you are correct - there is no reason why they can't do something like that, and it's not like this is the first time something like this has happened. Ever notice which studios most of the movies on turner classic originate from? just one example.
this is simply the way business works - as usual a chunk of the populace demonstrates their ignorance of how the precious US-style market-driven economy (read: the world around them they face every day) works by showing outrage over a practice that's perfectly normal and always has been.
did I rant a bit for a moment there? sorry about that old chum.
Anyways, I'm still amazed at the simple yet overwhelming idea of laying cables under oceans to link continents, and that it was done so long ago. Wasn't the Atlantic cable (or part of it) recently tested? I seem to recall that it was in relatively good shape.
As a result, Army leaders estimate the total cost for U.S. Department of Defense corrosion-related problems at $10 billion per year -- $2 billion of which is related to painting and paint-scraping operations.
Could this possibly be true or just a hyper-inflated figure to help sell/make the idea of bleeding-edge tech coatings seem realistic and feasible?
I mean, come on... $2 billion a year just for painting and paint removal? What are they doing? Hiring only the most intelligent and beautiful virginal labourers to paint tanks with paint made from elements only found in asteroids, using fine, #10 ultra-sable brushes, gently scraping paint off with custom made, solid gold, diamond tipped scrapers?
I got the impression that proprietary software is required, but that wasn't entirely clear.
I thought this was a great idea at first but they lost me with the PC-only thing, and as for proprietary software - I'd really prefer to have a choice about that.
Whether or not you can find your favourite obscure artist's full catalogue in high quality mp3s on kazaa isn't the issue; the issue is whether or not Janis Ian or any of the others you mention want their work, any part of their work, distributed without any consent or recompense.
In Janis Ian's case, she has decided to allow distribution of select works to be accessed through her own site (at a lower quality, so even if you like the song, there's motivation to buy the real thing). She has done this to promote her music so that fans will purchase CDs as well as merchandise available on her site; the downloads get people in the proverbial door, then hopefully they make a purchase from the site. That's much different from some anonymous person deciding to take Janis' new CD, ripping mp3s and making them available to anyone, with no limitations.
First of all, it is worth pointing out that the real money in music is from royalty payments (ask Bruce Springsteen, the Beatles, or any other writer who has been weasled out of their writing royalties). Concerts ain't going to make you rich, unless perhaps you are a stadium act; concerts are promotion/exposure. Relevant to that point, not all musicians/bands write their own music, so without royalty payments writers have no means of income.
Janis Ian has made a point in her piece "That's how artists become successful: exposure. Without exposure, no one comes to shows, and no one buys CDs" and the usual line heard from pro-napster people is that the internet/downloading provides exposure, when in fact it does not; it provides a means of access, and that doesn't mean any more people will be exposed to your music than if you were not on the internet. The job of record companies is exposure and distribution (and they do tend to shaft artists for these services), but exposure and distribution are/were not impossible without record companies, even back before the Internet. Does anyone remember independant labels? A lot of those were set up by musicians looking to do the grunt work themselves. Ask the Barenaked Ladies about that.
I wonder if Janis Ian is aware of the differences between her version of "downloadable music" and that of the general internet community; yes, Janis has files for download on her site, but certainly not her entire catalogue, and I question the quality of the files she has available. Again, offering a few songs for download is a great idea and has worked for her, but would she be willing to give away high-quality mp3s of every recording she has ever made? That is what Napster/P2P music sharing is about, and it is about doing so with or without the consent of the writer, the performer, or the producer.
Yes, I agree that the music industry as a whole has to change its business model, and there are a lot of jerks involved in the industry, but saying that there is nothing wrong with free access to every and any recording is just stupid.
I write this as a person whose line of work is in a creative industry, and I have been a serious musician in the past, so I have an inside opinion of the issues. I'm a little surprised that the free download idea is so popular around/. when (I would guess) there are so many programmers reading this who (I would guess again) get paid for ideas/concepts that come out of their head. Music, painting, movies or code - it's all creative and people need to be paid for it.
The company "will modify the timing and modulation of the light used to create the displayed image such that frame-based capture by recording devices is distorted," according to an abstract for the winning NIST grant application. "Any copies made from these devices will show the disruptive pattern."
Camcorder-copied movies look and sound like shit and are pretty much unwatchable anyways.
You've heard of the web service that will advertise anyone's book for a reasonable fee (or free in this case), but wondered if any of the books are worth buying?
That comment certainly has an air of cynicism about it. Does the reviewer or/. have a conflict of interest in reviewing this book? If not, then I would think this is a regular book review, just like any other that appears on/.
I have generally expected Slashdot and its readers to be on the cutting or bleeding edge of issues, especially when it comes to software/tech stuff, although I am aware that occasional old stories get posted. I think my assumptions were somewhat misguided after seeing this story light up as a topic.
This is very old news. I heard about this months ago through word of mouth. I'm still outraged, but I'm no longer shocked. It's Old News. Very Old News.
The second thing I've noticed about this topic is that a lot of posters have picked up on the original story's reference to "charities" losing out on referal money. I'm sure using the word "charity" helped enrich the outrage but charities are not the only ones affected. Any business or organisation that would normally receive referal monies is affected.
And yes, I still think it is criminal and heinous, even if it is not just an issue of robbing charities.
I agree. I don't want a single sign-on, I do not care for the "convenience" of a single sign-on. I believe having one company (MS or whoever) control it would be a worst-case scenario, but whether it is MS or open source/non-profit or a government agency I want no part of it; they would all be bad.
I cannot stress how much I want nothing to do with a single sign-on "solution". Nothing, zero, zilch... ever.
Here Uncle Sam... just take this from elections.ca. There are pictures too.
Ballot
A piece of paper on which are printed the names of the candidates, their political parties and a place for the elector to indicate the preferred candidate. (At a referendum, the ballot has a printed question and spaces for the elector to answer "Yes" or "No".) Canada uses the secret ballot, which means no one except the elector knows the choice that was made.
Ballot box
A cardboard box with a narrow slot on top, into which are placed all the completed ballots until the polls close and the votes are counted. There is one ballot box at each polling station. Metal boxes were used until about ten years ago.
some respondents to this post have referred to the old butterfly ballot and claimed that to be proof that paper ballots don't work - that is misleading. the butterfly ballot was another (confusing, poorly designed) technical solution to a non-problem.
A paper ballot needs:
1. the names of the candidates in a single column. 2. a box next to each name 3. a pencil to mark a box with an 'X'
There is a picture of a canadian ballot on this page . It is fairly simple in design.
Okay, maybe those pins are on the SW corner of Jarvis and Dundas, but that is a discount store selling cheap plastic crap or something like that... doesn't make sense. Still curious.
Although Queen's Park has a few pins stuck in it, the rows of red to the left of it are all University of Toronto - Engineering school is on College Ave. just west of Queen's Park if memory erves me correctly... Lots of red down there... hehe, Let's hear it for the engineers!
How accurate could/should a map like this be? Last time I was in Toronto the NW corner of Jarvis/Dundas (right side, middle of map) was a parking lot, but there are a few red flags there... does that make sense? Admittedly, the parking lot could have been built upon in the past few months, but I doubt it. Or someone could be running a network from their van. Or I just don't know enough about this sort of thing.
The spectrum of the star is measured for signs of gravitational interference; it doesn't look like an optical illusion - it feels like one.:)
From The New ScientistA planet with sufficient size will have a gravitational effect on the sun it orbits, causing it to move during each orbit. To a distant observer, this increases the redshift of the spectrum as the star is pulled away, and vice versa.
Slashdot Mirror
you are correct - there is no reason why they can't do something like that, and it's not like this is the first time something like this has happened. Ever notice which studios most of the movies on turner classic originate from? just one example.
this is simply the way business works - as usual a chunk of the populace demonstrates their ignorance of how the precious US-style market-driven economy (read: the world around them they face every day) works by showing outrage over a practice that's perfectly normal and always has been.
did I rant a bit for a moment there? sorry about that old chum.
is it compatible with OS X yet?
ba-dum-dum!
thank you - good night!
Anyways, I'm still amazed at the simple yet overwhelming idea of laying cables under oceans to link continents, and that it was done so long ago. Wasn't the Atlantic cable (or part of it) recently tested? I seem to recall that it was in relatively good shape.
As the article is from the Toronto Star the figures are in Canadian dollars, so the price in in the U.S. will really be about $3.50.
Can't we all just get along?
Now I finally have something that can read all the disks I've thrown in the garbage over the past twenty years... no wait... aw, shit.
Could this possibly be true or just a hyper-inflated figure to help sell/make the idea of bleeding-edge tech coatings seem realistic and feasible?
I mean, come on... $2 billion a year just for painting and paint removal? What are they doing? Hiring only the most intelligent and beautiful virginal labourers to paint tanks with paint made from elements only found in asteroids, using fine, #10 ultra-sable brushes, gently scraping paint off with custom made, solid gold, diamond tipped scrapers?
jeez...
I thought this was a great idea at first but they lost me with the PC-only thing, and as for proprietary software - I'd really prefer to have a choice about that.
i'm not the only person to make these points, but...
I've been waiting for this day. I will use this service.
Could the cold, dark days of crappy album filler finally be over?
yay!
In Janis Ian's case, she has decided to allow distribution of select works to be accessed through her own site (at a lower quality, so even if you like the song, there's motivation to buy the real thing). She has done this to promote her music so that fans will purchase CDs as well as merchandise available on her site; the downloads get people in the proverbial door, then hopefully they make a purchase from the site. That's much different from some anonymous person deciding to take Janis' new CD, ripping mp3s and making them available to anyone, with no limitations.
Janis Ian has made a point in her piece "That's how artists become successful: exposure. Without exposure, no one comes to shows, and no one buys CDs" and the usual line heard from pro-napster people is that the internet/downloading provides exposure, when in fact it does not; it provides a means of access, and that doesn't mean any more people will be exposed to your music than if you were not on the internet. The job of record companies is exposure and distribution (and they do tend to shaft artists for these services), but exposure and distribution are/were not impossible without record companies, even back before the Internet. Does anyone remember independant labels? A lot of those were set up by musicians looking to do the grunt work themselves. Ask the Barenaked Ladies about that.
I wonder if Janis Ian is aware of the differences between her version of "downloadable music" and that of the general internet community; yes, Janis has files for download on her site, but certainly not her entire catalogue, and I question the quality of the files she has available. Again, offering a few songs for download is a great idea and has worked for her, but would she be willing to give away high-quality mp3s of every recording she has ever made? That is what Napster/P2P music sharing is about, and it is about doing so with or without the consent of the writer, the performer, or the producer.
Yes, I agree that the music industry as a whole has to change its business model, and there are a lot of jerks involved in the industry, but saying that there is nothing wrong with free access to every and any recording is just stupid.
I write this as a person whose line of work is in a creative industry, and I have been a serious musician in the past, so I have an inside opinion of the issues. I'm a little surprised that the free download idea is so popular around /. when (I would guess) there are so many programmers reading this who (I would guess again) get paid for ideas/concepts that come out of their head. Music, painting, movies or code - it's all creative and people need to be paid for it.
Microsoft goofed this one up!
wa-wa-waaa...
Despite yet another blunder, Microsoft consoles itself with the bazillion dollars it made today.
wa-wa-waaaaaa...
Camcorder-copied movies look and sound like shit and are pretty much unwatchable anyways.
That's my opinion of them at least.
That comment certainly has an air of cynicism about it. Does the reviewer or /. have a conflict of interest in reviewing this book? If not, then I would think this is a regular book review, just like any other that appears on /.
This is very old news. I heard about this months ago through word of mouth. I'm still outraged, but I'm no longer shocked. It's Old News. Very Old News.
The second thing I've noticed about this topic is that a lot of posters have picked up on the original story's reference to "charities" losing out on referal money. I'm sure using the word "charity" helped enrich the outrage but charities are not the only ones affected. Any business or organisation that would normally receive referal monies is affected.
And yes, I still think it is criminal and heinous, even if it is not just an issue of robbing charities.
I agree. I don't want a single sign-on, I do not care for the "convenience" of a single sign-on. I believe having one company (MS or whoever) control it would be a worst-case scenario, but whether it is MS or open source/non-profit or a government agency I want no part of it; they would all be bad.
I cannot stress how much I want nothing to do with a single sign-on "solution". Nothing, zero, zilch... ever.
Ballot
A piece of paper on which are printed the names of the candidates, their political parties and a place for the elector to indicate the preferred candidate. (At a referendum, the ballot has a printed question and spaces for the elector to answer "Yes" or "No".) Canada uses the secret ballot, which means no one except the elector knows the choice that was made.
Ballot box
A cardboard box with a narrow slot on top, into which are placed all the completed ballots until the polls close and the votes are counted. There is one ballot box at each polling station. Metal boxes were used until about ten years ago.
some respondents to this post have referred to the old butterfly ballot and claimed that to be proof that paper ballots don't work - that is misleading. the butterfly ballot was another (confusing, poorly designed) technical solution to a non-problem.
A paper ballot needs:
1. the names of the candidates in a single column.
2. a box next to each name
3. a pencil to mark a box with an 'X'
There is a picture of a canadian ballot on this page . It is fairly simple in design.
this whole thing really is a sick sad joke.
ohhh, right... why didn't I think of that? I'll be going back to sleep now. Thanks :)
Okay, maybe those pins are on the SW corner of Jarvis and Dundas, but that is a discount store selling cheap plastic crap or something like that... doesn't make sense. Still curious.
Although Queen's Park has a few pins stuck in it, the rows of red to the left of it are all University of Toronto - Engineering school is on College Ave. just west of Queen's Park if memory erves me correctly... Lots of red down there... hehe, Let's hear it for the engineers!
Jez curious is all...
Yes, I think you've hit the nail on the head.
I'll freely admit that I was surprised I got modded up for that one, but maybe this one will get me back down for being off-topic. Enjoy my funeral.
From The New Scientist A planet with sufficient size will have a gravitational effect on the sun it orbits, causing it to move during each orbit. To a distant observer, this increases the redshift of the spectrum as the star is pulled away, and vice versa.