Back in the days of DOS and Borland Turbo pascal, I wrote programs using a library that allowed me to create a text-mode windowing system. Nice to see that Linux may someday catch up to 1989-era DOS.
Absolutely true. There is no "digtal divide" -- that whole concept is based on the false and absurd notion that computer use and the Internet absolutely *MUST* be a major part of everyone's life.
A few years ago I read a prediction that Internet use would peak at around 65% and for various reasons not go any higher. It would appear that this predicition was fairly accurate.
Mr. von Lohman doesn't know what he's talking about. The issue is not that musicians aren't getting paid. Record companies have been ripping off musicians for years and the RIAA couldn't care less. The issue is that the record companies see file sharing as a threat to their profits (it's not) and their monopoly (it is).
As for the "fee" that Mr. von Lohman suggests, it's already been done. There's already been a fee added to blank media (CDs, etc) for precisely the purpose he describes, but that hasn't stopped the record companies from unleashing their lawyers on anyone and everyone.` And very little, probably zero, of that fee ends up in the pockets of artists
The entertainment industry believes they should have absolute, totalitarian, iron-fisted control and consumers should have nothing. No fair use, no ability to share media among different playback devices, nothing.
I used some the 5.x and 6.x versions of Opera for a while but eventually got tired of constantly running into web sites that don't display properly. I tried Opera 7 briefly, and although it looks really cool and seems to be really fast, Opera's programmers are, unfortunatley, still stuck in their mindset of "we're going to strictly adhere to a set of web standards, despite the fact that 95% of the web sites in the world don't follow those standards."
Too many creators of "alternative" browsers are hung up on the idea that making a browser that can handle crappy designed-for-MSIE web pages somehows equals selling your soul to the devil.
Mozilla made the same mistake early on, but they finally woke up to the fact that MSIE, not W3C, is the standard, and you *CAN* make a browser that handles most of the crappy designed-for-MSIE web pages out there *AND* still has lots of innovative features -- the two are not mutually exlusive.
The amount of tax revenue lost by the states is exactly zero.
1. You can't lose something you never had. 2. There is no legitimate reason to collect these taxes.
The clamor for these taxes is merely another attempt by greedy politicians to shove their hands deeper into the pockets of consumers. With the economy the way it is, and many states facing multi-billion dollar budget deficits, the states will tell whatever lies are necessry to raise new revenues.
It happens over and over again. These stupid lawsuits never turn out the way they should.
What SHOULD happen: Small Scum-Bag Company A, with very little in the way of legitimate product or profits, files a ridiculously stupid lawsuit against Big Deep-Pockets Company B.
Big Deep-Pockets Company B uses their comsiderable financial and legal resources to win the case, crush Small Scum-Bag Company A and obtain a court ruling that deters future stupid lawsuits by other small scum-bag companies..
What ACTUALLY heppens: Big Deep-Pockets Company B doesn't want to be bothered, so they have their insurance company send off a nice fat check to Small Scum-Bag Company A, which now is flush with cash and able to pursue other victims with its stupid lawsuits.
Janis Ian once pointed out that if the record companies had partnered with Napster and collected a nickel for every song downloaded (a reasonable price point) they would have realized revenue of $500,000 a day.
But, such an arrangement will never be agreed to by the record industry for one simple reason. Greed. The mindset of the record companies is "why should we sell songs for a nickel when we can sell CDs for $18"
Aren't the vast majority of people still on 56k dial-up connections? Is it really possible to do "distributed computing" using computers that are constantly being turned on and off at irregular and unpredictable intervals?
As nice as this proposed legislation is, it is merely a baby step in the right direction. We should not settle for anything less than full repeal of the DMCA.
I am completely in agreement with the idea of outlawing spam and have long wished for such a law in the US. Unfortunately, the more I think about it, the more I realize, there's just no way to enforce such a law.
First, in order to enforce such a law you would have to create some sort of governmental agency where you would send your spam complaints and they would go after the spammers. This, of course, results in the creation of another bloated government bureaucracy fincanced by your tax dollars. This raises a number of issues -- not the least of which is "how much benefit will you really get in return for the millions of dolars that will be spent".
The second problem, and the most frustrating, is one that I have run into in my own attempts at fighting spam. When I trace the IP addresses of the spam which arrives in my inbox daily, I find that more and more are originating from foreign countries, including Korea, China, Spain and Brazil.
So, no matter how tough your anti-spam law may be, it's worthless when spammers cant take advantage of open relays in foreign countries.
Check out some benchmarks -- a cheap piece of crap Dell PC (1.8ghz Pentium 4 and 512 meg ram) outperforms a Mac G4 with DUAL 1.25 ghz CPUS and 1 Gig ram.
Apple -- half the performance for twice the price.
This is obviously deliberate on the part of Micosoft -- probably some low level schmuck who thinks he's being a good loyal Microsoft employee.
Consider this: if every MSIE user immediately switched to Netscape, Opera or Mozilla, the loss of revenue for Microsoft is exactly zero. If every Mozilla, Netscape, Opera user immediately switched to MSIE, the increase in revenue for Microsoft is exactly zero.
The point here is simply this: Constantly trying to break and/or block a competitor's product is so deeply engrained in the Microsoft culture that they do it even when it doesn't make any sense or create any benefit for Microsoft.
"After I first posted downloadable music, my merchandise sales went up 300%"
The entertainment industries are controlled by people so blinded by greed that they are completely incapable of comprehending any business model that does not revolve around iron-fisted totalitarian control of their product. The list is lengthy and has been repeated many times:
Jack Valenti wanted to outlaw VCRs, saying they would destroy the movie industry. Instead, they have produced billions in profits.
The MPAA claims that they are currently suffering enormous harm from the trading of movies on the Interent. In reality, box office receipts in 2002 were up 11% from the previous year and the number of movie tickets sold was the highest in 50 years.
In 1981 the RIAA was making the same claims that they are today about lost profits due to "piracy". Back in those days, CDs, Personal Computers and the Internet didn't exist. The villian, according to the RIAA, was cassette tape recorders. People were allegedly taping their friends records instead of buying them. But studies showed that people who owned sophisticated home recording requipment spend 75% MORE money buying records than people who didn't.
The list goes on.......
The greed and stupidity of the enterntainment industry goes on....
The irony here is that time and time again the entertainment industry has had to be saved from itself.
OK - we know that Microsoft is doing this so that people will be forced to use MSIE as their browser. But why?
If everyone in the world stops using MSIE and uses a different browser, the loss in revenue for Microsoft is exactly zero. If everyone in the world abandons Netscape and other broswers in favor of MSIE, the increase in revenue for Microsoft is exactly zero.
Why would a company work to create a monopoly in an area that provides them absolutely no benefit?
Slashdot Mirror
Back in the days of DOS and Borland Turbo pascal, I wrote programs using a library that allowed me to create a text-mode windowing system. Nice to see that Linux may someday catch up to 1989-era DOS.
Huh?
The band gets a certain amount of money from the record company to pay for recording costs. Any money not spent goes up someone's nose.
ColonGuys? Are they related to goatse?
Absolutely true. There is no "digtal divide" -- that whole concept is based on the false and absurd notion that computer use and the Internet absolutely *MUST* be a major part of everyone's life.
A few years ago I read a prediction that Internet use would peak at around 65% and for various reasons not go any higher. It would appear that this predicition was fairly accurate.
Mr. von Lohman doesn't know what he's talking about. The issue is not that musicians aren't getting paid. Record companies have been ripping off musicians for years and the RIAA couldn't care less. The issue is that the record companies see file sharing as a threat to their profits (it's not) and their monopoly (it is).
As for the "fee" that Mr. von Lohman suggests, it's already been done. There's already been a fee added to blank media (CDs, etc) for precisely the purpose he describes, but that hasn't stopped the record companies from unleashing their lawyers on anyone and everyone.` And very little, probably zero, of that fee ends up in the pockets of artists
The entertainment industry believes they should have absolute, totalitarian, iron-fisted control and consumers should have nothing. No fair use, no ability to share media among different playback devices, nothing.
I used some the 5.x and 6.x versions of Opera for a while but eventually got tired of constantly running into web sites that don't display properly. I tried Opera 7 briefly, and although it looks really cool and seems to be really fast, Opera's programmers are, unfortunatley, still stuck in their mindset of "we're going to strictly adhere to a set of web standards, despite the fact that 95% of the web sites in the world don't follow those standards."
Too many creators of "alternative" browsers are hung up on the idea that making a browser that can handle crappy designed-for-MSIE web pages somehows equals selling your soul to the devil.
Mozilla made the same mistake early on, but they finally woke up to the fact that MSIE, not W3C, is the standard, and you *CAN* make a browser that handles most of the crappy designed-for-MSIE web pages out there *AND* still has lots of innovative features -- the two are not mutually exlusive.
Only someone using the gayest computer on earth would try this
CD player output -> sound card input -> mp3 encoder -> Kaaza
Afer all the complaining about how evil the MPAA is (and they are) -- why are you worrying about this anyway? Screw Spiderman. Boycott the MPAA.
The amount of tax revenue lost by the states is exactly zero.
1. You can't lose something you never had.
2. There is no legitimate reason to collect these taxes.
The clamor for these taxes is merely another attempt by greedy politicians to shove their hands deeper into the pockets of consumers. With the economy the way it is, and many states facing multi-billion dollar budget deficits, the states will tell whatever lies are necessry to raise new revenues.
It happens over and over again. These stupid lawsuits never turn out the way they should.
What SHOULD happen:
Small Scum-Bag Company A, with very little in the way of legitimate product or profits, files a ridiculously stupid lawsuit against Big Deep-Pockets Company B.
Big Deep-Pockets Company B uses their comsiderable financial and legal resources to win the case, crush Small Scum-Bag Company A and obtain a court ruling that deters future stupid lawsuits by other small scum-bag companies..
What ACTUALLY heppens:
Big Deep-Pockets Company B doesn't want to be bothered, so they have their insurance company send off a nice fat check to Small Scum-Bag Company A, which now is flush with cash and able to pursue other victims with its stupid lawsuits.
Janis Ian once pointed out that if the record companies had partnered with Napster and collected a nickel for every song downloaded (a reasonable price point) they would have realized revenue of $500,000 a day.
But, such an arrangement will never be agreed to by the record industry for one simple reason. Greed. The mindset of the record companies is "why should we sell songs for a nickel when we can sell CDs for $18"
Aren't the vast majority of people still on 56k dial-up connections? Is it really possible to do "distributed computing" using computers that are constantly being turned on and off at irregular and unpredictable intervals?
As nice as this proposed legislation is, it is merely a baby step in the right direction. We should not settle for anything less than full repeal of the DMCA.
Mozilla: right click; select "block all images from this server".
No more ads.
+5 Informative.
In Soviet Russia, software goes in YOUR backdoor.
I am completely in agreement with the idea of outlawing spam and have long wished for such a law in the US. Unfortunately, the more I think about it, the more I realize, there's just no way to enforce such a law.
First, in order to enforce such a law you would have to create some sort of governmental agency where you would send your spam complaints and they would go after the spammers. This, of course, results in the creation of another bloated government bureaucracy fincanced by your tax dollars. This raises a number of issues -- not the least of which is "how much benefit will you really get in return for the millions of dolars that will be spent".
The second problem, and the most frustrating, is one that I have run into in my own attempts at fighting spam. When I trace the IP addresses of the spam which arrives in my inbox daily, I find that more and more are originating from foreign countries, including Korea, China, Spain and Brazil.
So, no matter how tough your anti-spam law may be, it's worthless when spammers cant take advantage of open relays in foreign countries.
Check out some benchmarks -- a cheap piece of crap Dell PC (1.8ghz Pentium 4 and 512 meg ram) outperforms a Mac G4 with DUAL 1.25 ghz CPUS and 1 Gig ram.
Apple -- half the performance for twice the price.
Whenever I type strongly my wife complains about the noise and asks that I type more quietly.
Steve Jobs is CEO of Pixar, eh? So why Pixar no use Macs in their render-farms?
Apple -- half the performance for twice the price!
This is obviously deliberate on the part of Micosoft -- probably some low level schmuck who thinks he's being a good loyal Microsoft employee.
Consider this: if every MSIE user immediately switched to Netscape, Opera or Mozilla, the loss of revenue for Microsoft is exactly zero. If every Mozilla, Netscape, Opera user immediately switched to MSIE, the increase in revenue for Microsoft is exactly zero.
The point here is simply this: Constantly trying to break and/or block a competitor's product is so deeply engrained in the Microsoft culture that they do it even when it doesn't make any sense or create any benefit for Microsoft.
Where you get paid to write crap that is neither humorous, entertaining or informative? Is there bribery involved? Sex with "the right people"?
"After I first posted downloadable music, my merchandise sales went up 300%"
The entertainment industries are controlled by people so blinded by greed that they are completely incapable of comprehending any business model that does not revolve around iron-fisted totalitarian control of their product. The list is lengthy and has been repeated many times:
Jack Valenti wanted to outlaw VCRs, saying they would destroy the movie industry. Instead, they have produced billions in profits.
The MPAA claims that they are currently suffering enormous harm from the trading of movies on the Interent. In reality, box office receipts in 2002 were up 11% from the previous year and the number of movie tickets sold was the highest in 50 years.
In 1981 the RIAA was making the same claims that they are today about lost profits due to "piracy". Back in those days, CDs, Personal Computers and the Internet didn't exist. The villian, according to the RIAA, was cassette tape recorders. People were allegedly taping their friends records instead of buying them. But studies showed that people who owned sophisticated home recording requipment spend 75% MORE money buying records than people who didn't.
The list goes on.......
The greed and stupidity of the enterntainment industry goes on....
The irony here is that time and time again the entertainment industry has had to be saved from itself.
OK - we know that Microsoft is doing this so that people will be forced to use MSIE as their browser. But why?
If everyone in the world stops using MSIE and uses a different browser, the loss in revenue for Microsoft is exactly zero. If everyone in the world abandons Netscape and other broswers in favor of MSIE, the increase in revenue for Microsoft is exactly zero.
Why would a company work to create a monopoly in an area that provides them absolutely no benefit?