Well, I am going to play some karma chips and absolutely disagree with you.
The RIAA shill that answered all of those questions was full of it. He managed to NOT answer the questions that were asked and danced around things that people interested in Fair Use wanted to hear.
Make no mistake, if the RIAA could kill Fair Use tomorrow, you'd have a whole pile of 'Starship' dubs on cassette that would get you 15 to 20.
Years, not dollars.
Read what several hundred/.ers wroteabout this very article and you will see the chinks in the armor of the RIAA talking head.
The RIAA is not out to protect you, they are here to sell you music. They will take whatever means necessary in order to do that without having to change their business model.
You also might want to glance at the latest issue of Rolling Stone, which has an article about the Eagles and Pearl Jam (among others) leaving their lables to go it alone. You will see that even these artists are being affected by the RIAA using a chilling effect on retailers and radio.
I prefer to let the actions of the RIAA speak for themselves, rather than the verbal pandering that means just the opposite.
Haven't we already determined that MS owns the playing field, and contrary to the ruling of the DOJ, has no intention of giving it up?
If this truly was about a 'free' market - we wouldn't be talking about 'leveling the playing field', because monopolies like MS would not be allowed to use their market position to leverage monopolies in other markets.
Unless you're okay with unfair business practice and the flouting of federal laws.
I was promised flying cars, why aren't they working on the flying cars?
IPv6 sounds great but I see that we will need more TLDs and a domain name will be absolutely necessary.
Frickin' Rainman will be the only one able to remember xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.
At least the giant corporations that are our new overlords will have to spend some serious $$$ to cover all the new 'name.new tld'. Perhaps after all this is done, they can work on flying cars. 'cause we are like 50+ years behind the times here, people.
But all that has to take a back seat to hard to remember IPv6.
Here's a plan, why don't we just take the internet away from all the AOLers, the Flash greeting card senders, the 'Great Story! Read this LOLRFLOLRLOL!!!!'ers, Zone Bejewled players and the cheaters at Counter Strike and we'll have enough IPs for all of the elitist bastards that are going to make my toaster talk to me.
Tell you what. I will trade all my IPs (192.168.x.x) for a friggin' flying car.
Let's make it happen. I'll even have a bumper sticker, "IPv6, but my doctor says I'll be fine!" with a smiley!
MS has proven itself untrustworthy in word and in practice. Antitrust settlements aren't worth the paper they're printed on. No surprise. I guess this sounds like flamebait, but what is stopping an enterprising OSS from creating a better protocol?
We all know that MS is good at copying, but poor at actually 'innovating'.
Ironically, the reverse is usually true for OSS.
Yes, I know that better tech doesn't always win (Beta vs VHS), but if an OSS solution is found to this problem, MS can follow or get out of the way.
The key is to put the shoe on the other foot - force MS's compatabillity with OSS protocols, rather than the other way around. A tough road indeed, but one that we'd better get used to.
Look at Flash (not too long;), there was tech that was released by one company and went on to become a web standard. Everyone has the flash plugin, and if they don't, they can get it easily.
This was a tough story to write a comment to - it was like pointing up and saying, "The sky is blue! What can we do?"
You nailed one of the many things I noticed about the interview. The RIAA guy always agreed with Lessig, yet mangaged to skirt the issue everytime. I say this guy should be a politican.
Ha! Fooled you, if you work for the RIAA, you already are a politican!
Fine post on one of the sections that stood out to me as well.
Since we are coming up on the TWO YEAR anniversary of the last time the Radio section was updated, how about we put a bullet in it, and have.... ... A Music Section! ...
As I have mentioned before -/.ers all have one thing in common. They all listen to music. I would like to see RIAA-free bands, reviews of new independent albums, geeky stuff for the aspiring musician, news of places to see, buy, and make RIAA-free music.
With 250,000+/.ers out there, I think we benefit the artists who have decided that the RIAA is NOT for them, and also make our voice heard.
If it was made available to subscribers only, that might be enough to make me go for a subscription (of course, since I thought of this great idea - I should get a free pass, or edit the damn thing.)
I know this doesn't have anything to do with the review really, but:
I am the lone IT guy at a small (publishing among other things) company. We no longer accept Word files, all text must be in.rtf or.txt formats.
I have had to educate some on why we don't take them anymore. Here's the mail I sent out:
As we use many different programs to layout, archive, and read files, we require file formats that do not depend on any one program.
Please send all documents saved as.RTF (rich text format). This is an open standard, and one that all word processors can read. It also saves to a smaller file size, and is better for archiving as it contains no proprietary code.
In MS Word, Your.DOC files can be saved as.RTF as follows.
1. Open your document
2. Go to the 'File' menu
3. Select 'Save As'
4. In the dialog box, type a new name for your document if desired, then in the 'Save As Type' drop down menu, choose '.RTF Rich Text Format'.
5. Click 'Save'
6. You're done!
You may also click the 'Options' button in the 'Save As' dialog box and choose '.RTF Rich Text Format' for the drop down menu "Save Word files as". This reminds you to save them as.RTF files.
In other word processors and page layout programs, you may be able to 'Export' your open file as.RTF.
So far, no complaints. I hold the cards in this situation (do it this way or no publishing), and the computer stuff is completely up to me, so YMMV.
It does feel good to kill the.doc files one by one, and if my explanation has a little FUD in it, oh well.
You and a few close co-workers at the "Burger Hut" make up the core grunts of 'the Fry Area'. The "Burger Hut" relies heavily on your department for many services, some of which, such as flipping burgers and boiling things in oil, Sally the waitress and Tim the busboy, cannot provide. You like your job, it provides great satisfaction, especally when someone says, "This Beef Stroganoff is pretty good.".
Suddenly, Bob the Boss realizes he spent way too much at the track and he's in deep financial shit, and starts making cut backs. This impacts the 'the Fry Area' as you have to resue the oil AGAIN. You suddenly find yourself working 50-60 hour weeks, put on call with no compensation, given unreasonable amounts of work, (you have to wash dishes now too?!) and generally treated like the dirt under your code-violating nails.
You get the feeling that the company is just going to take advantage of you no matter how and what happens. You get together with the rest of the 'the Fry Area' for some beers (ok, a little weed too) and a 'Screw the "Burger Hut"' meeting and decide to give Bob the finger and walk out.
to find a job, I suggest making sure you have somewhere to go - if you live in a city, that's a plus - smaller towns talk 'off the record', since there is a network beyond work in place. You can find door shut in your face if they hear about you on the 'grapevine'.
See what the options you have are - take a good look at something that you've wanted to do, and see if there is an opportunity there. Sometimes, everone needs a change of scenery. Again, ensure that there is *somewhere* to go; you don't want to be the new bitch at McDonalds.
Be self aware, and honest with yourself - did you have a gravy job;, did you spend hours of company time trying to make the perfect paper clip crossbow? Is this job the best that you can hope for right now?
It seems to me that you would be better serving yourself (when it comes down to it, you have to pay *your* bills) to sit down and think:
1) Where am I going to go?
2) Am I just getting fired up (no pun intended), because of my coworkers?
3) How do I feel about the coworkers that I will be affecting?
4) Will this end in a firey gun battle?
Just be sure you are taking care of you, cause once rent, electricity, water, car payments, food, and cable bills start coming in, you will find yourself in a darkened apartment, with a can of spagetti-o's, wondering when you'll get used to taking cold showers.
Dear God! Go to InDesign already! It works, it works well, it's fantastically easy to learn (if you know photoshop that's half the battle)
Why oh why *wait* around for a company that has given its users the shaft time and time again? The same company who's CEO said that the Mac in publishing was dead. The same company who's vying for biggest vapor product since Duke Nukem Forever.
Giving money to company like that is like giving a beer to the guy who screwed your wife.
Quark had their time in the sun, and completely screwed up, alienated their customers, and pissed off the hardware maker of 'choice' to run it on. Put a bullet in it, and move on - you will be more productive and far happier in OS X and InDesign.
Slashdot Mirror
The RIAA shill that answered all of those questions was full of it. He managed to NOT answer the questions that were asked and danced around things that people interested in Fair Use wanted to hear.
Make no mistake, if the RIAA could kill Fair Use tomorrow, you'd have a whole pile of 'Starship' dubs on cassette that would get you 15 to 20.
Years, not dollars.
Read what several hundred /.ers wroteabout this very article and you will see the chinks in the armor of the RIAA talking head.
The RIAA is not out to protect you, they are here to sell you music. They will take whatever means necessary in order to do that without having to change their business model.
You also might want to glance at the latest issue of Rolling Stone, which has an article about the Eagles and Pearl Jam (among others) leaving their lables to go it alone. You will see that even these artists are being affected by the RIAA using a chilling effect on retailers and radio.
I prefer to let the actions of the RIAA speak for themselves, rather than the verbal pandering that means just the opposite.
If this truly was about a 'free' market - we wouldn't be talking about 'leveling the playing field', because monopolies like MS would not be allowed to use their market position to leverage monopolies in other markets.
Unless you're okay with unfair business practice and the flouting of federal laws.
Won't someone think of the (geeky) children?
Friends don't let friends drive drunk girls away.
Stand up and fight as a citizen.
I can't wait til this is done, as I use 98lite for the pentium 233 here at work.
Speedy goodness, and I feel a bit better about the saftey of my midget porn.
Does this have anything to do with SP4? I don't know. I just wonder what SP4 will break.
Hand meet ass.
I would love it if all the 'hobby' oses, combined forces and worked on one thing, like openBeos (soon to be renamed ;)
I am not biased, either.
OpenBeos High School Football RULEZ!!!
IPv6 sounds great but I see that we will need more TLDs and a domain name will be absolutely necessary.
Frickin' Rainman will be the only one able to remember xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.
At least the giant corporations that are our new overlords will have to spend some serious $$$ to cover all the new 'name.new tld'. Perhaps after all this is done, they can work on flying cars. 'cause we are like 50+ years behind the times here, people.
But all that has to take a back seat to hard to remember IPv6.
Here's a plan, why don't we just take the internet away from all the AOLers, the Flash greeting card senders, the 'Great Story! Read this LOLRFLOLRLOL!!!!'ers, Zone Bejewled players and the cheaters at Counter Strike and we'll have enough IPs for all of the elitist bastards that are going to make my toaster talk to me.
Tell you what. I will trade all my IPs (192.168.x.x) for a friggin' flying car.
Let's make it happen. I'll even have a bumper sticker, "IPv6, but my doctor says I'll be fine!" with a smiley!
Gimmme my flying car.
We all know that MS is good at copying, but poor at actually 'innovating'.
Ironically, the reverse is usually true for OSS.
Yes, I know that better tech doesn't always win (Beta vs VHS), but if an OSS solution is found to this problem, MS can follow or get out of the way.
The key is to put the shoe on the other foot - force MS's compatabillity with OSS protocols, rather than the other way around. A tough road indeed, but one that we'd better get used to.
Look at Flash (not too long;), there was tech that was released by one company and went on to become a web standard. Everyone has the flash plugin, and if they don't, they can get it easily.
This was a tough story to write a comment to - it was like pointing up and saying, "The sky is blue! What can we do?"
Strom Thurmond's head?
"Finally, proof!!"
Now people can say, "RTF Comments!!" ;)
Seems like that chapter is required reading these days.
My book on this subject is one page long.
Page 1: Don't let Slashdot link to you.
Ha! Fooled you, if you work for the RIAA, you already are a politican!
Fine post on one of the sections that stood out to me as well.
A/S/L?
Oh, and what are you wearing?
...
A Music Section!
...
As I have mentioned before -
With 250,000+ /.ers out there, I think we benefit the artists who have decided that the RIAA is NOT for them, and also make our voice heard.
If it was made available to subscribers only, that might be enough to make me go for a subscription (of course, since I thought of this great idea - I should get a free pass, or edit the damn thing.)
Rock Me, I'madumbass! I'madumbass! I'madumbass! ... I'madumbass! ... I'madumbass!
OhOh, I'madumbass!
I'madumbass! I'madumbass!
Now I'll be hung up on semantics the rest of the day.
What do you mean, the 'copy machine' is out of 'toner', and you want me to 'fill' it?
Geez, no wonder the guy is lv 200, and rich in the game. It looks like he's trying to 'lay an egg' right now.
Apparently, some people *can* mix their 'buisiness' with pleasure.
I have had to educate some on why we don't take them anymore. Here's the mail I sent out:
As we use many different programs to layout, archive, and read files, we require file formats that do not depend on any one program.
Please send all documents saved as .RTF (rich text format). This is an open standard, and one that all word processors can read. It also saves to a smaller file size, and is better for archiving as it contains no proprietary code.
In MS Word, Your .DOC files can be saved as .RTF as follows.
1. Open your document
2. Go to the 'File' menu
3. Select 'Save As'
4. In the dialog box, type a new name for your document if desired, then in the 'Save As Type' drop down menu, choose '.RTF Rich Text Format'.
5. Click 'Save'
6. You're done!
You may also click the 'Options' button in the 'Save As' dialog box and choose '.RTF Rich Text Format' for the drop down menu "Save Word files as". This reminds you to save them as .RTF files.
In other word processors and page layout programs, you may be able to 'Export' your open file as .RTF.
So far, no complaints. I hold the cards in this situation (do it this way or no publishing), and the computer stuff is completely up to me, so YMMV.
It does feel good to kill the .doc files one by one, and if my explanation has a little FUD in it, oh well.
I learned alot from MS.
Suddenly, Bob the Boss realizes he spent way too much at the track and he's in deep financial shit, and starts making cut backs. This impacts the 'the Fry Area' as you have to resue the oil AGAIN. You suddenly find yourself working 50-60 hour weeks, put on call with no compensation, given unreasonable amounts of work, (you have to wash dishes now too?!) and generally treated like the dirt under your code-violating nails.
You get the feeling that the company is just going to take advantage of you no matter how and what happens. You get together with the rest of the 'the Fry Area' for some beers (ok, a little weed too) and a 'Screw the "Burger Hut"' meeting and decide to give Bob the finger and walk out.
See what the options you have are - take a good look at something that you've wanted to do, and see if there is an opportunity there. Sometimes, everone needs a change of scenery. Again, ensure that there is *somewhere* to go; you don't want to be the new bitch at McDonalds.
Be self aware, and honest with yourself - did you have a gravy job;, did you spend hours of company time trying to make the perfect paper clip crossbow? Is this job the best that you can hope for right now?
It seems to me that you would be better serving yourself (when it comes down to it, you have to pay *your* bills) to sit down and think:
1) Where am I going to go?
2) Am I just getting fired up (no pun intended), because of my coworkers?
3) How do I feel about the coworkers that I will be affecting?
4) Will this end in a firey gun battle?
Just be sure you are taking care of you, cause once rent, electricity, water, car payments, food, and cable bills start coming in, you will find yourself in a darkened apartment, with a can of spagetti-o's, wondering when you'll get used to taking cold showers.
Of course, if your Goth - then go for it!
IIRC, the book made for excellent 14 year old boy reading...
Why oh why *wait* around for a company that has given its users the shaft time and time again? The same company who's CEO said that the Mac in publishing was dead. The same company who's vying for biggest vapor product since Duke Nukem Forever.
Giving money to company like that is like giving a beer to the guy who screwed your wife.
Quark had their time in the sun, and completely screwed up, alienated their customers, and pissed off the hardware maker of 'choice' to run it on. Put a bullet in it, and move on - you will be more productive and far happier in OS X and InDesign.