What's with all these Microsoft old guys wearing sweaters?
Seriously. Bill Gates had a sweater. Ballmer has some ratty-ass sweater. Is that supposed to be endearing? If so, to whom -- other old guys on the golf course?
Appearances count, and as long as Ballmer is the pitchman for the stuff -- overweight and dressed in some 10 year old cartigan -- not only will I not take Microsoft seriously, but I don't want to have anything to *do* with Microsoft anymore.
I'd also whack the marketing genius who came up with the "Plays for Sure" label upside the head.
In this case, the marketing gaff is as bad as the DRM itself. (And it also makes one wonder how much DRM and marketing go hand-in-hand. Microsoft seems to have an issue lately with marketing snafus. They've always had issues, yes -- but the idea of "Plays For Sure" and "Vista-capable" makes me realize that marketing [in general] is even more bullshit than I'd always suspected.)
I think Utah folks (and everybody else, for that matter) should consider the up-side to pornography. Most geeks (and non-geeks) have strengthened their dominant arms/fingers/hands considerably since the advent of insta-porn. Increased strength means your base metabolic rate increases -- which points the way to increased weight loss. It's a win-win.
A couple more:
- There's a link between visual stimulation and increased brain activity. This is good -- and probably helps prevent dementia and all sorts of crazy brain diseases.
- There's a link between porn and sex. This is good. Porn improves sex lives -- including residents from Utah. Everyone benefits from healthy sex lives -- even if you're doing it solo. See above.
- Exposure to porn lowers your surprise threshold. Lower surprise thresholds mean an increased ability to concentrate on the stuff that matters. Porn does not matter on the scale of "stuff that matters." Limiting porn is like limiting gambling: it's all about power and nothing about the "social ills" it purports to assist. Gamblers gamble, pornographers pornograph, and porn viewers view. This stuff is part of what it means to be a human being. Those moralists opposed to gambling could probably learn a thing or two about mathematics, social science, and spiritual balance by taking a look at gambling -- and how to gamble effectively.
And no -- gambling effectively is not an oxymoron. The best gamble is to realize when you have the best of it -- and then make the bet. Ditto for the best porn. It's understanding what you like, searching it out, finding it, and deriving pleasure. There's nothing wrong with pleasure. Pleasure is good. Winning money is good. As Paul Newmann says in the "Color of Money": "Money won is twice as sweet as money earned."
No truer words spoken. If the fucking Utahans -- or Mormons or whatever the fuck they call themselves in Utah -- if they'd zero in simply the idea of "pleasure" -- and look for ways to make the pleasure safe and even more effective -- they'd all enjoy their fucking nutty nitty lives a bit more.
I don't know if this is technically possible, but it would seem to be possible to eliminate any watermark by simply "rewetting" -- or smoothing -- the music by combining it with a unwatermarked track.
In other words, you simply find the method of encoding, encode your own unwatermarked track, and then merge that track with the watermarked track -- and perhaps spit the differences into a file. These differences are the watermark and could be dissected. The watermarks, I assume (but again, I might be wrong here) would have similarities -- and a comparison of the watermarks over, say, hundreds of tracks -- would probably yield the ability to rewet *any* track without having to generate your own unwatermarked track.
Obviously, if you're going to generate your own track, you don't need the watermark in the first place. So the only reason to generate the tracks would be to build up a library of streaks -- or watermarks or whatever you want to call them -- and then use these for the rewetter application.
I don't think it's a much of stretch to say that selling music without DRM will probably destroy Microsoft.
I think *this* -- essentially the end of Microsoft -- is what's at the core of all of this. And the end of Microsoft will be the *result* of DRM-less tracks. Jobs knows this. Everybody knows this. This is the elephant in the room that no one is talking much about.
Vista is all about DRM -- everything about Vista is DRM wrapped in eye-candy. Vista is the DRM operating system.
The end of DRM means the end of Microsoft as the major OS player. It also means a return to the "hobbyist" computers of the 1980s -- the TRS-80s and the Commodore 64s and the Apple IIs. This "hobbyist" market continues to erode as DRM gains a foothold. Drop DRM, and we're back to where we were 25 years ago -- personal computers that were meant to serve users not the corporations.
See, the problem is that I like to find *dirt cheap* shit. And one thing I've realized over the years is that I can't always avoid dirt cheap shit just because I disagree with a store's policies.
Like it or not, I occasionally buy on impulse. Or sometime I run out of laundry detergent and want to find dirt cheap detergent. If that means I go to Wal-Mart to save a couple bucks, so be it.
As I get older, I've come to understand that I can't always "Take A Stand."
I've taken a few in my life. I still "Take a Stand" when I'm able. But when I'm not -- or when I'm just fucking exhausted -- I buy dirt cheap shit.
You know, he's got a point. It might seem very impressive in a geeky way to Zuma a file across the room to the pretty girl (if you don't mind that I just used "Zuma" as a verb), but she is definitely not going to be impressed unless she's also a geek. You've also got the matter of the song being played in a vacuum, where your own thoughts and feelings on the tune are missing.
Not to mention the utter absurdity of receiving a song and then only being able to play it three times. What the fuck is that?
If I get a song, I get a song. The minute anyone puts limits onto something like a song -- which for me has no real value except as a motivator to buy the whole album -- it tells me that someone is nickel-and-diming me. And I don't like to be nickel-and-dimed.
Pirating music now is *really* easy and really simple. The only motivation I have to buy the album is if I want the physical album. But I don't buy RIAA albums, and I certainly don't want a bunch of corporate fucks telling me how many times I can play a song. That's fucking wrong, and it goes against the spirit of music. Music is meant to be enjoyed. If an artist is asking me for money to pay for her album, I will gladly pay her if I like the album. I have no issue with that.
But if the RIAA -- or Microsoft now -- is asking me for money to enrich their fat cat pockets, I say go fuck yourselves. You assholes aren't getting my cash. You already got enough of it.
Seriously -- anybody dumb enough to complain about bad players should be removed from the poker table and wonked over the head. The so-called "bad" players -- even if they suck out on the river 5% of the time -- still make mistakes that make the "good" players money.
What, you want to sit at a table with a bunch of tight Sklasnky clones folding hand after hand?
Someone wants to bet a Ace, Four unsuited because they "can't lay down an Ace?" Please, politely guide them to my table. And be nice to them. Courteous. They're the players I want to play with.
Let 'em hit their draw on the river nine times out of ten. So long as they fill up the pot, I could care less.
That's it -- all in hardware, no configuration, works behind a router. Works on your whole network, works on one computer on your network, allows all P2P, allows you to play online -- you name it, it does it.
What the hell did you people worrying about babysitters do ten years ago?
I call bullshit on your threats. In fact, you're probably the people who talk loudest on the cell phones anyway -- you get a call, think it's the babysitter, get your fucking blood pressure in a goddamn snit, forget that you're sitting in a movie theater, and then start yabbering to your sister-in-law about you thought she was the babysitter, but it's a good thing because you're sitting in a movie theater, trying to watch a movie and, yeah, it's pretty good because you just saw this scene where Jennifer Aniston did this thing where she moved one way but you thought she moved the other way and boy was in funny and, by the way, what are you doing next Saturday because me, I got nothing really planned.
It's bullshit. You go to a movie to watch a movie. If you're so fucking worried about being unplugged for two hours you got a shitload of shit wrong with your fucking head and the last thing you should be doing is sitting in a movie theater.
Ironically, if the corporations would *withhold* content, they'd do us all a favor. It'd be a welcome respite. Plus, it's pretty good copy protection for the recording industry.
It'd also fuel (what I'd guess would be) moderate to explosive growth in the non-corporate controlled media industry. We'd swing back to the idea of computers as a "hobbyist" medium (back in the days of Heathkit, for example) and would give the cycle time to re-start.
Withhold content, please! The "pipes" won't go empty. Just leave us alone. It'd also give the artists some time to really give us what *they* want -- and not a bunch of A&R posers pretending to work on behalf of the artists.
In theory -- just in theory -- why should we accept *any* DRM if we can all go to any public library and check out a book for two weeks without DRM?
Why should books be DRM-less but all the rest of my media is full of DRM?
Yes, I understand that "books" are different than digital "files" -- but there are Xerox machines for books, and last I checked, if you have a garbage bag full of dimes, you can Xerox to your heart's content.
Or, better yet, *read* the book and then return it for another. And another.
Moreover, not only can I check out *books* from my local public library -- I can check out CDs and DVDs and video tapes. So it's all there -- all for free when you're a resident of the city/town/village in which the library exists and -- here's the key, I think -- you pay taxes.
I fail to see why the media companies don't understand this -- that some sort of library tax made much larger -- a media tax would probably -- probably -- solve everybody's problem. If you pay the tax, you have access. If you don't pay, you don't have access.
I understand that there are differences -- media is controlled by corporations whereas libraries are funded by state, federal, and taxpayer monies. I understand that.
But a book is media, too. And if I can borrow a book and read it and return it -- all without any DRM whatsoever -- I fail to see why I can't have my iTunes songs DRM-less -- whether it be for the 99 cents I pay, or for an all-you-can-eat subscription -- which, of course, makes sense if you look to the library model. (Here's a clue, Jobs: You don't *own* the books you check out from the library, and that's been going on just fine for, oh, a couple thousand years.)
Jobs is wrong when he says people want to *own* music. I'd like to own all the books I check out from the library, but I can't. I can't afford 'em, and I don't have the space. So I do what everybody else does -- I pay my taxes, check books in and out, and am happy.
I don't know. It's early. I've not had enough caffeine. Whatever. DRM sucks, and screw the greedy corporate execs. Screw Fairplay, too. Apple's as bad as everybody else.
Question -- and this may be a dumb one, but I'm going to ask it anyway:
How much of what Google is doing -- the clustering, the redundancy, the sub-categorization -- how much of this (if any) could be described -- could fit under the mantle of "Peer-to-Peer"? Is anything that Google is doing here remotely considered P2P? (Even if the P2P is what's going on on their own, in-house servers?)
Obviously, I ask this because of the upcoming supreme court case. And I ask because it struck me as I read the article that what Google is doing *seems* to be breaking down complex tasks and simplifying them so that work across the network -- their network, your network -- and I wonder if this is (in theory?) what Peer-to-Peer is doing?
(I'm thinking, too, of the Google concept of "shards" and how their data is distributed.)
This brings up a couple interesting points, none of which are really worth pursuing. But I'm surprised (or maybe not surprised) to see that most Slashdotters posting about this and what it can and can't do have remarkable tunnel-vision.
This isn't meant to be a "geek" machine. This isn't for a "poor geek" (who, I'm sure, if he or she was worth his or her geekiness, would find other, better machines to receive geek training from). It's a *tool* -- much in the same way that a hammer or a pair of pliers are tools.
In fact, you sound like a bunch of carpenters complaining that no one is gonna use a $4 hammer from Home Depot when what they really need is a $49.95 double-balanced claw hammer with an oxide tip to "properly sink nails."
Yeah, that's nice, but when I need a hammer -- I need a hammer. I could care less about the size of the claw or the oxide tip.
I realize most folks here are in college and high school and aren't yet capable (this is gonna sound condescending, but it's true) doing what my old comp sci professor called "taking a step back and shutting the fuck up for a second."
(This is the same guy who urged us all to read Shakespeare in order to understand that what's really at the core of computer science is humanity -- not silicon. At the time we laughed. Now, twenty years later, I've come to understand he's exactly right.)
Anyway. I digress. And I condescend. But, really. the windows/linux stuff is necessary sometimes, funny other times, but in this case, it completely misses the point. What no one is mentioning is the cultural *reason* for such a low-cost box -- and how (and why) the internet has become (oddly?) indispensible -- even for those "poor folks" in the sticks.
That's pretty amazing, actually. And it seems to be the most significant part of this story.
I dunno. A lot of the complaining sounds as though people are thinking they have a *right* to Half Life 2.
Frankly, if you don't like Steam, Valve, DRM, or whatever -- then don't buy it. Move on. There's a shitwad of games out there. Old, new, whatever.
I want to play HL2, sure, but I'm willing to make a couple compromises. If the TOS or the requirements of Steam change too drastically, then I'll move on to something else. Is Steam bad right now? No, I think it's a reasonable compromise.
I'd much rather have an electronic middle-man like Steam than a suit-wearing middle-man that just takes my cash and buys golf clubs and leases a new Lexus every year. (And if anyone deserves golf clubs and new cars and a life of relative ease -- it's the Valve folks who worked hard on the game -- not the dumbass corporate fucks who want to essentially extort money from developers by creating the oftentimes strained situtations in which the actual coding has to take place.)
Sorry. You're wrong. Steam takes seconds to start. In all the time I've been using Steam (in various beta versions for well over a year) Steam has *never* taken more than several seconds to start up and authenticate.
Granted, early in Steam's life there were times when it wouldn't start at all -- but it was always because the servers were down or were being upgraded. And for the past six months -- even on Tuesday when HL2 was released -- I've *never* had a problem with Steam, Steam delivery, Counter-Strike: Source, or Half Life 2.
But if the severs were up and running, Steam *always* took seconds to start and authenticate.
So -- and this is probably the case -- if Steam is taking minutes to start -- well, it's a problem on your end, with your computer, and something entirely out of Valve's control.
I suspect 99% of the Steam bitching is two things: (1) incorrect set-up of Windows (not enough RAM, fragmented hard drives, incorrect configuration, etc. etc.) and (2) incredibly loud lame users complaining about Steam because it means they can't get their software through BitTorrent and need to actually *buy* it.
The other 1% is legitimate -- but Steam has always been a pretty good thing -- even in early beta.
I get it. This is like the "work" that Darryn Stevens used to do on "Bewitched" for Larry Tate. It's a kind of shuffling papers around, bringing home briefcases, and complaining to your wife that your "work" is "demanding". It's also an excuse to bring the "boss" home for dinner.
Like Mr. Mooney on "I Love Lucy" and whatever Mike Brady's boss was called on "The Brady Bunch."
(And what's Dick Van Dyke's boss called?)
It's amazing how "work" is portrayed in these shows. (Whoops -- forgot about George Jetson's boss, too.) These idiot bosses who cause so much stress and marital stife.
But when you actually grow older and sorta merge into one of these "offices" -- as a writer, developer, coder, programmer, manager, whatever -- you realize the dirty secret: that for fuck's sake, you *do* sign stupid forms and push paper from the inbox to the outbox and fret about your idiot boss. That Larry Tate hasn't gone anywhere -- he's just gotten a different bad suit.
There's no mystery. Work is bullshit. Corporations are bullshit. You have meetings. You have "ten o'clocks". It's demoralizing. It saps your spirit. You look at old episodes of "Bewitched" and you scratch your head. Larry Tate is everywhere. "Mr. Tate, you have a couple minutes?"
Why are we so fucking derferential to the instruments of our subordination? Fuck Larry Tate and his little narrow-cut Hagar slacks and his white shirts and black ties. Here's a fucking clue for our European friends, too: the new American religion is Larry Tate. It's always been Larry Tate. It's even Larry Tate for the right-wingers who think that what America needs is "moral values". The fucking red states? They're red because everybody doesn't understand that Larry Tate is fucking everywhere. I'll take your Islamic fundamentalism and raise you one big fucking Larry Tate. Sharia? That's right. "Mr. Tate, I'm so sorry, I'll never do it again." "You're right you won't do it again, Darryn, because you're fired." "But Mr. Tate." "But nothing. Goodbye, Darryn."
Slashdot Mirror
What's with all these Microsoft old guys wearing sweaters?
Seriously. Bill Gates had a sweater. Ballmer has some ratty-ass sweater. Is that supposed to be endearing? If so, to whom -- other old guys on the golf course?
Appearances count, and as long as Ballmer is the pitchman for the stuff -- overweight and dressed in some 10 year old cartigan -- not only will I not take Microsoft seriously, but I don't want to have anything to *do* with Microsoft anymore.
I'd also whack the marketing genius who came up with the "Plays for Sure" label upside the head.
In this case, the marketing gaff is as bad as the DRM itself. (And it also makes one wonder how much DRM and marketing go hand-in-hand. Microsoft seems to have an issue lately with marketing snafus. They've always had issues, yes -- but the idea of "Plays For Sure" and "Vista-capable" makes me realize that marketing [in general] is even more bullshit than I'd always suspected.)
Someone explain why "pro-pornography" is considered ignorance?
All that -- and your only response is that I'm a "dumbass" because I conflated Utahians and Mormons?
Wow. Must be a slow day.
(I hope you're not a Mormon or a Utahian or whatever the fuck they call themselves in Utah.)
I think Utah folks (and everybody else, for that matter) should consider the up-side to pornography. Most geeks (and non-geeks) have strengthened their dominant arms/fingers/hands considerably since the advent of insta-porn. Increased strength means your base metabolic rate increases -- which points the way to increased weight loss. It's a win-win.
A couple more:
- There's a link between visual stimulation and increased brain activity. This is good -- and probably helps prevent dementia and all sorts of crazy brain diseases.
- There's a link between porn and sex. This is good. Porn improves sex lives -- including residents from Utah. Everyone benefits from healthy sex lives -- even if you're doing it solo. See above.
- Exposure to porn lowers your surprise threshold. Lower surprise thresholds mean an increased ability to concentrate on the stuff that matters. Porn does not matter on the scale of "stuff that matters." Limiting porn is like limiting gambling: it's all about power and nothing about the "social ills" it purports to assist. Gamblers gamble, pornographers pornograph, and porn viewers view. This stuff is part of what it means to be a human being. Those moralists opposed to gambling could probably learn a thing or two about mathematics, social science, and spiritual balance by taking a look at gambling -- and how to gamble effectively.
And no -- gambling effectively is not an oxymoron. The best gamble is to realize when you have the best of it -- and then make the bet. Ditto for the best porn. It's understanding what you like, searching it out, finding it, and deriving pleasure. There's nothing wrong with pleasure. Pleasure is good. Winning money is good. As Paul Newmann says in the "Color of Money": "Money won is twice as sweet as money earned."
No truer words spoken. If the fucking Utahans -- or Mormons or whatever the fuck they call themselves in Utah -- if they'd zero in simply the idea of "pleasure" -- and look for ways to make the pleasure safe and even more effective -- they'd all enjoy their fucking nutty nitty lives a bit more.
I don't know if this is technically possible, but it would seem to be possible to eliminate any watermark by simply "rewetting" -- or smoothing -- the music by combining it with a unwatermarked track.
In other words, you simply find the method of encoding, encode your own unwatermarked track, and then merge that track with the watermarked track -- and perhaps spit the differences into a file. These differences are the watermark and could be dissected. The watermarks, I assume (but again, I might be wrong here) would have similarities -- and a comparison of the watermarks over, say, hundreds of tracks -- would probably yield the ability to rewet *any* track without having to generate your own unwatermarked track.
Obviously, if you're going to generate your own track, you don't need the watermark in the first place. So the only reason to generate the tracks would be to build up a library of streaks -- or watermarks or whatever you want to call them -- and then use these for the rewetter application.
Good intro to AACS:
e /20070502.162154.1fc48054.en.html
http://www.full-disk-encryption.net/lurker/messag
I don't think it's a much of stretch to say that selling music without DRM will probably destroy Microsoft.
I think *this* -- essentially the end of Microsoft -- is what's at the core of all of this. And the end of Microsoft will be the *result* of DRM-less tracks. Jobs knows this. Everybody knows this. This is the elephant in the room that no one is talking much about.
Vista is all about DRM -- everything about Vista is DRM wrapped in eye-candy. Vista is the DRM operating system.
The end of DRM means the end of Microsoft as the major OS player. It also means a return to the "hobbyist" computers of the 1980s -- the TRS-80s and the Commodore 64s and the Apple IIs. This "hobbyist" market continues to erode as DRM gains a foothold. Drop DRM, and we're back to where we were 25 years ago -- personal computers that were meant to serve users not the corporations.
Just my two cents.
See, the problem is that I like to find *dirt cheap* shit. And one thing I've realized over the years is that I can't always avoid dirt cheap shit just because I disagree with a store's policies.
Like it or not, I occasionally buy on impulse. Or sometime I run out of laundry detergent and want to find dirt cheap detergent. If that means I go to Wal-Mart to save a couple bucks, so be it.
As I get older, I've come to understand that I can't always "Take A Stand."
I've taken a few in my life. I still "Take a Stand" when I'm able. But when I'm not -- or when I'm just fucking exhausted -- I buy dirt cheap shit.
*shrug*
Life rolls on.
You know, he's got a point. It might seem very impressive in a geeky way to Zuma a file across the room to the pretty girl (if you don't mind that I just used "Zuma" as a verb), but she is definitely not going to be impressed unless she's also a geek. You've also got the matter of the song being played in a vacuum, where your own thoughts and feelings on the tune are missing.
Not to mention the utter absurdity of receiving a song and then only being able to play it three times. What the fuck is that?
If I get a song, I get a song. The minute anyone puts limits onto something like a song -- which for me has no real value except as a motivator to buy the whole album -- it tells me that someone is nickel-and-diming me. And I don't like to be nickel-and-dimed.
Pirating music now is *really* easy and really simple. The only motivation I have to buy the album is if I want the physical album. But I don't buy RIAA albums, and I certainly don't want a bunch of corporate fucks telling me how many times I can play a song. That's fucking wrong, and it goes against the spirit of music. Music is meant to be enjoyed. If an artist is asking me for money to pay for her album, I will gladly pay her if I like the album. I have no issue with that.
But if the RIAA -- or Microsoft now -- is asking me for money to enrich their fat cat pockets, I say go fuck yourselves. You assholes aren't getting my cash. You already got enough of it.
So fuck you.
Sklasnky all the way, baby!
Seriously -- anybody dumb enough to complain about bad players should be removed from the poker table and wonked over the head. The so-called "bad" players -- even if they suck out on the river 5% of the time -- still make mistakes that make the "good" players money.
What, you want to sit at a table with a bunch of tight Sklasnky clones folding hand after hand?
Someone wants to bet a Ace, Four unsuited because they "can't lay down an Ace?" Please, politely guide them to my table. And be nice to them. Courteous. They're the players I want to play with.
Let 'em hit their draw on the river nine times out of ten. So long as they fill up the pot, I could care less.
Anonymous surfing is simple.
http://www.iphantom.com/
That's it -- all in hardware, no configuration, works behind a router. Works on your whole network, works on one computer on your network, allows all P2P, allows you to play online -- you name it, it does it.
What the hell did you people worrying about babysitters do ten years ago?
I call bullshit on your threats. In fact, you're probably the people who talk loudest on the cell phones anyway -- you get a call, think it's the babysitter, get your fucking blood pressure in a goddamn snit, forget that you're sitting in a movie theater, and then start yabbering to your sister-in-law about you thought she was the babysitter, but it's a good thing because you're sitting in a movie theater, trying to watch a movie and, yeah, it's pretty good because you just saw this scene where Jennifer Aniston did this thing where she moved one way but you thought she moved the other way and boy was in funny and, by the way, what are you doing next Saturday because me, I got nothing really planned.
It's bullshit. You go to a movie to watch a movie. If you're so fucking worried about being unplugged for two hours you got a shitload of shit wrong with your fucking head and the last thing you should be doing is sitting in a movie theater.
Ah. Yes. Much better now. Annoying isn't it?
...but only in a way that dying in your sleep is preferrable to death by crucifiction.
David Denby.
Ironically, if the corporations would *withhold* content, they'd do us all a favor. It'd be a welcome respite. Plus, it's pretty good copy protection for the recording industry.
It'd also fuel (what I'd guess would be) moderate to explosive growth in the non-corporate controlled media industry. We'd swing back to the idea of computers as a "hobbyist" medium (back in the days of Heathkit, for example) and would give the cycle time to re-start.
Withhold content, please! The "pipes" won't go empty. Just leave us alone. It'd also give the artists some time to really give us what *they* want -- and not a bunch of A&R posers pretending to work on behalf of the artists.
In theory -- just in theory -- why should we accept *any* DRM if we can all go to any public library and check out a book for two weeks without DRM?
Why should books be DRM-less but all the rest of my media is full of DRM?
Yes, I understand that "books" are different than digital "files" -- but there are Xerox machines for books, and last I checked, if you have a garbage bag full of dimes, you can Xerox to your heart's content.
Or, better yet, *read* the book and then return it for another. And another.
Moreover, not only can I check out *books* from my local public library -- I can check out CDs and DVDs and video tapes. So it's all there -- all for free when you're a resident of the city/town/village in which the library exists and -- here's the key, I think -- you pay taxes.
I fail to see why the media companies don't understand this -- that some sort of library tax made much larger -- a media tax would probably -- probably -- solve everybody's problem. If you pay the tax, you have access. If you don't pay, you don't have access.
I understand that there are differences -- media is controlled by corporations whereas libraries are funded by state, federal, and taxpayer monies. I understand that.
But a book is media, too. And if I can borrow a book and read it and return it -- all without any DRM whatsoever -- I fail to see why I can't have my iTunes songs DRM-less -- whether it be for the 99 cents I pay, or for an all-you-can-eat subscription -- which, of course, makes sense if you look to the library model. (Here's a clue, Jobs: You don't *own* the books you check out from the library, and that's been going on just fine for, oh, a couple thousand years.)
Jobs is wrong when he says people want to *own* music. I'd like to own all the books I check out from the library, but I can't. I can't afford 'em, and I don't have the space. So I do what everybody else does -- I pay my taxes, check books in and out, and am happy.
I don't know. It's early. I've not had enough caffeine. Whatever. DRM sucks, and screw the greedy corporate execs. Screw Fairplay, too. Apple's as bad as everybody else.
Saying that this is no "hack" is like going into a muesem, pointing at the all-black canvas, and saying, "Hey, that's not art. I could do that."
Point is, you *didn't* do it and someone else did.
What, you paint a bunch of haystacks at sunset and that's art? But some guy's splotch painting *isn't* art?
Says you.
*shrug*
The guy that did this, did it. Whether or not it's a "hack" (according to your definition) is beside the point.
Question -- and this may be a dumb one, but I'm going to ask it anyway:
How much of what Google is doing -- the clustering, the redundancy, the sub-categorization -- how much of this (if any) could be described -- could fit under the mantle of "Peer-to-Peer"? Is anything that Google is doing here remotely considered P2P? (Even if the P2P is what's going on on their own, in-house servers?)
Obviously, I ask this because of the upcoming supreme court case. And I ask because it struck me as I read the article that what Google is doing *seems* to be breaking down complex tasks and simplifying them so that work across the network -- their network, your network -- and I wonder if this is (in theory?) what Peer-to-Peer is doing?
(I'm thinking, too, of the Google concept of "shards" and how their data is distributed.)
but by not being a "team player" you open yourself to a world of hurtin (i.e. losing your job)...unless that is what you wanted.
Teamwork on jobsites is vastly overrated. Most of the time, your teammates are assholes. And if your temmates aren't assholes, you are.
Either way, it never works.
Mirror (seems to work):
a 7fc0335836835d1/index.html
http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/b45b564dd93222fa
What about a poor geek in such a country?
This brings up a couple interesting points, none of which are really worth pursuing. But I'm surprised (or maybe not surprised) to see that most Slashdotters posting about this and what it can and can't do have remarkable tunnel-vision.
This isn't meant to be a "geek" machine. This isn't for a "poor geek" (who, I'm sure, if he or she was worth his or her geekiness, would find other, better machines to receive geek training from). It's a *tool* -- much in the same way that a hammer or a pair of pliers are tools.
In fact, you sound like a bunch of carpenters complaining that no one is gonna use a $4 hammer from Home Depot when what they really need is a $49.95 double-balanced claw hammer with an oxide tip to "properly sink nails."
Yeah, that's nice, but when I need a hammer -- I need a hammer. I could care less about the size of the claw or the oxide tip.
I realize most folks here are in college and high school and aren't yet capable (this is gonna sound condescending, but it's true) doing what my old comp sci professor called "taking a step back and shutting the fuck up for a second."
(This is the same guy who urged us all to read Shakespeare in order to understand that what's really at the core of computer science is humanity -- not silicon. At the time we laughed. Now, twenty years later, I've come to understand he's exactly right.)
Anyway. I digress. And I condescend. But, really. the windows/linux stuff is necessary sometimes, funny other times, but in this case, it completely misses the point. What no one is mentioning is the cultural *reason* for such a low-cost box -- and how (and why) the internet has become (oddly?) indispensible -- even for those "poor folks" in the sticks.
That's pretty amazing, actually. And it seems to be the most significant part of this story.
I dunno. A lot of the complaining sounds as though people are thinking they have a *right* to Half Life 2.
Frankly, if you don't like Steam, Valve, DRM, or whatever -- then don't buy it. Move on. There's a shitwad of games out there. Old, new, whatever.
I want to play HL2, sure, but I'm willing to make a couple compromises. If the TOS or the requirements of Steam change too drastically, then I'll move on to something else. Is Steam bad right now? No, I think it's a reasonable compromise.
I'd much rather have an electronic middle-man like Steam than a suit-wearing middle-man that just takes my cash and buys golf clubs and leases a new Lexus every year. (And if anyone deserves golf clubs and new cars and a life of relative ease -- it's the Valve folks who worked hard on the game -- not the dumbass corporate fucks who want to essentially extort money from developers by creating the oftentimes strained situtations in which the actual coding has to take place.)
Steam takes several minutes to start.
Bzzzzzt.
Sorry. You're wrong. Steam takes seconds to start. In all the time I've been using Steam (in various beta versions for well over a year) Steam has *never* taken more than several seconds to start up and authenticate.
Granted, early in Steam's life there were times when it wouldn't start at all -- but it was always because the servers were down or were being upgraded. And for the past six months -- even on Tuesday when HL2 was released -- I've *never* had a problem with Steam, Steam delivery, Counter-Strike: Source, or Half Life 2.
But if the severs were up and running, Steam *always* took seconds to start and authenticate.
So -- and this is probably the case -- if Steam is taking minutes to start -- well, it's a problem on your end, with your computer, and something entirely out of Valve's control.
I suspect 99% of the Steam bitching is two things: (1) incorrect set-up of Windows (not enough RAM, fragmented hard drives, incorrect configuration, etc. etc.) and (2) incredibly loud lame users complaining about Steam because it means they can't get their software through BitTorrent and need to actually *buy* it.
The other 1% is legitimate -- but Steam has always been a pretty good thing -- even in early beta.
Go figure.
Yes, if they're bags of pennies.
I get it. This is like the "work" that Darryn Stevens used to do on "Bewitched" for Larry Tate. It's a kind of shuffling papers around, bringing home briefcases, and complaining to your wife that your "work" is "demanding". It's also an excuse to bring the "boss" home for dinner.
Like Mr. Mooney on "I Love Lucy" and whatever Mike Brady's boss was called on "The Brady Bunch."
(And what's Dick Van Dyke's boss called?)
It's amazing how "work" is portrayed in these shows. (Whoops -- forgot about George Jetson's boss, too.) These idiot bosses who cause so much stress and marital stife.
But when you actually grow older and sorta merge into one of these "offices" -- as a writer, developer, coder, programmer, manager, whatever -- you realize the dirty secret: that for fuck's sake, you *do* sign stupid forms and push paper from the inbox to the outbox and fret about your idiot boss. That Larry Tate hasn't gone anywhere -- he's just gotten a different bad suit.
There's no mystery. Work is bullshit. Corporations are bullshit. You have meetings. You have "ten o'clocks". It's demoralizing. It saps your spirit. You look at old episodes of "Bewitched" and you scratch your head. Larry Tate is everywhere. "Mr. Tate, you have a couple minutes?"
Why are we so fucking derferential to the instruments of our subordination? Fuck Larry Tate and his little narrow-cut Hagar slacks and his white shirts and black ties. Here's a fucking clue for our European friends, too: the new American religion is Larry Tate. It's always been Larry Tate. It's even Larry Tate for the right-wingers who think that what America needs is "moral values". The fucking red states? They're red because everybody doesn't understand that Larry Tate is fucking everywhere. I'll take your Islamic fundamentalism and raise you one big fucking Larry Tate. Sharia? That's right. "Mr. Tate, I'm so sorry, I'll never do it again." "You're right you won't do it again, Darryn, because you're fired." "But Mr. Tate." "But nothing. Goodbye, Darryn."
Even Trump falls under the spell of Larry Tate.
Bah.