Emusic has a wider selection of electronic music than iTunes. The files are MP3s. No DRM. Less than 50 cents a song -- I think it can be as cheap as a quarter. They've had a linux download client for a long time -- I remember using it on Red Hat 9.
The customers don't learn, or don't care.... they'll whinge and moan and negotiate temporary discounts but in the end they'll just keep buying what Microsoft tell them too, because they're sheep.
This isn't true for all customers. The last Windows OS I purchased was ME (and I've never used a pirated Windows version). My guess is that every time MS releases an unpopular product, it loses a small number of customers permanently.
The concept of open source and free software means nothing to them except free as in beer. They like free beer. But they aren't willing to set up a brewery to get free beer. They don't want to learn the details of brewing. They just want to get drunk...
It sounds to me like you aren't following all of the implications. Let's say a bank has reserves allowing it to have loans totaling $X. If it makes $X of conforming loans, it can't make any stupid loans till it sells off its existing stock. With Fannie Mae there to buy up those loans, arguably backed by the US taxpayer, the bank is quickly back in business -- except it makes $0.2X stupid, $0.8X conforming -- rinse and repeat. If Fannie wasn't there for banks to unload loans on, they would have to find private individuals to buy the loans, and they did of course, but there would be one fewer massive customer and a proportionately smaller number of stupid loans, because the banks wouldn't have had the ability to lend as much. Investors would be better off. The taxpayers would be better off. A small percentage of CEOs would be forced to retire with $100m instead of $500m, but that doesn't make feel bad.
The only way they were victimized was in that the housing bubble caused by mortgages issued to people who wer irresponsible and didn't live within their means, push the costs of houses up, thus lowering the size/quality of house that the responsible people could responsibly afford.
This is only partly true. Yes, the prudent people who didn't play the game were priced out of the market. That is one victimization. The prudent people will also be victimized by:
Inflation devaluing savings.
Increased taxes to cover the costs of the bailouts.
Some will surely lose their jobs through no fault of their own.
I'm sure there are more ways, but it is definitely understatement to say that prudent people's only harm was getting priced out of the market.
So if Fannie Mae had NOT been able to buy the conforming loans, banks making stupid loans would have had less money available to them because they'd have to hold the conforming loans, and as a result, those banks would have made fewer stupid loans. Sounds to me like FM was part of the problem. Honestly, I'm pissed. I'd like to see the entire banking industry lined up against the wall, because all it has amounted to recently is a Federally sanctioned highway robbery program targeted against people who live within their means and act responsibly.
Them loosing their records would simply mean that suddenly the banks would run out of 'liquid assets' to make loans with. Who do you think that would hurt: The average joe or the banks?
It seems to me that banks making loans over the last four years IS THE major problem. Had they not been able to, we wouldn't have had a baseless boom, Angelo Mozillo, a gazillion dollar bailout of the wealthiest individuals, and schemes to assist the most foolish "housing investors" -- all at my expense. I too am rather disappointed the script was found and I don't even have a mortgage. I refused to get caught up in the housing bubble choosing instead to wait for a return to normalcy, which turned out to be a mistake. What I should have done is bought a house way more expensive than I could afford on a negative amortization loan and let the government modify my interest rate and principal balance. I now realize that in America, prudence is punished and stupidity rewarded. So yeah, I'm actually very depressed the script didn't execute.
Well, I'd want more details on the program before I'm willing to believe that usenet is a safe alternative. The IP address of usenet providers is no secret, and surely, someone there would know how to type "whois 216.196.97.131" into a terminal. So what is to stop an ISP from going "hmmmm, I see customer 345222 downloads on average 2.3gb of data everyday between the hours of 11:00 pm and Midnight from IP 216.196.97.131" -- and then start making some conclusions about that customer. The amount of data transferred in the example is certainly suggestive of digital media of some kind, and even if one uses an encrypted tunnel to a usenet provider which keeps no logs, the download pattern will still be obvious. And while the ISP may not be able to ID what digital media is being downloaded, it's a safe enough bet that at least some of it involves copyright issues. Who gets their linux distros off usenet? Who downloads a new one every night?
Best Buy is still one of the best options if you need a computer part or accessory TODAY
Are you kidding? I live in a town of about 80k -- 90 minutes from a big city with lots of farmland in between. If I need a part now, I can usually find it at one of two local shops I like. It's really nice to be able to go in, ask a question, and get a decent answer. It's extra nice to run in, ask to borrow a power supply for a few hours, and get handed one.
There's nothing in the world I need so bad I'd shop at BB. Even if they gave out free hookers.
I'm wondering how one would unobtrusively attach a phone to the top of a shoe, and how one would unobtrusively bend over to trigger the shutter. Seems like a custom hardware setup would be the only practical solution for upskirt photographers. Once this realization sets in, perhaps we'll see a ban on skirts. Or better yet, a ban on legislators. Now that would be cool!
Ok == caveat: I don't have a single Windows based computer anywhere around and I'm clearly not a MS fan. Still, the software concept seems interesting to me and I have no doubt that many teens the world over will have a grand time matching bad music to bad poetry. Nothing really dangerous about that, just that there will be a larger volume of it as the computer lowers the barrier to entry as compared to piano or guitar playing.
What will be interesting however, is if serious musicians can make use of it. Plainly not directly, but by some musical flanking maneuver -- like using the sounds from a Speak and Spell, or other electronics (circuit bending), to make something entirely new and unforeseen.
It won't ever stop till the whole thing fails. The US Government has grown so large, so complex, so corrupt, and so dirty, there is absolutely no way to cure it. It will continue on its projected path until it implodes.
... many people cite the 'ease' of configurability of KDE as being why they like it.
I actually gave KDE a go recently on a fresh install of a special purpose machine. After 15 minutes of trying to figure out how to change the Desktop font settings so that it wasn't black text with a white outline, I had to resort to google. KDE is ubertweakable, but that can make simple things hard to find. It was 3.5 though, not 4, so maybe things have improved, but I haven't KDE necessarily easy to configure. It just gives you a lot of options to twiddle.
I used to be a KDE user spending hours tweaking my Desktop. Nothing wrong with that -- there are some cool setups out there. For the last couple years though, I've been using Gnome. Not because it's better or anything like that, it's just that I got tired of tweaking the look of my Desktop and I like Gnome's defaults better than KDE's.
I do like how Konqueror will let you just type "ssh://SOMEADDRESS" and act as nice file browser with all the drag and drop joy you get locally, and maybe Nautilus will let you do that -- it does let you set a server connection over SSH which obviates the need to type out "ssh://SOMEADDRESS" every time, but I still like Konqueror's functionality. Also, remote launching Konqueror works great, but remotely launching Nautilus is a disaster.
All that aside, I've simply grown tired of tweaking my Desktop. Half my computers still have the default wallpaper from whatever distro I installed. Luckily, the linux world has something for everyone -- KDE for tweakers, Gnome for the lazy or tired, xfce for the agile, Enlightenment for -- I dunno -- etc. etc. etc.
oops, forgot my footnote:
(*) You can still make the video for private use. Even if it violates copyright, the chances of getting caught are so minuscule as to be non-existent. Publishing is where things get tricky.
There is an objectively large difference between a private site owner removing questionable material that violates its terms of use, and being arbitrarily jailed or executed by the government. Differences - Private company v. Government entity - Refusal to publish a video (*) v. loss of freedom, rights, or life - Video creator can buy a webhost and self-publish (may still result in copyright violations) v. loss of freedom, rights, or life.
I am no fan of government and will cheer heartily when WA DC sinks into the mud, but get some perspective.
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. 106 and 17 U.S.C. 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. Cite
Some of the videos may well fit into fair use, but many of them probably do not. For example, when using music as background to a video game sequence, if the sequence is merely someone showing how cool they are, it is hard to see this as "teaching". Even if it is "teaching" -- it isn't teaching about the music. The music is not a key part of the lesson on how to do a particular game activity, and it is thus hard to say that music falls under a teaching exception. Is it "comment"? Probably "comment" means something more like a review of the work itself or an op-ed-like piece in which the music makes a certain point. It would be a difficult and creative task to make that connection. If the music is just soundtrack however, the "comment" is about the video game and not the music.
Be honest, most of the youtube videos with music added to them, are nothing more than "Hey -- look at me!" videos, slideshows of cats, or slideshows of dead people with some random piece of music tacked on. It's probable, though not impossible, that most of these don't fit "fair use".
Even if you only get half the advertised speed with gigabit switch, it's still pretty sweet. When I'm doing forwarded X sessions over my cheap consumer gigabit switch, it really feels as responsive as sitting in front of the computer with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse directly connected -- it's noticeably snappier than 100mbps switch.
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Emusic has a wider selection of electronic music than iTunes. The files are MP3s. No DRM. Less than 50 cents a song -- I think it can be as cheap as a quarter. They've had a linux download client for a long time -- I remember using it on Red Hat 9.
Emusic has forever been DRM free MP3s
emusic has always been DRM free. Itunes is now DRM free.
I use both iTunes and Emusic. Neither are painful.
Republicans and Democrats both suck, both parties are at fault, and neither will lead us to salvation.
This isn't true for all customers. The last Windows OS I purchased was ME (and I've never used a pirated Windows version). My guess is that every time MS releases an unpopular product, it loses a small number of customers permanently.
It sounds to me like you aren't following all of the implications. Let's say a bank has reserves allowing it to have loans totaling $X. If it makes $X of conforming loans, it can't make any stupid loans till it sells off its existing stock. With Fannie Mae there to buy up those loans, arguably backed by the US taxpayer, the bank is quickly back in business -- except it makes $0.2X stupid, $0.8X conforming -- rinse and repeat. If Fannie wasn't there for banks to unload loans on, they would have to find private individuals to buy the loans, and they did of course, but there would be one fewer massive customer and a proportionately smaller number of stupid loans, because the banks wouldn't have had the ability to lend as much. Investors would be better off. The taxpayers would be better off. A small percentage of CEOs would be forced to retire with $100m instead of $500m, but that doesn't make feel bad.
This is only partly true. Yes, the prudent people who didn't play the game were priced out of the market. That is one victimization. The prudent people will also be victimized by:
I'm sure there are more ways, but it is definitely understatement to say that prudent people's only harm was getting priced out of the market.
So if Fannie Mae had NOT been able to buy the conforming loans, banks making stupid loans would have had less money available to them because they'd have to hold the conforming loans, and as a result, those banks would have made fewer stupid loans. Sounds to me like FM was part of the problem. Honestly, I'm pissed. I'd like to see the entire banking industry lined up against the wall, because all it has amounted to recently is a Federally sanctioned highway robbery program targeted against people who live within their means and act responsibly.
It seems to me that banks making loans over the last four years IS THE major problem. Had they not been able to, we wouldn't have had a baseless boom, Angelo Mozillo, a gazillion dollar bailout of the wealthiest individuals, and schemes to assist the most foolish "housing investors" -- all at my expense. I too am rather disappointed the script was found and I don't even have a mortgage. I refused to get caught up in the housing bubble choosing instead to wait for a return to normalcy, which turned out to be a mistake. What I should have done is bought a house way more expensive than I could afford on a negative amortization loan and let the government modify my interest rate and principal balance. I now realize that in America, prudence is punished and stupidity rewarded. So yeah, I'm actually very depressed the script didn't execute.
Well, I'd want more details on the program before I'm willing to believe that usenet is a safe alternative. The IP address of usenet providers is no secret, and surely, someone there would know how to type "whois 216.196.97.131" into a terminal. So what is to stop an ISP from going "hmmmm, I see customer 345222 downloads on average 2.3gb of data everyday between the hours of 11:00 pm and Midnight from IP 216.196.97.131" -- and then start making some conclusions about that customer. The amount of data transferred in the example is certainly suggestive of digital media of some kind, and even if one uses an encrypted tunnel to a usenet provider which keeps no logs, the download pattern will still be obvious. And while the ISP may not be able to ID what digital media is being downloaded, it's a safe enough bet that at least some of it involves copyright issues. Who gets their linux distros off usenet? Who downloads a new one every night?
Are you kidding? I live in a town of about 80k -- 90 minutes from a big city with lots of farmland in between. If I need a part now, I can usually find it at one of two local shops I like. It's really nice to be able to go in, ask a question, and get a decent answer. It's extra nice to run in, ask to borrow a power supply for a few hours, and get handed one.
There's nothing in the world I need so bad I'd shop at BB. Even if they gave out free hookers.
I'm wondering how one would unobtrusively attach a phone to the top of a shoe, and how one would unobtrusively bend over to trigger the shutter. Seems like a custom hardware setup would be the only practical solution for upskirt photographers. Once this realization sets in, perhaps we'll see a ban on skirts. Or better yet, a ban on legislators. Now that would be cool!
Nor is the money in my wallet after it gets stolen by a pickpocket. You sound like a serf. Good luck being the Fed's peon.
Ok == caveat: I don't have a single Windows based computer anywhere around and I'm clearly not a MS fan. Still, the software concept seems interesting to me and I have no doubt that many teens the world over will have a grand time matching bad music to bad poetry. Nothing really dangerous about that, just that there will be a larger volume of it as the computer lowers the barrier to entry as compared to piano or guitar playing.
What will be interesting however, is if serious musicians can make use of it. Plainly not directly, but by some musical flanking maneuver -- like using the sounds from a Speak and Spell, or other electronics (circuit bending), to make something entirely new and unforeseen.
It won't ever stop till the whole thing fails. The US Government has grown so large, so complex, so corrupt, and so dirty, there is absolutely no way to cure it. It will continue on its projected path until it implodes.
I did stop. I just like Gnome's defaults over KDE's.
I actually gave KDE a go recently on a fresh install of a special purpose machine. After 15 minutes of trying to figure out how to change the Desktop font settings so that it wasn't black text with a white outline, I had to resort to google. KDE is ubertweakable, but that can make simple things hard to find. It was 3.5 though, not 4, so maybe things have improved, but I haven't KDE necessarily easy to configure. It just gives you a lot of options to twiddle.
I used to be a KDE user spending hours tweaking my Desktop. Nothing wrong with that -- there are some cool setups out there. For the last couple years though, I've been using Gnome. Not because it's better or anything like that, it's just that I got tired of tweaking the look of my Desktop and I like Gnome's defaults better than KDE's.
I do like how Konqueror will let you just type "ssh://SOMEADDRESS" and act as nice file browser with all the drag and drop joy you get locally, and maybe Nautilus will let you do that -- it does let you set a server connection over SSH which obviates the need to type out "ssh://SOMEADDRESS" every time, but I still like Konqueror's functionality. Also, remote launching Konqueror works great, but remotely launching Nautilus is a disaster.
All that aside, I've simply grown tired of tweaking my Desktop. Half my computers still have the default wallpaper from whatever distro I installed. Luckily, the linux world has something for everyone -- KDE for tweakers, Gnome for the lazy or tired, xfce for the agile, Enlightenment for -- I dunno -- etc. etc. etc.
Use what makes you happy.
oops, forgot my footnote: (*) You can still make the video for private use. Even if it violates copyright, the chances of getting caught are so minuscule as to be non-existent. Publishing is where things get tricky.
There is an objectively large difference between a private site owner removing questionable material that violates its terms of use, and being arbitrarily jailed or executed by the government. Differences
- Private company v. Government entity
- Refusal to publish a video (*) v. loss of freedom, rights, or life
- Video creator can buy a webhost and self-publish (may still result in copyright violations) v. loss of freedom, rights, or life.
I am no fan of government and will cheer heartily when WA DC sinks into the mud, but get some perspective.
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. 106 and 17 U.S.C. 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. Cite
Some of the videos may well fit into fair use, but many of them probably do not. For example, when using music as background to a video game sequence, if the sequence is merely someone showing how cool they are, it is hard to see this as "teaching". Even if it is "teaching" -- it isn't teaching about the music. The music is not a key part of the lesson on how to do a particular game activity, and it is thus hard to say that music falls under a teaching exception. Is it "comment"? Probably "comment" means something more like a review of the work itself or an op-ed-like piece in which the music makes a certain point. It would be a difficult and creative task to make that connection. If the music is just soundtrack however, the "comment" is about the video game and not the music.
Be honest, most of the youtube videos with music added to them, are nothing more than "Hey -- look at me!" videos, slideshows of cats, or slideshows of dead people with some random piece of music tacked on. It's probable, though not impossible, that most of these don't fit "fair use".
Napster was what -- 8,9 years ago? That means you're almost a decade older now. People also tend to buy less music as they get older.
Even if you only get half the advertised speed with gigabit switch, it's still pretty sweet. When I'm doing forwarded X sessions over my cheap consumer gigabit switch, it really feels as responsive as sitting in front of the computer with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse directly connected -- it's noticeably snappier than 100mbps switch.