I think what we are slowly moving towards is true subscription based music on demand. You'll have a little box that hooks up to a sattelite dish on your roof... your car will have a special antenna... your handheld device will have a compatible antenna... you can get an adapter for your laptop or whatever else you want to use. Then you'll signup for a service that allows you to listen to whatever you want, whenever you want from wherever you happen to be.
You'll be able to create and save massive play lists of all of your favorite songs. No more cd's to buy. No more cd cases to fill up the local landfill when everyone puts their cd's into binders and throws the cases away. A huge reduction in the cost of production since all the label has to do is load the new cd into the massive database.
It's great for the industry because it lowers costs, eliminates piracy, helps the environment, and increases profits. It's great for the user because you have access to way more music than you could ever buy or pirate. You suddenly want to hear some song from the 80's but you don't want to pirate it and you don't want to buy it because you only want to hear it once. Now about your only option would be to call the local radio station and ask them to play it. If my idea was to become reality, you would just type in what you wanted and it would instantly start playing. The best part is, the price would be very low to encourage wide acceptance.
Most people have some sort of television subscription service these days. Either cable or sat. You can still get some channels over the air but not many people bother with that because it's a hassle and the quality isn't as good in most cases. I think this could work the same way. It would be so easy and cheap that everyone would go for it.
Oh, and the artists could get paid based on how many times their songs are listened to. So you have $x of fees, with a certain percentage off the top for administration. Then you run stats for all of the music that was used for the month. You then calculate that by label and divide up the fees after administration by the percentage of each label. The label then divides it up with it's artists.
Seems like a win-win all the way around. But I'm sure I'm forgetting something that makes this entire idea both impossible and stupid... so go ahead, tell me what I forgot and why I'm just a stupid crack-head loser.
Maybe if they stopped hyping pretty-looking but talentless actors
I just thought of a way to save the music industry. They could diversify and start releasing pr0n videos rather than regular music videos. They wouldn't cost a penny more to make, and actually, they could even save money because instead of the expensive clothes now seen in music videos, you would have just pure sexy flesh... which is free.
Think about it.. the next Britney video could have her nude. That's all you gotta change. Then instead of showing it on MTV, you sell it in adult stores. It seems that most pr0n sites already claim to have pics of her nude, so now they could push the real thing.
Britney, your cd sales are shit. I'm afraid in your next video your going to have to spice it up a bit. Take it off.. take it all off.
What about the movies that make their profits off of dvd's? I'm not just talking about the straight-to-video movies but other movies as well. Lots of horror/slasher flicks bomb at the theater and only make a profit after being released onto video. Lots of movies never make a profit at all, but that's not the point.
The next time you are at a movie rental place, take a good look at how many titles they have in the new release racks. Then think about how many movies have come to your local theater. A lot of those movies never went to the theater, yet they are making money for the stuido that produced them. Comparing cd's to dvd's is a great way to illustrate how the music industry is ripping us off.
Secondly, where the hell did you come up with your numbers? $9 to watch it per person and 40 million people? Are you claiming this is the average for all movies released onto dvd? If your not, then what the hell was your point?
I guarantee you that movie would not have been made
Since you offered a guarantee, I wish to collect because your argument is fundamentally flawed. Not all movies are expensive to make. Not all movies are ever shown in a theater. For a lot of movies the video sales are icing on the cake but for a lot of them, they are the cake.
You have a damn good point. I read your comment about pricing them at $6.95 and then I sat here and asked myself if I would really buy cd's at that price rather than pirate them... and I came up with an honest yes.
It's easy to pirate the music... damn easy... and I have 3 burners and tons of software to manipulate the software and convert formats however I like... so I'm set but I think if music was that cheap, I would just go ahead and buy the cd's. It would be easier to buy them than pirate them and I wouldn't be spending all that much.
But we all know that this will never happen. Maybe the price will go down a little but I doubt it. I have noticed when going to concerts at small clubs around Seattle, when the band has cd's for sale at the show and they are cheap, like $10, they ALWAYS sell out. I'm sure they make a pretty good profit on those since they are selling them themselves. Maybe more bands should do this. What if at the next Metallica concert, you could buy all of the cd's they have ever released (except for box sets of course) for $10 each? Would you buy one? Would you buy all of them? I would buy all of them... and I already all but one.
Hmm.. I thought it was just my crappy EarthLink dsl... it's been really slow off an on for me since they moved to servers a couple months ago. It used to be very fast ALL of the time... at least for me... now it's very slow ALL of the time. Damn it, damn it, son of a bitch.
Maybe the/. team needs to study this article and learn a few things.
Could it also change the ring tone based on the type of sound around you? So if your at church, it doesn't play a Metallica tune and if your at a Metallica concert, it doesn't play and sissy shit that will get your ass kicked?
Also, don't forget to limit the max volume that it attempts, lest you blow out the little speaker while trying to get above the roar of the crowd at a sporting event/concert/etc.
They aren't a necessity, yet, for anybody, they are a convenience.
Picture this: You have a bad heart. Your waiting for a donor that has a match so that you can get a transplant. Your on the top of the list but the doc suspects you only have a week to live if they can't find one. He's at a fancy dinner with his family when they find one and they try to call him on his cell phone so he can rush down and get that heart into you asap and save your life. But no, he doesn't have his cell phone with him because he realized that since it's not a necessity for him to have it, he should leave it at home so that there isn't any chance of it ringing and bothering any of the other diners.
They can't reach him and guess what, they were wrong, you didn't have a week to live... you only had a few hours... now your dead. You may have survived if the hospital could have reached him. See what I'm getting at? You assume that since you don't have any urgent "life or death" communications, that nobody else does. You are right that cell phones have not been around for very long but they are hear now. They have the power to save lives in some situations and you should not assume that they are not a necessity for anyone just because they are not for you.
Just remember that it could be your life, or the life of a loved one on the line.
Slight problem: What if the person calling you is in a different country and you don't want to incur insane international rates on your cell phone? If one of my servers goes down, my client who is currently in the Middle East needs to be able to reach me immediately. It doesn't matter if I'm eating dinner, at the movies, at a concert, if my wife is in the middle of giving birth or any other thing I might be possibly involved in.
His business depends on his web site which depends on the servers I manage. My pay check depends on me keeping those servers up. If there is a problem and he can't reach me, he will find someone else who he can reach at all hours and I'll lose him as a client.
That being said, I leave my cell on vibrate when I'm at the movies. If I feel it, I go out in the hall and take the call and he knows if he gets my voice mail to wait 5 minutes and call back. It's a simple plan that works for us, and is not rude to anyone else watching the movie. But forcing me to buy a phone that has your "dual mode" feature, or jamming my signal while I'm in certain areas is not the solution. If that is attempted, there are alternatives that I have at my disposal such as amateur radio.
Picture this: I have a radio at home hooked to my phone. You call my second line at home, the radio answers the phone just like an answering machine, you enter your code, it contacts the radio in my truck which acts as a repeater to my handheld. My truck is kicking out a lot of watts, and since your only trying to jam cell frequencies, I get right through. Even if there was a law that allowed you to jam cell frequencies, hell would freeze over before you were allowed to legally jam amateur radio frequencies so I'm not going to have to worry about that. My call will get through just fine. The only problem with my idea is that I can't conduct business over amateur radio... but my point was that I could still receive "calls" just fine.
Why don't you care about the RIAA? They are a legal company that offers a service to it's members. Apparently the service they offer is valuable or they wouldn't have so many members. Why do we stop liking companies when they get to a certain size? Microsoft was great until they became larger than everyone else. We love Linux companies now but what if in 10 years, RedHat is what MS is today? What if they play the part of the big bully? We'll hate them.
Other posters have mentioned this but I think it needs to be said again: the RIAA is not a bad company overall. They DO offer a service to their members and they do help the smaller labels compete with the larger labels. They help keep everything on even ground. They also do a lot of things that most people (most people outside of the music industry anyway) don't like. But that does not mean that the RIAA is evil or a bad company. They only do what their members want them to do. Why aren't we all yelling about the larger members and how they use the RIAA like a puppet?
Get your facts straight. Know what the RIAA is all about. If your going to hate them fine. But hate them for the right reasons.
with Mandrake looking like it's going down the tubes
You really should do a bit of research before spouting off like this. Mandrake is far from going down the tubes if by saying "going down the tubes" you mean going out of business. They had some problems, they have since fixed those problems, but are having some issues with a lack of available cash on hand to cover their debt. Due to that, they needed bankruptcy protection while they raise more cash and continue working on the next release of their OS and other products.
They are far from the point of throwing in the towel and closing their doors. I think a lot of people see this as the end of Mandrake because so many other Linux companies have gone under over the past few years. That does not mean that Mandrake will not be able to make it. They have a very popular distribution that is #1 in some markets and #2 to RedHat in most other markets.
It's a tough time for most companies right now. Not only is the US economy depressed, other economies around the globe are struggling as well. This has an effect on lots of business and to think that a few temporary setbacks are enough to end a great company such as Mandrake... that's nuts. I'm not claiming that Mandrake will be around forever. They may eventually buckle and fold but that won't happen any time soon.
I agree that it can cause revocation of your license (if you had one to begin with) as well as jail time but I think the punishment should fit the crime. If the intent was malicious, then the license should be revoked and possible jail time. However if it's someone merely playing around, and it's a one time thing, I think that should be and often is overlooked.
Some things are simply too much fun to not try once and I think talking to your neighbor through his tv, although very inmature, is one of those things. Aiming your brand new dirctional antenna at his satellite dish, cranking the watts way up, and then scaring the bejesus out of him... well, I've said more than enough.
Actually, if I understood everything that I read on their site, they aren't losing money on the distro. They lost money (lots of it) when they had problems with idiocy in management. They have since gotten rid of those people and have tried to turn the ship around. I think at this point the ship has already reached the rocks and water is rushing in to the hull but whether or not the ship sinks is yet to be seen.
I like Mandrake. I've used it for several years and it has just finally gotten to a point where I don't have any problems with it... or maybe my knowldege about Linux in general has matured to the point that I can take care of problems as soon as they arise... either way, as time goes on, Mandrake keeps getting better. I would hate to see it fail after so much time and energy has gone into such a wonderful project/product.
They have a lot of good people working there and a lot of good ideas, but like anyone else, they need to be able to eat and pay their bills at the end of the day and they may end up having to find other jobs or other ways to keep their company going in these tough times.
Is there much a determined radio amateur couldn't jam?
You bring up a good point. I knew a guy when I was first getting into amateur radio that liked to talk to people at the local McDonalds through their headsets. He only did it a couple of times and it seemed harmless but I guess if everyone did this, it would be quite a mess. What he would do is wait until just before closing and then sit up on the hill and talk to them saying something such as "This is God. *long pause* I want a whopper. *another pause* I am in the pink Caddy out front. Then he would just watch the people freak out.
Another buddy took his radio with him on a high school band trip and talked through a tv in another room of the hotel while it was not turned on. Caused one girl to start crying because she thought the tv was posessed. So yea, you can jam pretty much anything. If you use the right frequency and enough power, you can shut off a modern car, start things on fire, etc. That's why amateur radio licenses used to be a bit more difficult to get. Now that you no longer need to learn Morse code, all you need is some basic electronics knowldege and a few evenings to study and your ready to take the test and get your license.
Does it only catalog the files in your shared folder or all of the media files it can find on your drives? Lately due to a lack of bandwidth have not been sharing anything (although I have felt guilty for being a leech). Would I then be relatively safe since it's not going to find more than a handful of files at any given time in my shared folder?
Dude! Don't dis the Boon's Farm... I actually like that stuff. Isn't sterno lighter fluid or camping alcohol or something like that? I know I've seen that name on something camping related... too damn lazy to walk out to my garage and check though.
I had this problem with two of my dual processor machines when I first got them. I had built them myself and neither of them worked quite right for the first month. I had a long list of strange things happening with just about every component. Would have been very nice to just ship them both back to whoever and ordered new ones but I swapped each piece into another machine and eventually figured out what my troubles were. My Voodoo 3 card (a bit lame in a dual AMD box but I couldn't afford to upgrade it after buying all of the other parts) didn't work in either of the new boxes. It worked fine in an older box however. So I replaced that. Moved a network card to a different slot, and swapped the processors around to level the voltage. After much googling I had found an article where a guy had a similar problem and he noticed that the voltage to each processor was not anywhere near the same, so he swapped them and it leveled out and his machine quite crashing. I checked my voltages and on one of the machines I had the same problem he described. Swapped the processors and problem was gone. Since that initial 3 or so weeks that I spent getting them in working order, they have been very stable and I haven't had a single problem, plus I saved a great deal of money by building them myself. Of course, I ended up spending a great deal more time than I had expected and would have probably came out ahead by buying them from someone else at a premium and spending those hours working but it's only money right?
the ham down the street is messing around with his 100 watt 2.4ghz setup and you're in his path you're out of luck
I wouldn't be so sure of this. Most Amateur Radio operators would not want to cause interference with anyone, and all of them that I know, myself included, would do whatever we could to not cause interference if we were notified about it. If you check the laws governing Amateur Radio, you'll see that it's not lawful to knowingly cause interference under most conditions.
It's been a while since I took my exams but IIRC, knowingly causing interference to someones wireless network could get your license revoked.
Nearly all the Xbox and PS/2 games in the world don't hold up to a single quality PC game
While I think that is a bit much to swallow, I do know where you are coming from. I like FPS games and for me they are a lot more fun using a mouse than they are using a controller. I did buy a controller for one of my computers when instead I should have bought a mouse for my PS2 but I don't think many games support a mouse for PS2. I've only seen one game that explicity stated it had support for a mouse.
MS has some good games that they put out and I'm sure they realize how important games are to their survival. If it wasn't for games and Adobe, I think a whole lot more people would make the switch. But until that happens, Windows still has a lot of uses that aren't filled, or aren't filled very well by other OS's.
It would be the same for me except I work from home.
But it sucks when my SO gets home and wants to play network games. She doesn't understand that there is only a certain amount of computer usage that a human body should be subjected to in a 24 hour period. And that amount is considerably less if the poor guy (or gal) has to use an MS product.
Has anyone tried running Serious Sam on Linux? That's the only thing I've been booting into Windows to play lately. Now that I have my laptop for Quicken, Quickbooks, occasional IE use, and graphics... this machine stays in Linux pretty much all the time.
I use Linux for work and WinXP for games. I also use XP for doing some online shopping when I can't get Mozilla to behave but that problem has pretty much gone away for the most part, at least at the sites I frequent.
I also get an occasional MS Office file and while there are products available for Linux that will allow me to work with these files, it's far simpler for me to pull them up in Office on my laptop. I also need to run Quicken and Quickbooks and so having my laptop running XP makes it all very convenient. It's a shame that I need to either boot into XP or use a second computer to get through the average day but that has been the easiest way that I have found.
Also, I don't have MS like a lot of people do. I do actually like some of their products and while I agree that they have some pretty bad business practices, a lot of security holes, and a list of other things to bitch about, I still find some of their products to be quite useful. I have a MS keyboard and a MS mouse that I really like. I use Office XP when I need to do a spreadsheet or write a business letter. I play Motocross Madness and Age of Empries on occasion. I use some Adobe products as well as other applications and games that aren't available in Linux and since I don't have a Mac, I'm SOL on being able to run OS X.
The more I think about the situation, the less I think that Linux will ever wipe out Windows. I don't think it will ever happen and I don't think that it should. It's all about choice and I do think that we will eventually reach a point where we are free to choose an operating system based solely on that os's merits (with all of the major apps being available for Win, Mac, and Linux).
Until everything that I want to use is available for Linux, I'll continue to contribue to the obscene profits of MS when they have a new program or an upgrade that I wish to purchase. I use whatever is best for the given task. Games, it's Windows. Work (for me) it's Linux. Graphics it's (if only I could afford to get one) Mac.
because first-mover momentum in the industry has become more important
I'm not so sure about this. I think for a lot of users, it's all about past performance. When Sega came out with the Dreamcast, there was no way that I, or any of my friends were going to buy one simply because we knew that Sega never seems to meet expectations. We discussed the matter at length and we all felt that Sega didn't stand much of a chance in the market that was then dominated by Sony and Nintendo. Looking back on it, I am very glad that we decided not to buy since Sega eventually gave up on hardware and those that bought Dreamcast systems are now left out in the cold.
Sony on the other hand has a lot of connections with software developers and has been able to leverage that consistently. While you won't see all of the coolest titles on PS2, you will see a large number of great games that sell very well. Sony proved themselves when they released the first Playstation. A lot of people said they couldn't compete with Nintendo due to lack of experience. That turned out to be false. People said that they wouldn't have as many games as Nintendo. Count them. Sony dominates. Why do they dominate? I think it boils down to two things. First, they are in Japan and they know how to cater to Japanese gamers. That is a huge market and they have been very successful in it. Second, they don't tailor to younger kids. They have games suited to different age groups and I think the GameCube is lacking in games for adults. Sure they have some but from what I've seen, a lot of their games (while very good) are for younger people. Nothing at all wrong with that, and it does seem to be working for them, but they won't be able to garner the market share Sony has with that strategy.
I was excited when I first heard that MS was getting into the console market because I think they make great hardware, I like a lot of their software, and they have had some great games over the years. Motocross Madness and Age of Empires II were awesome. But one of the main reasons that I bought a PS2 was because I already had PS1 games. And guess what folks? The PS3 will be backwards compatible. How is MS going to compete with that?
I think there will be a slight advantage to MS if they get the XBox 2 out the door before the PS3 but in the long run, I don't think it will make a bit of difference. I know that when the PS3 comes out, I will buy one. I have a lot of PS1 games, a lot of PS2 games and I want to be able to play all of them on the same console. Sony knows that I'm not the only one that feels this way and unless something drastic happens (which isn't very likely), they will continue to dominate the market for years to come.
I think one thing a lot of people are forgetting is that it's not just MS vs Sony vs Nintendo in this. There are a lot of other companies involved in this. Some companies only develop for a single platform and they have a lot at stake in whether or not the platform succeeds or not. Also, Sony is no little kid on the playground that MS can bully around. They have some pretty deep pockets as well, although I don't think they need them in this case. Does anyone have any numbers as to how Sony is doing with the PS2? Everyone I know has one and has bought a lot of games so they must be making a pretty nice profit.
I know that there have been laws in place in various states/countries to help combat spam but until now, I hadn't heard of much in the way of enforcement. I think this will be very good in the long run in both stopping current spammers and possibly keeping others from ever getting into this activity.
I especially like them going after people who have the fake "click here to be removed" which really means "click here to get a thousand times more spam". It's nice to see that one of the better laws is finally getting enforced. I always laugh when I hear about some of the crazy laws we have and how many we have that never get enforced.
For example, in South Dakota it is legal to shoot Native Americans under certain conditions. There are a couple laws regarding this. One law states that if there are 5 Native Americans (the law uses the term Indian but I will refrain from that), on your property, you may shoot them. Another one that may be only applicable to the town of Spearfish is that if there are three Native Americans walking together, you may declare them a war party and shoot them. Another law says they have to be crossing a bridge to be a war party and shootable.
So many crazy laws in this country. But back to the point, the anti-spam is a good law, in my opinion and it's nice they are finally going to enforce it.
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You'll be able to create and save massive play lists of all of your favorite songs. No more cd's to buy. No more cd cases to fill up the local landfill when everyone puts their cd's into binders and throws the cases away. A huge reduction in the cost of production since all the label has to do is load the new cd into the massive database.
It's great for the industry because it lowers costs, eliminates piracy, helps the environment, and increases profits. It's great for the user because you have access to way more music than you could ever buy or pirate. You suddenly want to hear some song from the 80's but you don't want to pirate it and you don't want to buy it because you only want to hear it once. Now about your only option would be to call the local radio station and ask them to play it. If my idea was to become reality, you would just type in what you wanted and it would instantly start playing. The best part is, the price would be very low to encourage wide acceptance.
Most people have some sort of television subscription service these days. Either cable or sat. You can still get some channels over the air but not many people bother with that because it's a hassle and the quality isn't as good in most cases. I think this could work the same way. It would be so easy and cheap that everyone would go for it.
Oh, and the artists could get paid based on how many times their songs are listened to. So you have $x of fees, with a certain percentage off the top for administration. Then you run stats for all of the music that was used for the month. You then calculate that by label and divide up the fees after administration by the percentage of each label. The label then divides it up with it's artists.
Seems like a win-win all the way around. But I'm sure I'm forgetting something that makes this entire idea both impossible and stupid... so go ahead, tell me what I forgot and why I'm just a stupid crack-head loser.
Shouldn't it be:
Like Yoda, you sound?
I just thought of a way to save the music industry. They could diversify and start releasing pr0n videos rather than regular music videos. They wouldn't cost a penny more to make, and actually, they could even save money because instead of the expensive clothes now seen in music videos, you would have just pure sexy flesh... which is free.
Think about it.. the next Britney video could have her nude. That's all you gotta change. Then instead of showing it on MTV, you sell it in adult stores. It seems that most pr0n sites already claim to have pics of her nude, so now they could push the real thing.
Britney, your cd sales are shit. I'm afraid in your next video your going to have to spice it up a bit. Take it off.. take it all off.
The next time you are at a movie rental place, take a good look at how many titles they have in the new release racks. Then think about how many movies have come to your local theater. A lot of those movies never went to the theater, yet they are making money for the stuido that produced them. Comparing cd's to dvd's is a great way to illustrate how the music industry is ripping us off.
Secondly, where the hell did you come up with your numbers? $9 to watch it per person and 40 million people? Are you claiming this is the average for all movies released onto dvd? If your not, then what the hell was your point?
I guarantee you that movie would not have been made
Since you offered a guarantee, I wish to collect because your argument is fundamentally flawed. Not all movies are expensive to make. Not all movies are ever shown in a theater. For a lot of movies the video sales are icing on the cake but for a lot of them, they are the cake.
It's easy to pirate the music... damn easy... and I have 3 burners and tons of software to manipulate the software and convert formats however I like... so I'm set but I think if music was that cheap, I would just go ahead and buy the cd's. It would be easier to buy them than pirate them and I wouldn't be spending all that much.
But we all know that this will never happen. Maybe the price will go down a little but I doubt it. I have noticed when going to concerts at small clubs around Seattle, when the band has cd's for sale at the show and they are cheap, like $10, they ALWAYS sell out. I'm sure they make a pretty good profit on those since they are selling them themselves. Maybe more bands should do this. What if at the next Metallica concert, you could buy all of the cd's they have ever released (except for box sets of course) for $10 each? Would you buy one? Would you buy all of them? I would buy all of them... and I already all but one.
Maybe the /. team needs to study this article and learn a few things.
Also, don't forget to limit the max volume that it attempts, lest you blow out the little speaker while trying to get above the roar of the crowd at a sporting event/concert/etc.
Picture this: You have a bad heart. Your waiting for a donor that has a match so that you can get a transplant. Your on the top of the list but the doc suspects you only have a week to live if they can't find one. He's at a fancy dinner with his family when they find one and they try to call him on his cell phone so he can rush down and get that heart into you asap and save your life. But no, he doesn't have his cell phone with him because he realized that since it's not a necessity for him to have it, he should leave it at home so that there isn't any chance of it ringing and bothering any of the other diners.
They can't reach him and guess what, they were wrong, you didn't have a week to live... you only had a few hours... now your dead. You may have survived if the hospital could have reached him. See what I'm getting at? You assume that since you don't have any urgent "life or death" communications, that nobody else does. You are right that cell phones have not been around for very long but they are hear now. They have the power to save lives in some situations and you should not assume that they are not a necessity for anyone just because they are not for you.
Just remember that it could be your life, or the life of a loved one on the line.
His business depends on his web site which depends on the servers I manage. My pay check depends on me keeping those servers up. If there is a problem and he can't reach me, he will find someone else who he can reach at all hours and I'll lose him as a client.
That being said, I leave my cell on vibrate when I'm at the movies. If I feel it, I go out in the hall and take the call and he knows if he gets my voice mail to wait 5 minutes and call back. It's a simple plan that works for us, and is not rude to anyone else watching the movie. But forcing me to buy a phone that has your "dual mode" feature, or jamming my signal while I'm in certain areas is not the solution. If that is attempted, there are alternatives that I have at my disposal such as amateur radio.
Picture this: I have a radio at home hooked to my phone. You call my second line at home, the radio answers the phone just like an answering machine, you enter your code, it contacts the radio in my truck which acts as a repeater to my handheld. My truck is kicking out a lot of watts, and since your only trying to jam cell frequencies, I get right through. Even if there was a law that allowed you to jam cell frequencies, hell would freeze over before you were allowed to legally jam amateur radio frequencies so I'm not going to have to worry about that. My call will get through just fine. The only problem with my idea is that I can't conduct business over amateur radio... but my point was that I could still receive "calls" just fine.
Why don't you care about the RIAA? They are a legal company that offers a service to it's members. Apparently the service they offer is valuable or they wouldn't have so many members. Why do we stop liking companies when they get to a certain size? Microsoft was great until they became larger than everyone else. We love Linux companies now but what if in 10 years, RedHat is what MS is today? What if they play the part of the big bully? We'll hate them.
Other posters have mentioned this but I think it needs to be said again: the RIAA is not a bad company overall. They DO offer a service to their members and they do help the smaller labels compete with the larger labels. They help keep everything on even ground. They also do a lot of things that most people (most people outside of the music industry anyway) don't like. But that does not mean that the RIAA is evil or a bad company. They only do what their members want them to do. Why aren't we all yelling about the larger members and how they use the RIAA like a puppet?
Get your facts straight. Know what the RIAA is all about. If your going to hate them fine. But hate them for the right reasons.
You really should do a bit of research before spouting off like this. Mandrake is far from going down the tubes if by saying "going down the tubes" you mean going out of business. They had some problems, they have since fixed those problems, but are having some issues with a lack of available cash on hand to cover their debt. Due to that, they needed bankruptcy protection while they raise more cash and continue working on the next release of their OS and other products.
They are far from the point of throwing in the towel and closing their doors. I think a lot of people see this as the end of Mandrake because so many other Linux companies have gone under over the past few years. That does not mean that Mandrake will not be able to make it. They have a very popular distribution that is #1 in some markets and #2 to RedHat in most other markets.
It's a tough time for most companies right now. Not only is the US economy depressed, other economies around the globe are struggling as well. This has an effect on lots of business and to think that a few temporary setbacks are enough to end a great company such as Mandrake... that's nuts. I'm not claiming that Mandrake will be around forever. They may eventually buckle and fold but that won't happen any time soon.
Some things are simply too much fun to not try once and I think talking to your neighbor through his tv, although very inmature, is one of those things. Aiming your brand new dirctional antenna at his satellite dish, cranking the watts way up, and then scaring the bejesus out of him... well, I've said more than enough.
I like Mandrake. I've used it for several years and it has just finally gotten to a point where I don't have any problems with it... or maybe my knowldege about Linux in general has matured to the point that I can take care of problems as soon as they arise... either way, as time goes on, Mandrake keeps getting better. I would hate to see it fail after so much time and energy has gone into such a wonderful project/product.
They have a lot of good people working there and a lot of good ideas, but like anyone else, they need to be able to eat and pay their bills at the end of the day and they may end up having to find other jobs or other ways to keep their company going in these tough times.
You bring up a good point. I knew a guy when I was first getting into amateur radio that liked to talk to people at the local McDonalds through their headsets. He only did it a couple of times and it seemed harmless but I guess if everyone did this, it would be quite a mess. What he would do is wait until just before closing and then sit up on the hill and talk to them saying something such as "This is God. *long pause* I want a whopper. *another pause* I am in the pink Caddy out front. Then he would just watch the people freak out.
Another buddy took his radio with him on a high school band trip and talked through a tv in another room of the hotel while it was not turned on. Caused one girl to start crying because she thought the tv was posessed. So yea, you can jam pretty much anything. If you use the right frequency and enough power, you can shut off a modern car, start things on fire, etc. That's why amateur radio licenses used to be a bit more difficult to get. Now that you no longer need to learn Morse code, all you need is some basic electronics knowldege and a few evenings to study and your ready to take the test and get your license.
Does it only catalog the files in your shared folder or all of the media files it can find on your drives? Lately due to a lack of bandwidth have not been sharing anything (although I have felt guilty for being a leech). Would I then be relatively safe since it's not going to find more than a handful of files at any given time in my shared folder?
Grub, you never cease to make me laugh. The Mandrake Mouse Club... I love it.
Dude! Don't dis the Boon's Farm... I actually like that stuff. Isn't sterno lighter fluid or camping alcohol or something like that? I know I've seen that name on something camping related... too damn lazy to walk out to my garage and check though.
washer fluid is mostly alcohol so I don't think it will do anything to the gaskets.
I had this problem with two of my dual processor machines when I first got them. I had built them myself and neither of them worked quite right for the first month. I had a long list of strange things happening with just about every component. Would have been very nice to just ship them both back to whoever and ordered new ones but I swapped each piece into another machine and eventually figured out what my troubles were.
My Voodoo 3 card (a bit lame in a dual AMD box but I couldn't afford to upgrade it after buying all of the other parts) didn't work in either of the new boxes. It worked fine in an older box however. So I replaced that. Moved a network card to a different slot, and swapped the processors around to level the voltage. After much googling I had found an article where a guy had a similar problem and he noticed that the voltage to each processor was not anywhere near the same, so he swapped them and it leveled out and his machine quite crashing. I checked my voltages and on one of the machines I had the same problem he described. Swapped the processors and problem was gone.
Since that initial 3 or so weeks that I spent getting them in working order, they have been very stable and I haven't had a single problem, plus I saved a great deal of money by building them myself. Of course, I ended up spending a great deal more time than I had expected and would have probably came out ahead by buying them from someone else at a premium and spending those hours working but it's only money right?
I wouldn't be so sure of this. Most Amateur Radio operators would not want to cause interference with anyone, and all of them that I know, myself included, would do whatever we could to not cause interference if we were notified about it. If you check the laws governing Amateur Radio, you'll see that it's not lawful to knowingly cause interference under most conditions.
It's been a while since I took my exams but IIRC, knowingly causing interference to someones wireless network could get your license revoked.
While I think that is a bit much to swallow, I do know where you are coming from. I like FPS games and for me they are a lot more fun using a mouse than they are using a controller. I did buy a controller for one of my computers when instead I should have bought a mouse for my PS2 but I don't think many games support a mouse for PS2. I've only seen one game that explicity stated it had support for a mouse.
MS has some good games that they put out and I'm sure they realize how important games are to their survival. If it wasn't for games and Adobe, I think a whole lot more people would make the switch. But until that happens, Windows still has a lot of uses that aren't filled, or aren't filled very well by other OS's.
But it sucks when my SO gets home and wants to play network games. She doesn't understand that there is only a certain amount of computer usage that a human body should be subjected to in a 24 hour period. And that amount is considerably less if the poor guy (or gal) has to use an MS product.
Has anyone tried running Serious Sam on Linux? That's the only thing I've been booting into Windows to play lately. Now that I have my laptop for Quicken, Quickbooks, occasional IE use, and graphics... this machine stays in Linux pretty much all the time.
I also get an occasional MS Office file and while there are products available for Linux that will allow me to work with these files, it's far simpler for me to pull them up in Office on my laptop. I also need to run Quicken and Quickbooks and so having my laptop running XP makes it all very convenient. It's a shame that I need to either boot into XP or use a second computer to get through the average day but that has been the easiest way that I have found.
Also, I don't have MS like a lot of people do. I do actually like some of their products and while I agree that they have some pretty bad business practices, a lot of security holes, and a list of other things to bitch about, I still find some of their products to be quite useful. I have a MS keyboard and a MS mouse that I really like. I use Office XP when I need to do a spreadsheet or write a business letter. I play Motocross Madness and Age of Empries on occasion. I use some Adobe products as well as other applications and games that aren't available in Linux and since I don't have a Mac, I'm SOL on being able to run OS X.
The more I think about the situation, the less I think that Linux will ever wipe out Windows. I don't think it will ever happen and I don't think that it should. It's all about choice and I do think that we will eventually reach a point where we are free to choose an operating system based solely on that os's merits (with all of the major apps being available for Win, Mac, and Linux).
Until everything that I want to use is available for Linux, I'll continue to contribue to the obscene profits of MS when they have a new program or an upgrade that I wish to purchase. I use whatever is best for the given task. Games, it's Windows. Work (for me) it's Linux. Graphics it's (if only I could afford to get one) Mac.
I'm not so sure about this. I think for a lot of users, it's all about past performance. When Sega came out with the Dreamcast, there was no way that I, or any of my friends were going to buy one simply because we knew that Sega never seems to meet expectations. We discussed the matter at length and we all felt that Sega didn't stand much of a chance in the market that was then dominated by Sony and Nintendo. Looking back on it, I am very glad that we decided not to buy since Sega eventually gave up on hardware and those that bought Dreamcast systems are now left out in the cold.
Sony on the other hand has a lot of connections with software developers and has been able to leverage that consistently. While you won't see all of the coolest titles on PS2, you will see a large number of great games that sell very well. Sony proved themselves when they released the first Playstation. A lot of people said they couldn't compete with Nintendo due to lack of experience. That turned out to be false. People said that they wouldn't have as many games as Nintendo. Count them. Sony dominates. Why do they dominate? I think it boils down to two things. First, they are in Japan and they know how to cater to Japanese gamers. That is a huge market and they have been very successful in it. Second, they don't tailor to younger kids. They have games suited to different age groups and I think the GameCube is lacking in games for adults. Sure they have some but from what I've seen, a lot of their games (while very good) are for younger people. Nothing at all wrong with that, and it does seem to be working for them, but they won't be able to garner the market share Sony has with that strategy.
I was excited when I first heard that MS was getting into the console market because I think they make great hardware, I like a lot of their software, and they have had some great games over the years. Motocross Madness and Age of Empires II were awesome. But one of the main reasons that I bought a PS2 was because I already had PS1 games. And guess what folks? The PS3 will be backwards compatible. How is MS going to compete with that?
I think there will be a slight advantage to MS if they get the XBox 2 out the door before the PS3 but in the long run, I don't think it will make a bit of difference. I know that when the PS3 comes out, I will buy one. I have a lot of PS1 games, a lot of PS2 games and I want to be able to play all of them on the same console. Sony knows that I'm not the only one that feels this way and unless something drastic happens (which isn't very likely), they will continue to dominate the market for years to come.
I think one thing a lot of people are forgetting is that it's not just MS vs Sony vs Nintendo in this. There are a lot of other companies involved in this. Some companies only develop for a single platform and they have a lot at stake in whether or not the platform succeeds or not. Also, Sony is no little kid on the playground that MS can bully around. They have some pretty deep pockets as well, although I don't think they need them in this case. Does anyone have any numbers as to how Sony is doing with the PS2? Everyone I know has one and has bought a lot of games so they must be making a pretty nice profit.
I especially like them going after people who have the fake "click here to be removed" which really means "click here to get a thousand times more spam". It's nice to see that one of the better laws is finally getting enforced. I always laugh when I hear about some of the crazy laws we have and how many we have that never get enforced.
For example, in South Dakota it is legal to shoot Native Americans under certain conditions. There are a couple laws regarding this. One law states that if there are 5 Native Americans (the law uses the term Indian but I will refrain from that), on your property, you may shoot them. Another one that may be only applicable to the town of Spearfish is that if there are three Native Americans walking together, you may declare them a war party and shoot them. Another law says they have to be crossing a bridge to be a war party and shootable.
So many crazy laws in this country. But back to the point, the anti-spam is a good law, in my opinion and it's nice they are finally going to enforce it.