Man has been telling time for centuries and it wasn't until the DST mess that we started having issues.
For most of human history, time meant local solar time, or time by the moon and stars. It isn't until the mid 18th C. that the "longitude problem" is solved by the invention of precision marine chronometers. It isn't until the mid 19th C. that the "standard time" demanded by the telegraph, the railroad, trade and industry, intrudes on the lives of ordinary people.
Like GM killing the municipal trolley systems of the 50s
These trolley lines had managed to limp through WWII but were in deep trouble long before. The middle class abandoned the trolley as quickly as the mass produced Ford and Chevy made it convenient and affordable.
I see that and wonder why the teenagers aren't put to work digging sewers or at least keeping toddlers out of them. For the price of the cigarettes the teenagers smoke, children could be fed and sewers built and clean water supplies maintained.
Trench work is demanding and dangerous even for the pro.
Excavation cave-ins are a major source of fatalities within the construction industry. Trenching accidents on U.S. construction sites account for an estimated 100 fatalities per year, with at least 11 times as many workers injured. The fatalities account for nearly 1% of all work related deaths in the United States.Trench Safety
License OS X to all comers. If Microsoft can get $399 for it's bloatware, Apple can get it too, and I'd pay it... I can imagine by 2010 more than half the geek desktops on Earth running it as primary. At that point all the doors open.
The geek can be delightfully naive about his influence in the marketplace.
The entire history of Apple and Microsoft can be summed up as a drive to marginalize the geek and make the personal computer an easily accessible and meaningful part of the life of everyone else.
companies need to get their work done and everything else is a costly distraction.
Neither company fits what big companies need. The only advantage non free software enjoys right now is in multi media and non free entertainment content.
This is absolute nonsense, whether you are working in the mail room, on the shop floor, or in the executive suite.
"Where are your papers?"
Land of the free^wregistered, home of the brave^wslave
when and where did you ever have the right to cross an international border, board a plane, enter a school or a courthouse without producing ID at some point along the way?
They're fucking hypocrites. They're getting what they deserve.
Hypocrisy isn't confined to the industry. The Geek has a full share of it as well.
It isn't true that nearly "everyone" copies. The entry requirement is, after all, typically, a mid-line computer and a broadband connection, perhaps 40% of American households.
I suspect that the file-sharing demographic can be defined much more narrowly.
---which implies that the majors have the option of shifting production to better serve their paying customers. The family with an investment in home theater video and sound, for example.
The audience that made J.K. Rowling richer than the Queen of England.
If you try to restrict your customers, you will be dependent of M$ and or the RIAA majors to deliver your product. Those people are not known for fair competition and are both kings of repositories of stale, second rate junk pushed at monopoly rates.
The majors' repositories go back to the beginnings of recorded music. The majors' respositories include recordings that are the core of any serious collection, in any genre you could name.
Many reports now indicate that any made up sensationalist drivel at all can be modded Interesting on slashdot.
I'm as big a fan of linux and detractor from Vista as the next linux greybeard, but let's not stoop to making stuff up when theres such a plethora of real problems with Vista.
has it crossed your mind that maybe all these "BadVista" stories are "made up?"
The only way that copyright law will really work is if the public respects it, and right now the public doesn't.
"The public" is not all of one mind.
Not everyone has a computer with tetra bytes of storage. Broadband service. Not everyone can afford the 200 pack of DVD-Rs.
Not everyone loves the Geek for stealing a copy of a movie he had to buy or rent or go without.
Until its mutilated release on broadcast tv or basic cable.
The Geek is far too quick to mod down as Flamebait the bare suggestion that his defense of copyright infringement is nothing more than a self-serving assertion of a middle class entitlement. Social Welfare for the iPod generation.
For reasons of fairness, people also need to be taught that it's not a crime -- it is a tort (which has a victim by definition). Since it's a tort, it is up to the victim, not the police, to enforce this law.
Think again.
(AP) - LOS ANGELES-A man was charged with copyright infringement for allegedly uploading the computer-animated film "Flushed Away" after getting a copy from an Oscar voter.
Salvador Nunez Jr., 27, faces up to three years in prison if convicted of the felony count. He was scheduled to appear in court March 1. He was charged Thursday.
Prosecutors alleged he obtained a copy of the movie after it was sent in advance to his sister, an Oscar voter and member of The International Animated Film Society.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences received a tip in early January that someone put "Flushed Away" on the Internet, and an investigation found Nunez uploaded it on Dec. 23, according to a federal complaint.
A digital watermark identified it as an Academy screener film.
When interviewed by FBI agents, Nunez acknowledged he uploaded "Flushed Away" and the Oscar-nominated film "Happy Feet" onto the Internet, court documents said. However, investigators found only a copy of "Flushed Away" in his computer hard drive.
"Flushed Away," won four prizes on Feb. 11 at the Annie Awards, honoring achievements in feature film and television animation.
In 2003, the MPAA banned the distribution of screener copies over concerns about bootlegging, but partly lifted the ban after complaints from filmmakers, producers and independent production companies.
Dell is paying consumers to use Windows! The exact same Dell Latitude D520 Notebook costs $48 MORE if it comes with no operating system than if it comes with Windows.
The mass-market Windows laptop outsells all other configurations.
Not in small numbers but in big numbers. Really big numbers. The mass-market Windows laptop is priced lower than all other configurations but delivers more profit at less cost to the direct seller or big box retailer.
Dell markets the bare bones PC to commercial clients purchasing in volume. OEM Linux disappears from Walmart.com.
For hundreds of years great works of art were produced with no copyright laws
They were produced under a patronage system that rewarded absolute subservience to the king, the church, or the merchant prince.
Most commissioned works of art go into private collections and there they remain, unseen by the commons. The concert performances is by invitation only.
The significance of the Elizabethan theater is that it is a throughly commercial, popular, enterprise, drawing audiences and talent from all classes.
But Shakespeare doesn't go to law when a rival threatens his livelihood.
He speaks to someone close to Elizabeth or James and the matter is settled privately.
Work outside the system and you risk being burned at the stake like Tyndale for his vernacular translation of the Bible.
None of Shakespeare's plays were published in his lifetime. None were performed outside of London except in the plague season. None were performed by any but his own theatrical companies.
But the costs of making quality recordings are greatly reduced compared to what they once were
That is only true in certain genres - if it is true at all - and only if your definition of quality is elastic. The Geek sees tech-on-a-budget. The record label sees the performance as a whole:
As Brian Wilson, the group's producer and chief songwriter, calls out instructions from the control booth over the talk-back speaker--"let's play a little tighter on that first break, okay, guys?"--the drummer clears his throat, counts off "one, two, three, four," and suddenly a staccato burst of Hammond B2 organ notes, punctuated by the rhythmic thump of a Fender bass guitar and a cleverly syncopated snare drum, begins to fill Gold Star Recording Studios. The sound of the future number one hit "Good Vibrations" is clearly evident. Yep, this is the Beach Boys all right. Except it's not. In fact, there's not a Beach Boy in the room.
During the sixties and seventies, perhaps the most fertile period of popular music our nation has ever produced, recording stars such as the Monkees, Carpenters, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Jan & Dean, the Beach Boys, the Association, the Grass Roots, Simon and Garfunkel, Paul Revere & the Raiders, Kenny Rogers & the First Edition, the Mamas and the Papas, and dozens more ruled the airwaves. However, most listeners are likely unaware that a good share of these legendary artists seldom, if ever, played any of the instruments on their own records.
That's right. Virtually all the instruments were played by an uncredited close-knit group of Los Angeles studio musicians, often referred to today by insiders as the Wrecking Crew (a name coined by the drummer Hal Blaine after the fact to describe how he and other sidemen had revolutionized the recording industry). From "Last Train to Clarksville" to "Monday, Monday" to "Mrs. Robinson," these same studio pros time and again provided most or all of the guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, horns, and more on hundreds of the best-known singles and albums of all time.
Image was (and is) everything in the music industry. And if a band's image in the 1960s was all about playing some hip jangly 12-string guitar riffs and creating some funky grooves, as in "Mr. Tambourine Man" by the Byrds, then you can be sure companies like Columbia Records (the Byrds' label) discouraged the public from knowing what really went on behind studio doors. To make certain he got the best possible performance for this all-important first single release, Terry Melcher, the Byrds' producer (and Doris Day's son), hired the Wrecking Crew to play all the backing instruments on the song. In other words, there was not a Byrd in sight, with the exception of the guitarist Jim (Roger) McGuinn, who was allowed to play his Rickenbacker electric 12-string on the song. But as far as the record-buying public knew, this future gold record featured nothing but all five Byrds in full flight.
How long is it going to take before the public has had enough of this garbage and put a stop to it?
as long as it takes the geek to admit that he isn't entitled to everything that isn't nailed down.
the divide between town and gown is an old one, of course.
off-campus, no one cries in their beer when a free-loading student with time on his hands, a pricey computer and unlimited bandwidth has to cough up some cash or forfeit some privileges.
The violation of the Copyright statute for non-monetary gain is a civil matter, not a criminal matter.
LOS ANGELES Feb 22, 2007 (AP)-- A man who allegedly uploaded a copy of the film "Flushed Away" onto the Internet after getting a copy from an Oscar voter faces a felony charge.
Salvador Nunez Jr., 27, was charged with copyright infringement and faces up to three years in prison if convicted. He was scheduled to appear in court March 1.
Prosecutors said he obtained a copy of the movie after it was sent in advance to his sister, an Oscar voter and member of The International Animated Film Society.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences received a tip in early January that someone put "Flushed Away" on the Internet, and a digital watermark identified it as an Academy screener film.
When interviewed by FBI agents, Nunez acknowledged he uploaded "Flushed Away" and the Oscar-nominated film "Happy Feet" onto the Internet, court documents said. However, investigators only found a copy of "Flushed Away" in his computer hard drive.
It wasn't immediately known whether Nunez has retained an attorney.
There are many points of interest here, but most significantly the feds decision to prosecute the uploader on the felony charge. That would be a first and a major change in policy.
If there is no price decrease on models bearing linux this is all a hoax, then you're paying for something you're not getting
There are enormous economies of scale in building and marketing for the OS with 95% of the market. Even Walmart couldn't significantly undercut OEM Windows on price.
Bullshit. NOBODY and I mean NOBODY wastes their time calling Dell. never gotten anything other than bullshit and excuses. How about you? It's time for the support FUD to end.
I got all the time and help I needed at home to get an out of warranty Dell system up and running when it refused to boot.
I never have problems with technical support. But then I never come across sounding like the Geek who knows it all. I don't mind working through a script, if the script solves the problem or narrows it down.
It will be just as long before I consider buying any of your computers.
Like you'll be missed.
There isn't a shop, restaurant, bank, professional office, hospital, school, library or public facility of any kind within twenty miles of here that isn't running a Windows OS on a Dell PC.
Hmmm, sounds like somebody at Dell got The Phone Call.
Michael Dell announced a low-key program to certify Linux distributions for corporate clients who wanted a custom factory install. It's only the Geek off on his own power trip who could spin this into a victory for OEM Linux in the consumer market.
Not necessarily, I voted for it and I can honestly say that as long as they sell a reasonably complete "works with linux" package I'd be happy. I would prefer that I can select an option to have it preloaded with Ubuntu and all the proprietary drivers but I definitely don't need "professional grade support"
Fine for you.
But Dell has to provide meaningful technical support to make a go of OEM Linux in the consumer market.
You don't tell retail customers to Google for answers, you don't sent them to the IRC chat rooms. You provide the level of support that is appropriate for users new to Linux or you will drown in a flood of red ink.
Sewer rats were found to have more powerful immune systems than regular lab rats, and were on the whole much healthier despite their living conditions.
The urban rat has a life expectancy of about a year. The lab rat or pet two to four years. Is the urban rat healthier at all ages or are you simply looking at survivors of infant mortality in the weeks or months of their adult prime?
folks like this don't realize that you need to face evil to become hardened to it
I would have thought that become hardened to evil makes it easier to accept and not the other way around.
Slashdot Mirror
For most of human history, time meant local solar time, or time by the moon and stars. It isn't until the mid 18th C. that the "longitude problem" is solved by the invention of precision marine chronometers. It isn't until the mid 19th C. that the "standard time" demanded by the telegraph, the railroad, trade and industry, intrudes on the lives of ordinary people.
There is always room for another "Death of Microsoft" post on the Slashdot front page.
These trolley lines had managed to limp through WWII but were in deep trouble long before. The middle class abandoned the trolley as quickly as the mass produced Ford and Chevy made it convenient and affordable.
Trench work is demanding and dangerous even for the pro.
Excavation cave-ins are a major source of fatalities within the construction industry. Trenching accidents on U.S. construction sites account for an estimated 100 fatalities per year, with at least 11 times as many workers injured. The fatalities account for nearly 1% of all work related deaths in the United States. Trench Safety
The geek can be delightfully naive about his influence in the marketplace.
The entire history of Apple and Microsoft can be summed up as a drive to marginalize the geek and make the personal computer an easily accessible and meaningful part of the life of everyone else.
Neither company fits what big companies need. The only advantage non free software enjoys right now is in multi media and non free entertainment content.
This is absolute nonsense, whether you are working in the mail room, on the shop floor, or in the executive suite.
When your talking point becomes the ability to run Windows on a Mac, there can be no doubt who is in the driver's seat.
the Premium consumer hardware space
The premium consumer hardware space is media and gamer space.
Fully half of Apple's revenues can be traced back to the iPod and iTunes - but when the tail wags the dog, who needs the dog?
Consider this tag line for Apple TV: an easy to use and fun way to wirelessly play all your favorite iTunes content from your Mac or PC on your widescreen TV.
Microsoft's consumer marketing places the PC at the center, never a peripheral.
The heart of a system that includes the XBox 360 and, soon to come, Windows Home Server.
Land of the free^wregistered, home of the brave^wslave
when and where did you ever have the right to cross an international border, board a plane, enter a school or a courthouse without producing ID at some point along the way?
Hypocrisy isn't confined to the industry. The Geek has a full share of it as well.
It isn't true that nearly "everyone" copies. The entry requirement is, after all, typically, a mid-line computer and a broadband connection, perhaps 40% of American households.
I suspect that the file-sharing demographic can be defined much more narrowly.
---which implies that the majors have the option of shifting production to better serve their paying customers. The family with an investment in home theater video and sound, for example.
The audience that made J.K. Rowling richer than the Queen of England.
The majors' repositories go back to the beginnings of recorded music. The majors' respositories include recordings that are the core of any serious collection, in any genre you could name.
and so, once again, in one line, the Geek reinforces all the negative sterotypes of his species.
has it crossed your mind that maybe all these "BadVista" stories are "made up?"
"The public" is not all of one mind.
Not everyone has a computer with tetra bytes of storage. Broadband service. Not everyone can afford the 200 pack of DVD-Rs.
Not everyone loves the Geek for stealing a copy of a movie he had to buy or rent or go without.
Until its mutilated release on broadcast tv or basic cable.
The Geek is far too quick to mod down as Flamebait the bare suggestion that his defense of copyright infringement is nothing more than a self-serving assertion of a middle class entitlement. Social Welfare for the iPod generation.
Think again.
(AP) - LOS ANGELES-A man was charged with copyright infringement for allegedly uploading the computer-animated film "Flushed Away" after getting a copy from an Oscar voter.
Salvador Nunez Jr., 27, faces up to three years in prison if convicted of the felony count. He was scheduled to appear in court March 1. He was charged Thursday.
Prosecutors alleged he obtained a copy of the movie after it was sent in advance to his sister, an Oscar voter and member of The International Animated Film Society.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences received a tip in early January that someone put "Flushed Away" on the Internet, and an investigation found Nunez uploaded it on Dec. 23, according to a federal complaint.
A digital watermark identified it as an Academy screener film.
When interviewed by FBI agents, Nunez acknowledged he uploaded "Flushed Away" and the Oscar-nominated film "Happy Feet" onto the Internet, court documents said. However, investigators found only a copy of "Flushed Away" in his computer hard drive.
"Flushed Away," won four prizes on Feb. 11 at the Annie Awards, honoring achievements in feature film and television animation.
In 2003, the MPAA banned the distribution of screener copies over concerns about bootlegging, but partly lifted the ban after complaints from filmmakers, producers and independent production companies.
It was not immediately known whether Nunez had an attorney. His home phone number was not listed. US man charged with uploading Oscar movie copy of 'Flushed Away' onto Internet
Flushed Away was released on DVD February 20, 2007. Theatrical release November 3, 2006.Flushed Away
There is much of interest in this story.
But nothing could be more significant than the decision to prosecute the uploader on the felony charge.
The mass-market Windows laptop outsells all other configurations.
Not in small numbers but in big numbers. Really big numbers. The mass-market Windows laptop is priced lower than all other configurations but delivers more profit at less cost to the direct seller or big box retailer.
Dell markets the bare bones PC to commercial clients purchasing in volume. OEM Linux disappears from Walmart.com.
End of story.
They were produced under a patronage system that rewarded absolute subservience to the king, the church, or the merchant prince.
Most commissioned works of art go into private collections and there they remain, unseen by the commons. The concert performances is by invitation only.
The significance of the Elizabethan theater is that it is a throughly commercial, popular, enterprise, drawing audiences and talent from all classes.
But Shakespeare doesn't go to law when a rival threatens his livelihood.
He speaks to someone close to Elizabeth or James and the matter is settled privately.
Work outside the system and you risk being burned at the stake like Tyndale for his vernacular translation of the Bible.
None of Shakespeare's plays were published in his lifetime. None were performed outside of London except in the plague season. None were performed by any but his own theatrical companies.
But the costs of making quality recordings are greatly reduced compared to what they once were
That is only true in certain genres - if it is true at all - and only if your definition of quality is elastic. The Geek sees tech-on-a-budget. The record label sees the performance as a whole:
As Brian Wilson, the group's producer and chief songwriter, calls out instructions from the control booth over the talk-back speaker--"let's play a little tighter on that first break, okay, guys?"--the drummer clears his throat, counts off "one, two, three, four," and suddenly a staccato burst of Hammond B2 organ notes, punctuated by the rhythmic thump of a Fender bass guitar and a cleverly syncopated snare drum, begins to fill Gold Star Recording Studios. The sound of the future number one hit "Good Vibrations" is clearly evident. Yep, this is the Beach Boys all right. Except it's not. In fact, there's not a Beach Boy in the room. During the sixties and seventies, perhaps the most fertile period of popular music our nation has ever produced, recording stars such as the Monkees, Carpenters, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Jan & Dean, the Beach Boys, the Association, the Grass Roots, Simon and Garfunkel, Paul Revere & the Raiders, Kenny Rogers & the First Edition, the Mamas and the Papas, and dozens more ruled the airwaves. However, most listeners are likely unaware that a good share of these legendary artists seldom, if ever, played any of the instruments on their own records.
That's right. Virtually all the instruments were played by an uncredited close-knit group of Los Angeles studio musicians, often referred to today by insiders as the Wrecking Crew (a name coined by the drummer Hal Blaine after the fact to describe how he and other sidemen had revolutionized the recording industry). From "Last Train to Clarksville" to "Monday, Monday" to "Mrs. Robinson," these same studio pros time and again provided most or all of the guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, horns, and more on hundreds of the best-known singles and albums of all time.
Image was (and is) everything in the music industry. And if a band's image in the 1960s was all about playing some hip jangly 12-string guitar riffs and creating some funky grooves, as in "Mr. Tambourine Man" by the Byrds, then you can be sure companies like Columbia Records (the Byrds' label) discouraged the public from knowing what really went on behind studio doors. To make certain he got the best possible performance for this all-important first single release, Terry Melcher, the Byrds' producer (and Doris Day's son), hired the Wrecking Crew to play all the backing instruments on the song. In other words, there was not a Byrd in sight, with the exception of the guitarist Jim (Roger) McGuinn, who was allowed to play his Rickenbacker electric 12-string on the song. But as far as the record-buying public knew, this future gold record featured nothing but all five Byrds in full flight.
as long as it takes the geek to admit that he isn't entitled to everything that isn't nailed down.
the divide between town and gown is an old one, of course.
off-campus, no one cries in their beer when a free-loading student with time on his hands, a pricey computer and unlimited bandwidth has to cough up some cash or forfeit some privileges.
LOS ANGELES Feb 22, 2007 (AP)-- A man who allegedly uploaded a copy of the film "Flushed Away" onto the Internet after getting a copy from an Oscar voter faces a felony charge.
Salvador Nunez Jr., 27, was charged with copyright infringement and faces up to three years in prison if convicted. He was scheduled to appear in court March 1.
Prosecutors said he obtained a copy of the movie after it was sent in advance to his sister, an Oscar voter and member of The International Animated Film Society.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences received a tip in early January that someone put "Flushed Away" on the Internet, and a digital watermark identified it as an Academy screener film.
When interviewed by FBI agents, Nunez acknowledged he uploaded "Flushed Away" and the Oscar-nominated film "Happy Feet" onto the Internet, court documents said. However, investigators only found a copy of "Flushed Away" in his computer hard drive.
It wasn't immediately known whether Nunez has retained an attorney.
Man Charged With Uploading Movie to Web
There are many points of interest here, but most significantly the feds decision to prosecute the uploader on the felony charge. That would be a first and a major change in policy.
There are enormous economies of scale in building and marketing for the OS with 95% of the market. Even Walmart couldn't significantly undercut OEM Windows on price.
These users also tend to be 100% of the market for the OEM system install.
When your car breaks down under waeranty you call your dealer for repairs. You do not take a night course in auto mechanics.
I got all the time and help I needed at home to get an out of warranty Dell system up and running when it refused to boot.
I never have problems with technical support. But then I never come across sounding like the Geek who knows it all. I don't mind working through a script, if the script solves the problem or narrows it down.
I can accept having made a mistake.
Like you'll be missed.
There isn't a shop, restaurant, bank, professional office, hospital, school, library or public facility of any kind within twenty miles of here that isn't running a Windows OS on a Dell PC.
Michael Dell announced a low-key program to certify Linux distributions for corporate clients who wanted a custom factory install. It's only the Geek off on his own power trip who could spin this into a victory for OEM Linux in the consumer market.
Fine for you.
But Dell has to provide meaningful technical support to make a go of OEM Linux in the consumer market.
You don't tell retail customers to Google for answers, you don't sent them to the IRC chat rooms. You provide the level of support that is appropriate for users new to Linux or you will drown in a flood of red ink.
The urban rat has a life expectancy of about a year. The lab rat or pet two to four years. Is the urban rat healthier at all ages or are you simply looking at survivors of infant mortality in the weeks or months of their adult prime?
folks like this don't realize that you need to face evil to become hardened to it
I would have thought that become hardened to evil makes it easier to accept and not the other way around.