" no good artist will post his/her work there just so it could be taken by hundred's of people to be claimed as their own."
I've personally watched people attempt this twice, and in niether time it worked. Art is distinctive. In both cases I've seen attempts like this, the idiot trying to pass it as his found himself under an unusual amount of scrunity. Either the work was too well known, or his presentation of it was just too fishy.
One case involved a mesh of Deep Space Nine. Not only did people recognize the mesh (?? that one still baffles me) but they also knew, from memory who had built that particular rendition of that mesh. On top of that, it's far too easy to prove you have made the work.
This type of event is rare, and when it happens the pitchforks come out more severely than they do when an SCO story hits Slashdot. Besides, there's little value in taking artwork. If somebody uses somebody else's art to get a job, the employer will know rather quickly during the interview. Heck, I busted a guy in an interview who claimed to have written code that he actually copied/pasted from a tut site. That wasn't hard to do. Heh.
As long as it's under 100ms, it'll be just fine. Besides, don't you think Linksys is going to work on that?
"bandwidth (low) = bad for games"
Bandwidth is low? Compared to what? Last I checked, 11megabits wasn't slow to anybody playing games. As a matter of fact, ppl with only 256k can do just fine, and 802.11b can do that at quite a healthy range.
"Seems a bit pricey to me, the adaptors alone for the PS2 and GameCube are like under $40 and a 4 hub is like only $35"
That's lots of clutter, though. I personally would go the wireless route despite the extra cost because I don't want to have some long ass cables running down the hall of my apartment.
"Incidently, while P2P may produce losses for the music industry (seems pretty reasonable to assume so), I'm not entirely certain that as an absolute value, it's not causing people to spend more, if on other industries."
Slashdot had an article a few months ago about Magna. My memory on this topic has faded, but the gist of it was that there were comic conventions every year where people were making their own fanfic type comics based on already established characters. Technically, lots and LOTS of people were 'infringing on copyrights'. The businesses didn't care. What they saw was huge on-going interest in their products that was driving a lot of people to stay on top of the new comics.
I'll give you all a personal example. The first Space Quest game I got was pirated. I was a kid at the age of around 12. Somebody gave me a copy. The next 3 games I paid full price for the day it came out. Sierra lost one sale (well, sort of. At 12 years old, $50 is a lot to save up for on an allowance. It's extremely unlikely I would have bought it ever.) but gained 3 more.
The RIAA really would have done better to pretend they didn't see P2P. There's a HUGE library of music out there, far too vast to store in a single store. For every CD a person didn't buy, there are probably 2 or 3 that were sold because they found a new band they liked.
"If you are a sysadmin, in an organization that runs Windows on the desktop, have you stumbled on many unofficial Linux installations?"
No, but I do have a software dev team that is running Win2k under VM-Ware because their desktop experiences with Linux haven't exactly been grande. In Linux's defense, though, our dev platform is Redhat 7.3, and RH isn't exactly well known as a desktop OS. If we were using SuSE or something I'm not sure that'd be happening.
"That's not bad at all, for people that primarily want prints, and not just digital images"
I'm surprised you got modded up for that comment. What you should have done was complain about how you have to pay to use it every time, despite the low price, and then offer the blindingly obvious solution of spending a small fortune on buying a real digital camera. Then, you're supposed to end it with a jab at people in general, wondering why they're not taking the path you have taken.
I don't know where you get off looking at the upsides to this business model. This is Slashdot!;)
I think we all feel like we need to fight back, right? Unfortunately, I can't really see how we can convince the gov't (or the RIAA for that matter) to agree to a business model built on P2P. So how bout we start a little smaller? How about we demand that the "open CDs cannot be returned" policy gets permanently lifted?
Think about the ramifications of this for a sec. You can go to a store, buy an Album, and return it if it sucks. It's not as cool as P2P, but at least the RIAA will suddenly have a fire lit under them to produce more of what people want. If they want to avoid returns, then they'll HAVE to consider selling singles and custom mixes. Heck, take it to an extreme, and they may develop a decent On-line service.
You all should think about that. I think the return policy would be an easier goal to attain than P2P. It's in the consumers' best interests anyway. I mean, how can an oligopoly legally use the "open your mouth and close your eyes" business model?
"This was in 1998. Don't assume people don't know what Linux is just because they aren't in an IT field, it just makes an ass out of you."
In 2000 I was at a blockbuster with a friend of mine discussing how crappy Linux is. The bfd then was about Linux's uptime. My response was "well yeah, it has no apps. You can run nothing for a long time!" Some cute chick came around the corner and says "what are you talking about? Linux has lots of apps!"
I bet you all would be stunned ridgid to know that I didn't get her phone #!
"It's a clamshell design which means that it's even less useful than the palm-top design."
No, it's more useful than a palm-top design. It's like a tablet PC. The clamshell also rotates, allowing the keyboard to be tucked under the screen. In other words, you can use it with one hand just like your Palm Pilot, or you can unfold the kb and use it on a table.
From there, I'll provide a devasating blow to your metaphor. Unfortunately, by the time that happens, nobody with mod-points is really watching anymore. I'll get a +1 Informative mod while yours sits at +5.
I found it funny. Not because I'm a Microsoft troll, but because you are a Linux troll. Incidentally, that's why NG's response was so funny. Judging from your other responses, I'd say you still haven't quite gripped on to that concept. You still think it's about what he said about ya.
"In other words, he reworded the post he replied to, and used the name Linus instead of Bill gates."
All true. But that wasn't what made the joke funny. Sadly, his point was lost on you. Oh well.
"And yes, you are an idiot for not seeing it."
I saw the joke just fine, you're the one who doesn't see the humor in it that others have obviously found funny. What's it they say about glass houses?
"Enter Windows. Let's put it in the lower left, where NO language or culture deems a good "starting" place."
UI Designs are not sentences to be read. Microsoft didn't make a particularly good or bad choice with the placement of the Min/Max buttons.
It may be 'backwards' from what others have done, that doesn't mean it's particularly bad.
Now, if you want to discuss bad things about the MS UI, then I'd point you at the scrollbars instead. MS scrollbars are missing the 'up' scroll button directly above the down scrollbutton. So if you want to scroll down just to read line by line, then go back up, you have to fly your cursor back up to the top of the screen.
In any case, I don't see what this has to do with NG's original comment. The Open Source Commmunity has done a good deal of copying off of MS. Attempts to replace Office come to mind.
" Similar technology has been available for years (I remember when it was first becoming commercially available in the early to mid nineties). In fact, there are offices with conference rooms with entire walls made of these types of windows."
Anybody remember Star Tours in either Disney Land or Disney World? (Is that ride still there?) When you enter the main building and see R2D2 and C3PO working on a transport, look to the right and up. You'll see a big movie screen composed of a few small squares of semi-transparent glass. If you look carefully, you can see the glass go from clear to foggy in a pre-programmed pattern.
I was 12 when I noticed that. Man, I can't believe 13 years have gone by and I still remember that.
Slashdot Mirror
" no good artist will post his/her work there just so it could be taken by hundred's of people to be claimed as their own."
I've personally watched people attempt this twice, and in niether time it worked. Art is distinctive. In both cases I've seen attempts like this, the idiot trying to pass it as his found himself under an unusual amount of scrunity. Either the work was too well known, or his presentation of it was just too fishy.
One case involved a mesh of Deep Space Nine. Not only did people recognize the mesh (?? that one still baffles me) but they also knew, from memory who had built that particular rendition of that mesh. On top of that, it's far too easy to prove you have made the work.
This type of event is rare, and when it happens the pitchforks come out more severely than they do when an SCO story hits Slashdot. Besides, there's little value in taking artwork. If somebody uses somebody else's art to get a job, the employer will know rather quickly during the interview. Heck, I busted a guy in an interview who claimed to have written code that he actually copied/pasted from a tut site. That wasn't hard to do. Heh.
"latency (high)"
As long as it's under 100ms, it'll be just fine. Besides, don't you think Linksys is going to work on that?
"bandwidth (low) = bad for games"
Bandwidth is low? Compared to what? Last I checked, 11megabits wasn't slow to anybody playing games. As a matter of fact, ppl with only 256k can do just fine, and 802.11b can do that at quite a healthy range.
"but this App seems to not adhere to the usual standard of "start the app in 15 seconds or less and everything works"."
It's funny how companies respond to that kind of standard when money is a motivator.
"Seems a bit pricey to me, the adaptors alone for the PS2 and GameCube are like under $40 and a 4 hub is like only $35"
That's lots of clutter, though. I personally would go the wireless route despite the extra cost because I don't want to have some long ass cables running down the hall of my apartment.
"Incidently, while P2P may produce losses for the music industry (seems pretty reasonable to assume so), I'm not entirely certain that as an absolute value, it's not causing people to spend more, if on other industries."
Slashdot had an article a few months ago about Magna. My memory on this topic has faded, but the gist of it was that there were comic conventions every year where people were making their own fanfic type comics based on already established characters. Technically, lots and LOTS of people were 'infringing on copyrights'. The businesses didn't care. What they saw was huge on-going interest in their products that was driving a lot of people to stay on top of the new comics.
I'll give you all a personal example. The first Space Quest game I got was pirated. I was a kid at the age of around 12. Somebody gave me a copy. The next 3 games I paid full price for the day it came out. Sierra lost one sale (well, sort of. At 12 years old, $50 is a lot to save up for on an allowance. It's extremely unlikely I would have bought it ever.) but gained 3 more.
The RIAA really would have done better to pretend they didn't see P2P. There's a HUGE library of music out there, far too vast to store in a single store. For every CD a person didn't buy, there are probably 2 or 3 that were sold because they found a new band they liked.
"If you are a sysadmin, in an organization that runs Windows on the desktop, have you stumbled on many unofficial Linux installations?"
No, but I do have a software dev team that is running Win2k under VM-Ware because their desktop experiences with Linux haven't exactly been grande. In Linux's defense, though, our dev platform is Redhat 7.3, and RH isn't exactly well known as a desktop OS. If we were using SuSE or something I'm not sure that'd be happening.
... when's sco.slashdot.org gonna go online?
"That's not bad at all, for people that primarily want prints, and not just digital images"
;)
I'm surprised you got modded up for that comment. What you should have done was complain about how you have to pay to use it every time, despite the low price, and then offer the blindingly obvious solution of spending a small fortune on buying a real digital camera. Then, you're supposed to end it with a jab at people in general, wondering why they're not taking the path you have taken.
I don't know where you get off looking at the upsides to this business model. This is Slashdot!
I think we all feel like we need to fight back, right? Unfortunately, I can't really see how we can convince the gov't (or the RIAA for that matter) to agree to a business model built on P2P. So how bout we start a little smaller? How about we demand that the "open CDs cannot be returned" policy gets permanently lifted?
Think about the ramifications of this for a sec. You can go to a store, buy an Album, and return it if it sucks. It's not as cool as P2P, but at least the RIAA will suddenly have a fire lit under them to produce more of what people want. If they want to avoid returns, then they'll HAVE to consider selling singles and custom mixes. Heck, take it to an extreme, and they may develop a decent On-line service.
You all should think about that. I think the return policy would be an easier goal to attain than P2P. It's in the consumers' best interests anyway. I mean, how can an oligopoly legally use the "open your mouth and close your eyes" business model?
"This was in 1998. Don't assume people don't know what Linux is just because they aren't in an IT field, it just makes an ass out of you."
In 2000 I was at a blockbuster with a friend of mine discussing how crappy Linux is. The bfd then was about Linux's uptime. My response was "well yeah, it has no apps. You can run nothing for a long time!" Some cute chick came around the corner and says "what are you talking about? Linux has lots of apps!"
I bet you all would be stunned ridgid to know that I didn't get her phone #!
"Maybe when you're done bragging about your internet connection, you can come back down to earth."
Why do some people always assume the worst in others?
" we played quake in software mode in 320x240 at 10 fps, and we were happy!"
I remember being accused of cheating because I had a 3DFX card.
"Wait, make that most US people totally ignore History."
I love how some people can make generalizations about 250 million individuals without giving it a second thought.
"It's a clamshell design which means that it's even less useful than the palm-top design."
No, it's more useful than a palm-top design. It's like a tablet PC. The clamshell also rotates, allowing the keyboard to be tucked under the screen. In other words, you can use it with one hand just like your Palm Pilot, or you can unfold the kb and use it on a table.
" This just seems to me a cross between a palm and a laptop that has none of the benefits of either."
In this case, it's more like a tablet PC.
Frankly, I don't understand your beef here. The unit has a one-handed mode. .
Pitchforks ready!
From there, I'll provide a devasating blow to your metaphor. Unfortunately, by the time that happens, nobody with mod-points is really watching anymore. I'll get a +1 Informative mod while yours sits at +5.
..when's mozilla.slashdot.org going up?
I found it funny. Not because I'm a Microsoft troll, but because you are a Linux troll. Incidentally, that's why NG's response was so funny. Judging from your other responses, I'd say you still haven't quite gripped on to that concept. You still think it's about what he said about ya.
"In other words, he reworded the post he replied to, and used the name Linus instead of Bill gates."
All true. But that wasn't what made the joke funny. Sadly, his point was lost on you. Oh well.
"And yes, you are an idiot for not seeing it."
I saw the joke just fine, you're the one who doesn't see the humor in it that others have obviously found funny. What's it they say about glass houses?
"I'm surprised Linus lets you talk with your mouth full."
Heh too bad you're going to get modded down for that, it was an amusing rebuttal.
"The GUI and mouse were far more revolutionary than the start button is, so why don't you attack Microsoft for stealing ideas from Xerox and Apple?"
Because Apple and Xerox didn't make it work on PC hardware?
"Enter Windows. Let's put it in the lower left, where NO language or culture deems a good "starting" place."
UI Designs are not sentences to be read. Microsoft didn't make a particularly good or bad choice with the placement of the Min/Max buttons.
It may be 'backwards' from what others have done, that doesn't mean it's particularly bad.
Now, if you want to discuss bad things about the MS UI, then I'd point you at the scrollbars instead. MS scrollbars are missing the 'up' scroll button directly above the down scrollbutton. So if you want to scroll down just to read line by line, then go back up, you have to fly your cursor back up to the top of the screen.
In any case, I don't see what this has to do with NG's original comment. The Open Source Commmunity has done a good deal of copying off of MS. Attempts to replace Office come to mind.
http://www.threshold-digital.com/visual-fx/fx2.php 3 -- Is that Jon Stewart? WTF movie was that?
" Similar technology has been available for years (I remember when it was first becoming commercially available in the early to mid nineties). In fact, there are offices with conference rooms with entire walls made of these types of windows."
Anybody remember Star Tours in either Disney Land or Disney World? (Is that ride still there?) When you enter the main building and see R2D2 and C3PO working on a transport, look to the right and up. You'll see a big movie screen composed of a few small squares of semi-transparent glass. If you look carefully, you can see the glass go from clear to foggy in a pre-programmed pattern.
I was 12 when I noticed that. Man, I can't believe 13 years have gone by and I still remember that.