If you go to a store to buy it, do you really have to agree to a license to buy it
Yes, under current law. If hardware contains software, and the manufacturer sees fit to place a license on the software, and there's no way to get around the software, then you have to agree to the license to use the hardware.
I seem to recall a/. story from a few months ago where someone bought a Windows preloaded Dell computer with the intention of using Linux on it. When the person turned it on with his Linux install disk in the drive, he was presented with an un-circumventable software licence agreement screen, which basically stated that by agreeing, he was agreeing to the licenses of all the preloaded software on the machine. Presumably the only way to get past it to load Linux was by clicking OK
The person at Dell support couldn't figure out why the guy wouldn't just click OK, even though the tech couldn't tell him what was in each individual license that he was supposed to blanket-agree with. Ultimately he ended up sending the computer back.
We need legal precidence on the legality of software license agreements, and exactly what obligations that all parties are under. Until this happens, we're going to continue to see unresonable and silly licenses.
Or try flashing your headlights. In the town where I went to college (Edwardsville, IL), it was fairly well known to students that flashing headlights would change the lights green if there were no other cars around to confuse it. Of course, this was 2-3 years ago.
No way. The poweramp definately does make it louder, but a tube poweramp definately colors the sound as well.
My Peavey 5150 has a preamp out jack on it, which brain-dead soundguys often want to use to plug me into the house. Then they can't figure out why it sounds shitty in the house and fantastic through my uber-cheap Behringer 4x12 cabinet. The reason is because the house isn't getting the coloration from the poweramp.
Also, there are two ways of getting gain from most modern guitar amps. 1. crank the preamp gain (thus adding distortion), set post gain to desired volume. 2. leave preamp low, crank postgain, thus cranking volume and adding distortion. Control distortion using volume knob on guitar. Way #2 sounds incredibly better, which is why guitar players are the bane of soundmen the world over, and also why there exist such products as the Marshall Powerbrake, which allow you to crank your tube amp, yet keep a reasonable volume going to the cabinet. Way #2 produces a more 'real' overdrive sound, as opposed to the pixillated, industrial kind of sound that you tend to get with low volume/cranked preamp.
The Marshall JCM would likely sound the same, or similiar, if the preamp stage remained the same, and a solid state poweramp were used
Marshall does make a line of amps which do just that, called the Valvestate series. I have to admit that they sound very much like all-tube Marshalls, except I think I've noticed that they have more of a tendancy for microphonic squeal rather than nice feedback at high volume than the all-tube amps. I can't help but think that it's because of the nature of solid state. I would venture to say that most guitar players who use Marshall-style amps would pay the extra money to not have microphonic squeal.
I dunno, I run Photoshop and a web server (among other things) on a 667Mhz PIII with 384MB of RAM and it seems to do just fine (although it has earned the nickname 'Clunky' in my household).
I even fire it up as a Unreal Tournament client when I need a spare machine for a LAN party.
Granted, I don't use it everyday, but my wife does.
So what would happen in the _very_ unlikely scenario that all these corporations simultaneously stopped paying people to develop Linux? My best guess is that Linux would go the way of BeOS or OS/2 in no time.
I don't think so, because if it had a big enough userbase, then other companies would step up to the plate. If we didn't like what they did, then we wouldn't have to buy their products, and we wouldn't have the barriers to switching that Microsoft and other proprietary companies set up. Linux users would have much greater bargaining power with open source vendors because they wouldn't be locked into closed standards.
I'm not suggesting at that corporate involvement in Linux is bad at all, only that once Linux passes a point, corporate intentions won't matter nearly as much because there will be just as many independant hackers involved as corporate ones, and the independant ones will have all of the same information as the paid ones do (namely, the source).
But what the slashdot crowd knows is that FOSS and the GPL may be a way to get out of the proprietary cycle for good. If Linux ever becomes the de facto international operating system, why would anyone ever change back to a proprietary solution? All serious proprietary software would have to work with Linux for the same reason that it (arguably) now has to work with Windows: "because that's what everyone uses." However, people would be resistant to switch away from such a hypothetical future Linux because there's absolutely no advantage, provided that Linux always stays on top of supporting any future killer apps/hardware. If Linux became the dominant desktop/server OS that Windows is, it would have a lot easier time staying there, and thus proprietary solutions would have a lot harder time becoming de facto standards.
I'm not disputing that IBM/Sun/etc practiced constomer-unfriendly business in the past, or would do so again given the chance. Keep in mind that Linux would always be by the people, for the people regardless of the actions of companies. Imagine if every MCSE was a Linux guru instead, and that Linux had dominance. Say that IBM/Sun/Red Hat/Suse/etc all drop Linux like a rock for their own proprietary solutions. Would it matter? No, because there would be enough Linux-savvy people to keep it going, either using alternate distros or improving on the already-GPLed corporate ones.
I'm not a Linux fanboy at all. In fact, I'm a tech at an Air Force all-MS helpdesk, and I really don't mind supporting MS from a strictly technical standpoint. Of my four home computers, only one is Linux, and I know just enough to install it. However, I am trying to learn as much about it as I can now, because I think that if it ever gets a break, it will be the future.
This is true. I guess it depends on how paranoid you are about your data. The US DOD standards for outgoing hard drives (excess equipment is commonly sold at auction) require that we either overwrite them 3 times or stick 'em in the degausser before we give them up.
Eraser is a GPL program that (among other uses) will overwrite empty hard disk space as many times as you specify.
Simply change the pagefile size to 0MB, restart, and run eraser on free disk space. Tell it to overwrite 7 times. There's no way anyone's recovering it then.
Couldn't we just prolong life by giving people with long-lived parents and grandparents hefty financial incentives to breed with each other? It seemed to work for Lazarus Long.
for example a live artist will typically not run around the stage full tilt while singing...the pre-packed stuff will perform a double backflip in the middle of a verse and not miss a note.
You should see The Urge play sometime. Sadly, they broke up a few years ago (they still play St. Louis area shows occasionally), but they were amazingly energetic, and never rolled tape AFAIK.
Lots of bands (especially punk bands) run around and really get into the show (check out 2 Skinnee Js live, or maybe Goldfinger or Thursday). I think that one of the things that makes a band great live is that they can move around and be energetic, and still actually pull off the performance. I hate the ones that roll tape, but I don't really know of any that do, outside of the mainstream acts.
That said, I've seen a lot of bands that were amazing live, but didn't make very inspiring music (like The Urge, for the most part). I still pay to see some of them anyway.
Robert Heinlein was known to say "You cannot enslave a free man - the worst you can do is kill him."
I think that his statement could apply in this circumstance.
Good point, but OHC engines are arguably capable of producing even more efficiancy by having separate cams for each cylinder bank, or even having separate intake/exhaust cams for each cylinder bank. A lot of car companies (Honda, Nissan, Mazda) are even taking this to the next level by having different cam profiles for different RPMs - they kick in a more agressive intake/exhaust curve at a certain RPM so that you can maximize fuel economy and performance on-the-fly.
Another great point about many (not all) modular engines from an enthusiast perspective is that
major parts can often be easily interchanged. Want to up the Horsepower of your 2000 Civic Si? Put B18 Civic Type R camshafts in it, with a thinner head gasket. Hell, replace the whole head - QED, and you'll be pushing 190HP from a 1.6L engine, and still getting close to 40MPG. If Chevy built engines with the same displacement/HP ratio as Honda, then that 5.7L would be pushing 600HP, without forced induction!
Not saying that the old pushrod 350 isn't a great engine (the late model Camaros with it killed the modular Mustangs), but rather that it's not as high-tech a platform as GM would have people believe, and that there are possibly better solutions now.
Why would you have to replace the driveshaft????
I had to have the driveshaft replaced in an '86 Chrysler 5th Avenue because a U-joint froze and caused it to break and fall into the street. Luckily it fell aft-end first, not causing it to puncture the gas tank as seems to happen so often to prison vans. Apparently there's some bearings or something in there that you have to replace/have greased periodically. But hey, I was 16 at the time (circa 1995), and didn't know any better.
What's interesting is that the car was in my family for its entire life, until we gave it away at 260k miles, and it's still running without any major maintenance, which really surprises me for as big a piece of crap it was.
Any serious "racing" mod is not going to be done by a teenager on the weekend.
May I direct you to This site. Not my site, and I apologize for the background music, but there are definately people out there who learn to hack high-tech speed mods on their own just by trial and error with junk parts. Granted, they've blown up a lot of stuff on the way, but that's often part of the learning experience.
I'd rather have an older, less advanced car that I actually have a chance of fixing. Who needs all this new car technology anyways?
My '00 Honda Civic Ex is the best of both worlds. It's got a computer and fuel injection, but also still has a distributor - making timing changes easy. The engine is laid out intelligently (changing plugs and wires took me 5 minutes), and very well documented. Sure, it's crammed in the bay, but it's so well thought out that it doesn't matter so much. Also, it's one of the few reasonably priced well-equipped cars that you can still get with a manual transmission - seems (especially with domestics) you can usually only get the manual on the base model. Often on imports, its the other way around. Oh, and I'm pushing 92000 miles (bought it at 7000), and I've only had it in the shop to get the left power window lubricated. Clutch slips a *tiny* bit when launching from 2nd (which I shouldn't do anyway), but that's a wear/replace part. Otherwise still runs like the day I bought it.
What I can't believe is that people apparently consider many domestics to be "modern technology" at all, considering that GM is using essentially the same 3.8L pushrod V6 that they were using in the 70's. In fact, I think even the new 'Vettes have a fuel injected variation of the 35+ year old pushrod 350.
Or, you can get the same effect by going to any auto parts store and buy the Sylvania Silverstar Xenon bulbs for $15 each. They're really bright, and will fit most cars without any modifications. I think GE makes an even cheaper knockoff ($7-%10)
I guess this is just more proof that there are people with considerably more cents than sense.
How many of the bands that bestbuy stocks are sitting and selling records themselves after the show
You'd be surprised: Dredg, Fugazi, Coheed and Cambria, Further Seems Forever, Dead Poetic, Zao, Elliot, Brand New, Silverstein, Hey Mercedes, Beloved, Norma Jean, just to name a few. I've been surprised more than a few times at seeing an "unknown" band's CD at Best Buy. I have noticed though, that all of the lesser-known bands that I see there are on indie labels that aren't really indie (that is, they're affiliated with the RIAA). Still great music, though.
That said, I agree that BB is garish and overpriced (on some CDs, underpriced on others), and still doesn't have a lot of CDs that I'm actively looking for, but the alternative for me is to drive an hour into St. Louis to go to Vintage Vinyl, or brave the elitist assholes at Slackers. *sigh* Why can't John Cusack open a Championship Vinyl in my town?
My concern is that to allow installation to be simple enough: applications will become something like "You must be root to install this application. Please enter your root password" - in which case viruses will follow suite and, well, same problem as windows. Maybe the concept of becoming "superuser" would instill enough paranoia to keep users from clicking and becoming root, but I doubt it.
In my experience, a lot of Windows 2000/XP home users don't even know that they're running as admin, or that they have a choice not to. I work as a Windows admin, and often someone will ask me how come their home machine keeps installing software "on its own," usually meaning they clicked yes on the "Do you want to install GAIM?" box somewhere. I explain that some software companies are less than ethical, and that the best way to guard against that is to not run as admin, and not to install anything unless they explicitly asked for it. Then I give them a pre-prepared file on how to create user accounts and set rights on 2000/XP machines, along with a disk containing Ad-Aware, Firefox, the latest XP service pack, the Blaster patch, and appropriate readme files (I keep 5 or 6 of these on my desk). Invariably they tell me later that the situation has improved, and that they never even thought about doing it that way - they even ask me if they can copy the disk for their friends. I think that part of the reason its sucessful is because it gives users a greater sense of responsibility when they login to the admin account.
Anecdotal evidence for sure, but the response from users has been so overwhelmingly good for me to ignore. All OSs intended for home users should setup a separate admin account, and take steps to inform users to use it only when necessary.
Amen! I'm also a Windows admin, who runs both Windows and Linux boxes at home (although I'm admittedly a Linux n00b), and I must say that the people who I admin for a living would be no more clueless on Linux machines than they already are on their Windows machines.
Wrong context. The grandparent is referring to a South Park episode where Johnny Cochran is attempting to use the Chewbacca defense. "If Chewbacca does not make sense, you must acquit!"
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Yes, under current law. If hardware contains software, and the manufacturer sees fit to place a license on the software, and there's no way to get around the software, then you have to agree to the license to use the hardware.
I seem to recall a /. story from a few months ago where someone bought a Windows preloaded Dell computer with the intention of using Linux on it. When the person turned it on with his Linux install disk in the drive, he was presented with an un-circumventable software licence agreement screen, which basically stated that by agreeing, he was agreeing to the licenses of all the preloaded software on the machine. Presumably the only way to get past it to load Linux was by clicking OK
The person at Dell support couldn't figure out why the guy wouldn't just click OK, even though the tech couldn't tell him what was in each individual license that he was supposed to blanket-agree with. Ultimately he ended up sending the computer back.
We need legal precidence on the legality of software license agreements, and exactly what obligations that all parties are under. Until this happens, we're going to continue to see unresonable and silly licenses.
My Peavey 5150 has a preamp out jack on it, which brain-dead soundguys often want to use to plug me into the house. Then they can't figure out why it sounds shitty in the house and fantastic through my uber-cheap Behringer 4x12 cabinet. The reason is because the house isn't getting the coloration from the poweramp.
Also, there are two ways of getting gain from most modern guitar amps. 1. crank the preamp gain (thus adding distortion), set post gain to desired volume. 2. leave preamp low, crank postgain, thus cranking volume and adding distortion. Control distortion using volume knob on guitar. Way #2 sounds incredibly better, which is why guitar players are the bane of soundmen the world over, and also why there exist such products as the Marshall Powerbrake, which allow you to crank your tube amp, yet keep a reasonable volume going to the cabinet. Way #2 produces a more 'real' overdrive sound, as opposed to the pixillated, industrial kind of sound that you tend to get with low volume/cranked preamp.
The Marshall JCM would likely sound the same, or similiar, if the preamp stage remained the same, and a solid state poweramp were used
Marshall does make a line of amps which do just that, called the Valvestate series. I have to admit that they sound very much like all-tube Marshalls, except I think I've noticed that they have more of a tendancy for microphonic squeal rather than nice feedback at high volume than the all-tube amps. I can't help but think that it's because of the nature of solid state. I would venture to say that most guitar players who use Marshall-style amps would pay the extra money to not have microphonic squeal.
I even fire it up as a Unreal Tournament client when I need a spare machine for a LAN party.
Granted, I don't use it everyday, but my wife does.
I don't think so, because if it had a big enough userbase, then other companies would step up to the plate. If we didn't like what they did, then we wouldn't have to buy their products, and we wouldn't have the barriers to switching that Microsoft and other proprietary companies set up. Linux users would have much greater bargaining power with open source vendors because they wouldn't be locked into closed standards.
I'm not suggesting at that corporate involvement in Linux is bad at all, only that once Linux passes a point, corporate intentions won't matter nearly as much because there will be just as many independant hackers involved as corporate ones, and the independant ones will have all of the same information as the paid ones do (namely, the source).
I'm not disputing that IBM/Sun/etc practiced constomer-unfriendly business in the past, or would do so again given the chance. Keep in mind that Linux would always be by the people, for the people regardless of the actions of companies. Imagine if every MCSE was a Linux guru instead, and that Linux had dominance. Say that IBM/Sun/Red Hat/Suse/etc all drop Linux like a rock for their own proprietary solutions. Would it matter? No, because there would be enough Linux-savvy people to keep it going, either using alternate distros or improving on the already-GPLed corporate ones. I'm not a Linux fanboy at all. In fact, I'm a tech at an Air Force all-MS helpdesk, and I really don't mind supporting MS from a strictly technical standpoint. Of my four home computers, only one is Linux, and I know just enough to install it. However, I am trying to learn as much about it as I can now, because I think that if it ever gets a break, it will be the future.
Eraser is a GPL program that (among other uses) will overwrite empty hard disk space as many times as you specify. Simply change the pagefile size to 0MB, restart, and run eraser on free disk space. Tell it to overwrite 7 times. There's no way anyone's recovering it then.
Couldn't we just prolong life by giving people with long-lived parents and grandparents hefty financial incentives to breed with each other? It seemed to work for Lazarus Long.
You should see The Urge play sometime. Sadly, they broke up a few years ago (they still play St. Louis area shows occasionally), but they were amazingly energetic, and never rolled tape AFAIK.
Lots of bands (especially punk bands) run around and really get into the show (check out 2 Skinnee Js live, or maybe Goldfinger or Thursday). I think that one of the things that makes a band great live is that they can move around and be energetic, and still actually pull off the performance. I hate the ones that roll tape, but I don't really know of any that do, outside of the mainstream acts.
That said, I've seen a lot of bands that were amazing live, but didn't make very inspiring music (like The Urge, for the most part). I still pay to see some of them anyway.
Another great point about many (not all) modular engines from an enthusiast perspective is that major parts can often be easily interchanged. Want to up the Horsepower of your 2000 Civic Si? Put B18 Civic Type R camshafts in it, with a thinner head gasket. Hell, replace the whole head - QED, and you'll be pushing 190HP from a 1.6L engine, and still getting close to 40MPG. If Chevy built engines with the same displacement/HP ratio as Honda, then that 5.7L would be pushing 600HP, without forced induction!
Not saying that the old pushrod 350 isn't a great engine (the late model Camaros with it killed the modular Mustangs), but rather that it's not as high-tech a platform as GM would have people believe, and that there are possibly better solutions now.
I had to have the driveshaft replaced in an '86 Chrysler 5th Avenue because a U-joint froze and caused it to break and fall into the street. Luckily it fell aft-end first, not causing it to puncture the gas tank as seems to happen so often to prison vans. Apparently there's some bearings or something in there that you have to replace/have greased periodically. But hey, I was 16 at the time (circa 1995), and didn't know any better.
What's interesting is that the car was in my family for its entire life, until we gave it away at 260k miles, and it's still running without any major maintenance, which really surprises me for as big a piece of crap it was.
Wowza.
Indeed, Ken.
May I direct you to This site. Not my site, and I apologize for the background music, but there are definately people out there who learn to hack high-tech speed mods on their own just by trial and error with junk parts. Granted, they've blown up a lot of stuff on the way, but that's often part of the learning experience.
My '00 Honda Civic Ex is the best of both worlds. It's got a computer and fuel injection, but also still has a distributor - making timing changes easy. The engine is laid out intelligently (changing plugs and wires took me 5 minutes), and very well documented. Sure, it's crammed in the bay, but it's so well thought out that it doesn't matter so much. Also, it's one of the few reasonably priced well-equipped cars that you can still get with a manual transmission - seems (especially with domestics) you can usually only get the manual on the base model. Often on imports, its the other way around. Oh, and I'm pushing 92000 miles (bought it at 7000), and I've only had it in the shop to get the left power window lubricated. Clutch slips a *tiny* bit when launching from 2nd (which I shouldn't do anyway), but that's a wear/replace part. Otherwise still runs like the day I bought it.
What I can't believe is that people apparently consider many domestics to be "modern technology" at all, considering that GM is using essentially the same 3.8L pushrod V6 that they were using in the 70's. In fact, I think even the new 'Vettes have a fuel injected variation of the 35+ year old pushrod 350.
I guess this is just more proof that there are people with considerably more cents than sense.
You'd be surprised: Dredg, Fugazi, Coheed and Cambria, Further Seems Forever, Dead Poetic, Zao, Elliot, Brand New, Silverstein, Hey Mercedes, Beloved, Norma Jean, just to name a few. I've been surprised more than a few times at seeing an "unknown" band's CD at Best Buy. I have noticed though, that all of the lesser-known bands that I see there are on indie labels that aren't really indie (that is, they're affiliated with the RIAA). Still great music, though.
That said, I agree that BB is garish and overpriced (on some CDs, underpriced on others), and still doesn't have a lot of CDs that I'm actively looking for, but the alternative for me is to drive an hour into St. Louis to go to Vintage Vinyl, or brave the elitist assholes at Slackers.
*sigh* Why can't John Cusack open a Championship Vinyl in my town?
You have good points.
My concern is that to allow installation to be simple enough: applications will become something like "You must be root to install this application. Please enter your root password" - in which case viruses will follow suite and, well, same problem as windows. Maybe the concept of becoming "superuser" would instill enough paranoia to keep users from clicking and becoming root, but I doubt it.
In my experience, a lot of Windows 2000/XP home users don't even know that they're running as admin, or that they have a choice not to. I work as a Windows admin, and often someone will ask me how come their home machine keeps installing software "on its own," usually meaning they clicked yes on the "Do you want to install GAIM?" box somewhere. I explain that some software companies are less than ethical, and that the best way to guard against that is to not run as admin, and not to install anything unless they explicitly asked for it. Then I give them a pre-prepared file on how to create user accounts and set rights on 2000/XP machines, along with a disk containing Ad-Aware, Firefox, the latest XP service pack, the Blaster patch, and appropriate readme files (I keep 5 or 6 of these on my desk). Invariably they tell me later that the situation has improved, and that they never even thought about doing it that way - they even ask me if they can copy the disk for their friends. I think that part of the reason its sucessful is because it gives users a greater sense of responsibility when they login to the admin account.
Anecdotal evidence for sure, but the response from users has been so overwhelmingly good for me to ignore. All OSs intended for home users should setup a separate admin account, and take steps to inform users to use it only when necessary.
Amen! I'm also a Windows admin, who runs both Windows and Linux boxes at home (although I'm admittedly a Linux n00b), and I must say that the people who I admin for a living would be no more clueless on Linux machines than they already are on their Windows machines.
Well, we'll just put this linky in, so everyone in the future will get the joke.