Gaining knowledge is usually good. Just like we like to separate general purpose tools from people that misuse them, we need to separate facts from people that twist them for ridiculous claims. For example, evidence that a man existed who believed he was God (or Son of God) around the same times Jesus existed supports the likelihood of Jesus existing, not the likelihood of that guy actually creating miracles or being God.
We don't know what will show up on the mountain and if an ark is there, it gives more credibility to the Old Testaments as historic text. Well, only parts of it. But which parts? Does it mean that when Sampson killed the lion, a beehive was actually in the lion and bees came out? No. Does an ark mean that 2 of every animal were actually on the ark? No. Does it mean god caused the floods to wipe our humans (except for a few)? No. Just because the only theory we have right now for how it got up there is the stories told from the Jewish faith is no reason to believe it.
And on the global floods. No doubt there will be MANY floods around the world. Happens every year. When your city is your world, "world floods" talk abounds. If Kathmandu Valley is the whole world to you and the valley is flooded, then the people that inhabit the place will talk of a global flood. Such an occurance of a devastating flood has happened. Likewise elsewhere around the world. There is no evidence that all those occurances are at the same time with the same cause. That is quite a leap to make.
Please keep the facts in perspective and analyze theories based upon them more critically.
The multiple choices are both the good and bad of GNU/Linux.
From the discussions, it's also evident. You have different distributions and you want and need some standards but then the more parties involved, the more difficult that can be. That's where Microsoft has an advantage.
Reading that, it was worrying more than anything else. GNU/Linux and FOSS can't always play catch-up to Microsoft. But you have all these different groups with their own agendas in GNU/Linux.
You know the saying, "United we stand, divided we fall." There has to be balance between unification and diversity and more importantly, there has to be initiative and goals from that unified group. I know some have tried and it's nice to see attempts at initiatives here. Hopefully, more progress is made.
Thankfully, they're blocking an ISP, not a country.
How the heck is the parent informative instead of redundant or troll? No, I'm not new here, but just wanted to voice to the moderators to fix the other moderators' mistakes.
Right now, we see plenty of stupid trademark disputes because you have to vigorously defend your trademark (even against insignicant little guys). I don't want to see more patent disputes for such reasons. Though more of such may cause more chaos and be the catylyst for major reforms.
I want a better patent system (and improvement regarding intellectual property rights) and I'm willing to go through more bad to get to the good, but I don't know how to get there. Though I know that no change means no progress.
Why wouldn't organized crime be involved in piracy? I'm not talking about the ones file-sharing. I mean, the bootleggers. Sure there are pirated movies we can easily download online, and some of pretty good quality even before the DVDs come out. And those svcds and now even burned dvds are sold on the streets.
There has got to be a lot of money in that. Not only is it sold in the US, but in most nations around the world, the black market is bigger than the legitimate market. Whether people are knowingly invovled in organized crime, or indirectly helping them, I can't imagine organized crime isn't involved.
Now what that has to do with this school or anything else? I have no clue. The "journalist" is juxtaposing information to create the appearance of links that probably don't connect. But we have little clue what the FBI is doing there, except it's supposedly about copyright enforcement. However, due to the nature of dimnishing rights in this country, these are not types of situations where we can just try the FBI and give them the benefit of the doubt. Though I'm not going to lambast them for an action when I don't know what they fully did or why. I will criticize about the sealed warrants and lack of any information (though supposedly that's supposed to be addressed today).
I don't get why someone that's intelligent would reply to such a post. The article mentioned you're sensitive on the "chick hacker" topic, but is it such a reflex to respond to trolls and ignorant people when there are things more worth your time?
Since you talk about this on your webpage, I'll write my opinions here. It's greatly unfortunate the chauvinism in computer science/engineering and the world in general. And while I'm sure that has impact on women entering the field, I think that's minor compared to other cultural factors.
Rates in grad school are probably a little different from undergrad and this is only one case, but let's look at my school. In the CSE department, only 26 out of 146 students are female (18%). Most statistics I've seen hover around 20% (for graduate and undergraduate engineering in general). Here, 65% of the grad students are foreign. While the US men hold at 38%, only 19% of the female are from the US. While China and India "only" account for 53% of the men, they account for 69% of the women. While China and India's percentages of women are still low (31% and 23%, respectively), it's much better than the rest (10%).
So either many women aren't finding this intersting, they find it too difficult, or there are cultural issues involved (or mixtures). So is the government (and society in general) not taking steps we should be? If so, what are they? The same can be said regarding male teachers.
Kids are already being told to fear math and science and find it difficult and boring, what other social factors need to be addressed to change what's being told to the girls? While chauvinism is a factor (and should be addressed just because it's wrong), I think there are many other issues (many of which I don't know) that need to be addressed before we can see any dent in the percentages. I mean, recent statistics (going on memory from 60 Minutes report) show girls getting better grades than boys in high schools and the majority of students at MSU are girls. So it's beyond just stressing education.
Generalities and stereotypes can be used very negatively, but at the same time, they are often indicative of something and they should be studied and learned from. Some believe they already know or don't care, however, too many people consider the issues too sensitive to even discuss. It's generally accepted that physically, top female athletes in many sports cannot compete with the top men. Our physiologies are different enough that men have the advantage and we know enough to explain much of that.
But what are the reasons for male to female ratios in top chess players and other mental/educational disciplines? Why do certain racial and ethnic groups score much higher than others in SAT and other standardized tests? How come Jews around the world (with a smaller population than my home country of Nepal, around 13 million to 26 million) hold more wealth, influence and power despite being persecuted almost everywhere they go?
However, the main people really "thinking" about these issues are male chauvinists, extreme feminists, racist bigots and anti-semitists/Islamic fundamentalists. That's not a good sign...
Anyhow, good job in the interview and I thought your answers were well said. Good luck on improving computer security and raising awareness of security. And good luck on changing the atmosphere of chauvinism (of course I'll do my part).
How are they getting a free ride? What does that mean? Didn't people criticize them for their mistakes? Aren't people still getting on them about those past mistakes? With what kind of frequency do those mistakes occur in "traditional" media sources versus online ones? Even if online, I still think NY Times is more realiable then web only sources.
Also, what people seem not to be discussing is the how fact and opinion are separate. That by itself is an obvious statement, but the news sources should always be accurate on "facts". How they wish to slant it is another issue. But they should strive for accuracy in anything they pass off as fact and not deceive by telling half truths or not informing us it's a rumor.
Partly why I like The Register. They always tell their opinions, but we know what it is. And (as far as I know), what they report to be facts usually is true. I wouldn't care if Fox was baised. The fact they purport to be "fair and balanced" and that they were wrong on many of their "facts" during the Iraq war made me not watch them any more.
This is something I never understood. Why can't an artist (who owns copyright to their work) give distribution rights to multiple companies? Then, we wouldn't even have a monopoly on the single work either. those companies could charge whatever they want, but would have to compete with each other (on service, quality, niceties and prices).
Yeah, I should expect this from them. But it's still disgusting to read about nonetheless.
I used to download music way back. but after awhile, I guess I finally started to do what I thought was right by not cheating the artists. Which meant not downloading any music illegally, but I stopped buying music too (partly also cuz I'm poor). I still think it's unethical to download knowing the artists aren't being compensated, but articles like this sure doesn't make me feel bad when others pirate (except for the fact that they get to listen to music they want, while I don't). Living by your principles ain't easy... And when I read articles where the execs want to raise prices some more to gouge prices, I start to wonder whether it's worth it and whether they unethical behavior for so long relinquishes their rights (in my eye) to the music and whether it's okay for me to download again...
Evolution is short-sighted. Natural selection has no goal, but the product (living organism) is something that "works" for the environment. And works means able to reproduce life.
If being fundamentalist causes more children (which it seems today) and they spread their genes, then in terms of natural selection, it's a better gene (though obviously, there is a great interdependence between nature and nurture, single genes affecting multiple characteristics and multiple genes combining to influence one).
"Better" is a loaded term and your understanding is inappropriate with evolution. I hate the phrase "survival of the fittest" because so many have failed to understand that actually you're defining "fittest" as those who survive. And since natural selection is short-sighted, there are cases where you reach a local optima and need something radical to occur to put "evolution on the right path". And that phrase there is biased upon your values and expectations of what should occur (assuming intelligence is good and to be always desired versus maybe limited intelligence and following with society).
Also, evolution could be reactionary to the environment. As diseases spread, those resistent to some forms will likely survive. HIV is tearing apart parts of Africa and it's likely that there will be some that are resistent to various strands of HIV. They're only "better" humans because of the conditions of today, though it's likely that by gaining immunity, they could be losing some other characteristic. That's life.
I agree. It's sad how often people (of course myself at times) just follow the group without realizing it.
I don't have much money so I listen to shoutcast. But I'll assume I'll eventually have money, so let's weigh the options (and actually think about it rather than be easily swayed by the group). I actually am not sure what all the pros and cons are.
First, let's assume I only spend $10 a month. Now, that means I could buy only one album a month or listen to whatever song I wanted for that month. Since I dont have any collection, I like the idea of the latter. But, if I continually do this for a while, then I will have a collection and won't be restricted. Assuming I spend $10 a month for a year, and assuming I buy albums occasionally, that's about 150 songs or about 9 hours of music. After a few years, I will be able to listen to a wider collection AND will not have to worry about losing rights to listen to the music. That protection and the idea of ownership has value but how much it means to be, I'm not sure yet.
For $120, I could also listen to any song they offered for the entire year. That collection is well over 9 hours. I definitely like that idea. But if I can't buy or listen to it on linux, that's a no-go. If I know I can afford $120 a year, (which is three months of broadband in most places) then why wouldn't I want to do this? I mean, in some places, $10 gets you one movie which you watch for 2 hours and can't keep. I can't imagine the price point is $10/month. Maybe $20. At which point, you wonder how much it's worth to continue to pay to rent the catalog of music.
But at $10 per month, I don't see why it's not a sure thing. I mean, who the hell says it's exclusive? I mean, how the heck am I supposed to know which artists I like? After grad school and assuming I make some decent money, then surely $10/month seems reasonable to just to be able to listen to any of their songs (assuming a very large catalog) whenever I wanted and then after listening, use that information to decide which songs to buy to keep. I mean, they're offering more choices (not exclusive subscription or pay-to-own license to song) and how can be considered a bad thing?
I just don't get the high number of negative posts moderated highly. I wonder if others that disagree don't feel like making their thoughts heard because it wouldn't be worth it?
To a degree, I hate the subscription model and not owning but just renting things. But if they can make a pricepoint that works, then I'm all for it. I mean, people say that Apple knew that DRM would be broken so they made the rules lax enough that incentive was low to break it. I think a pricepoint at which people will continue to use the service does the same thing. There will always be hackers and crackers, but if you're going to keep paying $10/month, then why bother?
At the right pricepoint, I think many people will approve of this. However, we'll see how wise the record companies will be about this. Apple pricing the iPod-mini at $250 was a brilliant business decision because of prices relative to their competitors, relative to their other iPod offerings and it being their cheapest but high enough to maximize profits. And even better, it makes some people say, well, if that's $250, I might as well spend ANOTHER $50 and get their iPod.
Here, if the companies don't set the right prices, then people will just prefer iTunes or continue to file-share music. So I guess the success depends upon which method makes the RIAA more money by how they set their license agreements with those companies that offer the services. Worst thing about that is that RIAA will continue their cartel and make money. And I don't have a problem with companies making money, but that cartel and price-fixing and all that other stuff does get to me so I guess when they make music cheap and maybe change their ways, then I'll support them. I'm not holding my breath though...
William Henry Gates III is the greatest capitalist tactician since John D. Rockefeller. I do not see that as necessarily positive. But, damn, he can sure play the game.
To me, that means that Microsoft must have a strategy for if/when Open Source becomes the norm. Though it might be 5-10 years down the line, and Microsoft battling every step of the way, if/when Open Source Software becomes the norm, they must have plans to adjust their business. It'll be interesting to see how things play out...
My point was that what "multi-user" means to a user has changed or varies in different circumstances. Definitions change or expand all the time. Hell, OS is hard enough to define since it's beyond kernel but not to the point different distributions are different OSes.
While you are right technically and theoretically, practically, defining MS Windows as "multiuser" doesn't mean much if two people can't use it simultaneously. And if a particular version of Windows can do it while mine can't, then that doesn't have much significance to me either.
I don't know if they've fixed it, but one thing I hated was when using Remote Desktop Connection with XP (much better than VNC for windows) it would do a "switch user" but basically log off the person using the computer. So while my brother was logged on to my computer, if I connected remotely from the comptuer lab, he wouldn't be able to use the computer until I logged off.
So while one can say it's multi-user, that certainly wasn't multi-user for me. And I don't know if Terminal services is provides on Windows XP Home or other methods for supporting multiple users simultaneously. The feature is significant enough that it's a deal breaker in terms of whether I truely call it "multi-user system".
While on Linux, assuming XDMCP is enabled, even if my brother is using the computer, I can remotely log in and get a full graphical user interface. Even without XDMCP, you can still remotely log in and then display back to the remote computer the applications. And if you mainly use Xvnc, you don't have to ever log out, just close the window.
I don't know if MS Windows is there yet, or you need to buy special software to do that. Maybe I'm just ignorant of how to use features it already came with, but to me, it's not there yet on multi-user support.
RIAA has not sued a single person just for downloading. They have rights to distribution. Downloading from allofmp3.com or others is not distributing so we're not commiting copyright infringement. Those companies also have rights to distribute so it's not like you're aiding a criminal or shady company.
The problem is, different associations have rights in different "real world" locations, while no such boundaries are enforced on the Internet. Since there are no laws regulating such online purchases, it's not illegal. If more people purchased from these companies and not iTMS or Napster and their ilk then I wouldn't be surprised if the RIAA and others tried to make it illegal or somehow tried to charge levies from purchases abroad. But until that time, I can't see how it's illegal.
The question of morality (how much are you actually supporting the artists?) is another issue entirely and is the only thing holding me back. Right now, I'm content listening to magnatunes, virgin radio and other online music stations.
DISCLAIMER: Obviously, I'm not a lawyer like most here. Just remarking from what I read and what makes sense to me.
You are not normal! Graduating top %1 in your class should tell you that you're not normal.
Most students are not smart as you, they do not pick up things fast as you, they cannot solve problems as fast as you, again, you are not normal.
Most students have to work much harder to learn the same amount of information you learn. They have to spend more time to understand things you pick up easily. They have to be given more work to see the same number of perspectives you think about on your own.
For those students, they need more work (but properly structured) and need to make up deficiency with effort and dedication. It appears (for whatever reasons) that many international students are willing to do the extra work necessary and US students are not.
The top students in the US are not in danger of not finding jobs. But the average students are. They're competing with the average international student who might be a harder worker, AND they're competing with above average and top level students and workers.
At Michigan State, we have a game development organization (Spartasoft) that helps those that want to get into the game industry. People can find others that share interests to work on projects, we have tutorials (3D Studio Max, DirectX) and even get guest speakers (from Microsoft, Image Space (who did Nascar Thunder and F1 for EA), etc). We've had several people graduate and go on to work in the industry as well as get internships. Last year, we had two projects nominated in the Independent Games Festival Student showcase.
The important thing though is that the people that succeed from here are passionate and work extremely hard on their projects. So I don't think guild halls are necessary. But effort and dedication is and that'll carry you regardless of where you go to study.
Note: That's just my personal opinion. I'm just a graduate student and not in the game industry.
I created a php page that I run on localhost apache server. Here is a sample of what the page looks like (the actual appointments, names, birthdays, etc have been changed). It allows me to write what I have to do and save it. Also, what I write in the appointment textbox is read in by the calendar part so the dates are underlined and a tooltip tells me what I have to do (needed when the texbox is full since I don't like to delete record of what I've done either).
I tend to forget to stay organized, so I do it for a while and then have lapses. On MS Windows, I have this as my desktop as well with Active Desktop. On GNU/Linux, I don't know how to do that so it's just my homepage on my browsers. (I might try to do it with superkaramba.) Though, this can't motivate me to stay organized, the constant reminder has been helpful for me.
on a side note, the page looks much better in Mozilla, Opera and MSIE than Konqueror. KHTML doesn't seem to be able to have backgrounds on textboxes, and there are other issues with it in terms of aesthetics.
I will gladly give you a thousand if I can continue to have access to YOUR money.
Microsoft is illegally using their monopoly position to make more money and attempting to leverage their monopolies to create monopolies other markets. Percentagewise and considering how much money they will continue to have in the bank, this is not a significant punishment. Especially since this is not the first time they've done this. They continually acted this way and never has a fine or punishment been sufficient to make them change their behavior. The EU$500 question is, will this be enough.
eEye Digital Security supposedly found the flaw last wednesday. Did they publish the information last wednesday after giving Internet Security Systems plenty of time to fix it? Or did they release it without ample time? If the former, how much more liable would ISS be? If the latter, wouldn't that be irresponsible?
wait, nevermind.. The ISS download site says they released the patch on the 9th. So I guess people had about a week to update the firewall?
assuming specific domains, AI could possibly answer questions on prices, features and other things. Like instead of a FAQ, an AI could possibly have a database of answers and other information and based upon questions (and the line of questioning) find answers and offer suggestions. But there would be enough quirks that it'd be more of a "feature" of any system.
Obviously, research in this field is occuring with sponsors like IBM. An AI that does true dialog. But I assume at least 5-10 years for websites to have good systems. And good is a relative term because if people know its an AI, then people will probably structure their questions in a way to be effective.
Re:Why are highly rated comments always sarcastic?
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Junkie Loves His Spam
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· Score: 1
Because about everyone on slashdot already knows that there are idiots clicking and buying these things. Whether they're more idiotic than the average person or less is irrelevant, because out of frustration, I call them idiotic. To many here, we joke about this as a recourse. What can we do about them? Educate? No. Legislate? No. So though the topic of spam pains us, we decide to joke about it because it feels better.
Surely some are also trying to find ways to deal with the problem (filters, challenge system, etc). But most cannot do much more. Some may try to email him or snail mail or whatever. Some might be violent. But for most here, the best is just to make most of this horrid situation we have.
Also, in terms of dealing with problem of spam, I wonder how much incremental fixes are damaging the situation. I mean, consider you badly injure yourself but don't know it. Maybe something internal and you can't feel it yet. When you start to feel it, it's misdiagnosed and you take pills that slowly treat the pain, but not cure the problem. And the problem worsens but only at an incremental level that increasing doses of your pills handle. You never realize how severe the problem is.
I would wonder if all the spam filters at the bottom levels and everywhere just stopped, what people would say. I wonder if THEN people would realize how much of a problem it really is. Sure, filtering makes email usable and so forth. But it also hides the real issues that need to be dealt with from the normal people. Their ignorance of the issues do matter. Public outrage makes a big difference and while there is no love for spam, there isn't a level of public outrage which demands action. A level where most ISPs are forced to close open relays, check for authentication, or other methods that are already there and can help, but aren't being done due to laziness or whatever.
But that's another what if. It won't happen and instead we'll continue to slowly treat this problem but there won't be enough motivation to cure it.
And me, instead of laughing at the guy or at this state of things, I'll continue to lament how so many people being apathetic causes so many problems and how this knowledge in itself can spur more apathy and cause a vicious cycle.
Slashdot Mirror
Gaining knowledge is usually good. Just like we like to separate general purpose tools from people that misuse them, we need to separate facts from people that twist them for ridiculous claims. For example, evidence that a man existed who believed he was God (or Son of God) around the same times Jesus existed supports the likelihood of Jesus existing, not the likelihood of that guy actually creating miracles or being God.
We don't know what will show up on the mountain and if an ark is there, it gives more credibility to the Old Testaments as historic text. Well, only parts of it. But which parts? Does it mean that when Sampson killed the lion, a beehive was actually in the lion and bees came out? No. Does an ark mean that 2 of every animal were actually on the ark? No. Does it mean god caused the floods to wipe our humans (except for a few)? No. Just because the only theory we have right now for how it got up there is the stories told from the Jewish faith is no reason to believe it.
And on the global floods. No doubt there will be MANY floods around the world. Happens every year. When your city is your world, "world floods" talk abounds. If Kathmandu Valley is the whole world to you and the valley is flooded, then the people that inhabit the place will talk of a global flood. Such an occurance of a devastating flood has happened. Likewise elsewhere around the world. There is no evidence that all those occurances are at the same time with the same cause. That is quite a leap to make.
Please keep the facts in perspective and analyze theories based upon them more critically.
The multiple choices are both the good and bad of GNU/Linux.
From the discussions, it's also evident. You have different distributions and you want and need some standards but then the more parties involved, the more difficult that can be. That's where Microsoft has an advantage.
Reading that, it was worrying more than anything else. GNU/Linux and FOSS can't always play catch-up to Microsoft. But you have all these different groups with their own agendas in GNU/Linux.
You know the saying, "United we stand, divided we fall." There has to be balance between unification and diversity and more importantly, there has to be initiative and goals from that unified group. I know some have tried and it's nice to see attempts at initiatives here. Hopefully, more progress is made.
Thankfully, they're blocking an ISP, not a country.
How the heck is the parent informative instead of redundant or troll? No, I'm not new here, but just wanted to voice to the moderators to fix the other moderators' mistakes.
Right now, we see plenty of stupid trademark disputes because you have to vigorously defend your trademark (even against insignicant little guys). I don't want to see more patent disputes for such reasons. Though more of such may cause more chaos and be the catylyst for major reforms.
I want a better patent system (and improvement regarding intellectual property rights) and I'm willing to go through more bad to get to the good, but I don't know how to get there. Though I know that no change means no progress.
Why wouldn't organized crime be involved in piracy? I'm not talking about the ones file-sharing. I mean, the bootleggers. Sure there are pirated movies we can easily download online, and some of pretty good quality even before the DVDs come out. And those svcds and now even burned dvds are sold on the streets.
There has got to be a lot of money in that. Not only is it sold in the US, but in most nations around the world, the black market is bigger than the legitimate market. Whether people are knowingly invovled in organized crime, or indirectly helping them, I can't imagine organized crime isn't involved.
Now what that has to do with this school or anything else? I have no clue. The "journalist" is juxtaposing information to create the appearance of links that probably don't connect. But we have little clue what the FBI is doing there, except it's supposedly about copyright enforcement. However, due to the nature of dimnishing rights in this country, these are not types of situations where we can just try the FBI and give them the benefit of the doubt. Though I'm not going to lambast them for an action when I don't know what they fully did or why. I will criticize about the sealed warrants and lack of any information (though supposedly that's supposed to be addressed today).
I don't get why someone that's intelligent would reply to such a post. The article mentioned you're sensitive on the "chick hacker" topic, but is it such a reflex to respond to trolls and ignorant people when there are things more worth your time?
Since you talk about this on your webpage, I'll write my opinions here. It's greatly unfortunate the chauvinism in computer science/engineering and the world in general. And while I'm sure that has impact on women entering the field, I think that's minor compared to other cultural factors.
Rates in grad school are probably a little different from undergrad and this is only one case, but let's look at my school. In the CSE department, only 26 out of 146 students are female (18%). Most statistics I've seen hover around 20% (for graduate and undergraduate engineering in general). Here, 65% of the grad students are foreign. While the US men hold at 38%, only 19% of the female are from the US. While China and India "only" account for 53% of the men, they account for 69% of the women. While China and India's percentages of women are still low (31% and 23%, respectively), it's much better than the rest (10%).
So either many women aren't finding this intersting, they find it too difficult, or there are cultural issues involved (or mixtures). So is the government (and society in general) not taking steps we should be? If so, what are they? The same can be said regarding male teachers.
Kids are already being told to fear math and science and find it difficult and boring, what other social factors need to be addressed to change what's being told to the girls? While chauvinism is a factor (and should be addressed just because it's wrong), I think there are many other issues (many of which I don't know) that need to be addressed before we can see any dent in the percentages. I mean, recent statistics (going on memory from 60 Minutes report) show girls getting better grades than boys in high schools and the majority of students at MSU are girls. So it's beyond just stressing education.
Generalities and stereotypes can be used very negatively, but at the same time, they are often indicative of something and they should be studied and learned from. Some believe they already know or don't care, however, too many people consider the issues too sensitive to even discuss. It's generally accepted that physically, top female athletes in many sports cannot compete with the top men. Our physiologies are different enough that men have the advantage and we know enough to explain much of that.
But what are the reasons for male to female ratios in top chess players and other mental/educational disciplines? Why do certain racial and ethnic groups score much higher than others in SAT and other standardized tests? How come Jews around the world (with a smaller population than my home country of Nepal, around 13 million to 26 million) hold more wealth, influence and power despite being persecuted almost everywhere they go?
However, the main people really "thinking" about these issues are male chauvinists, extreme feminists, racist bigots and anti-semitists/Islamic fundamentalists. That's not a good sign...
Anyhow, good job in the interview and I thought your answers were well said. Good luck on improving computer security and raising awareness of security. And good luck on changing the atmosphere of chauvinism (of course I'll do my part).
How are they getting a free ride? What does that mean? Didn't people criticize them for their mistakes? Aren't people still getting on them about those past mistakes? With what kind of frequency do those mistakes occur in "traditional" media sources versus online ones? Even if online, I still think NY Times is more realiable then web only sources.
Also, what people seem not to be discussing is the how fact and opinion are separate. That by itself is an obvious statement, but the news sources should always be accurate on "facts". How they wish to slant it is another issue. But they should strive for accuracy in anything they pass off as fact and not deceive by telling half truths or not informing us it's a rumor.
Partly why I like The Register. They always tell their opinions, but we know what it is. And (as far as I know), what they report to be facts usually is true. I wouldn't care if Fox was baised. The fact they purport to be "fair and balanced" and that they were wrong on many of their "facts" during the Iraq war made me not watch them any more.
The point is not to stick it to Apple or "the Man", but remove DRM from the music. What is so hard to understand about that?
This is something I never understood. Why can't an artist (who owns copyright to their work) give distribution rights to multiple companies? Then, we wouldn't even have a monopoly on the single work either. those companies could charge whatever they want, but would have to compete with each other (on service, quality, niceties and prices).
Yeah, I should expect this from them. But it's still disgusting to read about nonetheless.
I used to download music way back. but after awhile, I guess I finally started to do what I thought was right by not cheating the artists. Which meant not downloading any music illegally, but I stopped buying music too (partly also cuz I'm poor). I still think it's unethical to download knowing the artists aren't being compensated, but articles like this sure doesn't make me feel bad when others pirate (except for the fact that they get to listen to music they want, while I don't). Living by your principles ain't easy... And when I read articles where the execs want to raise prices some more to gouge prices, I start to wonder whether it's worth it and whether they unethical behavior for so long relinquishes their rights (in my eye) to the music and whether it's okay for me to download again...
Evolution is short-sighted. Natural selection has no goal, but the product (living organism) is something that "works" for the environment. And works means able to reproduce life.
If being fundamentalist causes more children (which it seems today) and they spread their genes, then in terms of natural selection, it's a better gene (though obviously, there is a great interdependence between nature and nurture, single genes affecting multiple characteristics and multiple genes combining to influence one).
"Better" is a loaded term and your understanding is inappropriate with evolution. I hate the phrase "survival of the fittest" because so many have failed to understand that actually you're defining "fittest" as those who survive. And since natural selection is short-sighted, there are cases where you reach a local optima and need something radical to occur to put "evolution on the right path". And that phrase there is biased upon your values and expectations of what should occur (assuming intelligence is good and to be always desired versus maybe limited intelligence and following with society).
Also, evolution could be reactionary to the environment. As diseases spread, those resistent to some forms will likely survive. HIV is tearing apart parts of Africa and it's likely that there will be some that are resistent to various strands of HIV. They're only "better" humans because of the conditions of today, though it's likely that by gaining immunity, they could be losing some other characteristic. That's life.
I agree. It's sad how often people (of course myself at times) just follow the group without realizing it.
I don't have much money so I listen to shoutcast. But I'll assume I'll eventually have money, so let's weigh the options (and actually think about it rather than be easily swayed by the group). I actually am not sure what all the pros and cons are.
First, let's assume I only spend $10 a month. Now, that means I could buy only one album a month or listen to whatever song I wanted for that month. Since I dont have any collection, I like the idea of the latter. But, if I continually do this for a while, then I will have a collection and won't be restricted. Assuming I spend $10 a month for a year, and assuming I buy albums occasionally, that's about 150 songs or about 9 hours of music. After a few years, I will be able to listen to a wider collection AND will not have to worry about losing rights to listen to the music. That protection and the idea of ownership has value but how much it means to be, I'm not sure yet.
For $120, I could also listen to any song they offered for the entire year. That collection is well over 9 hours. I definitely like that idea. But if I can't buy or listen to it on linux, that's a no-go. If I know I can afford $120 a year, (which is three months of broadband in most places) then why wouldn't I want to do this? I mean, in some places, $10 gets you one movie which you watch for 2 hours and can't keep. I can't imagine the price point is $10/month. Maybe $20. At which point, you wonder how much it's worth to continue to pay to rent the catalog of music.
But at $10 per month, I don't see why it's not a sure thing. I mean, who the hell says it's exclusive? I mean, how the heck am I supposed to know which artists I like? After grad school and assuming I make some decent money, then surely $10/month seems reasonable to just to be able to listen to any of their songs (assuming a very large catalog) whenever I wanted and then after listening, use that information to decide which songs to buy to keep. I mean, they're offering more choices (not exclusive subscription or pay-to-own license to song) and how can be considered a bad thing?
I just don't get the high number of negative posts moderated highly. I wonder if others that disagree don't feel like making their thoughts heard because it wouldn't be worth it?
To a degree, I hate the subscription model and not owning but just renting things. But if they can make a pricepoint that works, then I'm all for it. I mean, people say that Apple knew that DRM would be broken so they made the rules lax enough that incentive was low to break it. I think a pricepoint at which people will continue to use the service does the same thing. There will always be hackers and crackers, but if you're going to keep paying $10/month, then why bother?
At the right pricepoint, I think many people will approve of this. However, we'll see how wise the record companies will be about this. Apple pricing the iPod-mini at $250 was a brilliant business decision because of prices relative to their competitors, relative to their other iPod offerings and it being their cheapest but high enough to maximize profits. And even better, it makes some people say, well, if that's $250, I might as well spend ANOTHER $50 and get their iPod.
Here, if the companies don't set the right prices, then people will just prefer iTunes or continue to file-share music. So I guess the success depends upon which method makes the RIAA more money by how they set their license agreements with those companies that offer the services. Worst thing about that is that RIAA will continue their cartel and make money. And I don't have a problem with companies making money, but that cartel and price-fixing and all that other stuff does get to me so I guess when they make music cheap and maybe change their ways, then I'll support them. I'm not holding my breath though...
To me, that means that Microsoft must have a strategy for if/when Open Source becomes the norm. Though it might be 5-10 years down the line, and Microsoft battling every step of the way, if/when Open Source Software becomes the norm, they must have plans to adjust their business. It'll be interesting to see how things play out...
I understand what you're saying.
My point was that what "multi-user" means to a user has changed or varies in different circumstances. Definitions change or expand all the time. Hell, OS is hard enough to define since it's beyond kernel but not to the point different distributions are different OSes.
While you are right technically and theoretically, practically, defining MS Windows as "multiuser" doesn't mean much if two people can't use it simultaneously. And if a particular version of Windows can do it while mine can't, then that doesn't have much significance to me either.
I don't know if they've fixed it, but one thing I hated was when using Remote Desktop Connection with XP (much better than VNC for windows) it would do a "switch user" but basically log off the person using the computer. So while my brother was logged on to my computer, if I connected remotely from the comptuer lab, he wouldn't be able to use the computer until I logged off.
So while one can say it's multi-user, that certainly wasn't multi-user for me. And I don't know if Terminal services is provides on Windows XP Home or other methods for supporting multiple users simultaneously. The feature is significant enough that it's a deal breaker in terms of whether I truely call it "multi-user system".
While on Linux, assuming XDMCP is enabled, even if my brother is using the computer, I can remotely log in and get a full graphical user interface. Even without XDMCP, you can still remotely log in and then display back to the remote computer the applications. And if you mainly use Xvnc, you don't have to ever log out, just close the window.
I don't know if MS Windows is there yet, or you need to buy special software to do that. Maybe I'm just ignorant of how to use features it already came with, but to me, it's not there yet on multi-user support.
RIAA has not sued a single person just for downloading. They have rights to distribution. Downloading from allofmp3.com or others is not distributing so we're not commiting copyright infringement. Those companies also have rights to distribute so it's not like you're aiding a criminal or shady company.
The problem is, different associations have rights in different "real world" locations, while no such boundaries are enforced on the Internet. Since there are no laws regulating such online purchases, it's not illegal. If more people purchased from these companies and not iTMS or Napster and their ilk then I wouldn't be surprised if the RIAA and others tried to make it illegal or somehow tried to charge levies from purchases abroad. But until that time, I can't see how it's illegal.
The question of morality (how much are you actually supporting the artists?) is another issue entirely and is the only thing holding me back. Right now, I'm content listening to magnatunes, virgin radio and other online music stations.
DISCLAIMER: Obviously, I'm not a lawyer like most here. Just remarking from what I read and what makes sense to me.
You are not normal! Graduating top %1 in your class should tell you that you're not normal.
Most students are not smart as you, they do not pick up things fast as you, they cannot solve problems as fast as you, again, you are not normal.
Most students have to work much harder to learn the same amount of information you learn. They have to spend more time to understand things you pick up easily. They have to be given more work to see the same number of perspectives you think about on your own.
For those students, they need more work (but properly structured) and need to make up deficiency with effort and dedication. It appears (for whatever reasons) that many international students are willing to do the extra work necessary and US students are not.
The top students in the US are not in danger of not finding jobs. But the average students are. They're competing with the average international student who might be a harder worker, AND they're competing with above average and top level students and workers.
At Michigan State, we have a game development organization (Spartasoft) that helps those that want to get into the game industry. People can find others that share interests to work on projects, we have tutorials (3D Studio Max, DirectX) and even get guest speakers (from Microsoft, Image Space (who did Nascar Thunder and F1 for EA), etc). We've had several people graduate and go on to work in the industry as well as get internships. Last year, we had two projects nominated in the Independent Games Festival Student showcase.
The important thing though is that the people that succeed from here are passionate and work extremely hard on their projects. So I don't think guild halls are necessary. But effort and dedication is and that'll carry you regardless of where you go to study.
Note: That's just my personal opinion. I'm just a graduate student and not in the game industry.
I created a php page that I run on localhost apache server. Here is a sample of what the page looks like (the actual appointments, names, birthdays, etc have been changed). It allows me to write what I have to do and save it. Also, what I write in the appointment textbox is read in by the calendar part so the dates are underlined and a tooltip tells me what I have to do (needed when the texbox is full since I don't like to delete record of what I've done either).
I tend to forget to stay organized, so I do it for a while and then have lapses. On MS Windows, I have this as my desktop as well with Active Desktop. On GNU/Linux, I don't know how to do that so it's just my homepage on my browsers. (I might try to do it with superkaramba.) Though, this can't motivate me to stay organized, the constant reminder has been helpful for me.
on a side note, the page looks much better in Mozilla, Opera and MSIE than Konqueror. KHTML doesn't seem to be able to have backgrounds on textboxes, and there are other issues with it in terms of aesthetics.
I will gladly give you a thousand if I can continue to have access to YOUR money.
Microsoft is illegally using their monopoly position to make more money and attempting to leverage their monopolies to create monopolies other markets. Percentagewise and considering how much money they will continue to have in the bank, this is not a significant punishment. Especially since this is not the first time they've done this. They continually acted this way and never has a fine or punishment been sufficient to make them change their behavior. The EU$500 question is, will this be enough.
I doubt it.
eEye Digital Security supposedly found the flaw last wednesday. Did they publish the information last wednesday after giving Internet Security Systems plenty of time to fix it? Or did they release it without ample time? If the former, how much more liable would ISS be? If the latter, wouldn't that be irresponsible?
wait, nevermind.. The ISS download site says they released the patch on the 9th. So I guess people had about a week to update the firewall?
assuming specific domains, AI could possibly answer questions on prices, features and other things. Like instead of a FAQ, an AI could possibly have a database of answers and other information and based upon questions (and the line of questioning) find answers and offer suggestions. But there would be enough quirks that it'd be more of a "feature" of any system.
Obviously, research in this field is occuring with sponsors like IBM. An AI that does true dialog. But I assume at least 5-10 years for websites to have good systems. And good is a relative term because if people know its an AI, then people will probably structure their questions in a way to be effective.
reading? I'm just looking for the damn pictures!
Because about everyone on slashdot already knows that there are idiots clicking and buying these things. Whether they're more idiotic than the average person or less is irrelevant, because out of frustration, I call them idiotic. To many here, we joke about this as a recourse. What can we do about them? Educate? No. Legislate? No. So though the topic of spam pains us, we decide to joke about it because it feels better.
Surely some are also trying to find ways to deal with the problem (filters, challenge system, etc). But most cannot do much more. Some may try to email him or snail mail or whatever. Some might be violent. But for most here, the best is just to make most of this horrid situation we have.
Also, in terms of dealing with problem of spam, I wonder how much incremental fixes are damaging the situation. I mean, consider you badly injure yourself but don't know it. Maybe something internal and you can't feel it yet. When you start to feel it, it's misdiagnosed and you take pills that slowly treat the pain, but not cure the problem. And the problem worsens but only at an incremental level that increasing doses of your pills handle. You never realize how severe the problem is.
I would wonder if all the spam filters at the bottom levels and everywhere just stopped, what people would say. I wonder if THEN people would realize how much of a problem it really is. Sure, filtering makes email usable and so forth. But it also hides the real issues that need to be dealt with from the normal people. Their ignorance of the issues do matter. Public outrage makes a big difference and while there is no love for spam, there isn't a level of public outrage which demands action. A level where most ISPs are forced to close open relays, check for authentication, or other methods that are already there and can help, but aren't being done due to laziness or whatever.
But that's another what if. It won't happen and instead we'll continue to slowly treat this problem but there won't be enough motivation to cure it.
And me, instead of laughing at the guy or at this state of things, I'll continue to lament how so many people being apathetic causes so many problems and how this knowledge in itself can spur more apathy and cause a vicious cycle.
These guys sold email addresses. Whom did they sell them to? Do they have records? Can we find that out? Are they selling to spammers directly?
Has anyone set up a website supposedly selling what they do and see what sorts of companies respond?
Would these guys sue for copyright infringement if another company bought a CD of email addresses and sold them for a lesser price in mass quantity?