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  1. Re:Leverage on Linux on the Desktop · · Score: 1
    I'm not trolling. And I don't need to "take your word" for any-goddamn-thing because I know what I experienced, and my stated opinion is just as valid as your opinion. Even ten years ago on that old IRIX system I never had a problem cutting nad pasting data, and I never found myself clicking an icon a half dozen times because I had NO FEEDBACK on the status of the app I want opened. Sure, you're gonna say "this stuff is getting fixed" and "it's better" - well, guess what? It's still not as good as either windows or Mac, and the fact it's getting better only reveals your own admission that it's not there yet. And, frankly, when I see new stuff like this latest Gnome build where they stuff kludge on top of kludge to make an already kludged system "look like" Apple's desktop I have serious doubts of anything ever "getting better" to the point of overtaking.

    My original comment got modded to -1 in less than an hour while a bunch of aplogists got modded up to "insightful." It is this fanboy penguinista attitude that has been holding linux back and will continue to do so. Until a Lindows or a Dell figures out how to put together a professional and appealing desktop that is not simply a hacked together mishmash of a dozen desktop kludges it simply ain't gonna happen. And I don't say this as a MS apologist or fanboy - I want nothing more than to fire up an installer, repartition away windows and never look back. But as ugly as windows is from that first install screen, it at least gives me the opportunity to do what I want to do, right off the bat, without having to recompile the fucking kernel or pore through a dozen goddamn .config files while trying to make sense of instructions that "just work" but don't fucking do anything of the sort.

  2. irony on Mailing Disks is Faster than Uploading Data · · Score: 1
    What a great example you picked! Cable TV companies are pumping dozens of digital movies accross their system at once, live. Yet they crimp your upload speed to DSL rates or lower, 30KB/s, because they are afraid of people "stealing" movies.

    The killer is that the movies the cable and sat companies pump out "digital" most often are of LOWER visual quality than the DIVX stuff in the newsgroups and IRC channels. I actually gave up my directivo because the quality I was getting was no longer worth recording - or watching, IMO.

  3. Leverage on Linux on the Desktop · · Score: 0, Insightful
    Innovation like this would be fantastic, but if "they" really want to leverage linux into the desktop they need to come up with a fucking desktop that doesn't feel like a clunky imitation of a real computer. Even the goddamn 33MHz IRIX workstation I used nearly ten years ago had a better desktop than any linux distro I have tried.

    I'd love to fully embrace linux, but when the only way to do that is by accepting yet another proprietary OS along with it just to get a desktop that doesn't feel like I'm driving a fucking Edsel, I might as well stay with windows.

  4. fuck you on Open Source Organization Models Discussed · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    My parents don't HAVE a basement, you insensitive clod...

  5. Re:Bulshit on Webcaster Alliance Threatens To Sue RIAA · · Score: 1
    Man, you need a big hit from captain obvious!

    I'll bet those albums didn't sell very well compared to their later sales figures either.

    Duh. They don't "sell" much at all because they haven't been made in thirty years or more so most people who have them KEEP them. The point is they all made these "releases" before they signed to labels and it didn't prevent the labels from signing them - just like Frank Sinatra recording albums for Columbia didn't prevent the folks at Capitol from signing him up when they got the chance.

    No company that makes its money selling records is going to turn down a million seller - it's as simple as that.

  6. MORE Bullshit on Webcaster Alliance Threatens To Sue RIAA · · Score: 1
    I've heard that argument a thousand times and still see no logic or proof. I have software here I use to listen to music on my PC; you may have heard of it - it's called WINAMP. Now, it's trivially easy for me to know every song I have played on my machine, because WINAMP is configured to play MP3s and APEs and WAVs. Since I don't have any WAVs that leaves APEs and MP3s. And it's illogical to assume I listen to MP3s I don't have on my machine, therefore one need only do a DIR > mymp3s.txt to find out exactly what I have listened to, and exactly what I am capable of listening to.

    Internet broadcasting requires three things: an internet connection, something to broadcast, and the software to do so. Everything that is "broadcast" in this context must pass through that "software" part therefore it would be awfully damn easy to make that "software" part log every file it played. It doesn't take an "entire room" - it doesn't even take "an entire computer." All it takes is one piece of software. If none of these broadcasters have the resources to construct such software, I suspect they need only ask for it in, say, the user forum at knoppix.net.

    Oh, and a big "fuck you" to the idiot who modded my first reply here a "troll." The only fact in that guy's post was, maybe, his /. nick...

  7. Wrongo, Mary-Lou... on Webcaster Alliance Threatens To Sue RIAA · · Score: 3, Informative
    they are not lobbying for the rights to play the RIAA's product... they are demanding that they not pay the "RIAA webcaster surcharge fee" if they don't play RIAA music.

    Wrong. the RIAA has no control over unlicensed music. The RIAA can no more prevent me from sharing my own music than it can prevent you from sharing my music that I shared with you.

    These "indies" are fighting explicitly for the right to broadcast commercial music already owned by RIAA affiliate members. Apparently you didn't RTFA, so I will quote for you the relevant part right here...

    However, to be commercially viable, the Alliance believes that small webcasters need a mix of Mainstream Material and Independent Material. The Alliance is concerned that recent developments in the market for Mainstream Material have seriously jeopardized the commercial viability of its members by eliminating the ability to stream a commercially significant amount of Mainstream Material.

    Ergo, I said...

  8. Re:Bulshit on Webcaster Alliance Threatens To Sue RIAA · · Score: 1
    You missed something here. Signing such a contract giving rights to play to your early recordings before signing an RIAA contract just doesn't happen. Because signing such a deal makes it certain that an RIAA contract isn't coming your way.

    Wrong. Do you think a major label would turn down a chance to sign another Moby? Because they have contracts to let other channels play the music they recorded before they were signed?

    Go to Detroit and you can find, in just about any record collector store, early singles and EPs from Seger, Nugent, Romantics, MC5 - music that wasn't on a major label. Sure didn't stop those guys from becoming arms of the machine.

    Any radio station that plays even a small ammount non-RIAA music is punished by non-access.

    Nothing is going to change until someone has the guts to say "who fucking cares" - until they acknowledge music can and does exist outside the bonds of the RIAA. Lawsuits like these send the very opposite of that message to everyone, "customers" and clients alike.

  9. Real men build their own refrigerators... on VIA Introduces A New Laptop Motherboard · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Very cool. So I can buy a laptop motherboard separate from the laptop itself? So I could, in theory, pick up a cheap(er) used laptop, machine a cool new case from plastic, and roll my own transportable PC?

  10. Bulshit on Webcaster Alliance Threatens To Sue RIAA · · Score: 3, Interesting
    This is why the RIAA would like to see the small time indie webstreamers vanish... if they're playing indie music they'll create demand for the artists who aren't being distributed by the RIAA members, and effectively steal market share from them

    There's nothing at all stopping these "broadcasters" from playing non-RIAA label music. There's no way the RIAA can prevent it. And this fact is irrelevant, because it's not the non-RIAA music these "indies" want. The RIAA is fighting to retain control of their own poduct - they cannot control product to which they have NOT paid for rights.

    The broadcasters, like you, have no argument here. If they want to play music from unsigned artists, they can. And if they would sign those artists to contracts before the RIAA gets to them, granting them rights to play given works no matter what, then the RIAA couldn't even prevent it after they signed the artists.

    But the artists aren't going to do that because they see the RIAA as the master of the market, and lawsuits like these only perpeptuate that control.

    These "independant broadcasters" are enemies of the revolution.

  11. Webcasters continue to sell out freedom, film at 1 on Webcaster Alliance Threatens To Sue RIAA · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I'm sick to death of hearing about webcasters pissing and moaning about the RIAA. If these fuckers really cared about embracing indie music there's nothing at all stopping them from picking up artists who have not entered the belly of the beast. There's a real opportunity here to exact a fundamental change not only in distribution, but in the way popular new music becomes popular - but just like MP3.COM, these players really don't believe the hype they're seliing. They don't even believe in their own product, which is the reason they incessantly lobby for "rights" to the other guy's prpoduct.

    What they want is the "freedom" to give even more hype to the same old shit the RIAA is already peddling; To help further enlave us all to the old Hollywood lobby.

    There is a world of music out there, much of it completely unrepresented in the US - artists that would LOVE exposure from these "independant broadcasters." Yet these alleged "independants" don't care for that - no, they want "the right" to help spread the boy band gospel.

    Fuck the RIAA... and fuck these online broadcasters. Maybe they'll sue each other into oblivion and we can be rid of all of it.

  12. camera mice on Evolving the Wireless Robot · · Score: 1

    How do you think castrated mice do their thing? Modern "optical mice" employ a crude camera to track motion. If they can track x and y translation, it makes sense they could also be made to track rotation.

  13. "They" were right on Wal-Mart Cancels RFID Trial · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Look at grocery store membership cards. They've been out for almost a decade now. Privacy pundits decried that the stores would know WAY TOO MUCH sensitive information by correlating users to their groceries.

    If you get into a dispute or a lawsuit, you may find that the other side has a lot of revealing information that it will try to use against you. When a shopper slipped and fell in a Von's supermarket, Von's used the records from his Von's Club card to try to show that he bought a lot of liquor and, by implication, was probably a drunk.

    When was the last time cookies were used to betray your privacy? They were a big hot nasty item in the near recient past too.

    Same page; search for "hotmail." Is it due to cookies alone? No - it's because of misuse and careless application of the technology. Never underestimate the incompetence and corruption of others.

    Which isn't to say I've never had a "club card." I have - but it sure didn't have my name on it. And when I used it I paid in cash. And when I moved away it went in the trash.

    Which is not to say I have the same irrational fear of RFID as many others. I don't sweat it because :

    I always pay cash

    and...

    I own many hammers

  14. Scoop: RFID privacy tool invented on Wal-Mart Cancels RFID Trial · · Score: 4, Funny
    And believe it or not, you can also buy one at wal-mart.

    Note: if the tool itself also contains an RFID marker, you may need to buy two...

  15. rotation on Evolving the Wireless Robot · · Score: 1
    Pitfall 7: Dimensions. The mouse can only provide two-dimensional positioning for a three-dimensional robot. Solution: Use a program that lets you create and view a three-dimensional robot or a game of robots in progress.

    And a keyboard lets you type only at a certain speed. Solution: invent a faster input method. Wow! Can I get paid to write articles like this.

    Actually, this is a problem that should have been solved by now. Yes, ball mice can only do two axis - but "camera mice" today cost what.. 20 bucks? And they're USB so there's no need for legacy support. We COULD have x,y and z-axis rotation right now if one of these manufacturers would just think a little. Logitech, MS - doesn't matter to me, I would just really, really like to have bettter control of 3D models, and using today's devices it would cost absolutely nothing beyond the NRE to impliment it.

  16. tiny cars on Evolving the Wireless Robot · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Exactly. And "connnected to the internet" means nothing today - you can buy a PIC and do it the hard way or you can buy an FPGA and put PIC, wireless NIC and who-knows-what-else all on the same die. There's the entire "brain" of a battle-mech. Now just make some durable actuators and bodies cast of PVC for durability...

    If someone had said five years ago they collected radio control cars that are the size of the Hot Wheels I used to push around in the dirt thirty years ago, I'd have thought they were nuts. If they said these tiny R/C racers cost less than the slots I used to race twenty years ago I'd have been certain they were nuts. The one thing certain about the future is its uncertainty.

  17. Re:Rocket Haid... on How to get 1.5 TeraFlops from Linux · · Score: 1
    I once took a valve cover off an Escort engine and found... black jell-o. Couldn't even see the rocker arms. When told her engine was ruined and not under warranty because it had obviously been abused through its 60,000 miles of life, she defiantly pointed out she "had too changed the oil! I had it changed twice!"

    ...they can put a man on the moon, but...

  18. Re:Business patents and time to railroad on The New Yorker on Business Process Patents · · Score: 1
    Without those "strong property laws" there would be no need for the GPL except to save us from what is already the status quo: that is, even with those "strong property laws" companies still don't "share code or ideas."

    Sorry, but that argument is so lacking in logic it has zero relevance. Patents require sharing enough of the process that anyone can reproduce it; copyright, before computer programs, required the product be shared with the public before it was protected. Under the present system neither of these requirements are met. I don't know anyone saying copyright should be abolished (although for individuals it is already arguably become irrelevant), but I know plenty of people saying the laws need to be reformed and restated so to reflect their original intentions.

  19. Rocket Haid... on How to get 1.5 TeraFlops from Linux · · Score: 4, Funny
    Now those obsessed geniuses have even more reason to forget to change the oil in their cars...

    (Inside joke for my ol' friends at ORNL...)

  20. Re:Designed for this? on Grad Student's Work Reveals National Infrastructure · · Score: 1
    Indeed. Both Mae East and Mae West have been "brought down" in some form or another, and the internet went right on working. Sure it was a bit slower than usual - but it worked. My recollection of the Mae West failure, when I was in LA, is that the morning of Clinton's Lewinsky testimony there was a worse effect on traffic than the "disconnect" of one of the most significant hubs in the US.

    That said, I would sure love to have this thesis of his. I've been working on a regional report here for quite a while and it sounds like he's tracked down all the infrastructure info I need.

  21. Re:Linux on Public Confused by Tech Lingo · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    The most commonly butchered tech-related word. What's that Lie-nucks thing again?

    Sorry, but in the US it's not "leenoox" it's "linux" - just like it's not "leenoos" and charlie brown, it's linus and charlie brown. If you wanna quibble about minor uses of the language perhaps you won't mind also commenting on the (mis)use of words like "buff-ay" (no, goddamnit, do you buy a "buck-ay" of flowers?) and "bedroom suit" (er... do you mean "suite?") or even "pork" and "beef."

    Our cars don't have "bonnets" they have hoods; we don't by "petrol" we buy "gas" or "fuel" and it's not "leenoox" unless you're just trying to show how cool you truly think you are.

  22. Thai children have bedrooms? on Thailand Imposes Gamers Curfew · · Score: 1

    I thought they all slept in one room? Seriously - how many thai children have bedrooms? How many are up playing games after 10PM? I suspect this is aimed more at adults than children but hidden behind that same tired refrain.

  23. Must be kidding... on .Net:... 3 Years Later · · Score: 1
    Dude, even for windows "a few weeks" ain't nothing to brag about. I have a five year old machine sitting right next to me that runs win2k, is connected 24/7 only via a VNC desktop server, and the only time it gets rebooted is when the power browns out - and even then it takes a pretty good brownout.

    Anyone remember this "up" story?

  24. Re:Something nothing on Michigan's Proposed Spam Law Called Toughest In U.S. · · Score: 1
    Next Question?

    That would be whether you understand the difference between civil and criminal law. Only one of these cases involves enforcing criminal action, and that only against an apparent "spam delivery service" California prosecutors managed to track down within their own borders. The other two are simply lawsuits, one of which ended in a whopping $72.50 judgement against a company that had already gone under (and, no doubt, sprang right back up on the other side of town). Requiring private citizens to either hire lawyers or file lawsuits in small claims court is hardly a practical enforcement mechanism - which pretty much explains why there seems to be just so damn many of these cases being mentioned in the press...

  25. Something nothing on Michigan's Proposed Spam Law Called Toughest In U.S. · · Score: 4, Insightful
    In government, doing something is often worse than doing nothing. As evidence I cast a hairy finger toward a law called the DMCA. And another called COPA. And another...

    It would be nice to see someone enforce these laws. Every one of these spams leads to someone making money from them - that's why spam exists. Every one of those websites selling viagra knock-offs, or porn, or selling mailing lists can be traced to someone who profits from these sales. Those are the people paying for the spam; make them accountable - cut off the money - and the spammers go away.

    California has had "antispam" laws for quite some time - can anyone point to a single prosecution of these laws?

    Well, at least "something" in this case isn't worse than nothing... yet... but the way Michigan has been heading, that end seems inevitable.