We could really use some better comic strips (especially ones with penguins in them).
I really missed the days of the Far Side. Non-sequiter is pretty good. And I don't need to say anything about Dilbert. But the rest of the comics suck. Maybe I'm just getting old. But it seems like comics used to be much better. I hope this one helps with the comeback of good comics.
I've never seen this Opus before, but I think Tux could take him.
I completely agree with you. But I wonder, is there any large scale organizing force behind a RIAA boycott? If there is, I'd love to know about it. If not, I propose we start one.
It is very important, however, that such a boycott not be limited to/.ers. The amount the RIAA feels it depends on how far reaching it is. I'm talking about 50% drop in music sales in a week, feeling it in the bank.
I say we do this (and this is a little unrefined, because I just thought of it) if someone can give us some webspace, maybe with php/mysql or similar setup, we start a Boycott website. The website would briefly explain the dilemma and have a signup pledge to not buy any new CD's from the RIAA until... yadah yadah. Instead money should go to concerts and used CDs.
Then we send out automatic emails to all on the list saying something to the effect of "Congratulations, you have gone 2 weeks without purchasing a new CD!" These would serve a nice reminder, and really help the cause. If someone did want to buy a CD, or stop getting emails, they could just click an "I'm done" link to deactivate. That would also provide excellent tracking ability of how many people had stopped buying CDs. With a little refinement, this could work. It would take help from programmers, donated web space, and upkeep. But it could be devastating to the RIAA.
If you live by the dollar, you die by the dollar.
Sorry this got so long. I just started writing and couldn't stop:) sheesh.
When reporters visited teh apartment last night, Brianna -- who her mom says is an honors student -- was helping her brother with his homework.
First it's your 12 year old honor student who helps her brother with homework. Next it's the boyscout who walks old ladies across the street. Then, when there's no boyscout to protect her, they go for the old lady. This is why everyone considers them wolves.
They didn't include the cost of upgrading and patching for every.Net, VB and Microsoft library you use, which will have an average of one root level security hole found per month. That raises the cost of MS development.
By the way, I've never written a program that costed me a cent.
We've seen time and time again, the government is not very good at handling technology. They inevitabley screw it up. They overregulate and kill whatever was good to begin with. After a while they'll find a large corportation that they can back via the DMCA to comandere the technology and prosocute the originators for piracy. This has happened before. And it looks like they're planning to do it again.
KEEP YOUR GRUBBY HANDS OFF.
A free, open internet has done wonders for this country economically and technologically. Yet they continue to turn and backstab the free and open system.
That's pretty good for getting levelled by a tornado.
My server company (who's name I will not mention) sometimes just shuts down because a gentle breeze. Then when I call them, I hear "whoops, I guess it is down!"
If it's crappy music, why are people downloading it?
Well, if it is crappy or not, you don't know until you hear it. That leaves you with one of two options:
1. Get the music from an alternate source to preview - then buy what you like. (Alt sources include radio, friend who purchased, or DOWNLOADING)
2. Just buy the CD for ~$20.00 and hope it doesn't suck.
Of course, if you have already purchased it, it's too late when you find out it sucks. That's why many people download first. Then buy what they like. It is not uncommon to trash most, or all of the songs that are downloaded.
And how long until the entire operating system, and all the Microsoft applications, are all just patches?
It should be a lot easier to pirate a copy of Windows when you can reconstruct the entire operating system by downloading patches directly from MS, and piecing them together like legos.
I hope this wins some more business and government contracts for non-Windows based systems.
Windows is ok for some applications. But this sort of thing (actually a whole month of bad security press) should jar a lot of decision makers to recognize that MS is not the ONLY REAL OS OUT THERE, as there marketing strategy has led all non-tech inclined business execs to beleive.
There are a bunch of people posting gripes that this was a bad idea. But I don't think it's that bad. We should at least withold judgment until we see some data. One thing's for certain, it will outperform YOUR cluster.
Among the top complaints were:
You could buy several AMD's for that.
You might be able to, but the G5's they are buying already have 2 very good processors. As long as they're dividing up tasks among processors, it's nice to have all the memory management and overhead taken care of at a level of two processors per node instead of one. To be honest, I've never seen it done before, and it could have very interesting results.
The Mac's aren't designed for this sort of thing.
We don't know all the details of this cluster because they weren't all mentioned in the story, but my hunch is that Apple might cater to them a little if they are offering to dump $5 mill on a cluster. They might package the cases differently (sans curvy plastic or with shared power supplies).
Anyway, when it comes to speed of high precision calculations, the G* chips have proven their worth. And most High Science applications fall into that range of operation. We all know that clustering and distrubuting is touchy. The cost and speed don't scale linearly. And the cost vs speed ratio definately doesn't scale literally.
There is a possibility these computer science professors know something. So we might want to see how this thing performs before we rush to judgement.
I normally consider myself a die-hard american. I tend to support our government through thick and thin. But as of late, it seems like European government (courts especially) are the only ones that care to protect their citizens. Look back through Slashdot articles for the past week or two. You'll see what I mean.
I had never considered moving to another country. But the more European governments step up to this crap while our own government takes the DMCA attitude, the better my chances of visiting the EU for an extended stay.
That is ridiculous. You are cooking up offense where none is meant. As long as you are looking for something to offend you, you will find it.
My own language is exactly that... my own. I don't appreciate others telling me what I should say, or how I should say it. I assume you would react similarly if I provided you with a new set of rules for your speech.
A new PC term has a lifespan of 10 years anyway, because after that time, someone will start saying that term is offensive. And a new term will be accepted. That is an endless process that leads nowhere.
My advice is to be offended only by people who are utterly offensive, and don't nitpick everyone else.
Windows has the same problem. The Win98 desktop is NOTHING like the XP desktop. Each edition they release is a little different in terms of menu placement, control panels, what's where... The only advantage is that they release one at a time, so there is only one current OS. But to go between Windows machines, you still have to adjust and know what you're doing.
Slashdot Mirror
We could really use some better comic strips (especially ones with penguins in them).
I really missed the days of the Far Side. Non-sequiter is pretty good. And I don't need to say anything about Dilbert. But the rest of the comics suck. Maybe I'm just getting old. But it seems like comics used to be much better. I hope this one helps with the comeback of good comics.
I've never seen this Opus before, but I think Tux could take him.
yeah, I know... I didn't preview.
Replaced by Greg Papadopoulos. I bet that guy got beat up a lot as a kid.
Reminds me of the delivery guy in Big Daddy, trying to say Hippopotamus.
I completely agree with you. But I wonder, is there any large scale organizing force behind a RIAA boycott? If there is, I'd love to know about it. If not, I propose we start one.
/.ers. The amount the RIAA feels it depends on how far reaching it is. I'm talking about 50% drop in music sales in a week, feeling it in the bank.
:) sheesh.
It is very important, however, that such a boycott not be limited to
I say we do this (and this is a little unrefined, because I just thought of it) if someone can give us some webspace, maybe with php/mysql or similar setup, we start a Boycott website. The website would briefly explain the dilemma and have a signup pledge to not buy any new CD's from the RIAA until... yadah yadah. Instead money should go to concerts and used CDs.
Then we send out automatic emails to all on the list saying something to the effect of "Congratulations, you have gone 2 weeks without purchasing a new CD!" These would serve a nice reminder, and really help the cause. If someone did want to buy a CD, or stop getting emails, they could just click an "I'm done" link to deactivate. That would also provide excellent tracking ability of how many people had stopped buying CDs. With a little refinement, this could work. It would take help from programmers, donated web space, and upkeep. But it could be devastating to the RIAA.
If you live by the dollar, you die by the dollar.
Sorry this got so long. I just started writing and couldn't stop
When reporters visited teh apartment last night, Brianna -- who her mom says is an honors student -- was helping her brother with his homework.
First it's your 12 year old honor student who helps her brother with homework. Next it's the boyscout who walks old ladies across the street. Then, when there's no boyscout to protect her, they go for the old lady. This is why everyone considers them wolves.
You can tell a lot about the RIAA based on the fact that they are willing to pick on a 12 year old girl!
At least pick a fight with someone CLOSE to your own size.
That's just one more would-have-been future customer that how hates the RIAA and won't be buying their CDs when she has money.
They didn't include the cost of upgrading and patching for every .Net, VB and Microsoft library you use, which will have an average of one root level security hole found per month. That raises the cost of MS development.
By the way, I've never written a program that costed me a cent.
Visit my Ebay listings for lead jock straps, helmets and surplus radioactive materials.
We've seen time and time again, the government is not very good at handling technology. They inevitabley screw it up. They overregulate and kill whatever was good to begin with. After a while they'll find a large corportation that they can back via the DMCA to comandere the technology and prosocute the originators for piracy. This has happened before. And it looks like they're planning to do it again.
KEEP YOUR GRUBBY HANDS OFF.
A free, open internet has done wonders for this country economically and technologically. Yet they continue to turn and backstab the free and open system.
damn... damn damn.
One man's crap is another man's Justin Timberlake...
no wait! ah whatever, you get my point.
A Tornado huh?
Well that's what you casemodders get for installing twenty overpowered cooling fans in every one of your 1000 servers!
That's pretty good for getting levelled by a tornado.
My server company (who's name I will not mention) sometimes just shuts down because a gentle breeze. Then when I call them, I hear "whoops, I guess it is down!"
If it's crappy music, why are people downloading it?
Well, if it is crappy or not, you don't know until you hear it. That leaves you with one of two options:
1. Get the music from an alternate source to preview - then buy what you like. (Alt sources include radio, friend who purchased, or DOWNLOADING)
2. Just buy the CD for ~$20.00 and hope it doesn't suck.
Of course, if you have already purchased it, it's too late when you find out it sucks. That's why many people download first. Then buy what they like. It is not uncommon to trash most, or all of the songs that are downloaded.
[despite a] 22% drop in downloading, the drop in CD sales actually accelerated during the same period
Yes! So it wasn't the downloading that caused poor sales afterall. It was the
crappy music + high prices + strongarming.
Also, congratulations to all who have not purchased CD's in protest. Keep up the good work.
"Initial customer feedback from the entertainment industry in general has been very favorable," Eades added.
Suprise suprise.
Some things deserve bashing.
I happen to like bash. It's one of my favorite shells. So I don't think MS is even worthy of the term.
Seriously though, it is fine to completely critique and rough up a company if they deserve it.
And how long until the entire operating system, and all the Microsoft applications, are all just patches?
It should be a lot easier to pirate a copy of Windows when you can reconstruct the entire operating system by downloading patches directly from MS, and piecing them together like legos.
I hope this wins some more business and government contracts for non-Windows based systems.
Windows is ok for some applications. But this sort of thing (actually a whole month of bad security press) should jar a lot of decision makers to recognize that MS is not the ONLY REAL OS OUT THERE, as there marketing strategy has led all non-tech inclined business execs to beleive.
The Truth will set you free.
The high bid is $37.00 at the time of this post, and there are
still 6 days and 8 hours left!.
There are a bunch of people posting gripes that this was a bad idea. But I don't think it's that bad. We should at least withold judgment until we see some data. One thing's for certain, it will outperform YOUR cluster.
Among the top complaints were:
You could buy several AMD's for that.
You might be able to, but the G5's they are buying already have 2 very good processors. As long as they're dividing up tasks among processors, it's nice to have all the memory management and overhead taken care of at a level of two processors per node instead of one. To be honest, I've never seen it done before, and it could have very interesting results.
The Mac's aren't designed for this sort of thing.
We don't know all the details of this cluster because they weren't all mentioned in the story, but my hunch is that Apple might cater to them a little if they are offering to dump $5 mill on a cluster. They might package the cases differently (sans curvy plastic or with shared power supplies).
Anyway, when it comes to speed of high precision calculations, the G* chips have proven their worth. And most High Science applications fall into that range of operation. We all know that clustering and distrubuting is touchy. The cost and speed don't scale linearly. And the cost vs speed ratio definately doesn't scale literally.
There is a possibility these computer science professors know something. So we might want to see how this thing performs before we rush to judgement.
I normally consider myself a die-hard american. I tend to support our government through thick and thin. But as of late, it seems like European government (courts especially) are the only ones that care to protect their citizens. Look back through Slashdot articles for the past week or two. You'll see what I mean.
I had never considered moving to another country. But the more European governments step up to this crap while our own government takes the DMCA attitude, the better my chances of visiting the EU for an extended stay.
Possibly a stupid question: Does a copy-protected CD actually follow the CD specification from Philips et al.?
No, it doesn't. And that's what has caused all the headache and 'broken' computers. Copy protected 'CDs' aren't REALLY CDs at all.
EMI being forced to refund the cost of a copy-protected CD, because it was found to have a 'hidden defect'
What beautiful wording. And absolutely true. If you purchase data, it should be that, data, plain and simple, with no extras or hitches.
Theory and Philsophy lesson 1 for Copy protection companies:
If you can read it, you can copy it.
I think they already know that deep down. So their idea is to make the data harder and harder to read... to the point where it becomes defective.
...morons
That is ridiculous. You are cooking up offense where none is meant. As long as you are looking for something to offend you, you will find it.
My own language is exactly that... my own. I don't appreciate others telling me what I should say, or how I should say it. I assume you would react similarly if I provided you with a new set of rules for your speech.
A new PC term has a lifespan of 10 years anyway, because after that time, someone will start saying that term is offensive. And a new term will be accepted. That is an endless process that leads nowhere.
My advice is to be offended only by people who are utterly offensive, and don't nitpick everyone else.
Windows has the same problem. The Win98 desktop is NOTHING like the XP desktop. Each edition they release is a little different in terms of menu placement, control panels, what's where... The only advantage is that they release one at a time, so there is only one current OS. But to go between Windows machines, you still have to adjust and know what you're doing.