After they do all that, they'll insist their profit loss is due to massive piracy. The stupid government will believe them and give them "royalties" off of some other product.
You know, it would be too bad if this picture was posted all over the internet with the title "Spammer Rodona Garst". Poor Ms. Garst--she never saw it cumming.;-)
Why does the Linux kernel set the exec flag for stack pages? I don't see any reason why it should. If the program needs to load code, then it can just use one of the lower level calls to allocate the memory as executable. Pages used only for storing data should not be executable. I think I'll try to find this patch...
Also the obligatory: is it free as in RMS's version of Free, or free as in I can link anything into it--including proprietary software, software licensed as free for non-profit use, or any other license?
My comparison wasn't wrong, just the way you interpreted it. I didn't say Nazi Germany was unique--I just gave it as one example. I'm also not saying that things won't end up like what you said in your last paragraph. Both scenarios are possiblities.
First, the horror of Nazi Germany was the industrial-scale murder of millions of members of minorities (not only Jews)
Do you think that happened overnight? Things slowly built up to that. As I understand it, they didn't start slaughtering people in Germany--the Nazis started on foreign soil.
How is my comparison like the Nazis? First they start forcing people with this gene to go on "medication" since these people will supposedly commit crimes if they don't. That doesn't solve the crime problem, so they decide to put these people in concentration camps...oops...I mean "mental institutions"...oops...I mean "place for the socially challenged". Then things go downhill from there...
Why don't you think that can happen in the US? In this country they blamemonger everything.
Fatty food is killing people because it gives them heart attacks--we should sue anyone who tries to sell it...who cares if the poor may depend this food to survive--they should just buy more expensive stuff and cut their rations.
Drugs cause countless social problems--we should ban them so everyone has to go to a corrupt HMO just to get a prescription, and the FDA can decline terminal patients a potentially life saving experimental medication.
Many products are "dangerous"--we should make manufacturers tack on countless warnings for even the most well known and obvious dangers, even to the point where the warnings on products that have lesser known and really dangerous problems will be ignored because there is too much crap to read.
Americans evidently still think there is nothing wrong with discriminating against these other groups.
I agree, discrimination is alive and well in the US. However I'd also like to point out your list is the same as the biparty's list. Because of the current political climate and your list, I have to wonder if you believe that the groups on your list can't discriminate and the only discrimination happens against the groups on your list. Capitalists, asians, caucasians, and even heterosexuals are also discriminated against. In fact some people discriminate against everyone that is not in their religion. I live in such an area and I am the minority here--even though I don't fit into any of the groups on your list...
This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about. How would forcing medication on those with this gene help? The article said people with this gene who were also maltreated. Preventing child abuse may do much more than any medication. In fact the article talks about this:
They also fear that governments may turn to using drugs to fight crime, rather than tackling deep-rooted social problems.
It looks like you still have to opt-out, so I'm not sure how effective this law will be at stopping spam. One good point, it seems to make forging headers illegal.
Now they will probably test everyone for this gene along with drugs. Everyone that happens to have this gene won't be able to get a job. Just substitute "crime gene" for Jew, and we have Nazi Germany all over again...
The IPs are somewhat constant. In fact, the entire 8 or so months I was on @home network, my IP address never changed. I haven't paid too much attention since AT&T switched to their own network in December, but I think once they gave me the new IP, it hasn't changed either...
Then you will be playing right into their hands. The more music you illegally share, the more arguments the RIAA will have to increase their taxes and enforce supposed "anti-piracy" measures. Even if people like you caused 50% of their sales to go down, they would still be making a huge profit, and if they increased their "royalties", then they may end up making more money in the long run.
The AC that I replied to is correct. You can help by creating your own music and encouraging others to do so too. Also make sure you put in a license that lets everyone know this music is free, otherwise people won't know it's legal and the RIAA may try to use this DoS law and the DMCA against them--they think all good music must come from their members.
Since you have that huge FTP server, why not use it to distribute legal free music and video? If open source could be done with music and movies the way it has with software, then it'd be real competition for the entertainment cartel. Just think of the cartel like Microsoft, and the other side like Linux / FreeBSD.
If you want to buy CDs or go to concerts, then make sure the artist is independent. If you go to the concert of an artist owned by the RIAA, then you are still supporting them. One place you can buy independent music is CD baby.
But this is only half of the solution--that was my point. The other thing that needs to be done is convince the public and policy makers that there are alternatives to the entertainment cartel, and laws shouldn't be written to favor the cartel...
Yes, but my point was that when people find out that the encoding equipment will cost the same as the players, many will think there is no problem. They will not realize that they won't be able distribute their content.
I've tried ogg quality 0. It is the lowest quality setting and it sucks. Use at least level 1.
You are correct in questioning the oggq0. Me thinks comparing a file encoded using a quality setting with one using a fixed bitrate setting is like comparing apples and oranges. I didn't check (as this seems to be a MS Windows only test), but I assume they used sample rates of 44100 Hz. I think they should've thrown in some 22050 Hz samples and tested those. I think encoding at 64 bits, the lower sample rates would perform better--that's how I encode many of my oggs...
Hopefully the ogg people will find a way to make the quality settings work well--it seems to be a new feature.
That'll help, however it won't stop them from making it illegal for you to create and distribute your own music. Nor will it stop them from getting your money.
Everytime their sales slip (or everyone in the country doesn't buy the latest "pop sensation"), they insist it is because of piracy, not the economy or the public refusing to buy from RIAA companies. They may do a similar thing that Microsoft did. (section E) The feds didn't even try to prosecute MS for this, even though I think it is their worst anti-trust violation!
Maybe that store is different, but many of those stores jack up the non-card prices. So you would be "saving" money with the card at that store, however the card price be the same as a store without cards. The card stores are a rip-off no matter what way you look at it.
Where am I, a piker who puts together stuff with a PC and freeware, going to get expensive watermarking equipment?
Just so you know what to look out for: the watermarking/DRM equipment will most likely not be expensive. The "equipment" to generate/read the watermarks/DRM will just be software and/or a chip that uses things like public/private key cryptography and digital signatures. The keys to produce and widely distribute DRM/watermarks will be expensive. Note that the software or chip to encode will not be any more expensive than the stuff to decode, however it'll probably increase the cost of your licensed computer/recorder/player by a noticable amount at any rate.
You could create your own keys, however I presume that many devices and player software will only play files with keys made by some future DRM consortium. The entertainment cartel will use this as an argument: people can still make their own content. The problem with it is politicians and the general public will believe this and not realize that it will limit them from distributing their content.
Likewise, what would be the impact on those of us who don't live in the US, but might want to export our created media there (I have a lot of US friends and I like to share)?
The entertainment cartel may create a more fine-grained region control than even DVDs. There could be different DRM constortiums in each country, so if you want to distribute something internationally, you'll have to buy keys for each country you wish to distribute your media...or perhaps they'll esablish different formats in different regions--like NTSC vs PAL.
We (here in Canada) already have levies on blank media (yeah, the equivalent to the MP/RIAA gets paid for every CD-ROM backup I make) -- what more could they want?
I'm in the US, we have those levies too. I am also offended that I have to pay "taxes" to the entertainment cartel for all the blank media and CD-RW drives that I legally use. I don't know about Canada, but here we also pay it on "recording" devices. What they want is the same 50% of everyone's income that the government takes and be a government entity that can enforce "anti-piracy" laws (really meaning anti-competition laws) and restrict trade of "non-approved" video, text, and audio such as your stuff, independent films/music, and unfavorable reviews of cartel products.
I am not a game programmer, but I have a few suggestions that may help out:
I don't know how much programming experience you have, but from what you said, it seems you only know some Visual Basic. You may want to start with a good high level language then move to C/C++. How about Java? If you learn it properly, it should teach you good object oriented programming techniques--plus it has some similarities to C++. Python may be a good contender as well, however I haven't done much with it, so I can't say. I heard both those languages have OpenGL interfaces. They allow you to link with C, so you can ease your way into C/C++.
You may want to check out Crystal Space, OGRE, and other open source game libraries/engines. They could be a good stepping stone to building your first game.
You may want to learn some assembly language. You probably won't write entire programs in it, however at times you may need to optimize certain parts of your code. In addition, it can help you understand how the compiler/CPU interprets the code and how to make it run faster. I'm not sure of a good book/site to learn assembly--most of my info about it is outdated. Going to the processor manufacturer's sites will give you documentation for the instruction sets at the very least.
When you look at the assembly info, make sure you learn the MMX instructions. They should speed up your game code in some situations. MMX macros for C also exist too--I thought there was one called libMMX. I can't seem to find it now.
It would also be a good idea to learn as much as you can about math and physics like the other poster said. I recommend Technical Mathematics with Caculus by Paul Calter--it goes from very basic math all the way through caculus. As for physics, I don't have any suggestions, however the Calter book does touch on some physics concepts.
Those questions seemed very loaded. Like the one asking if there is nothing wrong with downloading music for free. What? Why should there be anything wrong with it? Maybe if they had asked whether or not it was wrong to download music without the copyright owner's authorization. It seems the cartel's FUD is working. Half the people said it was wrong just to download music from the internet--as if there is some moral dilemma just using the network reguardless of actually committing any illegal act!
I agree with your post, however why do they need lossless compression? I would think having high quality mp3s (or oggs) and just burn the compressed files on a data track along with the audio tracks should do just fine.
Also, as for extras, they could also burn time indexed lyric files onto the data track--I don't know of any standard format for time indexed lyric files, however it can't be hard to create one. Hell, they could even allow you to buy all sorts of files and burn them on the disc--software, ebooks, music videos, pictures.
The only problem is getting machines that can view/play all that extra information for a resonable price--I don't think computers are quite there yet...well unless you count an ancient machine running Linux, however most people probably couldn't set it up. The game consoles are probably almost there, however they still need a little more software on the mainboard. What is needed is a computing appliance that runs for under $200 or even $100 and doesn't need to be set up--those could not only view the data, but they could also browse the web, read email, do wordprocessing, etc. We'd already be there if it wasn't for Master Bill and his resource chugging OS--his company also bought out WebTV and killed it.
As for printing the covers: I don't think printing the thing should be a problem. I don't imagine writing a program that allows one to select the image on the cover and print all the lyrics would be very difficult. The problem I can think of is cost--wouldn't printing with inkjets and color laser printers be expensive? Maybe they could just do B&W? Then again, it is only one sheet of paper, maybe they can just charge an extra dollar if you want a cover. That should take care of the printing and high quality photo paper (or whatever they use) costs.
I don't see any 'extras' that you get with normal music CDs that you wouldn't get with a well designed system doing you described.
They could have listening stations, then you could search through the entire database and find the artists you like. They could also allow employees to choose what music is playing over the stores loudspeakers too...you won't necessarily get only Britney Spears that way.
Would someone please show the politicians that this is the real reason broadband hasn't taken off. I keep seeing crap that says it is because there is no video on demand or DRM. Like in the CBDTPA or the Technology Administration's Public Workshop on Digital Entertainment and Rights Management.
P2P is hardly "useless for legal reasons." For one, it can be used to reduce bandwidth on overloaded servers. I know of one P2P program that allows you to use Debian's apt system for downloading from peers instead of the main sites. It also has a chatting system and a group messaging system (kind of like usenet, but kind of not). Those are quite useful legal reasons.
You can get those services via other methods, however there are reasons to use P2P over those other methods. Downloading may work better than an overloaded server that is provided by a non-profit organization--you are actually helping them out as it costs them less money that way.
It is a way to use group messaging protocols other than usenet without needing a server--something for those people who are tired of trolls, spam, censorship and etc....or for people who want to try out new experimental protocols. It is a way to chat with people potentially without the problems of central servers--netsplits, poor service, advertisments, required to use one ISP's crappy IM client, etc, etc... There are also many other uses for P2P, many of which probably haven't even been conceived of yet.
The only reason P2P technolgy seems to be focused on copyright infringement is because the entertainment cartel keeps broadcasting that the only uses for P2P programs are to "steal" music and movies from them. So many people writing P2P programs think that trading music and video files are the "killer app" for this technology, and people running P2P programs mostly came because they heard on the news that they can get free movies and music via P2P services.
GNU xpdf is a very crappy program by pretty much any standard. Don't inflict it on other people! In fact, IMO, Acrobat Reader is a very crappy program too, however I imagine some people will disagree with that one.
There are also things you can download to convert it to html.
Yes, which gives them no excuse for not providing an html version on the web. After all, html is the standard format for documents on the web. Why shouldn't I be able to view their documents with my browser?
BTW, PDFs are made for formatting documents on paper not a computer screen. That may be good if you need to print it out, but otherwise it isn't.
In fact, every PDF file I've looked at uses black text on a bright white background--very bad for viewing on a computer--when your monitor is showing lots of white, it is just like staring into a lightbulb. I remember several years ago when there were so many complaints from office employees about eye strain that the government came out with regulations that basicly suggests that monitors should have "filters" on them (that are really just sunglasses). This was "coincedently" just a few years after MS Windows (you know: the OS with the paperwhite colors) came out. I doubt there would be those kind of problems if a dark background was used.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes exactly, that and CD writing drives. I meant more royalties off of more products.
Gimme a break--I went to public school. ;-)
After they do all that, they'll insist their profit loss is due to massive piracy. The stupid government will believe them and give them "royalties" off of some other product.
You know, it would be too bad if this picture was posted all over the internet with the title "Spammer Rodona Garst". Poor Ms. Garst--she never saw it cumming. ;-)
Why does the Linux kernel set the exec flag for stack pages? I don't see any reason why it should. If the program needs to load code, then it can just use one of the lower level calls to allocate the memory as executable. Pages used only for storing data should not be executable. I think I'll try to find this patch...
Also the obligatory: is it free as in RMS's version of Free, or free as in I can link anything into it--including proprietary software, software licensed as free for non-profit use, or any other license?
My comparison wasn't wrong, just the way you interpreted it. I didn't say Nazi Germany was unique--I just gave it as one example. I'm also not saying that things won't end up like what you said in your last paragraph. Both scenarios are possiblities.
Do you think that happened overnight? Things slowly built up to that. As I understand it, they didn't start slaughtering people in Germany--the Nazis started on foreign soil.
How is my comparison like the Nazis? First they start forcing people with this gene to go on "medication" since these people will supposedly commit crimes if they don't. That doesn't solve the crime problem, so they decide to put these people in concentration camps...oops...I mean "mental institutions"...oops...I mean "place for the socially challenged". Then things go downhill from there...
Why don't you think that can happen in the US? In this country they blamemonger everything.
Fatty food is killing people because it gives them heart attacks--we should sue anyone who tries to sell it...who cares if the poor may depend this food to survive--they should just buy more expensive stuff and cut their rations.
Drugs cause countless social problems--we should ban them so everyone has to go to a corrupt HMO just to get a prescription, and the FDA can decline terminal patients a potentially life saving experimental medication.
Many products are "dangerous"--we should make manufacturers tack on countless warnings for even the most well known and obvious dangers, even to the point where the warnings on products that have lesser known and really dangerous problems will be ignored because there is too much crap to read.
I agree, discrimination is alive and well in the US. However I'd also like to point out your list is the same as the biparty's list. Because of the current political climate and your list, I have to wonder if you believe that the groups on your list can't discriminate and the only discrimination happens against the groups on your list. Capitalists, asians, caucasians, and even heterosexuals are also discriminated against. In fact some people discriminate against everyone that is not in their religion. I live in such an area and I am the minority here--even though I don't fit into any of the groups on your list...
This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about. How would forcing medication on those with this gene help? The article said people with this gene who were also maltreated. Preventing child abuse may do much more than any medication. In fact the article talks about this:
I found the Utah law here.
It looks like you still have to opt-out, so I'm not sure how effective this law will be at stopping spam. One good point, it seems to make forging headers illegal.
Now they will probably test everyone for this gene along with drugs. Everyone that happens to have this gene won't be able to get a job. Just substitute "crime gene" for Jew, and we have Nazi Germany all over again...
The IPs are somewhat constant. In fact, the entire 8 or so months I was on @home network, my IP address never changed. I haven't paid too much attention since AT&T switched to their own network in December, but I think once they gave me the new IP, it hasn't changed either...
Then you will be playing right into their hands. The more music you illegally share, the more arguments the RIAA will have to increase their taxes and enforce supposed "anti-piracy" measures. Even if people like you caused 50% of their sales to go down, they would still be making a huge profit, and if they increased their "royalties", then they may end up making more money in the long run.
The AC that I replied to is correct. You can help by creating your own music and encouraging others to do so too. Also make sure you put in a license that lets everyone know this music is free, otherwise people won't know it's legal and the RIAA may try to use this DoS law and the DMCA against them--they think all good music must come from their members.
Since you have that huge FTP server, why not use it to distribute legal free music and video? If open source could be done with music and movies the way it has with software, then it'd be real competition for the entertainment cartel. Just think of the cartel like Microsoft, and the other side like Linux / FreeBSD.
If you want to buy CDs or go to concerts, then make sure the artist is independent. If you go to the concert of an artist owned by the RIAA, then you are still supporting them. One place you can buy independent music is CD baby.
But this is only half of the solution--that was my point. The other thing that needs to be done is convince the public and policy makers that there are alternatives to the entertainment cartel, and laws shouldn't be written to favor the cartel...
Yes, but my point was that when people find out that the encoding equipment will cost the same as the players, many will think there is no problem. They will not realize that they won't be able distribute their content.
I've tried ogg quality 0. It is the lowest quality setting and it sucks. Use at least level 1.
You are correct in questioning the oggq0. Me thinks comparing a file encoded using a quality setting with one using a fixed bitrate setting is like comparing apples and oranges. I didn't check (as this seems to be a MS Windows only test), but I assume they used sample rates of 44100 Hz. I think they should've thrown in some 22050 Hz samples and tested those. I think encoding at 64 bits, the lower sample rates would perform better--that's how I encode many of my oggs...
Hopefully the ogg people will find a way to make the quality settings work well--it seems to be a new feature.
That'll help, however it won't stop them from making it illegal for you to create and distribute your own music. Nor will it stop them from getting your money.
Everytime their sales slip (or everyone in the country doesn't buy the latest "pop sensation"), they insist it is because of piracy, not the economy or the public refusing to buy from RIAA companies. They may do a similar thing that Microsoft did. (section E) The feds didn't even try to prosecute MS for this, even though I think it is their worst anti-trust violation!
In fact, if you live in the US (and some other countries), you pay "royalties" to them on every CD writing drive you buy and every blank music CD you burn. It doesn't matter if it is your own music, or music you are legally allowed to copy--they still take it.
As long as I can remember, there have been lots people openly willing to DoS and attack spammer's computers. Sarcasm: It has worked well hasn't it?
More sarcasm: It should work well for the RIAA. Their attacks will stop all piracy and won't do any damage to innocent people's computers.
Yeah right...and next I'll hear that the entertainment cartel doesn't price fix or push competitors out of the market...
I have to wonder if they are doing this crap just so they can either take total control of the internet or shut it down.
Maybe that store is different, but many of those stores jack up the non-card prices. So you would be "saving" money with the card at that store, however the card price be the same as a store without cards. The card stores are a rip-off no matter what way you look at it.
Just so you know what to look out for: the watermarking/DRM equipment will most likely not be expensive. The "equipment" to generate/read the watermarks/DRM will just be software and/or a chip that uses things like public/private key cryptography and digital signatures. The keys to produce and widely distribute DRM/watermarks will be expensive. Note that the software or chip to encode will not be any more expensive than the stuff to decode, however it'll probably increase the cost of your licensed computer/recorder/player by a noticable amount at any rate.
You could create your own keys, however I presume that many devices and player software will only play files with keys made by some future DRM consortium. The entertainment cartel will use this as an argument: people can still make their own content. The problem with it is politicians and the general public will believe this and not realize that it will limit them from distributing their content.
The entertainment cartel may create a more fine-grained region control than even DVDs. There could be different DRM constortiums in each country, so if you want to distribute something internationally, you'll have to buy keys for each country you wish to distribute your media. ..or perhaps they'll esablish different formats in different regions--like NTSC vs PAL.
I'm in the US, we have those levies too. I am also offended that I have to pay "taxes" to the entertainment cartel for all the blank media and CD-RW drives that I legally use. I don't know about Canada, but here we also pay it on "recording" devices. What they want is the same 50% of everyone's income that the government takes and be a government entity that can enforce "anti-piracy" laws (really meaning anti-competition laws) and restrict trade of "non-approved" video, text, and audio such as your stuff, independent films/music, and unfavorable reviews of cartel products.
I am not a game programmer, but I have a few suggestions that may help out:
I don't know how much programming experience you have, but from what you said, it seems you only know some Visual Basic. You may want to start with a good high level language then move to C/C++. How about Java? If you learn it properly, it should teach you good object oriented programming techniques--plus it has some similarities to C++. Python may be a good contender as well, however I haven't done much with it, so I can't say. I heard both those languages have OpenGL interfaces. They allow you to link with C, so you can ease your way into C/C++.
You may want to check out Crystal Space, OGRE, and other open source game libraries/engines. They could be a good stepping stone to building your first game.
You may want to learn some assembly language. You probably won't write entire programs in it, however at times you may need to optimize certain parts of your code. In addition, it can help you understand how the compiler/CPU interprets the code and how to make it run faster. I'm not sure of a good book/site to learn assembly--most of my info about it is outdated. Going to the processor manufacturer's sites will give you documentation for the instruction sets at the very least.
When you look at the assembly info, make sure you learn the MMX instructions. They should speed up your game code in some situations. MMX macros for C also exist too--I thought there was one called libMMX. I can't seem to find it now.
Usenet can be a good help too. The comp.graphics.algorithms FAQ has lots of information.
It would also be a good idea to learn as much as you can about math and physics like the other poster said. I recommend Technical Mathematics with Caculus by Paul Calter--it goes from very basic math all the way through caculus. As for physics, I don't have any suggestions, however the Calter book does touch on some physics concepts.
Whatch as y de sendadors whant de peoples ta b' educayted bye de pubic schul sestym. Day wont d' peoples ta b' cept dern.
Those questions seemed very loaded. Like the one asking if there is nothing wrong with downloading music for free. What? Why should there be anything wrong with it? Maybe if they had asked whether or not it was wrong to download music without the copyright owner's authorization. It seems the cartel's FUD is working. Half the people said it was wrong just to download music from the internet--as if there is some moral dilemma just using the network reguardless of actually committing any illegal act!
I agree with your post, however why do they need lossless compression? I would think having high quality mp3s (or oggs) and just burn the compressed files on a data track along with the audio tracks should do just fine.
Also, as for extras, they could also burn time indexed lyric files onto the data track--I don't know of any standard format for time indexed lyric files, however it can't be hard to create one. Hell, they could even allow you to buy all sorts of files and burn them on the disc--software, ebooks, music videos, pictures.
The only problem is getting machines that can view/play all that extra information for a resonable price--I don't think computers are quite there yet...well unless you count an ancient machine running Linux, however most people probably couldn't set it up. The game consoles are probably almost there, however they still need a little more software on the mainboard. What is needed is a computing appliance that runs for under $200 or even $100 and doesn't need to be set up--those could not only view the data, but they could also browse the web, read email, do wordprocessing, etc. We'd already be there if it wasn't for Master Bill and his resource chugging OS--his company also bought out WebTV and killed it.
As for printing the covers: I don't think printing the thing should be a problem. I don't imagine writing a program that allows one to select the image on the cover and print all the lyrics would be very difficult. The problem I can think of is cost--wouldn't printing with inkjets and color laser printers be expensive? Maybe they could just do B&W? Then again, it is only one sheet of paper, maybe they can just charge an extra dollar if you want a cover. That should take care of the printing and high quality photo paper (or whatever they use) costs.
I don't see any 'extras' that you get with normal music CDs that you wouldn't get with a well designed system doing you described.
They could have listening stations, then you could search through the entire database and find the artists you like. They could also allow employees to choose what music is playing over the stores loudspeakers too...you won't necessarily get only Britney Spears that way.
Would someone please show the politicians that this is the real reason broadband hasn't taken off. I keep seeing crap that says it is because there is no video on demand or DRM. Like in the CBDTPA or the Technology Administration's Public Workshop on Digital Entertainment and Rights Management.
P2P is hardly "useless for legal reasons." For one, it can be used to reduce bandwidth on overloaded servers. I know of one P2P program that allows you to use Debian's apt system for downloading from peers instead of the main sites. It also has a chatting system and a group messaging system (kind of like usenet, but kind of not). Those are quite useful legal reasons.
You can get those services via other methods, however there are reasons to use P2P over those other methods. Downloading may work better than an overloaded server that is provided by a non-profit organization--you are actually helping them out as it costs them less money that way.
It is a way to use group messaging protocols other than usenet without needing a server--something for those people who are tired of trolls, spam, censorship and etc. ...or for people who want to try out new experimental protocols. It is a way to chat with people potentially without the problems of central servers--netsplits, poor service, advertisments, required to use one ISP's crappy IM client, etc, etc... There are also many other uses for P2P, many of which probably haven't even been conceived of yet.
The only reason P2P technolgy seems to be focused on copyright infringement is because the entertainment cartel keeps broadcasting that the only uses for P2P programs are to "steal" music and movies from them. So many people writing P2P programs think that trading music and video files are the "killer app" for this technology, and people running P2P programs mostly came because they heard on the news that they can get free movies and music via P2P services.
GNU xpdf is a very crappy program by pretty much any standard. Don't inflict it on other people! In fact, IMO, Acrobat Reader is a very crappy program too, however I imagine some people will disagree with that one.
Yes, which gives them no excuse for not providing an html version on the web. After all, html is the standard format for documents on the web. Why shouldn't I be able to view their documents with my browser?
BTW, PDFs are made for formatting documents on paper not a computer screen. That may be good if you need to print it out, but otherwise it isn't.
In fact, every PDF file I've looked at uses black text on a bright white background--very bad for viewing on a computer--when your monitor is showing lots of white, it is just like staring into a lightbulb. I remember several years ago when there were so many complaints from office employees about eye strain that the government came out with regulations that basicly suggests that monitors should have "filters" on them (that are really just sunglasses). This was "coincedently" just a few years after MS Windows (you know: the OS with the paperwhite colors) came out. I doubt there would be those kind of problems if a dark background was used.