Show me a free (costs nothing, free of encumberances like patent and EULA issues, etc) media player that plays these "rights managed" WMAs, and maybe then I'll consider starting a WMA collection. I may not be fully imformed, but until I'm certain there's one out there that won't tie me to a Windows machine, I'm just going to have to continue using mp3. Simple as that. ITMS lets me get mp3s from the AACs I buy, so they're in.
Oh... said player needs to work on most any Unix I care to throw at it. No Rube Goldberg devices, no tricky hacks.
(I don't think those "bum the win32 codecs" players are going to cut it, either. Something that'll natively play it is what I'm seeking. My point is that WMA is not cross-platform to the extent that mp3 is.)
This sounds more like Sony marketing to me. Remember all the promises they made regarding the PS2, during the run-up to, and launch of, the Dreamcast?
I think it's a case of "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" here. Two wrongs rarely make a right, but in this case, more power to Sony. Because I know MICROS~1 would pull the same shit if they were on top. Hell, they'd probably do that in any event.
Personally, I think there should be more games for the GameCube. Every time I look at the (lack of) games for that platform, it saddens me. No problem; I can play GB(A) games on it if all else fails.
I'll never buy an xbox new, though. I may buy one... for a song... off ebay... with the express intent of modding it so it's a $50 x86 shitbox... and then buy that DOA volleyball game used since that's the only xbox game I'm interested in. When I'm not saving video off the ReplayTV onto that hard drive, I can watch rendered T&A!:o)
Charging $0 could be argued to constitute product dumping.
Name one of MS's "modifications" that directly benefits me, their end user. I still can't play their content in any OS I want. I still can't reliably use their stinky Word format in any other word processor... for example.
MS isn't the choice I want to HAVE to make just because someone else (in their own right) chose MS for the file sitting in front of me.
The ad wasn't even 10 seconds. Simply clicking to view the flash content (supposing you use Flash click-to-view), then clicking "enter Salon Premium" got me in. It's the click-through that matters to them.
I have my own NYT login, and have never received spam because of them.
If you make your browser's cookies only last the session, then you should be opted out of all that tracking trash, too. Sure, it's a jump through a few hoops, but it works for me. I remain untracked, they get their ad revenue and demographic info.
This is perhaps the reason I never go to the movies or watch the TV the big networks want me to watch. I vote for a bunch of cartoons with my ReplayTV and watch them whenever I want.
But going to dictionary.com , typing "insightful" into the input box at the top, pressing RETURN, and then reading the definition is the biggest waste of 10sec of time and effort ever.:oD
While comparison to the Nazi regime is probably excessive, the burden of proving that John Ashcroft is acting in the interest of the public, as opposed to the interest of (socially) uber-conservative SIGs and giving the Republicans a bad name, is firmly on John Ashcroft.
It's only my opinion, but total winners like Ashcroft are part of the reason W will be looking for a new job next year. When I vote against Bush, I'm also voting against his administration, which I have bigger issues with than Bush alone.
OK, that's enough political crap out of me for a year.:o)
Don't try to extrapolate this to the workplace, but...
That problem has had a solution for ages. I don't think I'm good at something? Fine; I just don't do it. DONE
What I find infuriating is those people who would force me to compete even after I've told them to get lost, just so they can have someone to "win" against.
I figure you're being facetious, but hell, I didn't need Carmine to help me out here, as I just stopped watching movies and (most) TV years ago.
In the case of movies, I learned early on that very few movies were worth my (then) $10 in ticket and concession stand charges. Lack of decent content has kept me from renting. My DVD collection is mostly cartoons and anime.
Every business that's serious about OS alternatives like Linux ignores the fanboys, first of all. It had no relevance when I did distro testing last year. We evaluated each based on its {de,}merits as opposed to "This is RHS. They're the next MS."
Next, we tend to not go for the latest and greatest. We go for the "most supported by real companies we can make a contract with". Fortunately for Linux, the support offered by such companies is good.
And the grand pisser is, these oil guys decide to just raise the price of gas by $0.12 one day... and $0.12 three days later... for no reason other than we're in the middle of the country.
Step 2: Convince Congress to outlaw everything else.
So, they're set to outlaw things like email, FTP, HTTP, IRC, various IM programs and DVD-Rs? What a deal! All in the effort to make the world safe for Happy Jack.:oD
I tend to not want to reward the content industries like RIAA and MPAA by using my bandwidth to share metadata. Also, they mention something about device independence. I'll believe that when I see content play on a FreeBSD machine (for example) without having to install special software.
It's way too late for these industries to be asking us to trust them at all. For the bulk of us, I'm sure that trust is gone for good.
This won't really do much to protect content. I think it'll be just like all other protection schemes -- subject to transcoding into a format that can be used (and shared) by anything.
If I ran my development team like some of these projects are run I would be severely slapped!
You're getting paid to do this. Open source developers are not. Organizations that are serious about using Open Source Project Foo will generally pay to have these areas addressed.
I've can't count the number of times I've tried to use Open Source "UNIX" software to find it only works on Linux.
My track record for how portable free (not just Open Source-compliant) software for Unix is has been quite good in contrast. GNU autoconf and friends can be evil on a stick, but since more and more projects are using it, portability has improved. Even in 1995 when I had to hack the Makefile, the software that didn't build under Linux, FreeBSD, SunOS4, SunOS5 and HP-UX was in the minority.
Of course, I use mostly "not-leet" software, so there you have it.
Seems to me the only "smart" way to fight is not at all.
Switch from one rat-bastard company to another who dings you for only $0.14 per <unit of product> instead of $0.15. Try persuading your friends and family until you're blue in the face to not use them, etc...
All of us are different. We all want different things. One person's junk is another person's treasure.
Then why can't I enable virtual desktops (9 of them. No less.) in MacOS X 10.2? Why can't I change the retina-searing white widgets to something that doesn't bother my eyes so much? I guess my lament is, "Why can't I change the desktop on MY PowerBook from the one which Steve Jobs himself wills us all to use?"
I'm all for making a new choice available. With some environments, I have the option to make choices, and with others (Windows and Mac OS X), I have... to endure one "choice." Sure, it's a reasonable default, but the diversity of the user base should be acknowledged, and it currently is not.
Of course, that "reasonable default" is what's missing from some of the other environments.
I stopped using relays.osirusoft.com as an RBL when they put Yahoo Groups in the list. It wouldn't've bothered me, really, but when my users are missing their list mail, that's kinda different.
(I dunno if Yahoo Groups is still blackholed, but I didn't bother checking back after that stunt.)
OK, Professor... how does one get "taught how to deal with it" when not only are the kids and teachers at school doing this shit, but your parents do the same when you get home? What now, little man? Ignore everyone?
I'm all for the "ignore the fuckchops" method of dealing with it, but there're some folks whom you can't really ignore.
people are not obligated to like or even be nice to you
So, this rule is fairly applied, I take? At least where you come from, it sure seems like no one can get in trouble for being mean to others.
I always got in trouble for being mean back to those who were mean to me, and those people never got in trouble. Ah... "Life's not fair" is the lesson to be learned here. "People suck" is a sub-lesson of this.
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Show me a free (costs nothing, free of encumberances like patent and EULA issues, etc) media player that plays these "rights managed" WMAs, and maybe then I'll consider starting a WMA collection. I may not be fully imformed, but until I'm certain there's one out there that won't tie me to a Windows machine, I'm just going to have to continue using mp3. Simple as that. ITMS lets me get mp3s from the AACs I buy, so they're in.
Oh... said player needs to work on most any Unix I care to throw at it. No Rube Goldberg devices, no tricky hacks.
(I don't think those "bum the win32 codecs" players are going to cut it, either. Something that'll natively play it is what I'm seeking. My point is that WMA is not cross-platform to the extent that mp3 is.)
I think it's a case of "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" here. Two wrongs rarely make a right, but in this case, more power to Sony. Because I know MICROS~1 would pull the same shit if they were on top. Hell, they'd probably do that in any event.
Personally, I think there should be more games for the GameCube. Every time I look at the (lack of) games for that platform, it saddens me. No problem; I can play GB(A) games on it if all else fails.
I'll never buy an xbox new, though. I may buy one... for a song... off ebay... with the express intent of modding it so it's a $50 x86 shitbox... and then buy that DOA volleyball game used since that's the only xbox game I'm interested in. When I'm not saving video off the ReplayTV onto that hard drive, I can watch rendered T&A! :o)
What's advantageous about the second set of choices is that they can all be chosen at once.
Charging $0 could be argued to constitute product dumping.
Name one of MS's "modifications" that directly benefits me, their end user. I still can't play their content in any OS I want. I still can't reliably use their stinky Word format in any other word processor... for example.
MS isn't the choice I want to HAVE to make just because someone else (in their own right) chose MS for the file sitting in front of me.
The 4-digit price tags of said sets make it hard to want one.
I have my own NYT login, and have never received spam because of them.
If you make your browser's cookies only last the session, then you should be opted out of all that tracking trash, too. Sure, it's a jump through a few hoops, but it works for me. I remain untracked, they get their ad revenue and demographic info.
But you're forgetting that iTunes also runs on MacOS X. Could be a problem if you use only Linux or Solaris, though...
This is perhaps the reason I never go to the movies or watch the TV the big networks want me to watch. I vote for a bunch of cartoons with my ReplayTV and watch them whenever I want.
But going to dictionary.com , typing "insightful" into the input box at the top, pressing RETURN, and then reading the definition is the biggest waste of 10sec of time and effort ever. :oD
It's only my opinion, but total winners like Ashcroft are part of the reason W will be looking for a new job next year. When I vote against Bush, I'm also voting against his administration, which I have bigger issues with than Bush alone.
OK, that's enough political crap out of me for a year. :o)
That problem has had a solution for ages. I don't think I'm good at something? Fine; I just don't do it. DONE
What I find infuriating is those people who would force me to compete even after I've told them to get lost, just so they can have someone to "win" against.
If I want to play games on a PC, I'll build a gaming rig. Actually, I already have one. It plays all those old-school DOS games very well. :o)
In the case of movies, I learned early on that very few movies were worth my (then) $10 in ticket and concession stand charges. Lack of decent content has kept me from renting. My DVD collection is mostly cartoons and anime.
Next, we tend to not go for the latest and greatest. We go for the "most supported by real companies we can make a contract with". Fortunately for Linux, the support offered by such companies is good.
And the grand pisser is, these oil guys decide to just raise the price of gas by $0.12 one day... and $0.12 three days later... for no reason other than we're in the middle of the country.
So, they're set to outlaw things like email, FTP, HTTP, IRC, various IM programs and DVD-Rs? What a deal! All in the effort to make the world safe for Happy Jack. :oD
It's way too late for these industries to be asking us to trust them at all. For the bulk of us, I'm sure that trust is gone for good.
This won't really do much to protect content. I think it'll be just like all other protection schemes -- subject to transcoding into a format that can be used (and shared) by anything.
You're getting paid to do this. Open source developers are not. Organizations that are serious about using Open Source Project Foo will generally pay to have these areas addressed.
I've can't count the number of times I've tried to use Open Source "UNIX" software to find it only works on Linux.
My track record for how portable free (not just Open Source-compliant) software for Unix is has been quite good in contrast. GNU autoconf and friends can be evil on a stick, but since more and more projects are using it, portability has improved. Even in 1995 when I had to hack the Makefile, the software that didn't build under Linux, FreeBSD, SunOS4, SunOS5 and HP-UX was in the minority.
Of course, I use mostly "not-leet" software, so there you have it.
There's a special whistle that works with things like SS7? Where do I get one? :oD
Seems to me the only "smart" way to fight is not at all.
Switch from one rat-bastard company to another who dings you for only $0.14 per <unit of product> instead of $0.15. Try persuading your friends and family until you're blue in the face to not use them, etc...
Or just don't buy anything.
But who loses?
Then why can't I enable virtual desktops (9 of them. No less.) in MacOS X 10.2? Why can't I change the retina-searing white widgets to something that doesn't bother my eyes so much? I guess my lament is, "Why can't I change the desktop on MY PowerBook from the one which Steve Jobs himself wills us all to use?"
I'm all for making a new choice available. With some environments, I have the option to make choices, and with others (Windows and Mac OS X), I have... to endure one "choice." Sure, it's a reasonable default, but the diversity of the user base should be acknowledged, and it currently is not.
Of course, that "reasonable default" is what's missing from some of the other environments.
I stopped using relays.osirusoft.com as an RBL when they put Yahoo Groups in the list. It wouldn't've bothered me, really, but when my users are missing their list mail, that's kinda different.
(I dunno if Yahoo Groups is still blackholed, but I didn't bother checking back after that stunt.)
I'm all for the "ignore the fuckchops" method of dealing with it, but there're some folks whom you can't really ignore.
So, this rule is fairly applied, I take? At least where you come from, it sure seems like no one can get in trouble for being mean to others.
I always got in trouble for being mean back to those who were mean to me, and those people never got in trouble. Ah... "Life's not fair" is the lesson to be learned here. "People suck" is a sub-lesson of this.