How did this get insightful, think it belongs in the "Offtopic" catagory. This thread is about whether or not people *should* donate to the EFF, and whether or not other options, like donating time and effort to worthwhile Opensource programs, count as well. Personally I don't donate money to the EFF because I have yet to see any results and several of their arguments are slippery-slope at best.
Personally I put some time into a couple Opensource projects I find useful and good, like phpESP, Promisance, and Space Colony X. Which reminds me I need to stop posting and get back to hunting down that world bank bug in Promisance Enhanced.
Whether or not the Iraq issue will cause WWIII belongs in another tread or topic, not here.
In Europe visa offers the Visa Electron card. I could see where evisa could be confusing to people thinking it had something to do with Visa's online varification system or the Visa Electron card.
I am a Mac user and the great thing about the free market is that if Sony produces a CD that I can't listen to on my latop when traveling, then I am not going to buy it. In fact the the last 2 albums I bought were George Carlin's Nalpam and Silly Putty and the Episode II soundtrack. Why? Becuase the price doesn't warrent me paying for most CD's. Although Apple's iPod has the best DRM system yet, a little sticker that says, "Don't steal Music".
Remember when Tapes were about USD 10 and CD's were USD 12? It made sense, CD's were new, and in theory should last forever, plus their quality and portablity was far better. But then CD's were 13.99, then 14.99, then 15.99, then 16.99, and now an average CD not on sale is about what, 18 Dollars? Cd's have gone up in price faster than inflation, at least that was what one of my fellow students discovered and reported in his honors Econ Project last year. So what do I do to price gauging corperations? Don't buy their products. Now if a system ever comes online that promotes a fair price to download music, I would use it. Say USD 1 or even 1.50 a song. Hell I know people that pay 1.5 pounds for a ringtone on their cell phone. So that's not asking much. The biggest mistake the RIAA made was going after Napster instead of working with them to produce a viable solution for music on demand.
I maybe buy 1 CD a year. Although some times I buy CD's from organizations that use the money, like the Madison Scouts Drum Corps because I am wierd and like that type of music and from personal Drum Corps expirance I know they provide a good community service. So I get some music I like AND help the community, score +2.
I find startup to be slower, but then again I reset my ibook maybe once every three weeks when it downloads updates and requires a restart. Of course programs like blender don't run quite as fast as my Linux box, but its comaparing Apples (no pun intended) and Oranges.
My iBook is a newer 14.1 700Mhz with 256mb ram and a 16MB video card, my Linux box is a dual 1.2Ghz AMD box with a 64MB video card and a Gig of ram...
But honestly, OS X is a little slow on startup, even slower going into 'classic', but for everyday use, I don't seem to notice anything.
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How did this get insightful, think it belongs in the "Offtopic" catagory. This thread is about whether or not people *should* donate to the EFF, and whether or not other options, like donating time and effort to worthwhile Opensource programs, count as well. Personally I don't donate money to the EFF because I have yet to see any results and several of their arguments are slippery-slope at best.
Personally I put some time into a couple Opensource projects I find useful and good, like phpESP, Promisance, and Space Colony X. Which reminds me I need to stop posting and get back to hunting down that world bank bug in Promisance Enhanced.
Whether or not the Iraq issue will cause WWIII belongs in another tread or topic, not here.
Cheers.
PS There is nothing wrong with PLAIN OLD TEXT!
In Europe visa offers the Visa Electron card. I could see where evisa could be confusing to people thinking it had something to do with Visa's online varification system or the Visa Electron card.
I am a Mac user and the great thing about the free market is that if Sony produces a CD that I can't listen to on my latop when traveling, then I am not going to buy it. In fact the the last 2 albums I bought were George Carlin's Nalpam and Silly Putty and the Episode II soundtrack. Why? Becuase the price doesn't warrent me paying for most CD's. Although Apple's iPod has the best DRM system yet, a little sticker that says, "Don't steal Music".
Remember when Tapes were about USD 10 and CD's were USD 12? It made sense, CD's were new, and in theory should last forever, plus their quality and portablity was far better. But then CD's were 13.99, then 14.99, then 15.99, then 16.99, and now an average CD not on sale is about what, 18 Dollars? Cd's have gone up in price faster than inflation, at least that was what one of my fellow students discovered and reported in his honors Econ Project last year. So what do I do to price gauging corperations? Don't buy their products. Now if a system ever comes online that promotes a fair price to download music, I would use it. Say USD 1 or even 1.50 a song. Hell I know people that pay 1.5 pounds for a ringtone on their cell phone. So that's not asking much. The biggest mistake the RIAA made was going after Napster instead of working with them to produce a viable solution for music on demand.
I maybe buy 1 CD a year. Although some times I buy CD's from organizations that use the money, like the Madison Scouts Drum Corps because I am wierd and like that type of music and from personal Drum Corps expirance I know they provide a good community service. So I get some music I like AND help the community, score +2.
I find startup to be slower, but then again I reset my ibook maybe once every three weeks when it downloads updates and requires a restart. Of course programs like blender don't run quite as fast as my Linux box, but its comaparing Apples (no pun intended) and Oranges. My iBook is a newer 14.1 700Mhz with 256mb ram and a 16MB video card, my Linux box is a dual 1.2Ghz AMD box with a 64MB video card and a Gig of ram... But honestly, OS X is a little slow on startup, even slower going into 'classic', but for everyday use, I don't seem to notice anything.
All this UI crap...I knew there was a reason I still used shell access.