The parent is right. Much of the push for "regulating" the internet in Canada (where I live) comes from those who want to shut down "hate speech." This includes a former political staffer and lobbyist Warren Kinsella, whose has actually written books about white supremacists, debated them etc.
You might think then that with supporters like Kinsella, this is a noble crusade. Yet, this is Kinsella's argument for regulating the internet:
With the Internet awash in child pornography and hate propaganda - with the Internet facilitating the daily doings of stalkers, perverts, and the likes of al-Qaeda - this writer and other naïve liberals had clung to the primitive notion that the CRTC (which has the mandate to regulate Canadian telecommunications services) would have regulated, um, the Internet (a telecommunications service found here and there in Canada).
For the record, I support Canada's hate laws. But when the good guys start stooping to mischaraterizations, hysteria and flat-out lies -- the revolution's gone too far.
I really get tired of hearing this claim by dedicated Wikipedians:
But fans of Wikipedia, like Mr. Meeks, argue that scholars must adapt to the aggressive, transparent approach to scholarship favored on the Web.
"Professors who get worked up about Wikipedia, and say it can never be anything but a poor source of knowledge, don't realize that these sort of hardscrabble open-source projects have been incredibly competitive -- for example, in the software industry," he says.
The most successful FOSS projects are run as benevolent dictatorships, like Torvalds and the Linux Kernal, and GNU and Stallman. Even those that are more democratic, like Debian, have a transparent, well-defined process of governance will a leader who is elected by open voting.
I use Wikipedia all the time as a first gloss on a subject (and it can't be beat for centralized info on video games -- that stuff just doesn't exist anywhere else). But the description in the article of Wikipedia as a kind of "communal Maoism" is correct. By turns there is a kind of anonymous mob attack on editors, and at other times, a self-selected group of admins with the power of banning accounts that swoops in like the Politburo.
I use what this process produces, but there's no way I'd ever contribute to it again.
I've been podcasting with Libsyn for almost a year and a half, and I would recommend them heartily over any free services out there.
The basic Libsyn accounts costs $5/month for 100MB upload a month, then $10/month for 250MB upload, scaling upwards. If you are using the basic account, and say one month you need to bump upwards for more space, there is a $5.00 dollar charge to change service levels, and no charge to scale back down. This is an excellent option, if you have one particularly busy month out of the year, and don't necessarily need the more expensive account all the time. There is also no bandwidth limit.
There is an ftp upload, as well as other features like future publishing (uploading a podcast, and having it published, i.e made available at a future date). Libsyn is probably in the 99.5% uptime bracket. Maybe once a month there are a few hours of downtime for upgrades, or the occasional hardware problem. Users are always notified of these events, and these aren't an issue for me, given the overall excellent quality of the service.
Libsyn RSS feeds are automatic, and are actually integrated with the Feedburner feed service, which provides scads more functionality than the basic vanilla RSS. There are also a host of Podcast content listing sites out there, that automatically index all Libsyn feeds, so without any effort on your part, your podcast will be indexed on probably 20 or more Podcast aggregators.
As for iTunes. When iTunes first starting listing Podcasts, all Libsyn feeds were automatically included in their Podcast store, but this has been tightened up recently. Podcasts now have to jump through more hoops to get listed, and generally seem to have to have an established track record. Try to get on iTunes anyway you can though, as over 80% of my initial listeners come through iTunes (though this trends down towards 2/3's over time for each individual Podcast).
So, generationally speaking, it seems as though the generations that were exposed to computers late enough in life to not take them for granted, but early enough in life to adapt may be a unique generation.
Fascinating point.
The change to a totally digital world is on a par with the Gutenberg revolution. Yet, the authoritative history of the effects of the printing press was not written until the 20th century (Marshall McLuhan -- The Gutenberg Galaxy), when print began to recede with the coming of electronic media.
Maybe one of the unique generation spoken about in the parent will write a masterpiece capturing the nature of our current change?
I don't mean to sound like an old coot, but I liked the web better when people couldn't put little YouTube players on their websites and blogs. Previously, they actually had to write something. Now its just, watch the video.
That said, YouTube, like most p2p sharing sites is a great place to learn about bands (and other entertainment) you've never heard of before. Example: The Wildhearts.
Though, as its been said better above, maybe that kind of decentralized information sharing is what large cartels like the RIAA are (instinctively) against.
Sure it's cool to see a MOD player with a robust cubic resampling engine to pitch shift a single note several octaves without distortion. However it's even cooler to have a 5GB sample bank that doesn't NEED pitch shifting, because all the notes have been recorded individually.
Trackers create and play their own samples. Soundfonts, however, are samples. They are loaded directly into the soundcard, where they are available to be used by a sequencer, keyboard etc.
The two examples cited above -- Sequencer Gold and CMU Midi Toolkit -- are both DOS sequencers that can play modern 5GB soundfonts because the samples are loaded in the card and available to any program (even one run through Dosemu). The two are separate. In my experience, these sequencers are better than anything now available for Linux.
Your point is definately true though that old Dos trackers are pretty feeble compared to what's available now.
Old Dos Music Apps Can't Be Beat
on
FreeDOS 1.0 Released
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· Score: 4, Informative
The Linux Dos emulator Dosemu, uses FreeDos. Dosemu is extremely easy to install and use, and once you do, you have access to all the old Dos music applications that have now been released for free.
These include Sequencer Gold Plus, and, if you don't like the tracker interface, the CMU Midi Toolkit, which allows score info to be entered in a text file.
A lot of these original Dos programs really haven't been beat, and when combined with Linux and a modern soundcard and midi/soundfont instruments -- you can have a pretty robust home music setup.
I think its interesting to task why Philip K. Dick's books have been made into movies in recent years, but Heinlein's seem to have languished on the shelf (the pseudo-parody Starship Troopers notwithstanding).
Dick's characters were ordinary men and women muddling through the bizarre situations they found themselves in. Large organizations -- the military, the state, corporations -- were blindly sinister. Dick also understood (perhaps because of his mental health issues) the media saturated world before its time -- where everything is connected to everything else, and an overwhelming paranoia ensues.
On the other hand, Heinlein's characters tend to be special forces types (Puppet Masters), engineering specialists (Starman Jones), or perfect, beautiful aliens (Stranger in a Strange Land). Large corporations (Have Spacesuit, Will Travel) and the state (Puppet Masters) are benign, despite the libertarian bent of most of Heinlein's individual characters.
For me, the revealing contrast is the chummy, lovable President in Puppet Masters, compared to Freddie Fremont, the Reaganesque assasin from California in Radio Free Abermuth.
Re:This is great, but....
on
30 Days of DRM
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· Score: 5, Informative
Michael Geist writes a weekly column on law and technology for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper. The Star is a significant venue because its middle brow (not tabloid, but not the New York Times), and always has a populist favour.
He is also frequently called on as a commentor on CBC radio (the public broadcaster, which by law can be heard by Canadians anywhere in the country). CBC radio recieves no ads and no coporate sponsorship (unlike PBS), so is generaly balanced on controversial issues.
In Canada at least, someone like Geist has a greater chance of reaching Jaques Six-Pack than he might have elsewhere.
Before iTunes, you had to pay for the whole thing even if you didn't listen to it all.
Let's remember that the LP (long-player), was a hot new technology back in 1964. Elvis Presley was completely a singles artist. As were the Beatles, until after a Hard Day's Night, when the LP let them sit back and make records like Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's.
Maybe the pendulum's just swung back to what it was fifty years ago.
The FSF is not comissioning any new large scale undertakings at the moment.
This is just blatantly wrong.
What do you call Gnu Flash? Other projects FSF is directing include Free Bios and an open 3D Card driver. More projects are listed here. Just like gcc was needed in the 80s, these are the utilities users need now.
At the risk of being modded for flame bait, I'll also point out that it seems most criticisms of the FSF are based on plain ignorance.
I've always felt that the reason DRM and content restrictive licenses don't drum up more outrage is simply because most people are entertainment sinks. Media and content goes into their ears and eyes and then doesn't do anything.
Yes and no.
Wait until DRM restrictions are slapped on TV's (HDTV anyone?) and begin to interfere with Joe Couch Potato's ability to watch the latest pablum.
One is that it can be scaled easily to install as much or as little of it as you need, and run on machines with very different CPU and memory resources and amounts of disk space.
That's the essence of Slackware.
I use Slackware on my home network. Its runs the gateway on an old 486, my desktop/file-server on a 3.4 Ghz Intel, and on the 32MB Ram Pentium laptop I use to read mail on the couch.
Like the name says, its the distro for the good kind of lazy. All hail J.R. Dobbs.
I highly doubt they were scared - considering the quality of service I receive in downtown Philly - job security is not an issue.
Unlike the quality of service one receives when dealing with ecommerce sites on the internet.
If I had to chose between script-reading or even non-existent ecommerce help, or a surly postal clerk -- bring on the surly 45 year old with the beer gut.
Slashdot Mirror
Growing up in the 70s, Ultraman was an icon on a par with Godzilla and the Planet of the Apes movies.
I'm not one for nostalgia, so I can't vouch for current fandom -- but Ultraman was the real thing.
(Though I'm a Canuck who watched the series on pre-cable American border stations: Channel 20 Detroit).
The parent is right. Much of the push for "regulating" the internet in Canada (where I live) comes from those who want to shut down "hate speech." This includes a former political staffer and lobbyist Warren Kinsella, whose has actually written books about white supremacists, debated them etc.
You might think then that with supporters like Kinsella, this is a noble crusade. Yet, this is Kinsella's argument for regulating the internet:
For the record, I support Canada's hate laws. But when the good guys start stooping to mischaraterizations, hysteria and flat-out lies -- the revolution's gone too far.
I really get tired of hearing this claim by dedicated Wikipedians:
The most successful FOSS projects are run as benevolent dictatorships, like Torvalds and the Linux Kernal, and GNU and Stallman. Even those that are more democratic, like Debian, have a transparent, well-defined process of governance will a leader who is elected by open voting.
I use Wikipedia all the time as a first gloss on a subject (and it can't be beat for centralized info on video games -- that stuff just doesn't exist anywhere else). But the description in the article of Wikipedia as a kind of "communal Maoism" is correct. By turns there is a kind of anonymous mob attack on editors, and at other times, a self-selected group of admins with the power of banning accounts that swoops in like the Politburo.
I use what this process produces, but there's no way I'd ever contribute to it again.
I've been podcasting with Libsyn for almost a year and a half, and I would recommend them heartily over any free services out there.
The basic Libsyn accounts costs $5/month for 100MB upload a month, then $10/month for 250MB upload, scaling upwards. If you are using the basic account, and say one month you need to bump upwards for more space, there is a $5.00 dollar charge to change service levels, and no charge to scale back down. This is an excellent option, if you have one particularly busy month out of the year, and don't necessarily need the more expensive account all the time. There is also no bandwidth limit.
There is an ftp upload, as well as other features like future publishing (uploading a podcast, and having it published, i.e made available at a future date). Libsyn is probably in the 99.5% uptime bracket. Maybe once a month there are a few hours of downtime for upgrades, or the occasional hardware problem. Users are always notified of these events, and these aren't an issue for me, given the overall excellent quality of the service.
Libsyn RSS feeds are automatic, and are actually integrated with the Feedburner feed service, which provides scads more functionality than the basic vanilla RSS. There are also a host of Podcast content listing sites out there, that automatically index all Libsyn feeds, so without any effort on your part, your podcast will be indexed on probably 20 or more Podcast aggregators.
As for iTunes. When iTunes first starting listing Podcasts, all Libsyn feeds were automatically included in their Podcast store, but this has been tightened up recently. Podcasts now have to jump through more hoops to get listed, and generally seem to have to have an established track record. Try to get on iTunes anyway you can though, as over 80% of my initial listeners come through iTunes (though this trends down towards 2/3's over time for each individual Podcast).
Do Chinese users have a Chinese language Wikipedia, or do they use the English one?
Fascinating point.
The change to a totally digital world is on a par with the Gutenberg revolution. Yet, the authoritative history of the effects of the printing press was not written until the 20th century (Marshall McLuhan -- The Gutenberg Galaxy), when print began to recede with the coming of electronic media.
Maybe one of the unique generation spoken about in the parent will write a masterpiece capturing the nature of our current change?
You can always hope.
I don't mean to sound like an old coot, but I liked the web better when people couldn't put little YouTube players on their websites and blogs. Previously, they actually had to write something. Now its just, watch the video.
That said, YouTube, like most p2p sharing sites is a great place to learn about bands (and other entertainment) you've never heard of before. Example: The Wildhearts.
Though, as its been said better above, maybe that kind of decentralized information sharing is what large cartels like the RIAA are (instinctively) against.
In Soviet Russia, WoW plays you.
Oh wait ...
Sure it's cool to see a MOD player with a robust cubic resampling engine to pitch shift a single note several octaves without distortion. However it's even cooler to have a 5GB sample bank that doesn't NEED pitch shifting, because all the notes have been recorded individually.
Trackers create and play their own samples. Soundfonts, however, are samples. They are loaded directly into the soundcard, where they are available to be used by a sequencer, keyboard etc.
The two examples cited above -- Sequencer Gold and CMU Midi Toolkit -- are both DOS sequencers that can play modern 5GB soundfonts because the samples are loaded in the card and available to any program (even one run through Dosemu). The two are separate. In my experience, these sequencers are better than anything now available for Linux.
Your point is definately true though that old Dos trackers are pretty feeble compared to what's available now.
The Linux Dos emulator Dosemu, uses FreeDos. Dosemu is extremely easy to install and use, and once you do, you have access to all the old Dos music applications that have now been released for free.
These include Sequencer Gold Plus, and, if you don't like the tracker interface, the CMU Midi Toolkit, which allows score info to be entered in a text file.
A lot of these original Dos programs really haven't been beat, and when combined with Linux and a modern soundcard and midi/soundfont instruments -- you can have a pretty robust home music setup.
The parent has a link to the torrent tracker site Demonoid in his sig.
And this guy is lecturing us to respect the working man?
RMS, has never claimed to be a God, only a saint.
Saint IGNUcius.
Seriously though, GNU's overwhelming wave of puns defeats asshat anti-FSF whining any day.
I think its interesting to task why Philip K. Dick's books have been made into movies in recent years, but Heinlein's seem to have languished on the shelf (the pseudo-parody Starship Troopers notwithstanding).
Dick's characters were ordinary men and women muddling through the bizarre situations they found themselves in. Large organizations -- the military, the state, corporations -- were blindly sinister. Dick also understood (perhaps because of his mental health issues) the media saturated world before its time -- where everything is connected to everything else, and an overwhelming paranoia ensues.
On the other hand, Heinlein's characters tend to be special forces types (Puppet Masters), engineering specialists (Starman Jones), or perfect, beautiful aliens (Stranger in a Strange Land). Large corporations (Have Spacesuit, Will Travel) and the state (Puppet Masters) are benign, despite the libertarian bent of most of Heinlein's individual characters.
For me, the revealing contrast is the chummy, lovable President in Puppet Masters, compared to Freddie Fremont, the Reaganesque assasin from California in Radio Free Abermuth.
Michael Geist writes a weekly column on law and technology for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper. The Star is a significant venue because its middle brow (not tabloid, but not the New York Times), and always has a populist favour.
He is also frequently called on as a commentor on CBC radio (the public broadcaster, which by law can be heard by Canadians anywhere in the country). CBC radio recieves no ads and no coporate sponsorship (unlike PBS), so is generaly balanced on controversial issues.
In Canada at least, someone like Geist has a greater chance of reaching Jaques Six-Pack than he might have elsewhere.
Well said, Mr. Lysergic Acid, or is it Smack Hero?
I know everyone has their drug of choice, but don't you think you're going a little hard on the coke heads?
Before iTunes, you had to pay for the whole thing even if you didn't listen to it all.
Let's remember that the LP (long-player), was a hot new technology back in 1964. Elvis Presley was completely a singles artist. As were the Beatles, until after a Hard Day's Night, when the LP let them sit back and make records like Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's.
Maybe the pendulum's just swung back to what it was fifty years ago.
Getting people to buy that crap doesn't come cheap :)
Nor is getting radio stations to play it (i.e. payola).
The FSF is not comissioning any new large scale undertakings at the moment.
This is just blatantly wrong.
What do you call Gnu Flash? Other projects FSF is directing include Free Bios and an open 3D Card driver. More projects are listed here. Just like gcc was needed in the 80s, these are the utilities users need now.
At the risk of being modded for flame bait, I'll also point out that it seems most criticisms of the FSF are based on plain ignorance.
I've always felt that the reason DRM and content restrictive licenses don't drum up more outrage is simply because most people are entertainment sinks. Media and content goes into their ears and eyes and then doesn't do anything.
Yes and no.
Wait until DRM restrictions are slapped on TV's (HDTV anyone?) and begin to interfere with Joe Couch Potato's ability to watch the latest pablum.
Then, there will be outrage.
One is that it can be scaled easily to install as much or as little of it as you need, and run on machines with very different CPU and memory resources and amounts of disk space.
That's the essence of Slackware.
I use Slackware on my home network. Its runs the gateway on an old 486, my desktop/file-server on a 3.4 Ghz Intel, and on the 32MB Ram Pentium laptop I use to read mail on the couch.
Like the name says, its the distro for the good kind of lazy. All hail J.R. Dobbs.
I may be wrong, but I think Suprnova.org was the first big torrent tracking site.
Those who are members of the now largely private torrent tracking communities can understand how revolutionary it was.
Perhaps in another five years, Suprnova.org will replace Napster on this list as the mainstream catches up to whats going on.
Maybe there's something to those Father Sky, Mother Earth myths after all.
I highly doubt they were scared - considering the quality of service I receive in downtown Philly - job security is not an issue.
Unlike the quality of service one receives when dealing with ecommerce sites on the internet.
If I had to chose between script-reading or even non-existent ecommerce help, or a surly postal clerk -- bring on the surly 45 year old with the beer gut.
Come on, the anti-GPL crowd can do better than this clueless FUD.
If you really want to sink FOSS, you'll have to come up with something that doesn't sound like a post on Digg.