On the subject of rude linux users and the RTFM mantra, I can see both sides of the issue. Noobs should quit being lazy and read the documentation. But as a softare test engineer, I know how programmers write documentation. Something is always left out, and the directions are dumbed down with grudging, painful, gun-to-the-head, joy.
You're neglecting another aspect of this. I have read documentation for Linux apps that say things like "If this doesn't work for you, then edit the packet timeout values in main.c so that they are suitable and recompile." This is like a car manufacturer writing in the owner's manual: "If you experience a loss of acceleration, remove and clean the heads, then adjust the engine timing until the engine responds as expected." Uh, excuse me? They're not talking to a mechanic, and the people who author Linux documentation should not be expecting an all-programmer audience, either.
Re:MS Evil Empire marketing is at work
on
A Linux User Goes Back
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· Score: 2, Informative
Sorry buddy, but this guy is on the mark. I run Linux on a server I co-locate at an ISP, just because Apache w/ mod-perl is faster than IIS on the same machine (and little script kiddies haven't paid enough attention to it yet to blow holes in it like IIS). But when it comes to the system I use to do things, it's MS. I can play games, type documents, connect my camera or what not, and it works 99% of the time with minimal configuration or reconfiguration. The other upside is that I can do all this and 99% of the world can read my docs and play the same games online with me. Linux requires too much piddling with every little bit of system minutiae in order to do anything, even "simple" things.
Hmm. I agree. There should be a computer licensing system, similar to the radio operator licenses for ham radio. You take a series of tests for each licensing level, and that's the type of system you're allowed to use. Macs could either be level 1 or no license required. Using a PC with Windows 95,98,or ME would be level 2. PC with Windows NT,2k,or XP would be lvl 3. Other hardware with Microsoft operating systems could be level 4, and finally any hardware with Unix derivative or other OS would be 5. You could also apply for your "Crazy Anachronist" sticker for your lvl 5 license if you need to run VMS on VAX or some similarly complex throwback.
Seriously though, put a Mac, a PC with Windows, and a Linux box next to each other. Now look at each and try to imagine your mom using them (if your mom is a programmer, then think of aunt Tilly, or some similarly computer-illiterate person you know). IMO, it boils down to Mac or Windows. Linux provides too many opportunities for destruction post-setup, and in a small office/home with no knowledgable IT staff, setup is nigh impossible without a serious computing background.
I went to see Spider-Man and AOTC. I liked them both. What's this guy getting at here? Why didn't he just post "I liked Spider-Man but not Attack of the Clones" and call it a day?
Ah, but the trick here isn't that the said customers aren't profitable; it's that the companies involved see ways to make them *more* profitable. I imagine that the logic is something like "those who use the service most will probably be easier to squeeze for extra money."
The biggest complaint I have with systems like this is that they only look to charge more to the people using the "majority" of their bandwidth. How about "low usage credit" for people who underutilize their bandwidth? Or, for that matter, just bypass all the in-between rigamarole and decide what bandwidth per month is "normal," divvy it into units (kilobytes or megabytes), and charge per unit so that the rate matches the current fee for "normal" use. But this simply reduces their profit, since 99% of their users are checking email and ordering tchotchkes on the web, and would undoubtedly clock in well under a $40 per month flat fee. No, they aren't losing their shorts on these customers, but they sure can see how to drain 'em for a few more bucks.
Yeah, but they specify "compressed." There's another line in there that specifically states that the capacity is a bit below standard CDs. Quote: "...for a total slightly less than the 650 megabytes that fit on a CD."
Britney Spears "sell out?" She was never "in" to be able to sell out! A purely commercial construct is Britney. Manufactured under strict quality controls from the ground up according to exacting formulas developed by industry professionals. If you think I'm kidding, I'm not; there was (is?) actually a "songwriting guidebook" at Transcontinental Media when they were in business. It was quite literally a set of rules for generating music and lyrics for the boy/girl groups that they managed. Ugh! Pure tripe!
It's not. This was the reason that they came up with those "decrypting speakers" a little while ago that could receive digitally encrypted audio data and decrypt it in the unit to produce sound.
I'm not that fast to react anymore. Everytime I see a scheme like this come along, I point to DIVX. Those "in the know" successfully killed that format with an enduring information campaign that didn't let up until DIVX was out the window. It was to the point that people looking at DIVX players at Circuit City were approached by strangers who would inform them exactly what buying DIVX was going to mean. I think that in any similar situation where a less restrictive, less costly, and less burdensome alternative exists, the same kind of results can be had by simply informing the sheep that the $16 disc in their hand will actually cost $16+$8+$13, etc. if they want to access everything listed on the cover. Oh, play on your computer? No, it won't do that. Put the music on CD to listen to in the car? Oh, sorry, not allowed. Etcetera ad nauseum...
And you can be sure that another plan behind this system is going to be "disc expiration." 20 plays and then another $20 to get the thing going again, or what have you. If I can, I'll be steering people away from the format. I'm sure most slashdotters will too.
And that's only what the outsiders take. I know of some employees that worked in the repair area there that had an accomplice bring in an empty case for "repair." They filled the case with all kinds of components off the shelves and billed for connecting a floppy drive. They walked out of the place with thousands in merchandise, and the store was none the wiser.
Atheistic or no, this still doesn't dodge the adoption issue. There are children out there who will grow up without parents or WCS not grow up. If someone were to adopt them, their lives would be wholly different. Why all the cost and craziness to clone oneself when the same end can be met through adoption? Some people claim that they want a child of their own, who is a part of them. I say that argument is selfish. Marriage is an acceptable means of introducing genetic material to a "family line." Why isn't adoption?
I don't know that the developers of GT3 were shooting for realism in the "testing for licenses" phase, or catering to a market. They were definitely going for realism in the handling and performance of the cars, but for the licenses (especially since they have the "S" class license), I think the idea was for a certain appeal to the Japanese market. I don't know why, but history shows that the Japanese video game player likes the idea of having to "unlock" sections of games. I agree with you however; it could have done without the whole testing system (even if there really are racing licenses that some racing authorities require).
For the particularly sadistic: Figure out the signal to send to the device for the "Uh-oh, mom just died!" notification to pop up. Then build a little black box transmitter and cruise by a school during recess.:)
So build a (reasonable) faraday cage inside your trunk. Then when you throw the kid in there, the watch'll be useless! Hey, wait a minute; what kids are you planning to throw in your trunk!?
DIVX was cleanly destroyed by a concerted early-adopter-consumer effort which led to a total lack of support for the format. I remember the rather quick decline amongst million dollar ads that was due to nothing more than those "in the know" informing Joe Q Public; "DIVX? Don't buy that, it's worhtless." I don't see why that couldn't happen here. Make a big stink beforehand; you'll never buy a set that supports this. It's worthless and forces the user to follow corporate mandates. Then make sure you tell anyone who'll listen. No money-hungry corporation will be able to resist for long; one or more will break ranks and offer non-DVI devices that (hopefully) will sell like hotcakes while the DVI boxes rot on the shelves.
The really sad part of this comes when you compare it to direct mail. In that industry, 10% response is considered very successful, and 3% - 4% is average. Spammers seem to be happy with the sub-1 percentile range. How do you fight that?
If you think they (the ISP) can handle it, ask them to install an SMTP-auth compliant mailer. Then you can send mail from anywhere with an SMTP-auth compatible client (quite a large number of them, actually), and your ISP will still not be an open relay. I did this with Qmail and it was (relatively) painless.
Personally I could do without all the in-betweens. We tried to have DSL installed at an office we had once rented. It took 2 months; the coordination between the service provider, the line leasing co., the trunk line owner, and the various other parties was abysmal. Then after installation, you had to "make the rounds" whenever there was a problem ("Oh, that's not us. That's an upstream problem. Contact Company X"). Conversely, installing cable modem service was simple. Within 3 days, it was up, running, and faster than DSL. And when it goes down, there's one place to call who can resolve all the issues. I'm sorry, but middlemen for the sake of middlemen just does not make sense, especially when they provide no value to the service in the end, and can actually muddy up to whole process.
Liability for contributory infringement attaches to "one who, with knowledge of the infringing activity, induces, causes or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another . . . [L]iability exists if the defendant engages in personal conduct that encourages or assists the infringement." A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004, 1014 (9th Cir. 2001).
It's already being cited to try and take down others. And with terminology like that, you could use that decision to sue people who even live in the same house as someone who downloads illegal MP3s.
This may be "funny," but I've said that such maneuvering may be in the future for software / internet firms in the future. There's no big manufacturing plants to build and the money is right for them to "lease" a small island for 99 years and just plant themselves on it. And how hard would it be to recruit personnel to work on gorgeous Caribbean islands? Grow your company to the right size in a protected nation (see USA), then when that country starts to turn on you, pack up and head for your own mini country! If you had sufficient market penetration, the best they could do is put up or shut up.
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On the subject of rude linux users and the RTFM mantra, I can see both sides of the issue. Noobs should quit being lazy and read the documentation. But as a softare test engineer, I know how programmers write documentation. Something is always left out, and the directions are dumbed down with grudging, painful, gun-to-the-head, joy.
You're neglecting another aspect of this. I have read documentation for Linux apps that say things like "If this doesn't work for you, then edit the packet timeout values in main.c so that they are suitable and recompile." This is like a car manufacturer writing in the owner's manual: "If you experience a loss of acceleration, remove and clean the heads, then adjust the engine timing until the engine responds as expected." Uh, excuse me? They're not talking to a mechanic, and the people who author Linux documentation should not be expecting an all-programmer audience, either.
Sorry buddy, but this guy is on the mark. I run Linux on a server I co-locate at an ISP, just because Apache w/ mod-perl is faster than IIS on the same machine (and little script kiddies haven't paid enough attention to it yet to blow holes in it like IIS). But when it comes to the system I use to do things, it's MS. I can play games, type documents, connect my camera or what not, and it works 99% of the time with minimal configuration or reconfiguration. The other upside is that I can do all this and 99% of the world can read my docs and play the same games online with me. Linux requires too much piddling with every little bit of system minutiae in order to do anything, even "simple" things.
Hmm. I agree. There should be a computer licensing system, similar to the radio operator licenses for ham radio. You take a series of tests for each licensing level, and that's the type of system you're allowed to use. Macs could either be level 1 or no license required. Using a PC with Windows 95,98,or ME would be level 2. PC with Windows NT,2k,or XP would be lvl 3. Other hardware with Microsoft operating systems could be level 4, and finally any hardware with Unix derivative or other OS would be 5. You could also apply for your "Crazy Anachronist" sticker for your lvl 5 license if you need to run VMS on VAX or some similarly complex throwback.
Seriously though, put a Mac, a PC with Windows, and a Linux box next to each other. Now look at each and try to imagine your mom using them (if your mom is a programmer, then think of aunt Tilly, or some similarly computer-illiterate person you know). IMO, it boils down to Mac or Windows. Linux provides too many opportunities for destruction post-setup, and in a small office/home with no knowledgable IT staff, setup is nigh impossible without a serious computing background.
GO 'CANES!
I went to see Spider-Man and AOTC. I liked them both. What's this guy getting at here? Why didn't he just post "I liked Spider-Man but not Attack of the Clones" and call it a day?
Ah, but the trick here isn't that the said customers aren't profitable; it's that the companies involved see ways to make them *more* profitable. I imagine that the logic is something like "those who use the service most will probably be easier to squeeze for extra money."
The biggest complaint I have with systems like this is that they only look to charge more to the people using the "majority" of their bandwidth. How about "low usage credit" for people who underutilize their bandwidth? Or, for that matter, just bypass all the in-between rigamarole and decide what bandwidth per month is "normal," divvy it into units (kilobytes or megabytes), and charge per unit so that the rate matches the current fee for "normal" use. But this simply reduces their profit, since 99% of their users are checking email and ordering tchotchkes on the web, and would undoubtedly clock in well under a $40 per month flat fee. No, they aren't losing their shorts on these customers, but they sure can see how to drain 'em for a few more bucks.
Yeah, but they specify "compressed." There's another line in there that specifically states that the capacity is a bit below standard CDs. Quote: "...for a total slightly less than the 650 megabytes that fit on a CD."
Britney Spears "sell out?" She was never "in" to be able to sell out! A purely commercial construct is Britney. Manufactured under strict quality controls from the ground up according to exacting formulas developed by industry professionals. If you think I'm kidding, I'm not; there was (is?) actually a "songwriting guidebook" at Transcontinental Media when they were in business. It was quite literally a set of rules for generating music and lyrics for the boy/girl groups that they managed. Ugh! Pure tripe!
It's not. This was the reason that they came up with those "decrypting speakers" a little while ago that could receive digitally encrypted audio data and decrypt it in the unit to produce sound.
I'm not that fast to react anymore. Everytime I see a scheme like this come along, I point to DIVX. Those "in the know" successfully killed that format with an enduring information campaign that didn't let up until DIVX was out the window. It was to the point that people looking at DIVX players at Circuit City were approached by strangers who would inform them exactly what buying DIVX was going to mean. I think that in any similar situation where a less restrictive, less costly, and less burdensome alternative exists, the same kind of results can be had by simply informing the sheep that the $16 disc in their hand will actually cost $16+$8+$13, etc. if they want to access everything listed on the cover. Oh, play on your computer? No, it won't do that. Put the music on CD to listen to in the car? Oh, sorry, not allowed. Etcetera ad nauseum...
And you can be sure that another plan behind this system is going to be "disc expiration." 20 plays and then another $20 to get the thing going again, or what have you. If I can, I'll be steering people away from the format. I'm sure most slashdotters will too.
You misspelled something there. Just a bit of transposition... It's "16 year-old pop tarts."
And that's only what the outsiders take. I know of some employees that worked in the repair area there that had an accomplice bring in an empty case for "repair." They filled the case with all kinds of components off the shelves and billed for connecting a floppy drive. They walked out of the place with thousands in merchandise, and the store was none the wiser.
Atheistic or no, this still doesn't dodge the adoption issue. There are children out there who will grow up without parents or WCS not grow up. If someone were to adopt them, their lives would be wholly different. Why all the cost and craziness to clone oneself when the same end can be met through adoption? Some people claim that they want a child of their own, who is a part of them. I say that argument is selfish. Marriage is an acceptable means of introducing genetic material to a "family line." Why isn't adoption?
I don't know that the developers of GT3 were shooting for realism in the "testing for licenses" phase, or catering to a market. They were definitely going for realism in the handling and performance of the cars, but for the licenses (especially since they have the "S" class license), I think the idea was for a certain appeal to the Japanese market. I don't know why, but history shows that the Japanese video game player likes the idea of having to "unlock" sections of games. I agree with you however; it could have done without the whole testing system (even if there really are racing licenses that some racing authorities require).
For the particularly sadistic: Figure out the signal to send to the device for the "Uh-oh, mom just died!" notification to pop up. Then build a little black box transmitter and cruise by a school during recess. :)
Saw? You think there's enough time for a saw? MACHETE!
So build a (reasonable) faraday cage inside your trunk. Then when you throw the kid in there, the watch'll be useless! Hey, wait a minute; what kids are you planning to throw in your trunk!?
I've done this for years. For a while the "Name of my dog" question was answered with "Dinner."
Well, I thought it was funny.
DIVX was cleanly destroyed by a concerted early-adopter-consumer effort which led to a total lack of support for the format. I remember the rather quick decline amongst million dollar ads that was due to nothing more than those "in the know" informing Joe Q Public; "DIVX? Don't buy that, it's worhtless." I don't see why that couldn't happen here. Make a big stink beforehand; you'll never buy a set that supports this. It's worthless and forces the user to follow corporate mandates. Then make sure you tell anyone who'll listen. No money-hungry corporation will be able to resist for long; one or more will break ranks and offer non-DVI devices that (hopefully) will sell like hotcakes while the DVI boxes rot on the shelves.
Just imagine what the exhaust plume from *that* missile could do. Contact high...for half a county.
The really sad part of this comes when you compare it to direct mail. In that industry, 10% response is considered very successful, and 3% - 4% is average. Spammers seem to be happy with the sub-1 percentile range. How do you fight that?
If you think they (the ISP) can handle it, ask them to install an SMTP-auth compliant mailer. Then you can send mail from anywhere with an SMTP-auth compatible client (quite a large number of them, actually), and your ISP will still not be an open relay. I did this with Qmail and it was (relatively) painless.
Personally I could do without all the in-betweens. We tried to have DSL installed at an office we had once rented. It took 2 months; the coordination between the service provider, the line leasing co., the trunk line owner, and the various other parties was abysmal. Then after installation, you had to "make the rounds" whenever there was a problem ("Oh, that's not us. That's an upstream problem. Contact Company X"). Conversely, installing cable modem service was simple. Within 3 days, it was up, running, and faster than DSL. And when it goes down, there's one place to call who can resolve all the issues. I'm sorry, but middlemen for the sake of middlemen just does not make sense, especially when they provide no value to the service in the end, and can actually muddy up to whole process.
The most disturbing part of that memo:
Liability for contributory infringement attaches to "one who, with knowledge of the infringing activity, induces, causes or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another . . . [L]iability exists if the defendant engages in personal conduct that encourages or assists the infringement." A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004, 1014 (9th Cir. 2001).
It's already being cited to try and take down others. And with terminology like that, you could use that decision to sue people who even live in the same house as someone who downloads illegal MP3s.
This may be "funny," but I've said that such maneuvering may be in the future for software / internet firms in the future. There's no big manufacturing plants to build and the money is right for them to "lease" a small island for 99 years and just plant themselves on it. And how hard would it be to recruit personnel to work on gorgeous Caribbean islands? Grow your company to the right size in a protected nation (see USA), then when that country starts to turn on you, pack up and head for your own mini country! If you had sufficient market penetration, the best they could do is put up or shut up.