I appreciate Somerville's (apparently) noble motivations and Odeon's non-compatibility is certainly a problem, but how can you argue with their logic?
People are essentially misled into giving personal info and, since Somerville is using Odeon's marks, how could they think otherwise?
Somerville is well-intentioned but completely in the wrong here. Corporations must act this way to protect themselves and I believe they're well within their rights here.
Couldn't Somerville have found another way to provide the listings without the "cloning" approach? Maybe even a protest site that would drive Odeon to comply?
And, instead of looking mean-spirited to those (most people) who not understand corporate liabilities, etc., couldn't Odeon have just gotten the damn thing done right on their own?
Sheesh, what a lot of wasted angst on all sides.
In some ways, this is similar those situations where unbidden third parties submit ideas or scripts or spec ads to large companies and get sore because the company won't even read them. But the company is just protecting itself from future lawsuits when, even though they come up with an idea themselves, a bunch of knuckle-heads pipe up with "hey. I gave them that idea!"
This man deserves some kind of geek homage. His picture (which I could not readily google up but would love to see) belongs on a Slashdot category icon. To "wardak" should be the expression to replace "jerry rig." If Futurama were still on, there would need to be a character named "Sediq." If we can invoke Kent Brockman here, we can honor this noble man.
I for one welcome our new clever, semi-literate Afghan overlord.
Re:Going the way of the dinosaurs
on
Field Day 2004
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Cheer up. I believe at least some of the spirit of HAM radio lives in the heart of every Linksys WiFi router hacker who is trying to tweak maximum performance out of a wireless mesh network or clambering around on the roof to aim a yaggi antenna at an AP across town.
Voices talking or packets flying, it's still magical to pull stuff out of the thin air and today's WiFi geek gazing at his Kismet data is like yesterday's HAM operator putting push-pins in a map on the wall.
Here it is straight from the Linksys help page in the router's web interface:
"Remote Management
This feature allows you to manage your Router from a remote location, via the Internet. To disable this feature, keep the default setting, Disable. To enable this feature, select Enable, and use the specified port (default is 8080) on your PC to remotely manage the Router. You must also change the Router's default password to one of your own, if you haven already. A unique password will increase security.
To remotely manage the Router, enter http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8080 (the x's represent the Router's Internet IP address, and 8080 represents the specified port) in your web browser's Address field. You will be asked for the Router's password. After successfully entering the password, you will be able to access the Router's web-based utility.
Note: If the Remote Management feature is enabled, anyone who knows the Router's Internet IP address and password will be able to alter the Router's settings."
Last month, I got hammered for taking a skeptical position about MS' attitude and motivations. What bothered me at the time was the disingenuous wording of their original announcement (not the act itself) wherein they professed concern only for the pirate users' safety.
The problem MS faces is that the reputation of their OS is gradually eroding with virus after virus and a lot of this comes from those rouge boxes that lack the securtiy patches. This puts MS in an interesting quandry: help theives or save the OS. Heh.
For all practical purposes, mobiles have already become many people's secondary computer at least. For me at least, the mobile has become my defacto "little black book," primary timepiece, alarm clock, egg timer, to-do list, stock ticker, IM device, etc.
Voice mail on the mobile is actully higher-priority than my e-mail (and spam free for the moment). I think people's overall relationship with their mobiles may even be deeper than with their computers--especially in the world out there beyond slashdot.
Insightful indeed. As long as the form factor remains =, then all increases in capacity are inherently good. Even if you're one of those "I simply don't NEED more space" surrender monkeys, you could at least use the space to save backups of all your vital files so, should your house burn while you're out biking around you'll have a remote backup that survives.
You're absolutely right about my poor wording there, but my point is that they were less paranoid about controlling and protecting all the "bits." Their product was the broader GD experience.
Back in the day when I was into that scene, the energetic collector could amass huge comprehensive collections of the music without spending a dime on CDs and it was actually an amazingly informative scenario that has a lot of similarities with the modern swapping scene. I guess Deadheads were simply more motivated to put up with the technological and temporal inconveniences of tree-trading, snail-mail, cassette tapes (ugh), etc.
The digital revolution has lowered the bar such that fan-community collection and distribution is within everyone's reach.
Personally, I don't think further hobbling of the traditional product will improve their sales. The recording industry needs to wake up and make fundamental changes to their model that:
1. Embraces and promotes the downloading channel (a la iTunes, et al).
2. Finds more ways to diversify and vary the traditional physical product (CDs). Packaging, boxed sets, picture disks, collectables, etc. The music itself has to be just one component of a well-integrated marketing. Every 10th CD will include a certificate for a second free CD!
3. Uses their distribution and marketing clout to create and promote stars--revenues then come from a variety of marketing and event activities (the Grateful Dead made most of their money from touring and even allowed "bootlegging'). The product has to evolve from being bits to being the magic of the music experience (or whatever).
The cat is out of the bag and there's no putting it back in. For better or worse, the ripping and online swapping thing will simply never be defeated. Its kind of like the "bazaar" model of development that ESR speaks of and no matter what the industry does, the "community" will find a way to crack it.
They can either die a slow painful death or evolve. In the new age, the viable product is the "rock star" (or interesting composer or beautiful diva), not the bits they spew. It'll take some work.
Re:i welcome our new ... uh ... wait ...
on
Fix a Troubled Mac
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Who are you that are so wise in the ways of computer science?
So if vegetarianism were to become the norm and these maure-power setups become common, cows would no longer be slaughtered, but still they'd still be raised commercially. For their milk... n' shit.
"that even if someone has pirated copy of Windows, it is more important to keep him safe than it is to be concerned about the revenue issue."
Bullshit. What they really mean is:
"Even if someone has a pirated copy of Windows, we will grudgingly forego the revenue and allow it to be updated because the proliferation of morons with compromised machines further erodes the already declining credibility of our OS. For now."
I also think that one of the benefits Apple has enjoyed since the introduction of OSX is a certain cultural buzz that comes from their association with the *X movement in general. Instead of being a completely proprietary also-ran platform, they are now though of as "Unix under the hood" and they get additional street cred for that--even from people who barely know what that means.
Association and cooperation with the the *X world enhances their positioning as a slightly subversive, cutting edge, forward-looking company and OS.
I think *X is a little like the Seattle grunge-rock scene was vis a vis mainstream rock back in the early 90s and I think that Apple has consistently, through their marketing at least, sought to occupy that kind of space on some level.
To me, it makes sense for Apple to spend more time on this market--even if the case isn't quite there yet in terms of the kind of hard numbers that uaually drive mainstream marketing departments.
I am Photoshop certified and use the app every day in my work. I have also enthusiastically installed and am a sometime user of GIMP (on Mac) and I've gotta say this guy is right on target.
Historical sexism aside, his point was that when we see something hard being done by someone unexpected, we sometimes fail to notice how poorly it's actually being done.
In the OS community, everyone gets so excited about having a "free" (as in beer) app which potentially replaces an expensive commercial app, that we get a bit carried away in our enthusiasm.
Its like the do-it-yourself TiVo's that aren't really anywhere near as convenient or feature rich as the real deal.
GIMP gives us a glimpse of the tremendous potential of Open Source software, but anyone who thinks its "as good as PS," isn't a serious Photoshop user.
Unfortunately, you have been identified as a "niche," sir and as such are not entitled to "have it your way." Your preference(s) will now be discarded from the database. We apologize for the inconvenience and look forward to you future acquiescence.
Please go to area C and wait to be called. Thank you!
When they were introduced, "hard cores" like me and, I think, a lot of the slashdot "community" (yeah, I know), scoffed.
It just shows that what we as wireheads look for in a tech product is not always what the average non-geek consumer wants. For me, the concept of "too much hard drive space" is completely foreign and absurd.
Well, yes. This guy must be a Slashdotter. From the FAQ: Does the car run Windows or Linux?
"It runs linux. The first generation of it had windows installed. There are still many pictures out on the web of the first generation [windows] dashpc. The pictures over at Parallax are a good example. In them you can also see that the LCD was a 10.4". They are very old pictures, please disregard them. I've moved onto better things. There's a reason that everyone is moving to linux."
The people playing this are probably not the types who "have everything" at all. Sadly, as with most things bling, its the people who can least afford it that are drawn in like moths to the flame.
I think it will have to go far beyond the capabilities of mere "placement" though. That's far too labor intensive.
Think of the sheer volume of ad inventory out there now and you can see the magnitude of the loss. And not all products are "placeable" either. I don't think you'll hear a sitcom character talk about how comfortable her Playtex Brand Tampons are (not post-Jackson nipple anyway). What about the local ads? Placement's always been there, but we're looking at a whole new beast. There's a lot of advertising freight to carry out there and its not all cool or pretty. Local ads are not insertable into content.
Nope, its gonna be a box of content on one side and a box of unrelated ads on the other and guess what--they'll filp it around randomly to foil any mask you might devise. It'll be an interesting transformation. Perhaps it will drive DVD sales of "clean" versions.
Sure, these intrusive ads will be unpleasant and everyone will bitch but, like everything else, we'll get used to it and, even if we defiantly claim otherwise, we'll absorb the messages just like we always have.
Slashdot Mirror
I appreciate Somerville's (apparently) noble motivations and Odeon's non-compatibility is certainly a problem, but how can you argue with their logic?
People are essentially misled into giving personal info and, since Somerville is using Odeon's marks, how could they think otherwise?
Somerville is well-intentioned but completely in the wrong here. Corporations must act this way to protect themselves and I believe they're well within their rights here.
Couldn't Somerville have found another way to provide the listings without the "cloning" approach? Maybe even a protest site that would drive Odeon to comply?
And, instead of looking mean-spirited to those (most people) who not understand corporate liabilities, etc., couldn't Odeon have just gotten the damn thing done right on their own?
Sheesh, what a lot of wasted angst on all sides.
In some ways, this is similar those situations where unbidden third parties submit ideas or scripts or spec ads to large companies and get sore because the company won't even read them. But the company is just protecting itself from future lawsuits when, even though they come up with an idea themselves, a bunch of knuckle-heads pipe up with "hey. I gave them that idea!"
OMFG! Do you think I may have pissed them off?
This man deserves some kind of geek homage. His picture (which I could not readily google up but would love to see) belongs on a Slashdot category icon. To "wardak" should be the expression to replace "jerry rig." If Futurama were still on, there would need to be a character named "Sediq." If we can invoke Kent Brockman here, we can honor this noble man.
I for one welcome our new clever, semi-literate Afghan overlord.
Cheer up. I believe at least some of the spirit of HAM radio lives in the heart of every Linksys WiFi router hacker who is trying to tweak maximum performance out of a wireless mesh network or clambering around on the roof to aim a yaggi antenna at an AP across town.
Voices talking or packets flying, it's still magical to pull stuff out of the thin air and today's WiFi geek gazing at his Kismet data is like yesterday's HAM operator putting push-pins in a map on the wall.
Your pursuit of happiness is is referred to as an "unalienable right" of the people in the United States' Declaration of Independence.
Has your happiness been alienated? Hell yes.
For god sakes, someone stop this guy from working his way this far down the thread!
What the poster above me said.
Here it is straight from the Linksys help page in the router's web interface:
"Remote Management
This feature allows you to manage your Router from a remote location, via the Internet. To disable this feature, keep the default setting, Disable. To enable this feature, select Enable, and use the specified port (default is 8080) on your PC to remotely manage the Router. You must also change the Router's default password to one of your own, if you haven already. A unique password will increase security.
To remotely manage the Router, enter http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8080 (the x's represent the Router's Internet IP address, and 8080 represents the specified port) in your web browser's Address field. You will be asked for the Router's password. After successfully entering the password, you will be able to access the Router's web-based utility.
Note: If the Remote Management feature is enabled, anyone who knows the Router's Internet IP address and password will be able to alter the Router's settings."
Last month, I got hammered for taking a skeptical position about MS' attitude and motivations. What bothered me at the time was the disingenuous wording of their original announcement (not the act itself) wherein they professed concern only for the pirate users' safety.
The problem MS faces is that the reputation of their OS is gradually eroding with virus after virus and a lot of this comes from those rouge boxes that lack the securtiy patches. This puts MS in an interesting quandry: help theives or save the OS. Heh.
For all practical purposes, mobiles have already become many people's secondary computer at least. For me at least, the mobile has become my defacto "little black book," primary timepiece, alarm clock, egg timer, to-do list, stock ticker, IM device, etc.
Voice mail on the mobile is actully higher-priority than my e-mail (and spam free for the moment). I think people's overall relationship with their mobiles may even be deeper than with their computers--especially in the world out there beyond slashdot.
Insightful indeed. As long as the form factor remains =, then all increases in capacity are inherently good. Even if you're one of those "I simply don't NEED more space" surrender monkeys, you could at least use the space to save backups of all your vital files so, should your house burn while you're out biking around you'll have a remote backup that survives.
Mo cap is better always.
You're absolutely right about my poor wording there, but my point is that they were less paranoid about controlling and protecting all the "bits." Their product was the broader GD experience.
Back in the day when I was into that scene, the energetic collector could amass huge comprehensive collections of the music without spending a dime on CDs and it was actually an amazingly informative scenario that has a lot of similarities with the modern swapping scene. I guess Deadheads were simply more motivated to put up with the technological and temporal inconveniences of tree-trading, snail-mail, cassette tapes (ugh), etc.
The digital revolution has lowered the bar such that fan-community collection and distribution is within everyone's reach.
Personally, I don't think further hobbling of the traditional product will improve their sales. The recording industry needs to wake up and make fundamental changes to their model that:
1. Embraces and promotes the downloading channel (a la iTunes, et al).
2. Finds more ways to diversify and vary the traditional physical product (CDs). Packaging, boxed sets, picture disks, collectables, etc. The music itself has to be just one component of a well-integrated marketing. Every 10th CD will include a certificate for a second free CD!
3. Uses their distribution and marketing clout to create and promote stars--revenues then come from a variety of marketing and event activities (the Grateful Dead made most of their money from touring and even allowed "bootlegging'). The product has to evolve from being bits to being the magic of the music experience (or whatever).
The cat is out of the bag and there's no putting it back in. For better or worse, the ripping and online swapping thing will simply never be defeated. Its kind of like the "bazaar" model of development that ESR speaks of and no matter what the industry does, the "community" will find a way to crack it.
They can either die a slow painful death or evolve. In the new age, the viable product is the "rock star" (or interesting composer or beautiful diva), not the bits they spew. It'll take some work.
Who are you that are so wise in the ways of computer science?
They're flammable and they originate mere inches from our cell phones.
So if vegetarianism were to become the norm and these maure-power setups become common, cows would no longer be slaughtered, but still they'd still be raised commercially. For their milk... n' shit.
Yes, yes, but its the phrasing that bugs me. "More important to keep him safe" is simply disingenuous.
"that even if someone has pirated copy of Windows, it is more important to keep him safe than it is to be concerned about the revenue issue."
Bullshit. What they really mean is:
"Even if someone has a pirated copy of Windows, we will grudgingly forego the revenue and allow it to be updated because the proliferation of morons with compromised machines further erodes the already declining credibility of our OS. For now."
I agree with you.
I also think that one of the benefits Apple has enjoyed since the introduction of OSX is a certain cultural buzz that comes from their association with the *X movement in general. Instead of being a completely proprietary also-ran platform, they are now though of as "Unix under the hood" and they get additional street cred for that--even from people who barely know what that means.
Association and cooperation with the the *X world enhances their positioning as a slightly subversive, cutting edge, forward-looking company and OS.
I think *X is a little like the Seattle grunge-rock scene was vis a vis mainstream rock back in the early 90s and I think that Apple has consistently, through their marketing at least, sought to occupy that kind of space on some level.
To me, it makes sense for Apple to spend more time on this market--even if the case isn't quite there yet in terms of the kind of hard numbers that uaually drive mainstream marketing departments.
I am Photoshop certified and use the app every day in my work. I have also enthusiastically installed and am a sometime user of GIMP (on Mac) and I've gotta say this guy is right on target.
Enthusiasm for the GIMP reminds me of Samuel Johnson's famous comments on women preaching.
Historical sexism aside, his point was that when we see something hard being done by someone unexpected, we sometimes fail to notice how poorly it's actually being done.
In the OS community, everyone gets so excited about having a "free" (as in beer) app which potentially replaces an expensive commercial app, that we get a bit carried away in our enthusiasm.
Its like the do-it-yourself TiVo's that aren't really anywhere near as convenient or feature rich as the real deal.
GIMP gives us a glimpse of the tremendous potential of Open Source software, but anyone who thinks its "as good as PS," isn't a serious Photoshop user.
Dear Ms(r). formats:
Unfortunately, you have been identified as a "niche," sir and as such are not entitled to "have it your way." Your preference(s) will now be discarded from the database. We apologize for the inconvenience and look forward to you future acquiescence.
Please go to area C and wait to be called. Thank you!
cd8667wertwohf-00
When they were introduced, "hard cores" like me and, I think, a lot of the slashdot "community" (yeah, I know), scoffed.
It just shows that what we as wireheads look for in a tech product is not always what the average non-geek consumer wants. For me, the concept of "too much hard drive space" is completely foreign and absurd.
Well, yes. This guy must be a Slashdotter. From the FAQ:
Does the car run Windows or Linux?
"It runs linux. The first generation of it had windows installed. There are still many pictures out on the web of the first generation [windows] dashpc. The pictures over at Parallax are a good example. In them you can also see that the LCD was a 10.4". They are very old pictures, please disregard them. I've moved onto better things. There's a reason that everyone is moving to linux."
The people playing this are probably not the types who "have everything" at all. Sadly, as with most things bling, its the people who can least afford it that are drawn in like moths to the flame.
This haunting bit of unintentional free verse is directly from her site:
She is native here and literate in issues of atom.
There are bad places where no one goes.
I think it will have to go far beyond the capabilities of mere "placement" though. That's far too labor intensive.
Think of the sheer volume of ad inventory out there now and you can see the magnitude of the loss. And not all products are "placeable" either. I don't think you'll hear a sitcom character talk about how comfortable her Playtex Brand Tampons are (not post-Jackson nipple anyway). What about the local ads? Placement's always been there, but we're looking at a whole new beast. There's a lot of advertising freight to carry out there and its not all cool or pretty. Local ads are not insertable into content.
Nope, its gonna be a box of content on one side and a box of unrelated ads on the other and guess what--they'll filp it around randomly to foil any mask you might devise. It'll be an interesting transformation. Perhaps it will drive DVD sales of "clean" versions.
Sure, these intrusive ads will be unpleasant and everyone will bitch but, like everything else, we'll get used to it and, even if we defiantly claim otherwise, we'll absorb the messages just like we always have.