Are they threatening our liberties?
Of course not
From lifeandliberty.gov, the gov's propoganda site for this stuff:
"The Patriot Act limits domestic terrorism to conduct that breaks criminal laws, and endangers human life"
WOW! You have to break a law to be prosecuted from that law!
Later on in that site, they explain that the government is only interested in the library habits of terrorists, not library habits of regular people, so regular people don't worry. To assuage fears about library privacy being violated, they go on to say:
This federal court, however, can issue these orders only after the government demonstrates the records concerned are sought for an authorized investigation to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a U.S. person or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, provided that such investigation of a U.S. person is not conducted solely on the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment.
Even THAT isn't true under the new law. The FBI can just write themselves a letter giving themselves permission to get private information from libraries while preventing the libraries from informing their users. That's unbelievable!
Suffice it to say, RTFA. Or, at least one of them.
This is NOT an "early generation DVD recorder." It has 24x write speed, a hell of a lot faster than ANYTHING (and, of course, it can rewrite, too).
I'm gonna disagree with your ugly statement, too, but that's not anything quantitative. In one of the articles, you might note that it compares the PSX to a competitor's simple device, and notes that the price is under half the comptetitor's price with a PS2 thrown in.
So, you're getting a large hard drive with almost everything a Tivo can do, with a DVD burner faster than anything on the market, it's got PS and PS2 cabilities, has all the outputs you could ever want, and even has internet connectivity.
Unknowledgable users could even be a way bigger problem in Linux than in Windows, at least with things as they are now.
How much training/experience does a new Windows user need to keep their system and programs updated and patched? Hardly any - the system and many programs tell you when they need to be patched.
How much training/experience does a new Linux user need to do the same? Suffice it to say a lot. You just say "not install security patches," but installing security patches in Linux for a new user isn't as easy as just checking every now and then. For the uninitiated, patching is a hell of a lot of trouble.
If Linux doesn't solve this before Linux gets greater market share, there will be plenty of unpatched boxes in the wild.
I really like your thoughts, but you might be a bit idealistic. Do you really think SCO is going to let this reach the courts? Moreover, this recent development makes it less likely that McBride will face fraud charges.
Think about it, the whole idea with fraud is that their claims had no merit. SGI has cleared everything up, but has confirmed that there is System V code in Linux. Even if SCO is eventually torn apart, McBride has a solid defense that there is in fact some of their code in Linux, even if it has been cleared out.
So, yeah, with any luck any infringing code that is in Linux will be removed, but I think a GPL court case is unlikely and fraud charges are equally far off.
As other posters have said, check out EMusic, which is exactly what you are describing. You pay a monthly access fee, and get virtually unlimited downloading (you're limited to 2000 songs over a 30 day period, but how many people would actually exceed that?). It has a good community, great music, gives you recommendations and they add new music on a regular basis. What's more, the music is completely unrestricted and it's owned by Vivendi Universal, so by using it you're encouraging the RIAA to move towards freer models.
It's too bad this is only coming out in China. I've thought that something like this would have serious potential for a while. I would gladly pay $50 for even a Super Nintendo and $5 each for some of the better games for it. I realize you can buy a system on eBay and elswhere for cheaper than that, but the good games aren't there. If this were released on a wider scale, I'll bet it could make some good money, especially if it had the best of N64 + SNES + NES. So many great games for so little!
Re:That argument didn't work for warez sites
on
Kazaa Sues Record Labels
·
· Score: 2, Informative
What are you talking about?
Suing the record labels for not letting people get away with illegal activities involving the RIAA's property is just idiotic.
That's not what this is about as you can see without even reading the article.
And we all know about Kazaa Lite and I don't see them bitching about that.
Did you miss the whole thing with Google linking Kazaa Lite, K++ and such? And Kazaa going after them for it?
Kazaa is pursuing a policy it has already begun: going after third party software using its network. The methods they are using (such as a DMCA take-down notice) may be questionable and their method of revenue generation may be questionable too, but that's not what this is about. The question that's really at the heart of this is to what extent the owner of a network can regulate the use of that network.
Slashdot Mirror
Suffice it to say, RTFA. Or, at least one of them.
This is NOT an "early generation DVD recorder." It has 24x write speed, a hell of a lot faster than ANYTHING (and, of course, it can rewrite, too).
I'm gonna disagree with your ugly statement, too, but that's not anything quantitative. In one of the articles, you might note that it compares the PSX to a competitor's simple device, and notes that the price is under half the comptetitor's price with a PS2 thrown in.
So, you're getting a large hard drive with almost everything a Tivo can do, with a DVD burner faster than anything on the market, it's got PS and PS2 cabilities, has all the outputs you could ever want, and even has internet connectivity.
Makes sense to me.
Unknowledgable users could even be a way bigger problem in Linux than in Windows, at least with things as they are now.
How much training/experience does a new Windows user need to keep their system and programs updated and patched? Hardly any - the system and many programs tell you when they need to be patched.
How much training/experience does a new Linux user need to do the same? Suffice it to say a lot. You just say "not install security patches," but installing security patches in Linux for a new user isn't as easy as just checking every now and then. For the uninitiated, patching is a hell of a lot of trouble.
If Linux doesn't solve this before Linux gets greater market share, there will be plenty of unpatched boxes in the wild.
Or am I missing something?
I really like your thoughts, but you might be a bit idealistic. Do you really think SCO is going to let this reach the courts? Moreover, this recent development makes it less likely that McBride will face fraud charges. Think about it, the whole idea with fraud is that their claims had no merit. SGI has cleared everything up, but has confirmed that there is System V code in Linux. Even if SCO is eventually torn apart, McBride has a solid defense that there is in fact some of their code in Linux, even if it has been cleared out. So, yeah, with any luck any infringing code that is in Linux will be removed, but I think a GPL court case is unlikely and fraud charges are equally far off.
As other posters have said, check out EMusic, which is exactly what you are describing. You pay a monthly access fee, and get virtually unlimited downloading (you're limited to 2000 songs over a 30 day period, but how many people would actually exceed that?). It has a good community, great music, gives you recommendations and they add new music on a regular basis. What's more, the music is completely unrestricted and it's owned by Vivendi Universal, so by using it you're encouraging the RIAA to move towards freer models.
It's too bad this is only coming out in China. I've thought that something like this would have serious potential for a while. I would gladly pay $50 for even a Super Nintendo and $5 each for some of the better games for it. I realize you can buy a system on eBay and elswhere for cheaper than that, but the good games aren't there. If this were released on a wider scale, I'll bet it could make some good money, especially if it had the best of N64 + SNES + NES. So many great games for so little!