I think it has to meet all 3 criteria to be inelligable. Which means it's time for someone to release a game that teaches you about politics, science, and art, while at the same time being mind-numbingly gory.
Freedom isn't free. Others can take the freedom you have, but no one except yourself can give you more. If you're not willing to risk retribution for pissing off the government, you've already voluntarily given up your freedom. If these situations make you too afraid to speak out, you've already created your own little prison in your mind. That, more than any other example case like this, is what most prevents you from being free.
While this is true, it would be better if the government didn't behave in a way to make this choice necessary in the first place.
Exactly. Only pirates will own mp3s, only hackers will own compilers (outside of the workplace), and only terrorists will own home chemistry sets. The age of the producer is falling, and soon you'll need to be licensed by a corporation before you can be anything but a good little consumer.
so while there is a force pushing back on you, it's not doing work, it's having work done on it
Again, that's not how physics works. The brick is having positive work done on it, the fist is having negative work done, but they both have equal magnitude, which means the force on each is equivalent. You can't just magically impart force into the brick without having equal force react against your fist.
It's not a "misconception of reality", it's deliberate deception on their part. I'm well aware that they don't usually meet advertised rates, but what they're saying is "we advertise these rates but can't afford to meet them, so we're going to demand money from the other side of the connection too". They COULD be more clear about the bandwidth they're selling customers. They COULD offer guaranteed bandwidth connections for a certain price. Instead they choose to play both ends against the middle. And by the way, I've been using Speakeasy for months, and have had my upstream bandwidth saturated for weeks at a time, always at the advertised rate (or within a few %). So it IS possible to actually deliver what you promise to your customers.
I'm not saying it's imposible, but your interpretation of the physics is wrong. The same force you're applying in a "positive" direction to the brick, the brick is also applying in a "negative" direction to your hand and arm, as part of the momentum transfer between the two. You don't just hit the brick and transfer all your kinetic energy without feeling it.
If there is a two-tier Internet, where video and telephony applications are on the top tier and web sites, email and most other services are on the bottom, it really doesn't seem unfair to me. In fact, it might vastly improve the quality of the top-tier applications to the point where we would be a great deal happier with them than we are now. Surely this is not so bad?
It's unfair because I already paid for a certain quality of service on my end, and for all the bandwidth I use. If the telcos are having problems filling their end of the contract, they should raise prices to meet their actual costs, not try to extort money from the people on the other end of the connection. When I signed up for an account, I did so with the assumption that I was paying more than enough to cover the bandwidth they promised me, and that I would receive any and all data I chose to request at equal speed (at least as far as they can control). They are now trying to break that contract by delivering data that I request at less bandwidth than I am paying them for, unless the guy on the other end pays protection money.
That's exactly the misconception I'm talking about. If he does indeed start a wave propagating through the block, his fist has already taken the blow from the force required to start that wave (equal and opposite reaction, etc). The most the wave could do is hit him with the same force a second time, but that's assuming the block was being held in position quite firmly, and if that were true, the material it was being held by would absorb a lot of that wave energy. In addition, waves in solid objects are VERY fast... much too fast for a human to generate one and then pull their hand back before it returned.
Exactly. And even moreso with reading, the act of interpreting complex paragraphs can actually train your mind to think in a more analytical and adaptable way. Plus there's the inherent social benefits if you're watching or reading ANYthing that comments on society in some way, and actually gets you thinking. Most of the schlock on TV doesn't count, but if you pick right, it can be nearly as good as reading.
Reading fiction or watching TV can actually be enriching and mentally stimulating, if you pick challenging things to read or watch. No MMORPGs can really say the same thing.
Movies just don't have the replay value that music has. Even movies I really like, I only watch once every couple of years. So what's the point in owning it? By the time I've seen it twice, there's a new format out. By the time I've seen it four or five times and actually broken even on rental costs, my old format may not even play anymore. If they would sell new DVDs for $5 or so, they could snatch up all the market that goes rental... who wouldn't want to own rather than rent, for the same price? But instead they price themselves out of the market for everyone but those who collect, or watch the same movies over and over.
Too bad they filter out crap and really really good art as well, leaving us with the mediocre pop culture we see all around us. And it's not JUST because people want that... it's easier to find a polished but mediocre band than a true artist, so the studios advertise the mediocre to make people think they have no other options.
That's a pretty poor metaphor. Some of the most liberal people I know believe only in preventing government and other public interference in private affairs, including freedom of speech.
8 guys was nowhere near most of their organization. And how many people do you think they'd lose roaming around the midwest blowing up small town centers? That'd have a bigger paralyzing effect than one big shot like 9/11.
Nothing in the OSS model IS inherently better than closed source software. The quality of the product, as always, depends on the individuals developing it. That said, quite a few OSS projects have created software that is better than its closed source counterpart (the kernel, apache, debatably mysql). Those successes don't mean that every OSS project is going to meet the same level, however. I think you're making the mistake of lumping a bunch of projects into one group when they really shouldn't be.
That's why you get them a distro that provides support. There's a number of them out there, and most are cheaper than Windows or MacOS. I know, I want all my friends and family to use Gentoo as well, but realistically, it's not going to happen, for exactly the reasons you describe.
Re:The diplomatic response
on
The CVS Cop-Out
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· Score: 2, Insightful
95% of the pop'n has not the skills to do either. That leave us with users who love the idea of OSS, but hate OSS developers.
Yes, but ALL of the population has the skills to pay the developer (or a 3rd party developer) to make the fix or roll the patch. Whether they're willing to pay is a question of how much the fix is actually worth to them. If OSS devs sidetracked for every free feature request they got, products would be unfocused, bloated with feature creep, and likely ridiculously unsecure.
I for example stopped reporting Mozilla bugs 3yrs ago, because of this kind of attitude. I feel useless. Strangely, closed software makers respond better and I have yet to feel abandoned by one. Except for MS - try even finding a place to report to them without paying for support!
It's not strange. They want you to keep paying them money for upgrades. They want you to tell your friends about the product so they'll pay money for it as well. OSS has no such motivation. It's done mostly for personal enjoyment. More recently, the more painful features and bugfixes have been coming in by for-pay employees in IBM and elsewhere, and that's exactly what makes the OSS model so powerful. A bunch of people made this thing for fun, but now it's at a point where it's useful to some businesses with cash to throw at it, so suddenly there's money going towards fixing all those things nobody really wanted to do when it was a hobby, and all that work comes back to the community, available to everyone. But until you're one of those people actually paying money for the features and fixes you want, you have no inherent right to be acknowledged. That's not to say you shouldn't make those requests, because some devs will care. But you shouldn't get surprised (or pissed off) if they don't immediately jump to do your bidding. Think of making bug reports as a way to say "thanks for making this product that I've been using for free" by providing feedback, rather than as a demand to fix stuff just 'cause you say so.
Re:The diplomatic response
on
The CVS Cop-Out
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· Score: 2, Insightful
You assume quite a bit there. Yeah, some developers are writing OSS because they want it to be used by a wide audience. But plenty of developers release under OSS licenses because they've written something and would like to let other developers take advantage of it rather than hiding it on a drive and forgetting about it. Or as the GP said, non-technical users are not an audience they care about. They really don't have any obligation to anybody... they can feel or think anything they want whether 2 million people are using their code, or none. Don't like it? Don't use it. Or find somebody who will take your money in exchange for throwing some polish on the existing code or product.
Re:Even that's not a cop out.
on
The CVS Cop-Out
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· Score: 1
Slashdot Mirror
I think it has to meet all 3 criteria to be inelligable. Which means it's time for someone to release a game that teaches you about politics, science, and art, while at the same time being mind-numbingly gory.
Freedom isn't free. Others can take the freedom you have, but no one except yourself can give you more. If you're not willing to risk retribution for pissing off the government, you've already voluntarily given up your freedom. If these situations make you too afraid to speak out, you've already created your own little prison in your mind. That, more than any other example case like this, is what most prevents you from being free.
While this is true, it would be better if the government didn't behave in a way to make this choice necessary in the first place.
Both you and the GP have some pretty stupid friends :-P
Exactly. Only pirates will own mp3s, only hackers will own compilers (outside of the workplace), and only terrorists will own home chemistry sets. The age of the producer is falling, and soon you'll need to be licensed by a corporation before you can be anything but a good little consumer.
so while there is a force pushing back on you, it's not doing work, it's having work done on it
Again, that's not how physics works. The brick is having positive work done on it, the fist is having negative work done, but they both have equal magnitude, which means the force on each is equivalent. You can't just magically impart force into the brick without having equal force react against your fist.
It's not a "misconception of reality", it's deliberate deception on their part. I'm well aware that they don't usually meet advertised rates, but what they're saying is "we advertise these rates but can't afford to meet them, so we're going to demand money from the other side of the connection too". They COULD be more clear about the bandwidth they're selling customers. They COULD offer guaranteed bandwidth connections for a certain price. Instead they choose to play both ends against the middle. And by the way, I've been using Speakeasy for months, and have had my upstream bandwidth saturated for weeks at a time, always at the advertised rate (or within a few %). So it IS possible to actually deliver what you promise to your customers.
I'm not saying it's imposible, but your interpretation of the physics is wrong. The same force you're applying in a "positive" direction to the brick, the brick is also applying in a "negative" direction to your hand and arm, as part of the momentum transfer between the two. You don't just hit the brick and transfer all your kinetic energy without feeling it.
If there is a two-tier Internet, where video and telephony applications are on the top tier and web sites, email and most other services are on the bottom, it really doesn't seem unfair to me. In fact, it might vastly improve the quality of the top-tier applications to the point where we would be a great deal happier with them than we are now. Surely this is not so bad?
It's unfair because I already paid for a certain quality of service on my end, and for all the bandwidth I use. If the telcos are having problems filling their end of the contract, they should raise prices to meet their actual costs, not try to extort money from the people on the other end of the connection. When I signed up for an account, I did so with the assumption that I was paying more than enough to cover the bandwidth they promised me, and that I would receive any and all data I chose to request at equal speed (at least as far as they can control). They are now trying to break that contract by delivering data that I request at less bandwidth than I am paying them for, unless the guy on the other end pays protection money.
That's exactly the misconception I'm talking about. If he does indeed start a wave propagating through the block, his fist has already taken the blow from the force required to start that wave (equal and opposite reaction, etc). The most the wave could do is hit him with the same force a second time, but that's assuming the block was being held in position quite firmly, and if that were true, the material it was being held by would absorb a lot of that wave energy. In addition, waves in solid objects are VERY fast... much too fast for a human to generate one and then pull their hand back before it returned.
> As for the cinderblock, it's about getting your knuckles to move _very_ fast, and then getting them out before the cinderblock returns the energy.
Um... physics doesn't work that way...
yeah, but hopefully nobody actually WILL, and the HD-DVD market will crash and burn ;-)
Exactly. And even moreso with reading, the act of interpreting complex paragraphs can actually train your mind to think in a more analytical and adaptable way. Plus there's the inherent social benefits if you're watching or reading ANYthing that comments on society in some way, and actually gets you thinking. Most of the schlock on TV doesn't count, but if you pick right, it can be nearly as good as reading.
Reading fiction or watching TV can actually be enriching and mentally stimulating, if you pick challenging things to read or watch. No MMORPGs can really say the same thing.
A) he said no KNOWN bugs
B) Test-driven development is amazing
Movies just don't have the replay value that music has. Even movies I really like, I only watch once every couple of years. So what's the point in owning it? By the time I've seen it twice, there's a new format out. By the time I've seen it four or five times and actually broken even on rental costs, my old format may not even play anymore. If they would sell new DVDs for $5 or so, they could snatch up all the market that goes rental... who wouldn't want to own rather than rent, for the same price? But instead they price themselves out of the market for everyone but those who collect, or watch the same movies over and over.
Too bad they filter out crap and really really good art as well, leaving us with the mediocre pop culture we see all around us. And it's not JUST because people want that... it's easier to find a polished but mediocre band than a true artist, so the studios advertise the mediocre to make people think they have no other options.
That's a pretty poor metaphor. Some of the most liberal people I know believe only in preventing government and other public interference in private affairs, including freedom of speech.
8 guys was nowhere near most of their organization. And how many people do you think they'd lose roaming around the midwest blowing up small town centers? That'd have a bigger paralyzing effect than one big shot like 9/11.
Actually, they can, they just haven't been. Which supports the "power grab" theory.
Nothing in the OSS model IS inherently better than closed source software. The quality of the product, as always, depends on the individuals developing it. That said, quite a few OSS projects have created software that is better than its closed source counterpart (the kernel, apache, debatably mysql). Those successes don't mean that every OSS project is going to meet the same level, however. I think you're making the mistake of lumping a bunch of projects into one group when they really shouldn't be.
That's why you get them a distro that provides support. There's a number of them out there, and most are cheaper than Windows or MacOS. I know, I want all my friends and family to use Gentoo as well, but realistically, it's not going to happen, for exactly the reasons you describe.
It's not strange. They want you to keep paying them money for upgrades. They want you to tell your friends about the product so they'll pay money for it as well. OSS has no such motivation. It's done mostly for personal enjoyment. More recently, the more painful features and bugfixes have been coming in by for-pay employees in IBM and elsewhere, and that's exactly what makes the OSS model so powerful. A bunch of people made this thing for fun, but now it's at a point where it's useful to some businesses with cash to throw at it, so suddenly there's money going towards fixing all those things nobody really wanted to do when it was a hobby, and all that work comes back to the community, available to everyone. But until you're one of those people actually paying money for the features and fixes you want, you have no inherent right to be acknowledged. That's not to say you shouldn't make those requests, because some devs will care. But you shouldn't get surprised (or pissed off) if they don't immediately jump to do your bidding. Think of making bug reports as a way to say "thanks for making this product that I've been using for free" by providing feedback, rather than as a demand to fix stuff just 'cause you say so.
You assume quite a bit there. Yeah, some developers are writing OSS because they want it to be used by a wide audience. But plenty of developers release under OSS licenses because they've written something and would like to let other developers take advantage of it rather than hiding it on a drive and forgetting about it. Or as the GP said, non-technical users are not an audience they care about. They really don't have any obligation to anybody... they can feel or think anything they want whether 2 million people are using their code, or none. Don't like it? Don't use it. Or find somebody who will take your money in exchange for throwing some polish on the existing code or product.
Stupid, or just very obscure sarcasm?
32 megs of texture memory, and a Radeon 9000 is the equivalent of an nVidia 5200 or so. Running XP.