This story is not really about how the government shut down a bunch of warez sites. This is about how the government is absolutely in the pocket of big corporations. They put a fancy spin on it, but intelligent people should be able to plainly see the truth. When will we ever reach a critical mass of people who have figured out what's really going on? I don't think it's too late to save this country from going into the crapper, but we're getting close...
I started learning Dvorak a few weeks ago. I find that I can only switch back and forth if I use muscle memory -- if I think about the change consciously, then my brain shorts out and I can't use either one:-). I am becoming more confidant that I'll be able to retain both indefinately, however.
Well, maybe it's time to let go and focus on what they are...an OS company.
Oh how I wish they would. The OS market is quickly becoming commoditized, and they are destined to lose in that space. Won't be today or tomorrow, but the writing is already on the wall.
As an amusing aside... I sure wish Apple would open source Mac OS X in its entirety. Regardless of the impact on Apple, I'd just like to see what would happen in the OS space. Might dent Linux's desktop share too. I digress...
I once put a Windows XP box on the net directly because of a firewall failure, and before I got connected to Windows Update, it had already been infected with Blaster. It was less than 30 seconds, for sure.
I have since taken steps to keep that from ever happening again. None of my PC's run any flavor of Windows any more, and my primary surf/e-mail machine is a Mac Mini. So much more relaxing than having to deal with Microsoft.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I have always been under the impression that common carrier status is a good thing. I guess the cable companies are going to have to raise rates or something, to leverage their monopoly status to offset the increased liability from not being able to shield themselves with common carrier status.
No they don't. They see it as a chance to skip paying for something they want, with a fairly low chance of getting caught doing it. If they really like the artist, I wonder if they'd be willing to look that musician in the eye, in person, and say, "Hey! great new album! I've just downloaded a copy from a P2P, and I'll be listening to it when I drive to work. The lyrics are great, and it's got a cool groove. I just like your creative work so much, but not enough to pay you for it! Keep up the good work!" Oh, and I don't think "extortion" means what you think it means.
I think perhaps the reason so many people casually make copies of copyrighted music is because they know who they are taking from -- the record company, not the artist. The record companies have gone out of their way to portray themselves as assholes, and it seems to be working quite well. If everyone hates you, then they will have no qualms about taking from you, especially when the taking does not involve theft of something tangible.
Give me a way to direct my contribution DIRECTLY to the artist, and I will happily do it. Knowing that the record company is going to scrape off 95% of the price for themselves is a major disincentive to paying retail for music. By doing that I would be supporting corporate greed, which is something I'm unwilling to do.
You can hope all you want that people will innovate; the reality is most web site owners are only in it for the money.
Hope is not required -- as a web site owner, you will innovate, or you will be out of business. Just because you are "only in it for the money" does not grant you immunity from this fact. There are more than enough people in this world who will figure out more creative ways to part consumers from their money, we are not in any danger of running out of choice.
Dave
Personally, I don't have a windows computer in my home. I am running several Macs, a Sparc and a Linux machine. The main reason all stems from Microsoft and the way they treat their paying customers like they are stealing something from them.
Here, here! You sound much like me -- I have an Ultra 10, three Linux PC's, and a Mac Mini. The only Windows I get forced into using is at work -- and I'm shortly going to solve that issue as well. Every time one of my friends or family has yet another problem with Windows, I am reminded about why I don't use it.
So 75% of all music listeners download music? More like 75% of everyone who ownes a computer, an MP3 player, and has a broadband connection downloads music. The rest of the world goes for long periods of time without buying any music at all, much less downloading it.
The Mac Mini did do damage, for sure -- and the only reason it has not gotten worse is that the Mini is somewhat weak. I converted to MacOS 10.4 as my primary "day to day" OS of choice, and I use a Mini. If I could get something with x86 levels of computing power running MacOS, for a price that is at least competitive with a good quality x86 box, I'd never look back. I've been waiting a long time for a good Linux desktop, and I got sick of waiting. It either had to be Windows or MacOS, and well... duh.
"As for more basic CD player compatibility issues, Gilliat-Smith says the discs are compliant with Sony Philips CD specifications and should therefore play in all conventional CD players."
As long as the CD's must remain compatible with the the original CD specifications, then DRM will -never- work. The CD spec doesn't have provisions for DRM, which means that enforcing it requires software. And so anybody who is not running Windows will be unaffected.
This is just another market force -- people want freedom, they want to be unrestricted in what they do. If Windows becomes a restriction, suddenly Linux and MacOS will become a lot more attractive.
We're not totally screwed yet, I hope capitalism can save us from technology...
Read the article again. What he said is that PC's the size of Mac Minis were hardly flying off the shelf at the same rate as the Mini. Later he said Shuttle sells 50,000 small PC's a month.
Your mistake is assuming that "small PC" has any relationship to "PC's the size of Mac Minis." Last time I looked, Shuttle's "small PC" offering is small... for a PC. It's about four times the size of a Mac Mini...
Dave
> As long as I can upgrade the RAM, or
get a bigger hard drive later on
> i'm starting to not really feel the
need for an upgradeable computer.
I agree entirely. I haven't upgraded any of my PC boxes in quite a while -- ever since they started coming with everything integrated into the motherboard, I haven't found a need to add on PCI cards for everything. By the time I'm ready to upgrade the stuff built-in to the board, or it breaks, then I end up replacing the motherboard and CPU with faster components anyway.
And I have to confess... I have three PC's in my house... and one Mac Mini;-). It's not hugely powerful, but it's dead silent and the software is excellent. Between OSX and iMovie HD... I'm hooked. I've upgraded the RAM, and anything else I need can connect with Firewire or USB2.
You're probably right. The simple fact is that on any car (especially ordinary A-to-B type cars), the brakes have much more horsepower than does the engine (and this is assuming the engine is at its peak horsepower RPM). If you can't stop the car with the engine at WOT, then you're not pushing very hard on the brakes or they are faulty.
Does the FAA and the University of Buffalo think that they can do a better job of searching web pages than Google does?
If they really want quick results, it seems to me that our tax dollars would be better spent hiring Google to whip them up something instead. Or better yet, just save the tax dollars altogether and find something more useful to spend it on.
It very well could be. However, let's try 1) an indepedent test, paid for by neither competitor, and 2) the most recent version of IIS against the most recent version of Apache, and 3) the most recent version of Windows against the most recent version of Linux.
I can guarantee a win in any test so long as I am allowed to dictate all of the conditions. I wonder how many combinations they tried before they found one that IIS6 could beat?
In what nanny-state, commie pipe dream is it the government's responsibility to provide internet access to people who can almost certainly get it cheapy from commercial ISPs?
The commercial ISP's do not want a free market, they want preservation of their monopoly. Perhaps getting the government directly involved in offering service is not the perfect answer -- but we need something done. Ideally the government regulates and controls the parts that can be monopolized -- namely the pipe to your house. Fair access to that pipe by private ISP's can be legislated. The system now is very broken -- perhaps wireless can help change that.
I wonder how MSN search compares to Google in terms of hardware versus load. With a couple of thousand servers in place, it would be interesting to see how many queries per second MSN search can handle per box as compared with Google...
I do not understand their complaint about Google search rank. If I type "tiger direct", I get www.tigerdirect.com as the first result. Does it get any better than that?
If I type "tiger", the first result has to do with real tigers (the kind with paws). And that makes sense to me as well.
So I do not see their point. I think the real issue is that over the last year or so, Tiger Direct has become more and more irrelevant as other bargain stores enter the market, and they are hurting financially. Apples has comparatively deep pockets and Tiger Direct may be looking for some revenue.
What you just described is optimal utilization of all available routes. That means no traffic jams at all, anywhere (unless there just is no more capacity anywhere at all, in which case you have gridlock).
Make it a telephone keypad. Instead of one big button you still have to hit 911. Less accidental false alarms and you only have to teach your kids once what the meaning of 911 is.
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This story is not really about how the government shut down a bunch of warez sites. This is about how the government is absolutely in the pocket of big corporations. They put a fancy spin on it, but intelligent people should be able to plainly see the truth. When will we ever reach a critical mass of people who have figured out what's really going on? I don't think it's too late to save this country from going into the crapper, but we're getting close...
I started learning Dvorak a few weeks ago. I find that I can only switch back and forth if I use muscle memory -- if I think about the change consciously, then my brain shorts out and I can't use either one :-). I am becoming more confidant that I'll be able to retain both indefinately, however.
Oh how I wish they would. The OS market is quickly becoming commoditized, and they are destined to lose in that space. Won't be today or tomorrow, but the writing is already on the wall.
As an amusing aside ... I sure wish Apple would open source Mac OS X in its entirety. Regardless of the impact on Apple, I'd just like to see what would happen in the OS space. Might dent Linux's desktop share too. I digress...
10 seconds... http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnin quiry.asp?ISBN=0805057552&pdf=y
And before you argue that BN doesn't have it in stock... either does Amazon, they will search for it though.
I once put a Windows XP box on the net directly because of a firewall failure, and before I got connected to Windows Update, it had already been infected with Blaster. It was less than 30 seconds, for sure. I have since taken steps to keep that from ever happening again. None of my PC's run any flavor of Windows any more, and my primary surf/e-mail machine is a Mac Mini. So much more relaxing than having to deal with Microsoft.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I have always been under the impression that common carrier status is a good thing. I guess the cable companies are going to have to raise rates or something, to leverage their monopoly status to offset the increased liability from not being able to shield themselves with common carrier status.
I think perhaps the reason so many people casually make copies of copyrighted music is because they know who they are taking from -- the record company, not the artist. The record companies have gone out of their way to portray themselves as assholes, and it seems to be working quite well. If everyone hates you, then they will have no qualms about taking from you, especially when the taking does not involve theft of something tangible.
Give me a way to direct my contribution DIRECTLY to the artist, and I will happily do it. Knowing that the record company is going to scrape off 95% of the price for themselves is a major disincentive to paying retail for music. By doing that I would be supporting corporate greed, which is something I'm unwilling to do.
Hope is not required -- as a web site owner, you will innovate, or you will be out of business. Just because you are "only in it for the money" does not grant you immunity from this fact. There are more than enough people in this world who will figure out more creative ways to part consumers from their money, we are not in any danger of running out of choice. Dave
Here, here! You sound much like me -- I have an Ultra 10, three Linux PC's, and a Mac Mini. The only Windows I get forced into using is at work -- and I'm shortly going to solve that issue as well. Every time one of my friends or family has yet another problem with Windows, I am reminded about why I don't use it.
So 75% of all music listeners download music? More like 75% of everyone who ownes a computer, an MP3 player, and has a broadband connection downloads music. The rest of the world goes for long periods of time without buying any music at all, much less downloading it.
The Mac Mini did do damage, for sure -- and the only reason it has not gotten worse is that the Mini is somewhat weak. I converted to MacOS 10.4 as my primary "day to day" OS of choice, and I use a Mini. If I could get something with x86 levels of computing power running MacOS, for a price that is at least competitive with a good quality x86 box, I'd never look back. I've been waiting a long time for a good Linux desktop, and I got sick of waiting. It either had to be Windows or MacOS, and well... duh.
Windows, on the other hand, costs multi-hundreds of dollars for every new server.
As long as the CD's must remain compatible with the the original CD specifications, then DRM will -never- work. The CD spec doesn't have provisions for DRM, which means that enforcing it requires software. And so anybody who is not running Windows will be unaffected.
This is just another market force -- people want freedom, they want to be unrestricted in what they do. If Windows becomes a restriction, suddenly Linux and MacOS will become a lot more attractive.
We're not totally screwed yet, I hope capitalism can save us from technology...
Your mistake is assuming that "small PC" has any relationship to "PC's the size of Mac Minis." Last time I looked, Shuttle's "small PC" offering is small ... for a PC. It's about four times the size of a Mac Mini...
Dave
> As long as I can upgrade the RAM, or get a bigger hard drive later on
> i'm starting to not really feel the need for an upgradeable computer.
I agree entirely. I haven't upgraded any of my PC boxes in quite a while -- ever since they started coming with everything integrated into the motherboard, I haven't found a need to add on PCI cards for everything. By the time I'm ready to upgrade the stuff built-in to the board, or it breaks, then I end up replacing the motherboard and CPU with faster components anyway.
And I have to confess... I have three PC's in my house ... and one Mac Mini ;-). It's not hugely powerful, but it's dead silent and the software is excellent. Between OSX and iMovie HD ... I'm hooked. I've upgraded the RAM, and anything else I need can connect with Firewire or USB2.
You're probably right. The simple fact is that on any car (especially ordinary A-to-B type cars), the brakes have much more horsepower than does the engine (and this is assuming the engine is at its peak horsepower RPM). If you can't stop the car with the engine at WOT, then you're not pushing very hard on the brakes or they are faulty.
If they really want quick results, it seems to me that our tax dollars would be better spent hiring Google to whip them up something instead. Or better yet, just save the tax dollars altogether and find something more useful to spend it on.
But what does my car or yours have to do with Hybrids anyway? ;-)
It very well could be. However, let's try 1) an indepedent test, paid for by neither competitor, and 2) the most recent version of IIS against the most recent version of Apache, and 3) the most recent version of Windows against the most recent version of Linux. I can guarantee a win in any test so long as I am allowed to dictate all of the conditions. I wonder how many combinations they tried before they found one that IIS6 could beat?
The commercial ISP's do not want a free market, they want preservation of their monopoly. Perhaps getting the government directly involved in offering service is not the perfect answer -- but we need something done. Ideally the government regulates and controls the parts that can be monopolized -- namely the pipe to your house. Fair access to that pipe by private ISP's can be legislated. The system now is very broken -- perhaps wireless can help change that.
I wonder how MSN search compares to Google in terms of hardware versus load. With a couple of thousand servers in place, it would be interesting to see how many queries per second MSN search can handle per box as compared with Google...
If I type "tiger", the first result has to do with real tigers (the kind with paws). And that makes sense to me as well.
So I do not see their point. I think the real issue is that over the last year or so, Tiger Direct has become more and more irrelevant as other bargain stores enter the market, and they are hurting financially. Apples has comparatively deep pockets and Tiger Direct may be looking for some revenue.
What you just described is optimal utilization of all available routes. That means no traffic jams at all, anywhere (unless there just is no more capacity anywhere at all, in which case you have gridlock).
Make it a telephone keypad. Instead of one big button you still have to hit 911. Less accidental false alarms and you only have to teach your kids once what the meaning of 911 is.
Probably true, but why? We need more security? So we can invade some more countries and then rebuild them at great expense? Sigh...