Well, music sheets (I hope that's the correct term, English is not my native language) are published so they can always be abused - but what is the difference between me playing a tune on my piano at home (presuming that I've legally bought the music sheet) or me playing it on my phone? And besides, doing so would be quite pointless since the user interfaces (on the web) are quite limited and I've read that it takes more than a day for professionals (using better tools) to make a ringing tone tune sound good (the phone speakers are quite limited, after all). So the possibility is there but in my opinion it's mostly a way to make mobile phones ringing in public places even more annoying...;)
Actually, that's already possible. Many European operators have webpages for phone subscribers where they can compose their own tunes and then send them to their phones.
I don't quite agree. Your comment did remind me of my beginner days... I remember how I once I'd learnt how to configure things desperately tried to find (googling etc.) exactly the "right" solution to problems. If I found one solution (eg. where to put hdparm at startup) and then another I got very unsure which to choose. So I don't think the problem is the many different ways to configure things but the lack of "verification" that what you've done is one correct solution (even though there may be others).
I agree - I almost threw up when I saw the screenshots;) However, for the average computer user XP is probably still appealing. I've read a few publications on GUI design and one important thing is choosing the right colours. There are numerous examples of how colours affect people (the changes in mood can be measured in your brainwaves). And I'm pretty damn sure that MS has employed some of the very best experts to decide what it should look like.
Offtopic: People looking at something see many things that never reach the concious mind. A very basic example of this is how people "read" pictures (ie. in the same direction you read text) - many art books contain a simple example picture (I'll do my best to describe it): A crowd of protesters on the left side and a group of soldiers on the right - it looks like the crowd is pushing the soldiers back. When the picture is flipped around (ie. exactly the same image mirrored) it looks like the soldiers are pushing the crowd back.
"Lindows" does sound really stupid but it does do a damn good job at giving the average consumer a hint about what it is. Everybody knows Windows - that's what it says when it boots (so you see it frequently;) on your screen) - and more and more people have heard about Linux. They might not know what "operating system" means but the name gives people a clue about it being an alternative.
I want to learn Linux for the sake of learning Linux. I want to see something completely different. I don't want the learning curve to be eased, I want the full Linux experience.
What makes you think that Linux is more difficult? Yes, I admit, basic things are far easier in Windows but once you get a more complicated problem - presuming that you do something more than word processing and playing games, which I assume you're interested in doing if you want to learn Linux - Linux is (imho) much easier. You get more elaborate error messages, you're not limited to using the given GUI for configuration (sure you can change the registry manually but I really doubt that is feasible). Instead you can pick from a number of configuration programs or edit the files manually (and then really learn what they do). In general, Linux gets easier since you get more knowledge about what it does "under the hood".
the idea was that they were like balls you could throw against the wall to make them shut up when you hate getting up early. So, is the idea with these that you can throw them against the wall when they crash...? Or maybe throw windows out the window when it bsods?
There's one big difference: How they measure success.
Intel/AMD are only interested in maximizing their profits so they try to find the optimal combination of investments into R&D, marketing, manufacturing and so on. And from a technical point of view the biggest profits might be gained by making processors cheaper instead of faster. China measures success differently, i.e. how well they meet set targets - it'a a plan economy, remember. An example of that - and how badly it fails - was tool manufacturing in the former Soviet Union. The factory managers were rewarded based upon output from the factories - measured by weight. Guess whether the tools were as well designed as possible or as heavy as possible?;)
You don't think it would say "this program has performed an illegal action"?
Re:There's no point to this article...
on
Euro DMCA Fails
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· Score: 1
Nope he's right. You might remember the news how every time a new country has a referendum whether to join or not the "No" has distributed enormous amounts of material on how the EU legislation overrides national legislation. You can always appeal to the EU courts if you're unhappy with decisions made by the national ones. So basically: - One stupid decision by a national judge. - Appeal to EU court. - Decision according to EU legislation. - Nobody is stupid enough to test the national legislation vs. the EU one again. - Directive enforced nationally. Voila!
But are those licenses enforcable at all (in the US)? I know that they aren't in the EU. Services are of course different as well as things you rent since that affects other users of the same sevice or renting the same thing after you etc.
Is there going to come a point where we will not actually own anything, merely own a license to use it?
Not if people refuse to accept that - ie. if people stick to their old computer/software/whatever that they own instead of licensing something newer (even though better) until they can buy it and own it so that they can do whatever they want with it.
Do you get a bill for that!? That's insane - please tell me that I'm wrong when I recall reading before on slashdot that in the US you get charged for calls you receive, not only ones you make. Please tell me I'm wrong. In Europe it's only the caller that pays unless you make a collect call (ie. the operator asks the recipient whether they wish to get the call and pay for it). And as far as phone spam is concerned - what is the legal status? It certainly easier to trace the sender so making an opt out possibility legally mandatory should be trivial. In Finland - and presumably the rest of the EU too - it will soon be (or maybe it already is, it was in the news a couple of months ago) illegal for operators (and other senders of text message ads) to send ads to people that haven't opted in - and that's why I had no problem with opting in to useful ones since I know my number won't be abused.
I agree with you about points 2. and 3. but not 1. Because if you think about it, so many people try to post their e-mail address in a form that would make it hard for spambots to get it (eg. whatever at something dot com). That should be an even more clear sigh that "I don't give a damn about _any_ offers in my inbox!" but the spammers don't care and instead try to make the bots better so why would they take into account PGP users. And another thing is that the value of their list of e-mail addresses is based on how many of them are valid - not how many are "stupid idiots that might buy something so that spamming is still worth doing and thereby harrasing 99.9% of the recipients".
Oh no! Are you telling me that Lance would have left earth if I didn't use any P2P? Man, do I feel guilty. Why hasn't the RIAA pointed this out before?
Blackmailing the rest of the world might work even better: If you don't make your montly payments we'll bring him back!;)
Another purpose for such a program - the Nigerians
on
HOWTO: Annoy a Spammer
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· Score: 1
As a matter of fact I've been thinking about something like that to counter the nigerian e-mail scams. It would probably work even more efficiently against them I think. The scammers try to manually keep track of many victims and if they would all of a sudden have a great deal of trouble if they get 2k semi-sensible replies (such as "I might be interested in your business proposal, please give me more information") and have a hard time determining which victims have really fallen for it (and thus they would hopefully fail). Some people of course have fun with fooling the scammers check some examples. The best one was a "scammer scam" where the scammer was persuaded to send 5 g of gold as a sample to the "victim" (so the scammers are not very clever). So creating such a reply-to-scam-and-spam-program might indeed be a very good project for slashdot. Anybody else interested?
This might seem like I'm trying to convince you but anyway, this is how I made the switch: At first everything seemed to be so hard to get working but I learnt all the time as I did it. And I kept trying until I got things to work - and now two years later I've discovered so many features that don't exist in Windows that whenever I have to use it (at work mostly) it feels really "limited". There are so many things that you can do with Linux but that are impossible with Windows - but it does take some time and effort to discover these things. Simply put: You should make the switch (dual boot at first of course) first and then discover why it was worth it;)
And just to clarify: The advantages I'm referring to in my case are not that much "guru stuff" but simple things that everyone who wants to be productive with their computer can benefit from. In my case especially the almost endless possibilities to configure KDE - the multiple desktops, the (imho) better possibilities to configure keyboard shortcuts (they really make me work faster), the xmms control I can dock into the panel and so on. Virtual consoles are nice too to keep certain tasks separate from the rest. A command prompt is of course possible and you can use Putty to access remote boxes but (imho) it's still nicer to switch to another desktop/console than to keep track of many windows. Frankly, nowadays I almost get some "claustrophobia" in Windows.
That's probably also how we should explore Mars: keep a control crew in orbit and only land mobile robots, controlled via telepresence from orbit.
Why? First of all, it takes many months to get there and many to get back - regardless of whether you land or not. Zero gravity for such a long time is very bad for the human body but by being on the surface you can get at least some gravity to counter that. And what would be the point with controlling robots from orbit? Remote-controlled robots can be controlled just as well from earth - ok, a round trip for a command and it's response takes a few minutes but why would that matter? A shorter response wouldn't allow anything to be done that couldn't be done with a longer one - the AI on the rover would still have to make the fast decisions, ie. "rock straight ahead I'd better turn".
As far as your idea about renting control time with robots on the moon - I seriously doubt that it would be economically feasible. Because it's not only expensive to get something there but how can you provide a power source that would last long enough. And I really wonder if anybody would be willing to pay that much for playing with a remote controlled toy on the moon. The value added by controlling it and not only looking at pictures taken when somebody else (= a scientist) controls it isn't that big.
Thanks for the info! I took Dell just as an example. I once pointed out the same thing here on/. about diagnosing hardware problems (and other after-sales issues, such as more employee skills needed and so on) when somebody said that it should be as simple as leaving out the "put-windows-on-HD" step from the production process. The replies I got were mostly that there are enough simple diagnostic programs that can be booted from CD that the employees don't really need any additional training to use them to find out whether it's a hw problem or bad config. And most buyers of no-OS or linux laptops probably have their own favorite distro so it doesn't make much of a difference if there's distro X on it when it's delivered. One option that I'd really like (since I'm no linux guru, even though I love Gentoo) would be if the diagnostic disc was given to the buyer as well - so that I could myself check whether I've configured it improperly or if there really is a hw flaw. I might want to point out as well that getting linux on laptops this way is much better (or at least nicer) than the other I did propose here.
If you find a HP/Compaq/Toshiba/Dell/IBM/Sony branded laptop that has linux preinstalled, it means that the vendor paid for windows and removed it.
This makes me think of a quite interesting case from an industrial management course I took. At first stuff about B2C then B2B (B=Business, C=Consumer for those who don't know TLAs=three-letter-acronyms) and finally as an example of something the web can bring C2B: Some guy had set up a web site that he wanted to buy a Volvo (I don't remember the model) and asked if there were others interested in the same car and if so, asked them to contact him. After a while 2000 people signed up and he called Volvo and asked for the price of 2000 such cars - they did get quite a bargain. So that might work with big brand laptops as well. I wonder what Dell might say if you call them and ask the price for 2000 laptops with no OS...?
That might provide one way to fight the MS-Tax. First you go and buy a laptop (with no EULA on the box etc. - so that they cannot claim you knew it in advance). Then once you've opened it and seen the EULA you return it - and they'll be forced to take it back. And this will cost them money (it takes a lot of the employees' time and they might have ordered new ones thinking they've sold one) - and at some point they will get REALLY pissed off at MS. If enough people do this they'll start demanding better terms from MS. The resellers and OEMs will of course be "innocent casualties" but eventually things are likely to change. Heck, why not start a campaign? Every person that wants a laptop without Windows goes to every major computer shop in their home town and does this - except the shops you like and want to maintain a good relationship with and the small ones since it will be too heavy on them and they don't have that much influence anyway. Such a campaign could even get news coverage and then it's important to emphasize that the problem is MS - not the reseller. And regardless of whether people are computer literate or not they'll understand that trying to force people to agree to a contract after making a purchase is wrong (=bad publicity for MS).
IANAL, but in the case of the refund, the EULA requires that you get your refund from the OEM. If the OEM refuses to provide the refund,
If the EULA says that the OEM has to provide a refund then just nag them until they do - if you have decent consumer protection, as we do in the EU they'll eventually be forced to give you the refund. And if enough people nag at the OEMs they'll start demanding better terms from MS. Most people will probably want Windows for a long time to come so it will be cheaper for OEMs to ship every computer with it but if there are enough people that cause them trouble because they don't want it they'll come up with a solution. One good solution might be that MS has to take care of refunds on it's own - maybe some day every computer package will contain an envelope pre-filled and paid for into which you simply put the Windows (recovery) disc and manual if you don't want it, sign something that you "certify you've removed the installed copy from the HD", send it to MS and then receive your refund.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, music sheets (I hope that's the correct term, English is not my native language) are published so they can always be abused - but what is the difference between me playing a tune on my piano at home (presuming that I've legally bought the music sheet) or me playing it on my phone? And besides, doing so would be quite pointless since the user interfaces (on the web) are quite limited and I've read that it takes more than a day for professionals (using better tools) to make a ringing tone tune sound good (the phone speakers are quite limited, after all). So the possibility is there but in my opinion it's mostly a way to make mobile phones ringing in public places even more annoying... ;)
Actually, that's already possible. Many European operators have webpages for phone subscribers where they can compose their own tunes and then send them to their phones.
I don't quite agree. Your comment did remind me of my beginner days... I remember how I once I'd learnt how to configure things desperately tried to find (googling etc.) exactly the "right" solution to problems. If I found one solution (eg. where to put hdparm at startup) and then another I got very unsure which to choose. So I don't think the problem is the many different ways to configure things but the lack of "verification" that what you've done is one correct solution (even though there may be others).
I agree - I almost threw up when I saw the screenshots ;) However, for the average computer user XP is probably still appealing. I've read a few publications on GUI design and one important thing is choosing the right colours. There are numerous examples of how colours affect people (the changes in mood can be measured in your brainwaves). And I'm pretty damn sure that MS has employed some of the very best experts to decide what it should look like.
Offtopic: People looking at something see many things that never reach the concious mind. A very basic example of this is how people "read" pictures (ie. in the same direction you read text) - many art books contain a simple example picture (I'll do my best to describe it): A crowd of protesters on the left side and a group of soldiers on the right - it looks like the crowd is pushing the soldiers back. When the picture is flipped around (ie. exactly the same image mirrored) it looks like the soldiers are pushing the crowd back.
"Lindows" does sound really stupid but it does do a damn good job at giving the average consumer a hint about what it is. Everybody knows Windows - that's what it says when it boots (so you see it frequently ;) on your screen) - and more and more people have heard about Linux. They might not know what "operating system" means but the name gives people a clue about it being an alternative.
I want to learn Linux for the sake of learning Linux. I want to see something completely different. I don't want the learning curve to be eased, I want the full Linux experience.
What makes you think that Linux is more difficult? Yes, I admit, basic things are far easier in Windows but once you get a more complicated problem - presuming that you do something more than word processing and playing games, which I assume you're interested in doing if you want to learn Linux - Linux is (imho) much easier. You get more elaborate error messages, you're not limited to using the given GUI for configuration (sure you can change the registry manually but I really doubt that is feasible). Instead you can pick from a number of configuration programs or edit the files manually (and then really learn what they do). In general, Linux gets easier since you get more knowledge about what it does "under the hood".
the idea was that they were like balls you could throw against the wall to make them shut up when you hate getting up early. So, is the idea with these that you can throw them against the wall when they crash...? Or maybe throw windows out the window when it bsods?
There's one big difference: How they measure success. ;)
Intel/AMD are only interested in maximizing their profits so they try to find the optimal combination of investments into R&D, marketing, manufacturing and so on. And from a technical point of view the biggest profits might be gained by making processors cheaper instead of faster.
China measures success differently, i.e. how well they meet set targets - it'a a plan economy, remember. An example of that - and how badly it fails - was tool manufacturing in the former Soviet Union. The factory managers were rewarded based upon output from the factories - measured by weight. Guess whether the tools were as well designed as possible or as heavy as possible?
You don't think it would say "this program has performed an illegal action"?
Nope he's right. You might remember the news how every time a new country has a referendum whether to join or not the "No" has distributed enormous amounts of material on how the EU legislation overrides national legislation. You can always appeal to the EU courts if you're unhappy with decisions made by the national ones. So basically:
- One stupid decision by a national judge.
- Appeal to EU court.
- Decision according to EU legislation.
- Nobody is stupid enough to test the national legislation vs. the EU one again.
- Directive enforced nationally. Voila!
But are those licenses enforcable at all (in the US)? I know that they aren't in the EU. Services are of course different as well as things you rent since that affects other users of the same sevice or renting the same thing after you etc.
Is there going to come a point where we will not actually own anything, merely own a license to use it?
Not if people refuse to accept that - ie. if people stick to their old computer/software/whatever that they own instead of licensing something newer (even though better) until they can buy it and own it so that they can do whatever they want with it.
Do you get a bill for that!? That's insane - please tell me that I'm wrong when I recall reading before on slashdot that in the US you get charged for calls you receive, not only ones you make. Please tell me I'm wrong. In Europe it's only the caller that pays unless you make a collect call (ie. the operator asks the recipient whether they wish to get the call and pay for it). And as far as phone spam is concerned - what is the legal status? It certainly easier to trace the sender so making an opt out possibility legally mandatory should be trivial. In Finland - and presumably the rest of the EU too - it will soon be (or maybe it already is, it was in the news a couple of months ago) illegal for operators (and other senders of text message ads) to send ads to people that haven't opted in - and that's why I had no problem with opting in to useful ones since I know my number won't be abused.
6) ?
7) Profit!!!
Nah, more like:
6) Get sympathy by outraged fellow slashdotters.
7) Karma!!!
I agree with you about points 2. and 3. but not 1. Because if you think about it, so many people try to post their e-mail address in a form that would make it hard for spambots to get it (eg. whatever at something dot com). That should be an even more clear sigh that "I don't give a damn about _any_ offers in my inbox!" but the spammers don't care and instead try to make the bots better so why would they take into account PGP users. And another thing is that the value of their list of e-mail addresses is based on how many of them are valid - not how many are "stupid idiots that might buy something so that spamming is still worth doing and thereby harrasing 99.9% of the recipients".
Oh no! Are you telling me that Lance would have left earth if I didn't use any P2P? Man, do I feel guilty. Why hasn't the RIAA pointed this out before?
Blackmailing the rest of the world might work even better: If you don't make your montly payments we'll bring him back! ;)
As a matter of fact I've been thinking about something like that to counter the nigerian e-mail scams. It would probably work even more efficiently against them I think. The scammers try to manually keep track of many victims and if they would all of a sudden have a great deal of trouble if they get 2k semi-sensible replies (such as "I might be interested in your business proposal, please give me more information") and have a hard time determining which victims have really fallen for it (and thus they would hopefully fail). Some people of course have fun with fooling the scammers check some examples. The best one was a "scammer scam" where the scammer was persuaded to send 5 g of gold as a sample to the "victim" (so the scammers are not very clever). So creating such a reply-to-scam-and-spam-program might indeed be a very good project for slashdot. Anybody else interested?
This might seem like I'm trying to convince you but anyway, this is how I made the switch: At first everything seemed to be so hard to get working but I learnt all the time as I did it. And I kept trying until I got things to work - and now two years later I've discovered so many features that don't exist in Windows that whenever I have to use it (at work mostly) it feels really "limited". There are so many things that you can do with Linux but that are impossible with Windows - but it does take some time and effort to discover these things. Simply put: You should make the switch (dual boot at first of course) first and then discover why it was worth it ;)
And just to clarify: The advantages I'm referring to in my case are not that much "guru stuff" but simple things that everyone who wants to be productive with their computer can benefit from. In my case especially the almost endless possibilities to configure KDE - the multiple desktops, the (imho) better possibilities to configure keyboard shortcuts (they really make me work faster), the xmms control I can dock into the panel and so on. Virtual consoles are nice too to keep certain tasks separate from the rest. A command prompt is of course possible and you can use Putty to access remote boxes but (imho) it's still nicer to switch to another desktop/console than to keep track of many windows. Frankly, nowadays I almost get some "claustrophobia" in Windows.
That's probably also how we should explore Mars: keep a control crew in orbit and only land mobile robots, controlled via telepresence from orbit.
Why? First of all, it takes many months to get there and many to get back - regardless of whether you land or not. Zero gravity for such a long time is very bad for the human body but by being on the surface you can get at least some gravity to counter that. And what would be the point with controlling robots from orbit? Remote-controlled robots can be controlled just as well from earth - ok, a round trip for a command and it's response takes a few minutes but why would that matter? A shorter response wouldn't allow anything to be done that couldn't be done with a longer one - the AI on the rover would still have to make the fast decisions, ie. "rock straight ahead I'd better turn".
As far as your idea about renting control time with robots on the moon - I seriously doubt that it would be economically feasible. Because it's not only expensive to get something there but how can you provide a power source that would last long enough. And I really wonder if anybody would be willing to pay that much for playing with a remote controlled toy on the moon. The value added by controlling it and not only looking at pictures taken when somebody else (= a scientist) controls it isn't that big.
Hmm, and if my Brand X Thingy breaks down I'm likely to buy a new one by Brand X, not Brand Y - is that your logic?
Thanks for the info! I took Dell just as an example. I once pointed out the same thing here on /. about diagnosing hardware problems (and other after-sales issues, such as more employee skills needed and so on) when somebody said that it should be as simple as leaving out the "put-windows-on-HD" step from the production process. The replies I got were mostly that there are enough simple diagnostic programs that can be booted from CD that the employees don't really need any additional training to use them to find out whether it's a hw problem or bad config. And most buyers of no-OS or linux laptops probably have their own favorite distro so it doesn't make much of a difference if there's distro X on it when it's delivered. One option that I'd really like (since I'm no linux guru, even though I love Gentoo) would be if the diagnostic disc was given to the buyer as well - so that I could myself check whether I've configured it improperly or if there really is a hw flaw. I might want to point out as well that getting linux on laptops this way is much better (or at least nicer) than the other I did propose here.
If you find a HP/Compaq/Toshiba/Dell/IBM/Sony branded laptop that has linux preinstalled, it means that the vendor paid for windows and removed it.
This makes me think of a quite interesting case from an industrial management course I took. At first stuff about B2C then B2B (B=Business, C=Consumer for those who don't know TLAs=three-letter-acronyms) and finally as an example of something the web can bring C2B: Some guy had set up a web site that he wanted to buy a Volvo (I don't remember the model) and asked if there were others interested in the same car and if so, asked them to contact him. After a while 2000 people signed up and he called Volvo and asked for the price of 2000 such cars - they did get quite a bargain. So that might work with big brand laptops as well. I wonder what Dell might say if you call them and ask the price for 2000 laptops with no OS...?
Apple provides both the hardware and the OS - it's not the same thing, you know.
That might provide one way to fight the MS-Tax. First you go and buy a laptop (with no EULA on the box etc. - so that they cannot claim you knew it in advance). Then once you've opened it and seen the EULA you return it - and they'll be forced to take it back. And this will cost them money (it takes a lot of the employees' time and they might have ordered new ones thinking they've sold one) - and at some point they will get REALLY pissed off at MS. If enough people do this they'll start demanding better terms from MS. The resellers and OEMs will of course be "innocent casualties" but eventually things are likely to change. Heck, why not start a campaign? Every person that wants a laptop without Windows goes to every major computer shop in their home town and does this - except the shops you like and want to maintain a good relationship with and the small ones since it will be too heavy on them and they don't have that much influence anyway. Such a campaign could even get news coverage and then it's important to emphasize that the problem is MS - not the reseller. And regardless of whether people are computer literate or not they'll understand that trying to force people to agree to a contract after making a purchase is wrong (=bad publicity for MS).
IANAL, but in the case of the refund, the EULA requires that you get your refund from the OEM. If the OEM refuses to provide the refund,
If the EULA says that the OEM has to provide a refund then just nag them until they do - if you have decent consumer protection, as we do in the EU they'll eventually be forced to give you the refund. And if enough people nag at the OEMs they'll start demanding better terms from MS. Most people will probably want Windows for a long time to come so it will be cheaper for OEMs to ship every computer with it but if there are enough people that cause them trouble because they don't want it they'll come up with a solution. One good solution might be that MS has to take care of refunds on it's own - maybe some day every computer package will contain an envelope pre-filled and paid for into which you simply put the Windows (recovery) disc and manual if you don't want it, sign something that you "certify you've removed the installed copy from the HD", send it to MS and then receive your refund.