It's true...my dad uses BeOS, which uses very distinct yellow tabs in the corner of its windows instead of long bars that go all the way across. One of those banner ads disguised as a MS-style window *still confused* him and he would have clicked it if I wasn't there. This goes to prove that most people don't know or care about what OS they're using because they simply aren't educated enough in the way of computers like most of us are.
The safety pin is obvious to us because it's been in our culture for many years. The real question is how obvious was the safety pin at the time it was patented?
"But since you're not using any of the local stations resources, just those of the people sending the feed to the local station."
I disagree...what is the marginal cost to the studio of you (or one more person) receiving the feed? $0. Unlike snail mail, where it costs $X per person for each person to receive a copy of mail, everyone can receive the sat feed at the same time for one price.
I'm almost 25 and still do similar things. I've programmed my StarTac to display "Don't Panic" on its screen for some time now. Sometimes I get funny looks from the airport x-ray security guards who ask you to turn on your phone.
I keep a largish bath towel from Ralph Lauren (they make really sturdy towels) in a military surplus backpack in the back of my SUV. When I flew from NJ to Chicago and then drove back to NJ, I only had my backpack with an extra shirt, socks, toothbrush, comb, small PC repair kit, a copy of "Mostly Harmless" and of course, my towel.
The guy that runs BeOSRadio has developed his own radio automation software for BeOS that is geared toward both traditional radio and internet broadcasts. Here is a list of features supported:
* Full automation mode
* Live and Live-assist operation
Automated network joins
Perfect, seamless, smooth,
beautiful audio playback &
transitions
* Internet streaming
Provide simultaneous Internet
and over-the-air audio
* Supports MP3, MPEG Layer
2, WAV, AIFF, MS-ADPCM,
IFF-8SVX, MIDI, and other
audio formats
* Mix-and-match audio formats
and sampling rates at will, with
flawless transitions among
them
* Professional-quality VST
plug-in effects in real time,
including compression, limiting,
and reverb
* Controlled, randomized song
selection by a wide variety of
criteria
* Clear, easy-to-use control
interface
* Auto merging of today's and
tomorrow's program logs
* Option to manually select what
is next-to-play even during
automation mode
* Warp function for quick
interruption of programming to
give bulletins, etc.
* Unlimited number of unique
format clocks
* Unlimited number of unique
master logs
* Music selection and program
log generation in one step
* Time Corrects
* Interrupts
* Automated pause function
* Scrolling view of entire day's
log
* Drop-down box displaying
output log
* Report log option for logging
automation functions
* Current_Song logfile function
for posting current song info to
Internet
True, it runs on BeOS, not Linux and costs $100, but in the overall scheme of things, you're better off picking the best tool for the job. Here is the link:
http://www.beosradio.com/tunetracker/features.ht ml
I'm in NJ and I use fast.net. There's no special software needed for installation and you have a straightforward, honest-to-goodness connection (via 56K, DSL & higher). I use the Freesco Linux floppy router/NAT/firewall to share my 56k dialup connection with a couple computers. No busy signals and the connection is always quick responsive.
You get two email addresses, 5 megs of ftp/www space and access to pretty much every newsgroup (even the naughty ones).
The cost? $19.95/mo or $15.95/mo if you prepay 6 months. It's even cheaper if you prepay for a year ($13.95 or something like that). Their number is 888-321-fast. I highly recommend them. My dad uses Netcarrier.com and their service is similar and pretty good, too.
Well, click here to check out the BeOS hardware compatability list for X86 platforms. The Symbios 53c8xx SCSI chipset is listed as supported. As for RAID, here is what I found at Be's web site:
"Does the BeOS support RAID?
At this time, the BeOS does not provide any support for RAID in software. If you have a RAID device set up by a software RAID toolkit, it will not be accessible under the BeOS. However, if you happen to have a hardware RAID device which pretends to be a single hard drive, that should work fine. These are rare, though. We do intend to support RAID in a future BeOS release, but we do not have a schedule for that at the moment. "
So, the answer depends upon your hardware config. For setups that don't use RAID, like the one in my office, you'd be good to go:)
I use BeOS to manage my growing collection of MP3s. With BeOS, you do not need to run a separate database to keep track of your files. Be's file system (BFS) actually works like a live database. You can add all sorts of indexable attributes to any type of file. Searching for files in BeOS looks just like a database query. Wrt MP3's, all the info you find in ID3 tags can be stored as file attributes. When you search for songs based on any combination of attributes, you get the results almost instantaneously. The best part is that in most cases, no manual entry is required for anything, including manipulation of filenames and ID3 data!
There are a number of ways to manage MP3 meta data. If you want to take advantage of CDDB or FreeDB in the ripping process, then Scot Hacker's RipEnc is the way to go. Pop in a CD, it will get recognized from a CDDB/FreeDB lookup. Then, just tell RipEnc the genre and year of the album. RipEnc will rip the CD for you and add the CDDB, year and genre info to each song's ID3 tags and filesystem attributes. Of course, you'll have complete control over bitrate, frequency, name format, the whole shebang. For convenience, songs get stored under a directory heirarchy like this: ~/mp3/artist/album
If you have a bunch of MP3s already on your HD and you want to change around the ID3 info and/or standardize on filename structure, then ArmyKnife will do it all for you. Here is a description of ArmyKnife, shamelessly plagarized from www.bebits.com:
"The Army Knife for MP3's and OggVorbis
The Army Knife is a BeOS application that allows users to perform ID3 Tag to Attribute assignment,
Attribute to ID3 Tag assignment, parsing of file names to fill attributes, and renaming files based on their
attributes. It also includes an attribute and tag editor that allows the user to work with mulitple files at
once."
When you're ready to serve out your MP3's under BeOS, you'll have at least two methods available. The RobinHood web server has a plugin to let you stream songs over your network. However, the easiest (and possibly most flexible) way of serving out MP3's is to use Stephen van Egmond's Be In Your Stereo. Again, I shall shamelessly plagarize the description from BeBits:
"Be in your Stereo is a plugin to SoundPlay that scans your BFS volumes for digital music files. It
builds a cross-referenced index of your collection based on Artist, Genre, Year, and Album BFS
attributes, then serves up views of your track list and collection via HTTP. It is ideal for building a
home audio server.
In addition to your current play list and cross-referenced views of your entire music collection. It will accept commands to add chunks of your collection to the playlist, and manipulate playback in useful
detail - volume, track, track position, etc.
With the plugin, you can park a BeOS machine with a modest CPU, quiet fan, networking, audio and
storage hardware next to your stereo, and manipulate it from anywhere on your home network. The
plugin also has facilities for streaming and downloading files directly to the client, so it can even serve
as a crude file server for wider networking setups."
Finally, Scot Hacker has lots of great information on using BeOS for a headless networked MP3 jukebox. You can read more about it here. Btw, please check out the screenshots of the above programs at the links I provided; they'll do more justice than I can with my descriptions!
"Once I've created something, surely I am the only person who gets to decide what happens to it? You wouldn't say you have the right to do what you want with cookies I had baked, so why do you think that with my *intellectual* property?
There is no difference at all. If you don't want to use the property *I* created on *my* terms, don't use it at all. Ok? This stuff about copyright law preventing free exchange of information is nonsense."
If you bake your cookies and keep them to yourself, then they're your cookies. If you sell me a cookie, you cannot tell me how I may use the cookie. I may eat it, bury it, use it for target practice, etc. I can even resell the same cookie at a marked up price. Your intentions for how the cookie is "meant to be experienced" are out the window once its sold.
Wrt intellectual property (let's use a music CD to keep things simple), I may still do whatever I wish with the CD...play it, rip it to MP3 for my own use, bury it in the ground, microwave it, etc. and you cannot control that. The only right you have regarding the CD after you sell it to me is copyright. I cannot legally copy the CD and distribute the copies.
Mod this guy up...I think he's come up with a great real-life analogy to describe spam to people not familiar with the internet (but nonetheless still use it):
Oh great, here we go again...is John Travolta going to be waking up CmdrTaco up in the middle of the night with another threatening letter from Co$ lawyers?
I'll assume that you're trolling. There are many different opinions expressed on Slashdot. Reading and posting to Slashdot does not mean you're necessarily some kind of hippy communist/anarchist/socialist *nix guru who wants to free all the information. If so, you wouln't have made your post in the first place.
Quote: "The fact is, intellectual property is a form of property, and any law that gives strangers usage rights to one's property over-extend legitimate government authority."
You're looking at it backwards. Intellectual property is an artificial construct. Heck, the idea of all "property" is artificial when you get down to it. In the jungle, property is whatever you can hold on to and defend. In the jungle, you can't do a darn thing about someone using your ideas, stealing your livestock or freely copying your jungle music. (Although you could steal the livestock back if the theif didn't kill you and your family.) Heck, the United States wouldn't have existed unless it was fought for. We gained independence with bullets and blood, not with a nice table setting, tea, biscuits and a handshake.
Nowadays, we live in a civilisation. Governments define what rights individuals have wrt property and subsequently help you out with defending it (land records, deeds, police, armies, copyrights, patents, etc.)
Let's look at fair use. First of all, fair use is not stealing. In fact, when you really do violate copyright laws you're not stealing, you are technically "infringing" on the creator's copyright.
The idea behind fair use is that we acknowledge that copyright laws grant artists a (supposedly) limited time monopoly on the distribution of their works. This allows them to recoup their costs and make a living. However, we, as patrons of the artist, are able to enjoy the art/music in any way and place as we see fit (so long as we are not violating copyright laws and mass distributing the works).
This is why it's ok for someone to copy a CD to a tape and listen to it in their car, or rip the tracks to one's mp3 home stereo. You're doing it for your own convenience and personal use.
I saw an excellent parody of "It's a Wonderful Life" on "Fry and Laurie" on BBC America. They replaced the Jimmy Stewart character with Rupert Murdoch (played by Hugh Laurie). Stephen Fry was the angel.
The angel takes Rupert all around London to show him what life would be like without him. All the houses have antennae installed (instead of dishes for SkyTV). "Hey, there are no tits on page 6!" Rupert said, as he opened a newspaper. Finally, there were people of all ethnicities and races getting along with one another in a pub.
The angel takes Rupert back to the bridge he was about to jump off and re-caps what the world would be like without Rupert Murdoch. The angel pauses...and throws Rupert off the bridge himself!
Bloomberg does this with their $_0,000/year service. Basically, you've got two LCD screens hooked up to a machine running either NT or Solaris and a regular, albeit color coded, keyboard with some of Bloomberg's own functions etched on the keys as well.
The UI is a nice combination of CLI and GUI. There is a command line at the top of each screen. Below that, you have the GUI with the output of whatever you were looking for. Basically, you can type something in the CLI and the GUI will change into some sort of table, a list of articles or a menu. You can click on the GUI like a web page to dig down for more info.
For example, I can type in "IBM Equity DES" + Enter key and get a textual description of IBM and some basic, brief financial info. If I want to get more detail on certain financial info (such as dividend history), I can click on the latest dividend shown on the GUI (like using a web browser) or I can just type IBM Equity DVD.
Slashdot Mirror
It's true...my dad uses BeOS, which uses very distinct yellow tabs in the corner of its windows instead of long bars that go all the way across. One of those banner ads disguised as a MS-style window *still confused* him and he would have clicked it if I wasn't there. This goes to prove that most people don't know or care about what OS they're using because they simply aren't educated enough in the way of computers like most of us are.
The safety pin is obvious to us because it's been in our culture for many years. The real question is how obvious was the safety pin at the time it was patented?
"But since you're not using any of the local stations resources, just those of the people sending the feed to the local station."
I disagree...what is the marginal cost to the studio of you (or one more person) receiving the feed? $0. Unlike snail mail, where it costs $X per person for each person to receive a copy of mail, everyone can receive the sat feed at the same time for one price.
David Niven? feh, I'd rather dress up in a black latex suit and mask and scale walls like Diabolik!
I'm almost 25 and still do similar things. I've programmed my StarTac to display "Don't Panic" on its screen for some time now. Sometimes I get funny looks from the airport x-ray security guards who ask you to turn on your phone.
I keep a largish bath towel from Ralph Lauren (they make really sturdy towels) in a military surplus backpack in the back of my SUV. When I flew from NJ to Chicago and then drove back to NJ, I only had my backpack with an extra shirt, socks, toothbrush, comb, small PC repair kit, a copy of "Mostly Harmless" and of course, my towel.
H2G2 fans in NZ should list their religion as "worshippers of the Great Prophet Zarquon".
The guy that runs BeOSRadio has developed his own radio automation software for BeOS that is geared toward both traditional radio and internet broadcasts. Here is a list of features supported:
t ml
* Full automation mode
* Live and Live-assist operation
Automated network joins
Perfect, seamless, smooth,
beautiful audio playback &
transitions
* Internet streaming
Provide simultaneous Internet
and over-the-air audio
* Supports MP3, MPEG Layer
2, WAV, AIFF, MS-ADPCM,
IFF-8SVX, MIDI, and other
audio formats
* Mix-and-match audio formats
and sampling rates at will, with
flawless transitions among
them
* Professional-quality VST
plug-in effects in real time,
including compression, limiting,
and reverb
* Controlled, randomized song
selection by a wide variety of
criteria
* Clear, easy-to-use control
interface
* Auto merging of today's and
tomorrow's program logs
* Option to manually select what
is next-to-play even during
automation mode
* Warp function for quick
interruption of programming to
give bulletins, etc.
* Unlimited number of unique
format clocks
* Unlimited number of unique
master logs
* Music selection and program
log generation in one step
* Time Corrects
* Interrupts
* Automated pause function
* Scrolling view of entire day's
log
* Drop-down box displaying
output log
* Report log option for logging
automation functions
* Current_Song logfile function
for posting current song info to
Internet
True, it runs on BeOS, not Linux and costs $100, but in the overall scheme of things, you're better off picking the best tool for the job. Here is the link:
http://www.beosradio.com/tunetracker/features.h
I'm in NJ and I use fast.net. There's no special software needed for installation and you have a straightforward, honest-to-goodness connection (via 56K, DSL & higher). I use the Freesco Linux floppy router/NAT/firewall to share my 56k dialup connection with a couple computers. No busy signals and the connection is always quick responsive.
You get two email addresses, 5 megs of ftp/www space and access to pretty much every newsgroup (even the naughty ones).
The cost? $19.95/mo or $15.95/mo if you prepay 6 months. It's even cheaper if you prepay for a year ($13.95 or something like that). Their number is 888-321-fast. I highly recommend them. My dad uses Netcarrier.com and their service is similar and pretty good, too.
If I *had* to make a choice, I'd choose QNX. AFAIK, it's actually used in certain life support systems in hospitals.
Well, click here to check out the BeOS hardware compatability list for X86 platforms. The Symbios 53c8xx SCSI chipset is listed as supported. As for RAID, here is what I found at Be's web site:
"Does the BeOS support RAID? At this time, the BeOS does not provide any support for RAID in software. If you have a RAID device set up by a software RAID toolkit, it will not be accessible under the BeOS. However, if you happen to have a hardware RAID device which pretends to be a single hard drive, that should work fine. These are rare, though. We do intend to support RAID in a future BeOS release, but we do not have a schedule for that at the moment. "So, the answer depends upon your hardware config. For setups that don't use RAID, like the one in my office, you'd be good to go :)
One word: BeOS
I use BeOS to manage my growing collection of MP3s. With BeOS, you do not need to run a separate database to keep track of your files. Be's file system (BFS) actually works like a live database. You can add all sorts of indexable attributes to any type of file. Searching for files in BeOS looks just like a database query. Wrt MP3's, all the info you find in ID3 tags can be stored as file attributes. When you search for songs based on any combination of attributes, you get the results almost instantaneously. The best part is that in most cases, no manual entry is required for anything, including manipulation of filenames and ID3 data!
There are a number of ways to manage MP3 meta data. If you want to take advantage of CDDB or FreeDB in the ripping process, then Scot Hacker's RipEnc is the way to go. Pop in a CD, it will get recognized from a CDDB/FreeDB lookup. Then, just tell RipEnc the genre and year of the album. RipEnc will rip the CD for you and add the CDDB, year and genre info to each song's ID3 tags and filesystem attributes. Of course, you'll have complete control over bitrate, frequency, name format, the whole shebang. For convenience, songs get stored under a directory heirarchy like this: ~/mp3/artist/album
If you have a bunch of MP3s already on your HD and you want to change around the ID3 info and/or standardize on filename structure, then ArmyKnife will do it all for you. Here is a description of ArmyKnife, shamelessly plagarized from www.bebits.com:
"The Army Knife for MP3's and OggVorbis The Army Knife is a BeOS application that allows users to perform ID3 Tag to Attribute assignment, Attribute to ID3 Tag assignment, parsing of file names to fill attributes, and renaming files based on their attributes. It also includes an attribute and tag editor that allows the user to work with mulitple files at once."
When you're ready to serve out your MP3's under BeOS, you'll have at least two methods available. The RobinHood web server has a plugin to let you stream songs over your network. However, the easiest (and possibly most flexible) way of serving out MP3's is to use Stephen van Egmond's Be In Your Stereo. Again, I shall shamelessly plagarize the description from BeBits:
"Be in your Stereo is a plugin to SoundPlay that scans your BFS volumes for digital music files. It builds a cross-referenced index of your collection based on Artist, Genre, Year, and Album BFS attributes, then serves up views of your track list and collection via HTTP. It is ideal for building a home audio server. In addition to your current play list and cross-referenced views of your entire music collection. It will accept commands to add chunks of your collection to the playlist, and manipulate playback in useful detail - volume, track, track position, etc. With the plugin, you can park a BeOS machine with a modest CPU, quiet fan, networking, audio and storage hardware next to your stereo, and manipulate it from anywhere on your home network. The plugin also has facilities for streaming and downloading files directly to the client, so it can even serve as a crude file server for wider networking setups."
Finally, Scot Hacker has lots of great information on using BeOS for a headless networked MP3 jukebox. You can read more about it here. Btw, please check out the screenshots of the above programs at the links I provided; they'll do more justice than I can with my descriptions!
"Once I've created something, surely I am the only person who gets to decide what happens to it? You wouldn't say you have the right to do what you want with cookies I had baked, so why do you think that with my *intellectual* property?
There is no difference at all. If you don't want to use the property *I* created on *my* terms, don't use it at all. Ok? This stuff about copyright law preventing free exchange of information is nonsense."
If you bake your cookies and keep them to yourself, then they're your cookies. If you sell me a cookie, you cannot tell me how I may use the cookie. I may eat it, bury it, use it for target practice, etc. I can even resell the same cookie at a marked up price. Your intentions for how the cookie is "meant to be experienced" are out the window once its sold.
Wrt intellectual property (let's use a music CD to keep things simple), I may still do whatever I wish with the CD...play it, rip it to MP3 for my own use, bury it in the ground, microwave it, etc. and you cannot control that. The only right you have regarding the CD after you sell it to me is copyright. I cannot legally copy the CD and distribute the copies.
Mod this guy up...I think he's come up with a great real-life analogy to describe spam to people not familiar with the internet (but nonetheless still use it):
Spam: It's like a collect call you cannot refuse.
Just my .sig will do here........
MultiUser Digital Assistant = MUDA?
Oh great, here we go again...is John Travolta going to be waking up CmdrTaco up in the middle of the night with another threatening letter from Co$ lawyers?
Now I'll have to send back all those pillows that I bought from Yahoo! Stores and put on the top of my trailer.
After all, geeks need to get laid too. Of course, the old engineering addage applies to women, too:
Good, Fast, Cheap: pick two
Isn't that the same study that didn't take into account how college students are more likely to buy from online stores, like CDNow et al?
I'll assume that you're trolling. There are many different opinions expressed on Slashdot. Reading and posting to Slashdot does not mean you're necessarily some kind of hippy communist/anarchist/socialist *nix guru who wants to free all the information. If so, you wouln't have made your post in the first place.
Quote: "The fact is, intellectual property is a form of property, and any law that gives strangers usage rights to one's property over-extend legitimate government authority."
You're looking at it backwards. Intellectual property is an artificial construct. Heck, the idea of all "property" is artificial when you get down to it. In the jungle, property is whatever you can hold on to and defend. In the jungle, you can't do a darn thing about someone using your ideas, stealing your livestock or freely copying your jungle music. (Although you could steal the livestock back if the theif didn't kill you and your family.) Heck, the United States wouldn't have existed unless it was fought for. We gained independence with bullets and blood, not with a nice table setting, tea, biscuits and a handshake.
Nowadays, we live in a civilisation. Governments define what rights individuals have wrt property and subsequently help you out with defending it (land records, deeds, police, armies, copyrights, patents, etc.)
Let's look at fair use. First of all, fair use is not stealing. In fact, when you really do violate copyright laws you're not stealing, you are technically "infringing" on the creator's copyright.
The idea behind fair use is that we acknowledge that copyright laws grant artists a (supposedly) limited time monopoly on the distribution of their works. This allows them to recoup their costs and make a living. However, we, as patrons of the artist, are able to enjoy the art/music in any way and place as we see fit (so long as we are not violating copyright laws and mass distributing the works).
This is why it's ok for someone to copy a CD to a tape and listen to it in their car, or rip the tracks to one's mp3 home stereo. You're doing it for your own convenience and personal use.
I think he was referring to using his own computer (a cheap little Mac) to access the Archimedes with the coffee pot.
I saw an excellent parody of "It's a Wonderful Life" on "Fry and Laurie" on BBC America. They replaced the Jimmy Stewart character with Rupert Murdoch (played by Hugh Laurie). Stephen Fry was the angel.
The angel takes Rupert all around London to show him what life would be like without him. All the houses have antennae installed (instead of dishes for SkyTV). "Hey, there are no tits on page 6!" Rupert said, as he opened a newspaper. Finally, there were people of all ethnicities and races getting along with one another in a pub.
The angel takes Rupert back to the bridge he was about to jump off and re-caps what the world would be like without Rupert Murdoch. The angel pauses...and throws Rupert off the bridge himself!
They should head out to an Italian bistro and work up the calculations for the next asteroid landing mission.
Bloomberg does this with their $_0,000/year service. Basically, you've got two LCD screens hooked up to a machine running either NT or Solaris and a regular, albeit color coded, keyboard with some of Bloomberg's own functions etched on the keys as well.
The UI is a nice combination of CLI and GUI. There is a command line at the top of each screen. Below that, you have the GUI with the output of whatever you were looking for. Basically, you can type something in the CLI and the GUI will change into some sort of table, a list of articles or a menu. You can click on the GUI like a web page to dig down for more info.
For example, I can type in "IBM Equity DES" + Enter key and get a textual description of IBM and some basic, brief financial info. If I want to get more detail on certain financial info (such as dividend history), I can click on the latest dividend shown on the GUI (like using a web browser) or I can just type IBM Equity DVD.
"I used to hide floppies in a river bed (don't ask)"
Oh my, the lengths we'll go to hide our pr0n habits.