From the article: "...for free distribution to anyone in the world," including residents of Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya, countries to which the United States controls exports."
The last I heard, Linux has been (and is) developed by folks from all over the world -- including the countries in question -- so how does "export" even come into play here?
Using SCO's own twisted logic, wouldn't SCO itself be responsible for "exporting" banned code to these countries by making its distros available on their FTP servers?
Oh man! A binary?? I've been dying to try this piece of code, but was never successful compiling it from CVS. Ended up using ReZound and Audacity (which are both good in their own rights), but judging from the Ardour screenshots, I think I'll be switching once the binary comes out.
I feel like a little kid waiting for Christmas. Hurry 'dem binaries, pleease!
IMHO, the NH system seems the better of the two. I'm sure there are loopholes, etc... but it definitely would cut down on claimants looking for a 26-week vacation after being laid off
Your comment likening collecting unemployment to a "vacation" is uninformed and demeaning. I'm currently unemployed and collecting -- after paying into the system for 20 years. With a wife and kid to support, I can barely get by on the unemployment checks and trust me, it's definitely not a vacation. What I get from unemployment is only one third of what I made when working. Try going from $1200/week to only $400/week without losing your home, car, savings, and everything else you've worked your entire life for. And keep in mind that the financial blow is only part of it -- it's a big hit to the ego when you go from bread-winner to babysitter, and when you figure in the feelings of fear, inadequacy, depression, uselessness, and the general frustration of trying to find a job doing what you love to do when there just aren't any to be had. And if you really want to know what it's like, then make sure you've got a few self-righteous morons around to remind you that you're a loser/slacker/freeloader just taking advantage of the system.
I have to say that Quanta has so far been my tool of choice for web development since switching to a Linux platform. I like to think of it as an InterDev "lite" -- it has all the useful editor and project functions I actually used under InterDev without all the overhead, crashes and expensive per-seat license.
The only things blatantly missing from Quanta (from my perspective anyways) are the database tools that InterDev has. It's nice to be able to view table and field properties, edit data, test SQL statements, etc., all from within the dev environment. But I'm not complaining. The PHP code completion/hints are excellent and the built-in HTML/PHP/CSS/Javascript reference docs are invaluable. Why they would disable the ability to copy from the docs pages to the editor are beyond me, but other than that I think it's a great tool.
#2 Existing hardware must remain usable. At a minimum, the printer, modem, and CD player/writer must work, and the new operating system must make them work without my having to tweak configuration files. If it can't get that far, it's not ready to inflict on the general public as a migration route, and I certainly will not recommend it to my friends.
#3 Existing software must remain usable unless the new operating system has equivalent features to the ones I use, there is no loss of data and data-transfer is easy.
Note: Requirements 2 and 3 eliminate WindowsXP as an upgrade route. I would need to buy a new computer, probably new peripherals, and replace some eXPensive software to get the dubious benefits of product-activation codes and embedded functions I don't want and can't delete.
At least we know she hasn't bought into Redmond's bullshit about XP's features.
Ardour is nice... on paper. Compiling it is a whole other story.
I couldn't agree with you more. I've yet to be able to compile Ardour -- every time you think you've got all the dependencies worked out, they slap you with another. And even when you have all the prerequisites installed, they can't be located during the compile.
I really hope they get this worked out -- it sounds like an awesome package -- but in the meantime I'll keep using my combo of Rezound and Audacity to get the job done.
Every platform switch is money in the bank for Adobe.
Personally, I'm surprised Adobe has kept developing for the Mac (even considering the core Mac demographic are designers/publishers) when the Apple market is so small and Apple itself is so damn difficult to work with. Supporting the Mac has got to be costing Adobe money, considering the development dollars invested compared to the number of installed units out there.
I switched from Mac to Windows several years ago -- mostly because I was tired of paying three times as much for a Mac as a comparably equipped PC cost. I've since moved on to Linux (and good 'ol Gimp), but I can tell you this from past experience -- Photoshop ran faster and with less crashes on a $1000 PC than it did on my $3000 Mac.
I'm all for companies like Apple, but only if they open their OSes up to other hardware platforms.
I've had it with all this "I own the Internet" and "I own how many times you can click to purchase" and "I own shopping carts" and all the other patent nonsense that's been going around.
SERIOUSLY...
I'm going to flagrantly violate every stinking patent I can come across that tries to lock down "business methods" and other obvious extensions of what a computer/keyboard/monitor/network/person-with-half -a -fruckin-brain can do. I would love to use some more "colorful" words to describe this, but I'm too freakin pissed off to think straight.
I work for myself. I'm not rich. What're they going to do, patent my furckin birthday and throw me in jail? Wanna SUE ME Bezos?? I wanna hear that stupid Bezos laugh as he spends a million dollars trying to sue someone who doesn't have shit -- I can sit in court ALL DAMN DAY. Can't get blood from a stone, as they say.
Screw'em. Bezos and his like can just bite me. I'm going to ONE-CLICK CHECKOUT myself all the way to the bank, and then probably to court. And then I'm going to laugh my freakin' head off all the way back to the bank with the free press (and resulting investor interest) I'll get from Wired and Slashdot articles/interviews and everyfreakin-body else who covers it.
Ahhh... feel much better now.
But I'm still going to do this -- a site will be launched with patented ONE-CLICK checkout, and any other patented "business methods" I can find.
Email me with any other patent-infringing features you can think of -- sfulk@zoominternet.net -- I'd love to set up a website with the only goal of being sued by as many dickhead companies as possible.
Why the hell is Google getting so ticked off about this? They should be happy that the world-at-large now equates "google" with the act of searching the internet. I don't hear of anyone "yahooing" or "alta-vista-ing" or even "lycosing" the web, even though they may use those sites to search.
After reviewing the FAQs on the Peppercoin site, it appears that the consumer will always be charged the 50 cents -- never the '$10'.
From what I can tell, what Peppercoin does is batch the transactions so that the total of all of them goes into *their* merchant account. I couldn't find out any info on how often they would distribute the funds to member merchants, but I'm sure the frequency of payments (triggered by number of total transactions or dollar amount) would be tied to merchant membership fees.
If this stuff works like they say, it would be a great finish coat for cars. Instead of b*tching about it raining right after you give your ride a bath, the rain would *be* the bath! And with much of the country under drought conditions, think of all the water that could be conserved by eliminating the need to wash cars.
I'm a musician who's into home recording -- mostly acoustic stuff. I've experimented with converting my original recordings to MP3 and OGG and must say there is a *very* noticeable difference.
With acoustic and classical music, there are subtleties in the sound that I've never been able to reproduce with MP3 at *any* bitrate. What blew my mind was that OGG preserved them beautifully at only a 128k bitrate. With other music genres, the difference isn't as apparent -- especially anything that's heavy on synth or midi, mainly because these are "noiseless" methods of making sound (there's either sound, or there isn't). They compress well because the instrument "voices" lack the resonance and complex noise frequencies of real instruments.
I don't really have anything against MP3 -- I use it quite a bit -- but my point is that OGG definitely provides a *much* superior sound.
What would be really cool -- and would get my $20, even, $200! -- is if they included the pot to smoke while listening to their music. They could get one of those "Tron" matter-to-binary-and-back gizmos. Scan the bud in British Columbia, download it in Ohio, then slowly drift towards the ceiling;)
Whether or not "big media" gets it is almost a moot point. These companies got to be big for one reason... they succesfully attracted large numbers of eyeballs to their publications and kept those eyeballs coming back. So how did they do it?
First off, these companies are mass media outlets. Their products are specifically designed and tailored to generate mass appeal -- in other words, their goal is to please the masses. And more precisely, to profit from them. They figured out a long time ago that real journalism doesn't pay the bills. Sensationalism, bias, and easily digestable sound bites are what the general public wants, and there are a lot more eyeballs belonging to the general public than any "elitist" group I've ever heard of.
But it doesn't end there. Suck and Feed went belly-up because society as a whole (the unwashed masses, if you will) are relatively stupid and easily manipulated. People don't want to have to form opinions of their own based on reported facts. They want to be told how their favorite anchor/reporter/celebrity feels about something so they can feel the same way. And that's what big media is best at -- convincing people that the guy or gal on the screen with the really nice hair and teeth shares the audience's views and concerns. Anyone in the audience who doesn't agree must have something wrong with them.
There's no conspiracy here. Just business. Choose the largest common denominators of the general public -- language, vocabulary, likes and dislikes -- then add money and easy access. Presto-change-o, instant success.
You've got a point, but we still have (in theory, anyways) 1st Amendment protection to say damn near anything we want. IANACLE (i am not a constitutional law expert), but I find it hard to believe that any American judge would find any merit whatsoever in the French suit. As far as a siezure warrant is concerned, I highly doubt a company the size of Yahoo (with how many thousand servers?) would have anything to fear. An individual, on the other hand, probably should worry.
I don't trust our government as far as I can kick'em, but I don't believe that the American judicial system would compromise one of the most important core Constitutional rights just to make the French happy.
Come to think of it, why the hell should we even care what France wants? An American in Paris gets treated like a dog. The French think Americans (and the rest of the world, for that matter) are just a bunch of uncouth, uncultured, unsophisticated idiots. I don't know about you, but I'm in no hurry to give up a single one of my rights as an American because some snooty French court has a hard-on for Nazi paraphernalia.
It really doesn't matter to anyone in the U.S. what a French (or Chinese, German, whatever) judge or court says is legal or illegal on the Internet.
Jurisdiction issues aside, how in the hell are they planning to enforce this ruling? Are they going to send the French police or military into the U.S. to arrest Yahoo executives? Will they impose trade sanctions -- "No more wine and cheese for you, you ignorant-Nazi-paraphernalia-auctioning-Americans!.
Maybe the French think that by making such a stink about Nazi stuff on the web, the world might forget France's ready acceptance of Nazi rule during the war. If the French hated the Nazi regime so damn much, then why didn't they do more to fight them off during the war -- back when it might have actually mattered!.
ASCAP and BMI are the ones that go after musicians that perform copyrighted works -- by suing the venues where they play -- and it hurts all musicians.
I used to play the coffee shop circuit in the Ohio/Penn region and ended up losing a deal with several Barnes and Noble cafes over one of these suits. Somebody at ASCAP/BMI told B&N that they would have to pay $150 to ASCAP/BMI for every single performance in every single store they own -- or face a lawsuit. B&N's response was to cut the number of performances from once or more a week per store to once a month per store (in most cases). What really got my pressure up is the fact that I only play my own material and do not perform 'cover' tunes written by others.
Technically, ASCAP/BMI can walk into any venue that offers live performances, dj's, or even a jukebox and demand to see the venue's ASCAP/BMI membership certificate. If the venue is not a current ASCAP/BMI member, they can force the venue to stop the performance and sue to stop all future performances until they ante up all the fines and fees.
They had no jurisdiction over my works, but because B&N and others didn't want to open themselves up to possible lawsuits, my booking opportunities were greatly diminished.
Most of the arguments I've been hearing center on copyright issues -- who owns the rights, fair use, etc. But there may be an angle here that could blow the RIAA and others right out of the water...
Isn't it illegal to intercept and/or interfere with private wire/wireless communications unless you have a court order to do so?
It seems to me that whether you're using Napster or Aimster or Gnutella -- whatever -- you are communicating over telephone lines (in whole or part) and should therefore be protected by federal wiretap laws. Snooping on a private communication or otherwise interfering with that communication should only be permitted by law enforcement and only when there is a court order to permit it. And to get a court order, don't you need to be able to prove that there is a reasonable suspicion of wrong-doing?
Maybe someone should try to bring charges against the RIAA for illegal wiretapping.
The company I work for pays a weekly "beeper bonus" for all those on call. You get $50/week extra to carry it plus a higher hourly rate if you get called in. We're paid well to begin with, but you'd be surprised how many people volunteer to be on call for that extra fifty bucks.
I'm also aware that many banks pay an "on-call" fee to employees responsible for keeping ATM machines full of cash over weekends.
Slashdot Mirror
From the article: "...for free distribution to anyone in the world," including residents of Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya, countries to which the United States controls exports."
The last I heard, Linux has been (and is) developed by folks from all over the world -- including the countries in question -- so how does "export" even come into play here?
Using SCO's own twisted logic, wouldn't SCO itself be responsible for "exporting" banned code to these countries by making its distros available on their FTP servers?
Oh man! A binary?? I've been dying to try this piece of code, but was never successful compiling it from CVS. Ended up using ReZound and Audacity (which are both good in their own rights), but judging from the Ardour screenshots, I think I'll be switching once the binary comes out.
I feel like a little kid waiting for Christmas. Hurry 'dem binaries, pleease!
IMHO, the NH system seems the better of the two. I'm sure there are loopholes, etc... but it definitely would cut down on claimants looking for a 26-week vacation after being laid off
Your comment likening collecting unemployment to a "vacation" is uninformed and demeaning. I'm currently unemployed and collecting -- after paying into the system for 20 years. With a wife and kid to support, I can barely get by on the unemployment checks and trust me, it's definitely not a vacation. What I get from unemployment is only one third of what I made when working. Try going from $1200/week to only $400/week without losing your home, car, savings, and everything else you've worked your entire life for. And keep in mind that the financial blow is only part of it -- it's a big hit to the ego when you go from bread-winner to babysitter, and when you figure in the feelings of fear, inadequacy, depression, uselessness, and the general frustration of trying to find a job doing what you love to do when there just aren't any to be had. And if you really want to know what it's like, then make sure you've got a few self-righteous morons around to remind you that you're a loser/slacker/freeloader just taking advantage of the system.
I have to say that Quanta has so far been my tool of choice for web development since switching to a Linux platform. I like to think of it as an InterDev "lite" -- it has all the useful editor and project functions I actually used under InterDev without all the overhead, crashes and expensive per-seat license.
The only things blatantly missing from Quanta (from my perspective anyways) are the database tools that InterDev has. It's nice to be able to view table and field properties, edit data, test SQL statements, etc., all from within the dev environment. But I'm not complaining. The PHP code completion/hints are excellent and the built-in HTML/PHP/CSS/Javascript reference docs are invaluable. Why they would disable the ability to copy from the docs pages to the editor are beyond me, but other than that I think it's a great tool.
#2 Existing hardware must remain usable. At a minimum, the printer, modem, and CD player/writer must work, and the new operating system must make them work without my having to tweak configuration files. If it can't get that far, it's not ready to inflict on the general public as a migration route, and I certainly will not recommend it to my friends.
#3 Existing software must remain usable unless the new operating system has equivalent features to the ones I use, there is no loss of data and data-transfer is easy.
Note: Requirements 2 and 3 eliminate WindowsXP as an upgrade route. I would need to buy a new computer, probably new peripherals, and replace some eXPensive software to get the dubious benefits of product-activation codes and embedded functions I don't want and can't delete.
At least we know she hasn't bought into Redmond's bullshit about XP's features.
Ardour is nice... on paper. Compiling it is a whole other story.
I couldn't agree with you more. I've yet to be able to compile Ardour -- every time you think you've got all the dependencies worked out, they slap you with another. And even when you have all the prerequisites installed, they can't be located during the compile.
I really hope they get this worked out -- it sounds like an awesome package -- but in the meantime I'll keep using my combo of Rezound and Audacity to get the job done.
Flamebait? sheesh...
Musta pissed off an Apple user.
Every platform switch is money in the bank for Adobe.
Personally, I'm surprised Adobe has kept developing for the Mac (even considering the core Mac demographic are designers/publishers) when the Apple market is so small and Apple itself is so damn difficult to work with. Supporting the Mac has got to be costing Adobe money, considering the development dollars invested compared to the number of installed units out there.
Just my $0.02US...
I switched from Mac to Windows several years ago -- mostly because I was tired of paying three times as much for a Mac as a comparably equipped PC cost. I've since moved on to Linux (and good 'ol Gimp), but I can tell you this from past experience -- Photoshop ran faster and with less crashes on a $1000 PC than it did on my $3000 Mac.
I'm all for companies like Apple, but only if they open their OSes up to other hardware platforms.
That's it.
f -a -fruckin-brain can do. I would love to use some more "colorful" words to describe this, but I'm too freakin pissed off to think straight.
I've had it with all this "I own the Internet" and "I own how many times you can click to purchase" and "I own shopping carts" and all the other patent nonsense that's been going around.
SERIOUSLY...
I'm going to flagrantly violate every stinking patent I can come across that tries to lock down "business methods" and other obvious extensions of what a computer/keyboard/monitor/network/person-with-hal
I work for myself. I'm not rich. What're they going to do, patent my furckin birthday and throw me in jail? Wanna SUE ME Bezos?? I wanna hear that stupid Bezos laugh as he spends a million dollars trying to sue someone who doesn't have shit -- I can sit in court ALL DAMN DAY. Can't get blood from a stone, as they say.
Screw'em. Bezos and his like can just bite me. I'm going to ONE-CLICK CHECKOUT myself all the way to the bank, and then probably to court. And then I'm going to laugh my freakin' head off all the way back to the bank with the free press (and resulting investor interest) I'll get from Wired and Slashdot articles/interviews and everyfreakin-body else who covers it.
Ahhh... feel much better now.
But I'm still going to do this -- a site will be launched with patented ONE-CLICK checkout, and any other patented "business methods" I can find.
Email me with any other patent-infringing features you can think of -- sfulk@zoominternet.net -- I'd love to set up a website with the only goal of being sued by as many dickhead companies as possible.
Why the hell is Google getting so ticked off about this? They should be happy that the world-at-large now equates "google" with the act of searching the internet. I don't hear of anyone "yahooing" or "alta-vista-ing" or even "lycosing" the web, even though they may use those sites to search.
Google needs to get a clue.
Maybe they could search for one.
After reviewing the FAQs on the Peppercoin site, it appears that the consumer will always be charged the 50 cents -- never the '$10'.
From what I can tell, what Peppercoin does is batch the transactions so that the total of all of them goes into *their* merchant account. I couldn't find out any info on how often they would distribute the funds to member merchants, but I'm sure the frequency of payments (triggered by number of total transactions or dollar amount) would be tied to merchant membership fees.
Just my $0.02US
If this stuff works like they say, it would be a great finish coat for cars. Instead of b*tching about it raining right after you give your ride a bath, the rain would *be* the bath! And with much of the country under drought conditions, think of all the water that could be conserved by eliminating the need to wash cars.
I'm a musician who's into home recording -- mostly acoustic stuff. I've experimented with converting my original recordings to MP3 and OGG and must say there is a *very* noticeable difference.
With acoustic and classical music, there are subtleties in the sound that I've never been able to reproduce with MP3 at *any* bitrate. What blew my mind was that OGG preserved them beautifully at only a 128k bitrate. With other music genres, the difference isn't as apparent -- especially anything that's heavy on synth or midi, mainly because these are "noiseless" methods of making sound (there's either sound, or there isn't). They compress well because the instrument "voices" lack the resonance and complex noise frequencies of real instruments.
I don't really have anything against MP3 -- I use it quite a bit -- but my point is that OGG definitely provides a *much* superior sound.
Just my two cents...
What would be really cool -- and would get my $20, even, $200! -- is if they included the pot to smoke while listening to their music. They could get one of those "Tron" matter-to-binary-and-back gizmos. Scan the bud in British Columbia, download it in Ohio, then slowly drift towards the ceiling ;)
Whether or not "big media" gets it is almost a moot point. These companies got to be big for one reason ... they succesfully attracted large numbers of eyeballs to their publications and kept those eyeballs coming back. So how did they do it?
First off, these companies are mass media outlets. Their products are specifically designed and tailored to generate mass appeal -- in other words, their goal is to please the masses . And more precisely, to profit from them. They figured out a long time ago that real journalism doesn't pay the bills. Sensationalism, bias, and easily digestable sound bites are what the general public wants, and there are a lot more eyeballs belonging to the general public than any "elitist" group I've ever heard of.
But it doesn't end there. Suck and Feed went belly-up because society as a whole (the unwashed masses, if you will) are relatively stupid and easily manipulated. People don't want to have to form opinions of their own based on reported facts. They want to be told how their favorite anchor/reporter/celebrity feels about something so they can feel the same way. And that's what big media is best at -- convincing people that the guy or gal on the screen with the really nice hair and teeth shares the audience's views and concerns. Anyone in the audience who doesn't agree must have something wrong with them.
There's no conspiracy here. Just business. Choose the largest common denominators of the general public -- language, vocabulary, likes and dislikes -- then add money and easy access. Presto-change-o, instant success.
You've got a point, but we still have (in theory, anyways) 1st Amendment protection to say damn near anything we want. IANACLE (i am not a constitutional law expert), but I find it hard to believe that any American judge would find any merit whatsoever in the French suit. As far as a siezure warrant is concerned, I highly doubt a company the size of Yahoo (with how many thousand servers?) would have anything to fear. An individual, on the other hand, probably should worry.
I don't trust our government as far as I can kick'em, but I don't believe that the American judicial system would compromise one of the most important core Constitutional rights just to make the French happy.
Come to think of it, why the hell should we even care what France wants? An American in Paris gets treated like a dog. The French think Americans (and the rest of the world, for that matter) are just a bunch of uncouth, uncultured, unsophisticated idiots. I don't know about you, but I'm in no hurry to give up a single one of my rights as an American because some snooty French court has a hard-on for Nazi paraphernalia.
It really doesn't matter to anyone in the U.S. what a French (or Chinese, German, whatever) judge or court says is legal or illegal on the Internet.
.
Jurisdiction issues aside, how in the hell are they planning to enforce this ruling? Are they going to send the French police or military into the U.S. to arrest Yahoo executives? Will they impose trade sanctions -- "No more wine and cheese for you, you ignorant-Nazi-paraphernalia-auctioning-Americans!
Maybe the French think that by making such a stink about Nazi stuff on the web, the world might forget France's ready acceptance of Nazi rule during the war. If the French hated the Nazi regime so damn much, then why didn't they do more to fight them off during the war -- back when it might have actually mattered!.
I've heard about Wilson's review for years, but this is the first chance I've had to actually read it.
Those who can write, write.
Those who can't, critique.
'nuff said
I used to play the coffee shop circuit in the Ohio/Penn region and ended up losing a deal with several Barnes and Noble cafes over one of these suits. Somebody at ASCAP/BMI told B&N that they would have to pay $150 to ASCAP/BMI for every single performance in every single store they own -- or face a lawsuit. B&N's response was to cut the number of performances from once or more a week per store to once a month per store (in most cases). What really got my pressure up is the fact that I only play my own material and do not perform 'cover' tunes written by others.
Technically, ASCAP/BMI can walk into any venue that offers live performances, dj's, or even a jukebox and demand to see the venue's ASCAP/BMI membership certificate. If the venue is not a current ASCAP/BMI member, they can force the venue to stop the performance and sue to stop all future performances until they ante up all the fines and fees.
They had no jurisdiction over my works, but because B&N and others didn't want to open themselves up to possible lawsuits, my booking opportunities were greatly diminished.
There's a song in here somewhere...
Most of the arguments I've been hearing center on copyright issues -- who owns the rights, fair use, etc. But there may be an angle here that could blow the RIAA and others right out of the water... Isn't it illegal to intercept and/or interfere with private wire/wireless communications unless you have a court order to do so? It seems to me that whether you're using Napster or Aimster or Gnutella -- whatever -- you are communicating over telephone lines (in whole or part) and should therefore be protected by federal wiretap laws. Snooping on a private communication or otherwise interfering with that communication should only be permitted by law enforcement and only when there is a court order to permit it. And to get a court order, don't you need to be able to prove that there is a reasonable suspicion of wrong-doing? Maybe someone should try to bring charges against the RIAA for illegal wiretapping.
The company I work for pays a weekly "beeper bonus" for all those on call. You get $50/week extra to carry it plus a higher hourly rate if you get called in. We're paid well to begin with, but you'd be surprised how many people volunteer to be on call for that extra fifty bucks.
I'm also aware that many banks pay an "on-call" fee to employees responsible for keeping ATM machines full of cash over weekends.