cos basically we want to reform it, so we can start actually buying CD's and so on again, right ?
Look... there are thousands of independant labels out there putting out music that's just as good as (and often better than) the major labels. Not only that, but there are plenty of sites where you can learn about this independent music. The All Music Guide covers quite a few non-RIAA bands with tiny distributions. If you're not sure which bands are part of the RIAA, there's the RIAA Radar, which will tell you which bands/albums send money to the RIAA. As far as distribution, Forced Exposure, In Sound, and several other outlets (including the music download services) offer tons of RIAA-free music.
Here's my issue. The RIAA will die a slow, painful death. This is inevitable. Don't worry about it. Small labels are just as capable of recording, producing, packaging and (to a lesser extent) distributing music as the RIAA. If you, as a consumer, will do a little research, you can find a whole world of underground music -- sure it isn't on the commercial radio stations or MTV, but it will play in the same CD player that all your RIAA CDs play in. Nobody's really being locked out. It is very different in the software industry, but you all know abou that...
You put forward a lot of questions here... but I'll try my best to address them...
1. iTunes does not deal with artists directly, therefore if you sell through the iTunes store you need a label.
2. However, this label does NOT need to be a member of the RIAA. Independent labels/distributers (e.g. CD Baby) have deals with iTunes and the other online music stores.
3. Some of these distributors have the same contract with every artist and sell through a variety of channels (mail order, iTMS, Napster, MusicMatch, etc.). For instance, CD Baby has this deal where the artist gets 91% of the money the music store pays out.
SO, it is very possible to have a distributor that has no relationship with the RIAA, but does have a relationship with ALL the major online music stores.
Now, say what you will about Apple, they definitely have faults, but I certainly applaud Steve & Co. for coming up with this model and making sure that the indie record labels and distributors can strike deals with the exact same terms as the RIAA.
Although I have much more respect for the guy who runs CD Baby.
I would posit that small commercial companies are in the best possible position to provide support and apps, not the FOSS world
Why wouldn't a small commercial company writing open source software be in this exact same 'best possible' position? Nothing about open source precludes it from being commercial, especially when we are talking about niche hardware. Making it open source would just allow citizens to know what is going on, and allow another commercial company to take over when the first one goes out of business.
I guess I just decided to continue on with the coffee, as long as it's not hurting me any other way.
Yeah, the medical evidence is somewhat shaky on the negative effects of coffee. However, there are other ways of getting caffeine that, according to ancient traditions and modern studies are actually *good* for you. Green and black teas both have high levels of anti-oxidants, which are very good for the immune system in general. I switched to mostly green tea and have found that it improved my mood pretty drastically (as compared with coffee) while keeping the caffeine flowing.
So you are proposing an "intelligence" or "informedness" criteria on who should vote? So much for universal franchise... Who, pray tell, should make this judgement?
My implication was that the voters themselves make this judgment, not that there is some sort of predetermined criteria for allowing people into the voting booth. All I was saying was that we should be encouraging people to be actively aware of political issues rather than just guilting people into voting. 'Get out the vote' campaigns put the cart before the horse -- voting becomes more important than being politically informed.
I agree wholeheartedly with your first paragraph. I would rather a small minority of well-informed, intelligent people who have really thought about the issues do all the voting. Why do we even want millions of people out there casting votes just because MTV told them to, when they really have no idea who the candidates are or what they stand for? Rather than all these campaigns to get people to vote, why don't we see campaigns encouraging people to educate themselves on the issues and the candidates? If, after they understand the platforms, people see a real difference in the candidates they will naturally want to vote. It is very clear to me that the people who don't vote shouldn't be voting, because they obviously don't care. Why do we want apathetic masses randomly casting votes? Isn't this the worst possible situation?
Given that no rational and well-informed person would buy SCO stock, I'm stumped to guess why it's as high as it is, and twice as stumped to say exactly when it will go down.
The fact is, despite what/. would have you think, no one is 'well-informed' about this case. It is a huge tangle of intellectual property law, contract law, and source code. No single person really knows what SCO can prove, what IBM can prove, where the code came from, where it is now or who owns what. There's plenty of speculation, and I personally wouldn't buy into SCO, but investors like to gamble -- and given the fact that SCO (David) is taking taking on IBM (Goliath) I guess the conclusion is they must have some kind of case. Darl's putting up a BIG front, and that's what investors look for.
I think it may be possible to introduce these traits in ways that are not inheritable. However, genes are of course incredibly complex, and it is probably not worth the risk of seriously fucking up the environment just for some glowing fish. If anyone knows whether this really is a possiblity, or if I just dreamed it up, I'd love to hear about it.
GM crops are significantly less clear cut area, with the possible risks being high, but little research to show whether the risks are real. On the other hand, the benefits are quite high (feeding starving children in 3rd world countries). There is a great article on GM corn over at the Public Library of Science.
I don't have a cell phone myself, but I have a good friend who's phone had been broken for some time. She called the company asking for another one, and they told her it would be $80 (her warranty had just expired). As her contract was coming to an end in January, and number portability had just come into play, she told them that she couldn't afford $80 and she would switch to another carrier. That other carrier would give her a phone for free, since she would be a new customer. As soon as she threatened to leave they quickly apologized and sent her a brand new phone within a few days. And the new model is better than her old one (it has a color screen).
I'm not totally sure that number portability was the deciding factor here, but it certainly didn't hurt. It gives the consumers more leverage when they are demanding higher quality service, replacement parts, etc.
I'm not sure why they haven't added a tab for this on their main page, as it would make a lot of sense to separate out commerce-related searches from information-related searches while making both easily accessible.
I have to say... Microsoft has introduced some pretty advanced features into this service. For instance, when I search for a news item it not only pulls up related stories, but throws in a few unrelated stories, so I don't have to go search for those too! It also seems to organize stories within subcategories by threes for no apparent reason, so I get a false sense of organization. Nice touch.
And nobody would look at alternative kernels (eg. the BSDs).
Well, nice idea, but... Darl is quoted on the blog as saying:
Right now, we're focusing on Linux. We'll get to BSD next year.
So I guess BSD really is dying... but only after SCO finishes off Linux. They are after the OSS business model, and anything derived from Unix. So where does that leave us? Well... you've got SCO Unix and Microsoft Windows. And SCO Linux, SCO BSD, SCO Darwin... and then you're out of options.
so in other words Microsoft is using patents to prevent GPLed programs from
accessing the XML format that MS Word will be using.
Interesting. But wouldn't it be possible for programs such as OpenOffice to incorporate separate files which are distributed under a modified GPL which would contain the description of the format? Something like a plugin, which could be distributed separately but still allow full MS Office compatibility?
Long term costs could most likely be lower with a gradual phasing in of OS X
I like Apple as much as the next guy, but I think what a lot of these foreign governments are concerned about is depending on US companies. Also, going with FOSS allows each country to decide whether to develop the software within the govt or to pay a private company to do the work they need. It's not clear whether Linux is cheaper than Windows until you actually implement it (depends on situation) -- but what is clear is that FOSS allows the customer to decide where their money goes.
The issue isn't about security through obscurity. I think everyone agrees that the system should be secure by design (although people seem to disagree about what constitutes secure design). The issue is whether a widespread public perception of the flaws of the system would damage people's faith in the system, thereby decreasing voter turnout.
While I think this should be a concern, I really don't think that we are at the point of these e-voting articles actually having a negative effect on the number of voters. There honestly has not been all that much bad press for the e-voting industry, when you compare it to other political issues. At the same time, is this guy supposed to lie in court just to keep a few people from becoming disenfranchised? He's not a jouralist. It isn't his job to decide what people will think of his research. It's his job to determine how secure the system is.
we don't have advertisements for prescription drugs - they're banned.
Yeah, it was this way in the US until very recently. Frankly, I think it definately sets a bad precedent to have ads for prescription drugs. But compared with all the corruption in the pharmaceutical industry (some of which you pointed out), the TV ads are nothing. We need some 'doctor finance reform' legislation. It's sick what people get prescribed -- just so the doctor can get that new Prozac Porsche he's had his eye on.
...or every ad would be like a prescription drug ad, with lots of happy people dancing around in fields of flowers with their young children... "yeah, but what the hell does it DO?"
they can better prevent 'misapproriate use' by being the only ones who know how the 'modified' silicon works.
Except for the company actually developing the chips, which happens to have hardware development contracts with two other game console companies, which will remain nameless.
If they're so concerned about IBM's ability to keep IP under wraps, why trust them with this one?
I too provide free content on the internet (see my web site), but I don't think that that is the only way to do it. For me, and the artists I work with, it makes a lot of sense: we work on projects with almost zero overhead. Everything can be written, recorded, designed by a few people working in the evenings / weekends. But some artists and content providers work on huge projects that require huge amounts of time and money to complete -- and there is no way to realize these kinds of projects without commercial support or grants. And there's only so much grant money to go around. Of course there will always be plenty of free content on the internet, but that does preclude high-quality commercial content.
It will certainly take time for the "internet = free" mentality to pass. Major services like Yahoo are gradually moving previously free services over to subscription models. iTunes (et al) are providing indications that people are willing to pay -- even though iTunes itself doesn't make money for anyone but the record labels, and in some cases, the artists. So yes, it will take a little while, but we'll get to the point where people think about it like television. Some people will pay a premium for the extras (cable) -- and some people will just stick with the standards (broadcast networks).
BitPass has a nice model in that they offer a wide range of options. You can charge for specific content, charge for subscriptions to changing content, or just take donations. If they play their cards right, they'll be the next PayPal.
Well, timothy seems to be suggesting that OpenBSD is a 'truly politically oriented' version of BSD. Yet the OpenBSD site says that one of their goals is to "[b]e as politics-free as possible; solutions should be decided on the basis of technical merit." So is it just not possible for a group of Free Software programmers to be non-political?
Almost all KDE apps have those buttons in the same place.
That's exactly the problem. Shouldn't form follow function? Here, form is following Form. These buttons are unnecessary in a jukebox app. Get rid of em.
Yes and no. The music store is just a branded version of the Musicmatch store, so it's not really Dell, but just a convenient partnership. The Dell DJ is just a relatively minor foray into consumer electronics. I wouldn't want to say that Apple is no longer a PC maker because of the iPod, nor that Microsoft is no longer a software maker because of the XBox. I think if the Dell DJ and the HDTVs take off, then Dell could become the next Sony (who just laid of 20,000 workers). But I would stay right now they are just testing the waters.
Slashdot Mirror
cos basically we want to reform it, so we can start actually buying CD's and so on again, right ?
Look... there are thousands of independant labels out there putting out music that's just as good as (and often better than) the major labels. Not only that, but there are plenty of sites where you can learn about this independent music. The All Music Guide covers quite a few non-RIAA bands with tiny distributions. If you're not sure which bands are part of the RIAA, there's the RIAA Radar, which will tell you which bands/albums send money to the RIAA. As far as distribution, Forced Exposure, In Sound, and several other outlets (including the music download services) offer tons of RIAA-free music.
Personally, I'm very taken with these labels:
IDEA Records
Beta-Lactam Ring
MEGO Records
Drag City Records
Here's my issue. The RIAA will die a slow, painful death. This is inevitable. Don't worry about it. Small labels are just as capable of recording, producing, packaging and (to a lesser extent) distributing music as the RIAA. If you, as a consumer, will do a little research, you can find a whole world of underground music -- sure it isn't on the commercial radio stations or MTV, but it will play in the same CD player that all your RIAA CDs play in. Nobody's really being locked out. It is very different in the software industry, but you all know abou that...
You put forward a lot of questions here... but I'll try my best to address them...
1. iTunes does not deal with artists directly, therefore if you sell through the iTunes store you need a label.
2. However, this label does NOT need to be a member of the RIAA. Independent labels/distributers (e.g. CD Baby) have deals with iTunes and the other online music stores.
3. Some of these distributors have the same contract with every artist and sell through a variety of channels (mail order, iTMS, Napster, MusicMatch, etc.). For instance, CD Baby has this deal where the artist gets 91% of the money the music store pays out.
SO, it is very possible to have a distributor that has no relationship with the RIAA, but does have a relationship with ALL the major online music stores.
Now, say what you will about Apple, they definitely have faults, but I certainly applaud Steve & Co. for coming up with this model and making sure that the indie record labels and distributors can strike deals with the exact same terms as the RIAA.
Although I have much more respect for the guy who runs CD Baby.
I would posit that small commercial companies are in the best possible position to provide support and apps, not the FOSS world
Why wouldn't a small commercial company writing open source software be in this exact same 'best possible' position? Nothing about open source precludes it from being commercial, especially when we are talking about niche hardware. Making it open source would just allow citizens to know what is going on, and allow another commercial company to take over when the first one goes out of business.
I guess I just decided to continue on with the coffee, as long as it's not hurting me any other way.
Yeah, the medical evidence is somewhat shaky on the negative effects of coffee. However, there are other ways of getting caffeine that, according to ancient traditions and modern studies are actually *good* for you. Green and black teas both have high levels of anti-oxidants, which are very good for the immune system in general. I switched to mostly green tea and have found that it improved my mood pretty drastically (as compared with coffee) while keeping the caffeine flowing.
Not to mention Wal-Mart's persecution of the Mad Pooper!
So you are proposing an "intelligence" or "informedness" criteria on who should vote? So much for universal franchise ... Who, pray tell, should make this judgement?
My implication was that the voters themselves make this judgment, not that there is some sort of predetermined criteria for allowing people into the voting booth. All I was saying was that we should be encouraging people to be actively aware of political issues rather than just guilting people into voting. 'Get out the vote' campaigns put the cart before the horse -- voting becomes more important than being politically informed.
I agree wholeheartedly with your first paragraph. I would rather a small minority of well-informed, intelligent people who have really thought about the issues do all the voting. Why do we even want millions of people out there casting votes just because MTV told them to, when they really have no idea who the candidates are or what they stand for? Rather than all these campaigns to get people to vote, why don't we see campaigns encouraging people to educate themselves on the issues and the candidates? If, after they understand the platforms, people see a real difference in the candidates they will naturally want to vote. It is very clear to me that the people who don't vote shouldn't be voting, because they obviously don't care. Why do we want apathetic masses randomly casting votes? Isn't this the worst possible situation?
Given that no rational and well-informed person would buy SCO stock, I'm stumped to guess why it's as high as it is, and twice as stumped to say exactly when it will go down.
/. would have you think, no one is 'well-informed' about this case. It is a huge tangle of intellectual property law, contract law, and source code. No single person really knows what SCO can prove, what IBM can prove, where the code came from, where it is now or who owns what. There's plenty of speculation, and I personally wouldn't buy into SCO, but investors like to gamble -- and given the fact that SCO (David) is taking taking on IBM (Goliath) I guess the conclusion is they must have some kind of case. Darl's putting up a BIG front, and that's what investors look for.
The fact is, despite what
I think it may be possible to introduce these traits in ways that are not inheritable. However, genes are of course incredibly complex, and it is probably not worth the risk of seriously fucking up the environment just for some glowing fish. If anyone knows whether this really is a possiblity, or if I just dreamed it up, I'd love to hear about it.
GM crops are significantly less clear cut area, with the possible risks being high, but little research to show whether the risks are real. On the other hand, the benefits are quite high (feeding starving children in 3rd world countries). There is a great article on GM corn over at the Public Library of Science.
I don't have a cell phone myself, but I have a good friend who's phone had been broken for some time. She called the company asking for another one, and they told her it would be $80 (her warranty had just expired). As her contract was coming to an end in January, and number portability had just come into play, she told them that she couldn't afford $80 and she would switch to another carrier. That other carrier would give her a phone for free, since she would be a new customer. As soon as she threatened to leave they quickly apologized and sent her a brand new phone within a few days. And the new model is better than her old one (it has a color screen).
I'm not totally sure that number portability was the deciding factor here, but it certainly didn't hurt. It gives the consumers more leverage when they are demanding higher quality service, replacement parts, etc.
About 50% of the time when I'm searching, I AM looking for vendors of a product in order to do price comparisons
Google already has a search engine specifically designed for price comparisons... maybe that's what you're missing.
It's called Froogle.
I'm not sure why they haven't added a tab for this on their main page, as it would make a lot of sense to separate out commerce-related searches from information-related searches while making both easily accessible.
I have to say... Microsoft has introduced some pretty advanced features into this service. For instance, when I search for a news item it not only pulls up related stories, but throws in a few unrelated stories, so I don't have to go search for those too! It also seems to organize stories within subcategories by threes for no apparent reason, so I get a false sense of organization. Nice touch.
Yes, this is still firmly in 'beta.'
Hey, it made it to the front page of /. That must count for something... speaking of which, I wonder if MSN Newsbot also crawls /.
And nobody would look at alternative kernels (eg. the BSDs).
Well, nice idea, but... Darl is quoted on the blog as saying:
Right now, we're focusing on Linux. We'll get to BSD next year.
So I guess BSD really is dying... but only after SCO finishes off Linux. They are after the OSS business model, and anything derived from Unix. So where does that leave us? Well... you've got SCO Unix and Microsoft Windows. And SCO Linux, SCO BSD, SCO Darwin... and then you're out of options.
so in other words Microsoft is using patents to prevent GPLed programs from accessing the XML format that MS Word will be using.
Interesting. But wouldn't it be possible for programs such as OpenOffice to incorporate separate files which are distributed under a modified GPL which would contain the description of the format? Something like a plugin, which could be distributed separately but still allow full MS Office compatibility?
Long term costs could most likely be lower with a gradual phasing in of OS X
I like Apple as much as the next guy, but I think what a lot of these foreign governments are concerned about is depending on US companies. Also, going with FOSS allows each country to decide whether to develop the software within the govt or to pay a private company to do the work they need. It's not clear whether Linux is cheaper than Windows until you actually implement it (depends on situation) -- but what is clear is that FOSS allows the customer to decide where their money goes.
The issue isn't about security through obscurity. I think everyone agrees that the system should be secure by design (although people seem to disagree about what constitutes secure design). The issue is whether a widespread public perception of the flaws of the system would damage people's faith in the system, thereby decreasing voter turnout.
While I think this should be a concern, I really don't think that we are at the point of these e-voting articles actually having a negative effect on the number of voters. There honestly has not been all that much bad press for the e-voting industry, when you compare it to other political issues. At the same time, is this guy supposed to lie in court just to keep a few people from becoming disenfranchised? He's not a jouralist. It isn't his job to decide what people will think of his research. It's his job to determine how secure the system is.
we don't have advertisements for prescription drugs - they're banned.
Yeah, it was this way in the US until very recently. Frankly, I think it definately sets a bad precedent to have ads for prescription drugs. But compared with all the corruption in the pharmaceutical industry (some of which you pointed out), the TV ads are nothing. We need some 'doctor finance reform' legislation. It's sick what people get prescribed -- just so the doctor can get that new Prozac Porsche he's had his eye on.
...or every ad would be like a prescription drug ad, with lots of happy people dancing around in fields of flowers with their young children... "yeah, but what the hell does it DO?"
they can better prevent 'misapproriate use' by being the only ones who know how the 'modified' silicon works.
Except for the company actually developing the chips, which happens to have hardware development contracts with two other game console companies, which will remain nameless.
If they're so concerned about IBM's ability to keep IP under wraps, why trust them with this one?
I too provide free content on the internet (see my web site), but I don't think that that is the only way to do it. For me, and the artists I work with, it makes a lot of sense: we work on projects with almost zero overhead. Everything can be written, recorded, designed by a few people working in the evenings / weekends. But some artists and content providers work on huge projects that require huge amounts of time and money to complete -- and there is no way to realize these kinds of projects without commercial support or grants. And there's only so much grant money to go around. Of course there will always be plenty of free content on the internet, but that does preclude high-quality commercial content.
It will certainly take time for the "internet = free" mentality to pass. Major services like Yahoo are gradually moving previously free services over to subscription models. iTunes (et al) are providing indications that people are willing to pay -- even though iTunes itself doesn't make money for anyone but the record labels, and in some cases, the artists. So yes, it will take a little while, but we'll get to the point where people think about it like television. Some people will pay a premium for the extras (cable) -- and some people will just stick with the standards (broadcast networks).
BitPass has a nice model in that they offer a wide range of options. You can charge for specific content, charge for subscriptions to changing content, or just take donations. If they play their cards right, they'll be the next PayPal.
Well, timothy seems to be suggesting that OpenBSD is a 'truly politically oriented' version of BSD. Yet the OpenBSD site says that one of their goals is to "[b]e as politics-free as possible; solutions should be decided on the basis of technical merit." So is it just not possible for a group of Free Software programmers to be non-political?
Almost all KDE apps have those buttons in the same place.
That's exactly the problem. Shouldn't form follow function? Here, form is following Form. These buttons are unnecessary in a jukebox app. Get rid of em.
So Dell is no longer a PC maker?
Yes and no. The music store is just a branded version of the Musicmatch store, so it's not really Dell, but just a convenient partnership. The Dell DJ is just a relatively minor foray into consumer electronics. I wouldn't want to say that Apple is no longer a PC maker because of the iPod, nor that Microsoft is no longer a software maker because of the XBox. I think if the Dell DJ and the HDTVs take off, then Dell could become the next Sony (who just laid of 20,000 workers). But I would stay right now they are just testing the waters.