This story reminded me of an article from the Register about how some analysts think IBM will eventually buy AMD. Didn't IBM used to sell Cyrix chips or something?
Yeah, it's OT. But this being my first huge thread I couldn't help but ask: doesn't it seem like the modding system breaks down on these larger threads? Anyone rant about this before?
Just because the top 40 sucks, doesn't mean there's not good music:
Rock: PJ Harvey -- if you don't like her, you have bad taste The Magnetic Fields -- not really "rock" but excellent R.E.M -- still putting out good stuff Sleater Kinney -- great music, good performers Le Tigre -- maybe you should be more political? Rose Polenzani -- more folksy, I recommend "Dragersville" The Butchies -- "3" rawks! Amy Ray -- totally rocks Tragically Hip -- best Canadian rock ever...for you fogies
Electronic(a):
Bjork -- yeah Boards of Canada -- insane Tracy + The Plastics -- great LoFi Lamb -- kinda like Portishead Kruder and Dorphmeister
The rest of the replies to this post are excellent, but I found a more detailed, objective link in about 2 seconds searching Google (don't mean to sound flame-y, I just think it's useful to be inherently suspicious of "definitive" one-sided stories, especially when it takes little effort to find something that's more balanced):
> A gerrymandered tax code primarily costs the public > money--measured by overall inefficiency or extra taxes > unfairly levied on those without political capital.
Can anyone say "Trickle-Down"? Does anyone believe in trickle-down? When the rich get tax breaks, the money doesn't trickle down to the poor, it trickles down to the coke dealers who sell the rich kids dope.
And if you think the poor have as much political capital as the rich, just ask all the black folks who were turned away from voting in Florida in 2000 because they were "felons"...when their only crime was Voting While Black. One article among many about it.
Now if only I were as eloquent as Mr. Zittrain, I wouldn't be modded down as both Flamebait and OT.
I agree with you, as well. But, I would point out that his argument is useful in that it generates an opposing discourse. While I agree with your argument, and think that the video provides a valuable services to persons who get off on this sort of thing, it also could be extremely psychologically damaging to another set of persons. Both of these views need to be recognized. His view of sexuality and representations of sexuality are a bit conservative, but this no doubt comes from his work with battered women. So, no, clearly the video should not be banned, but I think his viewpoint is a valuable one.
A good article at CommonDreams.org about how the fact that it turned out to be a hoax seemed to make it 'acceptable' according to mainstream news sources.
I know (hope) you're being Funny, but the article gives surprisingly good reasons. And the two don't have to be mutually exclusive (again, perhaps I'm missing some sort of humor).
Quote the article in case of Slashdotting/laziness:
IIT, Oops bring the world to village kids
Shobha Warrier in Chennai | August 01, 2003
Half-a-dozen kids sit huddled in front of a personal computer concentrating hard to grasp everything that the face on the monitor is saying.
The tiny kiosk, where these kids are sitting, does not boast of any specialised equipment or high bandwidth. It has just one PC and one Web cam.
Yet every day, children crowd this kiosk to interact with their teacher Meena, who is based in far-off Chennai.
Belonging to Ulakapichanpatti - a small village in Tamil Nadu - and coming from low-income, uneducated families, the face on the monitor is their only saviour.
An innovative software - Oops I see - developed by the engineers of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and the Chennai-based Oops Private Ltd, allows these village kids to take tuitions through video conferencing on an Internet connection with bandwidth as low as 20 kbps.
Origin of an idea
The idea to develop an audio video messenger that works on low bandwidth was born six years ago when Karthik Ayyar decided to return to India, giving up his lucrative career in the United States. Ayyar, who did his BS in Computer Science at the University of Minnesota, also worked for a couple of years with Unifys.
While pondering on whether to use the ATM protocol (Asynchronous Transfer Mode Protocol) or TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) for the 'product,' one of Ayyar's friends told him that the video conferencing on TCP/IP would certainly take off.
"That was when I decided to work on it," he recollected.
Armed with this unique proposal, Ayyar approached Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT-Madras. Intrigued by the video-conferencing plan, Jhunjhunwala offered to put up a team to work on the idea.
Devendra Jalihal, associate professor at the IIT Madras and an expert in audio compression, was in charge of the research. His colleague Professor R Arvind also joined the team.
This was in 1996-97, and people had only started talking about video conferencing. It was then believed that for good video conferencing, you need a fast computer, a good camera and bandwidth. But all three were expensive in India and 'good' bandwidth just did not exist.
Jalihal admits that had it not been for Ayyar, whose idea it was to develop a software solution that would enable audio-video transmission through low bandwidth, the team would have gone for a developer PC plug-in card.
"In the last six years, we have been trying to develop a tool that will take computer use beyond the keyboard. Since the keyboard is English-oriented, we wanted to develop an audio-visual or some other tools like pen, which can be used instead of the keyboard. Some of our initiatives took off, while some fell flat. But our effort to make audio-visual communication possible on dial-up lines was successful," says Jalihal.
The 'Oops I see' software not only works on low bandwidth, but functions much better than any other broadband solution, the developers claimed.
The software helps one to hold point-to-point, point-to-multiple and multiple-to-point and even multi-point video conferencing through a normal dial-up telephone connection, they added.
Unfortunately, Ayyar failed to find a market for a product that is '100 per cent Indian.'
The turning point
The big moment finally came when the Oops I see team was asked to hold a demonstration of their product in front of an august audience at the national conference on communication and computer networking held in Bangalore.
The video conference went smoothly as the girl who was in charge of the village kiosk successfully communicated with those present in Chennai.
First, I imagine the game updates too quickly for them to make backups, so they can't restore your items because they're not going to take your word on it.
Second, if the items and experience are worth real money in the real world, then it is loss (not how EQ money is worth more than the Yen against the dollar).
This is still debatable because it is "just" a game, but the losses are real.
A possible comparison would be if a banks records are hacked and destroyed, do you lose your money? I'm sure they have backups all over the place, but it's a similar concept.
I'm confused as to how this is at all relevant. She ("the blogger" i.e.: scriptygoddess) isn't not complaining about how much money she got scammed out of. She is simply recounting her experience with BuyMusic.com, which was not a postive one. She is recounting this experience, in public, so that other's might be aware of the potential pitfalls of using the service. In other words, she is attempting to educate your "ignorant casual user." If her claims turn out to be false or misleading, that is unfortunate, but not relevant to the argument because you seem to be attacking her as a "user" not an educator.
I really take issue with your statement "Serves you right, ignorant casual user!" Are you taking yourself seriously? The woman is not engaging is some sketchy exchange with some Russian warez site. She's using Windows Media player on an OS which dominates 95% of the PC market. I think it's reasonable to expect that it will work (mod Funny, please). I know this is not a good argument to make on Slashdot (and, as a Mac guy, it pains me), but really, it is reasonable for the average user to expect it to work. I know you and I are skeptical of anything to do with Microsoft or DRM, but the average user is not. WMA is not "experimental media." The DRM might be "experimental" but do you honestly expect your average user to be able to research what DRM method is being used in this particular instance of WMA, or to even be able to understand that the format and the DRM are separable?
There is a 150 ft billboard in Times Square of Tommy Lee naked saying "Get Loaded"...do you honestly think the clients of this site will "know [their] stuff" in regards to DRM. People see it as an online version of a CD store. Do you research every CD before you buy it to see if it will fit in your CD player? We're not talking about buying a car, here, we're talking about a few bucks on a couple of songs.
"Perhaps now more people will see evil behind such implemenations and the fallacy behind claims that will make your life easier, add more purchasing power to your dollar, world peace, bla bla bla..." Is it just me, or is scriptygoddess doing a much better job of this than you are?
Slashdot Mirror
This story reminded me of an article from the Register about how some analysts think IBM will eventually buy AMD. Didn't IBM used to sell Cyrix chips or something?
Yeah, it's OT. But this being my first huge thread I couldn't help but ask: doesn't it seem like the modding system breaks down on these larger threads? Anyone rant about this before?
They'll also forget to mention that the machine wasn't turned on.
But they forgot to disable wake-on-LAN...
...but only if Darl McBride fucked me in the ass every night, too.
This could be big news in the (small) business world. In this wintry economy, cutting out Microsoft's OS from the IT budget could be tempting.
Though I'm sure the retraining costs might prevent this, but in the long run it would be worth it.
Just because the top 40 sucks, doesn't mean there's not good music:
Rock:
PJ Harvey -- if you don't like her, you have bad taste
The Magnetic Fields -- not really "rock" but excellent
R.E.M -- still putting out good stuff
Sleater Kinney -- great music, good performers
Le Tigre -- maybe you should be more political?
Rose Polenzani -- more folksy, I recommend "Dragersville"
The Butchies -- "3" rawks!
Amy Ray -- totally rocks
Tragically Hip -- best Canadian rock ever...for you fogies
Electronic(a):
Bjork -- yeah
Boards of Canada -- insane
Tracy + The Plastics -- great LoFi
Lamb -- kinda like Portishead
Kruder and Dorphmeister
Hip Hop (not my strong genre):
The Roots
Jurassic 5
The rest of the replies to this post are excellent, but I found a more detailed, objective link in about 2 seconds searching Google (don't mean to sound flame-y, I just think it's useful to be inherently suspicious of "definitive" one-sided stories, especially when it takes little effort to find something that's more balanced):
o mpTest/ (Warning: 1.5 MB worth of images)
o mpTest/JpgForArchive.html
http://www.wfu.edu/~matthews/misc/jpg_vs_gif/JpgC
Then there's this link that's embedded in the link above: http://www.wfu.edu/~matthews/misc/jpg_vs_gif/JpgC
> A gerrymandered tax code primarily costs the public
> money--measured by overall inefficiency or extra taxes
> unfairly levied on those without political capital.
Can anyone say "Trickle-Down"? Does anyone believe in trickle-down? When the rich get tax breaks, the money doesn't trickle down to the poor, it trickles down to the coke dealers who sell the rich kids dope.
And if you think the poor have as much political capital as the rich, just ask all the black folks who were turned away from voting in Florida in 2000 because they were "felons"...when their only crime was Voting While Black. One article among many about it.
Now if only I were as eloquent as Mr. Zittrain, I wouldn't be modded down as both Flamebait and OT.
The 1+ to -1 post ratio is going to go to hell on this story.
I agree with you, as well. But, I would point out that his argument is useful in that it generates an opposing discourse. While I agree with your argument, and think that the video provides a valuable services to persons who get off on this sort of thing, it also could be extremely psychologically damaging to another set of persons. Both of these views need to be recognized. His view of sexuality and representations of sexuality are a bit conservative, but this no doubt comes from his work with battered women. So, no, clearly the video should not be banned, but I think his viewpoint is a valuable one.
A good article at CommonDreams.org about how the fact that it turned out to be a hoax seemed to make it 'acceptable' according to mainstream news sources.
Right-wing misogynists need not apply....
I know (hope) you're being Funny, but the article gives surprisingly good reasons. And the two don't have to be mutually exclusive (again, perhaps I'm missing some sort of humor).
Quote the article in case of Slashdotting/laziness:
IIT, Oops bring the world to village kids
Shobha Warrier in Chennai | August 01, 2003
Half-a-dozen kids sit huddled in front of a personal computer concentrating hard to grasp everything that the face on the monitor is saying.
The tiny kiosk, where these kids are sitting, does not boast of any specialised equipment or high bandwidth. It has just one PC and one Web cam.
Yet every day, children crowd this kiosk to interact with their teacher Meena, who is based in far-off Chennai.
Belonging to Ulakapichanpatti - a small village in Tamil Nadu - and coming from low-income, uneducated families, the face on the monitor is their only saviour.
An innovative software - Oops I see - developed by the engineers of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and the Chennai-based Oops Private Ltd, allows these village kids to take tuitions through video conferencing on an Internet connection with bandwidth as low as 20 kbps.
Origin of an idea
The idea to develop an audio video messenger that works on low bandwidth was born six years ago when Karthik Ayyar decided to return to India, giving up his lucrative career in the United States. Ayyar, who did his BS in Computer Science at the University of Minnesota, also worked for a couple of years with Unifys.
While pondering on whether to use the ATM protocol (Asynchronous Transfer Mode Protocol) or TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) for the 'product,' one of Ayyar's friends told him that the video conferencing on TCP/IP would certainly take off.
"That was when I decided to work on it," he recollected.
Armed with this unique proposal, Ayyar approached Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT-Madras. Intrigued by the video-conferencing plan, Jhunjhunwala offered to put up a team to work on the idea.
Devendra Jalihal, associate professor at the IIT Madras and an expert in audio compression, was in charge of the research. His colleague Professor R Arvind also joined the team.
This was in 1996-97, and people had only started talking about video conferencing. It was then believed that for good video conferencing, you need a fast computer, a good camera and bandwidth. But all three were expensive in India and 'good' bandwidth just did not exist.
Jalihal admits that had it not been for Ayyar, whose idea it was to develop a software solution that would enable audio-video transmission through low bandwidth, the team would have gone for a developer PC plug-in card.
"In the last six years, we have been trying to develop a tool that will take computer use beyond the keyboard. Since the keyboard is English-oriented, we wanted to develop an audio-visual or some other tools like pen, which can be used instead of the keyboard. Some of our initiatives took off, while some fell flat. But our effort to make audio-visual communication possible on dial-up lines was successful," says Jalihal.
The 'Oops I see' software not only works on low bandwidth, but functions much better than any other broadband solution, the developers claimed.
The software helps one to hold point-to-point, point-to-multiple and multiple-to-point and even multi-point video conferencing through a normal dial-up telephone connection, they added.
Unfortunately, Ayyar failed to find a market for a product that is '100 per cent Indian.'
The turning point
The big moment finally came when the Oops I see team was asked to hold a demonstration of their product in front of an august audience at the national conference on communication and computer networking held in Bangalore.
The video conference went smoothly as the girl who was in charge of the village kiosk successfully communicated with those present in Chennai.
Both Ayya
Can't argue with economics.
First, I imagine the game updates too quickly for them to make backups, so they can't restore your items because they're not going to take your word on it.
Second, if the items and experience are worth real money in the real world, then it is loss (not how EQ money is worth more than the Yen against the dollar).
This is still debatable because it is "just" a game, but the losses are real.
A possible comparison would be if a banks records are hacked and destroyed, do you lose your money? I'm sure they have backups all over the place, but it's a similar concept.
(I'm not an EQ player, either)
I'm confused as to how this is at all relevant. She ("the blogger" i.e.: scriptygoddess) isn't not complaining about how much money she got scammed out of. She is simply recounting her experience with BuyMusic.com, which was not a postive one. She is recounting this experience, in public, so that other's might be aware of the potential pitfalls of using the service. In other words, she is attempting to educate your "ignorant casual user." If her claims turn out to be false or misleading, that is unfortunate, but not relevant to the argument because you seem to be attacking her as a "user" not an educator. I really take issue with your statement "Serves you right, ignorant casual user!" Are you taking yourself seriously? The woman is not engaging is some sketchy exchange with some Russian warez site. She's using Windows Media player on an OS which dominates 95% of the PC market. I think it's reasonable to expect that it will work (mod Funny, please). I know this is not a good argument to make on Slashdot (and, as a Mac guy, it pains me), but really, it is reasonable for the average user to expect it to work. I know you and I are skeptical of anything to do with Microsoft or DRM, but the average user is not. WMA is not "experimental media." The DRM might be "experimental" but do you honestly expect your average user to be able to research what DRM method is being used in this particular instance of WMA, or to even be able to understand that the format and the DRM are separable? There is a 150 ft billboard in Times Square of Tommy Lee naked saying "Get Loaded"...do you honestly think the clients of this site will "know [their] stuff" in regards to DRM. People see it as an online version of a CD store. Do you research every CD before you buy it to see if it will fit in your CD player? We're not talking about buying a car, here, we're talking about a few bucks on a couple of songs. "Perhaps now more people will see evil behind such implemenations and the fallacy behind claims that will make your life easier, add more purchasing power to your dollar, world peace, bla bla bla..." Is it just me, or is scriptygoddess doing a much better job of this than you are?