And why is this a troll? Five free songs isn't bad and its not like I'd actually use Paypal over a regular credit card to buy iTMS songs in the future.
Paypal is giving away 5 free iTMS songs
on
iTunes Accepts PayPal
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· Score: 3, Informative
If you don't have an iTMS account yet, Paypal will give you 5 songs when you create a new iTMS account and link it with a Paypal account. Only for the first 500,000 people, but the promotion just started days ago so should be good for a while. I signed up Friday and got my 5 songs without any problem. Here's the link to the details on Paypal's website: 5 free iTMS songs
Steam is the future of software distribution
on
Review: Half-Life 2
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· Score: 2, Insightful
For all the complaints I've read about Steam on slashdot over the past week, consider this. Now that Valve has proven the concept of widespread distribution of games online (and about time too, considering that what, 50+% of the US is now wired for broadband), other game developers can follow suit. This could take one of three forms:
1) I'm sure that Valve will be more than happy to expand their overflowing coffers by licensing Steam to third-party developers in exchange for royalties similar to those enjoyed by traditional B&M publishers (IIRC, publishers like Vivendi and EA take something on the order of 50% of the profits from a game in return for putting the copies of the game into stores)
2) Other developers create their own version of Steam (provided that Valve has not gone patent happy ala amazon "one-click" nonsense). Of course, Steam required years and years of development, having first been announced something like 4 years ago. But, with the proof that it can be done out there acting as a template, I'm sure we will no doubt see Steam clones soon enough.
3) This scenario fascinates me the most. Although I know that today is an odd day and therefore slashdot is in "we hate Microsoft mode", I believe that its quite likely that Microsoft will develop a service akin to Steam for inclusion into future versions of Windows (perhaps Longhorn?). Why? Simple - Microsoft can instantly become a publisher for the majority of Windows games. It would almost be like the license fees they get from every Xbox game sold already. Now, what happens to the games industry if Microsoft creates their own version of Steam for Windows? First, smaller developers who could not find a traditional B&M company like EA to publish their work could go to Microsoft. While a game must have sales of 10,000+ to be commerically viable offline, online the distribution costs are a lot lower thus lowering the threshold. Second, piracy would be reduced from the current endemic proportions. While I highly value my digital rights (I'm a contributor to the EFF), relative to console games, computer games have been on the decline for years. I'd vouch that one of the reasons is that while there may be orders of magnitude higher numbers of PC's out there when compared to the userbase of consoles, getting a free copy of something like Halo 2 requires more than a simple Bittorrent download - you need to physically mod the console. With less piracy on the computer side, no doubt you would see a much greater increase in both the quality and quantity of games developed for the PC.
So, while I agree that Steam does have some worrying implications for our fair use rights (for example, I can not legally resell my Steam purchased copy of Half Life 2 - the only way around it would be to give someone the username and password of my Steam account, something specifically not allowed by the Steam EULA), on the whole I do believe that Steam is the beginning of a revolution in computer games and the end of the B&M dealer. In fact, the same model could also be applied beyond games into regular software and I do not see why future consoles will not include a Steam like component to buy games online. Like it or not, the economics of Steam are just too perfect to ignore. This is the future of software distribution.
While I wasn't able to attend the debate here at Cornell last night (the miniscule number of seats available were long sold out), our campus newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun, wrote the following summary of the debate last night:
"How many 'thirds' can there be?" was the question posed by Theodore Lowi, the J.L. Senior Professor of American Studies and moderator of last night's debate between third-party candidates in the upcoming presidential election. Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party, David Cobb of the Green Party, Walt Brown of the Socialist Party and Michael Badnarik of the Libertarian Party discussed issues ranging from abortion to fossil fuel in front of a packed Rockefeller Auditorium.
The debate was televised by both C-SPAN and PBS.
The candidates began by introducing their platforms.
Peroutka identified his governing principles as "God, family and the republic." He urged members of the audience to "repeat the pledge of allegiance and stop at the 16th word; it's not just a distinction, it's a difference... We need to restore the republic."
David Cobb presented himself as the candidate from the party that "tells the truth." Cobb said that he is working to take "our country back from the corporate fat-cats who have hijacked it," and that the "media tries to marginalize" the Green Party because "Greens tell the truth."
Walt Brown did not spend his time for opening statements informing the audience of his viewpoints but instead refuted some of the statements that had already been made.
"God, family, republic -- that doesn't separate us. God: I was married by a minister... and a minister spoke at my wife's funeral... Family: I was married for 49 years... The pledge of Allegiance was written by a Socialist minister in Boston, there goes the republic," Brown said.
Michael Badnarik wanted to start by drawing the distinction between Libertarians and liberals.
"We are for liberty. What liberty is... is being able to make your own decisions. I want to emphasize the idea that you are not required to vote for the lesser of two evils."
After the audience had an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the platforms of the four candidates, the floor was opened for questions. The first question was on the war on terror, specifically, what should be done to win?
Peroutka, a constitutional expert, asserted that because Congress has not declared war, "we have not declared war in Iraq." In fact, he said, "we have not declared war since World War II." Therefore, "the Peroutka presidency -- if God would grant that glory -- would immediately end our involvement in Iraq."
Cobb, Brown and Badnarik did not focus as much as Peroutka did on the legality of entering war but all expressed the opinion that the war was unjust and, if elected, they would remove United States troops from Iraq as soon as possible.
A question asked about fossil fuel gave Cobb and the Green Party platform an opportunity to shine.
"The Green Party is calling for a sustainable alternative energy source. We, the people, don't control this government but... we must wean ourselves off the addiction to oil which is what got us into the war on Iraq."
Peroutka said that he "[didn't] see anywhere in Article 1, section 8 anything about constitutional energy policies."
One student brought up whether or not the candidates endorse a living wage by asking, "The living wage for Ithaca is $8.68. I make $7 per hour. I don't need another buck-sixty-eight; I'll just spend it on music and alcohol. Isn't there a better way [to help people]?"
"Minimum wage laws put lots of people out of work -- particularly those people they were made to protect," Badnarik replied.
"Minimum wage is unconstitutional," Peroutka answered.
The polarization of the candidates was seen in their response to the topic of abortion: where Pero
I'm sure I'm not the only one pissed at them. First, non-subscribers are not allowed to download the newest version of their firmware for the Linksys WRT54G wireless router. You must pay $20 for the prviledge or use the release that is about six months out of date. Fine, I understand that they have bills to pay too, just as long as they don't slip on the release schedule for the free version (blatant GPL violation non-withstanding).
Now, here's the part which burns me. As of last Sunday, access to the Sveasoft website has been discontinued for those not paying their $20 yearly fee. Before that, you could download the free version of their firmware from them or check out their forum for troubleshooting etc. No more. Non-subscribers can't even browse - instead we are told that "Sorry, but only users granted special access can read topics in this forum." Sveasoft says that we should try linksysinfo.org instead, yet the amount of information there is sorely lacking. Furthermore, the admin there would make George Orwell proud - any hearsay about Sveasoft will get your IP banned and your message promptly thrown into the void. Straight from the horse's mouth:
"It is not a "I hate Sveasoft for closing his site" debate. Anyone thinking and debating that issue will be have a Temporary ban, as I have better things to do than listen to people whinged about why sveasoft closed and the GPL Issues."
Sveasoft themselves tolerate no dissent either, a poster at linksysinfo.org reported that after reporting a bug in the firmware, they banned him for "an attempt to create a flame and is against our posting guidelines. Should you wish to create further problems I will contact the authorities in Germany and report that you are criminally trespassing in our computer systems. It is up to you. Go ahead - make my day." Yikes! Not very nice people, are they?
I could go on and on, like how Sveasoft masquerades as an average user in his forums and on linksysinfo.org helpfully suggesting we contribute $20 for their wonderful firmware (that's right, I'm talking about YOU Wolf!), but the fact is that this is totally against the spirit of Open Source and that it is a shame that such a promising project has been ruined by greed.
Dude, why don't you keep quiet as you obviously do not know what you are talking about. I was in Thailand last week and can confirm that locally produced and officially licensed DVD's like Kill Bill Vol. 1 and LoTR TTT are only 200 baht ($5) or so. The pirated stuff goes for around 100 baht ($2.5), so you can see that the legitimate distributors in Thailand are wise enough to price their products low enough to make the pirated copies less enticing. Same goes with PC games - most new releases can be found for 400 baht or so from official distributors like Electronic Arts Thailand.
Grab the 1.0 Compiled XviD 1.0 for Windows Here
on
XVID 1.0 Released
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· Score: 5, Informative
For Windows users, grab a compiled binary of XviD 1.0 Final with a nice installer at Koepi's Media Development Homepage. A lot easier than going through xvid.org as due to copyright issues they only host the xvid source, which must be compiled manually.
Does anybody get it? Intellectual property has virtually no "variable costs". It does not cost Apple diddly for the bandwidth to provide a 4 MB iTunes download. The only costs with IP are the "fixed costs" to develop it in the first place. This is unparalelled in human history! For the first time, information can be deployed for almost nothing. Sadly, all this DRM bullshit will destroy the greatest thing about computing today - that is, perfect and practically free copying. They're trying to apply the old business models of good A costs x amount to produce, therefore Megacorp will sell it for amount x + a dollars. Economically, DRM removes the ability for anyone technically inclined to copy IP without paying the content provider, or to put it another way, it introduces an artifical "variable cost". I can only hope that groups like the EFF can raise enough hell to get Joe Sixpack interested in the loss of what could have been a new paradigm as significant as the Industrial Revolution.
And who could forget Alamo's claim as the "Official Rental Car of the American Vacation". Are stupid advertising claims back in style or something? What's next, SCO, the "Official Sponsor of the American Lawyer"?
pledged to donate $US13.5 million ($17.99 million) for research into extra-terrestrial life. With the contribution, Allen will have given $US25 million ($33.32 million)
What, is a Microsoft(c) Dollar worth more than that picture of ol'e George I have in my wallet?
Hey, if potential perps have to throw out their back to steal the thing, plus it wouldn't exactly be as inconspicous to drop into a sack as a 4 lb iBook.
Intellectual property laws may be bad for business in general, but they are invaluable to big business. How else could they ensure that upstarts don't come in, undercut them, and take over the market? Yet, as anyone who's taken Economics 101 should know, monopolies are hopelessly inefficient - they restrict output leading to high prices for the consumer, whereas a competive market produces more and can only charge around their cost to produce the product. It's hard to be optimistic that big business interests and their lobbyists will ever allow the status quo to change.
I toured DC yesterday and noticed something which the cynical side of my self could not have been happier with. Guess what two government departments sit adjacent to the White House? No, not the Department of Defense, the security of the nation is entrusted to the folks at the Pentagon across the river, nor the Departments of Justice, Education, State, or Energy. Give up? Not only is the Commerce Department (ie business) located less than a block away, but the Treasury Department's building is contained within the perimeter of the White House! As P. Diddy best said "It's all about the Benjamins."
Woah, stop with the conspiracy theories. This actually all came about as a result of a coordinated effort by one particular blog. They decided to create the "Miserable Failure Project" and asked for their readers to stick in a link to this page to establish a link between Dubya and the term "miserable failure", which has worked out exactly as they hoped. There is more info at that link if you're interested in the juicy details.
This will work just fine with MP3's, but won't work with Apple's DRM'ed files. For those, you need to actually authorize the computer so it can play the AAC file.
Apparently, their webserver could use a good overclocking as well
Why We Still Need the RIAA
on
Who Needs Radio?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Last week, the senior vice president of the RIAA came to my college for a debate on copywrite and p2p. When asked how the RIAA can continue to justify the existence of the record labels with iTunes et al, his response was that we would have no new popular music without the promotion offered by the labels. I call BS. On the contrary, instead of the labels actively pushing the latest crap from Britney Spears through radio promotion and advertising, truly good music would spread through word-of-mouth. Every single day the RIAA and its cohorts continue to exist is another day our ears are spoonfed by what some executive at one of the Big 5 labels believes the public can be manipulated to purchase thorugh relentless marketing. Unfortunatley for the labels, p2p makes it easy for people to figure out that album x is crap before they have a chance to buy, hence the rapid erosion of their dated business model and the RIAA's desperate fight for survival.
Thank you for pointing out this out to us. As a token of our appreciation for your views, you have just won a free all expenses paid trip to lovely Guantanamo Bay in sunny Cuba! A team of men in black suits will be at your door shortly to help you with your trip.
Sincerely,
John Ashcroft
The Minisitry of Information, Love, and Fluffy Kittens
As I resident of LA this summer, I enjoyed countless hours on the freeways enjoying the scenery at 5 mph. There are many times when directions specifically designed to route around the current traffic conditions would have been an invaluable timesaver. I know that Microsoft's Mapblast gives you an estimated driving time, yet this is useless as it gives the same estimate whether its 7 AM rushhour or 3 AM on a Sunday night. Are there any websites out there with this functionality?
Please, why don't they be honest in their press releases and state the obvious: they don't give a rat's ass about their workers in the United States.
Face it, technical jobs are becomming increasingly a commodity that can be filled as easily by someone in Bangalore as Boston. So, when the Joe CEO of Moneygrubberscorp realizes that he can slash costs by many times through overseas outsourcing, what do he's going to do? That's right, he sees that lower costs = higher profit = more money for Joe CEO, his cronies, and the all mightly shareholder. Almighty capitalism at its finest!
Unfortunatly, that means that means that the middle class workers he just eliminated are SOL. Their piece of the pie is gone, eaten up by Joe CEO so he can afford another villa in Switzerland. Poor John Programmer now must try to find another job - but unfortunatly, no other company can justify the cost to hire him.
As more companies outsource, those who don't, out of patriotism and respect for their countrymen, have higher costs, realize less profit, and lose their competiveness. Eventually, they will either: A) Be eaten by Microsoft / Oracle / etc B) Go out of business.
What does this mean? IT MEANS THAT SOON, THE ONLY COMPANIES LEFT WILL THE ONES WHO HAVE OUTSOURCED ALL THEIR WHITE COLLAR JOBS. John Programmer will have to find something that has not / can't be outsourced, such as the trite example of flipping burgers. Thus, bye bye middle class.
Who wins? Joe CEO, Moneygrubberscorp, its shareholders and all the other's companies like it make out big time by pocketing the difference between the salaries of thousands of John Programmers.
What can be done? I'm not going to preach here (I'll leave that for another time). Just be aware that this is happening and ITS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE IT HAPPENS TO YOU!
The notebook, supplied by Hewlett Packard for 19,500 baht excluding VAT, has a VIA 800MHz CPU, 20GB hard disk, 128 MB RAM, a 10.2-inch monitor and a modem.
Without a CD-ROM drive, there will be a problem when users want to install new software.
Although both computers come with the Thai-language Linux operating system Linux TLE 5.0 and the Office TLE 1.0.2 productivity suite _ which includes a word processor, presentation software, spreadsheet and web browser _ users might take time to learn how to use it.
Interesting, it only has a 10.2" LCD display, no ethernet, a modem (assumedly 56k), and a custom version of Linux (anyone know what distro TLE is based on?). Considering that the quality and quantity of landlines in Thailand leaves a lot to be desired (my modem dropped twice while writing this), it begs the question whether this project to bring IT and the Internet to the masses would be more successful with a companion push for decent quality Internet service (perhaps through wireless?) to go along with the 1 million computers. Anywho, still a very positive day for Linux.
You wouldn't have to buy the entire Airport base station. Apple sells Mini-PCI Airport Extreme cards seperately for 99$ at the Apple store here. However, it is questionable whether there are any drivers for non-Mac systems.
Same here, got fed up with reading about all the crap Ashcroft is doing and decided to be proactive. I'm guessing that I won't be flying anytime soon when CAPPS II finds the credit card transaction for the ACLU...
Slashdot Mirror
And why is this a troll? Five free songs isn't bad and its not like I'd actually use Paypal over a regular credit card to buy iTMS songs in the future.
If you don't have an iTMS account yet, Paypal will give you 5 songs when you create a new iTMS account and link it with a Paypal account. Only for the first 500,000 people, but the promotion just started days ago so should be good for a while. I signed up Friday and got my 5 songs without any problem. Here's the link to the details on Paypal's website: 5 free iTMS songs
For all the complaints I've read about Steam on slashdot over the past week, consider this. Now that Valve has proven the concept of widespread distribution of games online (and about time too, considering that what, 50+% of the US is now wired for broadband), other game developers can follow suit. This could take one of three forms:
1) I'm sure that Valve will be more than happy to expand their overflowing coffers by licensing Steam to third-party developers in exchange for royalties similar to those enjoyed by traditional B&M publishers (IIRC, publishers like Vivendi and EA take something on the order of 50% of the profits from a game in return for putting the copies of the game into stores)
2) Other developers create their own version of Steam (provided that Valve has not gone patent happy ala amazon "one-click" nonsense). Of course, Steam required years and years of development, having first been announced something like 4 years ago. But, with the proof that it can be done out there acting as a template, I'm sure we will no doubt see Steam clones soon enough.
3) This scenario fascinates me the most. Although I know that today is an odd day and therefore slashdot is in "we hate Microsoft mode", I believe that its quite likely that Microsoft will develop a service akin to Steam for inclusion into future versions of Windows (perhaps Longhorn?). Why? Simple - Microsoft can instantly become a publisher for the majority of Windows games. It would almost be like the license fees they get from every Xbox game sold already. Now, what happens to the games industry if Microsoft creates their own version of Steam for Windows? First, smaller developers who could not find a traditional B&M company like EA to publish their work could go to Microsoft. While a game must have sales of 10,000+ to be commerically viable offline, online the distribution costs are a lot lower thus lowering the threshold. Second, piracy would be reduced from the current endemic proportions. While I highly value my digital rights (I'm a contributor to the EFF), relative to console games, computer games have been on the decline for years. I'd vouch that one of the reasons is that while there may be orders of magnitude higher numbers of PC's out there when compared to the userbase of consoles, getting a free copy of something like Halo 2 requires more than a simple Bittorrent download - you need to physically mod the console. With less piracy on the computer side, no doubt you would see a much greater increase in both the quality and quantity of games developed for the PC.
So, while I agree that Steam does have some worrying implications for our fair use rights (for example, I can not legally resell my Steam purchased copy of Half Life 2 - the only way around it would be to give someone the username and password of my Steam account, something specifically not allowed by the Steam EULA), on the whole I do believe that Steam is the beginning of a revolution in computer games and the end of the B&M dealer. In fact, the same model could also be applied beyond games into regular software and I do not see why future consoles will not include a Steam like component to buy games online. Like it or not, the economics of Steam are just too perfect to ignore. This is the future of software distribution.
While I wasn't able to attend the debate here at Cornell last night (the miniscule number of seats available were long sold out), our campus newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun, wrote the following summary of the debate last night:
... We need to restore the republic."
... and a minister spoke at my wife's funeral ... Family: I was married for 49 years ... The pledge of Allegiance was written by a Socialist minister in Boston, there goes the republic," Brown said.
... is being able to make your own decisions. I want to emphasize the idea that you are not required to vote for the lesser of two evils."
... we must wean ourselves off the addiction to oil which is what got us into the war on Iraq."
"How many 'thirds' can there be?" was the question posed by Theodore Lowi, the J.L. Senior Professor of American Studies and moderator of last night's debate between third-party candidates in the upcoming presidential election. Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party, David Cobb of the Green Party, Walt Brown of the Socialist Party and Michael Badnarik of the Libertarian Party discussed issues ranging from abortion to fossil fuel in front of a packed Rockefeller Auditorium.
The debate was televised by both C-SPAN and PBS.
The candidates began by introducing their platforms.
Peroutka identified his governing principles as "God, family and the republic." He urged members of the audience to "repeat the pledge of allegiance and stop at the 16th word; it's not just a distinction, it's a difference
David Cobb presented himself as the candidate from the party that "tells the truth." Cobb said that he is working to take "our country back from the corporate fat-cats who have hijacked it," and that the "media tries to marginalize" the Green Party because "Greens tell the truth."
Walt Brown did not spend his time for opening statements informing the audience of his viewpoints but instead refuted some of the statements that had already been made.
"God, family, republic -- that doesn't separate us. God: I was married by a minister
Michael Badnarik wanted to start by drawing the distinction between Libertarians and liberals.
"We are for liberty. What liberty is
After the audience had an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the platforms of the four candidates, the floor was opened for questions. The first question was on the war on terror, specifically, what should be done to win?
Peroutka, a constitutional expert, asserted that because Congress has not declared war, "we have not declared war in Iraq." In fact, he said, "we have not declared war since World War II." Therefore, "the Peroutka presidency -- if God would grant that glory -- would immediately end our involvement in Iraq."
Cobb, Brown and Badnarik did not focus as much as Peroutka did on the legality of entering war but all expressed the opinion that the war was unjust and, if elected, they would remove United States troops from Iraq as soon as possible.
A question asked about fossil fuel gave Cobb and the Green Party platform an opportunity to shine.
"The Green Party is calling for a sustainable alternative energy source. We, the people, don't control this government but
Peroutka said that he "[didn't] see anywhere in Article 1, section 8 anything about constitutional energy policies."
One student brought up whether or not the candidates endorse a living wage by asking, "The living wage for Ithaca is $8.68. I make $7 per hour. I don't need another buck-sixty-eight; I'll just spend it on music and alcohol. Isn't there a better way [to help people]?"
"Minimum wage laws put lots of people out of work -- particularly those people they were made to protect," Badnarik replied.
"Minimum wage is unconstitutional," Peroutka answered.
The polarization of the candidates was seen in their response to the topic of abortion: where Pero
I'm sure I'm not the only one pissed at them. First, non-subscribers are not allowed to download the newest version of their firmware for the Linksys WRT54G wireless router. You must pay $20 for the prviledge or use the release that is about six months out of date. Fine, I understand that they have bills to pay too, just as long as they don't slip on the release schedule for the free version (blatant GPL violation non-withstanding).
Now, here's the part which burns me. As of last Sunday, access to the Sveasoft website has been discontinued for those not paying their $20 yearly fee. Before that, you could download the free version of their firmware from them or check out their forum for troubleshooting etc. No more. Non-subscribers can't even browse - instead we are told that "Sorry, but only users granted special access can read topics in this forum." Sveasoft says that we should try linksysinfo.org instead, yet the amount of information there is sorely lacking. Furthermore, the admin there would make George Orwell proud - any hearsay about Sveasoft will get your IP banned and your message promptly thrown into the void. Straight from the horse's mouth:
"It is not a "I hate Sveasoft for closing his site" debate. Anyone thinking and debating that issue will be have a Temporary ban, as I have better things to do than listen to people whinged about why sveasoft closed and the GPL Issues."
Sveasoft themselves tolerate no dissent either, a poster at linksysinfo.org reported that after reporting a bug in the firmware, they banned him for "an attempt to create a flame and is against our posting guidelines. Should you wish to create further problems I will contact the authorities in Germany and report that you are criminally trespassing in our computer systems. It is up to you. Go ahead - make my day." Yikes! Not very nice people, are they?
I could go on and on, like how Sveasoft masquerades as an average user in his forums and on linksysinfo.org helpfully suggesting we contribute $20 for their wonderful firmware (that's right, I'm talking about YOU Wolf!), but the fact is that this is totally against the spirit of Open Source and that it is a shame that such a promising project has been ruined by greed.
Dude, why don't you keep quiet as you obviously do not know what you are talking about. I was in Thailand last week and can confirm that locally produced and officially licensed DVD's like Kill Bill Vol. 1 and LoTR TTT are only 200 baht ($5) or so. The pirated stuff goes for around 100 baht ($2.5), so you can see that the legitimate distributors in Thailand are wise enough to price their products low enough to make the pirated copies less enticing. Same goes with PC games - most new releases can be found for 400 baht or so from official distributors like Electronic Arts Thailand.
For Windows users, grab a compiled binary of XviD 1.0 Final with a nice installer at Koepi's Media Development Homepage. A lot easier than going through xvid.org as due to copyright issues they only host the xvid source, which must be compiled manually.
Does anybody get it? Intellectual property has virtually no "variable costs". It does not cost Apple diddly for the bandwidth to provide a 4 MB iTunes download. The only costs with IP are the "fixed costs" to develop it in the first place. This is unparalelled in human history! For the first time, information can be deployed for almost nothing. Sadly, all this DRM bullshit will destroy the greatest thing about computing today - that is, perfect and practically free copying. They're trying to apply the old business models of good A costs x amount to produce, therefore Megacorp will sell it for amount x + a dollars. Economically, DRM removes the ability for anyone technically inclined to copy IP without paying the content provider, or to put it another way, it introduces an artifical "variable cost". I can only hope that groups like the EFF can raise enough hell to get Joe Sixpack interested in the loss of what could have been a new paradigm as significant as the Industrial Revolution.
And who could forget Alamo's claim as the "Official Rental Car of the American Vacation". Are stupid advertising claims back in style or something? What's next, SCO, the "Official Sponsor of the American Lawyer"?
pledged to donate $US13.5 million ($17.99 million) for research into extra-terrestrial life. With the contribution, Allen will have given $US25 million ($33.32 million) What, is a Microsoft(c) Dollar worth more than that picture of ol'e George I have in my wallet?
Hey, if potential perps have to throw out their back to steal the thing, plus it wouldn't exactly be as inconspicous to drop into a sack as a 4 lb iBook.
Intellectual property laws may be bad for business in general, but they are invaluable to big business. How else could they ensure that upstarts don't come in, undercut them, and take over the market? Yet, as anyone who's taken Economics 101 should know, monopolies are hopelessly inefficient - they restrict output leading to high prices for the consumer, whereas a competive market produces more and can only charge around their cost to produce the product. It's hard to be optimistic that big business interests and their lobbyists will ever allow the status quo to change.
I toured DC yesterday and noticed something which the cynical side of my self could not have been happier with. Guess what two government departments sit adjacent to the White House? No, not the Department of Defense, the security of the nation is entrusted to the folks at the Pentagon across the river, nor the Departments of Justice, Education, State, or Energy. Give up? Not only is the Commerce Department (ie business) located less than a block away, but the Treasury Department's building is contained within the perimeter of the White House! As P. Diddy best said "It's all about the Benjamins."
Woah, stop with the conspiracy theories. This actually all came about as a result of a coordinated effort by one particular blog. They decided to create the "Miserable Failure Project" and asked for their readers to stick in a link to this page to establish a link between Dubya and the term "miserable failure", which has worked out exactly as they hoped. There is more info at that link if you're interested in the juicy details.
This will work just fine with MP3's, but won't work with Apple's DRM'ed files. For those, you need to actually authorize the computer so it can play the AAC file.
Apparently, their webserver could use a good overclocking as well
Last week, the senior vice president of the RIAA came to my college for a debate on copywrite and p2p. When asked how the RIAA can continue to justify the existence of the record labels with iTunes et al, his response was that we would have no new popular music without the promotion offered by the labels. I call BS. On the contrary, instead of the labels actively pushing the latest crap from Britney Spears through radio promotion and advertising, truly good music would spread through word-of-mouth. Every single day the RIAA and its cohorts continue to exist is another day our ears are spoonfed by what some executive at one of the Big 5 labels believes the public can be manipulated to purchase thorugh relentless marketing. Unfortunatley for the labels, p2p makes it easy for people to figure out that album x is crap before they have a chance to buy, hence the rapid erosion of their dated business model and the RIAA's desperate fight for survival.
Thank you for pointing out this out to us. As a token of our appreciation for your views, you have just won a free all expenses paid trip to lovely Guantanamo Bay in sunny Cuba! A team of men in black suits will be at your door shortly to help you with your trip. Sincerely, John Ashcroft The Minisitry of Information, Love, and Fluffy Kittens
As I resident of LA this summer, I enjoyed countless hours on the freeways enjoying the scenery at 5 mph. There are many times when directions specifically designed to route around the current traffic conditions would have been an invaluable timesaver. I know that Microsoft's Mapblast gives you an estimated driving time, yet this is useless as it gives the same estimate whether its 7 AM rushhour or 3 AM on a Sunday night. Are there any websites out there with this functionality?
Barnyard masturbators, wow, perhaps the SCO execs DO have a future after all ! Thanks, I'll be here all night
Face it, technical jobs are becomming increasingly a commodity that can be filled as easily by someone in Bangalore as Boston. So, when the Joe CEO of Moneygrubberscorp realizes that he can slash costs by many times through overseas outsourcing, what do he's going to do? That's right, he sees that lower costs = higher profit = more money for Joe CEO, his cronies, and the all mightly shareholder. Almighty capitalism at its finest!
Unfortunatly, that means that means that the middle class workers he just eliminated are SOL. Their piece of the pie is gone, eaten up by Joe CEO so he can afford another villa in Switzerland. Poor John Programmer now must try to find another job - but unfortunatly, no other company can justify the cost to hire him.
As more companies outsource, those who don't, out of patriotism and respect for their countrymen, have higher costs, realize less profit, and lose their competiveness. Eventually, they will either: A) Be eaten by Microsoft / Oracle / etc B) Go out of business.
What does this mean? IT MEANS THAT SOON, THE ONLY COMPANIES LEFT WILL THE ONES WHO HAVE OUTSOURCED ALL THEIR WHITE COLLAR JOBS. John Programmer will have to find something that has not / can't be outsourced, such as the trite example of flipping burgers. Thus, bye bye middle class.
Who wins? Joe CEO, Moneygrubberscorp, its shareholders and all the other's companies like it make out big time by pocketing the difference between the salaries of thousands of John Programmers.
What can be done? I'm not going to preach here (I'll leave that for another time). Just be aware that this is happening and ITS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE IT HAPPENS TO YOU!
Heh, hook up the DanceR with Honda's ASIMO humanoid robot and we'll have the world's first robotic couple!
You wouldn't have to buy the entire Airport base station. Apple sells Mini-PCI Airport Extreme cards seperately for 99$ at the Apple store here. However, it is questionable whether there are any drivers for non-Mac systems.
Same here, got fed up with reading about all the crap Ashcroft is doing and decided to be proactive. I'm guessing that I won't be flying anytime soon when CAPPS II finds the credit card transaction for the ACLU...