Either I'm suffering deja vu, or this has been posted nearly verbatim before in a previous discussion of Java vs. C.
Not only that, Face the Facts (770331)'s last three or four posts are word-for-word copies of other people's posts, copied from anti-slash.org's "database tool".
Note only that, but anti-slash.org has posted links to his posts, asking their members to mod him up, with the notation "another karma whore account" -- which implies he's karma whoring in order to get mod points in order to troll.
(Implies but doesn't prove: anti-slash.org at one point asked its members to mod one of my posts up, why I'm not sure.)
But whatever Face the Facts (770331)'s motivations, his posts are plagiarism and he's a plagiarist, apparently not talented enough to write his own posts.
Actually Neville Chamberlain said this after the Minich (sic) Conference (referring, in 1938, to Czechoslovakia).
Yeah, amazing that I would get the quotation exactly right and yet attribute it to another person.
And yes, it's what Chamberlain said to justify his appeasement at Munich, which allowed Hitler the Sudetenland, and soon after, all of Czechoslovakia.
If you had followed the pattern of my post, you'd have sen that it consisted of unnamed individuals proposing giving up liberties to named defenders of liberty, to Jefferson, Franklin, and Churchill. The implication is that Chamberlain or a Chamberlain surrogate is arguing with Churchill, not that Churchill is arguing for this policy.
Thanks for playing.
Re:$33 cd? It is going to decrease profit
on
RIAA's Nasty Easter Egg
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Don't you think [fifty cents per rack] more than a little unrealistic? Fifty cents a track means a total cost of less than six dollars for most albums. You can pay more than that for a six-pack of decent beer, and it certainly won't last as long as a good album.
I have no idea the man-hours required to produce an album.
Basically, I guess it comes down to composition, rehearsal and playing costs, and production costs. Classical music probably costs a bit less given most of the works are already composed and perhaps, depending on the arrangement, royalty free, and then probably costs a bit more as a more performers -- in some cases whole orchestras, choruses, and opera singers -- are required.
But in either case, I suspect the total man-hours devoted to the album itself (and not promotion, gigs, etc.) probably compares to, or is less than, the man-hours required, on the part of author and editor and publishing house, to produce a novel.
Hardback novels are sold for something between twenty and forty dollars, but most of the novels I own are in softcover. These days, the cost of a softcover novel is about $7 or $8, or about half the cost of a CD.
As for comparing the two by hours of use, an average album probably gets a single play of an hour at most, an average novel a single read of three to six hours.
Admittedly, a really good album probably gets played more hours than a really good novel gets read and re-read, although some of my favorite albums I've re-read more times than I can recall.
Perhaps the record companies could emulate the book publishers, and publish mp3 downloads like softcover books: a year after the "hardcopy" CD has been published? Let those anxious to get the trendy music immediately pay a premium, and let squares like me buy from a cheaper online back-catalogue?
<Cthon98> hey, if you type in your pw, it will show as stars <Cthon98> ********* see! <AzureDiamond> hunter2 <AzureDiamond> doesnt look like stars to me <Cthon98> <AzureDiamond> ******* <Cthon98> thats what I see <AzureDiamond> oh, really? <Cthon98> Absolutely <AzureDiamond> you can go hunter2 my hunter2-ing hunter2 <AzureDiamond> haha, does that look funny to you? <Cthon98> lol, yes. See, when YOU type hunter2, it shows to us as ******* <AzureDiamond> thats neat, I didnt know IRC did that <Cthon98> yep, no matter how many times you type hunter2, it will show to us as ******* <AzureDiamond> awesome! <AzureDiamond> wait, how do you know my pw? <Cthon98> er, I just copy pasted YOUR ******'s and it appears to YOU as hunter2 cause its your pw <AzureDiamond> oh, ok.
[S]ome human languages (Navaho is one IIRC) involve phonemes that must be learned in infancy - if one doesn't hear these sounds while the brain is plastic, one never can learn these sounds.
Actually, all human languages use some phonemes that don't have precise correspondents in other languages. basically, if your language doesn't use a particular phoneme, you cease (after about the age of three or four months) to "gear" it -- instead you categorize it as the phoneme in your language it is "closest" too. Indeed, studies show that the brain does less work when heard sounds are closest to the learned stereotype, and more work for ambiguous sounds that "straddle" two or more known phonemes. So bigger "gaps" between "adjacent" phonemes are preferred.
This makes all kinds of sense by the way: diff'rint pee-pulp sow-nd diff-or-int, and their voices differ based on mood, emotion, wakefulness. By having broad categories for phonemes (and by using contextual clues, which is outside the scope of this discussion), you're able to understand a tired, gum-chewing tourist who doesn't share your dialect. Having to understand indistinct and potentially ambiguous utterances in your language happens much more often than attempting to learn a wholly foreign language. The human brain is adapted to "latch onto" the language it hears in infancy, and specialize in that -- and most times -- in the six million years of human evolution --, that's been the best utilization of resources.
But while adults might not be able to distinguish non-native phonemes sounds by ear, they can by oscilloscope.
The more parsimonious conclusion is that chimps don't have language -- at least not like humans do.
But language is not just the vocalization of unconnected nouns: "eagle!" or "leopard!"; language, as we understand it in humans, allows far more nuanced and precise explanation than anything we se in animals. At the most mundane level, as Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom point out "It makes a big difference whether a far-off region is reached by taking the trail that is in front of the large tree or the trail that the large tree is in front of." At a more sublime level, a series of unconnected nouns hasn't the power that Dante Alighieri's verse has, to make alive again in our minds his love Beatrice.
Don't misunderstand me: I agree that chimps have a social life -- a complex social life, and I accept the more controversial opinion that they have a culture, and that they transmit that culture.
But language is something else, a special "trick", and it goes beyond, and indeed doesn't require vocalization at all -- as a deaf person or for that matter, any post written on Slashdot will demonstrate.
If we aren't "hearing" language from chimps -- and we've been hoping and listening for years -- it's most likely because chimps don't have language -- at least in the sense we mean language when we describe what any normal human three-year old can do.
They wanted me to add payment protection and some other insurance options. I said that I would like to wave those options. He seemed confused by my response, and asked what I meant by waving those options
Wave the options? Wave (synonyms: wag, waggle, undulate) them like a hand-held fan to cool him off?
Perhaps he was confused that you didn't want to forgo* any additional services and waive (synonyms: relinquish, dispense with) those options?
Heinlein waxes enthusiastically about "earning citizenship" and everyone in the book has an unquestioning loyalty to the (slightly Fascist) cause.
A defining aspect of Fascism is the close cooperation between government and business that it engenders. The extreme example us Hitler supplying slave laborers to German industry, but it's also seen in Hitler's crackdown on the unions (ironically the day labor's traditional celebration, May Day, in 1934), and big business support of Nazism in the early thirties, through contacts of Goring and von Papen.
Heinlein, in the Starship Troopers novel, makes it clear that there's no real coordination between business and government: the main character, Juan Rico, comes from a wealthy, big-business owning family, which family, Juan's father makes clear has long prided itself on staying out of politics and the military. (Although after Juan Rico has joined the military and after losing his wife in an enemy attack, Juan's father will eventually join up too.)
If you must see the book as reflective of the times in which it was written, a better analogy is to America's fight against Japan in the Second World War. During the war, U.S. propaganda depicted the Japanese as an "insect-like" society with a rigid hierarchical system, with soldiers, like the Bug worker and soldier classes, who couldn't or wouldn't surrender. (and in fact, few Japanese soldiers did surrender -- and even Japanese civilians on Okinawa preferred suicide to surrender.)
The Mobile Infantry's landings and relatively brief firefights on various planets as they move steadily closer to Klendathu, the Bugs' home planet, is strongly reminiscent of the Marines' and Army's island and atoll-hopping campaign against the Japanese in that War.
Finally, the apathy shown about the military by Juan Rico's family reflects U.S. feeling about its all-volunteer army between the wars, an army that w, in the interwar years, considered essentially the preserve of people who couldn't succeed in the civilian world. (Read James Jones's From Here to Eternity for a good portrait of the U.S. Army immediately prior to WWII.)
The change in the Ricos', father and son, opinions is in accordance with the change in opinion in America as a result of the widespread American military servce required by the Second World War. With their service, americans had indeed earned their citizenship, had realized what "refresh[ing] the tree of liberty with the blood... of patriots" really is all about.
Heinlein, while respectful of the military, was consistently suspicious of government, so it's very difficult for me to see any Fascism in his works.
I make porn. That's what I do. I work a 50 to 60 hour week.
I checked out your site.
There was something missing, though.
I didn't see any big banner ad reading: "Attorney General Ashcroft wants to make it illegal for you to visit this site. Vote John Kerry for President."
Now, I understand that you might be reluctant to put up such a banner, since it's pretty well documneted that Ashcroft targets those, like pornographer Rob Zicari and bong seller Tommy Ching, who he thinks are "defying" him.
But presumably you have some contacts with other porn site owners. If you all put up the banner at the same time, even Ashcroft can't single out every one of you.
You must do what, of all people, Howard Stern is doing: you have to take the fight to your customers, make them aware of what's going on, make them realize that the fight is for their rights too.
In the short term it will scare away some customers, and lose you some business.
But better a short term slump than being shut down and sent to prison.
Over all I don't think they're really going to make that big of a difference. For me anyway. However, for all your French-Maids-Getting-Raped-By-Aliens pr0n lovers out there, you may have something to fear.
Yeah, jack, once Ashcroft gets all the fetishists, he's a-gonna sit right back and say "missionary position porno is a-ok by me! Whack off to that till it hurts!"
Sure he will.
"Divide and conquer"? Who dem two -- never hear of dem!
At this point it's traditional to quote Revered Niemoller's
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out --- because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out --- because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out --- because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --- because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me --- and there was no one left to speak out for me.
What's less well-known is that Niemoller didn't speak out because until 1934, Niemoller was a fan of Hitler, and indeed, Niemoller's fame came from favorable Nazi reviews of his autobiography --and the Nazis gave him favorable reviews because Niemoller, in an afterword to the book, expressed hope that Hitler would bring about a "National Revival".
It was only when Hitler surprised Niemoller by essentially abolishing Christianity (by trying to absorb all German Churches into one, more or less pagan, "Reich Church"), that Niemoller decided it was time to speak up.
Like you, Niemoller thought Hitler would only go after the extremists -- for you, that's the fetishists, for Niemoller, a good conservative nationalist, it was pretty much as he states, Communists, Socialist, and Trade Unionists -- and would leave more "normal" stuff -- in your cases, plain vanilla porn, in Niemoller's plain vanilla Lutheranism -- alone.
The thing is, totalitarianism require control, and especially moral control. That's why totalitarians either abolish religion and substitute sonething else -- a "Reich Church", in Hitler's case, official state atheism in Stalin's -- or they impose their religion and morality on you -- like the ayatollahs in Iran or John Ashcroft here in the U.S. Without that control, totalitarianism is on shaky ground, because until it is ceded all moral authority, people might believe they can still think for themselves, and question authority.
Ashcroft's crackdown is just another way to cement control -- in this cases control over what we do in the privacy of homes, and control over our definition of "obscenity."
Kafka couldn't have come up with better folks: "Little girl, you're too young to be able to consent to sex, so those pictures you took of yourself are pictures of a child, and you kept those pictures of yourself, so that's possession of kiddie porn.
"But young lady, you're old enough to know better, so we intend to try and convict you as an adult -- and force you to register as a sex offender -- as a kiddie pornographer, and child molester, no less -- for the rest of your life."
(P.S., I submitted this for Slashdot's "Your Rights Online" about a week ago, but it was rejected.)
He once gave a speech at Bob Jones university, that contained such amazing lines
And, according to the linked article (emphasis mine):
In a speech in 2002, Ashcroft made it clear that the Justice Department intends to try. He said pornography "
invades our homes persistently though the mail, phone, VCR, cable TV and the Internet," and has "strewn its victims from coast to coast."
Other than spam, which I'll grant does sneak in, if this is an "invasion" we've outdone the French in surrendering to it.
Porn doesn't sneak into your phone, VCR, or cable TV: you have to call a 900 number, rent a video, or order pay per view.
And so many Americans are doing those things -- to the tune of billions of dollars a year -- that the argument that the porn "violates community standards" is laughable. Porn is the new community standard.
But Ashcroft will find a way around this: Ashcroft had the case against Rob Zicari's Extreme Associates filed in the conservative Western District of Pennsylvania -- jury shopping so that the "community standards" of the whole country will be decided the citizens of the most conservative counties of the state that elected Rick Santorum senator.
And realize, all of you who think this is a good idea, that when
Lam Nguyen's job is to sit for hours in a chilly, quiet room devoid of any color but gray and look at pornography. This job, which Nguyen does earnestly from 9 to 5....
is to the exclusion of anything else Lam Nguyen could be doing -- like looking for Osama bin Laden, or the next Enron fraud, or even kiddie porn (which is covered under a different statute). Resources are finite: every dollar and every hour spent on this witch hunt means real and dangerous criminals are going to get away.
But I guess that's ok: we've won the war on terrorism, Iraq is a happy democracy, and the arch-villain Tommy Chong is in prison!
Which, of course, is the crux, no pun intended, of the problem.
Re:Good... down with Real
on
Real Problems
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
And that makes it spyware how exactly? Spyware captures personal information about you our your computer usage and transmits it back to a third party. Most software updates just query some type of a file to see what the current software version/build number is. If the two don't match, offer the person a chance to update. Nothing nefarious, but then again I don't wear a foil hat.
What you say is true, although we could quibble and say that by phoning home, the user's IP address and the fact he is using the software is transmitted, data that might be used against him if the software were, for instance, limited shareware or "box ware" (that is, not distributed over the 'net, but in a box).
Still, sure, phoning home to check for updates probably is innocuous. But how does a user really know what's being transmitted when the software phones home (without attaching a packet sniffer)?
It is just because any sort of phoning home can be mis-construed that I left it out of my latest freeware application. I very much wanted to use phoning home to get a idea of how much my software was being used, and I could have provided users with additional functionality via phoning home.
But I decided that the possibility of mis-perception -- especially in the case of this particular piece of software, which required, in order to be useful at all, the user to enter his password for a service not affiliated with me, which my software would pass on to that service --made it unfriendly to include phoning home.
Unfriendly, because it would arouse in some minority of users fears that my software was doing untoward things, and would induce some portion of those to not use my software at all -- and I didn't want to lock anyone out, even those with merely speculative fears.
Seems to me that if they give you a free gig of space, some targeted ads aren't too much to pay.
"Seems to me, Mr. Jefferson, if England gives you the security of their navy, a little taxation without representation isn't too much to pay."
"Seems to me, Mr, Franklin, if we can give up a little liberty for security, that isn't too much to pay."
"Seems to me, Mr. Churchill, giving up 'a distant country of which we know nothing' in order to get 'peace in our time' isn't too much to pay"
Do you write no email that is personal enough that you'd object to Google looking through it in order to serve up ads?
If you're willing to give up your privacy for mere convenience, what else are you prepared to give up?
How much for your right to vote? A gigabyte of space? Two?
How much for that freedom of speech -- I mean, when did you last need that? And freedom of assembly, will you throw that in too, for say, three gigabytes?
You're not hiding anything in your email, so you're probably not hilding anything your house either -- let's install some free anti-crime cameras in your bedroom -- for your protection of course.
Did I miss the memo telling me that Americans had become so lazy we can't even get up off the couch to protect our privacy anymore?
I'd imagine the people in this beta have signed some kind of agreement where they say they cannot do anything if they are adversly affected by Gmail, so what's the problem?
The problem is those pesky "inalienable" (or "unalienable" as one source writes it) rights: inalienable simply means that something can't be given away or sold -- alienated -- even if you want to give it away or sell it.
Just as you can't, regardless of contract, sell yourself into slavery in most countries, Google's GMail quite possibly violates European law (but not U.S. law, which protects privacy very little if at all).
So a contract is no defense, as contracts for illegal activities are unenforceable.
O! And you skipped the second "o" in "too". Such grammatical confusion of homonyms I've found to be all-too-common to nearly any writing on the web longer than two sentences.
That is the paradox of Israel. Without ethnic cleansing, it can only be two of these three things: Jewish, democratic, and include the occupied territories.
An excellent summary of the situation, that frankly hadn't ever ocurred to me. Mod parent up.
More seriously: If one is wedged between all sorts of constraints (taxes, work, family, put your favourite here,...), having an own skin is at least a kind of resort.
Ah, the opiate-of-the-people explanation: you're stuck in cubicle, IT management has locked down your desktop and forbidden you to use any of the freeware tools you've come to love, your web browsing is monitored and you can't even put mp3s that you own on the office hdd, because management assumes all mp3s are stolen.
So you get to pretend you have "individuality" and "freedom" by changing the look of your Windows desktop -- oh you rebel you!
That's a good little consumeroid sheeple. Keep working hard; your CEO needs to get the stock price up to justify his six million dollar bonus.
Why are all the complainers here hell-bent on holding grudges? Real has done a superb job in addressing all of the complaints, and yet you react as if they've poured salt on your wounds.
Normally I wouldn't bother responding to a troll. But I believe in this case, the poster superyooser (100462) is as much a victim as anyone else, because he actually believes what he's writing. (See below.)
First, let me admit, I do love to hate Real. Well, actually, that's not quite accurate: more precisely, I love to see the opprobrium Real receives.
Why do I so enjoy seeing Real bashed? For two reasons: one, because Real has been continually sleazy in its marketing tactics in ways ranging from the petty (small fonts to hide their free player) to the very serious (uniquely identifying users, and tracking their listening habits). Second, because Real's receiving and continuing to receive such derision serves as a warning to other companies that might otherwise adopt Real's tactics.
Ancient cities (and indeed Mediaeval and early American cities too) made a practice of displaying the severed heads of executed criminals on stakes, usually at the gates of the city; this was not mere barbarity, but a way in a time before mass literacy and 24-hour cable news, of warning potential criminals oft eh consequences of misdeeds. In these gentler times, improved communications means that we can metaphorically display metaphorical heads, and that's precisely what this Slashdot community does with Real.
What are the "evils" of Real? They put icons on your desktop and other temporary, minor inconveniences. Gasp! High crimes and misdemeanors!
No, here's what you do: Pay attention to the checkboxes during the installation, and delete the desktop icons when it's done
This is like saying "Of course Joe the butcher puts his thumb to the scale every time he weighs your purchases, in order to falsely charge you more. But rather than go to another butcher, just pay attention to Joe's thumb, and check your change against the receipt when he's done" No! Joe's a thief, and should be treated accordingly.
Real intentionally makes it extremely difficult to find and change its malicious settings, because Real knows those settings are malicious. As Proverbs Chapter 28, verse one says, "The wicked flee when no man pursueth", and indeed, the guilty hide their works from the eyes of man. The settings wouldn't be buried so deeply and described so blandly if Real's marketers thought anyone actually considered them a feature: if people wanted these "features", Real would proudly trumpet these settings in its main UI window.
I've been using RealPlayer continuously since it first came out and I haven't had any experiences that were particularly terrible.
So your issue isn't what you initially claimed, that we bear grudges despite Real's improvements: now you admit that you've had no problem with Real from the start, even when the were violating privacy by phoning home uniquely identifiable usage data. To you, nothing that Real has ever done has been an issue. That's fine, we're all entitled to our opinions, but you've just made it very clear that you are willing to tolerate much more sneakiness on the part of a company than most of us at Slashdot ever will -- and in the light of that knowledge we must re-evaluate your validity of your other opinions. Such as:
Anti-social?? Arrgggghhhh!.... You are being totally ridiculous. You're taking this WAY too seriously. It's just a media player!
Yes, it's "just" a media player -- but it's also (in the original Real Players, the ones you've never had an issue with) -- software running on my computer, using my computer to advertise to me, running processes in the back
The techniques currently used by the most evil spyware Trojans (like CoolWebSearch) will probably become mainstream as companies look for a way, any way to keep their software visible on the users' desktops.
There's plenty of software that stays visible on my desktop without resorting to pop-ups, pop-unders, Trojans or other underhandedness.
These programs do have one technique in common however: they're useful enough that I to keep them on my desktop.
In general, that means they do their job unobtrusively and well. Example include Firefox, ScITE, Mp3BookHelper, FileZilla, Winamp, Kerio Firewall. All but the last two are free and open source. One (Mp3BookHelper) I even allow to phone home, and extraordinary concession my part, because I know it only checks for new versions.
All, even the non-FOSS programs, are unobtrusive and don't phone home (or in WinAmp's case, is a bt obtrusive but can be set not to be), and don't take up any screen real estate for ads or extraneous stupidity (again, WinAmp's a partial exception -- I had to set it first to be unobtrusive).
Things that are not on my desktop include RealPlayer, the latest version of Windows Media Player, and Internet Explorer. Real because it is presumptuous in so many ways, Media Player because its latest version will by default change your Mp3's tags, and IE because it's flashy to the detriment of being secure.
Quality wins out over flashiness -- especially over time. You''l look at hampsterdance.com one time because it's flashy, but you'll make your home page something informative, like the New York Times or possibly even Slashdot, because it's actually useful.
As an avid WNYC listener and member, I applaud the choice to move away from Windows Media format. However, MP3 is a patented format that is not Free (as in Freedom).
It's because of people like you that I'm no longer a member of the Libertarian Party.
NO WAIT! Before you decide this is an off-topic troll, let me explain. The Libertarian Party tends to attract a lot of people who are unrealistic ideolouges: that can't seem to realize that politics is the art of the possible.
As a result, they can find that they are in agreement with 90% of what a particular candidate or organization or movement or bill proposes -- and then devote their entire time and effort to vigorously fighting against that candidate, organization, or bill because of the ten percent of it that they disagree with.
Because for these (not all) types of Libertarians, the best is always the enemy of the merely good, and they'll damn well prove it by fighting anything that isn't perfect. In fact, they fight those who mostly agree with them far more vociferously and adamantly than they ever fight those who don't agree with them at all.
No matter that ninety percent of the road to freedom is a damn sight better than none at all. No matter that an attainable good is more progress than an unattainable best.
As a result, these Libertarians never make it out into the street to convince non-Libertarians of the value of Freedom -- because they're too busy sitting in Libertarian Headquarters arguing with their fellow Libertarians over the 10% of the Libertarian Platform they disagree on. Suddenly the issue of "What's the proper Libertarian stance on immigration or abortion?" must be settled before such core Libertarian values as free speech or property rights can be defended.
The Open Source movement, too, at times exhibits this willingness or even fetishistic need to ignore common ground in favor of excessive ideological purity: we're all for linux, so let's forget that and argue Gnome versus KDE. We're all against DRM, so rather than fight DRM, let's argue MP3 versus Ogg; Ogg is "more free-er". We're all for Freedom, but the important question is whether to prefix linux with "GNU/".
And so we waste our time and our energy on petty, internecine battles while the people who benefit from curtailing Freedom pragmatically get things done.
In your case, here we have a radio station that has a) avoided the Microsoft Monopoly and WMA and its foot-in-the-door DRM and avoided b) RealPlayers's "sell us your soul and your desktop" for "free" audio, and c) uses a format that doesn't use DRM or locked-to-one OS codecs, and that can be played on any computer an any portable -- including my Zaurus that runs XMMS.
And your response is to write them, bnot to say, "hey thanks for not taking the easy route of one monopoly or another, thanks for producing a stream that works regardless of my OS and doesn't use DRM", but to castigate them for using a de facto standard that doesn't meet your high-and-mighty ideological purity test.
Because as far as you concerned, we shouldn't -- God forbid -- thank our fellow travelers for starting a walk down the road to freedom, we should instead denigrate them for not walking as fast as we think they should.
And when WNYC says, "hey there's no pleasing these zealots, let's just do the easy thing and use WMA or RealPlayer", what then have we won? What example does that set? You'll just sit in your ideological ivory basement and nod sagely and say "see I told you so! Those guys were never ideologically as pure as me!"
Well, congratulations on your ideological purity. That and a buck fifty will buy you a DRM'd song from WalMart
Slashdot Mirror
The parent post is stolen, except for the first paragraph, word-for-word from this post by Animats (122034).
It was stolen via the anti-slash.org database
Mod parent down.
The parent post is stolen, word-for-word from this post by SharpFang (651121).
It was stolen via the anti-slash.org database
Mod parent down.
Either I'm suffering deja vu, or this has been posted nearly verbatim before in a previous discussion of Java vs. C.
Not only that, Face the Facts (770331)'s last three or four posts are word-for-word copies of other people's posts, copied from anti-slash.org's "database tool".
Note only that, but anti-slash.org has posted links to his posts, asking their members to mod him up, with the notation "another karma whore account" -- which implies he's karma whoring in order to get mod points in order to troll.
(Implies but doesn't prove: anti-slash.org at one point asked its members to mod one of my posts up, why I'm not sure.)
But whatever Face the Facts (770331)'s motivations, his posts are plagiarism and he's a plagiarist, apparently not talented enough to write his own posts.
Mod him down.
Still sexually active? If I could live to the ripe old age of 136, I bet nobody in the world would have sex with me.
Old age had nothing to do with it.
You post on Slashdot, by age 136 you'll have had 136 years to get used to not getting sex.
Actually Neville Chamberlain said this after the Minich (sic) Conference (referring, in 1938, to Czechoslovakia).
Yeah, amazing that I would get the quotation exactly right and yet attribute it to another person.
And yes, it's what Chamberlain said to justify his appeasement at Munich, which allowed Hitler the Sudetenland, and soon after, all of Czechoslovakia.
If you had followed the pattern of my post, you'd have sen that it consisted of unnamed individuals proposing giving up liberties to named defenders of liberty, to Jefferson, Franklin, and Churchill. The implication is that Chamberlain or a Chamberlain surrogate is arguing with Churchill, not that Churchill is arguing for this policy.
Thanks for playing.
Don't you think [fifty cents per rack] more than a little unrealistic? Fifty cents a track means a total cost of less than six dollars for most albums. You can pay more than that for a six-pack of decent beer, and it certainly won't last as long as a good album.
I have no idea the man-hours required to produce an album.
Basically, I guess it comes down to composition, rehearsal and playing costs, and production costs. Classical music probably costs a bit less given most of the works are already composed and perhaps, depending on the arrangement, royalty free, and then probably costs a bit more as a more performers -- in some cases whole orchestras, choruses, and opera singers -- are required.
But in either case, I suspect the total man-hours devoted to the album itself (and not promotion, gigs, etc.) probably compares to, or is less than, the man-hours required, on the part of author and editor and publishing house, to produce a novel.
Hardback novels are sold for something between twenty and forty dollars, but most of the novels I own are in softcover. These days, the cost of a softcover novel is about $7 or $8, or about half the cost of a CD.
As for comparing the two by hours of use, an average album probably gets a single play of an hour at most, an average novel a single read of three to six hours.
Admittedly, a really good album probably gets played more hours than a really good novel gets read and re-read, although some of my favorite albums I've re-read more times than I can recall.
Perhaps the record companies could emulate the book publishers, and publish mp3 downloads like softcover books: a year after the "hardcopy" CD has been published? Let those anxious to get the trendy music immediately pay a premium, and let squares like me buy from a cheaper online back-catalogue?
I quote from bash.org:
Cisco actually has a better track record than some other closed source vendors I could mention.
I don't mean to be a grammar troll, but clearly you used the wrong tense:
"Cisco actually had a better track record...."
[S]ome human languages (Navaho is one IIRC) involve phonemes that must be learned in infancy - if one doesn't hear these sounds while the brain is plastic, one never can learn these sounds.
Actually, all human languages use some phonemes that don't have precise correspondents in other languages. basically, if your language doesn't use a particular phoneme, you cease (after about the age of three or four months) to "gear" it -- instead you categorize it as the phoneme in your language it is "closest" too. Indeed, studies show that the brain does less work when heard sounds are closest to the learned stereotype, and more work for ambiguous sounds that "straddle" two or more known phonemes. So bigger "gaps" between "adjacent" phonemes are preferred.
This makes all kinds of sense by the way: diff'rint pee-pulp sow-nd diff-or-int, and their voices differ based on mood, emotion, wakefulness. By having broad categories for phonemes (and by using contextual clues, which is outside the scope of this discussion), you're able to understand a tired, gum-chewing tourist who doesn't share your dialect. Having to understand indistinct and potentially ambiguous utterances in your language happens much more often than attempting to learn a wholly foreign language. The human brain is adapted to "latch onto" the language it hears in infancy, and specialize in that -- and most times -- in the six million years of human evolution --, that's been the best utilization of resources.
But while adults might not be able to distinguish non-native phonemes sounds by ear, they can by oscilloscope.
The more parsimonious conclusion is that chimps don't have language -- at least not like humans do.
Do they have vocalizations? Sure. Can those vocalizations mean things? Sure -- it's not news that various species of monkeys use different vocalizations to warn of different predators. And it's known that, like human babies differentiating phonemes, juvenile monkeys must learn the meanings of those vocalizations. We even have recent evidence that some birds can understand those monkey vocalizations -- and ignore those warning of predators that don't threaten the birds.
But language is not just the vocalization of unconnected nouns: "eagle!" or "leopard!"; language, as we understand it in humans, allows far more nuanced and precise explanation than anything we se in animals. At the most mundane level, as Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom point out "It makes a big difference whether a far-off region is reached by taking the trail that is in front of the large tree or the trail that the large tree is in front of." At a more sublime level, a series of unconnected nouns hasn't the power that Dante Alighieri's verse has, to make alive again in our minds his love Beatrice.
Don't misunderstand me: I agree that chimps have a social life -- a complex social life, and I accept the more controversial opinion that they have a culture, and that they transmit that culture.
But language is something else, a special "trick", and it goes beyond, and indeed doesn't require vocalization at all -- as a deaf person or for that matter, any post written on Slashdot will demonstrate.
If we aren't "hearing" language from chimps -- and we've been hoping and listening for years -- it's most likely because chimps don't have language -- at least in the sense we mean language when we describe what any normal human three-year old can do.
They wanted me to add payment protection and some other insurance options. I said that I would like to wave those options. He seemed confused by my response, and asked what I meant by waving those options
Wave the options? Wave (synonyms: wag, waggle, undulate) them like a hand-held fan to cool him off?
Perhaps he was confused that you didn't want to forgo* any additional services and waive (synonyms: relinquish, dispense with) those options?
* or forego, both spellings are accepted.
Heinlein waxes enthusiastically about "earning citizenship" and everyone in the book has an unquestioning loyalty to the (slightly Fascist) cause.
A defining aspect of Fascism is the close cooperation between government and business that it engenders. The extreme example us Hitler supplying slave laborers to German industry, but it's also seen in Hitler's crackdown on the unions (ironically the day labor's traditional celebration, May Day, in 1934), and big business support of Nazism in the early thirties, through contacts of Goring and von Papen.
Heinlein, in the Starship Troopers novel, makes it clear that there's no real coordination between business and government: the main character, Juan Rico, comes from a wealthy, big-business owning family, which family, Juan's father makes clear has long prided itself on staying out of politics and the military. (Although after Juan Rico has joined the military and after losing his wife in an enemy attack, Juan's father will eventually join up too.)
If you must see the book as reflective of the times in which it was written, a better analogy is to America's fight against Japan in the Second World War. During the war, U.S. propaganda depicted the Japanese as an "insect-like" society with a rigid hierarchical system, with soldiers, like the Bug worker and soldier classes, who couldn't or wouldn't surrender. (and in fact, few Japanese soldiers did surrender -- and even Japanese civilians on Okinawa preferred suicide to surrender.)
The Mobile Infantry's landings and relatively brief firefights on various planets as they move steadily closer to Klendathu, the Bugs' home planet, is strongly reminiscent of the Marines' and Army's island and atoll-hopping campaign against the Japanese in that War.
Finally, the apathy shown about the military by Juan Rico's family reflects U.S. feeling about its all-volunteer army between the wars, an army that w, in the interwar years, considered essentially the preserve of people who couldn't succeed in the civilian world. (Read James Jones's From Here to Eternity for a good portrait of the U.S. Army immediately prior to WWII.)
The change in the Ricos', father and son, opinions is in accordance with the change in opinion in America as a result of the widespread American military servce required by the Second World War. With their service, americans had indeed earned their citizenship, had realized what "refresh[ing] the tree of liberty with the blood... of patriots" really is all about.
Heinlein, while respectful of the military, was consistently suspicious of government, so it's very difficult for me to see any Fascism in his works.
I make porn. That's what I do. I work a 50 to 60 hour week.
I checked out your site.
There was something missing, though.
I didn't see any big banner ad reading: "Attorney General Ashcroft wants to make it illegal for you to visit this site. Vote John Kerry for President."
Now, I understand that you might be reluctant to put up such a banner, since it's pretty well documneted that Ashcroft targets those, like pornographer Rob Zicari and bong seller Tommy Ching, who he thinks are "defying" him.
But presumably you have some contacts with other porn site owners. If you all put up the banner at the same time, even Ashcroft can't single out every one of you.
You must do what, of all people, Howard Stern is doing: you have to take the fight to your customers, make them aware of what's going on, make them realize that the fight is for their rights too.
In the short term it will scare away some customers, and lose you some business.
But better a short term slump than being shut down and sent to prison.
Yeah, jack, once Ashcroft gets all the fetishists, he's a-gonna sit right back and say "missionary position porno is a-ok by me! Whack off to that till it hurts!"
Sure he will.
"Divide and conquer"? Who dem two -- never hear of dem!
At this point it's traditional to quote Revered Niemoller's
What's less well-known is that Niemoller didn't speak out because until 1934, Niemoller was a fan of Hitler, and indeed, Niemoller's fame came from favorable Nazi reviews of his autobiography --and the Nazis gave him favorable reviews because Niemoller, in an afterword to the book, expressed hope that Hitler would bring about a "National Revival".
It was only when Hitler surprised Niemoller by essentially abolishing Christianity (by trying to absorb all German Churches into one, more or less pagan, "Reich Church"), that Niemoller decided it was time to speak up.
Like you, Niemoller thought Hitler would only go after the extremists -- for you, that's the fetishists, for Niemoller, a good conservative nationalist, it was pretty much as he states, Communists, Socialist, and Trade Unionists -- and would leave more "normal" stuff -- in your cases, plain vanilla porn, in Niemoller's plain vanilla Lutheranism -- alone.
The thing is, totalitarianism require control, and especially moral control. That's why totalitarians either abolish religion and substitute sonething else -- a "Reich Church", in Hitler's case, official state atheism in Stalin's -- or they impose their religion and morality on you -- like the ayatollahs in Iran or John Ashcroft here in the U.S. Without that control, totalitarianism is on shaky ground, because until it is ceded all moral authority, people might believe they can still think for themselves, and question authority.
Ashcroft's crackdown is just another way to cement control -- in this cases control over what we do in the privacy of homes, and control over our definition of "obscenity."
But that reminds me: isn't the U.S. the country that imprisons (and tortures ("heals", "treats")) children if they touch *each other*?
Actually, the U.S. has just charged a fifteen year old girl with possession of child pornography, and sexual abuse of children, for emailing naughty pictures of herself.
And they intend to try her as an adult.
Kafka couldn't have come up with better folks: "Little girl, you're too young to be able to consent to sex, so those pictures you took of yourself are pictures of a child, and you kept those pictures of yourself, so that's possession of kiddie porn.
"But young lady, you're old enough to know better, so we intend to try and convict you as an adult -- and force you to register as a sex offender -- as a kiddie pornographer, and child molester, no less -- for the rest of your life."
(P.S., I submitted this for Slashdot's "Your Rights Online" about a week ago, but it was rejected.)
And, according to the linked article (emphasis mine):
Other than spam, which I'll grant does sneak in, if this is an "invasion" we've outdone the French in surrendering to it.
Porn doesn't sneak into your phone, VCR, or cable TV: you have to call a 900 number, rent a video, or order pay per view.
And so many Americans are doing those things -- to the tune of billions of dollars a year -- that the argument that the porn "violates community standards" is laughable. Porn is the new community standard.
But Ashcroft will find a way around this: Ashcroft had the case against Rob Zicari's Extreme Associates filed in the conservative Western District of Pennsylvania -- jury shopping so that the "community standards" of the whole country will be decided the citizens of the most conservative counties of the state that elected Rick Santorum senator.
And realize, all of you who think this is a good idea, that when
is to the exclusion of anything else Lam Nguyen could be doing -- like looking for Osama bin Laden, or the next Enron fraud, or even kiddie porn (which is covered under a different statute). Resources are finite: every dollar and every hour spent on this witch hunt means real and dangerous criminals are going to get away.
But I guess that's ok: we've won the war on terrorism, Iraq is a happy democracy, and the arch-villain Tommy Chong is in prison!
Asscroft (sic) wasn't elected. He was appointed.
And he thinks by God.
Which, of course, is the crux, no pun intended, of the problem.
And that makes it spyware how exactly? Spyware captures personal information about you our your computer usage and transmits it back to a third party. Most software updates just query some type of a file to see what the current software version/build number is. If the two don't match, offer the person a chance to update. Nothing nefarious, but then again I don't wear a foil hat.
What you say is true, although we could quibble and say that by phoning home, the user's IP address and the fact he is using the software is transmitted, data that might be used against him if the software were, for instance, limited shareware or "box ware" (that is, not distributed over the 'net, but in a box).
Still, sure, phoning home to check for updates probably is innocuous. But how does a user really know what's being transmitted when the software phones home (without attaching a packet sniffer)?
It is just because any sort of phoning home can be mis-construed that I left it out of my latest freeware application. I very much wanted to use phoning home to get a idea of how much my software was being used, and I could have provided users with additional functionality via phoning home.
But I decided that the possibility of mis-perception -- especially in the case of this particular piece of software, which required, in order to be useful at all, the user to enter his password for a service not affiliated with me, which my software would pass on to that service --made it unfriendly to include phoning home.
Unfriendly, because it would arouse in some minority of users fears that my software was doing untoward things, and would induce some portion of those to not use my software at all -- and I didn't want to lock anyone out, even those with merely speculative fears.
Seems to me that if they give you a free gig of space, some targeted ads aren't too much to pay.
"Seems to me, Mr. Jefferson, if England gives you the security of their navy, a little taxation without representation isn't too much to pay."
"Seems to me, Mr, Franklin, if we can give up a little liberty for security, that isn't too much to pay."
"Seems to me, Mr. Churchill, giving up 'a distant country of which we know nothing' in order to get 'peace in our time' isn't too much to pay"
Do you write no email that is personal enough that you'd object to Google looking through it in order to serve up ads?
If you're willing to give up your privacy for mere convenience, what else are you prepared to give up?
How much for your right to vote? A gigabyte of space? Two?
How much for that freedom of speech -- I mean, when did you last need that? And freedom of assembly, will you throw that in too, for say, three gigabytes?
You're not hiding anything in your email, so you're probably not hilding anything your house either -- let's install some free anti-crime cameras in your bedroom -- for your protection of course.
Did I miss the memo telling me that Americans had become so lazy we can't even get up off the couch to protect our privacy anymore?
Alles in Ordnung, Herr Reichsminister!
I'd imagine the people in this beta have signed some kind of agreement where they say they cannot do anything if they are adversly affected by Gmail, so what's the problem?
The problem is those pesky "inalienable" (or "unalienable" as one source writes it) rights: inalienable simply means that something can't be given away or sold -- alienated -- even if you want to give it away or sell it.
Just as you can't, regardless of contract, sell yourself into slavery in most countries, Google's GMail quite possibly violates European law (but not U.S. law, which protects privacy very little if at all).
So a contract is no defense, as contracts for illegal activities are unenforceable.
skip the all-to-common fluff and bad writing
Good point.
O! And you skipped the second "o" in "too". Such grammatical confusion of homonyms I've found to be all-too-common to nearly any writing on the web longer than two sentences.
That is the paradox of Israel. Without ethnic cleansing, it can only be two of these three things: Jewish, democratic, and include the occupied territories.
An excellent summary of the situation, that frankly hadn't ever ocurred to me. Mod parent up.
More seriously: If one is wedged between all sorts of constraints (taxes, work, family, put your favourite here, ...), having an own skin is at least a kind of resort.
Ah, the opiate-of-the-people explanation: you're stuck in cubicle, IT management has locked down your desktop and forbidden you to use any of the freeware tools you've come to love, your web browsing is monitored and you can't even put mp3s that you own on the office hdd, because management assumes all mp3s are stolen.
So you get to pretend you have "individuality" and "freedom" by changing the look of your Windows desktop -- oh you rebel you!
That's a good little consumeroid sheeple. Keep working hard; your CEO needs to get the stock price up to justify his six million dollar bonus.
Oh! And keep dreaming of retirement!
Normally I wouldn't bother responding to a troll. But I believe in this case, the poster superyooser (100462) is as much a victim as anyone else, because he actually believes what he's writing. (See below.)
First, let me admit, I do love to hate Real. Well, actually, that's not quite accurate: more precisely, I love to see the opprobrium Real receives.
Why do I so enjoy seeing Real bashed? For two reasons: one, because Real has been continually sleazy in its marketing tactics in ways ranging from the petty (small fonts to hide their free player) to the very serious (uniquely identifying users, and tracking their listening habits). Second, because Real's receiving and continuing to receive such derision serves as a warning to other companies that might otherwise adopt Real's tactics.
Ancient cities (and indeed Mediaeval and early American cities too) made a practice of displaying the severed heads of executed criminals on stakes, usually at the gates of the city; this was not mere barbarity, but a way in a time before mass literacy and 24-hour cable news, of warning potential criminals oft eh consequences of misdeeds. In these gentler times, improved communications means that we can metaphorically display metaphorical heads, and that's precisely what this Slashdot community does with Real.
This is like saying "Of course Joe the butcher puts his thumb to the scale every time he weighs your purchases, in order to falsely charge you more. But rather than go to another butcher, just pay attention to Joe's thumb, and check your change against the receipt when he's done" No! Joe's a thief, and should be treated accordingly.
Real intentionally makes it extremely difficult to find and change its malicious settings, because Real knows those settings are malicious. As Proverbs Chapter 28, verse one says, "The wicked flee when no man pursueth", and indeed, the guilty hide their works from the eyes of man. The settings wouldn't be buried so deeply and described so blandly if Real's marketers thought anyone actually considered them a feature: if people wanted these "features", Real would proudly trumpet these settings in its main UI window.
So your issue isn't what you initially claimed, that we bear grudges despite Real's improvements: now you admit that you've had no problem with Real from the start, even when the were violating privacy by phoning home uniquely identifiable usage data. To you, nothing that Real has ever done has been an issue. That's fine, we're all entitled to our opinions, but you've just made it very clear that you are willing to tolerate much more sneakiness on the part of a company than most of us at Slashdot ever will -- and in the light of that knowledge we must re-evaluate your validity of your other opinions. Such as:
Yes, it's "just" a media player -- but it's also (in the original Real Players, the ones you've never had an issue with) -- software running on my computer, using my computer to advertise to me, running processes in the back
The techniques currently used by the most evil spyware Trojans (like CoolWebSearch) will probably become mainstream as companies look for a way, any way to keep their software visible on the users' desktops.
There's plenty of software that stays visible on my desktop without resorting to pop-ups, pop-unders, Trojans or other underhandedness.
These programs do have one technique in common however: they're useful enough that I to keep them on my desktop.
In general, that means they do their job unobtrusively and well. Example include Firefox, ScITE, Mp3BookHelper, FileZilla, Winamp, Kerio Firewall. All but the last two are free and open source. One (Mp3BookHelper) I even allow to phone home, and extraordinary concession my part, because I know it only checks for new versions.
All, even the non-FOSS programs, are unobtrusive and don't phone home (or in WinAmp's case, is a bt obtrusive but can be set not to be), and don't take up any screen real estate for ads or extraneous stupidity (again, WinAmp's a partial exception -- I had to set it first to be unobtrusive).
Things that are not on my desktop include RealPlayer, the latest version of Windows Media Player, and Internet Explorer. Real because it is presumptuous in so many ways, Media Player because its latest version will by default change your Mp3's tags, and IE because it's flashy to the detriment of being secure.
Quality wins out over flashiness -- especially over time. You''l look at hampsterdance.com one time because it's flashy, but you'll make your home page something informative, like the New York Times or possibly even Slashdot, because it's actually useful.
As an avid WNYC listener and member, I applaud the choice to move away from Windows Media format. However, MP3 is a patented format that is not Free (as in Freedom).
It's because of people like you that I'm no longer a member of the Libertarian Party.
NO WAIT! Before you decide this is an off-topic troll, let me explain. The Libertarian Party tends to attract a lot of people who are unrealistic ideolouges: that can't seem to realize that politics is the art of the possible.
As a result, they can find that they are in agreement with 90% of what a particular candidate or organization or movement or bill proposes -- and then devote their entire time and effort to vigorously fighting against that candidate, organization, or bill because of the ten percent of it that they disagree with.
Because for these (not all) types of Libertarians, the best is always the enemy of the merely good, and they'll damn well prove it by fighting anything that isn't perfect. In fact, they fight those who mostly agree with them far more vociferously and adamantly than they ever fight those who don't agree with them at all.
No matter that ninety percent of the road to freedom is a damn sight better than none at all. No matter that an attainable good is more progress than an unattainable best.
As a result, these Libertarians never make it out into the street to convince non-Libertarians of the value of Freedom -- because they're too busy sitting in Libertarian Headquarters arguing with their fellow Libertarians over the 10% of the Libertarian Platform they disagree on. Suddenly the issue of "What's the proper Libertarian stance on immigration or abortion?" must be settled before such core Libertarian values as free speech or property rights can be defended.
The Open Source movement, too, at times exhibits this willingness or even fetishistic need to ignore common ground in favor of excessive ideological purity: we're all for linux, so let's forget that and argue Gnome versus KDE. We're all against DRM, so rather than fight DRM, let's argue MP3 versus Ogg; Ogg is "more free-er". We're all for Freedom, but the important question is whether to prefix linux with "GNU/".
And so we waste our time and our energy on petty, internecine battles while the people who benefit from curtailing Freedom pragmatically get things done.
In your case, here we have a radio station that has a) avoided the Microsoft Monopoly and WMA and its foot-in-the-door DRM and avoided b) RealPlayers's "sell us your soul and your desktop" for "free" audio, and c) uses a format that doesn't use DRM or locked-to-one OS codecs, and that can be played on any computer an any portable -- including my Zaurus that runs XMMS.
And your response is to write them, bnot to say, "hey thanks for not taking the easy route of one monopoly or another, thanks for producing a stream that works regardless of my OS and doesn't use DRM", but to castigate them for using a de facto standard that doesn't meet your high-and-mighty ideological purity test.
Because as far as you concerned, we shouldn't -- God forbid -- thank our fellow travelers for starting a walk down the road to freedom, we should instead denigrate them for not walking as fast as we think they should.
And when WNYC says, "hey there's no pleasing these zealots, let's just do the easy thing and use WMA or RealPlayer", what then have we won? What example does that set? You'll just sit in your ideological ivory basement and nod sagely and say "see I told you so! Those guys were never ideologically as pure as me!"
Well, congratulations on your ideological purity. That and a buck fifty will buy you a DRM'd song from WalMart