I'm a big fan of Baen books, David Weber's stuff in particular. (In fact, lemme plug him here again.) I'm also a big fan of Harlan Ellison's work, and Mr. Ellison's perspective is a bit different from Mr. Baen's.
One size does not fit all. The Rolling Stones and Harlan Ellison don't need or want their work freely dispersed to generate "a buzz." For a prolific but otherwise "B" genre author like Mr. Weber (and many of those under the Baen umbrella) the promotional interest the freebies generate for the back catalog outweigh whatever retail losses their might be as a result.
Do you think for a moment that if Tom Clancy signed with Baen he would allow them to do with his stuff what they've done to Weber's? Now, why would that be?
Someone needs to update their theory.
Update your own theory to account for individual author's popularity, prolific-ness, back catalog, and target audience, and get back to us.
When there is a standard for e-books that ensures I can keep reading em, I'm willing to pay.
I completely agree with you. And until that degree of sophistication -- flexibility for the reader and security for the publisher -- is reached in the e-book software format, e-books of non-public-domain works will be scarce and multi-colored.
Look, even here on this "geek" board, loud are the arguments made for the current "analog" standard (paper). You can bet that the publishing industry is not racing to embrace any seachanges in distribution if even the bleeding edge slashdotters are uncertain of any value to be found in the change.
.. because the publishing industry wants to sell me a non transferable license, not a book that can be lent, sold on etc.
You want to lend it out, sell it on e-bay? No prob. Buy the paper version, cuz paperbacks ain't going away anytime soon. You want to be tres cool and read a novel on your PDA/digital camera/linux console/Dick Tracy watch, well sure thing, Sex God, but you'll pay for the privelege. Kind of how people pay 4x the cost for a hardcover version of a book to read it "first." Or you can go support your local used bookseller and buy paperbacks for a fraction of their cover price. You want consumer choices? You got plenty.
And don't get all "public good" and "social revolution" with me here, Bunky. You want to read the latest best-seller for free? Go to your local Public Library. Uncle Sam and the publishing industry worked out this whole "public good" thing way before either one of us were born.
Why should i choose a format that have all possibilities to have DRM included
Because you might want to read an e-book of something NOT in the public domain, e.g, a current novel, and few authors or publishers are going to render their wares into a format that is going to end up on free P2P. There needs to be some way to ensure that money changes hands.
You were planning on paying for the books you read, weren't you? Or is this all just an exercise in seeing how we can best Napsterize the publishing indutstry?
How low does a graphics program have to be priced so that it is no longer "legitimate" to pirate it?
$300? $250? $150?
Seriously, dude, one of the major reasons I switched to Linux was because the tools cost less. Good Software *IS* available for low, often times, zero cost on Linux. What justification do you have for pirating the retail stuff?
Sure, the shrinkwrap stuff may be a little more polished, require a little less tweaking... and that's why you would pay for it! But none of the "expensive" programs you cite lack an opensource counterpart well within your budget.
Want to do your part to fight high software costs? Use the Open stuff, train on the Open stuff, train your staff on the Open stuff, help "legitimize" the Open stuff. Comparable retail Win and Mac programs will inevitably drop in price, and you'll sleep better at night, not having to invent these dopey socialist arguments to justify your piracy.
What, Dude, you want a ledger sheet tallying my debts and credits to Society? Happy -- proud, actually -- to do it, but it won't be at the behest of an Anonymous Coward on SlashDot. Get real.
Regardless of the citizenship of the inmates, prison percentages have always been used as a strong indicator of the degree to which national laws are in tune with the beliefs and practices of that country's population.
Sure. Provided your federal government is not in the habit of executing dissidents. Comparing the US to a nation with a comparable record of offing trouble-makers, like, say, the UK, then we probably don't look so good. When comparing the US and China prison systems, you must admit the US percentage will be skewed.
Re: Population versus Citizenship. Again, you're going to see skewed numbers. Rightly or wrongly, US borders are porous. We're imprisoning born-here Bad Guys, and we are imprisoning a higher-than-fair percentage of other nation's Bad Guys, in part because those Bad Guys can come here and be reasonably certain they won't be shot (reference 1st paragraph, above). China does not have a history of reaching out to "wretched refuse;" the US does. It's reasonable to expect that our very generous immigration policies will result in fuller jails.
"America: Love It or Leave It" -- Never said that, never will, don't feel that way. My point was that people like to complain, it's part of human nature, and knows no geography. Whether our complaint is "Gosh, this caviar is too warm!" or "Please, officer, take your boot off my head," people are going to whine. The telling difference is that the people who get their heads kicked and such quite often, and wisely, get the hell out of the country that sanctions that kind of "enforcement" and "coercion." (Often they come here, reference paragraph two, above.) We Americans complain about our cops, our government, the weather, everything, but at the end of the day we're not crowding onto an overloaded boat to escape our homeland.
...And if some Americans *are* emigrating to other lands because they believe their freedoms and rights as humans will be better respected elsewhere, you can be pretty sure they're not going to China!
Actually, when someone on this forum gets up over 150 posts as thoughtful as yours are, one can gleen a fairly good composite sketch of the poster. Of course, I never meant to offend you.
Of course, you did not address my point, which is that the great mass of inmates who have filled our jails to overflowing aren't Americans, they are people who came to live here because their homelands were more oppressive than ours.
American borders are sieves. I've always wondered, if we are so horrible a nation, why so many people keep coming here, and why so many people who hate it so don't just go someplace they like better?
Actually, I don't wonder. I know the answer, and so do you.
My understanding is that an exceeding number of "American" inmates are actually somebody else's population, which is to say, illegal aliens.
Of course, we've got that whole tradition of opening our doors to "wretched refuse yearning to breathe free" thing going on, so I guess it's OK.
Which brings up the question: How many poor people fleeing oppression in their respective homelands have sought (and found) refuge in America versus China? How many people, citing oppression, have fled (or tried to flee) America versus China?
See, problem is, you and I sitting in our offices and tippy-tapping away on our computers know jack squat about oppression, only that talking about it passes time online and in coffee-houses.
25 years ago I thought like you did; heck, I even convinced myself that *I* was oppressed; it was all kinda sexy and cool and martyr-y and stuff. But I travelled a bit, met a bunch of different type of people, took on some large responsibilities, and came to the realization that America Ain't So Bad, and many's the place that's a Lot Worse. I felt lucky, and out of that grew thankful.
Still, it's fun to complain about stuff, ennit? Even more fun, bear in mind, to be able to complain about stuff...
Finally, SCO being put in its place. I just wonder why this took so long for Novell to bring up.
Because SCO's earnings call is THIS morning.
This isn't just a smackdown, this -- today's release, the Perens-for-the-Prosecution piece on Page One of SlashDot, along with the divulging of the Conference Call Phone Number (nice one, that!) -- is a highly-coordinated strike meant to drop a tactical nuke down their shorts. This is calculated to not just damage SCO but make their Corporate Headquarters a Dead Zone for the next Three Thousad Years.
Nice Work, everyone! Proud to be a small part of it, even if only as a witness.
There is nothing "leading" about a DRMed PC in a fancy case mod.
Perhaps, but it appears that the 'Box is sufficiently intriguing to Sony for them to emulate much of its functionality in this just-announced next gen flavor.
As for the name? Heh, I guess all consoles will be "-X-" boxes soon...
I just want to be a fly on the wall when the Biz Dev guy from Sony's Console division takes that long-put-off meeting that the guy from Sony's Studio division has been trying to have with him...
The Monty Python Comedy troupe did a rather famous (in some Geek circles) skit in which the virtues of canned Spiced Ham are literally sung. Inexplicably, a group of Vikings join in the song.
The poster, obviously better schooled in British farce than luncheon meats, is under the impression that the widely accepted nickname for unsolicited e-mail is derived from the comedy sketch and not from Spam(tm), the food.
I don't know for certain if he's wrong, but I have a hunch he is. I'm guessing a lot more people have eaten Spam than have digested the Python skit...
Lost, son. Circa 15 years ago. Woulda helped had we picked a word not already firmly ensconced in both the vernacular (thin biscuit) AND slang (narrow-minded Southern whitey) simultaneously. 'Cracker' never stood a chance; teenage cabals can *suggest* lanaguage, but it's up to the media to bless it and disseminate it.
Just let it go. As a geek patheticism, insisting on the use of the word "cracker" over "hacker" is starting to rank up there with wearing one's plastic Vulcan ears out in public.
The people who hack, today, are the people who would have been working on their cars 30 years ago.
So why is it that so many of the people I know who "hack" today can't change a sparkplug without electrocuting themselves? They can set up a home wireless Debian network routing first-run DIVX flicks through their toaster ovens on any given Wednesday and still have time for 'Enterprise' but are paralyzed if their car engine doesn't turn over on a cold morning.
Are the people who "hack" today going to be as revered 30 years from now as today's auto mechanics? And what will my grandchildren be "hacking" with?
Oh, and guys, this is not meant as some "manhood threatening" troll from the Old Guy, so don't pile on with the "I hack *AND* change my own oil" posts; you know you're the exceptions... I'm just curious how something that's still as relevant and vital as auto mechanics got knocked so far down on the "733t Mad Skilllz" pole.
Re:Dang it, there goes my stomach lining...
on
I, Spammer
·
· Score: 1
There should be a "national opt-out" spam list that all spam senders must check before sending a message.
With your first post, I thought you were just having a bad day. Now I see that you're wound too tight, period.
Fact: This is a news aggregation site, and the target community is way too broad. No one is interested in everything that is posted on SlashDot, it is genetically impossible.
As for being "modded up," please! I have "Excellent Karma" and doled out five mod points today. What does *that* tell you? You're being naive...
As a better judge, look at the number of people posting with interest on this thread, and also the follow-through "Buffy" conversations in the SlashBack.
You want to "make SlashDot better?" Great! Make positive suggestions, recommend new topics beyond the same tired RIAA paranoia and Sci-Fi Movie Fanboy-ism. Better still, *submit* some stories on topics that interest you. Maybe they will get used, generate some interest that the editors will see, and more such stories will be posted. *Grow* the site, Bunky, don't waste energy trying to cordon off sections of it.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a big fan of Baen books, David Weber's stuff in particular. (In fact, lemme plug him here again.) I'm also a big fan of Harlan Ellison's work, and Mr. Ellison's perspective is a bit different from Mr. Baen's.
One size does not fit all. The Rolling Stones and Harlan Ellison don't need or want their work freely dispersed to generate "a buzz." For a prolific but otherwise "B" genre author like Mr. Weber (and many of those under the Baen umbrella) the promotional interest the freebies generate for the back catalog outweigh whatever retail losses their might be as a result.
Do you think for a moment that if Tom Clancy signed with Baen he would allow them to do with his stuff what they've done to Weber's? Now, why would that be?
Someone needs to update their theory.
Update your own theory to account for individual author's popularity, prolific-ness, back catalog, and target audience, and get back to us.
The "Radio Personal Recorder" from RPR Products out of Tucson has been around for a while, I thought. Specs, etc., can be found
here.
When there is a standard for e-books that ensures I can keep
reading em, I'm willing to pay.
I completely agree with you. And until that degree of sophistication -- flexibility for the reader and security for the publisher -- is reached in the e-book software format, e-books of non-public-domain works will be scarce and multi-colored.
Look, even here on this "geek" board, loud are the arguments made for the current "analog" standard (paper). You can bet that the publishing industry is not racing to embrace any seachanges in distribution if even the bleeding edge slashdotters are uncertain of any value to be found in the change.
.. because the publishing industry wants to sell me a non transferable license, not a book that can be lent, sold on etc.
You want to lend it out, sell it on e-bay? No prob. Buy the paper version, cuz paperbacks ain't going away anytime soon. You want to be tres cool and read a novel on your PDA/digital camera/linux console/Dick Tracy watch, well sure thing, Sex God, but you'll pay for the privelege. Kind of how people pay 4x the cost for a hardcover version of a book to read it "first." Or you can go support your local used bookseller and buy paperbacks for a fraction of their cover price. You want consumer choices? You got plenty.
And don't get all "public good" and "social revolution" with me here, Bunky. You want to read the latest best-seller for free? Go to your local Public Library. Uncle Sam and the publishing industry worked out this whole "public good" thing way before either one of us were born.
Why should i choose a format that have all possibilities to have DRM included
Because you might want to read an e-book of something NOT in the public domain, e.g, a current novel, and few authors or publishers are going to render their wares into a format that is going to end up on free P2P. There needs to be some way to ensure that money changes hands.
You were planning on paying for the books you read, weren't you? Or is this all just an exercise in seeing how we can best Napsterize the publishing indutstry?
How low does a graphics program have to be priced so that it is no longer "legitimate" to pirate it?
$300? $250? $150?
Seriously, dude, one of the major reasons I switched to Linux was because the tools cost less. Good Software *IS* available for low, often times, zero cost on Linux. What justification do you have for pirating the retail stuff?
Sure, the shrinkwrap stuff may be a little more polished, require a little less tweaking... and that's why you would pay for it! But none of the "expensive" programs you cite lack an opensource counterpart well within your budget.
Want to do your part to fight high software costs? Use the Open stuff, train on the Open stuff, train your staff on the Open stuff, help "legitimize" the Open stuff. Comparable retail Win and Mac programs will inevitably drop in price, and you'll sleep better at night, not having to invent these dopey socialist arguments to justify your piracy.
we can have more quality geek TV
And that would be... what, exactly?
I missed a meeting, tell me what I'm supposed to be watching in order to keep my membership card.
This is the part where you explain how the UK "offs" its troublemakers
I'm writing in English; what language are you reading in?
The UK does not "off" its dissidents, and so is comparable in its justice to the US. China is a different matter.
What, Dude, you want a ledger sheet tallying my debts and credits to Society? Happy -- proud, actually -- to do it, but it won't be at the behest of an Anonymous Coward on SlashDot. Get real.
Regardless of the citizenship of the inmates, prison percentages have always been used as a strong indicator of the degree to which national laws are in tune with the beliefs and practices of that country's population.
Sure. Provided your federal government is not in the habit of executing dissidents. Comparing the US to a nation with a comparable record of offing trouble-makers, like, say, the UK, then we probably don't look so good. When comparing the US and China prison systems, you must admit the US percentage will be skewed.
Re: Population versus Citizenship. Again, you're going to see skewed numbers. Rightly or wrongly, US borders are porous. We're imprisoning born-here Bad Guys, and we are imprisoning a higher-than-fair percentage of other nation's Bad Guys, in part because those Bad Guys can come here and be reasonably certain they won't be shot (reference 1st paragraph, above). China does not have a history of reaching out to "wretched refuse;" the US does. It's reasonable to expect that our very generous immigration policies will result in fuller jails.
"America: Love It or Leave It" -- Never said that, never will, don't feel that way. My point was that people like to complain, it's part of human nature, and knows no geography. Whether our complaint is "Gosh, this caviar is too warm!" or "Please, officer, take your boot off my head," people are going to whine. The telling difference is that the people who get their heads kicked and such quite often, and wisely, get the hell out of the country that sanctions that kind of "enforcement" and "coercion." (Often they come here, reference paragraph two, above.) We Americans complain about our cops, our government, the weather, everything, but at the end of the day we're not crowding onto an overloaded boat to escape our homeland.
You're not neccessarily wrong; the drug/illegal alien population are overlapping sets.
Politically charged, but substantially footnoted overview with some numbers here.
Much more info available with a little googling.
Actually, when someone on this forum gets up over 150 posts as thoughtful as yours are, one can gleen a fairly good composite sketch of the poster. Of course, I never meant to offend you.
Of course, you did not address my point, which is that the great mass of inmates who have filled our jails to overflowing aren't Americans, they are people who came to live here because their homelands were more oppressive than ours.
American borders are sieves. I've always wondered, if we are so horrible a nation, why so many people keep coming here, and why so many people who hate it so don't just go someplace they like better?
Actually, I don't wonder. I know the answer, and so do you.
(Oops! There I go again, making assumptions...)
"Our Population?"
My understanding is that an exceeding number of "American" inmates are actually somebody else's population, which is to say, illegal aliens.
Of course, we've got that whole tradition of opening our doors to "wretched refuse yearning to breathe free" thing going on, so I guess it's OK.
Which brings up the question: How many poor people fleeing oppression in their respective homelands have sought (and found) refuge in America versus China? How many people, citing oppression, have fled (or tried to flee) America versus China?
See, problem is, you and I sitting in our offices and tippy-tapping away on our computers know jack squat about oppression, only that talking about it passes time online and in coffee-houses.
25 years ago I thought like you did; heck, I even convinced myself that *I* was oppressed; it was all kinda sexy and cool and martyr-y and stuff. But I travelled a bit, met a bunch of different type of people, took on some large responsibilities, and came to the realization that America Ain't So Bad, and many's the place that's a Lot Worse. I felt lucky, and out of that grew thankful.
Still, it's fun to complain about stuff, ennit? Even more fun, bear in mind, to be able to complain about stuff...
Bravo!
Actually I believe Tony Curtis is who should be quoted.
Alright, alright, dammit, I'll do it:
"I WUV you, Bwuce Perenth!!"
Finally, SCO being put in its place. I just wonder why this took so long for Novell to bring up.
Because SCO's earnings call is THIS morning.
This isn't just a smackdown, this -- today's release, the Perens-for-the-Prosecution piece on Page One of SlashDot, along with the divulging of the Conference Call Phone Number (nice one, that!) -- is a highly-coordinated strike meant to drop a tactical nuke down their shorts. This is calculated to not just damage SCO but make their Corporate Headquarters a Dead Zone for the next Three Thousad Years.
Nice Work, everyone! Proud to be a small part of it, even if only as a witness.
There is nothing "leading" about a DRMed PC in a fancy case mod.
Perhaps, but it appears that the 'Box is sufficiently intriguing to Sony for them to emulate much of its functionality in this just-announced next gen flavor.
As for the name? Heh, I guess all consoles will be "-X-" boxes soon...
I just want to be a fly on the wall when the Biz Dev guy from Sony's Console division takes that long-put-off meeting that the guy from Sony's Studio division has been trying to have with him...
Bottom line, if you haven't used it in more than a year, it's probably not worth keeping.
Unfortunately, that's what my Mom thought about my Action Comics #15...
The Monty Python Comedy troupe did a rather famous (in some Geek circles) skit in which the virtues of canned Spiced Ham are literally sung. Inexplicably, a group of Vikings join in the song.
The poster, obviously better schooled in British farce than luncheon meats, is under the impression that the widely accepted nickname for unsolicited e-mail is derived from the comedy sketch and not from Spam(tm), the food.
I don't know for certain if he's wrong, but I have a hunch he is. I'm guessing a lot more people have eaten Spam than have digested the Python skit...
losing battle
Lost, son. Circa 15 years ago. Woulda helped had we picked a word not already firmly ensconced in both the vernacular (thin biscuit) AND slang (narrow-minded Southern whitey) simultaneously. 'Cracker' never stood a chance; teenage cabals can *suggest* lanaguage, but it's up to the media to bless it and disseminate it.
Just let it go. As a geek patheticism, insisting on the use of the word "cracker" over "hacker" is starting to rank up there with wearing one's plastic Vulcan ears out in public.
What happens when the whole system breaks down?
Your favorite Amendment switches from First to Second.
The people who hack, today, are the people who would have been working on their cars 30 years ago.
So why is it that so many of the people I know who "hack" today can't change a sparkplug without electrocuting themselves? They can set up a home wireless Debian network routing first-run DIVX flicks through their toaster ovens on any given Wednesday and still have time for 'Enterprise' but are paralyzed if their car engine doesn't turn over on a cold morning.
Are the people who "hack" today going to be as revered 30 years from now as today's auto mechanics? And what will my grandchildren be "hacking" with?
Oh, and guys, this is not meant as some "manhood threatening" troll from the Old Guy, so don't pile on with the "I hack *AND* change my own oil" posts; you know you're the exceptions... I'm just curious how something that's still as relevant and vital as auto mechanics got knocked so far down on the "733t Mad Skilllz" pole.
There should be a "national opt-out" spam list that all spam senders must check before sending a message.
Great idea! Which nation?
With your first post, I thought you were just having a bad day. Now I see that you're wound too tight, period.
Fact: This is a news aggregation site, and the target community is way too broad. No one is interested in everything that is posted on SlashDot, it is genetically impossible.
As for being "modded up," please! I have "Excellent Karma" and doled out five mod points today. What does *that* tell you? You're being naive...
As a better judge, look at the number of people posting with interest on this thread, and also the follow-through "Buffy" conversations in the SlashBack.
You want to "make SlashDot better?" Great! Make positive suggestions, recommend new topics beyond the same tired RIAA paranoia and Sci-Fi Movie Fanboy-ism. Better still, *submit* some stories on topics that interest you. Maybe they will get used, generate some interest that the editors will see, and more such stories will be posted. *Grow* the site, Bunky, don't waste energy trying to cordon off sections of it.
Whether it's "in your news" or not, what compels you to *read* it, let alone, ahem, *posting* about it?
I mean, Dude, c'mon... It's a "news for nerds" Website, not a mind-control device!