian _slang_ can be a bit difficult to get a grip on (and it's always great fund talking in rhyming slang with tourists around), but the *accent* is relatively easy to understand, compared to most.
/Australian
APPLE doesn't allow retailers to handle complaints under warranty (which is their obligation under Fair Trading laws) -- you have to send your faulty iPod to APPLE yourself via Australia Post.
This is utter rubbish. My click-wheel iPod was fixed three times under warranty[0], and all I ever had to do was drop it into the nearest AppleCentre. I took it back to three different AppleCentres over the course of 15 months, all of which sent it back to Apple for me, none of which were the shop I'd originally purchased it from (not even in the same state).
[0] Now, having the thing replaced 3 times in 15 months (and it broke _again_ about 4 months after being replaced the last time - sadly out of warranty for good[1]) is a good reason to be angry about iPod quality...
[1] Perhaps foolishly, I have replaced it with an 8G Nano. We'll see if the lack of a hard disk makes them any more reliable...
Somehow I doubt the machines still running win98 and 2K are capable of running Vista w/o massive hardware upgrades.
If you have a PC with a >=1Ghz CPU and >=1G RAM, it will run Vista about as well as it runs XP. The only upgrade you might have to splash out on is a US$50 video card to run Aero, if the one you've got won't already do it.
How is this an improvement?
Because the _latency_ of flash is dramatically lower than mechanical hard disks.
You are looking at throughput, not latency, which is _vastly_ more important when talking about average access patterns. This is why an older SCSI drive with markedly lower throughput, but significantly better latency, will often perform better (especially for things like swap).
(Not to mention, your estimate of a 7200rpm drive is pretty generous to the tune of nearly 2x real-life performance).
I understand that there are other factors in play when accessing the hard disk, but.. I digress. Is this supposed to be a cheap way for Joe Schmoe to upgrade performance?
Yes. More accurately, cheap *and easy*.
"Don't buy 1GB of RAM for $100, but a 1GB flash drive for $30 and get 1/109th of the performance upgrade!!"
Firstly, it's going to deliver a significantly better benefit than than.
Secondly, upgrading RAM requires opening the case and putting it in. Most people are not comfortable with opening the case in the first place, let alone mucking around inside the thing possibly breaking stuff.
Why do you get so worked up MS anyway? It's just another corporation, there are thousands of corporations. If I said Nissan, maytag, or rockport was a crappy corporation or made crappy products would you have a knipshiin about that?
Because the Slashdot community, in general, is critical of anything Microsoft does not because it's objectively bad, but because Microsoft did it.
Now does /. lean anti MS? I don't think so. There are a dozens if not hundreds of MS trolls, astro turfers and shills here on /.
Saying Slashdot doesn't have distinct anti-Microsoft slant is ridiculous on its face. One need look no further than the Bill Gates/Borg icon to see that.
Take a survey of the highest ranked posts and you will see that most of them are pro MS. Pro MS comments always get upmodded especially if the take the edge of by saying "sure they are unethical but.....".
I see you're one of the people for whom "not blatantly anti-Microsoft" is equivalent to "pro Microsoft".
You do bring up a good point, although I think you're overlooking what actually goes into "cover song" licensing. The royalty is not paid to any performer of the work (specifically), but to the writer of the song. Writers, who can be completely separate from the original or best-known performers (and stay in obscurity in the shadow of a well-known performance), would end up with their trade greatly devalued if they could not receive their due. At least with organizations like ASCAP and BMI, and statuatory licensing rates, performers can immediately know where they stand, without having to track down the original author, if they wish to perform a work.
I'm sure buggy whip sellers everywhere would feel their pain.
(I realise that sounds harsh, but I'm not trying to be callous - it's just a fact that over time, changes in society make some jobs irrelevant and/or significantly less valuable on average (while new jobs are created)).
Yes, of course, but where does it say that this entertainment/culture must come from the corporations, from Madonna or U2?
Nowhere.
(Not sure I see the relevance though...)
The culture generated by you with a banjo and a friend with a piano on a friday night in the living room is just as relevant and does as much or more to advance you as an individual and society as a whole as any CD you could buy in a store.
Well, I'd have to say it's eminently arguable whether a quick game of duelling banjos has the same cultural relevance as, say, Beethoven or Shakespeare...
I could argue that mass-market culture actually holds people back and inhibits personal growth and development, as it removes the need/desire for individuals to take the initiative and develop their own culture instead of having it handed to them.
I have to say I think you'd have a tough time arguing that. You're essentially saying that everyone is a creative genius, but being held back by popular culture, and I think that would be a pretty tough argument to support (in any fashion at all).
Some people simply aren't creatively or artistically gifted, just like others struggle with higher-level mathematics and still others couldn't keep a pencil and notepad neat on an empty desk.
I don't think it increases anyone's popularity because the people who download the songs already want them.
Are you seriously suggesting that every artist has an equal level of popularity ? That the upcoming band only a handful of people know the name of, with a single song on the airwaves for maybe a day or two, has the same following as bands like U2 ?
Probably because they saw the CD in store or saw an ad somewhere, [...]
Or maybe they just heard it. I can't say I've ever met anyone that's bought music based solely on what the CD looked like in the store.
[...] both of which were put there by the record company on behalf and at the request of the artist, who chose to ally with the label to distribute his music rather than take part in your imagined economy where all music is distributed freely in the hopes that someone buys a t-shirt or paypals whatever amount they see fit to paypal.
Funny, I haven't seen anyone with serious objections to copyright suggesting any such "economy". It's a pretty common strawman to pummel, though, so your response isn't unexpected.
It is telling that you require a metaphor to understand this situation and I do not, because I am not an imbecile.
I don't need any metaphor to "understand the situation", I merely gave an example of how something "free" can be "sold" because of little more than good marketing. Given your apparent mental capacities, I'm amazed the fact that people actual pay for bottled water doesn't make your head turn inside out.
(I would have thought that was obvious to anyone capable of directing a web browser towards Slashdot, but you've managed to undercut my expectations of intelligence by a good order of magnitude or two.)
I'm not even going to dignify that post with a response.
Too late, so you may as well make your time worth it and answer the question (which no-one riding the copyright gravy train ever seems to want to do, unsurprisingly).
By the way, in any corporation's ideal world, you would be charged a fee if you even looked at their product.
Undoubtedly. But there's no rationale for supporting that kind of model with businesses providing physical products or services, while there most certainly *is* for ones who rely on copyright (and the businesses relying on copyright are well on the way to making it a reality).
The RIAA would never sink so low, simply because the public backlash would kill them.
Right. Just like the public backlash against their blatant and gross abuses of copyright thus far has "killed them".
And it seems the only reason you're against copyright law is because it allows people to charge money for music.
Not at all. I'm against copyright because it's a broken model trying to artificially limit the supply of something with an inherently infinite supply to make it behave like physical property. I am all for people being charged for music, just not the restrictions on what they can do with that music afterwards.
The problem with the copyright business is they want their "product" to have the benefits of physical goods, but none of the drawbacks.