Do not use style sheets to adjust the font size and the spacing between lines. I am not alone in having a high resolution laptop screen and I've seen too many pages that are unreadable. I adjust the settings in my browser to increase the font size so I can read it. However, when I get to one of these pages where they make the font size really small I adjust the font size so it's big enough to read. However, the font is larger but the spacing between the lines is the same, so all the words are crowded together. I hate this standard and it should be avoided at all cost
1,2,3,3.1,3.11,nt 3.1...nt4,95, 98, 98se, me, 2000, xp, 2003. after they're done with the xp scheming of naming things, they're just going to pick random fruit.
Microsoft Windows Orange, Microsoft Server Apple. Now that will confuse people. Thankfully they don't have to decide because when they buy a new computer they aren't given a choice.
Microsoft could just come out with Windows Monkey Balls Edition and not have a problem selling it.
But why use opensource software when you can buy retail software? Any why put linux on a computer for novice users. I think the idea for this was to give a geek money so he could set up a house with all the electronic gadgets and nice computers, so why does this have to become a soapbox to push opensource software when these people are clearly not the people who it should be marketted to right now? If I didn't have to pay for it, I'd take office xp and windows xp over open office and linux anyday.
Put in on a bootable linux users? They'd spend way too much time making sure everyone's hardware would work. And most Windows users, who consist of 99% of their market share, wouldn't like it either because of having to reboot and wait for linux to find and configure their hardware everytime they play the game.
They have to commit time to develop a game for many platforms. If only 1% of the buyers use a platform other than windows then it's worth it to them to not care about linux games and let some other company deal with it now.
People who pay the money for bandwidth are a desire for internet providers. The ISPs who give up information at the drop of a hat look like wimps who have no loyalty to their customers. But this ISP might have a good idea hear. Spend some money on the lawyers so the customers think they're behind them. The RIAA will win eventually, but this is cheap and effective advertisment. I know I sound really cynical here, but I think there is some truth to it. But if I'm wrong and these people really want to make the RIAA work for something that morally yet legally isn't there, then right on!
Remember: P2P isn't money lost down the drain, it's shifted to high bandwidth providers.
That's the same as saying "Well Abercrombie and Fitch get enough money from their clothes and they get them cheap, so what's the difference to them if I shoplift a few?"
DirecTV gets money from subscribers and their ad revenue is based on how many subscribers there are. And if the cat and mouse game ended, then many more people would pirate because it would be a lot easier and they wouldn't have to get "fixes" for their card twice a week.
Don't go nuts because I said this shouldn't be completely open. Maybe everything doesn't have to be open. If I were in the business of providing a service, I wouldn't want it stolen.
And in reference to other business models, how many business models that linux and other open source companies have had lasted since the tech boom? I don't understand why the idea floating around says that everything should be open but I'm pissed off I was laid off as a programmer or engineer. Companies have to sell a product to make money. Yeah, I know I'm straying off the subject that digital cable standards should or shouldn't be open, but just because they're not doesn't make them bad.
The DVD CCS is a bad thing however, because it limits the fair use of a product. My original idea was to protect the cable providers and make it accessible for people to have a means of watching tv on something that wasn't provided by the cable company.
Satellite piracy has and still is a big problem for the provider DirecTV. About 4 years ago or so when I first heard about it, it was easy for people to write or freely download scripts to put on those cards that the recievers used to decode the signal. The cards are more than a storage device for your account information, they do actually do the work of decoding the signal. That is why the use of the cards hasn't been circumvented by crackers. Recently, it has become very difficult for people to do this and a lot of them just do it as a hobby, like a cat and mouse game.
If digital cable is to be standardized and completely open, then it may be just as easy for people to pirate it. And why would large cable providers spend the money to invest in this open technology if it will lead to more piracy?
Maybe the answer is part open and part closed. If somone wants to make a linux set top box to decode the signal, then the techinical details about interfacing with the card should be open and public. But the exact inner workings of how the card decodes the signal should be private so this doesn't become another cat and mouse game with crackers and media providers.
Alright, then lets do this. With this on the news and papers today the RIAA should have dropped this imediatly. Because of their neglect for common decency, we should show them what this Slashdot community can do once we work together.
I saw several people saying "Yes we should do this" and I will offer the responsiblilty of doing this.
My email address is pompeli2@tcnj.edi I would not give this out if I was not serious.
I don't agree with you because windows is as standard to most people as how to operate a car. Say a company called Mazdafordix came out with a car that used hand movements picked up by lasers and infrared sensors to operate a car. The public would imediatly think it was more difficult to use and their argument of "well you're just used to a steering wheel so you're wrong" wouldn't hold up. I don't think this analogy is that much of a stretch when you see windows users try to do the same thing they're used to on a linux machine.
I made a little website, http://www.tcnj.edu/~pompeli2/respectmonopolies.or g/ . I haven't decided whether to actually get the domain, respectmonopolies.org. You guy tell me what you think about it. I actually made it before I saw disrespectmonopolies.org so I didn't copy that at all.
The law says "whole or part" of the copyrighted work. CDNOW probably gets away with this because the RIAA allows it because it promotes cd purchases. If you could get around with "part" of a file then this would have been solved years ago by chopping off the last 1/10 second of the song.
But it's good that we're still trying to think of ways around this monopoly
Are we this lazy as a country that we don't even want to go through the process of teaching? An essay that is gramatical error free and uses phrases like "in summary" and "because" doesn't mean anything if the student can not comunicate their feelings into a paper. High school is the time where students must develop the skill of relating their ideas and feelings on paper for a human to read. If they were to just write so a program would scan if for "errors" then why would they ever bother to take a risk and write something meaningful?
Humans have been putting too much responsibility in the hands of computers. But to make teaching, and especially writing for god sakes, an objective process shows nothing but our society's indifference for educating and improving ourselves.
For those who see objectivity as something positive because it levels the playing field, then they never had a teacher that would take a chance and go past their duty to help a student. This is something no program will ever be able to do.
Computers are objective, people are not. That is what makes us different and inherently better.
Remember the artists who only get 5 percent of the sales (roughly $1 from a $20 which is what I've read). Now they're going to complain more that they're getting short changed from consumers and not the companies they have contracts for. I think it's time for another commercial with britney spears telling us not to steal from her. That'll do it.
DVD yes, but CD no. It is more convenient if you have broadband to download mp3's and burn them to a CD than go down to the mall and buy it. But the quality of downloadable movies like divx usually isn't acceptable compared to even VHS and so people will buy it. But this all depends on bandwidth. Once people can download a 3 gig divx file in a half hour then dvd will lose sales. 7 years ago it was more convenient to buy a cd and look how that has changed. Profits will be shifted to broadband ISP's and from the retailers, but not from the record companies if they do it right. They need a good idea and that is what they're missing now to profit from it. Retailers will lose just like laborers lost when robotic automation took their jobs.
What are you talking about? The size and speed makes up for the slight hassle it takes to make a blank CD-RW act as a floppy and that's only because the software standard doesn't exist. I have this simple utility that makes a CD-RW act as a floppy once it reformats it and windows xp supports it which accounts for a large user base. (Those who want to flame me for that can kiss my ass)
And for your unwillingness to adopt to a digital format like mp3 from digital CD's has nothing to do with 20 steps. I use record now max and it take about 3 steps to rip a CD. Back 7 years ago when you had to do it with a command line maybe it was a little more difficult, but a lot of people managed.
However, you're right about people want to touch what they buy, but they don't care about touching it when they get it for free. But don't blame users for using a more convienent alternative, blame the RIAA for refusing to adopt it. it's their own fault
PDF hasn't replaced print, but I'm surprised on how adopted it has become. As a college student, every time I need to fill out a form to wipe my ass there is a PDF version available on the college's website. And sometimes only PDF exists.
The reason this surprises me is because it forces those uncomputer people to figure out how to click open and print.
However, sometimes teachers send documents in word format. But I think that is because the license fees to make a PDF are unjustifiable when every computer the school owns and most that the students own has word. Though maybe with more agressive educational discounts this can be helped if not fixed.
Oh no! They're going to put in a feature that allows the user to make documents private to a certain group of people. This will lead to the end of the world!!!
Are you guys kidding me? Do you really think they're going to change the format so all the millions of people have to upgrade? They're not stupid for god sakes. And they've been watching their asses after msblaster and sobig so their not in any position to piss people off this obviously.
With the market as sour as it is now, don't you think they're trying to come up with a real feature that will sell the next version of office and not hold it back. Office XP had almost no real advantages over 2000 and they know that. They know corporations need a damn good reason to upgrade and they believe this might be it.
The idea that this will convince corporations to switch to some open source clone of office is as ridiculous as the panic about this feature. If it takes more than a couple days for the average person in the company to learn the software, then it's costing them more money because of lost productivity. And no, this is not FUD!!!! I hate when I see that remark thrown in whenever someone says how the idea to shift at this current moment may not be the best idea. Well it's not! Give it time. If everyone added a line of meaningful code to an open source project instead of typing the acronym FUD then things would be a lot better.
And the idea of DRM isn't necessarily bad. The only annoying thing about it is that what would take a programmer a half hour to do to get around it would take some idiot judge ten minutes to rule against him because of the laws set up. Don't blame the companies, blame the lawmakers who were paid off to pass the laws.
Slashdot Mirror
What's the big deal? It's a "Junior Mint!" Funny episode
Do not use style sheets to adjust the font size and the spacing between lines. I am not alone in having a high resolution laptop screen and I've seen too many pages that are unreadable. I adjust the settings in my browser to increase the font size so I can read it. However, when I get to one of these pages where they make the font size really small I adjust the font size so it's big enough to read. However, the font is larger but the spacing between the lines is the same, so all the words are crowded together. I hate this standard and it should be avoided at all cost
Hey, you know what? That's not fair. Americans are...oh what the hell. I'm...tired...
And don't forget netscape 4 to 6. wtf? Funny how it coincided with IE 6.
you forgot millenium.
1,2,3,3.1,3.11,nt 3.1...nt4,95, 98, 98se, me, 2000, xp, 2003. after they're done with the xp scheming of naming things, they're just going to pick random fruit.
Microsoft Windows Orange, Microsoft Server Apple. Now that will confuse people. Thankfully they don't have to decide because when they buy a new computer they aren't given a choice.
Microsoft could just come out with Windows Monkey Balls Edition and not have a problem selling it.
Disneyland? Outside? Sunshine? People? What kind of geek are you talking about? Maybe a trip to comdex, maybe.
No No No! It's really like this:
1. Write open source software
2. Give it out free
3. Bitch about microsoft
4. ???
5. ???
6. Profit!
But why use opensource software when you can buy retail software? Any why put linux on a computer for novice users. I think the idea for this was to give a geek money so he could set up a house with all the electronic gadgets and nice computers, so why does this have to become a soapbox to push opensource software when these people are clearly not the people who it should be marketted to right now? If I didn't have to pay for it, I'd take office xp and windows xp over open office and linux anyday.
Put in on a bootable linux users? They'd spend way too much time making sure everyone's hardware would work. And most Windows users, who consist of 99% of their market share, wouldn't like it either because of having to reboot and wait for linux to find and configure their hardware everytime they play the game. They have to commit time to develop a game for many platforms. If only 1% of the buyers use a platform other than windows then it's worth it to them to not care about linux games and let some other company deal with it now.
People who pay the money for bandwidth are a desire for internet providers. The ISPs who give up information at the drop of a hat look like wimps who have no loyalty to their customers. But this ISP might have a good idea hear. Spend some money on the lawyers so the customers think they're behind them. The RIAA will win eventually, but this is cheap and effective advertisment. I know I sound really cynical here, but I think there is some truth to it. But if I'm wrong and these people really want to make the RIAA work for something that morally yet legally isn't there, then right on!
Remember: P2P isn't money lost down the drain, it's shifted to high bandwidth providers.
That's the same as saying "Well Abercrombie and Fitch get enough money from their clothes and they get them cheap, so what's the difference to them if I shoplift a few?" DirecTV gets money from subscribers and their ad revenue is based on how many subscribers there are. And if the cat and mouse game ended, then many more people would pirate because it would be a lot easier and they wouldn't have to get "fixes" for their card twice a week. Don't go nuts because I said this shouldn't be completely open. Maybe everything doesn't have to be open. If I were in the business of providing a service, I wouldn't want it stolen. And in reference to other business models, how many business models that linux and other open source companies have had lasted since the tech boom? I don't understand why the idea floating around says that everything should be open but I'm pissed off I was laid off as a programmer or engineer. Companies have to sell a product to make money. Yeah, I know I'm straying off the subject that digital cable standards should or shouldn't be open, but just because they're not doesn't make them bad. The DVD CCS is a bad thing however, because it limits the fair use of a product. My original idea was to protect the cable providers and make it accessible for people to have a means of watching tv on something that wasn't provided by the cable company.
Satellite piracy has and still is a big problem for the provider DirecTV. About 4 years ago or so when I first heard about it, it was easy for people to write or freely download scripts to put on those cards that the recievers used to decode the signal. The cards are more than a storage device for your account information, they do actually do the work of decoding the signal. That is why the use of the cards hasn't been circumvented by crackers. Recently, it has become very difficult for people to do this and a lot of them just do it as a hobby, like a cat and mouse game.
If digital cable is to be standardized and completely open, then it may be just as easy for people to pirate it. And why would large cable providers spend the money to invest in this open technology if it will lead to more piracy?
Maybe the answer is part open and part closed. If somone wants to make a linux set top box to decode the signal, then the techinical details about interfacing with the card should be open and public. But the exact inner workings of how the card decodes the signal should be private so this doesn't become another cat and mouse game with crackers and media providers.
http://www.tcnj.edu/~pompeli2/respectmonopolies.or g/
Damn, it's pompeli2@tcnj.edu. Thanks Pooley.
Alright, then lets do this. With this on the news and papers today the RIAA should have dropped this imediatly. Because of their neglect for common decency, we should show them what this Slashdot community can do once we work together.
I saw several people saying "Yes we should do this" and I will offer the responsiblilty of doing this.
My email address is pompeli2@tcnj.edi
I would not give this out if I was not serious.
Let do it
I don't agree with you because windows is as standard to most people as how to operate a car. Say a company called Mazdafordix came out with a car that used hand movements picked up by lasers and infrared sensors to operate a car. The public would imediatly think it was more difficult to use and their argument of "well you're just used to a steering wheel so you're wrong" wouldn't hold up. I don't think this analogy is that much of a stretch when you see windows users try to do the same thing they're used to on a linux machine.
I made this website, after disrespectcopyrights.org came out. I haven't bought the domain name so I'm just seeing what people think about it.
. or g/
http://www.tcnj.edu/~pompeli2/respectmonopolies
I made a little website, http://www.tcnj.edu/~pompeli2/respectmonopolies.or g/ . I haven't decided whether to actually get the domain, respectmonopolies.org. You guy tell me what you think about it. I actually made it before I saw disrespectmonopolies.org so I didn't copy that at all.
The law says "whole or part" of the copyrighted work. CDNOW probably gets away with this because the RIAA allows it because it promotes cd purchases. If you could get around with "part" of a file then this would have been solved years ago by chopping off the last 1/10 second of the song.
But it's good that we're still trying to think of ways around this monopoly
Are we this lazy as a country that we don't even want to go through the process of teaching? An essay that is gramatical error free and uses phrases like "in summary" and "because" doesn't mean anything if the student can not comunicate their feelings into a paper. High school is the time where students must develop the skill of relating their ideas and feelings on paper for a human to read. If they were to just write so a program would scan if for "errors" then why would they ever bother to take a risk and write something meaningful?
Humans have been putting too much responsibility in the hands of computers. But to make teaching, and especially writing for god sakes, an objective process shows nothing but our society's indifference for educating and improving ourselves.
For those who see objectivity as something positive because it levels the playing field, then they never had a teacher that would take a chance and go past their duty to help a student. This is something no program will ever be able to do.
Computers are objective, people are not. That is what makes us different and inherently better.
Remember the artists who only get 5 percent of the sales (roughly $1 from a $20 which is what I've read). Now they're going to complain more that they're getting short changed from consumers and not the companies they have contracts for. I think it's time for another commercial with britney spears telling us not to steal from her. That'll do it.
DVD yes, but CD no. It is more convenient if you have broadband to download mp3's and burn them to a CD than go down to the mall and buy it. But the quality of downloadable movies like divx usually isn't acceptable compared to even VHS and so people will buy it. But this all depends on bandwidth. Once people can download a 3 gig divx file in a half hour then dvd will lose sales. 7 years ago it was more convenient to buy a cd and look how that has changed. Profits will be shifted to broadband ISP's and from the retailers, but not from the record companies if they do it right. They need a good idea and that is what they're missing now to profit from it. Retailers will lose just like laborers lost when robotic automation took their jobs.
What are you talking about? The size and speed makes up for the slight hassle it takes to make a blank CD-RW act as a floppy and that's only because the software standard doesn't exist. I have this simple utility that makes a CD-RW act as a floppy once it reformats it and windows xp supports it which accounts for a large user base. (Those who want to flame me for that can kiss my ass)
And for your unwillingness to adopt to a digital format like mp3 from digital CD's has nothing to do with 20 steps. I use record now max and it take about 3 steps to rip a CD. Back 7 years ago when you had to do it with a command line maybe it was a little more difficult, but a lot of people managed.
However, you're right about people want to touch what they buy, but they don't care about touching it when they get it for free. But don't blame users for using a more convienent alternative, blame the RIAA for refusing to adopt it. it's their own fault
PDF hasn't replaced print, but I'm surprised on how adopted it has become. As a college student, every time I need to fill out a form to wipe my ass there is a PDF version available on the college's website. And sometimes only PDF exists.
The reason this surprises me is because it forces those uncomputer people to figure out how to click open and print.
However, sometimes teachers send documents in word format. But I think that is because the license fees to make a PDF are unjustifiable when every computer the school owns and most that the students own has word. Though maybe with more agressive educational discounts this can be helped if not fixed.
Oh no! They're going to put in a feature that allows the user to make documents private to a certain group of people. This will lead to the end of the world!!!
Are you guys kidding me? Do you really think they're going to change the format so all the millions of people have to upgrade? They're not stupid for god sakes. And they've been watching their asses after msblaster and sobig so their not in any position to piss people off this obviously.
With the market as sour as it is now, don't you think they're trying to come up with a real feature that will sell the next version of office and not hold it back. Office XP had almost no real advantages over 2000 and they know that. They know corporations need a damn good reason to upgrade and they believe this might be it.
The idea that this will convince corporations to switch to some open source clone of office is as ridiculous as the panic about this feature. If it takes more than a couple days for the average person in the company to learn the software, then it's costing them more money because of lost productivity. And no, this is not FUD!!!! I hate when I see that remark thrown in whenever someone says how the idea to shift at this current moment may not be the best idea. Well it's not! Give it time. If everyone added a line of meaningful code to an open source project instead of typing the acronym FUD then things would be a lot better.
And the idea of DRM isn't necessarily bad. The only annoying thing about it is that what would take a programmer a half hour to do to get around it would take some idiot judge ten minutes to rule against him because of the laws set up. Don't blame the companies, blame the lawmakers who were paid off to pass the laws.