pink. My sister's : light purple. Both are tech-illiterate mind you, but they are bright, and it drives me nuts when they choose something technologically inferior just because of the color.
BTW, I don't wear pink because I don't like that color (maybe my formated subconsciousness is telling that it looks gay...), but here in France light pink is a pretty popular color for men shirts and ties. And we've got the Rugby-themed brand Eden Park whose logo is a pink bow tie, and who puts pink on about every piece of cloth they produce.
You're right about flash, I had to install it myself, forgot that one. There's no DVD player on the eeepc so that wasn't a problem, and she has no use for java so I didn't install it.
Anyway, I'm sure she could have installed Flash by herself, thanks to the appropriate page on ubuntu-fr : it gives you a quick overview of the different players, tells you that the adobe one is probably the best choice for now, and gives the command line to install it. This wiki really is great, and that's a major advantage compared to windows : a central documentation repository, explaining in a simple manner how to install, configure and use not only the OS itself, but also the applications. And with linux you can mindlessly copy/paste command lines:) (dangerous, I know, but still useful ; how many times have I struggled to remember how the windows configuration panels look like to give instructions by phone...)
The system still has to be set up by someone who knows what he does.
If the hardware is supported, Ubuntu is much easier to install and set up than Windows.
A LiveCD gets you to a full desktop, just click Install, answer the same questions as windows (presented in a sexier way), and about 20mn later you have a ready-to-use system, software and all.
Actually I had my tech-illiterate sister install Ubuntu netbook remix on her eeepc, she managed just fine*. I showed her how to use synaptic and ubuntu-fr.org (wonderful french wiki, written in "full retard mode") and she hasn't asked me any question since.
Give her a Windows XP install CD, and she'll come crying for help because her wifi adapter or webcam isn't automagically recognized, or because she can't open her word documents.
If the hardware doesn't work out of the box it can be a PITA to get it to work, but then again Joe User won't be able to find and install Windows drivers on the internets either. And on my 3 machines (gaming PC, eeepc 901, and HTPC with a digital TV tuner), every single piece of hardware was working out of the box with the latest Ubuntu, except the nvidia cards which needed the proprietary driver to be fully usable, though that just took a couple of clicks.
*To be fair I had to "help" her, but only by repeating "yes, this is the correct choice, click that, don't be afraid". Amazing how bright people manage to completely turn off their brain when in front of a computer.:)
Everytime you try to install an application on your profile, a confirmation dialog informs you that by doing so, the application will have access to your profile information, and asks that you confirm installation.
If people are dumb enough to knowningly give away their personal info to know what brand of cereals represents their personality best, then good for them. As for me, I'll keep on using facebook to stay up-to-date on what happens in my hometown on the other side of the planet, and keep on rejecting any invitation to stupid "applications" from my (dumb) friends.
Because by arbitrarily cutting people off the internet and spewing FUD such as "The internet is a den of terrorists, pedophiles, and thieves" (I'm hardly paraphrasing here), "nothing comes for free, everything of value has a monetary cost", or "OMG if you keep on pirating, artists and music will DIE and there won't be any new music made EVER !!!" (paraphrasing slightly more but not by much), they are trying to scare the general public off the internet and alternative, more "open" business-models.
This law is all about repression. The only thing that will be done by this law to develop the internet-based music business is the creation of an official website referencing legal ways of getting music on the web. Given the ties between the govt and major companies, it's not hard guessing what offers will be advertised there... On the government-funded jaimelesartistes.fr ("iloveartists.fr", yeah right), the legal offers page doesn't mention mymajorcompany or any other similar website (to their credit it does mention a couple of "open-music" websites such as jamendo). OTOH, traditional major-approved websites are heavily advertised.
Lots of new or independent artists spoke up against this law, saying that there were ways of taking advantage of piracy and free music ; they were consistently ignored by the governement. But when popular, major-backed artists spoke in favor of the law, it was heavily advertised by the ministry and govt-friendly medias. They could have laid ground to a new way of (legally) distributing music, but they chose to try and hammer into our collective skull that the current way of producing and distributing music is the only possible way.
Well fuck them, their friends at the **AA and their sockpuppet "artists". I'll continue buying my music on emusic.com (not mentionned on jaimelesartistes BTW) and pirating the majors.
bands could say "fill up this bank account to $100k and we'll release our new album"
They already are. This french website allows you to listen to a new band/artist's music for free, and chip in if you like it. When it reaches 70,000 euros the artist can record and release an album. The people who put the money together are invited to special events like private concerts, and get payed if the record label (ie the website) makes a profit on the sales of the album.
That's an awesome business model IMO, and it works : the (previously unknown) singer Gregoire released a successful album on this label, and is currently touring France. I guess the majors are scared shitless by this kind of initiatives, hence their purchase of a new law.
If he really was saying such a thing, the cop should have taken note of it and have him prosecuted for that, if it's illegal over there. Tasers are vicious and dangerous weapons, and should be used as an alternative to guns, ie when the cop is in danger or if a suspect is trying to get away, not as a mean to teach a harmless teen a lesson. The cop is clearly at fault here.
The DADVSI law, a similar one from a couple years ago, got passed but was never applied. This new one is supposed to "correct the flaws" of DADVSI, and was designed to streamline the process of finding pirates and cutting off their internet access (no judge is involved, it will be mostly automatic, kinda like automatic speeding radars). But thanks to our government's ignorance about IT and the interwebs lots of flaws remain, so I don't think it will have any effect. Still this huge waste of time and money to protect the entertainment majors is really pissing me off.
Being from France I feel we should be first. This afternoon the national assembly will vote in favor of the HADOPI law. Non-elected people will be able to snoop on our p2p activities* to Protect The Artists (TM).
If someone cracks your wifi network and uses it to illegally download files, you will be held accountable. The only way to "prove" you haven't pirated anything is to install a windows-only, non-free (both as in speech and beer) software which will monitor your online activities.
They also recently announced that they will conduct "tests" to evaluate the feasibility of monitoring our online activities straight from the ISPs, again to Protect The Artists.
I've never been so happy to be French ~
*At one point they wanted to include emails too, luckily they backed down.
Have you played WotLK ? They introduced "phasing" (zones change to reflect what you have accomplished during previous quests), and lots of quests are really different from the "kill X mobs" / "gather Y items" quests. And they also introduced vehicle fights.
I agree that WoW doesn't have the most original or complex gameplay, but they really did try to enhance it for Wrath.
The P2 only holds 16GB of data at most, so a "generic" explorer is enough to manage its content quickly. But anyway most media applications detect usb devices and allow you to browse them. You can search, sort,... as you do with your library.
I don't get the point of systems like itunes or MTP, with UMS you can do the exact same thing, plus you can use your player as a thumb drive. That's one of the reasons I don't own an iPod anymore.
As for managing music goes, I once had a device where I had to drop and drag. Here's the problem with that: It got extremely cumbersome after a dozen songs. You may think you want "control" but when you have to manage 10,000 songs manually, it's a pain.
My Samsung YP-P2 supports both UMS and MTP. In UMS mode I just drag&drop audio files anywhere on the player, and when unplugged the player refreshes its library, so the next time I turn it on my new songs have been added to the player library according to their metadata.
So I can copy music to/from the player on any device and any OS that supports USB Mass Storage devices (without the need for a 3rd party program), and I can find and play my songs as easily as on an iPod.
We have this one in France too. It is applied to anything that can hold digital data (HDD, USB memory sticks, SD cards, computers,...).
So the SACEM (who collects royalties on music) gets payed everytime we buy this kind of stuff ; but they conveniently forget this revenue stream when they lobby the government and explain how piracy is killing them... And of course, paying this tax doesn't allow us to download music from Pirate Bay...
I'm looking for a well written and researched piece that can tell me why TPB and other such sites are good for society, not some crap "I just want stuff for free" argument.
I don't want stuff for free, I want stuff at a fair price, and supplied in a timely and convenient way.
I almost stopped pirating, thanks to linux, emusic and my WoW addiction. I only pirate US and UK TV Shows. If I could legally get them hours after their first broadcast and play them in HD on my HTPC, I'd be glad to pay for the priviledge.
Here in France, the only legal options that I have is to wait several month and watch it on french TV with a shitty french theme song sung by the latest Star Academy winner, and with an equally shitty french dubbing ; or I can wait a few more month and get it on an overpriced DVD with "bonus features" I don't care about. Well, sorry but I'll choose the third solution, which consists in setting up a torrent daemon + RSS plugin.
So I'll continue to pirate as long as the industry waits on its ass blaming others for their own failure. After all, it seems like they don't want my business on Hulu or Youtube, so why would they care if I pirate their stuff ?
Last I checked (maybe 1 year ago), doom9 was another very good resource. Concept explanations, tutorials for about anything transcoding-related, software comparison,... Unfortunately it is very windows-centered.
I totally agree with you. I only buy CDs and DVDs from the bargain bin ; OTOH I buy albums on eMusic that I would never have bought in the form of a 15€ CD.
They seem to think that if they somehow manage to stop piracy we will resume buying their obsolete, overpriced products. We won't, but that doesn't stop them from "buying" orwellian laws like the one they just voted in France.
Slashdot Mirror
Hello. Hello computer. Hello. Hello ?
pink. My sister's : light purple. Both are tech-illiterate mind you, but they are bright, and it drives me nuts when they choose something technologically inferior just because of the color.
BTW, I don't wear pink because I don't like that color (maybe my formated subconsciousness is telling that it looks gay...), but here in France light pink is a pretty popular color for men shirts and ties. And we've got the Rugby-themed brand Eden Park whose logo is a pink bow tie, and who puts pink on about every piece of cloth they produce.
You're right about flash, I had to install it myself, forgot that one. There's no DVD player on the eeepc so that wasn't a problem, and she has no use for java so I didn't install it.
Anyway, I'm sure she could have installed Flash by herself, thanks to the appropriate page on ubuntu-fr : it gives you a quick overview of the different players, tells you that the adobe one is probably the best choice for now, and gives the command line to install it. This wiki really is great, and that's a major advantage compared to windows : a central documentation repository, explaining in a simple manner how to install, configure and use not only the OS itself, but also the applications. And with linux you can mindlessly copy/paste command lines :) (dangerous, I know, but still useful ; how many times have I struggled to remember how the windows configuration panels look like to give instructions by phone...)
WinFS [...] WASN'T A FUCKING FILE SYSTEM!
Yeah, people are asshole for not knowing outright that WinFS is not a FS :)
The system still has to be set up by someone who knows what he does.
If the hardware is supported, Ubuntu is much easier to install and set up than Windows.
A LiveCD gets you to a full desktop, just click Install, answer the same questions as windows (presented in a sexier way), and about 20mn later you have a ready-to-use system, software and all.
Actually I had my tech-illiterate sister install Ubuntu netbook remix on her eeepc, she managed just fine*. I showed her how to use synaptic and ubuntu-fr.org (wonderful french wiki, written in "full retard mode") and she hasn't asked me any question since. Give her a Windows XP install CD, and she'll come crying for help because her wifi adapter or webcam isn't automagically recognized, or because she can't open her word documents.
If the hardware doesn't work out of the box it can be a PITA to get it to work, but then again Joe User won't be able to find and install Windows drivers on the internets either. And on my 3 machines (gaming PC, eeepc 901, and HTPC with a digital TV tuner), every single piece of hardware was working out of the box with the latest Ubuntu, except the nvidia cards which needed the proprietary driver to be fully usable, though that just took a couple of clicks.
*To be fair I had to "help" her, but only by repeating "yes, this is the correct choice, click that, don't be afraid". Amazing how bright people manage to completely turn off their brain when in front of a computer. :)
It was never cashed, but I feel good about it anyway.
For the next album you should consider ordering some bottles of wine from him instead. Or go seem him in concert and buy an overpriced T-shirt :)
Another good reason not to be on Facebook.
Everytime you try to install an application on your profile, a confirmation dialog informs you that by doing so, the application will have access to your profile information, and asks that you confirm installation.
If people are dumb enough to knowningly give away their personal info to know what brand of cereals represents their personality best, then good for them. As for me, I'll keep on using facebook to stay up-to-date on what happens in my hometown on the other side of the planet, and keep on rejecting any invitation to stupid "applications" from my (dumb) friends.
Because by arbitrarily cutting people off the internet and spewing FUD such as "The internet is a den of terrorists, pedophiles, and thieves" (I'm hardly paraphrasing here), "nothing comes for free, everything of value has a monetary cost", or "OMG if you keep on pirating, artists and music will DIE and there won't be any new music made EVER !!!" (paraphrasing slightly more but not by much), they are trying to scare the general public off the internet and alternative, more "open" business-models.
This law is all about repression. The only thing that will be done by this law to develop the internet-based music business is the creation of an official website referencing legal ways of getting music on the web. Given the ties between the govt and major companies, it's not hard guessing what offers will be advertised there... On the government-funded jaimelesartistes.fr ("iloveartists.fr", yeah right), the legal offers page doesn't mention mymajorcompany or any other similar website (to their credit it does mention a couple of "open-music" websites such as jamendo). OTOH, traditional major-approved websites are heavily advertised.
Lots of new or independent artists spoke up against this law, saying that there were ways of taking advantage of piracy and free music ; they were consistently ignored by the governement. But when popular, major-backed artists spoke in favor of the law, it was heavily advertised by the ministry and govt-friendly medias. They could have laid ground to a new way of (legally) distributing music, but they chose to try and hammer into our collective skull that the current way of producing and distributing music is the only possible way.
Well fuck them, their friends at the **AA and their sockpuppet "artists". I'll continue buying my music on emusic.com (not mentionned on jaimelesartistes BTW) and pirating the majors.
</rant>
bands could say "fill up this bank account to $100k and we'll release our new album"
They already are. This french website allows you to listen to a new band/artist's music for free, and chip in if you like it. When it reaches 70,000 euros the artist can record and release an album. The people who put the money together are invited to special events like private concerts, and get payed if the record label (ie the website) makes a profit on the sales of the album.
That's an awesome business model IMO, and it works : the (previously unknown) singer Gregoire released a successful album on this label, and is currently touring France. I guess the majors are scared shitless by this kind of initiatives, hence their purchase of a new law.
If he really was saying such a thing, the cop should have taken note of it and have him prosecuted for that, if it's illegal over there. Tasers are vicious and dangerous weapons, and should be used as an alternative to guns, ie when the cop is in danger or if a suspect is trying to get away, not as a mean to teach a harmless teen a lesson. The cop is clearly at fault here.
The DADVSI law, a similar one from a couple years ago, got passed but was never applied. This new one is supposed to "correct the flaws" of DADVSI, and was designed to streamline the process of finding pirates and cutting off their internet access (no judge is involved, it will be mostly automatic, kinda like automatic speeding radars). But thanks to our government's ignorance about IT and the interwebs lots of flaws remain, so I don't think it will have any effect. Still this huge waste of time and money to protect the entertainment majors is really pissing me off.
The law just got passed a couple minutes ago BTW.
Being from France I feel we should be first. This afternoon the national assembly will vote in favor of the HADOPI law. Non-elected people will be able to snoop on our p2p activities* to Protect The Artists (TM).
If someone cracks your wifi network and uses it to illegally download files, you will be held accountable. The only way to "prove" you haven't pirated anything is to install a windows-only, non-free (both as in speech and beer) software which will monitor your online activities.
They also recently announced that they will conduct "tests" to evaluate the feasibility of monitoring our online activities straight from the ISPs, again to Protect The Artists.
I've never been so happy to be French ~
*At one point they wanted to include emails too, luckily they backed down.
Have you played WotLK ? They introduced "phasing" (zones change to reflect what you have accomplished during previous quests), and lots of quests are really different from the "kill X mobs" / "gather Y items" quests. And they also introduced vehicle fights.
I agree that WoW doesn't have the most original or complex gameplay, but they really did try to enhance it for Wrath.
Who the hell LIKES system exclusives besides the console companies themselves?!?
Fanboys.
"Haha, told you so, $SYSTEM_X sux ass cuz on my $SYSTEM_Y I can play $EXCLUSIVE_TITLE and you can't LOL !!!1eleven!"
The P2 only holds 16GB of data at most, so a "generic" explorer is enough to manage its content quickly. But anyway most media applications detect usb devices and allow you to browse them. You can search, sort, ... as you do with your library.
I don't get the point of systems like itunes or MTP, with UMS you can do the exact same thing, plus you can use your player as a thumb drive. That's one of the reasons I don't own an iPod anymore.
So how does your Samsung know that you have other new songs (possibly in other folders)?
Did you designate a "Songs" folder?
I didn't, I can drop songs anywhere on the drive, I guess it just scans the whole filesystem.
And what if you no longer want a song to be on the device? Do you have to delete on you computer?
No, I just delete it from the P2 as I would from a plain USB thumb drive.
Also I thought MTP did not work with MP3s only DRM'ed Windows Media formats.
It can work with any kind of files ; the set of allowed file extensions is up to the media applications
As for managing music goes, I once had a device where I had to drop and drag. Here's the problem with that: It got extremely cumbersome after a dozen songs. You may think you want "control" but when you have to manage 10,000 songs manually, it's a pain.
My Samsung YP-P2 supports both UMS and MTP. In UMS mode I just drag&drop audio files anywhere on the player, and when unplugged the player refreshes its library, so the next time I turn it on my new songs have been added to the player library according to their metadata.
So I can copy music to/from the player on any device and any OS that supports USB Mass Storage devices (without the need for a 3rd party program), and I can find and play my songs as easily as on an iPod.
We have this one in France too. It is applied to anything that can hold digital data (HDD, USB memory sticks, SD cards, computers, ...).
So the SACEM (who collects royalties on music) gets payed everytime we buy this kind of stuff ; but they conveniently forget this revenue stream when they lobby the government and explain how piracy is killing them... And of course, paying this tax doesn't allow us to download music from Pirate Bay...
I'm looking for a well written and researched piece that can tell me why TPB and other such sites are good for society, not some crap "I just want stuff for free" argument.
I don't want stuff for free, I want stuff at a fair price, and supplied in a timely and convenient way.
I almost stopped pirating, thanks to linux, emusic and my WoW addiction. I only pirate US and UK TV Shows. If I could legally get them hours after their first broadcast and play them in HD on my HTPC, I'd be glad to pay for the priviledge.
Here in France, the only legal options that I have is to wait several month and watch it on french TV with a shitty french theme song sung by the latest Star Academy winner, and with an equally shitty french dubbing ; or I can wait a few more month and get it on an overpriced DVD with "bonus features" I don't care about. Well, sorry but I'll choose the third solution, which consists in setting up a torrent daemon + RSS plugin.
So I'll continue to pirate as long as the industry waits on its ass blaming others for their own failure. After all, it seems like they don't want my business on Hulu or Youtube, so why would they care if I pirate their stuff ?
FTFA. There's a demonstration at about 3:40.
Last I checked (maybe 1 year ago), doom9 was another very good resource. Concept explanations, tutorials for about anything transcoding-related, software comparison, ... Unfortunately it is very windows-centered.
I totally agree with you. I only buy CDs and DVDs from the bargain bin ; OTOH I buy albums on eMusic that I would never have bought in the form of a 15€ CD.
They seem to think that if they somehow manage to stop piracy we will resume buying their obsolete, overpriced products. We won't, but that doesn't stop them from "buying" orwellian laws like the one they just voted in France.
"There are many ways to speak about TV, but in a business perspective, let's be realistic: at the basis, TF1's job is helping Coca-Cola, for example, to sell its product. What we sell to Coca-Cola is available human brain time."
Patrick Le Lay, CEO of TF1 (big french TV channel)
Why does a movie cost as much as buying the DVD at Walmart? For that price I may as well buy the DVD.
That's exactly how they want us to react.
I was referring to the fact that he didn't know that European soldiers were fighting alongside Americans in Afghanistan.