I'm sick of the complaining from the RIAA. I've been hearing it since forever - will our generation ever turn our backs to big media completely and force their artists to go into other distribution methods (for their long term good as well) in our lifetime?
I know it's an idealistic thought - but now the technology is available and the internet makes it technically plausible - I would think it'd be only sweet poetic justice that it'll do them and the companies behind them in.
It sickens me when I think that they'll still control music in 20,30,40, or 50 years with their righteous airs and the arrogant expectations that they should sell more every year no matter what garbage they push.
What is preventing you from going to any other distro?
It's not that I'm shocked that lock-in can happen with a linux distro - it's simply that I don't see what Red Hat has that is so unique that you couldn't move if you wanted to?
If you need to move to a distro where you need to use old packages, consider Linux From Scratch. Or consider going into that package that's giving trouble and fixing the problem that won't allow it to compile with the new library. It's work, I know, but such is the cost of freedom.
Could recent security problems and lack of stability, reported by some users, lead to the decline of the browser that just passed 80 million downloads?"
If so, I have less faith in people than before. Years and years of pop-ups and other annoyances to downright garbage with IE and a news report would scare you off of Firefox?
I honestly don't know how people still use that browser unless things have improved in the meantime.
Because you're not allowed to leverage other people's trademarks to sell your service. That's the point of trademarks. You might as well ask "Why can't I put innocuous words like `Armani' on the shirts I make".
No, I would think it's closer to going to Neiman Marcus (or Macy's or whoever) and asking to see their selection on Armani shirts.
On the way there, the sale's clerk goes "Oh, btw right here next to the Armani shirts is our housebrand." The sign shows it's 50% off and looks like the same quality.
Google is one of many search service. You use it voluntarily. Why shouldn't they have the right to display what they want depending on the word you type in. They are not using the geico name illegally as I know, simply display competitor's sites when that search is iniated.
A similiar thing happens when I go to fast food (KFC, Tacobell, Pepsi owned?) restaurants and ask for a Sprite - "No, sorry sir, we only carry Slice. Would you like that?" They don't simply say no and leave it at that.
They could as easily drop geico's webpage completely - that should be within google's rights. No one promised Geico that they be displayed at all after all in this privately owned website.
I suspect growth in Open Source will not occur initially in established American businesses but at home and overseas and new businesses here, as it is currently.
The casual average home user has less bureacracy against any new thing plus not the budget for things like Microsoft Office, etcetera.
Overseas, the companies will likely find Opensource cheaper for their budget, they might also like the idea of not supporting or being dependent on an American company (especially governments), or that the software is simply more geared toward their language (thanks to someone's tweaking with it).
IT budgets here are more established and the managers more cautious than they've been shown to be in Europe or the rest of the world when it comes to OpenSource. Afterall, if you don't order MS Office and go with OpenOffice - you only save X amount of money that everybody expected to spend anyway.
But what if you deploy Openoffice and it's a disaster and have to spend X plus Y on top of it to rectify the situation.
The good things about overseas or a nonestablished business here is that they need not worry about this as much when they are contemplating an Office product for the first time and in end effect probably operate leaner much to their benefit down the road.
Second, they're not looking for, nor will they likely accept, arguments along the lines of "single-standards are dangerous."
I don't see why I have to come up with any reason.
They are asking if it's acceptable if there site is MS-IE only.
The answer: No, its not.
Reason (if you need one): 1. Not everyone runs Internet Explorer. Not everyone runs Windows. 2. One can come up with a compatible standard complient website without any more work. 3. It's the internet and should run on any platform that conforms to commonly accepted standards. This is not the microsoft advertising agency. 4. You, as a government office, are here to serve the people. Not lock them out with unnecessary proprietary solutions for the convenience of you developers. 5. It's not OKAY. You won't get a big old smiley face or A for effort. Go back to the drawing board and come back when you have an acceptable solution.
Frankly I'm surprised it didn't happen earlier and bigger.
Too bad most custom solutions aren't Open Source. At least open source to the company that uses it. How many companies have at least some custom solution to one problem or another, implemented even in dos, that could be greatly expanded in capability if it simply could be built upon or ported to a more capable platform or what not.
How often can closed-source one-size-fits-all solutions be the be-all and end-all of your needs?
Not to mention that closed-source solutions, by there very nature tend to be more inflexible and what's more - organizations grow to depend on them (and their proprietory file formats) more than they should like.
Typical Slashdot. Not just anybody viewing porn but:
"The director of the Valparaiso (Fla.) Community Library was suspended without pay in early August after city officials found that a registered sex offender had used library computers to access pornographic websites."
Since I don't know what really happened I won't dispute whether the librarian is at fault. I'll just note that filters really don't work well and for libraries it's either the choice of internet or no internet. Nothing much in between.
If internet access is so much of an issue, perhaps the computers should be put in a seperate room where you have to be over 16 or 18 to enter and use or have your parents sign a permission slip.
Personally I think it's all that streak of classic American puritanicism anyway, TV shows violence with people's heads and other body parts blown off every night of the week, or have realistic grotesque autopsies on CIS-like shows, or real grotesque surguries/diseases/etcetera on the scientific channels, or animals mating on any NationalGeographic or discovery channel yet a kid can't handle a glimpse of people doing the same?
If the sex offender viewed that stuff, put responsibility where it belongs and haul his ass to jail if he violated parole or whatever.
Oh, I agree - greed exists everywhere - no doubt about it.
But right now our productivity/rate of progress in the US is being significantly slowed down because not only are the greedy (ex. litigation lawyers for one, big corporations) are not only playing the system - they are making/influencing the rules on an unprecendented scale and breadth (read:every aspect of life) that would have been unimaginable 100+ years ago in the US.
It's not new that it happens, but it's relatively new in how little influence the citizens have in the end on many decisions w/o having to organize and rail against it. Decisions made based upon the good of the constituency are now the exception (probably when people rail against something enough), not the norm.
Right now China and India are catching up in technology and casting aside rules of patents/IP for the most part. Even when they become more like us - they each have 3-4x the population. Meaning each they're rate of progress will continue to outstrip ours.
And when they do catch up - will they force their DMCA/IP laws on us like we do with the rest of the world currently?
I'm not optimistic about America's dominant position in the world for the rest of this century.
But our U.S. system is flawed - it only works as long as we can dictate the rules.
What happens in twenty years when China and perhaps India are dominating, after we shipped all our IP, manufacture, etcetera over to them and they laugh in our faces and turn the tables, demanding the Western world respect their IP/Patent/what-not?
I see our litigation based society in decline, because at the core of it all lies basic greed.
When you have basic greed corrupting the system, what incentive is there to produce anything when it's simpler to "invent" an idea and patent it while sitting on your ass waiting for someone stupid enough to work hard and produce a practical, working model so you can feed off them?
describing it as a "crude system" I have to laugh. Crude maybe. But definitely smarter than todays system where the application attempt to dazzle with bullshit or at least lull you into a warm fuzzy feeling of meaninglessness.
It's only $199 ($239 for upgraded version) and with a PowerPC chip and 256Mb flash memory (512 with upgrade), if it had a screen, it might be a decent pda.
Otherwise I don't see the value of having a handheld linux server that has to plug into a computer usb slot (over a usb memory chip with linux on it)
I think that strategy will bite Amazon in the ass later - Walmart has a history of fighting ANY and ALL lawsuits against it just to discourage the next party of thinking they can have easy money.
With Amazon rolling over and paying these guys - who'll be next up at bat in order to get a few easy million?
I must think it's lower than that unless the speed posted is 120kmh. I would say the average is closer to 145kmh (unless statistics are factoring in the 80kmh trucks).
I agree the excessive speed (over 200kmh) is more fatal, but it also has other factors like traffic density, time of day, weather. Going 200+ would be okay if you are someplace pretty empty, but otherwise go with the flow.....
Amazon Settles Patent Suit For $40M theodp writes "In today's SEC filing, Amazon.com disclosed it will pay $40 million to settle an e-commerce patent infringement lawsuit that was reported earlier on Slashdot. The terms of the settlement also provide for dismissal of all claims and counterclaims and grant Amazon a nonexclusive license to Soverain's patent portfolio."
Wow, I depressed, $40M will only further strengthen the incentive on this patent behavior - I wish amazon stuck it out. Not that I care about amazon that much, but it only raises the barrier of entry for the little guys - especially on stupid shopping cart technology.
FYI Soverain held patents on "shopping cart" technology.
People hate speeding tickets, but the thing is. If you don't break the law* you won't have to suffer the consequences.
That's nice, but sometimes there's no reason for the speeding limit to be that low in most places except to generate revenue. Most 35mph roads should be 45mph. Most 45 should be 55mph. Etcetera. And don't get me started about those 5mph parking lots with those god-awful supershort unpainted speedbumps that sound like they are killing your suspension even if you are going 5mph (which in this case was installed most like so the property owner can avaid liability).
Studies have shown it's safter to go 10mph faster than the posted speed limit than slower. And Germany's autobahn is one of the safest systems in the world - despite parts of it having no limit! I've been there often enough - from my own experience I'm more likely to have my attention fixed on the road when I'm going a speed where I don't fall asleep of boredom.
My own local freeway here in the US has a posted limit of 55 - yet no one but grandmas and grandpas go that speed - the rest go between 65 and 80. Are the people following the law any safer for it? I'd like to see some statistics with rear-ending.
OTOH, I see bad examples of driving everyday (no turnsignal, no stopping for pedestrians already crossing the street, no seatbelts) where the cop is RIGHT THERE and still doesn't do a damn thing about it.
Whatever. The basic point is that it seems the police here in the states aren't enforcing laws to make people safer, just using them to collect cash.
I know the Japanese Robotic Mall Security guard was being made fun of here at/. but this is really cool - though it would be a nice step to see that hand attached to an arm attached to a humanoid robot who would actually have to go for the ball and not just have it thrown at it.
But all the Robotic news seems to be coming out of Japan lately, is anything being done in the US that compares?
Note: Not asking because I think the US should be in the lead but that it should compete for the benefit of all, definitely the US had the first industrial robot back in 1962 AFAIK:
No, it just wasn't anti-gun. I'm not a fan of that guy (lol, don't even remember his name!) but he made a good point - he went up to Canada to find out why they had less crimes and he expected the answers to be less guns and it wasn't so - they had more guns per capita IIRC. And so he was looking around and was surprised to hear that people even left their doors unlocked (he tested several:) He wondered why until watching the 6 o'clock news where he saw a much less sensationalist and fear-mongering media.
I think his documentaries deserve more credit than people give him. My dad criticizes him a lot w/o having seen any of his work. Likewise, I haven't looked into the criticisms of this filmmaker and they could very well be true as well...
"The Newton When Apple gets things right, it's spectacular (think iPod), but when the company messes up, it's a hoot. The first popular pen-based PDA, the Apple Newton, was big, expensive, and too smart for its britches. Early models tried to interpret handwriting with often amusing results, making words out of users' scrawls that often combined into surreal "Newton Poetry." We miss the Newton because what it thought we meant was often far more interesting than what we were really trying to say."
Having just experienced OS X last week (dedicated Linux user, sometime Windows user who had to recommend a Mac to his parent for the lack of viruses/spyware while still letting them run Quickbooks and I have 1 thing to say to KDE&Gnome - MY GOD, WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO COPY WINDOWS FOR WHEN WE CAN COPY APPLE!!!!!!!)I too would love it if apple redid a handheld that could sync in with their computer. They wouldn't have to redo a new line because they already have a handheld. They could simply dip their toes in the water and introduce the iPod with some more feature than simply playing music...... and showing pictures:) If nothing else, at least you'll have a legitimate excuse now to write an iPod off as a business expense!
OTOH I seen the normally shy and quiet friends of mine get introduced to the internet (this in the mid-90's) and really start to open up on discussion boards and all that, over time, they started asserting themselves more in real life.
I won't assert that this was the sole influence of the net where they could anonymously post and not fear negative feedback - it could have been puberty too - but I'm talking about 17-19 y/o's and being introverted/extroverted is usually set by the time you are 14-16 if not earlier, in my experience.
If we had a P2P system that was encourage to boot off copyrighted works, we'd also have less junk (RIAA has no incentive to flood it with crap) but also maybe a viable platform for Independent artists to distribute their works...............
I was going to go further down this line of thought, but now that I think about it, with bittorrent and a self-promotional website, an independent artist can get his stuff out their with minimal bandwidth expenditure. I can't really feel for either side in the debate - people who want stuff for free and the RIAA who are even bigger leeches.
I haven't been on a P2P network for ages..... though I still lament the passing of old MP3.com because that was a convenient central place to find unsigned artists who wanted their stuff out there......
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sick of the complaining from the RIAA. I've been hearing it since forever - will our generation ever turn our backs to big media completely and force their artists to go into other distribution methods (for their long term good as well) in our lifetime?
I know it's an idealistic thought - but now the technology is available and the internet makes it technically plausible - I would think it'd be only sweet poetic justice that it'll do them and the companies behind them in.
It sickens me when I think that they'll still control music in 20,30,40, or 50 years with their righteous airs and the arrogant expectations that they should sell more every year no matter what garbage they push.
My question is:
What is preventing you from going to any other distro?
It's not that I'm shocked that lock-in can happen with a linux distro - it's simply that I don't see what Red Hat has that is so unique that you couldn't move if you wanted to?
If you need to move to a distro where you need to use old packages, consider Linux From Scratch. Or consider going into that package that's giving trouble and fixing the problem that won't allow it to compile with the new library. It's work, I know, but such is the cost of freedom.
Could recent security problems and lack of stability, reported by some users, lead to the decline of the browser that just passed 80 million downloads?"
If so, I have less faith in people than before. Years and years of pop-ups and other annoyances to downright garbage with IE and a news report would scare you off of Firefox?
I honestly don't know how people still use that browser unless things have improved in the meantime.
And that's illegal how?
Because you're not allowed to leverage other people's trademarks to sell your service. That's the point of trademarks. You might as well ask "Why can't I put innocuous words like `Armani' on the shirts I make".
No, I would think it's closer to going to Neiman Marcus (or Macy's or whoever) and asking to see their selection on Armani shirts.
On the way there, the sale's clerk goes "Oh, btw right here next to the Armani shirts is our housebrand." The sign shows it's 50% off and looks like the same quality.
Google is one of many search service. You use it voluntarily. Why shouldn't they have the right to display what they want depending on the word you type in. They are not using the geico name illegally as I know, simply display competitor's sites when that search is iniated.
A similiar thing happens when I go to fast food (KFC, Tacobell, Pepsi owned?) restaurants and ask for a Sprite - "No, sorry sir, we only carry Slice. Would you like that?" They don't simply say no and leave it at that.
They could as easily drop geico's webpage completely - that should be within google's rights. No one promised Geico that they be displayed at all after all in this privately owned website.
I suspect growth in Open Source will not occur initially in established American businesses but at home and overseas and new businesses here, as it is currently.
The casual average home user has less bureacracy against any new thing plus not the budget for things like Microsoft Office, etcetera.
Overseas, the companies will likely find Opensource cheaper for their budget, they might also like the idea of not supporting or being dependent on an American company (especially governments), or that the software is simply more geared toward their language (thanks to someone's tweaking with it).
IT budgets here are more established and the managers more cautious than they've been shown to be in Europe or the rest of the world when it comes to OpenSource. Afterall, if you don't order MS Office and go with OpenOffice - you only save X amount of money that everybody expected to spend anyway.
But what if you deploy Openoffice and it's a disaster and have to spend X plus Y on top of it to rectify the situation.
The good things about overseas or a nonestablished business here is that they need not worry about this as much when they are contemplating an Office product for the first time and in end effect probably operate leaner much to their benefit down the road.
Second, they're not looking for, nor will they likely accept, arguments along the lines of "single-standards are dangerous."
I don't see why I have to come up with any reason.
They are asking if it's acceptable if there site is MS-IE only.
The answer: No, its not.
Reason (if you need one):
1. Not everyone runs Internet Explorer. Not everyone runs Windows.
2. One can come up with a compatible standard complient website without any more work.
3. It's the internet and should run on any platform that conforms to commonly accepted standards. This is not the microsoft advertising agency.
4. You, as a government office, are here to serve the people. Not lock them out with unnecessary proprietary solutions for the convenience of you developers.
5. It's not OKAY. You won't get a big old smiley face or A for effort. Go back to the drawing board and come back when you have an acceptable solution.
Frankly I'm surprised it didn't happen earlier and bigger.
Too bad most custom solutions aren't Open Source. At least open source to the company that uses it. How many companies have at least some custom solution to one problem or another, implemented even in dos, that could be greatly expanded in capability if it simply could be built upon or ported to a more capable platform or what not.
How often can closed-source one-size-fits-all solutions be the be-all and end-all of your needs?
Not to mention that closed-source solutions, by there very nature tend to be more inflexible and what's more - organizations grow to depend on them (and their proprietory file formats) more than they should like.
Typical Slashdot. Not just anybody viewing porn but:
"The director of the Valparaiso (Fla.) Community Library was suspended without pay in early August after city officials found that a registered sex offender had used library computers to access pornographic websites."
Since I don't know what really happened I won't dispute whether the librarian is at fault. I'll just note that filters really don't work well and for libraries it's either the choice of internet or no internet. Nothing much in between.
If internet access is so much of an issue, perhaps the computers should be put in a seperate room where you have to be over 16 or 18 to enter and use or have your parents sign a permission slip.
Personally I think it's all that streak of classic American puritanicism anyway, TV shows violence with people's heads and other body parts blown off every night of the week, or have realistic grotesque autopsies on CIS-like shows, or real grotesque surguries/diseases/etcetera on the scientific channels, or animals mating on any NationalGeographic or discovery channel yet a kid can't handle a glimpse of people doing the same?
If the sex offender viewed that stuff, put responsibility where it belongs and haul his ass to jail if he violated parole or whatever.
"Billy says 640 years should be enough for anyone"
To boot Microsoft Vista or just to wait for Longhorn to come out?
Oh, I agree - greed exists everywhere - no doubt about it.
But right now our productivity/rate of progress in the US is being significantly slowed down because not only are the greedy (ex. litigation lawyers for one, big corporations) are not only playing the system - they are making/influencing the rules on an unprecendented scale and breadth (read:every aspect of life) that would have been unimaginable 100+ years ago in the US.
It's not new that it happens, but it's relatively new in how little influence the citizens have in the end on many decisions w/o having to organize and rail against it. Decisions made based upon the good of the constituency are now the exception (probably when people rail against something enough), not the norm.
Right now China and India are catching up in technology and casting aside rules of patents/IP for the most part. Even when they become more like us - they each have 3-4x the population. Meaning each they're rate of progress will continue to outstrip ours.
And when they do catch up - will they force their DMCA/IP laws on us like we do with the rest of the world currently?
I'm not optimistic about America's dominant position in the world for the rest of this century.
Sadly, I see what you are talking about.
But our U.S. system is flawed - it only works as long as we can dictate the rules.
What happens in twenty years when China and perhaps India are dominating, after we shipped all our IP, manufacture, etcetera over to them and they laugh in our faces and turn the tables, demanding the Western world respect their IP/Patent/what-not?
I see our litigation based society in decline, because at the core of it all lies basic greed.
When you have basic greed corrupting the system, what incentive is there to produce anything when it's simpler to "invent" an idea and patent it while sitting on your ass waiting for someone stupid enough to work hard and produce a practical, working model so you can feed off them?
Once the patent system required a working model. When I read this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_model
describing it as a "crude system" I have to laugh. Crude maybe. But definitely smarter than todays system where the application attempt to dazzle with bullshit or at least lull you into a warm fuzzy feeling of meaninglessness.
Does it have have a screen?
It's only $199 ($239 for upgraded version) and with a PowerPC chip and 256Mb flash memory (512 with upgrade), if it had a screen, it might be a decent pda.
Otherwise I don't see the value of having a handheld linux server that has to plug into a computer usb slot (over a usb memory chip with linux on it)
I think that strategy will bite Amazon in the ass later - Walmart has a history of fighting ANY and ALL lawsuits against it just to discourage the next party of thinking they can have easy money.
With Amazon rolling over and paying these guys - who'll be next up at bat in order to get a few easy million?
I must think it's lower than that unless the speed posted is 120kmh. I would say the average is closer to 145kmh (unless statistics are factoring in the 80kmh trucks).
I agree the excessive speed (over 200kmh) is more fatal, but it also has other factors like traffic density, time of day, weather. Going 200+ would be okay if you are someplace pretty empty, but otherwise go with the flow.....
Amazon Settles Patent Suit For $40M theodp writes "In today's SEC filing, Amazon.com disclosed it will pay $40 million to settle an e-commerce patent infringement lawsuit that was reported earlier on Slashdot. The terms of the settlement also provide for dismissal of all claims and counterclaims and grant Amazon a nonexclusive license to Soverain's patent portfolio."
t le+patent+dispute/2100-1030_3-5829193.html
Wow, I depressed, $40M will only further strengthen the incentive on this patent behavior - I wish amazon stuck it out. Not that I care about amazon that much, but it only raises the barrier of entry for the little guys - especially on stupid shopping cart technology.
FYI Soverain held patents on "shopping cart" technology.
Here's another article on it:
http://news.com.com/Amazon+pays+40+million+to+set
People hate speeding tickets, but the thing is. If you don't break the law* you won't have to suffer the consequences.
That's nice, but sometimes there's no reason for the speeding limit to be that low in most places except to generate revenue. Most 35mph roads should be 45mph. Most 45 should be 55mph. Etcetera. And don't get me started about those 5mph parking lots with those god-awful supershort unpainted speedbumps that sound like they are killing your suspension even if you are going 5mph (which in this case was installed most like so the property owner can avaid liability).
Studies have shown it's safter to go 10mph faster than the posted speed limit than slower. And Germany's autobahn is one of the safest systems in the world - despite parts of it having no limit! I've been there often enough - from my own experience I'm more likely to have my attention fixed on the road when I'm going a speed where I don't fall asleep of boredom.
My own local freeway here in the US has a posted limit of 55 - yet no one but grandmas and grandpas go that speed - the rest go between 65 and 80. Are the people following the law any safer for it? I'd like to see some statistics with rear-ending.
OTOH, I see bad examples of driving everyday (no turnsignal, no stopping for pedestrians already crossing the street, no seatbelts) where the cop is RIGHT THERE and still doesn't do a damn thing about it.
Whatever. The basic point is that it seems the police here in the states aren't enforcing laws to make people safer, just using them to collect cash.
I know the Japanese Robotic Mall Security guard was being made fun of here at /. but this is really cool - though it would be a nice step to see that hand attached to an arm attached to a humanoid robot who would actually have to go for the ball and not just have it thrown at it.
/
But all the Robotic news seems to be coming out of Japan lately, is anything being done in the US that compares?
Note: Not asking because I think the US should be in the lead but that it should compete for the benefit of all, definitely the US had the first industrial robot back in 1962 AFAIK:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_robot
And it's rather sad to think we're lagging in this on the R/D side in new frontiers. Unless this should be the extent of it:
http://robots.engadget.com/entry/0657766019921755
No, it just wasn't anti-gun. I'm not a fan of that guy (lol, don't even remember his name!) but he made a good point - he went up to Canada to find out why they had less crimes and he expected the answers to be less guns and it wasn't so - they had more guns per capita IIRC. And so he was looking around and was surprised to hear that people even left their doors unlocked (he tested several:) He wondered why until watching the 6 o'clock news where he saw a much less sensationalist and fear-mongering media.
I think his documentaries deserve more credit than people give him. My dad criticizes him a lot w/o having seen any of his work. Likewise, I haven't looked into the criticisms of this filmmaker and they could very well be true as well...
March of the Penguins:
o ver_Windows.html
0 Linux_Penguins1024.png
http://www.ecliptic.ch/Stock/Detail/RE0908_Linux_
http://forum.osnn.net/photopost/data/508/medium/4
Isn't that the title of the nightmares Mr. Gates has had whenever he wakes up in a cold sweat.........
"The Newton
When Apple gets things right, it's spectacular (think iPod), but when the company messes up, it's a hoot. The first popular pen-based PDA, the Apple Newton, was big, expensive, and too smart for its britches. Early models tried to interpret handwriting with often amusing results, making words out of users' scrawls that often combined into surreal "Newton Poetry." We miss the Newton because what it thought we meant was often far more interesting than what we were really trying to say."
Having just experienced OS X last week (dedicated Linux user, sometime Windows user who had to recommend a Mac to his parent for the lack of viruses/spyware while still letting them run Quickbooks and I have 1 thing to say to KDE&Gnome - MY GOD, WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO COPY WINDOWS FOR WHEN WE CAN COPY APPLE!!!!!!!)I too would love it if apple redid a handheld that could sync in with their computer. They wouldn't have to redo a new line because they already have a handheld. They could simply dip their toes in the water and introduce the iPod with some more feature than simply playing music...... and showing pictures:) If nothing else, at least you'll have a legitimate excuse now to write an iPod off as a business expense!
Hmmm.....
OTOH I seen the normally shy and quiet friends of mine get introduced to the internet (this in the mid-90's) and really start to open up on discussion boards and all that, over time, they started asserting themselves more in real life.
I won't assert that this was the sole influence of the net where they could anonymously post and not fear negative feedback - it could have been puberty too - but I'm talking about 17-19 y/o's and being introverted/extroverted is usually set by the time you are 14-16 if not earlier, in my experience.
If we had a P2P system that was encourage to boot off copyrighted works, we'd also have less junk (RIAA has no incentive to flood it with crap) but also maybe a viable platform for Independent artists to distribute their works...............
I was going to go further down this line of thought, but now that I think about it, with bittorrent and a self-promotional website, an independent artist can get his stuff out their with minimal bandwidth expenditure. I can't really feel for either side in the debate - people who want stuff for free and the RIAA who are even bigger leeches.
I haven't been on a P2P network for ages..... though I still lament the passing of old MP3.com because that was a convenient central place to find unsigned artists who wanted their stuff out there......
Looks like they should have used self defending networks......
g _solutions_white_paper0900aecd801dfec7.shtml
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns478/networkin