>The vast majority of independent music, games, and applications are sadly lacking in quality.
Sturgeon's Law/prov./ "Ninety percent of everything is crap". Derived from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who once said, "Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That's because 90% of everything is crud."
I personally listen to almost 100% indie music and find that its harder to find good RIAA artists/songs than it is to find good indie artists. Certainly per capita the RIAA loses and badly.
You can try this site if you're new to indie music, indie rock in particular. They also have 128kbs streaming MP3s. Or you can pay a visit to a couple of the bigger and more popular indie labels like Matador or Jade Tree.
Yeah, its tough finding good indie music, but that's only because the RIAA and Clearchannel monopolies make it so. If you put in a little effort you might be surprised at what you find.
I hope the indie labels exploit these damn lawsuits to increase their profile amongst music lovers.
>You can't just form a corporation with you as the sole director and owner, and escape liability, or taxes.
You're correct, but you can escape A LOT of liability and you can pick and choose what assets go where. Also, there's a lot more flexibility in tax law with corporations than there is with individuals. Essentially, if the income you make goes back into the corporation as capital (that could be a new MP3 player) its a business expense.
What Cringley is doing, in his round-about way, is exactly what the people are RTMark(pronounced artmark) are doing: exploiting limited liability and the ruling that coporations are individuals for his own end.
Read the RTMark FAQ if you don't instantly grok the above.
Once the corporation has been established no one is going to the lose their shirts, e.g. college kids won't be forced to give up their life savings. All you can lose is whatever the corporation owns. I think the only thing that breaks the corporate shield is worker's comp.
So Cringly is pulling an RTMark, but instead of activist reasons he's using it to trade music (which could be seen as an activist reason too).
Bravo.
Now here's the fun part. Why not live our lives as corporations? People complain about corporate power all the time, so if we can't beat them, lets join them. What if everyone made a corporation in their name and put all their assests into it? From there you can add shareholders (family, friends) then safely and legally swap MP3s, share ownership of just about *anything*, hire people to do your job at a cheaper rate and pocket the difference, wear a world's sexiest CEO t-shirt, take out loans, form off-shore tax havens (why pay tax?), have a great time knowing that whatever you do will be the fault of the corporation not you personally, etc.
A corporation can buy, trade, sell and make loans.
A corporation can literally do anything you as a person can do as long as these thoughts and actions are simply documented by resolution. When you think it through, the possibilities become fascinating. The key point to remember here, is that when you own a corporation, the corporation exists as a separate entity or person.
Damn straight. I'm off to become a corporate entity.
>While it's true that these options may (or may not) have existed a generation ago, it is my considered opinion that most of them are on the fringe, expensive to break into and maintai
Exactly. I recently exposed a non-techie friend to the downsides of media deregulation and his GOP sentator sent him the same talking points memo you quoted. Essentially, he wrote that "new technology" is a new playing field that satisfies the lassiez-faire dream. Err, no its not. How difficult, if not impossible, is it to get my local community or even the metropolitan area's issues on DirecTv? Pretty hard I'd say. Just to get the already established broadcast stations I have to pay an extra rebroadcasting fee.
Compare these entrenched wealthy networks to community radio or the UHF channels of old and I clearly would take the position that new technology and consolidation has made television worse off in regards to "media alternatives."
I really take an issue with the "hundreds of cable" channels line, like they're suggesting there can't be much of a barrier to entry because "hundreds" is such a big number. In real life this means established channels get more bandwidth so instead on one HBO we get six. Instead of one MTV we get two, etc. Worse, televangelist hate-speech gets more channels while less profitable religions (or less profit driven) get no exposure at all.
Also, treating the media like any other product is ignoring its powerful influencial messages and how most people interact (for the lack of a better term) with politics.
> Wow your right the filmmakers that make movies like American Pie really "dare" to tackle hard hitting subjects.
You're using one bad example to chastise an entire artform. That's a straw-man, again.
I also take issue that art has anything to do with morality. The crowd that chants this mantra are also the ones that think sports players are role models. It looks like some people can't let art be or acknowledge that some things are simply professions and not expressions of new social mores.
>postmodern culture: Everyone's ideas are right except people that don't agree that everyone's ideas are right
That's cute, but I'd rather be advocating free expression in the arts than categorically making generalizations about some nebulous group of people. Free expression means accepting ideas you don't like, playing the morality card is not accepting these ideas. Its no surprise that the morality crowd, e.g. censors, religious groups, moralists, etc are the ones who actively engage in censorship attempts.
Seems to me there are two paths here, tolerating "immoral Hollywood" or engaging in intolerance. I can't see how someone can defend the latter.
Ironically, the film that gets hurt most by pirating is pornography. It has limited distribution and limited legal funds. The morality crowd has had kittens since the porno industry began, do these "immoral" people not deserve IP rights also? Are they part of this "Immoral Hollywood" you call hypocrites?
What does that mean? Because a filmmaker dares to upset the socially conservative status quo by tackling subjects like sex, drugs, violence, bigotry, etc suddenly they have no moral standing?
Sorry but try as you might, you Christian Fundamentalists or whatever you are cannot co-op the word morality and throw it around in the use of a really bad straw man argument.
There's a lot of things to criticize the content industries about, but the content itself should be hands off. Maybe in your world everything should be a Disney fairytale, but don't expect to be taken seriously by those of us in the real world.
>where someone will be paid minimum wage to play an in game "Non-Player" character.
I'd much rather see this be worked on in the commercial MMORPG world than having a bunch of people yelling at you to speak "Olde English."
If you want RP it has to start in the design process first. Everything from the instructions, tutorials, etc have to have an RP element to them. Now toss in NPCs that you aren't sure are just AI or real people and you'll begin to build a world that lends itself to RP.
Its the classic carrot vs stick approach. Build it properly. Make a world that isn't just computer vs. player and watch the magic happen.
>It would be kind of funny if teenagers could earn minimum wage sitting behind the counter in a virtual shop, just like they can IRL.
You won't even have to pay them. I'm sure if the game admins asked a seasoned player to play an NPC they would jump at the chance. Offer some kind of incentive to the really good people like a free month or permanent ownership of a NPC. I'm certain there are people out there who will pay to play a NPC, run quests, help new people, etc. Heck, they'd probably pay extra.
Yes, you do. The first thing I would be concerned about is that no distribution of Linux has a GUI widget for all the things Windows or OSX does. That means lots of command line work, which will not sit well with users who expect, and at this point should get, lots of easy to understand GUI stuff.
So if some organization test drives the current version of Red Hat or Mandrake and finds it lacking (afterall its their decision and they have windows to compare it to) there may be little chance that they will review Linux in the future.
I don't like how Microsoft recently called Linux its #2 threat. I realy hope people aren't expecting an MS-like product from the get go.
The server side is a completely different story, but that first impression on the desktop ends of things is very important.
Compared to commercial offerings OpenOffice is not a mature product, KDE/GNOME do not have GUIs for a lot of functions, driver support can be a big headache, etc.
I think there will be a time when Linux on the desktop will be a lot of a mature product aimed at technophobes, but from what I've seen from the current versions of Red Hat and Mandrake it just ain't here and pushing them as "windows killers" this early in the game is asking for a humiliating market defeat.
>Flying isn't a God-given right, it's a damn privelege
Actually they're heavily regulated and SUBSIDIZED by the federal government. Its not exactly the local 7-11. On top of it they're considered common carriers. Also, that "tool" a founder of the EFF. He may be making a point.
Regardless, I think this is a half-assed effort towards security. Instead of mandating two plain-clothed and armed sky marshals per flight (as Israel's El Al Air does) the industry is working towards 24/7 surveillance. I guess its cheaper to outfit your planes with some cameras than pay for 80,000+ sky marshals through taxes on tickets and losing two seats per flight.
The US currently has 6,000 sky marshals and over 40,000 commercial flights.
The cameras *may* be effective at helping security is some way after the fact, but they are a poor and cheap attempt to provide real airline security. Related: let pilots untrained in security carry handguns. The US and the airline industry needs to realize that security costs money and half-assing it only gives us a false sense of security.
>Buy independant bands and boycott all members of the RIAA, the artist's under the labels that belong to this organization are at their own fault. They sold their music out to a faceless company, let them suffer for it, not me.
I completely agree, but lowering the price of CDs to one dollar will not help when MP3s are still zero cents.
Look at it this way, a responsible company fights piracy by solving its own problems. DRM is ugly and may hurt sales for a while, but its sure beats the alternative of using my tax dollars to subsidize their failing business practice through mass lawsuits.
>and then, what? I'll have to buy new devices to play an already overpriced CD??? My car doesn't agree with that, my CD player doesn't agree with that, and I don't eithe
Too bad. If you want Britney Spears than you should pay the price her handlers want from you. That's the price of the music and the promise not to copy illegally. DRM satisfies both. Of course, the RIAA can give up on its massive crackdowns of P2P users instead, but its their choice. What shouldn't be their choice is blatant barratry and mass lawsuits.
Can someone please tell me why the RIAA isn't considered an anti-competitive trust. Is it because the RIAA is an organization and not a company in itself?
Aguably, if all these labels weren't acting in concert, fixing/deciding on pricing, etc a few would break off the the RIAA "party line" and take a risk on MP3s well before the Apple iTunes store opened. I'm starting to think that all the problems the RIAA has can be traced back to the fact that in many ways it acts like a monopoly and tries to immunize itself from normal and healthy market forces.
I also don't see why my tax dollars should be subsidizing this monopoly and its aging non-encrypted CD format. All they have to do is release everything on some strong DRM and casual MP3 trading will more or less cease to exist. Make all the DRM players have no easy way to line-out to analog and watch the casual "mp3 rippers" fade away. Not only that but no more CD to CD copies. Everyone can register their DRM CDs online just like they do software.
That's how you control your product, not through mass lawsuits.
> I wonder how long it's going to take Microsoft to figure out that it's not Linux that's the threat, it's open source.
Err, how about when Linux zealots realize that MS is just playing to their vanities. Where exactly is the great Linux desktop rollout? Sure, there are inroads to the server-side of things, but Linux is also pushing out Solaris, not just NT.
Why would MS list linux as their #2 threat is they don't mean it? It answers a couple important questions:
1. Why do your products cost so much?
Umm, Linux.
2. Are you still a harmful monopoly?
Umm, no way. Linux. Its killing us!
3. How would you compare OSX to Windows?
Umm, Linux. Linux is everything, haven't you heard? I don't even know what "ooosssexxx" is. Sounds like porno. Next question!
etc.
Microsoft needs a real enemy to play off its "evil empire" image, preferable one that isn't really a desktop threat like Apple. You guys are falling for this hook, line, and sinker.
Not to mention I still cannot see how opening CE is a "reaction to Linux." Opening advanced server would be a reaction to Linux.
MS didn't get where it is by playing fair or by telling the truth. This article is no exception.
Putting the "is MP3 trading really hurting anyone" argument aside, as a DePaul student I'm very concerned over my privacy rights. DePaul is fully working with the RIAA and not even put up a legal defense to maintain the privacy of its students.
This is simply unacceptable. Will all our traffic be sniffed by various copyright holders in the future? I don't like carry around thousand page books so I just scan them. If the publishers of america jumped on the RIAA bandwagon would I be a criminal and my ISP/University would fold instantly when asked for information? I'm afraid the answer is yes. Then I have to goto court and try to defend myself in front of a world of technophobes and vs. some lawyers that know all the tricks.
To me it looks like ALL format shifting has come under question, regardless of the legality of the use. Imagine if I gave someone a copy of one of my scanned books for academic use so we can work together on a project. Again, the "format-shift police" and the lack of privacy means that I'll probably be forced to defend my fair use rights at lawyerpoint.
When will it end? Will sigs in emails be checked to see if anyone owns them too?
A wholesale destruction of privacy rights and the destruction of fair use is not good for anyone, even the dreaded RIAA. Let's not forget the flaps their artists are always going through regarding illegal sampling, stealing obvious musical progressions, etc.
This whole MP3 thing is eroding our civil liberties faster than we'll be able to get them back. This will all lead to the day of the DRM enabled browser that won't let you copy and paste or link to copyright articles. This will put a massive chill on speech.
Laugh at the above all you like, but the web works mostly because of fair use and privacy. We've successfully fought off the "hyperlinking without permission is illegal" crowd and the "you must tell me who is anon39595 is" crowd. The RIAA is only helping those people. We are living in a time where copyright holders are more or less simply calling ISPs, giving an IP address and a time and getting back info like name, address, phone number, etc.
I really hope the RIAA doesn't have their stuff together and someone can build a defense on barratry. As I see no other way out of this problem. The file traders won't quit and neither will the RIAA.
The FCC vote went along party lines. Please don't play the "You're playing partisan politics, bad dog!" line when we're dealing with partisan politics. Thanks.
Text for those who don't want to click
WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- In a bitter 3-2 vote, the Federal Communications Commission agreed Monday to allow broadcasters to buy more television stations and permit a company to own newspapers and TV channels in the same city.
The move, which pitted the FCC's three Republicans against the two Democrats, casts aside decades-old government regulations and could spur more media industry mergers and acquisitions.
I don't understand why there are so many Bush apologists from every camp, but I'd rather face facts that begin to pretend there are no differences between the two major parties regarding this issue.
I remember buying a directv box from Best Buy and having the saleskid offer me $100 card insurance because, "Your card can go anytime and Directv will charge you $100 for a replacement!" I should have asked why he's trying to sell me such a shoddy product from such an unethical company.
Funny how the media isn't cracking down on this. Oh that's right DirecTV is now owned by News Corp, you know Rupert Murdoch's empire including many media outlets including the infamously pro-corporate Fox News cable channel.
Let's face it, the appeal is ideology first and secondary is IP concerns using reverse-engineered MP3 encoders and/or the MP3 file format. Vorbis is bit more tighly compressed, but when youre dealing with portable music devices with drives measured in gigabytes and broadband connections its suddenly not that important.
I guess, like linux, it has its niches. Some companies are using ogg in their software to avoid any potential lawsuits and licensing costs associated with the MP3 format. It may have noticable benefits in low-bitrate streaming. It has a seperate codec for voice.
I'm sure it has other uses than listed above, but when it comes to MP3 players and and typical MP3 uses there is little incentive for most people to switch formats.
Also, if you do switch, you'll need to re-encode from the original uncompressed recordings. You can't just take an MP3 and turn it into am Ogg Vorbis without losing a signficant amount of quality.
I was hoping they would have a GPRS modem in the new Clie. If I'm in a "wifi zone" I'm probably near a computer or laptop.
Of course people use technology different than I do, but my Sidekick and GPRS through tmobile keeps me attached to the product. I get mail, web, and chat anywhere I go.
I'm going to hold back my gadget lust back until the Treo 600 comes out. They've already announced plans for GPRS support and I believe Compaq is putting GPRS modems in their future PocketPC models.
> Or you could just not buy a lexmark printer. Let the market descide, don't legislate to death.
A take a couple issues with your statement:
1. Most, if not all, inkjet vendors practice this. In fact an inkjet vendor that didn't practice this would be cut out of the market because he would have to charge the real cost of the printer. Thus, everyone is undercutting each other and passing the cost in another form. This is arguably anti-competitve behavior and undercutting to drive someone out of business in many situations has been ruled to be anti-competitive.
2. The consumer may or may not know what ink really costs. Its important to know the mark-up and using ignorance to overcharge on such a level is ethically dubious. Worse, there is nothing the consumer can do except move onto other technologies like laser printers. Now, imagine if the $20 laser printer came out except toner was $150 and it had some BS DRM attached to it. Now what do you do? Move to a copy machine?
This is simply bad business and even in the US this can be seen as illegal undercutting.
3. Legislation like the DMCA gives DRM protected ink a ridiculous amount of legislative protections. In other words the law is part of the problem and claiming "dont change the laws" is silly when a law like the DMCA exists.
Perhaps our most publicised fiasco at Hipgnosis Design was the Great Pig Escape, early 1977. Pink Floyd had rejected our suggestion for their ANIMALS cover in favour of Roger Waters' idea of a pig hovering over Battersea Power Station. Despite serious misgivings about such a notion (shades of Monty Python and the Goodies -- was it not intrinsically silly?) we offered to shoot the pictures and put the cover together. Contrary to our advice the band didn't want the pig "stripped in" which would allow us to photograph the pig anywhere, but wanted it shot for real, the pig actually floating above the power station. Thus the forty foot zeppelin was crated to London and assembled on location. Timetable as follows:....
Day 2. Eleven still cameramen, eight man film crew, helicopter, one or two of the group, manager but no marksman (?). Pig launched successfully on bright clear morning. Hauled slowly up side of building, everyone snapping away. Near the top, betwixt the towers, a fateful gust of wind. The pig turned suddenly, broke mooring cable and lurched rapidly towards the heavens. No one had told the marksman to return. The pig sailed away and was lost from sight in five minutes. Absolute horrors. All that time and money and it had simply disappeared in front of our eyes. The police trailed it to thirty thousand feet and then gave up, the cowards. That evening, the dirigible came down on a Kent farm. The farmer was reported to have said he thought it "a bit unusual"! Actually the Press made a bundle out of the whole thing: "flying pig interrupts international flight patterns," "weird UFO spotted," "flying pig heads for home" (it was made in Holland). But the Floyd don't give up that easily and the roadies rescued it from Kent, repaired the puncture and we started again.
Re:PVR pricing needs work
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New Linux PVR Box
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Yep. I think the $99 price point is the magic number to keep the Tivo company going and help popularize the technology before the media companies drive Tivo out of the market with their own branded DVRs which will most likely have some sleeping DRM feature that will one day make that handy commercial skip useless or push ads or who knows what else.
In fact my directivo was $129 at the time. The directv tuner was $60. So for double that I got a Tivo and have been very impressed with the technology since.
A few people I know have echoed similiar statements "Yeah its awesome but I'm not dropping $250 on a kick-ass VCR." Neither would I.
PVR pricing needs work
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New Linux PVR Box
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· Score: 4, Interesting
You can get network connectivity with a non-authorized ethernet card for Tivos. Do a google search, I think they run about 60 bucks. As far as composite out goes, maybe a video geek can help out here, but considering the source (cable/satellite) it may just be that the law of diminishing returns kicks in real hard after a point and its may not be worth it.
I kinda dig the standard directivo. Dual tuners, S-Video out, etc. I'd much rather see a cheaper tivo that doesn't hurt the pocketbook too much than just more feature creep.
From the website:
>Buy your Telly MC1000 Home Entertainment Server today for only $899.00
Do a google search on the author and you'll find he's pretty serious about mysticism. Hell, his bio on frontwheeldrive decribes him as practicing alchemy. I'm afraid this is not a joke.
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I personally listen to almost 100% indie music and find that its harder to find good RIAA artists/songs than it is to find good indie artists. Certainly per capita the RIAA loses and badly.
You can try this site if you're new to indie music, indie rock in particular. They also have 128kbs streaming MP3s. Or you can pay a visit to a couple of the bigger and more popular indie labels like Matador or Jade Tree.
Yeah, its tough finding good indie music, but that's only because the RIAA and Clearchannel monopolies make it so. If you put in a little effort you might be surprised at what you find.
I hope the indie labels exploit these damn lawsuits to increase their profile amongst music lovers.
>You can't just form a corporation with you as the sole director and owner, and escape liability, or taxes.
You're correct, but you can escape A LOT of liability and you can pick and choose what assets go where. Also, there's a lot more flexibility in tax law with corporations than there is with individuals. Essentially, if the income you make goes back into the corporation as capital (that could be a new MP3 player) its a business expense.
Read the RTMark FAQ if you don't instantly grok the above.
Once the corporation has been established no one is going to the lose their shirts, e.g. college kids won't be forced to give up their life savings. All you can lose is whatever the corporation owns. I think the only thing that breaks the corporate shield is worker's comp.
So Cringly is pulling an RTMark, but instead of activist reasons he's using it to trade music (which could be seen as an activist reason too).
Bravo.
Now here's the fun part. Why not live our lives as corporations? People complain about corporate power all the time, so if we can't beat them, lets join them. What if everyone made a corporation in their name and put all their assests into it? From there you can add shareholders (family, friends) then safely and legally swap MP3s, share ownership of just about *anything*, hire people to do your job at a cheaper rate and pocket the difference, wear a world's sexiest CEO t-shirt, take out loans, form off-shore tax havens (why pay tax?), have a great time knowing that whatever you do will be the fault of the corporation not you personally, etc.
Excellent "What is a corporation" primer here.
Damn straight. I'm off to become a corporate entity.
>While it's true that these options may (or may not) have existed a generation ago, it is my considered opinion that most of them are on the fringe, expensive to break into and maintai
Exactly. I recently exposed a non-techie friend to the downsides of media deregulation and his GOP sentator sent him the same talking points memo you quoted. Essentially, he wrote that "new technology" is a new playing field that satisfies the lassiez-faire dream. Err, no its not. How difficult, if not impossible, is it to get my local community or even the metropolitan area's issues on DirecTv? Pretty hard I'd say. Just to get the already established broadcast stations I have to pay an extra rebroadcasting fee.
Compare these entrenched wealthy networks to community radio or the UHF channels of old and I clearly would take the position that new technology and consolidation has made television worse off in regards to "media alternatives."
I really take an issue with the "hundreds of cable" channels line, like they're suggesting there can't be much of a barrier to entry because "hundreds" is such a big number. In real life this means established channels get more bandwidth so instead on one HBO we get six. Instead of one MTV we get two, etc. Worse, televangelist hate-speech gets more channels while less profitable religions (or less profit driven) get no exposure at all.
Also, treating the media like any other product is ignoring its powerful influencial messages and how most people interact (for the lack of a better term) with politics.
> Wow your right the filmmakers that make movies like American Pie really "dare" to tackle hard hitting subjects.
You're using one bad example to chastise an entire artform. That's a straw-man, again.
I also take issue that art has anything to do with morality. The crowd that chants this mantra are also the ones that think sports players are role models. It looks like some people can't let art be or acknowledge that some things are simply professions and not expressions of new social mores.
>postmodern culture: Everyone's ideas are right except people that don't agree that everyone's ideas are right
That's cute, but I'd rather be advocating free expression in the arts than categorically making generalizations about some nebulous group of people. Free expression means accepting ideas you don't like, playing the morality card is not accepting these ideas. Its no surprise that the morality crowd, e.g. censors, religious groups, moralists, etc are the ones who actively engage in censorship attempts.
Seems to me there are two paths here, tolerating "immoral Hollywood" or engaging in intolerance. I can't see how someone can defend the latter.
Ironically, the film that gets hurt most by pirating is pornography. It has limited distribution and limited legal funds. The morality crowd has had kittens since the porno industry began, do these "immoral" people not deserve IP rights also? Are they part of this "Immoral Hollywood" you call hypocrites?
>with morality killing movies
What does that mean? Because a filmmaker dares to upset the socially conservative status quo by tackling subjects like sex, drugs, violence, bigotry, etc suddenly they have no moral standing?
Sorry but try as you might, you Christian Fundamentalists or whatever you are cannot co-op the word morality and throw it around in the use of a really bad straw man argument.
There's a lot of things to criticize the content industries about, but the content itself should be hands off. Maybe in your world everything should be a Disney fairytale, but don't expect to be taken seriously by those of us in the real world.
>where someone will be paid minimum wage to play an in game "Non-Player" character.
I'd much rather see this be worked on in the commercial MMORPG world than having a bunch of people yelling at you to speak "Olde English."
If you want RP it has to start in the design process first. Everything from the instructions, tutorials, etc have to have an RP element to them. Now toss in NPCs that you aren't sure are just AI or real people and you'll begin to build a world that lends itself to RP.
Its the classic carrot vs stick approach. Build it properly. Make a world that isn't just computer vs. player and watch the magic happen.
>It would be kind of funny if teenagers could earn minimum wage sitting behind the counter in a virtual shop, just like they can IRL.
You won't even have to pay them. I'm sure if the game admins asked a seasoned player to play an NPC they would jump at the chance. Offer some kind of incentive to the really good people like a free month or permanent ownership of a NPC. I'm certain there are people out there who will pay to play a NPC, run quests, help new people, etc. Heck, they'd probably pay extra.
>You lose nothing when givng Linux a try.
Yes, you do. The first thing I would be concerned about is that no distribution of Linux has a GUI widget for all the things Windows or OSX does. That means lots of command line work, which will not sit well with users who expect, and at this point should get, lots of easy to understand GUI stuff.
So if some organization test drives the current version of Red Hat or Mandrake and finds it lacking (afterall its their decision and they have windows to compare it to) there may be little chance that they will review Linux in the future.
I don't like how Microsoft recently called Linux its #2 threat. I realy hope people aren't expecting an MS-like product from the get go.
The server side is a completely different story, but that first impression on the desktop ends of things is very important.
Compared to commercial offerings OpenOffice is not a mature product, KDE/GNOME do not have GUIs for a lot of functions, driver support can be a big headache, etc.
I think there will be a time when Linux on the desktop will be a lot of a mature product aimed at technophobes, but from what I've seen from the current versions of Red Hat and Mandrake it just ain't here and pushing them as "windows killers" this early in the game is asking for a humiliating market defeat.
>Flying isn't a God-given right, it's a damn privelege
Actually they're heavily regulated and SUBSIDIZED by the federal government. Its not exactly the local 7-11. On top of it they're considered common carriers. Also, that "tool" a founder of the EFF. He may be making a point.
Regardless, I think this is a half-assed effort towards security. Instead of mandating two plain-clothed and armed sky marshals per flight (as Israel's El Al Air does) the industry is working towards 24/7 surveillance. I guess its cheaper to outfit your planes with some cameras than pay for 80,000+ sky marshals through taxes on tickets and losing two seats per flight.
The US currently has 6,000 sky marshals and over 40,000 commercial flights.
The cameras *may* be effective at helping security is some way after the fact, but they are a poor and cheap attempt to provide real airline security. Related: let pilots untrained in security carry handguns. The US and the airline industry needs to realize that security costs money and half-assing it only gives us a false sense of security.
Actually GPRS theoretical is around 120 kbps, depending on the provider it can go as low as 20-30 kbps.
>Buy independant bands and boycott all members of the RIAA, the artist's under the labels that belong to this organization are at their own fault. They sold their music out to a faceless company, let them suffer for it, not me.
I completely agree, but lowering the price of CDs to one dollar will not help when MP3s are still zero cents.
Look at it this way, a responsible company fights piracy by solving its own problems. DRM is ugly and may hurt sales for a while, but its sure beats the alternative of using my tax dollars to subsidize their failing business practice through mass lawsuits.
>and then, what? I'll have to buy new devices to play an already overpriced CD??? My car doesn't agree with that, my CD player doesn't agree with that, and I don't eithe
Too bad. If you want Britney Spears than you should pay the price her handlers want from you. That's the price of the music and the promise not to copy illegally. DRM satisfies both. Of course, the RIAA can give up on its massive crackdowns of P2P users instead, but its their choice. What shouldn't be their choice is blatant barratry and mass lawsuits.
Can someone please tell me why the RIAA isn't considered an anti-competitive trust. Is it because the RIAA is an organization and not a company in itself?
Aguably, if all these labels weren't acting in concert, fixing/deciding on pricing, etc a few would break off the the RIAA "party line" and take a risk on MP3s well before the Apple iTunes store opened. I'm starting to think that all the problems the RIAA has can be traced back to the fact that in many ways it acts like a monopoly and tries to immunize itself from normal and healthy market forces.
I also don't see why my tax dollars should be subsidizing this monopoly and its aging non-encrypted CD format. All they have to do is release everything on some strong DRM and casual MP3 trading will more or less cease to exist. Make all the DRM players have no easy way to line-out to analog and watch the casual "mp3 rippers" fade away. Not only that but no more CD to CD copies. Everyone can register their DRM CDs online just like they do software.
That's how you control your product, not through mass lawsuits.
> I wonder how long it's going to take Microsoft to figure out that it's not Linux that's the threat, it's open source.
Err, how about when Linux zealots realize that MS is just playing to their vanities. Where exactly is the great Linux desktop rollout? Sure, there are inroads to the server-side of things, but Linux is also pushing out Solaris, not just NT.
Why would MS list linux as their #2 threat is they don't mean it? It answers a couple important questions:
1. Why do your products cost so much?
Umm, Linux.
2. Are you still a harmful monopoly?
Umm, no way. Linux. Its killing us!
3. How would you compare OSX to Windows?
Umm, Linux. Linux is everything, haven't you heard? I don't even know what "ooosssexxx" is. Sounds like porno. Next question!
etc.
Microsoft needs a real enemy to play off its "evil empire" image, preferable one that isn't really a desktop threat like Apple. You guys are falling for this hook, line, and sinker.
Not to mention I still cannot see how opening CE is a "reaction to Linux." Opening advanced server would be a reaction to Linux.
MS didn't get where it is by playing fair or by telling the truth. This article is no exception.
Putting the "is MP3 trading really hurting anyone" argument aside, as a DePaul student I'm very concerned over my privacy rights. DePaul is fully working with the RIAA and not even put up a legal defense to maintain the privacy of its students.
This is simply unacceptable. Will all our traffic be sniffed by various copyright holders in the future? I don't like carry around thousand page books so I just scan them. If the publishers of america jumped on the RIAA bandwagon would I be a criminal and my ISP/University would fold instantly when asked for information? I'm afraid the answer is yes. Then I have to goto court and try to defend myself in front of a world of technophobes and vs. some lawyers that know all the tricks.
To me it looks like ALL format shifting has come under question, regardless of the legality of the use. Imagine if I gave someone a copy of one of my scanned books for academic use so we can work together on a project. Again, the "format-shift police" and the lack of privacy means that I'll probably be forced to defend my fair use rights at lawyerpoint.
When will it end? Will sigs in emails be checked to see if anyone owns them too?
A wholesale destruction of privacy rights and the destruction of fair use is not good for anyone, even the dreaded RIAA. Let's not forget the flaps their artists are always going through regarding illegal sampling, stealing obvious musical progressions, etc.
This whole MP3 thing is eroding our civil liberties faster than we'll be able to get them back. This will all lead to the day of the DRM enabled browser that won't let you copy and paste or link to copyright articles. This will put a massive chill on speech.
Laugh at the above all you like, but the web works mostly because of fair use and privacy. We've successfully fought off the "hyperlinking without permission is illegal" crowd and the "you must tell me who is anon39595 is" crowd. The RIAA is only helping those people. We are living in a time where copyright holders are more or less simply calling ISPs, giving an IP address and a time and getting back info like name, address, phone number, etc.
I really hope the RIAA doesn't have their stuff together and someone can build a defense on barratry. As I see no other way out of this problem. The file traders won't quit and neither will the RIAA.
Text for those who don't want to clickI don't understand why there are so many Bush apologists from every camp, but I'd rather face facts that begin to pretend there are no differences between the two major parties regarding this issue.
> why can I not use KaZaA to download the .torrent file and run it from there?
Shareaza supports bittorrent. I believe you'll need 1.9 beta.
I remember buying a directv box from Best Buy and having the saleskid offer me $100 card insurance because, "Your card can go anytime and Directv will charge you $100 for a replacement!" I should have asked why he's trying to sell me such a shoddy product from such an unethical company.
Funny how the media isn't cracking down on this. Oh that's right DirecTV is now owned by News Corp, you know Rupert Murdoch's empire including many media outlets including the infamously pro-corporate Fox News cable channel.
>but I really don't see the appeal
Let's face it, the appeal is ideology first and secondary is IP concerns using reverse-engineered MP3 encoders and/or the MP3 file format. Vorbis is bit more tighly compressed, but when youre dealing with portable music devices with drives measured in gigabytes and broadband connections its suddenly not that important.
I guess, like linux, it has its niches. Some companies are using ogg in their software to avoid any potential lawsuits and licensing costs associated with the MP3 format. It may have noticable benefits in low-bitrate streaming. It has a seperate codec for voice.
I'm sure it has other uses than listed above, but when it comes to MP3 players and and typical MP3 uses there is little incentive for most people to switch formats.
Also, if you do switch, you'll need to re-encode from the original uncompressed recordings. You can't just take an MP3 and turn it into am Ogg Vorbis without losing a signficant amount of quality.
I was hoping they would have a GPRS modem in the new Clie. If I'm in a "wifi zone" I'm probably near a computer or laptop.
Of course people use technology different than I do, but my Sidekick and GPRS through tmobile keeps me attached to the product. I get mail, web, and chat anywhere I go.
I'm going to hold back my gadget lust back until the Treo 600 comes out. They've already announced plans for GPRS support and I believe Compaq is putting GPRS modems in their future PocketPC models.
> Or you could just not buy a lexmark printer. Let the market descide, don't legislate to death.
A take a couple issues with your statement:
1. Most, if not all, inkjet vendors practice this. In fact an inkjet vendor that didn't practice this would be cut out of the market because he would have to charge the real cost of the printer. Thus, everyone is undercutting each other and passing the cost in another form. This is arguably anti-competitve behavior and undercutting to drive someone out of business in many situations has been ruled to be anti-competitive.
2. The consumer may or may not know what ink really costs. Its important to know the mark-up and using ignorance to overcharge on such a level is ethically dubious. Worse, there is nothing the consumer can do except move onto other technologies like laser printers. Now, imagine if the $20 laser printer came out except toner was $150 and it had some BS DRM attached to it. Now what do you do? Move to a copy machine?
This is simply bad business and even in the US this can be seen as illegal undercutting.
3. Legislation like the DMCA gives DRM protected ink a ridiculous amount of legislative protections. In other words the law is part of the problem and claiming "dont change the laws" is silly when a law like the DMCA exists.
Yep. I think the $99 price point is the magic number to keep the Tivo company going and help popularize the technology before the media companies drive Tivo out of the market with their own branded DVRs which will most likely have some sleeping DRM feature that will one day make that handy commercial skip useless or push ads or who knows what else.
In fact my directivo was $129 at the time. The directv tuner was $60. So for double that I got a Tivo and have been very impressed with the technology since.
A few people I know have echoed similiar statements "Yeah its awesome but I'm not dropping $250 on a kick-ass VCR." Neither would I.
You can get network connectivity with a non-authorized ethernet card for Tivos. Do a google search, I think they run about 60 bucks. As far as composite out goes, maybe a video geek can help out here, but considering the source (cable/satellite) it may just be that the law of diminishing returns kicks in real hard after a point and its may not be worth it.
I kinda dig the standard directivo. Dual tuners, S-Video out, etc. I'd much rather see a cheaper tivo that doesn't hurt the pocketbook too much than just more feature creep.
From the website:
>Buy your Telly MC1000 Home Entertainment Server today for only $899.00
Err no thanks. Where's that $100 Tivo?
Do a google search on the author and you'll find he's pretty serious about mysticism. Hell, his bio on frontwheeldrive decribes him as practicing alchemy. I'm afraid this is not a joke.
Also here's the skepdic entry for electronic voice phenomenon.
If anyone is really interested in PKD (on of my favorite authors) they can check out this great PKD fan site.
If you like what you see, get a copy of "A Scanner Darkly," you won't regret it.