Yep. At least the Republicans openly embrace their idealology, and you can agree or disagree with it, but you know where they stand.
The Dems, however, seem to say one thing but quite often they actually go do something opposite of what they preach. In actions, the two parties are often not that terribly different.
The problem, simply put, is that any politician who wants to be seen by his constituents as "doing something" is going to try and pass bills into laws; and what do laws do ? In a word, they restrict, they take away the ability to do something. There is no law that actually grants any rights or privileges except for those laws which oppose or amend a preexisting law which denied something in the first place. Inherently, if there is no law regarding something, it's understood to be legal until addressed otherwise.
Not to sound like an anarchist or anything, because I'm definitely not, but that's all laws essentially do, they whittle away rights, abilities, and power - the problem is determining if a particular ability or power is "right" or "wrong", of course, annd that's where money and lobbyists come in; and they routinely woo and win over the democrats just as they do the republicans.
Those who are liberal and truly progressive should really look towards a different party than the deceptocrats. Maybe give the Libertarians a shot or something. What we really need though is a "moderate" party. Just my two cents.
I've known posters not to RTFA before, but apparently, this guy didn't even read the intro paragraph right here on slashdot !
Back on topic, I see two possible outcomes of this kind of action; the music industry will successfully lobby congress into imposing severe restrictions on the Internet Music Trade and we'll all be screwed by it, or conversely, the music industry model, as it currently stands, will disappear almost all together. That could also be hurtful if it deflates too rapidly, but with attitudes and actions like this, they're only shooting themselves in the foot.
It doesn't seem likely that it can continue to lamely limp along as it has for a whole lot longer, harassing musicians and music lovers alike.
The thing is, people who are accustomed to having money and power like to give up neither; those two things are at least as addictive and destructive, if not more, than heroin.
I've never heard of him before, but now I'll have to check it out.
This is the "model" I've wanted to take, using the Internet for distribution and exposure, and certainly I'd give some songs under the Creative Commons - not all songs are hit material, even from the very best musicians.
If nothing else, this is one thing the music consumer is benefiting from in the digital age: he/she can now pick and choose the specific songs he/she wants to pay for, and not get stuck with the traditional "album filler" that was prevalent in the past. (While I'm not sure the bands themselves viewed these "lesser" tunes as album filler, the general public almost certainly always has. Part of that is due, I'm sure, to the artist mindset of everything they create being "their baby" to some extent.)
I just wonder how long before the RIAA finds some silly reason for a trumped up charge to hit Coulton and his contemporary peers with, seeing how they're not getting a piece of the action here.
Ardour is certainly looking better and better everytime I check on it.
The use of VSTs is a major point for me, but the article says they're supported only via a wrapper.
There is still a long way to go, before it can match something like SONAR or Cubase or Logic on features and flexibility.
At the end of the day, I would far prefer to use a linux system for music production, (rather than Windows), but for the time being, SONAR is my choice. Cubase is just too expensive and a little too quirky. Pro-Tools is just now catching up on MIDI features with the other big players, and MOTU and Logic are Mac only. I haven't looked at Orion, but I really do hope someday to be satisfied with Ardour or something very similar - but that's probably several years away still.
I don't think any one single system is the "answer", be it capitalism, or some form of communism or socialism.
That's why our current system is something of an integration of capitalism and socialism, like a system of checks and balances, each hopefully strengthens where the other has a weakness.
No system, however, will ever be perfect, even the hybrids, because it all comes down to human nature, and we are not perfect. For that reason, I don't see us as capable of creating a perfect system, but the hybrid system is probably the best.
It boils down to this : people need motivation. For hypothetical purposes, let's say we have a Utopian society such as that in Star Trek; all needs are provided for, there is no poverty, and there doesn't seem to be money, either, for that matter. What then, would motivate people to work, or more importantly, take on the harder jobs from the pool of jobs that are available? What about jobs that were dangerous, tedious, or required a lot of education and work ? If everyone gets the same "pay" and the same living conditions, why might someone feel compelled to become a brain surgeon when they could enjoy the same life comforts as a mailman ? Capitalism addresses this human condition whereas other systems seem to wear rose tinted glasses; but, like you point out, Capitalism also has it's problems; the other extreme leads to greed.
There is only one deadly sin: Greed. The other 6 are merely variations and different degrees of greed.
I think this especially rings true today where DAWs are commonplace (ProTools, Cubase, etc..) and the Internet is an effective medium to distribute music.
The model is changing, or at least, it should be. Eventually, record companies will either go bye-byes, or merge into movie production houses where blockbuster movies are still ventures that can't be done on a shoe string budget, consistently. Maybe some year even the movie studios will go bye-byes too, depending on how graphics tech and hardware continue to evolve, with all virtual actors and voices.
How do they do the drilling on the drives of laptops that get stolen?
They don't. Instead they just use Sony's batteries. Takes care of both data and thief in one blow.
LOL ! That gives me an idea - would it be possible to write a Lojack type app, which when triggered remotely and covertly, would stress the power supply and make the batteries explode ?
That would teach a thief to steal laptops. (Or teach a scumbag to buy stolen laptops for that matter)
It's not bad at all, very powerful, but a bit obtuse at times.
Now that Thunderbird has an extension to switch between plain text and HTML with the click of a button (or rather, now that I recently learned about that) I might switch over to Tbird.
Arnie didn't use the word "passionate," and he said something that was, indeed, offensive to me and others:
"I mean, they (Cubans and Puerto Ricans) are all very hot...they have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them and together that makes it,"
Someone please tell me what "Latino blood" is, and how and what traits it pre-determines?
If you don't know, then how can you be offended ?
That'd be like me calling you a " pinazarriast " and you go, "What ?? How dare you ! I'm so offended !..um.. what's a pinazarriast anyway ? "
Trying to resist the urge to make yet another bad Deja Vu joke, I offer up this question: Has anyone ever had something like Deja Vu, but where they feel familiarity of an event or situation, not from a memory of real life, but that it occurred in a dream that they can't quite remember? I get this sometimes, and it's much creepier (IMHO)
Yeah, that's how it usually feels to me when I get it. I usually get a "bout" of deja vu every few years, in a cluster of 2 to 3 events, and then years go by without another "event".
and I'll bet you're still under 30, whippersnapper;-)
Yeah, those were the good ol' days though, weren't they ?
The Internet was taking off, everyone suddenly accepted and wanted personal computers,
I'd just gotten into it all at the rip ol' age of 34 (latecomer, I know).
The one sad thing is, Quake was a lot more fun to play than Quake4. Is it just me ?
.. Google has had more lawsuits and legal complaints against it ever since it went public ?
In this particular instance, I'm not saying the plaintiff is in the wrong, (they sound fairly reasonable enough), but now that Google is no longer just a "stone", people from all over are looking to get blood, whereas before, it seemed that Google could do no wrong.
No doubt part of that is due to Google's business model expansion, but the legal troubles don't seem commensurate with their growth.
I'd be surprised if requiring a headset changed anything.
It's usually not so much the act of holding the cellphone, that's distracting for most of these people that are, IMO, unable to walk and chew gum at the same time, I think it's the conversation that they get lost in.
Holding a cell phone is really no more challenging than say, changing out a CD or holding a drink, and certainly not as difficult (or crazy) as applying makeup, yet there's never been a movement against those specific activities. The cell phone conversation just seems to send some into la-la land.
I suspect that an intra-vehicular conversation would also be just as likely to result in an accident with some drivers, y'know, the kind that prefer to keep their eyes on the passenger rather than the road.
Only 11 Bil ? Crap, we'll hit that in no time. We're more than halfway there now, and growing at an exponential rate, of course.
The answer is to invent the shrink ray and reduce us all down to the size of insects !
Well, either that, or terraform Mars. I wonder how long before Dell tries to buy it ?
Wow, I can see that interest in Novell is high ! lol
I take every announcement I read with a grain of salt. Sometimes the whole salt shaker.
Novell has shifted gears so many times in the past it's hard to get excited about anything.
Typically, I find that the number of buzzwords used in the marketing hype is inversely porportional to the ability of the product to do what they actually claim.
At least they've moved nearly all the server services over to the linux kernel though; that's a good base to work from.
You beat me to it, Doc.
Your argument is not inane at all.
Whatever licensing fees Hollywood might derive from video games is trivialized by the beating they're taking from the video game market itself. Only an extremely tiny handful of movies or TV shows lend themselves for translation to a video game.
Fewer people go to the theatre these days, with home theatre available, and video games, not to mention most movies are sucky anwyay, anymore..
Mostly, I'm sure the television and Hollywood industries would love to get the heat off of themselves by deferring to video games as the source of all media inspired violence. They've been taking the brunt of that argument for years, and now they see an opportunity to give that monkey on their back to someone else, killing two birds with one stone, in effect.
I'd rather live on a net where I can't talk about Nazis, than on one where puritanical hypocrits prevent me from seeing boobs!
If you have a hard time finding boobs on the 'net, you seriously need to learn how to use a search engine. No one is preventing the show of boobs on the 'net.
Television, somewhat; Internet, no.
I agree with watching alternate news sources and those from overseas - sometimes I do watch BBC, and I'd watch other's if I knew the language.
Hell, I'd even watch Al Jazeera now and then, but in their case, only to see what anti-west propaganda they're spreading lately.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep. At least the Republicans openly embrace their idealology, and you can agree or disagree with it, but you know where they stand. The Dems, however, seem to say one thing but quite often they actually go do something opposite of what they preach. In actions, the two parties are often not that terribly different.
The problem, simply put, is that any politician who wants to be seen by his constituents as "doing something" is going to try and pass bills into laws; and what do laws do ? In a word, they restrict, they take away the ability to do something. There is no law that actually grants any rights or privileges except for those laws which oppose or amend a preexisting law which denied something in the first place. Inherently, if there is no law regarding something, it's understood to be legal until addressed otherwise.
Not to sound like an anarchist or anything, because I'm definitely not, but that's all laws essentially do, they whittle away rights, abilities, and power - the problem is determining if a particular ability or power is "right" or "wrong", of course, annd that's where money and lobbyists come in; and they routinely woo and win over the democrats just as they do the republicans.
Those who are liberal and truly progressive should really look towards a different party than the deceptocrats. Maybe give the Libertarians a shot or something. What we really need though is a "moderate" party. Just my two cents.
I've known posters not to RTFA before, but apparently, this guy didn't even read the intro paragraph right here on slashdot !
Back on topic, I see two possible outcomes of this kind of action; the music industry will successfully lobby congress into imposing severe restrictions on the Internet Music Trade and we'll all be screwed by it, or conversely, the music industry model, as it currently stands, will disappear almost all together. That could also be hurtful if it deflates too rapidly, but with attitudes and actions like this, they're only shooting themselves in the foot.
It doesn't seem likely that it can continue to lamely limp along as it has for a whole lot longer, harassing musicians and music lovers alike.
The thing is, people who are accustomed to having money and power like to give up neither; those two things are at least as addictive and destructive, if not more, than heroin.
There is no Vista ? ;-)
(I stopped believing in spoons long ago)
I've never heard of him before, but now I'll have to check it out.
This is the "model" I've wanted to take, using the Internet for distribution and exposure, and certainly I'd give some songs under the Creative Commons - not all songs are hit material, even from the very best musicians.
If nothing else, this is one thing the music consumer is benefiting from in the digital age: he/she can now pick and choose the specific songs he/she wants to pay for, and not get stuck with the traditional "album filler" that was prevalent in the past. (While I'm not sure the bands themselves viewed these "lesser" tunes as album filler, the general public almost certainly always has. Part of that is due, I'm sure, to the artist mindset of everything they create being "their baby" to some extent.)
I just wonder how long before the RIAA finds some silly reason for a trumped up charge to hit Coulton and his contemporary peers with, seeing how they're not getting a piece of the action here.
Ardour is certainly looking better and better everytime I check on it.
The use of VSTs is a major point for me, but the article says they're supported only via a wrapper.
There is still a long way to go, before it can match something like SONAR or Cubase or Logic on features and flexibility.
At the end of the day, I would far prefer to use a linux system for music production, (rather than Windows), but for the time being, SONAR is my choice. Cubase is just too expensive and a little too quirky. Pro-Tools is just now catching up on MIDI features with the other big players, and MOTU and Logic are Mac only. I haven't looked at Orion, but I really do hope someday to be satisfied with Ardour or something very similar - but that's probably several years away still.
I made this a few years ago:
http://www.phrets.com/muntzed/
I can feel for them though - there's nothing easy, routine, or "automated" when it comes to good backups. Constant vigilance !
I don't think any one single system is the "answer", be it capitalism, or some form of communism or socialism.
That's why our current system is something of an integration of capitalism and socialism, like a system of checks and balances, each hopefully strengthens where the other has a weakness.
No system, however, will ever be perfect, even the hybrids, because it all comes down to human nature, and we are not perfect. For that reason, I don't see us as capable of creating a perfect system, but the hybrid system is probably the best.
It boils down to this : people need motivation. For hypothetical purposes, let's say we have a Utopian society such as that in Star Trek; all needs are provided for, there is no poverty, and there doesn't seem to be money, either, for that matter. What then, would motivate people to work, or more importantly, take on the harder jobs from the pool of jobs that are available? What about jobs that were dangerous, tedious, or required a lot of education and work ? If everyone gets the same "pay" and the same living conditions, why might someone feel compelled to become a brain surgeon when they could enjoy the same life comforts as a mailman ? Capitalism addresses this human condition whereas other systems seem to wear rose tinted glasses; but, like you point out, Capitalism also has it's problems; the other extreme leads to greed.
There is only one deadly sin: Greed. The other 6 are merely variations and different degrees of greed.
I think this especially rings true today where DAWs are commonplace (ProTools, Cubase, etc..) and the Internet is an effective medium to distribute music.
The model is changing, or at least, it should be. Eventually, record companies will either go bye-byes, or merge into movie production houses where blockbuster movies are still ventures that can't be done on a shoe string budget, consistently. Maybe some year even the movie studios will go bye-byes too, depending on how graphics tech and hardware continue to evolve, with all virtual actors and voices.
LOL ! That gives me an idea - would it be possible to write a Lojack type app, which when triggered remotely and covertly, would stress the power supply and make the batteries explode ?
That would teach a thief to steal laptops. (Or teach a scumbag to buy stolen laptops for that matter)
I use a client called (oddly enough) The Bat!.
It's not bad at all, very powerful, but a bit obtuse at times.
Now that Thunderbird has an extension to switch between plain text and HTML with the click of a button (or rather, now that I recently learned about that) I might switch over to Tbird.
And let's not forget the good 'ol username+slashdot@server.com - after the + is a "comment"...
A lot of ISPs or web based email services don't support plus-adressing though. Yahoo doesn't. Verizon and gmail do.
Arnie didn't use the word "passionate," and he said something that was, indeed, offensive to me and others:
..um.. what's a pinazarriast anyway ? "
"I mean, they (Cubans and Puerto Ricans) are all very hot...they have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them and together that makes it,"
Someone please tell me what "Latino blood" is, and how and what traits it pre-determines?
If you don't know, then how can you be offended ?
That'd be like me calling you a " pinazarriast " and you go, "What ?? How dare you ! I'm so offended !
anyone else get that "haha" sound from the simpsons in there head as they read that????
http://www.phrets.com/muntzed
Trying to resist the urge to make yet another bad Deja Vu joke, I offer up this question: Has anyone ever had something like Deja Vu, but where they feel familiarity of an event or situation, not from a memory of real life, but that it occurred in a dream that they can't quite remember? I get this sometimes, and it's much creepier (IMHO)
Yeah, that's how it usually feels to me when I get it. I usually get a "bout" of deja vu every few years, in a cluster of 2 to 3 events, and then years go by without another "event".
and I'll bet you're still under 30, whippersnapper ;-)
Yeah, those were the good ol' days though, weren't they ?
The Internet was taking off, everyone suddenly accepted and wanted personal computers, I'd just gotten into it all at the rip ol' age of 34 (latecomer, I know).
The one sad thing is, Quake was a lot more fun to play than Quake4. Is it just me ?
.. Google has had more lawsuits and legal complaints against it ever since it went public ?
In this particular instance, I'm not saying the plaintiff is in the wrong, (they sound fairly reasonable enough), but now that Google is no longer just a "stone", people from all over are looking to get blood, whereas before, it seemed that Google could do no wrong.
No doubt part of that is due to Google's business model expansion, but the legal troubles don't seem commensurate with their growth.
I'd be surprised if requiring a headset changed anything.
It's usually not so much the act of holding the cellphone, that's distracting for most of these people that are, IMO, unable to walk and chew gum at the same time, I think it's the conversation that they get lost in.
Holding a cell phone is really no more challenging than say, changing out a CD or holding a drink, and certainly not as difficult (or crazy) as applying makeup, yet there's never been a movement against those specific activities. The cell phone conversation just seems to send some into la-la land.
I suspect that an intra-vehicular conversation would also be just as likely to result in an accident with some drivers, y'know, the kind that prefer to keep their eyes on the passenger rather than the road.
Only 11 Bil ? Crap, we'll hit that in no time. We're more than halfway there now, and growing at an exponential rate, of course.
The answer is to invent the shrink ray and reduce us all down to the size of insects !
Well, either that, or terraform Mars. I wonder how long before Dell tries to buy it ?
Wow, I can see that interest in Novell is high ! lol
I take every announcement I read with a grain of salt. Sometimes the whole salt shaker.
Novell has shifted gears so many times in the past it's hard to get excited about anything.
Typically, I find that the number of buzzwords used in the marketing hype is inversely porportional to the ability of the product to do what they actually claim.
At least they've moved nearly all the server services over to the linux kernel though; that's a good base to work from.
The light is in a state of superposition:
;-)
It is both on and off !
Oh, it's a Quasar refrigerator ? I thought you said quantum !
You beat me to it, Doc. ..
Your argument is not inane at all.
Whatever licensing fees Hollywood might derive from video games is trivialized by the beating they're taking from the video game market itself. Only an extremely tiny handful of movies or TV shows lend themselves for translation to a video game.
Fewer people go to the theatre these days, with home theatre available, and video games, not to mention most movies are sucky anwyay, anymore
Mostly, I'm sure the television and Hollywood industries would love to get the heat off of themselves by deferring to video games as the source of all media inspired violence. They've been taking the brunt of that argument for years, and now they see an opportunity to give that monkey on their back to someone else, killing two birds with one stone, in effect.
Translation is an AI problem. It isn't going to be solved that easily.
No, it won't, you're right about that.
By the same token, I hope no one would rely on just 3 words to determine the context of a conversation.
Absolutely !
That was the first thing that occurred to me too.
That alone could make it worth it's weight in lives.
I'd rather live on a net where I can't talk about Nazis, than on one where puritanical hypocrits prevent me from seeing boobs!
If you have a hard time finding boobs on the 'net, you seriously need to learn how to use a search engine. No one is preventing the show of boobs on the 'net.
Television, somewhat; Internet, no.
I agree with watching alternate news sources and those from overseas - sometimes I do watch BBC, and I'd watch other's if I knew the language.
Hell, I'd even watch Al Jazeera now and then, but in their case, only to see what anti-west propaganda they're spreading lately.