There is an inherent difference between lending your friend your copy and making a different and separate copy of someone else's music over Napster.
You would have a stronger case if Napster did not copy, but copied and then deleted files. Then you could correctly label it "borrowing".
You would also have a stronger case if Napster, as someone pointed out a few months ago, did not share all MP3s on your hard drive by default. One of Napster's arguments is that it is simply acting as a mediator between music lovers. If that's so, then why does it not ask me at startup which files I wish to share and which not to?
Your friend asked to borrow your copy of the CD. Did you ask the artists if you had the right to make a separate copy of his/her music? Didn't think so.
IIRC x87 is the name for the floating point ISA originally presented in Intel's math coprocessor. And yes, the x87 ISA will be blown out of the water if you use the SSE2 floating point ISA in the upcoming Willamette (Ars as well as Ace's Hardware had pretty good articles about that a while back, too).
Its because no one else is willing to loan $1 million to musicians as startup capital. Think about it.
Normal banks, like Podunk Savings and Loan, wouldn't (too high default risk).
Normal capital investors, like Goldman and Sachs, would just laugh. (What's your market angle, again?)
Call it the expenses of a corporatized talent search...Courtney said it best when out of 30,000 album releases, less than 50 go platinum...that's more than 25,000 that probably didn't come close to covering the $500,000 of expenses it took to design and manufacture the bands' CDs. That's a lot of money, and it has to be made up somehow - by distributing the costs to the successful artists.
The system sucks, but no one's come up with a better one yet, especially not when it costs anywhere from $5000 (for a small-time local band) to over a million (for someone like Smashing Pumpkins) to produce an album.
Well, since Napster, Inc. is currently undergoing so much litigation, there's about a 99% probability that someone thought to subpoena its internal corporate communications as a information goldmine. (A la the DOJ vs Microsoft)
Merced is supposed to be a server platform mainly for enterprise and scientific applications - not for your basic desktop, which is why it costs as much as it does.
According to this page, properly optimized code will be able to execute 8-12 parallel operations/cycle. This is hardly a "waste", as you put it, of designer effort. Willamette will only beat it in terms of IA-32 code, because Merced will only emulate it.
Running native IA-64 code, unless AMD's got something up its sleeve that no one's talking about, Merced will blow Sledgehammer and Willamette out of the water instruction-wise clock for clock. Kinda the reverse philosophy of Willamette.
IMHO, I think EPIC's going to kick some major hiney, in terms of pure processing power, as soon as Intel scales up the clock speeds (coming in McKinley and beyond). It's a pretty nice concept (removing guesswork from optimization) and I have to give Intel props for sticking with their guns.
a University of Rochester scientist has developed an optical system that has given research subjects an unprecedented quality of eyesight. It then goes through 16 paragraphs without explaining what this "optical system" is or what it exactly does. Is it contact lenses? Goggles? A new version of lasic surgery? The closest it ever gets is a freakin' blurb about inventing a machine that maps out a persons' eyeball in great detail. Yeah. Woohoo. Yet another example of wonderful net journalism.
I view web browsers, and content over the net, as a separate application than other OS functions. I suppose some people would get confused, but for me local and remote operations are just inherently different. When I boot up into Win98SE, I use the classic desktop, without Active Desktop controls, and yes, I double click to navigate. I do it because One, it is vastly more stable than Win98SE with Active Desktop enabled, and Two, it doesn't use any unnecessary system resources.
Sure, you might be saying, well, it's just split seconds used when IE previews a file you didn't want to or when Active Desktop crashes and I have restore it. But those split seconds are still annoying, and if software ergonomics tell us one thing, it's that noticeable user action-reaction delay is one of more tormenting things on this planet. I view local-remote integration akin to that dancing paper clip - sure, it's extra functionality, but it's something I have no need of, and it's taking up resources.
People like to bitch, and Slashdot is no exception...so let's see, What's Wrong With Easel/Nautilus:
1. Icons are too 'generic':
I could be wrong, and correct me if I am, but isn't this the point? Isn't GNOME/Easel supposed to give Linux the same desktop ease of use as Windows does right now? I mean, there are only so many ways you can easily and intuitively represent 'places where you store information files'. Replacing lame yellow folders with cutesy penguins or something might be more flashy, but I think 95% of the populace would rather have something more functional.
2. Not revolutionary/Overhyped.
In the sense that the programmers are trying to create a truly GPL-compliant environment that has all the functionality and ease-of-use of Windows, while maintaining the bedrock stability of Linux, it looks like they're taking steps in the right direction. Buzz and hype are mostly a creation of the audience - I doubt any of the programmers got up on a pedestal and said, "Nautilus is going to change your world!" I don't know what you were expecting from Nautilus, but it sounds like you have some great ideas to share. Maybe you should start your own OSS project?
You would have a good point if making music, or any other creatively inspired work, were as easy as you make it sound. To quote:
When I write a song, and give it to another person, I stand to lose absolutely nothing. The song is still with me, except that now that person has the song also.
As a studio musician, I know something of the costs it takes to produce an album, with or without any kind of backing. Cost of renting studio time (which for an album runs anywhere from $1000 to over a $1 million for a decent studio and enough time to record and work), instruments (which are damn pricey), audio equipment (musicians have their favorite mics, cables, adapters, effects pedals) and not to mention the media such as ADAT which is used at the studio to capture the music.
Do I have an explicit right to make money off of my investment and effort? No.
Do I have a right to prevent others from stealing my creation and profiting off of my investment and effort? Yes.
The government has nothing to do with this issue - bringing it up is nothing but a red herring. IP copyright issues are disturbingly similar to patents - if anyone can simply use and enjoy my work without any form of mandatory reinbursement that I can set, then my incentive for creating work is destroyed. Musicians are caught between a rock and greed with internet distribution - on mp3.com, for instance, how many thousands of bands exist that haven't made more than $5 for every band that makes a decent living? The alternative to that is to become popular (which in 99% of cases takes a recording label's marketing power) and then watch as millions of people simply make a "loaned" copy from a friend and "forget" to pay for the music. And if you're popular without a nice, fat contract for recording and touring, then God help you, because until you do there really isn't any other source of income when free copies of your material is all over Napster and Gnutella except for local gigs (which pay for meals, and that's about it).
The voluntary "pay for download and support" system is completely bunk. Two reasons:
Think about how many times a day you listen to music and think, "Wow, this really touched me, I think I'll go look up the artist and give them financial support!" Heh. Just thinking about basic human nature makes me laugh at that thought.
The other reason? Why pay for something when you can get it for free? Let's take the example of mIRC, a program that's used by millions and has the same voluntary pay-for-support deal. For all the people that have downloaded it, the number of people that have actually paid is a tiny percentage. It's not like mIRC isn't a useful program - it's just basic human nature again. And unlike programmers, who could use mIRC to land a nice cushy corporate job, musicians are pretty much SOL in the "other jobs" department. They write and play music, and, well, uh, they write and play music. And do a lot of waiting tables on the side.
And then there's the "added functionality" variation, where you download the radio hits for free and the rest of the album for a price. Nice concept, if certain things like Napster didn't exist, where people can simply get a perfect copy of the rest of the album for free as well. And if someone suggests that Napster and other "freeware" programs like it will disappear once online distribution begins, well, don't make me laugh.
Online distribution is not the end of the music industry as we know it - it is the end of the music profession as we know it. We're going to end up with 10-20 superpopular, hypermarketed acts that really have nothing to do with creative talent, and then there's going to be a sharp dropoff to the thousands of garage bands with the talent who don't have the capital to produce a great album, don't ever make the scene, and don't make a dime. The price of commercialization.
Before everyone with a keyboard starts shooting from the hip (not that this will stop you) let me point out a few things...
Trademark IP, as I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong) applies to commercial ventures. Does Business Week, the New York Times, or even the Podunk Daily Gazette need to apply for trademark usage every time a product or company comes up in a story? No. But if an intrepid entrepreneur (not that this has ever happened) decided to make a commercial use out of someone else's trademark IP, say, a Duke Nukem TC for Quake, even if it is noncommercial with the potential to turn commercial, you can bet your ass that Apogee's attorneys are going to sue (and win) in court over trademark infringement.
Is the Apogee page misleading and not entirely clear? Duh! It's a game company trying to publish legalese. Of course they're going to screw it up.
So, to CmdrTaco(tm) and the rest of the/.(r) reporters, I urge you to follow this simple rule: Do Your Background Research(patent pending)!
Ouch. The way Rakoff explains it, when you purchase a CD or other recording, you purchase the rights to just that copy of the IP. It means that mp3 players and converting music to mp3s are pretty much illegal, unless the record labels and artists themselves give explicit permission otherwise, whether through a blanket authorization or case-by-case. I'd be interested if anybody who studys IP case law can cite other cases where this view of IP is contradicted.
Either that, or hope the record companies are generous enough to loosen the rules of "what you can do with that $13 CD".
...this has GOT to be the funniest thing I've seen this week...and this is finals week, so I've seen some pretty damn funny stuff.
Okay, raise your hands if you download kiddie pr0n. Now, keep them raised if you're outraged about this "violation of privacy on the net". Okay, now everybody who has no clue what the concept of personal responsibility, please keep'em raised. Thought so.
The Most Clueless Award of the Year goes to the poster who wrote, "...this is so lame! What if I were doing a search on such an innocuous term such as 'young-titties' or 'teen-sex'..." I dare you to find seven people on a libel jury who wouldn't label that as intent... Folks, there is no viable reason at all to be downloading files named "underage-titties.jpg" and "15yrold-lesbos.jpg". Merely downloading and possessing these files are a crime. If you want to be a tattletale and tell a sysop or the authorities about a kiddie pr0n server, notify them of your suspicions, and let them get the proof. And bulk downloading of pr0n won't hold up in court either. What they'll point out is that you took inadequate precautions to avoid getting illegal goods, anyways. If I were at an airport, and didn't have time to look through all six black similar-looking cases, so I decided to take them all and return those that weren't mine later when I had the time, I would still be liable.
You know, if you want to do something, at least have the balls to stand up for what you're doing. Doing something and being so ashamed of it that you try to hide it from everybody else is lame. Either stop doing it, or stop being such a loser about it.
I'm not exactly the strongest guy in the world, but any weight difference under 5 pounds for a laptop or other similar-sized portable PC makes little difference to me. At this weight range, bulk is a much more inconvenient factor than weight. And unless I'm mistaken, you'll have to carry around a monitor with you unless you can bum one off of wherever you're headed...
For something that small, I'd rather use a Palm. For something that powerful, I'd rather get a ultrathin laptop with nicer features, such as an PCMCIA slot. No, USB-only doesn't really cut it.
And a dedicated server over a shared USB bus??? LOL. That's an idea just waiting to take off. Give me a dedicated Fast Ethernet port any day of the week...I'll spend the extra $20 it cost on the mobo.
Overall, it's a nice indication of the latest miniaturization, but I just don't see the need or the market for something like this.
telnet://bbs.ufies.org Trade Wars Lives
Where's the Russian Mirror of Ender's Game
on
New Ender Sequel
·
· Score: 1
...so I don't have to pay outrageous intellectual property fees? Stick it to da man!
[/SARCASM]
Seriously, though, even though Card originally envisioned Ender's Game as a mere prequel, I think Speakers and the rest suffered, simply because most of the weighty themes were already dealt with. The last three books, while not bad in their own right, feel like an extended epilogue. Buy the series; show your support for a great author and own something in your library worth rereading.
Either there's some mass hypocrisy going on, or a good majority of Slashdotters are simply too immature to think things through. Recall:
Situation 1
Jon Katz et al. publish a book on the Hellmouth series of discussions and articles on Slashdot. Whether or not it actually accomplished anything is irrelevant; a mass outcry goes up from Slashdot posters whose material was used. Reasons ranged from not getting a slice of the pie to feeling intellectually raped to wanting a say where and when "their" material is used.
Situation 2
A site goes up in Russia purporting to use and abuse copyrighted material that the owners of which obviously don't want to be folded, spindled and mutilated in that way. Slashdotters cheer the advent of "free information".
I won't even the parallels this draws to people who take "liberties" with the GPL and other related copyright licenses. I mean, hey, they should be free to do what they want with it, right?
Marie Antoinette tried to have her cake and eat it too. She ended up missing her head, an irrelevant footnote to history. I fear this community will just end up an irrelevant footnote.
Bob Kopp posts an article (#35) detailing the facts of the Maryland UCITA bill.
The Maryland UCITA bill incorporates virtually every good suggestion made by consumer advocacy groups, so much so, in fact, that I hope that every state passes a law like theirs.BR> Slashdotters still have their panties in a wad about boycotting UCITA software, or in extreme cases just blatantly pirating it.
Hmmm...is it just me, or does no one here ever read other posts anymore before giving out their half-assed opinions? I'm wondering if half the people calling for a boycott even know what UCITA's effects are, other than their "online w4r3z BuDd13z" saying it's the spawn of Satan.
Before anyone else passes judgement, why don't you find out what Virginia's actual UCITA text is, so at least you can make a judgement that's not completely ignorant.
Mention a loser like Mitnick and watch the/. community jump to his defense. Whoa, one more reason for the outside world to take this community seriously.
As for his speaking about his cracking "skills", he is making money off of his crime. I don't give a flying rat's ass how you try to justify or generalize what he is doing, he is making money off of his reputation which stems directly from his cracking experiences. The judge has every right to do stop him from making money off it.
If a serial rapist and murderer were to lecture on a circuit about "the effectiveness of various methods of self-defense for women" I'd find it in equally bad taste. In both cases a crime was perpetrated, and a victim/victim's families get pissed that the perpetrator is making money off his notoriety. And frankly, I'm sick of all the bullshit "Screw The Corporations" attitude that's present here in this messageboard. If Mitnick had cracked and ripped off another individual, rather than a corporation, there wouldn't be near as much uproar. Grow up, or move to a small deserted island where you don't have to worry about big, bad corporations picking on your interests.
You can argue that there are different degrees of evil, that corporations have different rights than individuals, or Mitnick is really a loser with a Heart of Gold underneath, but nothing changes the fact that Mitnick is trying to profit from his notoriety. And that's how Uncle Sam views this case.
Knee-jerk libertarians and pissed-off-at-the-world 16 year-olds. Sometimes it's hard to tell who's who here on/..
Where are the exploding hit points? ...the Sword +5s of Instant Dismemberment? ...the 5000 1 hit dice monster battles? ...the semi-pr0n artwork? ...the characters with all 18s? ...the fudged dice rolls (all 10,000 of them)? ...the arbitrary DM rulings? ...the players quitting in the middle of session to go smoke a bowl?
Bah...that's what you get when you cheapen and commercialize a national treasure like D&D...
If I wanted to spend $10 billion to "help out the rest of humanity", there are loads of charities desperately short of funds that would love a slice of the pie. As an intelligent, taxpaying US citizen, if I want to help people around the world, I'll write my representatives to allocate $10 billion to land mine removal (and believe me, the money is needed). If I wanted to employ some Russian nuclear physicists, I would spend $10 billion to build more particle accelerators and hire those scientists to work with them.
Being altruistic while meaning to be altruistic would be "noble". Being altruistic while trying (and doing a poor job because of it) to build a space station whose raison d'etre is to advance science and knowledge is getting your priorities mixed up. Putting extranationals in space does not help starving children in central Africa, it does not stop the civil conflict in Chechnya, and it does not help Chinese citizens fight repression of political and civil liberties. It's not "noble", "selfless", "far-sighted", or "cooperative" to waste money and effort making the space station international because nothing of substance gets done.
And just as a side topic, there have been nation-states in the past that have put away their self-interest for other causes. Nazi Germany genuinely believed it was doing humanity a favor by perpetuating genocide. The Vatican thought the Crusades was a humanitarian effort, too. Other nation-states have been less successful being "noble". Napoleon III indulged his nation in pursuing the moral authority of God; as a result, he led France in its decline from a superpower to being a sidenote in European affairs, as other nations (particularly Bismarck's Prussia) consistently victimized France and its "noble" worldview. If you want a more recent example of what happens when a nation sidesteps its own interest, see Exhibit A, US intervention in Somalia.
I am not arguing against helping other nations and states. What I am arguing for is for someone to get a head check and make sure that Helping Others and Our Interests coincide.
You speak as if this "culture of personal and national selfishness" is something new or unique to the US. Wake up and smell international politics, buddy. Or better yet, pick up a basic textbook in world history. It has never been and never will be otherwise, at least until fundamental human nature changes (which will be sometime after hell freezes over). That leaves the US with two choices - pretend it's otherwise, or deal with it.
Past Russian 'expertise' in putting up living quarters was supposed to be tapped as a faster and cheaper way as opposed to just building the module ourselves. Gee, I guess that idea worked.
...of touchy-feely politics getting in the way of science.
Why does this have to be an international space station? Because some idiots up on the Hill and the State Department thought that it would "foster better international relations" or "develop cooperation between cultures". As if running science experiments or lofting up multiton modules had anything to do with either goal.
What this really points to is that Someone (be it NASA administration, Congress, or the Executive Branch) needs to get their head out of the '70s protest movement. "Make Science Not War" sounds pretty fscking stupid when it's costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in overlapping work and delays.
Cost: Lots of lost money, time, and equipment. Benefit: Putting in space some extranationals whose countries don't have the resources by themselves to build their own space station.
Is it just me, or is the US getting absolutely zip out of this deal? I mean, by letting these other countries in on the project, do we gain leverage in global trade disputes, the Security Council, strategic arms treaties, or conflict negotiations?
NASA needs to learn a lesson from the corporate world: never outsource for materiel you can produce unless your own resources are tied up elsewhere. The words "faster, better, cheaper" will never be associated with the word "international".
I love hearing all the self-important people who are talking out of their asses by saying...
Hi, I have no clue how to build a military GPS jammer, or even really how GPS works, but you know, the US is getting cheated out of my hard-earned taxpayer money by getting overcharged for building such a simple device. I guess it must be due to the general imbecility of government workers.
Slashdot Mirror
There is an inherent difference between lending your friend your copy and making a different and separate copy of someone else's music over Napster.
You would have a stronger case if Napster did not copy, but copied and then deleted files. Then you could correctly label it "borrowing".
You would also have a stronger case if Napster, as someone pointed out a few months ago, did not share all MP3s on your hard drive by default. One of Napster's arguments is that it is simply acting as a mediator between music lovers. If that's so, then why does it not ask me at startup which files I wish to share and which not to?
Your friend asked to borrow your copy of the CD. Did you ask the artists if you had the right to make a separate copy of his/her music? Didn't think so.
IIRC x87 is the name for the floating point ISA originally presented in Intel's math coprocessor. And yes, the x87 ISA will be blown out of the water if you use the SSE2 floating point ISA in the upcoming Willamette (Ars as well as Ace's Hardware had pretty good articles about that a while back, too).
Oh my God, I read this and I almost choked up my dinner laughing on the floor.
You know, I've been looking for the name of that Law. Thanks. =) (I assume we're talking about the rationality of discussion and analogies to Hitler.)
Its because no one else is willing to loan $1 million to musicians as startup capital. Think about it.
Normal banks, like Podunk Savings and Loan, wouldn't (too high default risk).
Normal capital investors, like Goldman and Sachs, would just laugh. (What's your market angle, again?)
Call it the expenses of a corporatized talent search...Courtney said it best when out of 30,000 album releases, less than 50 go platinum...that's more than 25,000 that probably didn't come close to covering the $500,000 of expenses it took to design and manufacture the bands' CDs. That's a lot of money, and it has to be made up somehow - by distributing the costs to the successful artists.
The system sucks, but no one's come up with a better one yet, especially not when it costs anywhere from $5000 (for a small-time local band) to over a million (for someone like Smashing Pumpkins) to produce an album.
Well, since Napster, Inc. is currently undergoing so much litigation, there's about a 99% probability that someone thought to subpoena its internal corporate communications as a information goldmine. (A la the DOJ vs Microsoft)
Merced is supposed to be a server platform mainly for enterprise and scientific applications - not for your basic desktop, which is why it costs as much as it does.
According to this page, properly optimized code will be able to execute 8-12 parallel operations/cycle. This is hardly a "waste", as you put it, of designer effort. Willamette will only beat it in terms of IA-32 code, because Merced will only emulate it.
Running native IA-64 code, unless AMD's got something up its sleeve that no one's talking about, Merced will blow Sledgehammer and Willamette out of the water instruction-wise clock for clock. Kinda the reverse philosophy of Willamette.
IMHO, I think EPIC's going to kick some major hiney, in terms of pure processing power, as soon as Intel scales up the clock speeds (coming in McKinley and beyond). It's a pretty nice concept (removing guesswork from optimization) and I have to give Intel props for sticking with their guns.
There's about 0.00001 m of depth to it. To quote:
a University of Rochester scientist has developed an optical system that has given research subjects an unprecedented quality of eyesight. It then goes through 16 paragraphs without explaining what this "optical system" is or what it exactly does. Is it contact lenses? Goggles? A new version of lasic surgery? The closest it ever gets is a freakin' blurb about inventing a machine that maps out a persons' eyeball in great detail. Yeah. Woohoo. Yet another example of wonderful net journalism.
One thing that I can't get over as I read through all of the Nautilus bashing:
It's only screenshots!
Can you tell how stable it is from a screenshot?
Can you tell it's ease-of-use?
Can you tell it's level of intuitive functionality?
As far as I can tell, all we can really do is make judgements on how pretty it is, something that is customizable to personal preference anyways.
Why don't we take a deep breath, holster our guns, and wait for release.
I have to disagree, and here's why:
I view web browsers, and content over the net, as a separate application than other OS functions. I suppose some people would get confused, but for me local and remote operations are just inherently different. When I boot up into Win98SE, I use the classic desktop, without Active Desktop controls, and yes, I double click to navigate. I do it because One, it is vastly more stable than Win98SE with Active Desktop enabled, and Two, it doesn't use any unnecessary system resources.
Sure, you might be saying, well, it's just split seconds used when IE previews a file you didn't want to or when Active Desktop crashes and I have restore it. But those split seconds are still annoying, and if software ergonomics tell us one thing, it's that noticeable user action-reaction delay is one of more tormenting things on this planet. I view local-remote integration akin to that dancing paper clip - sure, it's extra functionality, but it's something I have no need of, and it's taking up resources.
People like to bitch, and Slashdot is no exception...so let's see, What's Wrong With Easel/Nautilus:
1. Icons are too 'generic':
I could be wrong, and correct me if I am, but isn't this the point? Isn't GNOME/Easel supposed to give Linux the same desktop ease of use as Windows does right now? I mean, there are only so many ways you can easily and intuitively represent 'places where you store information files'. Replacing lame yellow folders with cutesy penguins or something might be more flashy, but I think 95% of the populace would rather have something more functional.
2. Not revolutionary/Overhyped.
In the sense that the programmers are trying to create a truly GPL-compliant environment that has all the functionality and ease-of-use of Windows, while maintaining the bedrock stability of Linux, it looks like they're taking steps in the right direction. Buzz and hype are mostly a creation of the audience - I doubt any of the programmers got up on a pedestal and said, "Nautilus is going to change your world!" I don't know what you were expecting from Nautilus, but it sounds like you have some great ideas to share. Maybe you should start your own OSS project?
You would have a good point if making music, or any other creatively inspired work, were as easy as you make it sound. To quote:
When I write a song, and give it to another person, I stand to lose absolutely nothing. The song is still with me, except that now that person has the song also.
As a studio musician, I know something of the costs it takes to produce an album, with or without any kind of backing. Cost of renting studio time (which for an album runs anywhere from $1000 to over a $1 million for a decent studio and enough time to record and work), instruments (which are damn pricey), audio equipment (musicians have their favorite mics, cables, adapters, effects pedals) and not to mention the media such as ADAT which is used at the studio to capture the music.
Do I have an explicit right to make money off of my investment and effort? No.
Do I have a right to prevent others from stealing my creation and profiting off of my investment and effort? Yes.
The government has nothing to do with this issue - bringing it up is nothing but a red herring. IP copyright issues are disturbingly similar to patents - if anyone can simply use and enjoy my work without any form of mandatory reinbursement that I can set, then my incentive for creating work is destroyed. Musicians are caught between a rock and greed with internet distribution - on mp3.com, for instance, how many thousands of bands exist that haven't made more than $5 for every band that makes a decent living? The alternative to that is to become popular (which in 99% of cases takes a recording label's marketing power) and then watch as millions of people simply make a "loaned" copy from a friend and "forget" to pay for the music. And if you're popular without a nice, fat contract for recording and touring, then God help you, because until you do there really isn't any other source of income when free copies of your material is all over Napster and Gnutella except for local gigs (which pay for meals, and that's about it).
The voluntary "pay for download and support" system is completely bunk. Two reasons:
Think about how many times a day you listen to music and think, "Wow, this really touched me, I think I'll go look up the artist and give them financial support!" Heh. Just thinking about basic human nature makes me laugh at that thought.
The other reason? Why pay for something when you can get it for free? Let's take the example of mIRC, a program that's used by millions and has the same voluntary pay-for-support deal. For all the people that have downloaded it, the number of people that have actually paid is a tiny percentage. It's not like mIRC isn't a useful program - it's just basic human nature again. And unlike programmers, who could use mIRC to land a nice cushy corporate job, musicians are pretty much SOL in the "other jobs" department. They write and play music, and, well, uh, they write and play music. And do a lot of waiting tables on the side.
And then there's the "added functionality" variation, where you download the radio hits for free and the rest of the album for a price. Nice concept, if certain things like Napster didn't exist, where people can simply get a perfect copy of the rest of the album for free as well. And if someone suggests that Napster and other "freeware" programs like it will disappear once online distribution begins, well, don't make me laugh.
Online distribution is not the end of the music industry as we know it - it is the end of the music profession as we know it. We're going to end up with 10-20 superpopular, hypermarketed acts that really have nothing to do with creative talent, and then there's going to be a sharp dropoff to the thousands of garage bands with the talent who don't have the capital to produce a great album, don't ever make the scene, and don't make a dime. The price of commercialization.
Before everyone with a keyboard starts shooting from the hip (not that this will stop you) let me point out a few things...
Trademark IP, as I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong) applies to commercial ventures. Does Business Week, the New York Times, or even the Podunk Daily Gazette need to apply for trademark usage every time a product or company comes up in a story? No. But if an intrepid entrepreneur (not that this has ever happened) decided to make a commercial use out of someone else's trademark IP, say, a Duke Nukem TC for Quake, even if it is noncommercial with the potential to turn commercial, you can bet your ass that Apogee's attorneys are going to sue (and win) in court over trademark infringement.
Is the Apogee page misleading and not entirely clear? Duh! It's a game company trying to publish legalese. Of course they're going to screw it up.
So, to CmdrTaco(tm) and the rest of the
Do Your Background Research(patent pending)!
Ouch. The way Rakoff explains it, when you purchase a CD or other recording, you purchase the rights to just that copy of the IP. It means that mp3 players and converting music to mp3s are pretty much illegal, unless the record labels and artists themselves give explicit permission otherwise, whether through a blanket authorization or case-by-case. I'd be interested if anybody who studys IP case law can cite other cases where this view of IP is contradicted.
Either that, or hope the record companies are generous enough to loosen the rules of "what you can do with that $13 CD".
telnet://bbs.ufies.org
Trade Wars Lives
...this has GOT to be the funniest thing I've seen this week...and this is finals week, so I've seen some pretty damn funny stuff.
Okay, raise your hands if you download kiddie pr0n. Now, keep them raised if you're outraged about this "violation of privacy on the net". Okay, now everybody who has no clue what the concept of personal responsibility, please keep'em raised. Thought so.
The Most Clueless Award of the Year goes to the poster who wrote, "...this is so lame! What if I were doing a search on such an innocuous term such as 'young-titties' or 'teen-sex'..." I dare you to find seven people on a libel jury who wouldn't label that as intent... Folks, there is no viable reason at all to be downloading files named "underage-titties.jpg" and "15yrold-lesbos.jpg". Merely downloading and possessing these files are a crime. If you want to be a tattletale and tell a sysop or the authorities about a kiddie pr0n server, notify them of your suspicions, and let them get the proof. And bulk downloading of pr0n won't hold up in court either. What they'll point out is that you took inadequate precautions to avoid getting illegal goods, anyways. If I were at an airport, and didn't have time to look through all six black similar-looking cases, so I decided to take them all and return those that weren't mine later when I had the time, I would still be liable.
You know, if you want to do something, at least have the balls to stand up for what you're doing. Doing something and being so ashamed of it that you try to hide it from everybody else is lame. Either stop doing it, or stop being such a loser about it.
Well, that's my two rants for today.
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A little lacking on the "usability" side.
I'm not exactly the strongest guy in the world, but any weight difference under 5 pounds for a laptop or other similar-sized portable PC makes little difference to me. At this weight range, bulk is a much more inconvenient factor than weight. And unless I'm mistaken, you'll have to carry around a monitor with you unless you can bum one off of wherever you're headed...
For something that small, I'd rather use a Palm. For something that powerful, I'd rather get a ultrathin laptop with nicer features, such as an PCMCIA slot. No, USB-only doesn't really cut it.
And a dedicated server over a shared USB bus??? LOL. That's an idea just waiting to take off. Give me a dedicated Fast Ethernet port any day of the week...I'll spend the extra $20 it cost on the mobo.
Overall, it's a nice indication of the latest miniaturization, but I just don't see the need or the market for something like this.
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...so I don't have to pay outrageous intellectual property fees? Stick it to da man!
[/SARCASM]
Seriously, though, even though Card originally envisioned Ender's Game as a mere prequel, I think Speakers and the rest suffered, simply because most of the weighty themes were already dealt with. The last three books, while not bad in their own right, feel like an extended epilogue. Buy the series; show your support for a great author and own something in your library worth rereading.
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Either there's some mass hypocrisy going on, or a good majority of Slashdotters are simply too immature to think things through. Recall:
Situation 1
Jon Katz et al. publish a book on the Hellmouth series of discussions and articles on Slashdot. Whether or not it actually accomplished anything is irrelevant; a mass outcry goes up from Slashdot posters whose material was used. Reasons ranged from not getting a slice of the pie to feeling intellectually raped to wanting a say where and when "their" material is used.
Situation 2
A site goes up in Russia purporting to use and abuse copyrighted material that the owners of which obviously don't want to be folded, spindled and mutilated in that way. Slashdotters cheer the advent of "free information".
I won't even the parallels this draws to people who take "liberties" with the GPL and other related copyright licenses. I mean, hey, they should be free to do what they want with it, right?
Marie Antoinette tried to have her cake and eat it too. She ended up missing her head, an irrelevant footnote to history. I fear this community will just end up an irrelevant footnote.
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Bob Kopp posts an article (#35) detailing the facts of the Maryland UCITA bill.
The Maryland UCITA bill incorporates virtually every good suggestion made by consumer advocacy groups, so much so, in fact, that I hope that every state passes a law like theirs.BR>
Slashdotters still have their panties in a wad about boycotting UCITA software, or in extreme cases just blatantly pirating it.
Hmmm...is it just me, or does no one here ever read other posts anymore before giving out their half-assed opinions? I'm wondering if half the people calling for a boycott even know what UCITA's effects are, other than their "online w4r3z BuDd13z" saying it's the spawn of Satan.
Before anyone else passes judgement, why don't you find out what Virginia's actual UCITA text is, so at least you can make a judgement that's not completely ignorant.
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Mention a loser like Mitnick and watch the /. community jump to his defense. Whoa, one more reason for the outside world to take this community seriously.
/..
As for his speaking about his cracking "skills", he is making money off of his crime. I don't give a flying rat's ass how you try to justify or generalize what he is doing, he is making money off of his reputation which stems directly from his cracking experiences. The judge has every right to do stop him from making money off it.
If a serial rapist and murderer were to lecture on a circuit about "the effectiveness of various methods of self-defense for women" I'd find it in equally bad taste. In both cases a crime was perpetrated, and a victim/victim's families get pissed that the perpetrator is making money off his notoriety. And frankly, I'm sick of all the bullshit "Screw The Corporations" attitude that's present here in this messageboard. If Mitnick had cracked and ripped off another individual, rather than a corporation, there wouldn't be near as much uproar. Grow up, or move to a small deserted island where you don't have to worry about big, bad corporations picking on your interests.
You can argue that there are different degrees of evil, that corporations have different rights than individuals, or Mitnick is really a loser with a Heart of Gold underneath, but nothing changes the fact that Mitnick is trying to profit from his notoriety. And that's how Uncle Sam views this case.
Knee-jerk libertarians and pissed-off-at-the-world 16 year-olds. Sometimes it's hard to tell who's who here on
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Where are the exploding hit points?
Bah...that's what you get when you cheapen and commercialize a national treasure like D&D...
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If I wanted to spend $10 billion to "help out the rest of humanity", there are loads of charities desperately short of funds that would love a slice of the pie. As an intelligent, taxpaying US citizen, if I want to help people around the world, I'll write my representatives to allocate $10 billion to land mine removal (and believe me, the money is needed). If I wanted to employ some Russian nuclear physicists, I would spend $10 billion to build more particle accelerators and hire those scientists to work with them.
Being altruistic while meaning to be altruistic would be "noble". Being altruistic while trying (and doing a poor job because of it) to build a space station whose raison d'etre is to advance science and knowledge is getting your priorities mixed up. Putting extranationals in space does not help starving children in central Africa, it does not stop the civil conflict in Chechnya, and it does not help Chinese citizens fight repression of political and civil liberties. It's not "noble", "selfless", "far-sighted", or "cooperative" to waste money and effort making the space station international because nothing of substance gets done.
And just as a side topic, there have been nation-states in the past that have put away their self-interest for other causes. Nazi Germany genuinely believed it was doing humanity a favor by perpetuating genocide. The Vatican thought the Crusades was a humanitarian effort, too. Other nation-states have been less successful being "noble". Napoleon III indulged his nation in pursuing the moral authority of God; as a result, he led France in its decline from a superpower to being a sidenote in European affairs, as other nations (particularly Bismarck's Prussia) consistently victimized France and its "noble" worldview. If you want a more recent example of what happens when a nation sidesteps its own interest, see Exhibit A, US intervention in Somalia.
I am not arguing against helping other nations and states. What I am arguing for is for someone to get a head check and make sure that Helping Others and Our Interests coincide.
You speak as if this "culture of personal and national selfishness" is something new or unique to the US. Wake up and smell international politics, buddy. Or better yet, pick up a basic textbook in world history. It has never been and never will be otherwise, at least until fundamental human nature changes (which will be sometime after hell freezes over). That leaves the US with two choices - pretend it's otherwise, or deal with it.
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Past Russian 'expertise' in putting up living quarters was supposed to be tapped as a faster and cheaper way as opposed to just building the module ourselves. Gee, I guess that idea worked.
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...of touchy-feely politics getting in the way of science.
Why does this have to be an international space station? Because some idiots up on the Hill and the State Department thought that it would "foster better international relations" or "develop cooperation between cultures". As if running science experiments or lofting up multiton modules had anything to do with either goal.
What this really points to is that Someone (be it NASA administration, Congress, or the Executive Branch) needs to get their head out of the '70s protest movement. "Make Science Not War" sounds pretty fscking stupid when it's costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in overlapping work and delays.
Cost: Lots of lost money, time, and equipment.
Benefit: Putting in space some extranationals whose countries don't have the resources by themselves to build their own space station.
Is it just me, or is the US getting absolutely zip out of this deal? I mean, by letting these other countries in on the project, do we gain leverage in global trade disputes, the Security Council, strategic arms treaties, or conflict negotiations?
NASA needs to learn a lesson from the corporate world: never outsource for materiel you can produce unless your own resources are tied up elsewhere. The words "faster, better, cheaper" will never be associated with the word "international".
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I love hearing all the self-important people who are talking out of their asses by saying...
Hi, I have no clue how to build a military GPS jammer, or even really how GPS works, but you know, the US is getting cheated out of my hard-earned taxpayer money by getting overcharged for building such a simple device. I guess it must be due to the general imbecility of government workers.
*snicker*
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