2600 wrote about this in their current issue. They siad that if they were told to stop linking, they'd switch over to a list. If they're told to get rid of the list, they'll have sentences telling you where to go.
Linking is saying. How can it be illegal to say a web address?
I disagree. There are some fantastic newsgroups. I used to be into the band Ween and their ng is great (alt.music.ween), but probably lame if you're not into Ween.
On alt.comp.perifs.cdr I have troubleshot my CDR VERY WELL.
The Mozilla newsgroups (news.mozilla.org -- netscape.public.mozilla.*) have let me really follow and contribute to the next Netscape browser.
The "ER" newsgroup is cool when I miss an episode...people post summaries and such.
To say nothing of the ever-popular porn newsgroups, where one can find one's own particular "thing" and find lots of people who are also into that thing--including pictures, videos, reviews, original works, etc.
Usenet is FAR from dead. I find it invaluable. And, unlike the web, it has yet to be "discovered"--no ecommerce, no suburban values, no emphasis on looking good, not easy to set up (well, pretty damn easy, but not for total "dummies").
The open-forum nature of the system is what makes it work. The distributed nature is what makes people think hosts should be held accountable. I, for one, would shed a tear at its passing.
Although the motivation not to pay for the French and Indian War was present others factors were involved
But other factors are involved with MP3s and Napster, etc. besides "a bunch of people who want free music":
Music fans being sick of being ripped off in terms of money
Music fans being sick of being ripped off in terms of quality (one hit single and 10 crappy songs per disk)
Music fans feeling manipulated in terms of the "industry's standards" (having to switch from LP to CD to who knows what)
Music fans wanting the amzaing flexibility that Mp3s offer (less physical space, easy to create mixes, easy to integrate listening music with other tasks like working at a computer)
Musician's who aren't famnous's desire for a level distribution playing field
The desire to sample songs without having to listen to those awful Disc Jockeys
The desire for a cultural shift in the way we listen to music we like
The desire to be on the cutting edge of technology
The desire to see what all the big-wigs are fretting about
The desire punish certain companies that certain people may hate
I think it is unfair to say that the rampant adoption of MP3s is only based on the fact that they are "free beer." That plays a role, I'm sure, but it is not the only factor, by far...
Music artist can make money from their art in many non-copyright-related ways besides t-shirts and touring:
selling "distributions" of their work with value-added features (CDs with nice covers, autographed, first-to-market, etc.)
teaching music
being hired by other artists
creating custom studio pieces for others' art projects (film soundtracks, theater, tv, websites, etc.)
working in expert capacities for stores that sell instruments and sound gear, or for websites that give advice, etc.
These can all be noble professions, and are actually the way that most musicians do make their money when they make it from music (plus playing live).
The fact that current copyright has the potential to help some deserving people is no reason to not abolish it, or to not live as if it were abolished. Good artists will always figure out ways to do their art, and with hope, ways that their art will make them money. They don't need no stinking copyrights.
As copyright dies, we concerned-ones will continue to fret over the fate of creators. But I see a rosy vision ahead. Artsists freely stealing from one another, acting to make works evolve as they pass through many hands. The distinction between "artist" and "regular person" slowly vanishing, as it becomes easier to create works.
I always liked the term "release" when describing art, like "Jamie released his latest film" or "The new release from JD & RPM."
That's what you have to do if you're an artist--RELEASE the shit. Take the risk. Don't hide it behind violently-enforced rules. Take it public.
But this can't last. Take the Aimee Mann case. Someone I know saw Magnolia and liked the Aimee Mann songs. He downloaded the most memorable songs -- "One" "Save Me" and "Wise Up" -- from Napster and they are indeed good. He looked up on CDNow what the other album tracks are. He downloaded a few of those...but they suck. He burned the 3 MP3s (160 kbs) he liked to CD. He listens to that CD a lot and he even burned copies for his brother- and father-in-law, neither of whom know how to use a computer at all.
Personally, My friend is never going to buy a music CD again.
there are such creatures as "recording artists" in truth: artists who use electronic means to produce a recording as their work of art. For such as they, the concept of live performance is an absurdity.
These artsists, though, can still make money using their special skills in other ways: teaching, being hired by live artists, creating custom studio pieces for others' art projects (film soundtracks, theater, tv, websites, etc.).
The fact that current copyright helps deserving people is no reason to not abolish it, or to not live as if it were abolished. Good artists will always figure out ways to do their art, and with hope, ways that their art will make them money. They don't need no stinking copyrights.
My only concern are OTHER artists who play my material in live performance.
Concern? Or desire? One MAJOR way to affect culture is to be emulated...in other words, stolen from. Show me some good art, and I'll show you some ripped off art.
Attribution is another question. An organization that keeps track of who wrote/programmed/painted what will fill a strong upcoming need. A website, for example, that acts as a trusted source for attribution, with fair and convincing ways of arbitrating disputes, has the potential to be BIG, I think. A bright VC company would invest heavily here.
It's cool, I was reading one of the mozilla newsgroups (maybe netscape.public.mozilla.layout?), and someone from Sun posted asking some questions about how to make GTK+ integreate better with Motif. A kind soul (I believe a RedHat employee?) pointed out that IBM had done a lot of the work this guy was aking about. Over the next few weeks, they all looked at eachother source and planned the best way to do some (smallish) stuff.
I used to collect the X-Men religiously, back when it was at it's height -- I'm talking Chris Clermont/John Byrne/Terry Austin...This was back in like 1980 or so.
Chris Clermont was the writer. He was known as writing good women characters. Each woman chartacter got the chance to say "Hear me, X-Men! No longer am I the woman you knew...Now and forever, I am [fill in the blank]!"
Byrne was the pencil artist. He was really the guy who put Wolverine on the map. He made Wolvie be real hairy and animal-like.
Terry Austin was the inker. He made Byrne's drawings full of amazingly rich detail and microscopic comic references.
Byrne and Clermont were always fighting. Byrne, apparently, though Clermont was a silly hack. Clermont, on the other hand, took the characters more seriously than his own life. They co-ploted the comic, and their disparate characters really helpped make the comic original and vital.
The comic was the most popular thing out there (but nothing like today). Then, the editor-in-chief at Marvel wrested control away from Clermont and made him make Jean Grey/Phoenix die because she had killed a bunch of aliens while she was in a power-mad state of delerium. Clermont was crushed.
Byrne then got sick of working with Clermont, and left the book. Many plotlines were left hanging. Some were later resolved, but in ways far inferior to what had been alluded to by Byrne and Clermont:
* Was Sabertooth Wolverine's father?
* Wolverine had an adamantium skeleton?
* Mystique was Nightcrawler's sister?
Etc. Different artists came and went, and the "feel" of the book varied. Clermont stayed on, but I think that the book started making to much money, and Marvel wrested control from him altogether.
Too bad. His emphasis on strong but super sexy women and convoluted soap-opera relationships between what grew to dozens of charatcers was good, but soon became the books' undoing as the number of different X-Men titles grew until it dwarfed the entire Marvel universe.
It sure is nice to see a company with some cash fighting against the silly copyright-mongers. But I have a nagging suspicion that Mp3.com is completely non-ideological, or even doesn't "get it" the way Red Hat does.
In other words, MP3.com will one day be using laws and questionable tactics to leverage their name. Does anyone know if I'm right here? Is MP3.com fighting the good fight, or just trying to benefit themselves?
On the one hand, in this case it amounts to the same thing: their economic incentive is pushing them to defend a possibly brighter future from the owners of a dark past. On the other hand, who out there has the MP3 business model which works more like Linux, more like the GPL: value adding services/packaging/quality guarantees around "free" and "open" products?
Where is Open Source music, and who is willing to fight for it?
While developing a website for an activist organization, we were told by a consulting firm that congress would not take any emails stating support or opposition of issues seriously.
We ended up devising an elaborate system where a user could fill out a web form and submit the contenst to a server that would convert the text into a fax and send that to the appropriate offices.
Mozilla will be the code upon which any number of "commercial" web browsers will be based. Netscape 5.0 will be the bigest, publicity-wise.
While Mozilla-proper will not support Java (or SSL), it does have in place the ability to snap in any Java VM that hooks into its API. Netscape will release its version of Mozilla with a Java VM built by Sun. If, for whatever reason, you don't like that VM, you will be able to snap another one in. (see http://www.mozilla.org/oji/ and http://www.mozilla.org/oji/oji-intro.html).
I have not found it as difficult to participate in Mozilla. I suppose I have lower standards than you. I have contented myself with getting people I know to download it, explaining XUL and RDF to people, trying to learn XUL, following the Mozilla news groups (where even the Netscape employees do A LOT of their communication).
Hell, I even advocate for features I want. I mocked up a screenshot for a new OPEN dialog (see http://www.jasperdev.com/mozopen), and it generated a lot of discussion on the UI newsgroup. Maybe I'll try to build the dialog box myself.
Why start with the most complex of the C++ architecture of the project? So much of Mozilla is going to be about creating functionality with XML, CSS, JavaScript, etc. The browser itself is made of these components. Start there. You can work you way into the heavy duty stuff later.
From what I understand, Firewire is far from dead. By whatever name it goes, it seems to be the standard way to get your digital video footage from tape to your harddrive digitally. All other methods of moving the video move it by going Digital=>analogue=>digital.
With firewire, high-quality movies can be made on the cheap.
"http://www.tsiinc.net?" Yes! Now they can tell people: "We're on the web...it's http... colon... forward slash, forward slash... w... w... w... dot... t... s... i... i again... n... c...NET...not COM...NET."
I'm a bit troubled by the idea that these kind of email messages are necessarily bad.
First of all, flames can be FUN--they can be fun to write, and, yes, they can be fun to read. They can also be inteligent. From the way Slashdoters have been speaking lately, you'd think intelligent opinion precludes slapstick, informality, improvisation, or obscenity. But this just isn't the case.
The Open Source movement isn't a movement to get Linux et al. accepted by the business world on business-world terms. Or at least it isn't ONLY that. We are pushing our goods because of their quality and because of their CULTURAL significance. Part of that cultural significance is this tremendous freedom that is changing what we think of as appropriate. I think the responses to Mindcraft were, in their context, appropriate. Those writers were not trying to sell Linux to the business world. They were expressing to the business world that much of their marketing, their arguments, and their style is WORTHLESS to the new corporate-savy crowd. For once, we can really TALK BACK to the stupidity we are constantly fed and until recently locked into.
Mindcraft published those emails to show businesses that the Linux crowd is VERY unbusiness-like. And I'm sure they've succeeded in that in many ways. But Mindcraft also shows me again and again that they are a real cultural disaster, and a worthless cog in a worthless, inhuman business machine.
Slashdot Mirror
2600 wrote about this in their current issue. They siad that if they were told to stop linking, they'd switch over to a list. If they're told to get rid of the list, they'll have sentences telling you where to go.
Linking is saying. How can it be illegal to say a web address?
I disagree. There are some fantastic newsgroups. I used to be into the band Ween and their ng is great (alt.music.ween), but probably lame if you're not into Ween.
On alt.comp.perifs.cdr I have troubleshot my CDR VERY WELL.
The Mozilla newsgroups (news.mozilla.org -- netscape.public.mozilla.*) have let me really follow and contribute to the next Netscape browser.
The "ER" newsgroup is cool when I miss an episode...people post summaries and such.
To say nothing of the ever-popular porn newsgroups, where one can find one's own particular "thing" and find lots of people who are also into that thing--including pictures, videos, reviews, original works, etc.
Usenet is FAR from dead. I find it invaluable. And, unlike the web, it has yet to be "discovered"--no ecommerce, no suburban values, no emphasis on looking good, not easy to set up (well, pretty damn easy, but not for total "dummies").
The open-forum nature of the system is what makes it work. The distributed nature is what makes people think hosts should be held accountable. I, for one, would shed a tear at its passing.
But other factors are involved with MP3s and Napster, etc. besides "a bunch of people who want free music":
- Music fans being sick of being ripped off in terms of money
- Music fans being sick of being ripped off in terms of quality (one hit single and 10 crappy songs per disk)
- Music fans feeling manipulated in terms of the "industry's standards" (having to switch from LP to CD to who knows what)
- Music fans wanting the amzaing flexibility that Mp3s offer (less physical space, easy to create mixes, easy to integrate listening music with other tasks like working at a computer)
- Musician's who aren't famnous's desire for a level distribution playing field
- The desire to sample songs without having to listen to those awful Disc Jockeys
- The desire for a cultural shift in the way we listen to music we like
- The desire to be on the cutting edge of technology
- The desire to see what all the big-wigs are fretting about
- The desire punish certain companies that certain people may hate
I think it is unfair to say that the rampant adoption of MP3s is only based on the fact that they are "free beer." That plays a role, I'm sure, but it is not the only factor, by far..."she deserves to get paid for her work."
Inherently? Do I deserve to get paid for my work? For all my work? For the work of writing this?
- selling "distributions" of their work with value-added features (CDs with nice covers, autographed, first-to-market, etc.)
- teaching music
- being hired by other artists
- creating custom studio pieces for others' art projects (film soundtracks, theater, tv, websites, etc.)
- working in expert capacities for stores that sell instruments and sound gear, or for websites that give advice, etc.
These can all be noble professions, and are actually the way that most musicians do make their money when they make it from music (plus playing live).The fact that current copyright has the potential to help some deserving people is no reason to not abolish it, or to not live as if it were abolished. Good artists will always figure out ways to do their art, and with hope, ways that their art will make them money. They don't need no stinking copyrights.
As copyright dies, we concerned-ones will continue to fret over the fate of creators. But I see a rosy vision ahead. Artsists freely stealing from one another, acting to make works evolve as they pass through many hands. The distinction between "artist" and "regular person" slowly vanishing, as it becomes easier to create works.
I always liked the term "release" when describing art, like "Jamie released his latest film" or "The new release from JD & RPM."
That's what you have to do if you're an artist--RELEASE the shit. Take the risk. Don't hide it behind violently-enforced rules. Take it public.
"So I still go and buy CDs."
But this can't last. Take the Aimee Mann case. Someone I know saw Magnolia and liked the Aimee Mann songs. He downloaded the most memorable songs -- "One" "Save Me" and "Wise Up" -- from Napster and they are indeed good. He looked up on CDNow what the other album tracks are. He downloaded a few of those...but they suck. He burned the 3 MP3s (160 kbs) he liked to CD. He listens to that CD a lot and he even burned copies for his brother- and father-in-law, neither of whom know how to use a computer at all.
Personally, My friend is never going to buy a music CD again.
I always liked the term "release" when describing art, like "Jamie released his lated film" or "The new release from JD & RPM."
That's what you have to do if you're an artist--RELEASE the shit. Take the risk.
These artsists, though, can still make money using their special skills in other ways: teaching, being hired by live artists, creating custom studio pieces for others' art projects (film soundtracks, theater, tv, websites, etc.).
The fact that current copyright helps deserving people is no reason to not abolish it, or to not live as if it were abolished. Good artists will always figure out ways to do their art, and with hope, ways that their art will make them money. They don't need no stinking copyrights.
Concern? Or desire? One MAJOR way to affect culture is to be emulated...in other words, stolen from. Show me some good art, and I'll show you some ripped off art.
Attribution is another question. An organization that keeps track of who wrote/programmed/painted what will fill a strong upcoming need. A website, for example, that acts as a trusted source for attribution, with fair and convincing ways of arbitrating disputes, has the potential to be BIG, I think. A bright VC company would invest heavily here.
It's cool, I was reading one of the mozilla newsgroups (maybe netscape.public.mozilla.layout?), and someone from Sun posted asking some questions about how to make GTK+ integreate better with Motif. A kind soul (I believe a RedHat employee?) pointed out that IBM had done a lot of the work this guy was aking about. Over the next few weeks, they all looked at eachother source and planned the best way to do some (smallish) stuff.
It was lind of cool...
If double-click sends an HTML formatted email (which many email clients now read) with HTML something like this:
? jamie@jamies_email.com">
<IMG SRC="http://www.doubleclick.com/images/banner.gif
then my email client will
1) Automatically send a "return receipt" to double-click
2) Send any double-click cookies I have
3) Associate my cookie (which shows all my past surfing to doubleclick sites) with my email address.
Email programs should not allow this.
Mozilla will easily let us block individual cookies.
I used to collect the X-Men religiously, back when it was at it's height -- I'm talking Chris Clermont/John Byrne/Terry Austin...This was back in like 1980 or so.
Chris Clermont was the writer. He was known as writing good women characters. Each woman chartacter got the chance to say "Hear me, X-Men! No longer am I the woman you knew...Now and forever, I am [fill in the blank]!"
Byrne was the pencil artist. He was really the guy who put Wolverine on the map. He made Wolvie be real hairy and animal-like.
Terry Austin was the inker. He made Byrne's drawings full of amazingly rich detail and microscopic comic references.
Byrne and Clermont were always fighting. Byrne, apparently, though Clermont was a silly hack. Clermont, on the other hand, took the characters more seriously than his own life. They co-ploted the comic, and their disparate characters really helpped make the comic original and vital.
The comic was the most popular thing out there (but nothing like today). Then, the editor-in-chief at Marvel wrested control away from Clermont and made him make Jean Grey/Phoenix die because she had killed a bunch of aliens while she was in a power-mad state of delerium. Clermont was crushed.
Byrne then got sick of working with Clermont, and left the book. Many plotlines were left hanging. Some were later resolved, but in ways far inferior to what had been alluded to by Byrne and Clermont:
* Was Sabertooth Wolverine's father?
* Wolverine had an adamantium skeleton?
* Mystique was Nightcrawler's sister?
Etc. Different artists came and went, and the "feel" of the book varied. Clermont stayed on, but I think that the book started making to much money, and Marvel wrested control from him altogether.
Too bad. His emphasis on strong but super sexy women and convoluted soap-opera relationships between what grew to dozens of charatcers was good, but soon became the books' undoing as the number of different X-Men titles grew until it dwarfed the entire Marvel universe.
It sure is nice to see a company with some cash fighting against the silly copyright-mongers. But I have a nagging suspicion that Mp3.com is completely non-ideological, or even doesn't "get it" the way Red Hat does.
In other words, MP3.com will one day be using laws and questionable tactics to leverage their name. Does anyone know if I'm right here? Is MP3.com fighting the good fight, or just trying to benefit themselves?
On the one hand, in this case it amounts to the same thing: their economic incentive is pushing them to defend a possibly brighter future from the owners of a dark past. On the other hand, who out there has the MP3 business model which works more like Linux, more like the GPL: value adding services/packaging/quality guarantees around "free" and "open" products?
Where is Open Source music, and who is willing to fight for it?
While developing a website for an activist organization, we were told by a consulting firm that congress would not take any emails stating support or opposition of issues seriously.
We ended up devising an elaborate system where a user could fill out a web form and submit the contenst to a server that would convert the text into a fax and send that to the appropriate offices.
I thought the whole thing smacked of foolishness.
I read here that IBM is offering Linux kernel developers code from AIX to integrate into Linux.
What does AIX have to offer Linux? Is there anything worth mining? Anything that could help the move towards 2.4?
Mozilla will be the code upon which any number of "commercial" web browsers will be based. Netscape 5.0 will be the bigest, publicity-wise.
While Mozilla-proper will not support Java (or SSL), it does have in place the ability to snap in any Java VM that hooks into its API. Netscape will release its version of Mozilla with a Java VM built by Sun. If, for whatever reason, you don't like that VM, you will be able to snap another one in. (see http://www.mozilla.org/oji/ and http://www.mozilla.org/oji/oji-intro.html).
I have not found it as difficult to participate in Mozilla. I suppose I have lower standards than you. I have contented myself with getting people I know to download it, explaining XUL and RDF to people, trying to learn XUL, following the Mozilla news groups (where even the Netscape employees do A LOT of their communication).
Hell, I even advocate for features I want. I mocked up a screenshot for a new OPEN dialog (see http://www.jasperdev.com/mozopen), and it generated a lot of discussion on the UI newsgroup. Maybe I'll try to build the dialog box myself.
Why start with the most complex of the C++ architecture of the project? So much of Mozilla is going to be about creating functionality with XML, CSS, JavaScript, etc. The browser itself is made of these components. Start there. You can work you way into the heavy duty stuff later.
> Apple didn't kill Firewire... Intel did.
From what I understand, Firewire is far from dead. By whatever name it goes, it seems to be the standard way to get your digital video footage from tape to your harddrive digitally. All other methods of moving the video move it by going Digital=>analogue=>digital.
With firewire, high-quality movies can be made on the cheap.
"How about http://www.thesmithinstitute?"
Taken.
"http://www.smithinst.com?" Taken.
"http://www.tsi.com?" Taken.
"http://tsiinc.com?"
No...
"http://tsiinc.org?"
Getting warmer...
"http://www.tsiinc.net?" ...NET ...not COM ...NET."
Yes! Now they can tell people: "We're on the web...it's http... colon... forward slash, forward slash... w... w... w... dot... t... s... i... i again... n... c
I'm a bit troubled by the idea that these kind of email messages are necessarily bad.
First of all, flames can be FUN--they can be fun to write, and, yes, they can be fun to read. They can also be inteligent. From the way Slashdoters have been speaking lately, you'd think intelligent opinion precludes slapstick, informality, improvisation, or obscenity. But this just isn't the case.
The Open Source movement isn't a movement to get Linux et al. accepted by the business world on business-world terms. Or at least it isn't ONLY that. We are pushing our goods because of their quality and because of their CULTURAL significance. Part of that cultural significance is this tremendous freedom that is changing what we think of as appropriate. I think the responses to Mindcraft were, in their context, appropriate. Those writers were not trying to sell Linux to the business world. They were expressing to the business world that much of their marketing, their arguments, and their style is WORTHLESS to the new corporate-savy crowd. For once, we can really TALK BACK to the stupidity we are constantly fed and until recently locked into.
Mindcraft published those emails to show businesses that the Linux crowd is VERY unbusiness-like. And I'm sure they've succeeded in that in many ways. But Mindcraft also shows me again and again that they are a real cultural disaster, and a worthless cog in a worthless, inhuman business machine.