The problem with music today is that none of these bands you hear on the radio have any stay power. Who are the new beatles? Who is the new Metallica? Ever since the 90's we've been cycling through these specific sub-genres like grunge, ska, techno, emo, etc. After the kids who listen graduate high school, it's on to something else and you never hear of those bands again.
The music industry know this - they're looking for the next one hit wonder because 10 one hit wonders are easier to find than 1 band that can continually make great music. It's not the artists fault that the music industry is the way it is, it is simply a function of an increased focus on revenue. "Quality" is hardly a factor in making money.
That scenario is absurd. The burden of proof lays on the accuser. They have to prove that you have something, and if they can't prove that you have something it doesn't default to "he must have something." I admit our justice system has weaknesses, but if they system you described existed in reality it would be bad news for everyone. remember the Salem witch trials? I can't prove your witch, but you can't prove you're not a witch, so you are therefore a witch.
I was watching TV all night last night, can I prove I didn't steal a car, burn down a house, rob a bank, and murder someone? Well, not really.
Criminals are supposed to be convicted due to hard - read: not circumstantial - evidence. You have to have something that proves you did what you did. Absence of something is not proof.
Of some foreign chunk of obviously alien manufactured metal came flying towards earth, I think we would guarantee it gets a soft landing. We should have written something cool on the discarded rockets, like "Make your time. All your base are belong to us."
I applaud Kevin's final decision to let things be. I think he is being a bit over-dramatic and I think it's unlikely that Digg would be shut down over this, but what the hell do I know?
That said, I think the whole thing could have been solved early on if Kevin would have just made a statement. Something to the effect of "Hey guys, I know this sucks but HD-DVD is one of our sponsors and without sponsors there is not Digg. Every once in a while we have to suck it up and take one for the team. If you want the decryption key, it's not hard to find, but please stop posting it here. Those who do will be banned. Sorry, but that's how it's got to be."
Instead they ran around all day at war with their own users. Banning people left and right and trying to keep up with the stories being submitted. I'm glad the users won. It hurt when Digg backed down.
I thought it was the other way around: If alien life existed and was intelligent, it would lean towards the existence of a supreme being, especially if that other life from looked exactly like us.
I thought science held to the notion that it is unlikely that any other lifeforms would exist to the extent of our own planet. (sigh...) It's hard to keep up with science some times.
Note: Not all God-believing religions discount science. My personal belief is that science and religion should agree, and as both factor keep evolving they will. I am not a scientologist or whatever.
Records never went out of style in two circles that I'm aware of: the DJ scene (obviously), and the underground punk scene. I don't think I've ever been to an underground punk show where the bands weren't selling records.
Come on guys, we need to slow this down so we can give Microsoft a chance to catch up to what has already been done. Don't worry, they should have IE up to speed by the end of the decade - THEN, and only then, can we start talking about ridiculous things like upgrading HTML!
Yea, you can resale the software so long as you agree to the EULA first, but if you sell it before installing it - you haven't agreed to the EULA and are therefore not an authorized end user and can't resell the software.
I saw these guys last year at a technology expo here in Utah. They had these really cool T-Shirts they were giving out to everyone who signed their petition. The shirts had nothing to do with CP80 or pr0n or anything like that. It had some cool nuclear age artwork from the 50's on it.
I talked with the guy for a bit and found out what they were trying to do. I told him it was a dumb idea and it would never work and it's not enforceable. He didn't have any great answers - just kept saying "we'll make them move to another port" emphasizing "make."
Figuring that it could never work, I signed their petition in the name of getting a free T-shirt. Looking back, it was a mistake, because apparently this thing is going somewhere despite its complete lack of reason. I sold my soul and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
Microsoft promised us $500 UMPCs a year or two ago, and we ended up with $1500 UMPCs a few months after that. They have done poorly because of their high price point and because they are not competitive in terms of power with mcuh less expensive laptops.
I'm glad they've solved the cost problem by adding another $500 to the price tag. I bet they'll be a big success this time around.
In America you can film whatever happens in a public area, whenever. The feds might confiscate that footage as part of an investigation, but you can still do it and it's well within your rights. There was amateur footage of 9/11 and it led to a better understanding of what happened that day. In France this would now be illegal, although I can't imagine how they would enforce it since the act itself would no doubt be illegal.
Unfortunately the EULA that you never actually agree to until you install the software but is still enforceable because MS said so prevents students from reselling their discounted copies of Windows.
It's so difficult for me to understand why people are still making this argument. It's as if they lack even a basic understanding of how computer manufacturers work.
CASE: I worked for a major computer manufacturer (HP). They have basically two lines of notebooks, each with several options: Consumer grade and Business Class. Consumer grade notebooks come with all the bells and whistles - built in cameras - extra media controlling buttons, glossy screens, etc. etc. etc. These were your run of the mill $500-$1500 computers. The business class machines had far fewer features. They were very basic in nature, lacked what HP deemed as modern styling, and only had basic hardware. Yet the business class machines were much more expensive.
How could this be? The same is true of Dell, by the way, and any manufacturer that makes both grades of notebooks. Do you really think there is no difference between a $500 notebook and a $2000 notebook that have the same amount of ram and the same size hard drive? You would have to be mentally handicapped to think that your $600 Acer even compares in terms of quality to any machine that costs 3x as much. Sure, it had all the specs that make it sound great, but the fact is it's a piece of shit.
You see manufacturers use whatever hardware is available for the cheapest price THAT DAY when making consumer grade laptops. That's why they are much less reliable and prone to problems. The quality control that goes into them is limited compared to what goes into a business class machine. You could buy two of the same model Acer computer, and find they have different internal components. One is a lemon, and one works great. With a business class HP, Dell, or Apple computer (yes, Apple's would be compared to a business class machine - not your shitty $600 computer) a run of computers all use the best hardware they were designed for and are the same across the line. Businesses are willing to pay more for the reliability and the ability to use one disk image across all the machines. You can't get that with your $600 notebook.
The bottom line is this: You get what you pay for. There are $50k cars with smaller engines than $20k cars, but do you really think they compare? If you're a naive consumer you'll buy whatever is sold to you. You'll shop based on price and always end up with shit. If you're a discerning consumer you'll make decisions based on things that actually matter and end up getting what you paid for.
Apples, Sonys, and other high end laptops are not overpriced. They simply lack all the cut corners that make your piece of shit $600 acer possible.
Anyone who makes wacky unfounded generalizations about using a Mac has a built in bias. Pull your head out of your ass. Things are not always as your tunnel vision would make them seem.
I really liked the aspect of youtube that it was a level playing field for everyone - big and small. People generated content for the sake of generating content, or viral marketing campaigns (which I'm SOMETIMES okay with but are usually annoying). Now youtube is going to be a competition with people trying to generate crap that will get a lot of hits rather than good "for the sake of it" art.
Just like what happens to a lot of bands when they sell out and stop caring about the music...
The only thing I look for with a story like this is a damn picture. So many stories talk about something I just want to see, but have no picture. Is it lazy journalism? Dammit, I just want to see a cat that looks like a borg, okay?
That many people are paying for Windows? I guess most business are legit, so if people have one computer in the office, and one at home, so you'd see maybe 50% piracy rate. That would mean that for these numbers to be accurate, roughly half of home installs are illegal.
Just for fun, let's say most people buy a machine with a legit license. Their kid comes over, realizes they are full of spyware/adware and reinstalls Pro over their version of home. That means that half of home installs are probably reinstalls - probably more because many people just reinstall their legit copy. Of the ~20% of people who don't pass WGA, I'd bet most of them had Windows Home installed, and reinstalled with pro when their home install went south. So when you own a home license and install pro, could it be considered that you're only pirating the cost of the upgrade, not the price of a full pro install?
Almost everyone who has ever bought a computer has probably paid for a windows license at one time or another. What is actually installed may be another story. Still, I'm surprised the piracy rate isn't higher considering Microsoft's extremely high pricing.
How can you say that third-party software would make the handset insecure and unstable? Do you believe this about computers in general? Third party development can (and frequently does) turn the ideas of the general public into brilliant applications that would likely not have existed otherwise. They drive the entire computer industry, and how can you so quickly dismiss the handset market as being different where third-party development would only mean negative things?
First of all, your argument that 3rd party apps make platforms unstable should apply the desktop is retarded. Anyone who can't see the difference between a full blown OS on a fully functional collection of hardware and a PHONE running a limited OS on extremely limited hardware is either blind or in denial.
Furthermore, if you don't agree that 3rd party apps make a phone platform unstable, I invite you to try using a Treo or a WM5 phone for a few months. Go ahead - and install a few apps on it (since that is what everyone seems to want), and watch it crash on a regular basis. I keep my Treo 650 running pretty slim as far as hardware goes, and it crashes around 2 times a day. If you're going to call it an OS, and you're going to allow 3rd party development, then you better be prepared for people developing for it. The one feature Palm will never support is the ability to run 3rd party apps, even as they tout it for being a major feature (thousands of software titles available!!! but don't use any...).
The problem is that there needs to be a layer of abstraction between the core and the application layer. Palm OS programs run directly on top of the core, allowing just about anything to crash it. OS X, Windows, and Linux and try to keep applications far away enough from the core so that you very rarely get kernel panics. But they can do this because they have the processing power, RAM, and other hardware necessary to maintain those extra layers of protection. If you can figure out a way to build a desktop class OS like XP or OS X on a 200Mhz processor and a few megs of RAM, I'm sure Palm, Apple, Motorola, or RIM would love to talk to you.
We're working with Windows 3.1-esque hardware here, so we're going to have a lot of the same limitations. When a program crashed in Windows 3.1 you would often find yourself staring at "C:\>" for the same reasons stated above. I appreciate that Apple doesn't want their phone to have the reputation of a treo - I appreciate that they are setting a high bar for entry into development. It will ensure that no matter how crappy the iPhone may be, I will never hate it as much as my Treo.
One last note - of all the software I've downloaded for my Treo, it is all to get the thing to do what I would expect it to do - nothing really crazy or out there. For example, I want to view maps, be able to browse pictures, have decent web browsing, watch movies, etc. The iPhone already does all this stuff, so there's no need for a lot of third party apps. I had a similar experience when switching to OS X from Windows. I thought I would miss a lot of software, but I soon realized that all the software I was installing on my Windows machine was to get to and maintain a certain level of usability. OS X had raised the bar and (almost) everything I needed was already there. There was no reason to hunt down all sorts of utilities and hacks just so I could get the OS to operate sufficiently.
What are those of us who wish to finally see America catch up to the rest of the world supposed to do?
Wait, did I miss something? I thought the US was still an economic superpower. Who do we need to "catch up" to? Seriously, I mean, I know other countries are catching up to us, and the tables may turn sometime relatively soon, but we're not exactly way behind.
I love when people try to squash free-speech and fair use like this nowadays. All they do is push it further into the mainstream news and show how big of jackasses they are. Seriously, haven't these people heard of the internet? You can't secretly squash out your opponents anymore!
Slashdot Mirror
move.
The problem with music today is that none of these bands you hear on the radio have any stay power. Who are the new beatles? Who is the new Metallica? Ever since the 90's we've been cycling through these specific sub-genres like grunge, ska, techno, emo, etc. After the kids who listen graduate high school, it's on to something else and you never hear of those bands again.
The music industry know this - they're looking for the next one hit wonder because 10 one hit wonders are easier to find than 1 band that can continually make great music. It's not the artists fault that the music industry is the way it is, it is simply a function of an increased focus on revenue. "Quality" is hardly a factor in making money.
Well, it's "unarguable", just like the bible. I guess me might as well give up on colonization and move on to something else.
That scenario is absurd. The burden of proof lays on the accuser. They have to prove that you have something, and if they can't prove that you have something it doesn't default to "he must have something." I admit our justice system has weaknesses, but if they system you described existed in reality it would be bad news for everyone. remember the Salem witch trials? I can't prove your witch, but you can't prove you're not a witch, so you are therefore a witch.
I was watching TV all night last night, can I prove I didn't steal a car, burn down a house, rob a bank, and murder someone? Well, not really.
Criminals are supposed to be convicted due to hard - read: not circumstantial - evidence. You have to have something that proves you did what you did. Absence of something is not proof.
150mb down, 768k up!
Of some foreign chunk of obviously alien manufactured metal came flying towards earth, I think we would guarantee it gets a soft landing. We should have written something cool on the discarded rockets, like "Make your time. All your base are belong to us."
I applaud Kevin's final decision to let things be. I think he is being a bit over-dramatic and I think it's unlikely that Digg would be shut down over this, but what the hell do I know?
That said, I think the whole thing could have been solved early on if Kevin would have just made a statement. Something to the effect of "Hey guys, I know this sucks but HD-DVD is one of our sponsors and without sponsors there is not Digg. Every once in a while we have to suck it up and take one for the team. If you want the decryption key, it's not hard to find, but please stop posting it here. Those who do will be banned. Sorry, but that's how it's got to be."
Instead they ran around all day at war with their own users. Banning people left and right and trying to keep up with the stories being submitted. I'm glad the users won. It hurt when Digg backed down.
I thought it was the other way around: If alien life existed and was intelligent, it would lean towards the existence of a supreme being, especially if that other life from looked exactly like us.
...) It's hard to keep up with science some times.
I thought science held to the notion that it is unlikely that any other lifeforms would exist to the extent of our own planet. (sigh
Note: Not all God-believing religions discount science. My personal belief is that science and religion should agree, and as both factor keep evolving they will. I am not a scientologist or whatever.
Records never went out of style in two circles that I'm aware of: the DJ scene (obviously), and the underground punk scene. I don't think I've ever been to an underground punk show where the bands weren't selling records.
Come on guys, we need to slow this down so we can give Microsoft a chance to catch up to what has already been done. Don't worry, they should have IE up to speed by the end of the decade - THEN, and only then, can we start talking about ridiculous things like upgrading HTML!
I herd it's prety difikult to get a batchelor's
I was referring to this: http://clevescene.com/2005-03-30/news/kill-bill/1
Yea, you can resale the software so long as you agree to the EULA first, but if you sell it before installing it - you haven't agreed to the EULA and are therefore not an authorized end user and can't resell the software.
I saw these guys last year at a technology expo here in Utah. They had these really cool T-Shirts they were giving out to everyone who signed their petition. The shirts had nothing to do with CP80 or pr0n or anything like that. It had some cool nuclear age artwork from the 50's on it.
I talked with the guy for a bit and found out what they were trying to do. I told him it was a dumb idea and it would never work and it's not enforceable. He didn't have any great answers - just kept saying "we'll make them move to another port" emphasizing "make."
Figuring that it could never work, I signed their petition in the name of getting a free T-shirt. Looking back, it was a mistake, because apparently this thing is going somewhere despite its complete lack of reason. I sold my soul and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
I haven't ever worn the T-shirt.
Microsoft promised us $500 UMPCs a year or two ago, and we ended up with $1500 UMPCs a few months after that. They have done poorly because of their high price point and because they are not competitive in terms of power with mcuh less expensive laptops.
I'm glad they've solved the cost problem by adding another $500 to the price tag. I bet they'll be a big success this time around.
In America you can film whatever happens in a public area, whenever. The feds might confiscate that footage as part of an investigation, but you can still do it and it's well within your rights. There was amateur footage of 9/11 and it led to a better understanding of what happened that day. In France this would now be illegal, although I can't imagine how they would enforce it since the act itself would no doubt be illegal.
In mother Russia, the violence films you!
Unfortunately the EULA that you never actually agree to until you install the software but is still enforceable because MS said so prevents students from reselling their discounted copies of Windows.
It's so difficult for me to understand why people are still making this argument. It's as if they lack even a basic understanding of how computer manufacturers work.
CASE: I worked for a major computer manufacturer (HP). They have basically two lines of notebooks, each with several options: Consumer grade and Business Class. Consumer grade notebooks come with all the bells and whistles - built in cameras - extra media controlling buttons, glossy screens, etc. etc. etc. These were your run of the mill $500-$1500 computers. The business class machines had far fewer features. They were very basic in nature, lacked what HP deemed as modern styling, and only had basic hardware. Yet the business class machines were much more expensive.
How could this be? The same is true of Dell, by the way, and any manufacturer that makes both grades of notebooks. Do you really think there is no difference between a $500 notebook and a $2000 notebook that have the same amount of ram and the same size hard drive? You would have to be mentally handicapped to think that your $600 Acer even compares in terms of quality to any machine that costs 3x as much. Sure, it had all the specs that make it sound great, but the fact is it's a piece of shit.
You see manufacturers use whatever hardware is available for the cheapest price THAT DAY when making consumer grade laptops. That's why they are much less reliable and prone to problems. The quality control that goes into them is limited compared to what goes into a business class machine. You could buy two of the same model Acer computer, and find they have different internal components. One is a lemon, and one works great. With a business class HP, Dell, or Apple computer (yes, Apple's would be compared to a business class machine - not your shitty $600 computer) a run of computers all use the best hardware they were designed for and are the same across the line. Businesses are willing to pay more for the reliability and the ability to use one disk image across all the machines. You can't get that with your $600 notebook.
The bottom line is this: You get what you pay for. There are $50k cars with smaller engines than $20k cars, but do you really think they compare? If you're a naive consumer you'll buy whatever is sold to you. You'll shop based on price and always end up with shit. If you're a discerning consumer you'll make decisions based on things that actually matter and end up getting what you paid for.
Apples, Sonys, and other high end laptops are not overpriced. They simply lack all the cut corners that make your piece of shit $600 acer possible.
Anyone who makes wacky unfounded generalizations about using a Mac has a built in bias. Pull your head out of your ass. Things are not always as your tunnel vision would make them seem.
I really liked the aspect of youtube that it was a level playing field for everyone - big and small. People generated content for the sake of generating content, or viral marketing campaigns (which I'm SOMETIMES okay with but are usually annoying). Now youtube is going to be a competition with people trying to generate crap that will get a lot of hits rather than good "for the sake of it" art.
Just like what happens to a lot of bands when they sell out and stop caring about the music...
The only thing I look for with a story like this is a damn picture. So many stories talk about something I just want to see, but have no picture. Is it lazy journalism? Dammit, I just want to see a cat that looks like a borg, okay?
That many people are paying for Windows? I guess most business are legit, so if people have one computer in the office, and one at home, so you'd see maybe 50% piracy rate. That would mean that for these numbers to be accurate, roughly half of home installs are illegal.
Just for fun, let's say most people buy a machine with a legit license. Their kid comes over, realizes they are full of spyware/adware and reinstalls Pro over their version of home. That means that half of home installs are probably reinstalls - probably more because many people just reinstall their legit copy. Of the ~20% of people who don't pass WGA, I'd bet most of them had Windows Home installed, and reinstalled with pro when their home install went south. So when you own a home license and install pro, could it be considered that you're only pirating the cost of the upgrade, not the price of a full pro install?
Almost everyone who has ever bought a computer has probably paid for a windows license at one time or another. What is actually installed may be another story. Still, I'm surprised the piracy rate isn't higher considering Microsoft's extremely high pricing.
How can you say that third-party software would make the handset insecure and unstable? Do you believe this about computers in general? Third party development can (and frequently does) turn the ideas of the general public into brilliant applications that would likely not have existed otherwise. They drive the entire computer industry, and how can you so quickly dismiss the handset market as being different where third-party development would only mean negative things?
First of all, your argument that 3rd party apps make platforms unstable should apply the desktop is retarded. Anyone who can't see the difference between a full blown OS on a fully functional collection of hardware and a PHONE running a limited OS on extremely limited hardware is either blind or in denial.
Furthermore, if you don't agree that 3rd party apps make a phone platform unstable, I invite you to try using a Treo or a WM5 phone for a few months. Go ahead - and install a few apps on it (since that is what everyone seems to want), and watch it crash on a regular basis. I keep my Treo 650 running pretty slim as far as hardware goes, and it crashes around 2 times a day. If you're going to call it an OS, and you're going to allow 3rd party development, then you better be prepared for people developing for it. The one feature Palm will never support is the ability to run 3rd party apps, even as they tout it for being a major feature (thousands of software titles available!!! but don't use any...).
The problem is that there needs to be a layer of abstraction between the core and the application layer. Palm OS programs run directly on top of the core, allowing just about anything to crash it. OS X, Windows, and Linux and try to keep applications far away enough from the core so that you very rarely get kernel panics. But they can do this because they have the processing power, RAM, and other hardware necessary to maintain those extra layers of protection. If you can figure out a way to build a desktop class OS like XP or OS X on a 200Mhz processor and a few megs of RAM, I'm sure Palm, Apple, Motorola, or RIM would love to talk to you.
We're working with Windows 3.1-esque hardware here, so we're going to have a lot of the same limitations. When a program crashed in Windows 3.1 you would often find yourself staring at "C:\>" for the same reasons stated above. I appreciate that Apple doesn't want their phone to have the reputation of a treo - I appreciate that they are setting a high bar for entry into development. It will ensure that no matter how crappy the iPhone may be, I will never hate it as much as my Treo.
One last note - of all the software I've downloaded for my Treo, it is all to get the thing to do what I would expect it to do - nothing really crazy or out there. For example, I want to view maps, be able to browse pictures, have decent web browsing, watch movies, etc. The iPhone already does all this stuff, so there's no need for a lot of third party apps. I had a similar experience when switching to OS X from Windows. I thought I would miss a lot of software, but I soon realized that all the software I was installing on my Windows machine was to get to and maintain a certain level of usability. OS X had raised the bar and (almost) everything I needed was already there. There was no reason to hunt down all sorts of utilities and hacks just so I could get the OS to operate sufficiently.
What are those of us who wish to finally see America catch up to the rest of the world supposed to do?
Wait, did I miss something? I thought the US was still an economic superpower. Who do we need to "catch up" to? Seriously, I mean, I know other countries are catching up to us, and the tables may turn sometime relatively soon, but we're not exactly way behind.
I love when people try to squash free-speech and fair use like this nowadays. All they do is push it further into the mainstream news and show how big of jackasses they are. Seriously, haven't these people heard of the internet? You can't secretly squash out your opponents anymore!
Hence the "rare" opportunity. Besides, it was a joke for anyone who has ever seen Eddie Izzard (sp?) or Arrested Development.