RMS' idea sounds kind of neat, but it suffers from a fatal problem: All that happens when you force crazy high taxes onto big companies is that they leave the US. This is exactly what's happening in France right now, with their recent tax reforms.
I don't think this is a concern we should worry about. Essentially, if what we are doing is *right* and *good* for the general populace, everyone else in the world will naturally follow suit.
You'd presumably have to convince a judge that your purpose for using the software in the first place was something other than engaging in or facilitating copyright infringement.... Good luck with that.
I would argue that unless they can prove what I've been sharing or downloading on the service was copyright infringement, I think they haven't got a case - it doesn't matter if the majority of users are downloading copyrighted items, what should matter is whether there is reasonable doubt that I was downloading copyrighted material. Essentially, "innocent until proven guilty".
Telecoms are skating on a fine line of "I can't take any more of this crap" to "I don't care enough about the crap I'm getting to cancel this". Apparently they're doing it well enough to make money.
I think it's a bit hyperbolic to claim that we as a majority of people will end up being sheep/cogs in a slaughterhouse in which our money is the ultimate goal. There is a tipping point, when that is though, I don't know. I just hope we can do get past this sort of thing without violence.
The network effect is where you need to use (random example) Skype because everyone else you need to talk to uses Skype, and Skype is not built on open standards in a way which would allow you to use an alternative.
And yet, there are no simple, easy, and free alternatives to Skype.
have absolute control over what we can or cannot do with the devices we buy
I don't think this will happen - another company can swoop in and take the market share of disgruntled users if there are any. The only reason I can see people having to use a device they don't want to use is if they are *mandated* to do so - there's a reason Apple has been so successful in the phone market, and it's not because they have an iron grip on the users' testes.
Yeah, that'll teach them to do exactly what pirates have been insisting major publishers should do! How dare they give us the option to pay what we want!? They must be punished!!
Yeah! They totally released these DRM free and cross platform so we should... wait a minute..
In all honesty, giving all to charity is a perfectly valid option to choose and THQ surely expects that some people may choose to do that.
How is this legal for them to pursue litigation for something I can get freely from legitimate sources? My local public library has all the same movies on BluRay I can get from TPB. I can watch all the same TV shows (more, in fact) online, streaming, from legitimate sources for free as well...
What you are describing is iconography, an entirely different beast than skeuomorphism. For examples of skeuomorphism gone wild (woo?) check out the ridiculous leather on the "Calendar" app for Mac OS X, or how the Address Book looks like a literal goddamn address book - that sort of thing is just not necessary, and you can achieve the EXACT same functionality without the skeuomorphism.
It'd be easier to write to a database which uses the checksum as the index, you don't have to sort it then, and you can check for (possible) dupes very quickly.
Psygnosis deserves much more than this. Shadow of the Beast, WipEout, Lemmings. These are all iconic games which I remember VIVIDLY, much more than most other games. Sad day indeed.:'(
They are trying to make Ubunutu more user friendly, showing console information on bootup is "scary" for a non technical user.
Whether they succeed in making it user friendly is another discussion entirely. However, you can disable the non-console bootup by removing "silent" from the grup parameters (as far as I remember, anyway, they may have changed it again)
sidenote: seriously slashdot? I have to format my comments in some pidgin html?
Or the experience of one of my friends, who prefers to remain anonymous. At a recent DEFCON, while leaning over to get her drink at the bar, someone slid his hand up all the way between her legs and grabbed her crotch.
I cannot believe someone could even remotely think that doing something like this would be a good idea. Someone else's body is not just an object. Jesus Christ people, get a fucking clue - this sort of attitude makes for a very poor environment all around.
Tablets use a touch screen because they can't fit in a keyboard and mouse, not because it's an even remotely good solution.
Woah, slow down there - touch screens are magnificent for an interface because they can change the interface and interactive component dynamically. A keyboard and mouse is fantastic for traditional input methods, but don't rule out touch screens yet!
Your other points are valid, but I take a bit of exception to this one:
3) Hardware: The hardware seems woefully inadequate. Tegra 3 is okay for now but in 2013 when they actually launch? Also, it's not a good thing to upgrade hardware even every year because that will fragment the games, so that hardware at launch is a very important baseline.
I wouldn't say it's woefully inadequate. I think it would be similar to the way the Wii is underpowered compared to the PS3 and Xbox 360 right now. It's a cheap system, I wouldn't expect game-changing graphics... I would, however, expect there to be interesting games coming from the indie game crowd. Canabalt is a very simple game that is super fun to play. Super meat boy doesn't require a heck of a lot of computing power.
Slashdot Mirror
RMS' idea sounds kind of neat, but it suffers from a fatal problem: All that happens when you force crazy high taxes onto big companies is that they leave the US. This is exactly what's happening in France right now, with their recent tax reforms.
I don't think this is a concern we should worry about. Essentially, if what we are doing is *right* and *good* for the general populace, everyone else in the world will naturally follow suit.
Companies like Intel, Lockheed, Walmart are very large and have a very low chance of failure
These are all companies which I think would benefit us if they split up into smaller corporations. I like the idea.
You'd presumably have to convince a judge that your purpose for using the software in the first place was something other than engaging in or facilitating copyright infringement.... Good luck with that.
I would argue that unless they can prove what I've been sharing or downloading on the service was copyright infringement, I think they haven't got a case - it doesn't matter if the majority of users are downloading copyrighted items, what should matter is whether there is reasonable doubt that I was downloading copyrighted material. Essentially, "innocent until proven guilty".
Different hours, low security, in order to make 'real money' you work all kinds of crazy overtime. Deal mostly with uneducated loud mouths.
This sounds an awful lot like a non-trades job too. You just have to find a place where you like working and the people are great in my opinion.
Telecoms are skating on a fine line of "I can't take any more of this crap" to "I don't care enough about the crap I'm getting to cancel this". Apparently they're doing it well enough to make money.
I think it's a bit hyperbolic to claim that we as a majority of people will end up being sheep/cogs in a slaughterhouse in which our money is the ultimate goal. There is a tipping point, when that is though, I don't know. I just hope we can do get past this sort of thing without violence.
I'm not complaining about your example, I just wish there was a free alternative to Skype.
The network effect is where you need to use (random example) Skype because everyone else you need to talk to uses Skype, and Skype is not built on open standards in a way which would allow you to use an alternative.
And yet, there are no simple, easy, and free alternatives to Skype.
have absolute control over what we can or cannot do with the devices we buy
I don't think this will happen - another company can swoop in and take the market share of disgruntled users if there are any. The only reason I can see people having to use a device they don't want to use is if they are *mandated* to do so - there's a reason Apple has been so successful in the phone market, and it's not because they have an iron grip on the users' testes.
Yeah, that'll teach them to do exactly what pirates have been insisting major publishers should do! How dare they give us the option to pay what we want!? They must be punished!!
Yeah! They totally released these DRM free and cross platform so we should... wait a minute..
In all honesty, giving all to charity is a perfectly valid option to choose and THQ surely expects that some people may choose to do that.
How is this legal for them to pursue litigation for something I can get freely from legitimate sources? My local public library has all the same movies on BluRay I can get from TPB. I can watch all the same TV shows (more, in fact) online, streaming, from legitimate sources for free as well...
What you are describing is iconography, an entirely different beast than skeuomorphism. For examples of skeuomorphism gone wild (woo?) check out the ridiculous leather on the "Calendar" app for Mac OS X, or how the Address Book looks like a literal goddamn address book - that sort of thing is just not necessary, and you can achieve the EXACT same functionality without the skeuomorphism.
Essentially, it's FUD.
I think for most competitors, Apple is "how???"
The analog hole will never be plugged, because it wears sneakers and goes through your fridge looking for a beer.
Queue the sexual innuendo and/or constipation jokes...
It'd be easier to write to a database which uses the checksum as the index, you don't have to sort it then, and you can check for (possible) dupes very quickly.
US after it was found out that the rates of penile cancer among Jewish men were zero
Why not just cut the whole thing off then? Also, please provide source that this is a causal relationship.
As a fellow canadian, I feel your pain. :(
Psygnosis deserves much more than this. Shadow of the Beast, WipEout, Lemmings. These are all iconic games which I remember VIVIDLY, much more than most other games. Sad day indeed. :'(
They are trying to make Ubunutu more user friendly, showing console information on bootup is "scary" for a non technical user.
Whether they succeed in making it user friendly is another discussion entirely. However, you can disable the non-console bootup by removing "silent" from the grup parameters (as far as I remember, anyway, they may have changed it again)
sidenote: seriously slashdot? I have to format my comments in some pidgin html?
MariaDB is a drop in replacement for MySQL which was forked a while ago: http://mariadb.org/
Or the experience of one of my friends, who prefers to remain anonymous. At a recent DEFCON, while leaning over to get her drink at the bar, someone slid his hand up all the way between her legs and grabbed her crotch.
I cannot believe someone could even remotely think that doing something like this would be a good idea. Someone else's body is not just an object. Jesus Christ people, get a fucking clue - this sort of attitude makes for a very poor environment all around.
Tablets use a touch screen because they can't fit in a keyboard and mouse, not because it's an even remotely good solution.
Woah, slow down there - touch screens are magnificent for an interface because they can change the interface and interactive component dynamically. A keyboard and mouse is fantastic for traditional input methods, but don't rule out touch screens yet!
And yet, more people will probably die from obesity each day than all those combined.
Check here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads
3) Hardware: The hardware seems woefully inadequate. Tegra 3 is okay for now but in 2013 when they actually launch? Also, it's not a good thing to upgrade hardware even every year because that will fragment the games, so that hardware at launch is a very important baseline.
I wouldn't say it's woefully inadequate. I think it would be similar to the way the Wii is underpowered compared to the PS3 and Xbox 360 right now. It's a cheap system, I wouldn't expect game-changing graphics... I would, however, expect there to be interesting games coming from the indie game crowd. Canabalt is a very simple game that is super fun to play. Super meat boy doesn't require a heck of a lot of computing power.