Hilary Rosen was probably only echoing the general feeling of the RIAA's members when she spoke out against internet piracy and whatnot. Perhaps this means that the RIAA is shifting its policy to not be so public about denouncing filesharing while cracking down on it behind the scenes. Generates a lot less public scrutiny.:)
As expected though, the laptop program is not going well at all. It will probably be abandoned in the coming couple of years when Apple drops their support contract and refuses to renew it due to tens of dozens of damaged iBooks that are shipped back every few months. I don't think it has to do with Apple, but rather more with the idea of giving seventh graders laptops. See my post above about not having enough good teachers in public schools. What do you think they're actually doing with the laptops? Nothing of use really. The idea was that if you give the schools the technology, they'd find some way to use it. This is simply not true because the staff can't do much more than open MS Word and type a letter, or do some basic Excel spreadsheeting. They have NO idea about how computers work at all, or to how to make them work in a school environment. Lets face it.. google searching the web isn't going to be that helpful in an educational setting. This is mostly what you see in public schools when it comes down to using the internet for class.
I happen to live and work in Maine and I must say that the technology they're talking about here is a good idea. However it's biggest benefit besides saving money is teaching kids things like how operating systems work, how to program hardware directly, and how to write actual software beyond "hello world" or a text calculator. These are things most teachers simply can't teach. Now maybe this would change if the schools advertised jobs for people who could actually teach these subjects. Maybe some linux community members in other parts of the U.S. might actually move to Maine to fill them, but for now I'll stay skeptical. The public school systems really need to change their curriculum around. They really need a computer curriculum like the one I hinted at above, and they need to have the damn kids doing calculus by 8th grade. I attend the University of Maine now and it's AMAZING how many people don't even have a clue about ALGEBRA let alone calculus. These are subjects that are just plain required in college... so why aren't our public schools requiring them to be mastered?
Now that sounds like a reason to do it... I was going to say the only thing I could think of to use up the extra bandwidth would be raid of some type. SATA hubs eh? RAID for the average joe!:)
That's very true about the brick wall in performance we have with magnetic hard drives today. I don't know if it's possible to get the drive to go past 60MB/s read on 7,200rpm although I haven't used the cheetah 10,000 rpm ones yet. Probably aren't that much better. Now the controller only operates at 150MB/s right? I don't know much about SATA yet but it would seem to me that if they use one controller for two SATA "ports" then you'd only be able to get half the max (and a bit less of course) for both drives you had connected to that one controller....
At my university, I'm currently in CS and I must say it is boring as hell. The theory is good, but unfortunately you never actually do anything with it. That's why I'm changing my major to Computer Engineering. yo!
Whatever happened to making fun games? Or good puzzlers to tease your mind like all the other Myst games? This one will be a complete piece of crap because online games like this are all about making a buck and frustrating the hell out of people they manage to get to obsessively play it. For this they can be likened to a cigarette company! I am very upset with Ubi Soft and Cyan.
You can buy with confidence from http://www.metropolis-records.com/ . they're an industrial/ebm label mostly, and have lots of good acts like VNV Nation, Assemblage 23, Apoptygma Berserk, Funker Vogt, KMFDM, Covenant, etc.... In my opinion most of these artists are helping to revolutionize the music scene and they're definately proof that good music exists outside of the RIAA, which endorses mostly crap anyway.
It is games just like GTA3 which will lead to industry stagnation. Miyamoto continues to find new ways to innovate, particularly with simplified controls and fun game concepts. Super Smash Bros., for example, takes the idea of the fighting game and make it accessable to everyone by removing complex controls while retaining the fun aspects of fighting games like combos and character differences. Games like GTA3 stagnate on providing all of its entertainment through simple violence alone, something even Resident Evil tends to stay away from by putting a focus on puzzle solving as well as bloodshed. GTA3 gets old fast, and face it, you're just plain immature and idiotic if that's all you can understand. People don't play GTA3 to explore a vast world and complete jobs like a mobster, they play it to run over pedestrians and beat the tar out of old ladies. I guess that's a big hit with the Holywood frenzied, television desensetized ignorance of American "culture" though.
I agree, PDAs constitute more of a status symbol than an actual helpful tool. Whenever someone I know gets a good job in the tech sector they always are very quick to tell about their PDA the company gave them.
Listening to stuff from labels like Metropolis doesn't bother me, it's just the big four I don't care for. This free music utopia referred to here.. could it really exist without the kind of funding only selling the stuff could possibly bring? I think the real solution is to have some of it free, and some of it pay. Members would get all the stuff, and the member fees would be distributed among the bands. They'd have to have it in something else besides lossy formats too......
Microsoft will not be able to succeed here, the global influence of the United States is weakening and external countries are more likely to choose independent products.
The linux community should address problems with the driver model among other things before they focus on desktop usability. There needs to be a standard driver model based on annually solid kernel versions. Only one stable kernel should be released per year with minor patches, like network security updates, or critical fixes.
Microsoft does not hold it's market share purely because of its bad business practices. Windows is very easy to install, device drivers are easy to manage, you can change display modes with a mouse click, etc... I don't care for many of their business practices and I wish someone else would develop a product that could seriously compete. I believe that an OS (but not all software) should be free. However there is not a competing product out there which is free and has the ease of use of Windows.
Seriously, has anyone else known a business who hasn't made more repeated and seriously horrible business decisions as Apple Computer? It's absolutely amazing they're still holding on to that 4% market share. Having Microsoft in power is much better than what these guys would do if they ever had risen to the top.
Actually it would be a good thing in the long run.
on
MS Palladium Patent
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
The more you expose the consumer to strict DRM rules the more they will come to reject it. I honestly don't believe people will keep investing in computer hardware when it doesn't let them play their favorite burned CDs or permit them to hear their own MP3 collection. The quicker it is implemented on a large scale, the quicker it will be destroyed.
That's why they didn't want Hollings' bill passed.
on
MS Palladium Patent
·
· Score: 1
Microsoft doesn't want the CBDTPA passed because that would steal their chances to use their own specified implementation to push out competitors' software from their Windows platform. MWAHAHAHAHA!!!
The X-Box will not be popular as an inexpensive PC until it doesn't require a modification. Even then I'm unsure. It would depend on whether you could install the normal version of Windows on it like any other PC.
Eh, bnetd issues aside, this game gets extremely boring after a few weeks of multiplayer. I don't plan on buying it just for that reason. I'll stick to Counter-Strike... which for some reason doesn't lose its luster for me.
People argue that the GPL makes it harder to secure software since you have to publish any changes you might make to the original software. Does seeing the new code actually make it less secure? I don't necessarily think so. Where high security is needed some agencies may prefer to use another license and still keep it OSS, but just seeing the code doesn't grant the power to break it if it's already solid.
I don't think the War3 beta reflects what Blizzard intended. They promised more strategy and less massive attack type scenarios, but so far it's just like Starcraft with less units on the map. You don't really get enough time to focus on the role playing elements because someone else will just smash you down. That's a real problem with RTS style games... you just don't get enough time to strategize. I guess I won't pass final judgement until the beta is over though.
Slashdot Mirror
Hilary Rosen was probably only echoing the general feeling of the RIAA's members when she spoke out against internet piracy and whatnot. Perhaps this means that the RIAA is shifting its policy to not be so public about denouncing filesharing while cracking down on it behind the scenes. Generates a lot less public scrutiny. :)
Either being shipped off to India or having Indians shipped in. It's distressing!
Exactly, you see why the U.S. has so many foreign students now, and why so many tech positions in the U.S. are filled by immigrants.
As expected though, the laptop program is not going well at all. It will probably be abandoned in the coming couple of years when Apple drops their support contract and refuses to renew it due to tens of dozens of damaged iBooks that are shipped back every few months. I don't think it has to do with Apple, but rather more with the idea of giving seventh graders laptops. See my post above about not having enough good teachers in public schools. What do you think they're actually doing with the laptops? Nothing of use really. The idea was that if you give the schools the technology, they'd find some way to use it. This is simply not true because the staff can't do much more than open MS Word and type a letter, or do some basic Excel spreadsheeting. They have NO idea about how computers work at all, or to how to make them work in a school environment. Lets face it.. google searching the web isn't going to be that helpful in an educational setting. This is mostly what you see in public schools when it comes down to using the internet for class.
I happen to live and work in Maine and I must say that the technology they're talking about here is a good idea. However it's biggest benefit besides saving money is teaching kids things like how operating systems work, how to program hardware directly, and how to write actual software beyond "hello world" or a text calculator. These are things most teachers simply can't teach. Now maybe this would change if the schools advertised jobs for people who could actually teach these subjects. Maybe some linux community members in other parts of the U.S. might actually move to Maine to fill them, but for now I'll stay skeptical. The public school systems really need to change their curriculum around. They really need a computer curriculum like the one I hinted at above, and they need to have the damn kids doing calculus by 8th grade. I attend the University of Maine now and it's AMAZING how many people don't even have a clue about ALGEBRA let alone calculus. These are subjects that are just plain required in college... so why aren't our public schools requiring them to be mastered?
Now that sounds like a reason to do it... I was going to say the only thing I could think of to use up the extra bandwidth would be raid of some type. SATA hubs eh? RAID for the average joe! :)
That's very true about the brick wall in performance we have with magnetic hard drives today. I don't know if it's possible to get the drive to go past 60MB/s read on 7,200rpm although I haven't used the cheetah 10,000 rpm ones yet. Probably aren't that much better. Now the controller only operates at 150MB/s right? I don't know much about SATA yet but it would seem to me that if they use one controller for two SATA "ports" then you'd only be able to get half the max (and a bit less of course) for both drives you had connected to that one controller....
At my university, I'm currently in CS and I must say it is boring as hell. The theory is good, but unfortunately you never actually do anything with it. That's why I'm changing my major to Computer Engineering. yo!
Whatever happened to making fun games? Or good puzzlers to tease your mind like all the other Myst games? This one will be a complete piece of crap because online games like this are all about making a buck and frustrating the hell out of people they manage to get to obsessively play it. For this they can be likened to a cigarette company! I am very upset with Ubi Soft and Cyan.
Get friends in college radio stations.. they will introduce you to lots of crazy artists you never knew existed. :)
You can buy with confidence from
http://www.metropolis-records.com/ . they're an industrial/ebm label mostly, and have lots of good acts like VNV Nation, Assemblage 23, Apoptygma Berserk, Funker Vogt, KMFDM, Covenant, etc.... In my opinion most of these artists are helping to revolutionize the music scene and they're definately proof that good music exists outside of the RIAA, which endorses mostly crap anyway.
It is games just like GTA3 which will lead to industry stagnation. Miyamoto continues to find new ways to innovate, particularly with simplified controls and fun game concepts. Super Smash Bros., for example, takes the idea of the fighting game and make it accessable to everyone by removing complex controls while retaining the fun aspects of fighting games like combos and character differences. Games like GTA3 stagnate on providing all of its entertainment through simple violence alone, something even Resident Evil tends to stay away from by putting a focus on puzzle solving as well as bloodshed. GTA3 gets old fast, and face it, you're just plain immature and idiotic if that's all you can understand. People don't play GTA3 to explore a vast world and complete jobs like a mobster, they play it to run over pedestrians and beat the tar out of old ladies. I guess that's a big hit with the Holywood frenzied, television desensetized ignorance of American "culture" though.
I agree, PDAs constitute more of a status symbol than an actual helpful tool. Whenever someone I know gets a good job in the tech sector they always are very quick to tell about their PDA the company gave them.
Listening to stuff from labels like Metropolis doesn't bother me, it's just the big four I don't care for. This free music utopia referred to here.. could it really exist without the kind of funding only selling the stuff could possibly bring? I think the real solution is to have some of it free, and some of it pay. Members would get all the stuff, and the member fees would be distributed among the bands. They'd have to have it in something else besides lossy formats too......
Microsoft will not be able to succeed here, the global influence of the United States is weakening and external countries are more likely to choose independent products.
The linux community should address problems with the driver model among other things before they focus on desktop usability. There needs to be a standard driver model based on annually solid kernel versions. Only one stable kernel should be released per year with minor patches, like network security updates, or critical fixes.
Microsoft does not hold it's market share purely because of its bad business practices. Windows is very easy to install, device drivers are easy to manage, you can change display modes with a mouse click, etc... I don't care for many of their business practices and I wish someone else would develop a product that could seriously compete. I believe that an OS (but not all software) should be free. However there is not a competing product out there which is free and has the ease of use of Windows.
Seriously, has anyone else known a business who hasn't made more repeated and seriously horrible business decisions as Apple Computer? It's absolutely amazing they're still holding on to that 4% market share. Having Microsoft in power is much better than what these guys would do if they ever had risen to the top.
The more you expose the consumer to strict DRM rules the more they will come to reject it. I honestly don't believe people will keep investing in computer hardware when it doesn't let them play their favorite burned CDs or permit them to hear their own MP3 collection. The quicker it is implemented on a large scale, the quicker it will be destroyed.
Microsoft doesn't want the CBDTPA passed because that would steal their chances to use their own specified implementation to push out competitors' software from their Windows platform. MWAHAHAHAHA!!!
The X-Box will not be popular as an inexpensive PC until it doesn't require a modification. Even then I'm unsure. It would depend on whether you could install the normal version of Windows on it like any other PC.
I don't care if copy protected CDs are sold, but I believe they should have a very obvious warning label just like the explicit lyrics sticker.
7 15 854
Why does it seem that most of the slash comments are totally stupid and non-constructive?
Take a look at this one for example:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=34332&cid=3
and why does the thing display with a space between the 3715 and the 854 in the url? I can't figure that one out.
Eh, bnetd issues aside, this game gets extremely boring after a few weeks of multiplayer. I don't plan on buying it just for that reason. I'll stick to Counter-Strike... which for some reason doesn't lose its luster for me.
People argue that the GPL makes it harder to secure software since you have to publish any changes you might make to the original software. Does seeing the new code actually make it less secure? I don't necessarily think so. Where high security is needed some agencies may prefer to use another license and still keep it OSS, but just seeing the code doesn't grant the power to break it if it's already solid.
I don't think the War3 beta reflects what Blizzard intended. They promised more strategy and less massive attack type scenarios, but so far it's just like Starcraft with less units on the map. You don't really get enough time to focus on the role playing elements because someone else will just smash you down. That's a real problem with RTS style games... you just don't get enough time to strategize. I guess
I won't pass final judgement until the beta is
over though.