Fool, you don't pay for sex directly, but you're paying for it nonetheless. Do you have a girlfriend? They cost money to keep. Add up all the money you've spent on dates, gifts, etc. for her and divide it by the number of times you've had sex with her to get an idea of how much sex is costing you.
What is the big obsession with FP shooters having long, drawn-out storylines? I know geeks tend to equate convoluted plotlines with quality, but come on. You're playing an FPS... the whole point of the game is to SHOOT things while you control the character from a FIRST PERSON perspective. Who gives a damn about a story? Do you really need motivation to shoot things? No! I just want good graphics, fast action, and a whole army of things to kill. That's what made the original Doom so much fun! It wasn't bogged down in endless cutscenes where talking heads discussed the political ramifications of wiping out monsters on Mars, it just had lots and lots of killing! That's what's fun! I have no doubt that Doom 3 will be fun PRECISELY because there won't be an annoying storyline to get in the way of the action!
Remember all that Windows software that worked on '95 but failed on NT? Good luck getting it to work on XP now."
Yes, you can. Stop being an ass. Of course there are old programs that have compatibility problems due to some fundamental differences between the ways 9x and NT handle hardware (and the whole 16/32 bit thing), but beyond that it's pretty much certain that you can run all those old programs with no difficulties on a modern XP system. There is no question that Windows has far better backwards compatibility with its own programs than Linux does, as far as "out of the box" is concerned. Of course you can jump through hoops to get old Linux programs to work. The point is, in Windows there are basically no hoops you have to jump through to accomplish the same thing.
"GNOME developers, for instance, *do* have a registry they can manipulate in a standard way (GConf!), a "start menu" they can manipulate via standard means, and a web browser which will render things in a standard way (gtkhtml). We have a directory layout standard and have for quite some time (yes, it's a flexible standard -- folks can, at their discretion, install apps under/opt/ or use package management systems like STOW, but that's fine; it hurts no-one, as long as the app has the minimal intelligence needed to deal with being installed under an arbitrary root and a system for locating libraries such as pkg-config)."
These points all relate to a SINGLE desktop standard. There's also KDE and a bunch of other desktops competing for the "standard" spot. Someone needs to say "okay, this desktop is the standard Linux desktop. You don't need to use it but you can be assured that every Linux distro will at least have it." Furthermore, with your GConf example, that is a standard means of configuring only the DESKTOP, not the entire system itself (see Windows Control Panel). Sure, such a beast exists on Linux, but in many different forms -- Redhat has one, SuSE has one, etc. Someone needs to come along and say "okay, here's the 'Linux Control Panel' -- you don't have to use it, but you can be sure it will at least be there." See where this is going?
"I can display an X11-compliant program running anywhere on any X11-compliant display running anywhere."
Not necessarily. Some X servers don't support certain X extensions and/or don't come standard with certain fonts the program is expecting. That'll cause behavior/display to be less than certain.
And you ARE aware that Windows XP (possibly 2K, I think) comes standard with a remote desktop viewer program, right?
I think it's because Open Source types hate "limiting choice" by enforcing standards. As much as you guys may hate Windows, the beauty of its "standards" is that I can take just about any program from the Windows 95 era and run it "out of the box" on a modern Windows XP system. I don't think it would be quite as easy to take any 8 year old Linux binary and have it run on a modern distro without some non-trivial work. Hell, I wouldn't bet any serious money on being able to take a recently released binary and have it run on a variety of modern distros without a little work.
Eventually, Linux and other Open Source ventures are going to have to "bite the bullet" and learn to enforce standards. When you develop for Windows, since there are a number of "fixed features" of the OS, you can, for instance, be sure that there is a registry you can manipulate in a standard way, be sure that there is a "start menu" that can be manipulated with a certain API, be sure that there will be a web browser that will render things is a predictable way, etc. Linux needs something like this. You need to have consistency across distros. You need to standardize on a directory layout so programs and data can be located in predictable places. You need a standard method of system configuration. You need to standardize on one grahical toolkit and make sure it's shipped standard. And so on.
But don't get the wrong impression -- enforcing standards does not limit "choice". It simply means that you can say with certainty "any given Linux distro will have X, Y, and Z, so don't worry about having to target a million different things." This is the "big thing", in my opinion, that holds Linux and Open Source back. Too many competing standards (do we need 50 GUI toolkits? 20 different variations on a "standard" directory layout?) and no one willing to say "this is the one that's our 'standard'."
You're missing the point. Slashdot geeks are always talking about how online music is going to kill the traditional brick and mortar music sales. Those makes billions in profit. This makes tens of millions in profit. It should be obvious that as a REPLACEMENT for traditional sales online sales are not very attractive.
Well if you're buying obscure, (possibly) imported music, WTF do you expect? Of course it's going to cost more than an album that's shipping millions of units. Duh. Do you really expect Apple's store to be stocking your esoteric music AT ALL?
I'm not saying that this isn't a money machine for Apple. It most definitely is. What I'm saying is "only" $30 million a year is not enough to convince record companies that online music is a worthwhile pursuit. After all, if they could make that much money selling a single Eminem album under the current system, why would they want to switch?
Personally, I think this first week was a bit of a fluke. There was a really big surge in sales due to hype, the "coolness" factor, etc. What will be more telling will be stats for the next couple of weeks.
It would need to be a very significant boost indeed. Just to make online music buying seem somewhat attractive to record companies there would need to be a 10x jump in sales, and that really seems doubtful.
Typo. When I said "$30 million in revenue" I meant profit. Either way, the gist of the message is the same: why would an industry that makes billions in profit be interested in making only tens of millions in profit (which would probably barely cover employee salaries)? It doesn't seem so attractive to do the whole online music thing when you look at it that way...
Really, where do you guys do your CD shopping? The last time I paid $20 for a CD it was a double CD. Have you ever been to Best Buy? The new hit albums are $13.99, and the older stuff rarely is more than $15.99.
I'm still not sure how this service is going to make a lot of money. While a million tracks may sound impressive, you need to keep in mind that it's quite unlikely that they can keep that rate up for very long.
If the tracks were all sold as singles (they weren't) and if Apple kept all the money from the sale (they don't) AND if they could keep up their one million songs per week rate (doubtful), then by the end of a year they've made $52 million. Take out administration costs (I have no idea what they are, but I'm guessing they must be fairly significant) and the RIAA's big cut, and I'm guessing Apple would be left with somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million after a year, and that's ONLY if they keep up the sales rate they had in their initial week every week of the year. Sure, $30 million in revenue is nothing to sneeze at, but it's not going to convince anyone that online music sales are worthwhile.
Remember, $30-50 million is equal to the revenue from a couple platinum albums, and isn't enough to finance nearly as many artists as the current model can (keep in mind that every "flop" gets subsidized by hit records). I would expect that if the recording industry were to switch to this model that MORE over-produced pop garbage would be pushed since the dramatically lower revenues would keep the companies from taking many risks with "alternative" artists. And you thought it was bad now...
Re:Active Desktop
on
Eyes on Karamba
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
Remember, this is Slashdot. If Microsoft made it, it's crap. If some guy clones Microsoft's Active Desktop and puts it on Linux, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Eh? Every third post is "Apple's compressed music sounds like crap, it's 128Kbps, that's garbage. No way would I pay for such terrible quality." It seems like you guys are paying more attention to the bitrate than the sound and have made your mind up that any music encoded at 128Kbps couldn't possibly be near CD quality. I've not heard any music encoded in AAC but I wouldn't find it impossible to believe that music at 128Kbps could sound good.
I've heard a lot of claims (right here on Slashdot, no less) that DivX encoded video looks just as good as MPEG2 encoded DVD video (which is encoded at a significantly higher bitrate), so why do you guys find it so hard to believe that relatively low bitrate AAC audio could sound as good as MP3 audio of a higher bitrate?
Right, I understand that but the issue I've been taking offense to is this notion that someone NOT having a password on their wireless network can be interpreted as "this network is free to use by all who find it".
You're missing the point. I *personally* would have given you permission to come into my house. Just picking up on a broadcasted wireless network that has no security does not imply that you have permission to use it (did the administrator personally invite you onto the network?). No... I never invited you into my house. The wireless network issue is analgous to me having my door unlocked and you interpreting this action as an invitation into my house.
Isn't compiling the list the whole point of wardriving? Wasn't that what the big fuss was about? The fact that it's illegal?
I mean really, is there anyone on here who can tell me that they enjoy driving around and seeing if activity pops up on their network card but do NOTHING else with that information and do NOT use the network resources they've stumbled upon? Seems a bit boring and pointless to me.
The door is the access point to the house. Likewise, the wireless access point is the access point to the network. And who says I have to jiggle doorknobs to see which are unlocked? What if I were to just "wardrive" around with a pair of binoculars and see if someone locked their door as they left? I'm telling you, this is the same thing. Leaving your door unlocked is not permission for others to enter the house, just like the fact that wireless networks are transmitted through the air is not permission to use the network.
Again, just because it's on an unlicensed band doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want with networks ON the band. You can tune it in, but doing anything more than that is morally wrong (and I think should have legal repercussions).
The problem I see with wardriving is that if you're doing it to compile a list of "free access points", what you're doing is providing others (with perhaps less morals than you) a list of networks to abuse. It's akin to compiling a list of houses that are regularly unlocked and posting them on the internet. That's wrong.
If all you're doing is driving around and seeing if your wireless card lights up... whatever, that's fine, if a little boring and pointless. I take exception with those who actively seek out unsecured access points and use them and "spread the word".
I think the problem is that most Slashdotters see an unsecured wireless access point and think "look! Some benevolent soul has provided me and everyone else with free internet access!" when the reality of the situation is that the person simply set up a small personal/office network that he (perhaps unknowingly) left unsecured.
Slashdot Mirror
Fool, you don't pay for sex directly, but you're paying for it nonetheless. Do you have a girlfriend? They cost money to keep. Add up all the money you've spent on dates, gifts, etc. for her and divide it by the number of times you've had sex with her to get an idea of how much sex is costing you.
What is the big obsession with FP shooters having long, drawn-out storylines? I know geeks tend to equate convoluted plotlines with quality, but come on. You're playing an FPS... the whole point of the game is to SHOOT things while you control the character from a FIRST PERSON perspective. Who gives a damn about a story? Do you really need motivation to shoot things? No! I just want good graphics, fast action, and a whole army of things to kill. That's what made the original Doom so much fun! It wasn't bogged down in endless cutscenes where talking heads discussed the political ramifications of wiping out monsters on Mars, it just had lots and lots of killing! That's what's fun! I have no doubt that Doom 3 will be fun PRECISELY because there won't be an annoying storyline to get in the way of the action!
Yeah, it takes a long time.
But, as long as you paid for all that stuff and didn't just download it off Kazaa at least you CAN re-rip it all.
Well, you paid for all that stuff, right? So it's just a matter of re-ripping it all, right?
Gotta love Slashbots -- "oh shit, he's right about Linux sucking in some regard! Better mod him down."
"No, you can't.
/opt/ or use package management systems like STOW, but that's fine; it hurts no-one, as long as the app has the minimal intelligence needed to deal with being installed under an arbitrary root and a system for locating libraries such as pkg-config)."
Remember all that Windows software that worked on '95 but failed on NT? Good luck getting it to work on XP now."
Yes, you can. Stop being an ass. Of course there are old programs that have compatibility problems due to some fundamental differences between the ways 9x and NT handle hardware (and the whole 16/32 bit thing), but beyond that it's pretty much certain that you can run all those old programs with no difficulties on a modern XP system. There is no question that Windows has far better backwards compatibility with its own programs than Linux does, as far as "out of the box" is concerned. Of course you can jump through hoops to get old Linux programs to work. The point is, in Windows there are basically no hoops you have to jump through to accomplish the same thing.
"GNOME developers, for instance, *do* have a registry they can manipulate in a standard way (GConf!), a "start menu" they can manipulate via standard means, and a web browser which will render things in a standard way (gtkhtml). We have a directory layout standard and have for quite some time (yes, it's a flexible standard -- folks can, at their discretion, install apps under
These points all relate to a SINGLE desktop standard. There's also KDE and a bunch of other desktops competing for the "standard" spot. Someone needs to say "okay, this desktop is the standard Linux desktop. You don't need to use it but you can be assured that every Linux distro will at least have it." Furthermore, with your GConf example, that is a standard means of configuring only the DESKTOP, not the entire system itself (see Windows Control Panel). Sure, such a beast exists on Linux, but in many different forms -- Redhat has one, SuSE has one, etc. Someone needs to come along and say "okay, here's the 'Linux Control Panel' -- you don't have to use it, but you can be sure it will at least be there." See where this is going?
"I can display an X11-compliant program running anywhere on any X11-compliant display running anywhere."
Not necessarily. Some X servers don't support certain X extensions and/or don't come standard with certain fonts the program is expecting. That'll cause behavior/display to be less than certain.
And you ARE aware that Windows XP (possibly 2K, I think) comes standard with a remote desktop viewer program, right?
I think it's because Open Source types hate "limiting choice" by enforcing standards. As much as you guys may hate Windows, the beauty of its "standards" is that I can take just about any program from the Windows 95 era and run it "out of the box" on a modern Windows XP system. I don't think it would be quite as easy to take any 8 year old Linux binary and have it run on a modern distro without some non-trivial work. Hell, I wouldn't bet any serious money on being able to take a recently released binary and have it run on a variety of modern distros without a little work.
Eventually, Linux and other Open Source ventures are going to have to "bite the bullet" and learn to enforce standards. When you develop for Windows, since there are a number of "fixed features" of the OS, you can, for instance, be sure that there is a registry you can manipulate in a standard way, be sure that there is a "start menu" that can be manipulated with a certain API, be sure that there will be a web browser that will render things is a predictable way, etc. Linux needs something like this. You need to have consistency across distros. You need to standardize on a directory layout so programs and data can be located in predictable places. You need a standard method of system configuration. You need to standardize on one grahical toolkit and make sure it's shipped standard. And so on.
But don't get the wrong impression -- enforcing standards does not limit "choice". It simply means that you can say with certainty "any given Linux distro will have X, Y, and Z, so don't worry about having to target a million different things." This is the "big thing", in my opinion, that holds Linux and Open Source back. Too many competing standards (do we need 50 GUI toolkits? 20 different variations on a "standard" directory layout?) and no one willing to say "this is the one that's our 'standard'."
You're missing the point. Slashdot geeks are always talking about how online music is going to kill the traditional brick and mortar music sales. Those makes billions in profit. This makes tens of millions in profit. It should be obvious that as a REPLACEMENT for traditional sales online sales are not very attractive.
Well if you're buying obscure, (possibly) imported music, WTF do you expect? Of course it's going to cost more than an album that's shipping millions of units. Duh. Do you really expect Apple's store to be stocking your esoteric music AT ALL?
I'm not saying that this isn't a money machine for Apple. It most definitely is. What I'm saying is "only" $30 million a year is not enough to convince record companies that online music is a worthwhile pursuit. After all, if they could make that much money selling a single Eminem album under the current system, why would they want to switch?
Personally, I think this first week was a bit of a fluke. There was a really big surge in sales due to hype, the "coolness" factor, etc. What will be more telling will be stats for the next couple of weeks.
I really doubt it. 100 million tracks downloaded a week, every week of the year for years at a time? I dunno about that.
It would need to be a very significant boost indeed. Just to make online music buying seem somewhat attractive to record companies there would need to be a 10x jump in sales, and that really seems doubtful.
Typo. When I said "$30 million in revenue" I meant profit. Either way, the gist of the message is the same: why would an industry that makes billions in profit be interested in making only tens of millions in profit (which would probably barely cover employee salaries)? It doesn't seem so attractive to do the whole online music thing when you look at it that way...
Really, where do you guys do your CD shopping? The last time I paid $20 for a CD it was a double CD. Have you ever been to Best Buy? The new hit albums are $13.99, and the older stuff rarely is more than $15.99.
I'm still not sure how this service is going to make a lot of money. While a million tracks may sound impressive, you need to keep in mind that it's quite unlikely that they can keep that rate up for very long.
If the tracks were all sold as singles (they weren't) and if Apple kept all the money from the sale (they don't) AND if they could keep up their one million songs per week rate (doubtful), then by the end of a year they've made $52 million. Take out administration costs (I have no idea what they are, but I'm guessing they must be fairly significant) and the RIAA's big cut, and I'm guessing Apple would be left with somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million after a year, and that's ONLY if they keep up the sales rate they had in their initial week every week of the year. Sure, $30 million in revenue is nothing to sneeze at, but it's not going to convince anyone that online music sales are worthwhile.
Remember, $30-50 million is equal to the revenue from a couple platinum albums, and isn't enough to finance nearly as many artists as the current model can (keep in mind that every "flop" gets subsidized by hit records). I would expect that if the recording industry were to switch to this model that MORE over-produced pop garbage would be pushed since the dramatically lower revenues would keep the companies from taking many risks with "alternative" artists. And you thought it was bad now...
Remember, this is Slashdot. If Microsoft made it, it's crap. If some guy clones Microsoft's Active Desktop and puts it on Linux, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
PC DVD drives are usually region-coded by default.
Eh? Every third post is "Apple's compressed music sounds like crap, it's 128Kbps, that's garbage. No way would I pay for such terrible quality." It seems like you guys are paying more attention to the bitrate than the sound and have made your mind up that any music encoded at 128Kbps couldn't possibly be near CD quality. I've not heard any music encoded in AAC but I wouldn't find it impossible to believe that music at 128Kbps could sound good.
I've heard a lot of claims (right here on Slashdot, no less) that DivX encoded video looks just as good as MPEG2 encoded DVD video (which is encoded at a significantly higher bitrate), so why do you guys find it so hard to believe that relatively low bitrate AAC audio could sound as good as MP3 audio of a higher bitrate?
Right, I understand that but the issue I've been taking offense to is this notion that someone NOT having a password on their wireless network can be interpreted as "this network is free to use by all who find it".
You're missing the point. I *personally* would have given you permission to come into my house. Just picking up on a broadcasted wireless network that has no security does not imply that you have permission to use it (did the administrator personally invite you onto the network?). No... I never invited you into my house. The wireless network issue is analgous to me having my door unlocked and you interpreting this action as an invitation into my house.
Isn't compiling the list the whole point of wardriving? Wasn't that what the big fuss was about? The fact that it's illegal?
I mean really, is there anyone on here who can tell me that they enjoy driving around and seeing if activity pops up on their network card but do NOTHING else with that information and do NOT use the network resources they've stumbled upon? Seems a bit boring and pointless to me.
The house analogy is an apt one.
The door is the access point to the house. Likewise, the wireless access point is the access point to the network. And who says I have to jiggle doorknobs to see which are unlocked? What if I were to just "wardrive" around with a pair of binoculars and see if someone locked their door as they left? I'm telling you, this is the same thing. Leaving your door unlocked is not permission for others to enter the house, just like the fact that wireless networks are transmitted through the air is not permission to use the network.
Again, just because it's on an unlicensed band doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want with networks ON the band. You can tune it in, but doing anything more than that is morally wrong (and I think should have legal repercussions).
The problem I see with wardriving is that if you're doing it to compile a list of "free access points", what you're doing is providing others (with perhaps less morals than you) a list of networks to abuse. It's akin to compiling a list of houses that are regularly unlocked and posting them on the internet. That's wrong.
If all you're doing is driving around and seeing if your wireless card lights up... whatever, that's fine, if a little boring and pointless. I take exception with those who actively seek out unsecured access points and use them and "spread the word".
I think the problem is that most Slashdotters see an unsecured wireless access point and think "look! Some benevolent soul has provided me and everyone else with free internet access!" when the reality of the situation is that the person simply set up a small personal/office network that he (perhaps unknowingly) left unsecured.