Already did this...MythTV/Gentoo running in my entertainment center, debian for the firewall, Gentoo on Laptop and Desktop, and OS X Powerbook for my Wife. It's fabulous.
Where do you think those daytime soaps got all their ideas? Sure, there's the bible and others old "literature", but Shakespeare hammered out a lot of the classic plot elements that have been copied ever since. Pointing out that they're not that great "because everyone is doing it" doesn't rate as insightful. That is a bit like saying that Ford was overrated because "everyone has an assembly line". Well, no one has an assembly line when he had his. That's what made Ford special. Likewise with Shakespeare and his stories.
And, unlike Ford, whose inventions have been vastly improved upon very quickly, Shakespeare's wit is pithy, and has aged extremely well. Not only were his ideas fresh at the time, but his manner of conveying them unusually adept, both then and now. If you think the essence of what he is lauded for is related to some snobbish appeal of the mechanics of the language, you should perhaps go back and read some of his work again. Most, if not all, are available free of charge on Project Gutenburg.
Drama? Absolutely. On par with soap operas? I think not.
That said, I find the real "bandwidth" eater while driving is anything that requires any sort of response (besides the driving, obviously). That includes talking on the phone, holding anything (requires attention and response to handling the physical object - cup of coffee, magazine/book, radio, whatever), using navigation systems or even talking to the passengers.
If something is simply streaming information to you without interaction (leaving the radio on one station, sticking in a CD and not messing with it, listening to a talk show you downloaded), I do not find it interferes at all. I simply tune it out when I need to think about the traffic, and tune it back in when the situation is resolved. This doesn't work when you're doing something that takes your eyes off the road for any reason, but for audio based entertainment, I really don't see it as a problem.
Because iTunes is a way to screw the customer over using artificially crippled technology. By nature, the customer experience of downloading on the internet is superior to going to a store - it easy, convenient, you can preview the music, and you can transfer it to whatever medium you like once you download it, and you wouldn't have to pay for physical distribution (shipment) and production of the plastic disc it is delivered on. It is also lossless (if they offered flac downloads, for example).
What iTunes does is give you some of the benefits (previews, convenience), but at a price only very slightly less (or the same, sometimes even more expensive) than the in-store counterpart. Why is this bad? Because they rob you of fair-use in exchange for that convenience. In doing so, it is no longer the same product.
They are charging too much considering that the "new" technology should allow it all to be much cheaper
They are replacing a lossless product (in store purchase) with a lossy product, which is, therefore, inferior
They employ DRM that restricts my fair use
A side effect of their DRM is that I can only use their service from a commercial OS that I dislike and frankly, believe endangers my network and hardware, or from their OS, only availbable if I buy their hardware
Another effect of their lousy DRM is that I can only listen to the music on their player, again, forcing me to buy hardware from them
Contrast all this with a service like Magnatune, which offers full, lossless downloads, as well as downloads in "alternative" formats, like Ogg (which I happen to use exclusively along with FLAC for live shows), requiring no restrictive client-side software, no limitations on what players can play the music, or what operating systems can access the content.
This is why I ignore iTunes when we talk about legal downloads. It isn't really a product in the same class as people are visualizing. Sure, it may technically be a "legal download", but it takes away so much from what legal downloading should be (and what makes it a worthwhile enterprise), that it doesn't even qualify.
Let make one final point: technology should always be moving us forward, both for the customer and for the business. That is how money gets made; BOTH sides have to feel like they're getting a good deal. But what is happening online with iTunes is NOT a good deal. Perhaps it is for some, but not for most. Imagine if when CDs came out, Sony CDs would only play on a Sony CD player, and Universal CDs would only play on a Universal CD player. To listen to your collection, you'd need to carry 5 CD players with you. Suffice it to say that it would have never gotten off the ground. Maybe a few people would have lauded it as "the wave of the future" with the high quality digital music encoding on the shiny plastic discs. But really, it would have been a dead end.
So it is with iTunes. iTunes is merely interesting because it was the first commercial attempt to create a legal music download service. But it is only interesting, and by no means an example to follow - it will not be long lived because it doesn't really improve customer experience for the vast majority of its potential market. Wait around for the next service that does, or perhaps until iTunes changes their tune.
If you read the hacker FAQ, (no matter what you think about ESR's politics, etc.), it mentions which languages budding CS folks/hackers should learn. It specifically suggested avoiding languages like VB, yet I find that tons of people love VB, and in fact, I was chided at an interview for my current job because I didn't know VB, and only knew "lame" languages, like Python.
This, folks, is why you don't learn and use a closed language. Because when whomever owns the language decides that support is gone for it, you are basically left out in the cold. Of course, this is just one reason, but it is a big reason.
There is also the issue of cross-platform support, among other things. Obviously if your closed language vendor is also a closed OS peddler, then there is going to be tie-in and non-support for other systems.
Anyway, I thought I'd post this because a lot of F/OSS software zealots end up getting told a lot of what they believe is purely philosophical, but in some cases, like this one, it becomes VERY practical.
Sorry, I didn't make myself clear...that URL was supposed to imply a location where the "standards test" would be located. In this case, people would visit it because they saw a link in some news article entitled "Is Your Browser Hot or Not?".
The webpage would be designed for the sole reason of telling people to download a different browser. It would be, by definition, standards compliant, and would have no purpose than to break browsers that did NOT follow those standards.
Well, right now, it's hard to explain to someone that doesn't know the backstory why "standards" are a Good Thing. If we had a web page made by web designers that would show off how things SHOULD look (put jpegs of the correct rendering beside the code), you could give people a location to visit to objectively measure their browser.
This is important, because if Opera, Safari, Firefox, Konqueror, et. al. all render it fairly closely, and IE mangles it, you then have a story. CNet will run it, CNN will run it, and Slashdot will have a story pointing to the other stories: "IE7 Proven to Have Shitty Rendering Engine". Right now, there is no story, because the public doesn't understand the "standards" mumbo jumbo. But even a brand new user can understand two pictures not looking the same.
"I visited http://isyourbrowserhotornot.com and it looked totally messed up! What can I do?"
"Go download Firefox."
Basically, this gives some kind of ruler an end-user can use to measure a browser in a fast, objective way. Right now, we either don't have that, or it is not well known. This puts the pressure on Microsoft to become more standards compliant. If people become *aware* of IE's shortcomings, they will be more likely to switch. If they don't become compliant, they will continue to steadily lose market share. If they do become compliant, they lose their strangle-hold on the market and everyone wins; we're back to no-browser-monopoly. Yea! Choice is good.
Each claim should be evaluated regardless of messenger.
I completely agree. But that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore who wrote the message. Do you ignore who the author of the book was? Or who wrote the article? I don't lend everyone the same credence. It is very different for the criminal to claim he is innocent than for his supposed victim to claim he is innocent. The author makes all the difference.
In this case, it is merely amusing to note who the author is, because clearly, the claims are absurd. Linux has been shown to be capable of high security (an agency called the NSA helped us in this area, IIRC). It has also been shown multiple times that it is very scalable (Google, anyone?).
This has nothing to do with my opinion of Linux, it merely has to do with basic standards of credibility. It is akin to standing in front of a Rolls Royce and claiming that it is a low quality, inferior car. This is amusing, but it is even more amusing when you find out it's a Chevy salesman making the speech.
Unfortunately, what will happen is that people will counter the article's reactionary opinion with an opposite reactionary opinion.
First, I'm not sure how the article is expressing a reactionary opinion; I don't know of anything it was "reacting" to. It seems more like a baseless attack to me. Secondly, just because someone disagrees with an article does not automatically render their arguments invalid or "reactionary", as you suggest.
Lastly, as a bit of concession, I do think balanced opinions are good. But that doesn't mean we should dignify this kind of propoganda. If someone (anyone, even the EDS) comes along with something that is measured, qualified and well-researched, then we can address it in turn. But this does not deserve serious attention.
This is a classic marketing move - "The OTHER product is insecure, it doesn't work on a large scale, it is more expensive, and, oh look! We have an alternative right here!" Take another look at what this guy is saying and tell me honestly that there is anything remotely concrete in what he is saying.
"From a corporate perspective, we are not confident where Linux is right now today. A large enterprise needs to be sure because it relates to securifying [sic] the environment. We see some of the same things occurring that did to Unix -- it could splinter into many different types of languages. We are quite cautious about Linux and its deployment," said Rasmussen.
"We are concerned about security on an open standard environment like that. We are also concerned about some of the scalability issues that we are seeing on our clients on a global basis. Also, we are somewhat cautious about what happened with Unix - it splintered into eight applications -- until McNealy (Scott McNealy, chief executive of Sun) finally announced he won the battle and had the one surviving Unix out there. We think Linux has the possibility of going the same route," said Rasmussen.
"Quite honestly, in the notion of costs, as we look at what we are structuring with our alliance partners, we are not seeing a compelling cost advantage that would lend us towards Linux -- given the other things I have mentioned," said Rasmussen.
Jim Hassell, managing director of Sun Microsystems Australia, argued that Linux was no loss to the Agility Alliance because it could use Solaris 10 instead of Linux rival Red Hat.
"If you test Red Hat against Solaris 10 against whatever else... we would say that Solaris 10 beats it hands down on functionality and everything else," said Hassell.
Some distros really *liked* ports, though (as you do) and used it just for thier distro, like Gentoo. It is no accident Gentoo's package manager is called "portage". =)
Good idea, but to silence the critics, you should use something like Xen, and run the GameOS alongside whatever normal OS you use (I literally mean "alongide" - I HATE dual booting).
I switched to Linux years ago (shortly before XP came out), an have struggled with ways to maintain my gaming habit. I end up buying most any big game that comes out for Linux (to support them and because they usually rock), and have been making a lot of use of my PS2, but it would be nice to see publishers and game authors coming up with news ways a customer could play the game regardless of which OS they use.
It wasn't an argument, it was a joke. And if I really felt like disucssing the issues, as you put it, I wouldn't have written it.
But since you asked:
This whole thing is totally over-blown. This isn't a case of "evil" or even hypocricy. You don't blame slashdot for putting a giant banner across the top of their site with a link to Slashdot, do you? You don't say "Hey, I had to a submit a story and get turned down 18 times before I could get a link on the front page!", do you?
Probably not. That's because it's Slashdot's space. Just as pages Google serves up are Google's space. Sure, they sell certain space for people to put their links, and they provide links to other sites for free. But that in no way forbids them from linking to themselves, especially when the pages in question were pages in an FAQ about a product they provide. It wasn't even a case of their engine returning their pages at the top for no reason. The keywords they had inserted were for "traffic estimate". If you search for that, you won't get Google hits in the first page anyway. This was for users who were searching Google anyway.
It doesn't even qualify as keyword stuffing. Normally that is done my sites filled with ads to get people to visit and click when the site has no useful content. In this case, they were just putting commonly used phrases in the title of the page so that it would come up for appropriate searches. Big deal...it was to make the HELP pages more accessible to their customers.
And even if it WERE for profit, it's still their website. They put links to all kinds of their services on their website, they'd be idiots not to. Besides, they're getting all the hits anyway...that's what they're selling: the number of people that visit their site. They don't need to steal hits from anyone else by keyword stuffing. They were just making certain help pages more accessible from the search function.
You're right. Their actions have been totally despicable. The way they rip off their customers, and have shamelessly promoted their own FAQ pages purely for profit is a sad testament to how low some companies will stoop. It's a real shame that the government isn't doing something about behavior like this...you'd think there would be legislation in place to prevent this kind of thing, or least make it a criminal offense. But Google has gotten away with it. This is sending a clear message to other big search engines that this kind of behavior is OK!
We cannot turn a blind eye to such injustice; it is our duty as responsible citizens to take action to prevent this type of clear and present danger from rearing its ugly head at other companies. We need to write our congressman and senators and let them know that this kind of moral bankcrupcy will not be tolerated, and that we demand legislation to rectify the situation.
And if they refuse to slake our thirst for justice, we must rise up and demand it. As Thomas Jefferson said, "From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." And it is these tyrants, the Googles of the world that would see their own FAQs presented before others, that we must strike down. The time is late for talk, my brothers, we must act! Take up arms with me and right the wrongs of the world! Take back the power for the people! The future is OURS!
Soldering can be easy, or very difficult. It just depends on scale. =)
I would tend to think that randomizing your skew with an altered stack or TCP driver would be effective. You have the right idea that "you'd be identified as the guy with the random skew", but only if there were other traits to associate those data points, like IP address, OS, etc. If you grabbed a couple of data points at one IP, and then grabbed another couple at another IP, you'd be hard pressed to draw a meaningful correlation.
Having just read the paper, my impression is that there is going to be a LOT of overlap in the skew-space, so this wouldn't be particularly useful in isolating a computer from a large crowd. Further, tracking would be difficult without a priori knowledge of where the computer *should* be, so that you can then test to see if the computer is actually there.
I don't think this is really about obstruction of justice. This ties in very closely with freedom of speech/freedom of the press, though.
Just because someone says something you don't like doesn't mean they have to tell you where they got their information. Sure, the guy who told you may have violated a contract, but that is not a criminal matter, it is a civil matter.
Obstruction of justice is interference with the courts or a law enforcement officer:
obstruction of justice
n. an attempt to interfere with the administration of the courts, the judicial system or law enforcement officers, including threatening witnesses, improper conversations with jurors, hiding evidence or interfering with an arrest. Such activity is a crime.link
I understand where Apple is coming from (they have a right to try to find out), but this doesn't tie in with obstruction of justice at all, as far as I can see. There comes a point when private companies that are pursuing civil matters are trying to get the criminal justice system to do their work for them (like having an FBI task force dedicated to online music piracy). This is not nearly that bad, but it is moving in that direction. Apple has resources other than simply suing someone for information. This just seems wrong, to me at least.
Just finished setting mine up and it took 9 days, mostly the work was over two days, but I had to order a new motherboard since the old Asus MB wouldn't accept a 160GB hard drive (no support for LBA48 on the Ali chipset, go figure).
Anyway, it's very good so far. Built on top of Gentoo. 0.17 seems stable enough - the front end is a bit flaky, but I'm sure they'll patch it up soon.
The TiVo functionality is excellent but I also NFS all my music down to it from my main box, as well as have support for DVD transcoding and MAME emulation. Combine this with RSS feeds for major news sites, a (sort-of) useful web browser (that I've only used a couple of times) and a weather module, and it actually is very sleek.
Honestly, the hardest part to the setup by far was the lirc (remote), and that was only because I'd never done it before. Now that it's working, my friends who thought I was crazy for building it are drooling over it. It is pretty sweet.
The biggest downside to Myth is the price: you have to build/buy a dedicated box for it, but after that, it's just upgrades every couple of years. No monthly fee, and it supports piping the TV to my desktop and bedroom (on my laptop). Pretty advanced product, IMHO.
Meh, not really. I spent a lot of time back in college *learning* Linux, but now I spend a hell of a lot less time than my Windows-using friends keeping my (3) Linux computers up and running (updated, etc) than they do with their computers.
It's also an issue of what you're doing with it - people that only send email and surf the web and never upgrade, well, that's one thing. But you have to do apples to apples comparison - compare Windows users running servers, playing high-end games, upgrading hardware, etc to a Linux user doing the same. I honestly spend maybe an hour a week admining my laptop, MythTV and 64-bit main computer. I don't think that's a "hell of a lot of time", especially since most people will spend more time *watching commercials* in a week than that.
It's true that OS X isn't free (even though it is based on free software), but it really doesn't beat all other OS's in productivity, flow, tools, etc.
This is serious flamebait material, but I'll forge ahead, because I'm being honest. I discovered Ion (the window manager) for X a few weeks back, and it truly changed me. They are all about productivity and design done *right*. It is true that GUIs are a good thing, but almost every GUI out there isn't about presenting you with the information you need in the most usable way. In fact, Ion's manifesto pretty much nailed it: we spend a boatload of time at our computers playing with the mouse (or, heaven forbid, the touchpad), when the keyboard is really about an order of magnitude faster. And another problem that springs out of that is that people spend a LOT of time managing their windows - how big they are, where the sit on the screen, whether they are minimized, maximized, in the system tray, etc. and 95% of the time, this is all done with the mouse. Really, deep down, you have to realize this system is not particularly productive/efficient.
I'm not actually trying to sell Ion here, because Ion is only for a certain type of person. But we should realize is that Apple has done a fabulous job of making the current system just about a efficient as they can - which is to say, if you're going to spend a lot of time using the mouse, Apple is the way to go (you could probably hack something up in Linux that i similar, but whatever, it was Apple's design - I'm tired of free software ripping off commercial stuff, even though it may be a good thing in some cases. Whoa, tangent.)
But if what you're looking for is *real* productivity, speed and accurate presentation of material, well, I think there are better things out there. Sure, they have a learning curve, but I honestly picked up most of Ion's features in a few hours.
The main thing it lacks is the shine and polish people like, and that Apple delivers *with* fairly good productivity. Windows is back in the dark ages in this regard. Have you thought about what ALL mainstream OS's do? I mean, they cover your "desktop" with your applications, and then put all the icons you need to get to to launch applications *underneath* the appilications that are already running! How would you feel if you have to pick up your papers and keyboard every time you needed to access a file drawer, turn off the lights, or get out a book (or see what time it was?) That design needs to go away.
Anyway, some food for thought.
Oh, and if you've used Linux enough to encounter dependency hell, you should probably check out Debian or Gentoo (use the reference platform if you hate the initial compile times) - they have package management systems that put every other OS on the planet to shame. Oh, crap, more flamebait fodder...
It is news that the sun destroys ozone, but the UV rays are also the reason the ozone is there in the first place:
High in the atmosphere, some oxygen (O2) molecules absorbed energy from the Sun's ultraviolet (UV) rays and split to form single oxygen atoms. These atoms combined with remaining oxygen (O2) to form ozone (O3) molecules, which are very effective at absorbing UV rays. The thin layer of ozone that surrounds Earth acts as a shield, protecting the planet from irradiation by UV light...Ozone is produced naturally in the stratosphere when highly energetic solar radiation strikes molecules of oxygen, O2, and cause the two oxygen atoms to split apart in a process called photolysis.
I now understand and accept your argument. It may be of interest to you to know where the center of my misunderstanding lay:
I have been operating under the assumption that the law attempted to isolate at what stage of the download the actual copying occurred (i.e. ripping, copying to hard disk, copy to RAM, transmission, copy to RAM, copy to hardisk). This was, to say the least, a fundamental misunderstanding.
I see now (and I'll say it just to make sure I have it right) that the law doesn't have to choose exactly when the copying occurs, or to limit it to just one copy. The law acknowledges that multiple copies are made (not all permanent) and that they are all subject to the applicable law for the country in which they were created. I missed this for some reason, and it led me a bit astray, to understate things.
My thanks to you for taking what must be considerable time to explain some of the finer points to me. My only regret is your use of ad hominem attacks peppered throughout your posts. I don't believe I've ever been called a schmuck, an idiot, blind and stupid by someone whose arguments could stand on their own merits; these are usually reserved for the last attempts of a loser to bully his opponent into submission. I guess there is a first for everything.
With regards to the cases that I claim exist, you have conveniently cited some of them.
My argument stands exactly as I stated it: the "copies" are made on Russian servers located in Russia. Your citation of MAI v. Peak only re-enforces this, and is in fact one of the cases I spoke of. Taking directly from the quote you used:
..."copying" for purposes of copyright law occurs when a computer program is transferred from a permanent storage device to a computer's RAM...
Indeed. In that case, the only location at which this could happen is at the server, which is located in Russia, because, in order to send it over the wire, the data must first be copied into RAM.
It is interesting, however, that you would then cite Marobie-FL v. NAFED, which has no bearing here:
neither the operator nor the provider initiated the copying; their systems were merely used to create a copy by a third party. Id. at 1369-71. Similarly, the court found that only the subscriber should be liable for causing the display or distribution of the copyrighted work because the actions of the operator and the provider were "automatic and indiscriminate."
This is clearly not applicable. In no way are AllofMP3.com's actions "automatic" - in fact, they go to great pains to charge a credit card, verify an account balance, and then not just make a copy of the data, but to also encode the data for their users in a requested format. And they are by no means "indiscriminate": you must have an account with them to even ask for them to digitially transmit a song to you. Even if the servers were located in the United States, I daresay any court would find that it was AllofMP3.com making the copies, not the users of their service.
After having cited a case that makes the assertion that "copying" occurs when something is copied from a hard disk into RAM, we get ourselves into a mess, since 17 USC 101 makes it clear that "copies" and "phonorecords" must be tangible objects:
"Copies" are material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. The term "copies" includes the material object, other than a phonorecord, in which the work is first fixed.
"Phonorecords" are material objects in which sounds, other than those accompanying a motion picture or other audiovisual work, are fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the sounds can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. The term "phonorecords" includes the material object in which the sounds are first fixed.
So, what we have shown is that the "digital transmission" that one receives from AllofMP3.com is neither a copy nor a phonorecord as defined in 17 USC 101, and therefore is not subject to 17 USC 602. Your argument using Section 602 (b) is therefore non-applicable, by your own admission.
Your next argument is compelling, but specious. First, as you attack me personally, you mention that I don't pay attention to definitions.
No copy is moved. Instead, a new one is created. You guys -- by which I mean schmucks -- always seem to overlook the definitions in 101. But they're controlling, so like it or not, that's what applies.
Well, thank you for that. But you have already cited court cases that assert that a "copy" is moved, since a copy was made in Russia when it was copied to RAM from their storage. Further, those court cases also assert (again from your quote):
"Copy" is defined in the Copyright Act as: "material objects . . . in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device." 17 U.S.C. 101. "A wo
I routinely stand up for those that proclaim that "copyright infringement" is not the same as "stealing", because, in fact, they are correct.
But, for the most part, it doesn't matter.
Downloading a copyrighted song without authorization is exactly what it is. We don't even need to argue over a name for it. We all know what it is.
And we all also know that it is illegal. The real distinction is that theft is a criminal offense, and copyright infringement is a civil offense. Can we please move on from this? They are not the same, and they are both wrong (legally). Isn't that enough to agree on to have an intelligent discussion?
Slashdot Mirror
Wait...you paid $50 for 8 songs and you're calling him a fucking idiot?
Already did this...MythTV/Gentoo running in my entertainment center, debian for the firewall, Gentoo on Laptop and Desktop, and OS X Powerbook for my Wife. It's fabulous.
Where do you think those daytime soaps got all their ideas? Sure, there's the bible and others old "literature", but Shakespeare hammered out a lot of the classic plot elements that have been copied ever since. Pointing out that they're not that great "because everyone is doing it" doesn't rate as insightful. That is a bit like saying that Ford was overrated because "everyone has an assembly line". Well, no one has an assembly line when he had his. That's what made Ford special. Likewise with Shakespeare and his stories.
And, unlike Ford, whose inventions have been vastly improved upon very quickly, Shakespeare's wit is pithy, and has aged extremely well. Not only were his ideas fresh at the time, but his manner of conveying them unusually adept, both then and now. If you think the essence of what he is lauded for is related to some snobbish appeal of the mechanics of the language, you should perhaps go back and read some of his work again. Most, if not all, are available free of charge on Project Gutenburg.
Drama? Absolutely. On par with soap operas? I think not.
I am a "when you drive, just drive!" kind of guy.
That said, I find the real "bandwidth" eater while driving is anything that requires any sort of response (besides the driving, obviously). That includes talking on the phone, holding anything (requires attention and response to handling the physical object - cup of coffee, magazine/book, radio, whatever), using navigation systems or even talking to the passengers.
If something is simply streaming information to you without interaction (leaving the radio on one station, sticking in a CD and not messing with it, listening to a talk show you downloaded), I do not find it interferes at all. I simply tune it out when I need to think about the traffic, and tune it back in when the situation is resolved. This doesn't work when you're doing something that takes your eyes off the road for any reason, but for audio based entertainment, I really don't see it as a problem.
What iTunes does is give you some of the benefits (previews, convenience), but at a price only very slightly less (or the same, sometimes even more expensive) than the in-store counterpart. Why is this bad? Because they rob you of fair-use in exchange for that convenience. In doing so, it is no longer the same product.
- They are charging too much considering that the "new" technology should allow it all to be much cheaper
- They are replacing a lossless product (in store purchase) with a lossy product, which is, therefore, inferior
- They employ DRM that restricts my fair use
- A side effect of their DRM is that I can only use their service from a commercial OS that I dislike and frankly, believe endangers my network and hardware, or from their OS, only availbable if I buy their hardware
- Another effect of their lousy DRM is that I can only listen to the music on their player, again, forcing me to buy hardware from them
Contrast all this with a service like Magnatune, which offers full, lossless downloads, as well as downloads in "alternative" formats, like Ogg (which I happen to use exclusively along with FLAC for live shows), requiring no restrictive client-side software, no limitations on what players can play the music, or what operating systems can access the content.This is why I ignore iTunes when we talk about legal downloads. It isn't really a product in the same class as people are visualizing. Sure, it may technically be a "legal download", but it takes away so much from what legal downloading should be (and what makes it a worthwhile enterprise), that it doesn't even qualify.
Let make one final point: technology should always be moving us forward, both for the customer and for the business. That is how money gets made; BOTH sides have to feel like they're getting a good deal. But what is happening online with iTunes is NOT a good deal. Perhaps it is for some, but not for most. Imagine if when CDs came out, Sony CDs would only play on a Sony CD player, and Universal CDs would only play on a Universal CD player. To listen to your collection, you'd need to carry 5 CD players with you. Suffice it to say that it would have never gotten off the ground. Maybe a few people would have lauded it as "the wave of the future" with the high quality digital music encoding on the shiny plastic discs. But really, it would have been a dead end.
So it is with iTunes. iTunes is merely interesting because it was the first commercial attempt to create a legal music download service. But it is only interesting, and by no means an example to follow - it will not be long lived because it doesn't really improve customer experience for the vast majority of its potential market. Wait around for the next service that does, or perhaps until iTunes changes their tune.
If you read the hacker FAQ, (no matter what you think about ESR's politics, etc.), it mentions which languages budding CS folks/hackers should learn. It specifically suggested avoiding languages like VB, yet I find that tons of people love VB, and in fact, I was chided at an interview for my current job because I didn't know VB, and only knew "lame" languages, like Python.
This, folks, is why you don't learn and use a closed language. Because when whomever owns the language decides that support is gone for it, you are basically left out in the cold. Of course, this is just one reason, but it is a big reason.
There is also the issue of cross-platform support, among other things. Obviously if your closed language vendor is also a closed OS peddler, then there is going to be tie-in and non-support for other systems.
Anyway, I thought I'd post this because a lot of F/OSS software zealots end up getting told a lot of what they believe is purely philosophical, but in some cases, like this one, it becomes VERY practical.
Sorry, I didn't make myself clear...that URL was supposed to imply a location where the "standards test" would be located. In this case, people would visit it because they saw a link in some news article entitled "Is Your Browser Hot or Not?".
The webpage would be designed for the sole reason of telling people to download a different browser. It would be, by definition, standards compliant, and would have no purpose than to break browsers that did NOT follow those standards.
Should've made that clearer, I suppose.
Well, right now, it's hard to explain to someone that doesn't know the backstory why "standards" are a Good Thing. If we had a web page made by web designers that would show off how things SHOULD look (put jpegs of the correct rendering beside the code), you could give people a location to visit to objectively measure their browser.
This is important, because if Opera, Safari, Firefox, Konqueror, et. al. all render it fairly closely, and IE mangles it, you then have a story. CNet will run it, CNN will run it, and Slashdot will have a story pointing to the other stories: "IE7 Proven to Have Shitty Rendering Engine". Right now, there is no story, because the public doesn't understand the "standards" mumbo jumbo. But even a brand new user can understand two pictures not looking the same.
"I visited http://isyourbrowserhotornot.com and it looked totally messed up! What can I do?"
"Go download Firefox."
Basically, this gives some kind of ruler an end-user can use to measure a browser in a fast, objective way. Right now, we either don't have that, or it is not well known. This puts the pressure on Microsoft to become more standards compliant. If people become *aware* of IE's shortcomings, they will be more likely to switch. If they don't become compliant, they will continue to steadily lose market share. If they do become compliant, they lose their strangle-hold on the market and everyone wins; we're back to no-browser-monopoly. Yea! Choice is good.
I completely agree. But that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore who wrote the message. Do you ignore who the author of the book was? Or who wrote the article? I don't lend everyone the same credence. It is very different for the criminal to claim he is innocent than for his supposed victim to claim he is innocent. The author makes all the difference.
In this case, it is merely amusing to note who the author is, because clearly, the claims are absurd. Linux has been shown to be capable of high security (an agency called the NSA helped us in this area, IIRC). It has also been shown multiple times that it is very scalable (Google, anyone?). This has nothing to do with my opinion of Linux, it merely has to do with basic standards of credibility. It is akin to standing in front of a Rolls Royce and claiming that it is a low quality, inferior car. This is amusing, but it is even more amusing when you find out it's a Chevy salesman making the speech.
Unfortunately, what will happen is that people will counter the article's reactionary opinion with an opposite reactionary opinion.
First, I'm not sure how the article is expressing a reactionary opinion; I don't know of anything it was "reacting" to. It seems more like a baseless attack to me. Secondly, just because someone disagrees with an article does not automatically render their arguments invalid or "reactionary", as you suggest.
Lastly, as a bit of concession, I do think balanced opinions are good. But that doesn't mean we should dignify this kind of propoganda. If someone (anyone, even the EDS) comes along with something that is measured, qualified and well-researched, then we can address it in turn. But this does not deserve serious attention. This is a classic marketing move - "The OTHER product is insecure, it doesn't work on a large scale, it is more expensive, and, oh look! We have an alternative right here!" Take another look at what this guy is saying and tell me honestly that there is anything remotely concrete in what he is saying.
"From a corporate perspective, we are not confident where Linux is right now today. A large enterprise needs to be sure because it relates to securifying [sic] the environment. We see some of the same things occurring that did to Unix -- it could splinter into many different types of languages. We are quite cautious about Linux and its deployment," said Rasmussen.
"We are concerned about security on an open standard environment like that. We are also concerned about some of the scalability issues that we are seeing on our clients on a global basis. Also, we are somewhat cautious about what happened with Unix - it splintered into eight applications -- until McNealy (Scott McNealy, chief executive of Sun) finally announced he won the battle and had the one surviving Unix out there. We think Linux has the possibility of going the same route," said Rasmussen.
"Quite honestly, in the notion of costs, as we look at what we are structuring with our alliance partners, we are not seeing a compelling cost advantage that would lend us towards Linux -- given the other things I have mentioned," said Rasmussen.
Jim Hassell, managing director of Sun Microsystems Australia, argued that Linux was no loss to the Agility Alliance because it could use Solaris 10 instead of Linux rival Red Hat.
"If you test Red Hat against Solaris 10 against whatever else... we would say that Solaris 10 beats it hands down on functionality and everything else," said Hassell.
Some distros really *liked* ports, though (as you do) and used it just for thier distro, like Gentoo. It is no accident Gentoo's package manager is called "portage". =)
It's from overseas. They are not bound by Do Not Call lists, because there is no enforcement outside the US.
One word:
k3b
OK, well, more than one word. It is driven by cdrdao (and cdrecord), and it's way better than Nero was when I used it back in 99. So there. =)
I can't really speak for Nero 6, though.
Good idea, but to silence the critics, you should use something like Xen, and run the GameOS alongside whatever normal OS you use (I literally mean "alongide" - I HATE dual booting).
I switched to Linux years ago (shortly before XP came out), an have struggled with ways to maintain my gaming habit. I end up buying most any big game that comes out for Linux (to support them and because they usually rock), and have been making a lot of use of my PS2, but it would be nice to see publishers and game authors coming up with news ways a customer could play the game regardless of which OS they use.
It wasn't an argument, it was a joke. And if I really felt like disucssing the issues, as you put it, I wouldn't have written it.
But since you asked:
This whole thing is totally over-blown. This isn't a case of "evil" or even hypocricy. You don't blame slashdot for putting a giant banner across the top of their site with a link to Slashdot, do you? You don't say "Hey, I had to a submit a story and get turned down 18 times before I could get a link on the front page!", do you?
Probably not. That's because it's Slashdot's space. Just as pages Google serves up are Google's space. Sure, they sell certain space for people to put their links, and they provide links to other sites for free. But that in no way forbids them from linking to themselves, especially when the pages in question were pages in an FAQ about a product they provide. It wasn't even a case of their engine returning their pages at the top for no reason. The keywords they had inserted were for "traffic estimate". If you search for that, you won't get Google hits in the first page anyway. This was for users who were searching Google anyway.
It doesn't even qualify as keyword stuffing. Normally that is done my sites filled with ads to get people to visit and click when the site has no useful content. In this case, they were just putting commonly used phrases in the title of the page so that it would come up for appropriate searches. Big deal...it was to make the HELP pages more accessible to their customers.
And even if it WERE for profit, it's still their website. They put links to all kinds of their services on their website, they'd be idiots not to. Besides, they're getting all the hits anyway...that's what they're selling: the number of people that visit their site. They don't need to steal hits from anyone else by keyword stuffing. They were just making certain help pages more accessible from the search function.
You're right. Their actions have been totally despicable. The way they rip off their customers, and have shamelessly promoted their own FAQ pages purely for profit is a sad testament to how low some companies will stoop. It's a real shame that the government isn't doing something about behavior like this...you'd think there would be legislation in place to prevent this kind of thing, or least make it a criminal offense. But Google has gotten away with it. This is sending a clear message to other big search engines that this kind of behavior is OK!
We cannot turn a blind eye to such injustice; it is our duty as responsible citizens to take action to prevent this type of clear and present danger from rearing its ugly head at other companies. We need to write our congressman and senators and let them know that this kind of moral bankcrupcy will not be tolerated, and that we demand legislation to rectify the situation.
And if they refuse to slake our thirst for justice, we must rise up and demand it. As Thomas Jefferson said, "From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." And it is these tyrants, the Googles of the world that would see their own FAQs presented before others, that we must strike down. The time is late for talk, my brothers, we must act! Take up arms with me and right the wrongs of the world! Take back the power for the people! The future is OURS!
People in a team having differeent ideas for the future of a project != "in trouble".
"Google is in trouble - some employee want to bring Google News out of Beta, while others do not."
Soldering can be easy, or very difficult. It just depends on scale. =)
I would tend to think that randomizing your skew with an altered stack or TCP driver would be effective. You have the right idea that "you'd be identified as the guy with the random skew", but only if there were other traits to associate those data points, like IP address, OS, etc. If you grabbed a couple of data points at one IP, and then grabbed another couple at another IP, you'd be hard pressed to draw a meaningful correlation.
Having just read the paper, my impression is that there is going to be a LOT of overlap in the skew-space, so this wouldn't be particularly useful in isolating a computer from a large crowd. Further, tracking would be difficult without a priori knowledge of where the computer *should* be, so that you can then test to see if the computer is actually there.
Just because someone says something you don't like doesn't mean they have to tell you where they got their information. Sure, the guy who told you may have violated a contract, but that is not a criminal matter, it is a civil matter.
Obstruction of justice is interference with the courts or a law enforcement officer:
obstruction of justice
n. an attempt to interfere with the administration of the courts, the judicial system or law enforcement officers, including threatening witnesses, improper conversations with jurors, hiding evidence or interfering with an arrest. Such activity is a crime. link
I understand where Apple is coming from (they have a right to try to find out), but this doesn't tie in with obstruction of justice at all, as far as I can see. There comes a point when private companies that are pursuing civil matters are trying to get the criminal justice system to do their work for them (like having an FBI task force dedicated to online music piracy). This is not nearly that bad, but it is moving in that direction. Apple has resources other than simply suing someone for information. This just seems wrong, to me at least.
Just finished setting mine up and it took 9 days, mostly the work was over two days, but I had to order a new motherboard since the old Asus MB wouldn't accept a 160GB hard drive (no support for LBA48 on the Ali chipset, go figure).
Anyway, it's very good so far. Built on top of Gentoo. 0.17 seems stable enough - the front end is a bit flaky, but I'm sure they'll patch it up soon.
The TiVo functionality is excellent but I also NFS all my music down to it from my main box, as well as have support for DVD transcoding and MAME emulation. Combine this with RSS feeds for major news sites, a (sort-of) useful web browser (that I've only used a couple of times) and a weather module, and it actually is very sleek.
Honestly, the hardest part to the setup by far was the lirc (remote), and that was only because I'd never done it before. Now that it's working, my friends who thought I was crazy for building it are drooling over it. It is pretty sweet.
The biggest downside to Myth is the price: you have to build/buy a dedicated box for it, but after that, it's just upgrades every couple of years. No monthly fee, and it supports piping the TV to my desktop and bedroom (on my laptop). Pretty advanced product, IMHO.
Meh, not really. I spent a lot of time back in college *learning* Linux, but now I spend a hell of a lot less time than my Windows-using friends keeping my (3) Linux computers up and running (updated, etc) than they do with their computers.
It's also an issue of what you're doing with it - people that only send email and surf the web and never upgrade, well, that's one thing. But you have to do apples to apples comparison - compare Windows users running servers, playing high-end games, upgrading hardware, etc to a Linux user doing the same. I honestly spend maybe an hour a week admining my laptop, MythTV and 64-bit main computer. I don't think that's a "hell of a lot of time", especially since most people will spend more time *watching commercials* in a week than that.
It's true that OS X isn't free (even though it is based on free software), but it really doesn't beat all other OS's in productivity, flow, tools, etc.
This is serious flamebait material, but I'll forge ahead, because I'm being honest. I discovered Ion (the window manager) for X a few weeks back, and it truly changed me. They are all about productivity and design done *right*. It is true that GUIs are a good thing, but almost every GUI out there isn't about presenting you with the information you need in the most usable way. In fact, Ion's manifesto pretty much nailed it: we spend a boatload of time at our computers playing with the mouse (or, heaven forbid, the touchpad), when the keyboard is really about an order of magnitude faster. And another problem that springs out of that is that people spend a LOT of time managing their windows - how big they are, where the sit on the screen, whether they are minimized, maximized, in the system tray, etc. and 95% of the time, this is all done with the mouse. Really, deep down, you have to realize this system is not particularly productive/efficient.
I'm not actually trying to sell Ion here, because Ion is only for a certain type of person. But we should realize is that Apple has done a fabulous job of making the current system just about a efficient as they can - which is to say, if you're going to spend a lot of time using the mouse, Apple is the way to go (you could probably hack something up in Linux that i similar, but whatever, it was Apple's design - I'm tired of free software ripping off commercial stuff, even though it may be a good thing in some cases. Whoa, tangent.)
But if what you're looking for is *real* productivity, speed and accurate presentation of material, well, I think there are better things out there. Sure, they have a learning curve, but I honestly picked up most of Ion's features in a few hours.
The main thing it lacks is the shine and polish people like, and that Apple delivers *with* fairly good productivity. Windows is back in the dark ages in this regard. Have you thought about what ALL mainstream OS's do? I mean, they cover your "desktop" with your applications, and then put all the icons you need to get to to launch applications *underneath* the appilications that are already running! How would you feel if you have to pick up your papers and keyboard every time you needed to access a file drawer, turn off the lights, or get out a book (or see what time it was?) That design needs to go away.
Anyway, some food for thought.
Oh, and if you've used Linux enough to encounter dependency hell, you should probably check out Debian or Gentoo (use the reference platform if you hate the initial compile times) - they have package management systems that put every other OS on the planet to shame. Oh, crap, more flamebait fodder...
High in the atmosphere, some oxygen (O2) molecules absorbed energy from the Sun's ultraviolet (UV) rays and split to form single oxygen atoms. These atoms combined with remaining oxygen (O2) to form ozone (O3) molecules, which are very effective at absorbing UV rays. The thin layer of ozone that surrounds Earth acts as a shield, protecting the planet from irradiation by UV light...Ozone is produced naturally in the stratosphere when highly energetic solar radiation strikes molecules of oxygen, O2, and cause the two oxygen atoms to split apart in a process called photolysis.
Linkage
So, yeah, the sun is the bad guy, but really, the sun is the good guy, too. =)
I have been operating under the assumption that the law attempted to isolate at what stage of the download the actual copying occurred (i.e. ripping, copying to hard disk, copy to RAM, transmission, copy to RAM, copy to hardisk). This was, to say the least, a fundamental misunderstanding.
I see now (and I'll say it just to make sure I have it right) that the law doesn't have to choose exactly when the copying occurs, or to limit it to just one copy. The law acknowledges that multiple copies are made (not all permanent) and that they are all subject to the applicable law for the country in which they were created. I missed this for some reason, and it led me a bit astray, to understate things.
My thanks to you for taking what must be considerable time to explain some of the finer points to me. My only regret is your use of ad hominem attacks peppered throughout your posts. I don't believe I've ever been called a schmuck, an idiot, blind and stupid by someone whose arguments could stand on their own merits; these are usually reserved for the last attempts of a loser to bully his opponent into submission. I guess there is a first for everything.
My argument stands exactly as I stated it: the "copies" are made on Russian servers located in Russia. Your citation of MAI v. Peak only re-enforces this, and is in fact one of the cases I spoke of. Taking directly from the quote you used:
Indeed. In that case, the only location at which this could happen is at the server, which is located in Russia, because, in order to send it over the wire, the data must first be copied into RAM.
It is interesting, however, that you would then cite Marobie-FL v. NAFED, which has no bearing here:
neither the operator nor the provider initiated the copying; their systems were merely used to create a copy by a third party. Id. at 1369-71. Similarly, the court found that only the subscriber should be liable for causing the display or distribution of the copyrighted work because the actions of the operator and the provider were "automatic and indiscriminate."
This is clearly not applicable. In no way are AllofMP3.com's actions "automatic" - in fact, they go to great pains to charge a credit card, verify an account balance, and then not just make a copy of the data, but to also encode the data for their users in a requested format. And they are by no means "indiscriminate": you must have an account with them to even ask for them to digitially transmit a song to you. Even if the servers were located in the United States, I daresay any court would find that it was AllofMP3.com making the copies, not the users of their service.
After having cited a case that makes the assertion that "copying" occurs when something is copied from a hard disk into RAM, we get ourselves into a mess, since 17 USC 101 makes it clear that "copies" and "phonorecords" must be tangible objects:
"Copies" are material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. The term "copies" includes the material object, other than a phonorecord, in which the work is first fixed.
"Phonorecords" are material objects in which sounds, other than those accompanying a motion picture or other audiovisual work, are fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the sounds can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. The term "phonorecords" includes the material object in which the sounds are first fixed.
So, what we have shown is that the "digital transmission" that one receives from AllofMP3.com is neither a copy nor a phonorecord as defined in 17 USC 101, and therefore is not subject to 17 USC 602. Your argument using Section 602 (b) is therefore non-applicable, by your own admission.
Your next argument is compelling, but specious. First, as you attack me personally, you mention that I don't pay attention to definitions.
No copy is moved. Instead, a new one is created. You guys -- by which I mean schmucks -- always seem to overlook the definitions in 101. But they're controlling, so like it or not, that's what applies.
Well, thank you for that. But you have already cited court cases that assert that a "copy" is moved, since a copy was made in Russia when it was copied to RAM from their storage. Further, those court cases also assert (again from your quote):
"Copy" is defined in the Copyright Act as: "material objects . . . in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device." 17 U.S.C. 101. "A wo
I routinely stand up for those that proclaim that "copyright infringement" is not the same as "stealing", because, in fact, they are correct.
But, for the most part, it doesn't matter.
Downloading a copyrighted song without authorization is exactly what it is. We don't even need to argue over a name for it. We all know what it is.
And we all also know that it is illegal. The real distinction is that theft is a criminal offense, and copyright infringement is a civil offense. Can we please move on from this? They are not the same, and they are both wrong (legally). Isn't that enough to agree on to have an intelligent discussion?