On the contrary, it is "our" actions that have forced, I repeat forced the music companies to start offering single-song downloads at 99c per song. I'm pretty ok with that, and think so are all of the free-as-in-beer people. There's just one major problem that's left to be tackled. How are the online stores gonna be able to hold the enitre music collection of songs stretching from the 15th Century till today? So basically, if you wanted t download "Head to Toe" by Lisa Lisa and The Cult Jam, you'd ONLY be able to find it on Kazaa.
Something-for-nothing? That's purty funny there. I'm sorry, I still don't see why the fair-use clause (which has probably been rendered extinct by DMCA) doesn't apply..If I recorded music off the radio and then gave the cassette to my friend, where did I pay any money to the artist? I don't think stereo companies pay royalties. It is the Service Provider that pays the money, i.e. the Radio Station (plus isn't the opposite sometimes?). In which case, instead of suing users of Kazaa, why not negotiate the following agreement with Kazaa - Kazaa only allows MP3s which the music companies want to promote (a la the radio), and Kazaa makes money off advertising, and pays up to the music companies. We as users get to download the music for free, and we can't trade any MP3s not on the Music Company list for promotion (i.e. anything that's not playing the 'radio'). There's a solution for you - one that neither the record companies, nor the free-as-in-beer users will like. But seriously, is this analogy really so off?
There's a difference between something being doable and something that's "doable and makes sense, too."
And recompiling your OS kernel to get it running fits into this where?
Or howabout the fact that Slackware 10 doesn't automatically create a Linux partition on your HD, allowing you to use fdisk/cfdisk...and of course when you use those lovely tools, all of a sudden you find that your HD isn't even recognized...of course, installing Linux this way is doable...and it makes sense....to other linux users I guess...
Ummm, you can easily go to the options menu and select the "Disable the Office Assistant" option. But that would mean moving a mouse, and using your brain. Oh sorry, you must be a linux fanboy, which means that if you can't type
fchsfejfs -p xy -o trw
at some stupid CLI, your shit will remain stuck in your anus. Get the fuck over it. MS Word is the one piece of software made by MS that's actually worth something. OpenOffice doesn't hold a candle. Further you can use Office XP to generate XML. But then this is/. Where Trashing MS Will Get You Some Karma(TM)
Yea, that's right - thieving is not a civil right. But for us to be considered thieves, you have consider free MP3 downloads as "stealing". And it is only considered "stealing" under the current laws. If current laws were changed, then it wouldn't be stealing. Just because it's the Law, doesn't make it right. Leges Sine Moribus Vanae (Laws, without morals, are Useless). What were the RIAA's "Morals" when the DMCA was passed? The promotion of "art"? How about "Every one of you fuckers are thieves, and we're gonna corner you and make you pay $50 for using the words 'good music' in your spiral notebook"? It might be legal to stick your dick up a horse's anus, but that don't make it right.
Well I think the actual work for this book began before WWII, and he continued to work on it throughout the war (The Foreword to LOTR mentions how he sent parts of the book to his son Christopher in a serialized form). But that is neither here nor there. I think the truth is Tolkien was all English and longing for the good 'ol days - he was a bit of a luddite. So I think it's only natural that he thought according to his era, when political correctness wasn't as rampant...(i.e. that a "good" story requires a strong female lead, and black people cannot be the enemy). Everytime somebody mentions that there are no strong women roles or that Tolkien was a racist, it makes my skin crawl. It ruins what is a brilliantly told story. (I'm a "coloured-person" by the way)
Well I just wanted to say that it doesn even look like a better offer. If the issue really was just space, then there'd be other alternatives. Gmail really has a good UI, and it runs at light speed compared to Hotmail. Plus it has those label/search features....I don't care if Hotmail offered me 5 GB, I'm a gmail convert thru-and-thru and there's no going back!
Hotmail wasn't started by MS. Pls get yer facts straight. It was started by a dude called Sabeer Bhatia, who ONLY made US$ 400 Mill off the deal. Those days hotmail was already #1, way before MS stepped in. IMO, they improved the UI initially, but now it's as clunky as everything MS produces. Gmail rules!
I'm sorry I don't know about your account, but my hotmail account filters spam brilliantly. Simply set your settings to "Receive e-mail from contacts only". That gets rid of all the crud, but of course also turns up a few false-positives, which you can remove from the Junk Mail folder. But Hotmail also allows you put certain domains/addresses into the safe list. Yes Microsoft sux, but let's be a little more objective. Hotmail isn't bad. It's just beginning to suck in comparison to Gmail.
Yea, will that be before or after their share price tanks to US$0.50 or after they get sued for fraud, if they do what u suggest?
I'm one the lucky bloggers who got invited to gmail, and I fell in love...the only problem is that I'm still hanging on to my other accounts.."just in case"...I hope to eventually give up the habit that is HotMail, but in the meantime I'm still checking it occasionally.
Gmail rock however. And the thing I find funniest the whole hubbub about the fact that gmail 'scans' your e-mail and provides you with relevant ads. The ads are nice and inconspicuous, and they actually are sort of relevant...and this gets amusing at times...also I think they technology they use to display those ads is already in use on blogger and a gazillion other websites...though yes, those sites aren't as "private" as webmail....
Anyhoo, gmail rulz, hotmail used to be good until it became teh sux0r and here's my Trubute to the ObviousGuy: I don't get it (The Whole Idea is Crazy!)
Hey, the above post is hardly offtopic. Grandparent says Linux Rules becoz Win XP needs an SP2 which also seems to be teh sux0r, however parent explains why s/he'd rather stick to XP, despite flawed SP2... don't see how this is offtopic...and now I suppose I'll be modded offtopic too eh?
ummm... this would have made more sense in the primaries... at least then you had a greater choice (or illusion depending on how you see the glass)...but for those unaware of your system, the whole point is to theoretically filter out the cruft, and be left with the 2/3+ most-liked/least-hated candidates - I said theoretically. If you don't like this system, you may prefer the parliamentary democracy system instead , where you don't vote for the person, but the party. This actually localises things in that you are thinking only of voting for your local representative to the Lower House, and are counting on him/her to elect a good person as Prime Minister... (this doesn't work too well either, however)...
You're absolutely on the money IMO. I happen to be one of those shameless fools who thought I should have become a COmp Sci major. I always found computers interesting and thought that (Pre-Dot-Com boom) "hey, even the idiots are making money, and I'm not dumb, and I like computers/programming/software, so lets make that my degree..." (Post-dot-com boom). I'm fired, I lost my work Visa, and now I'm working out of New Delhi, getting abused by out-of-work slashdotters, while slaving away at the GMAT so I can get an MBA and pull myself out of this mess..:-(, now in the meantime it's 8.30 PM Indian Standard Time, and I have a teleconference with my American Client in another hour, trying to explain to them why their VB/ASP application has a big ass memory leak. Life really does suck...
It is most certainly not the tuition that's sending people to USA. It's the hope that the student visa gets turned into a work visa which gets turned into a green card, which means that some day 17 years from the time of getting your student visa, you may be an American, provided you aren't murdered for being a no-good-foreigner-living-off-the-fat-o-the-land, and that your boss doesn't fire you when the going gets rough. There's that and the fact that in my country at least(India), it's exactly 15,000 times harder to get into a local college, considering the size of our population. The hardest b-school to get into in the entire world is IIM Ahmedabad. Compare that to the Admissions Page for Stanford. The same is true for engineering schools...We're leaving India for a lot of reasons, and one of them is the past few generations' high fornication (and fertility) rate. That's one of the reasons why there are so many non-resident aliens in yer schools
If a Vonage conversation trapped a paedophile who was grooming children, that's a pretty darn good argument for handing over the evidence.
Ok first of all, how are paedophiles currently caught? If they are caught without having to tap VoIP phone calls, then I fail to see any reason for Vonage's TOS to be any different from a regular telco. And if they are currently not caught very easily, I fail to see how tapping somebody's phone going to help. Ok but suppose tapping somebody's phone does help - it still doesn't justify VOnage's TOS. Just my two paise.
Your high-school principal governs your country? No wonder you're upset. Of course if your High-School Principal was smart s/he would have founded the Republic on better principles....
Finally, There are such things as democratic republics in which everybody's voice does count.
Another point people seem to miss is the network effect. Bear in mind I'm referring to the people who think that "Blue E" is the Internet. Most of them (like my parents) and a bunch of other people had to be told step by step who to connect to the Net - 1. Click Blue E. 2. Go to "Favourites". Click on Web Site Name. blah blah blah. Changing to a new browser means a change in UI - unless the competition tries to mimic IE, LOL. A typical slashdot user takes that change in his/her stride as we know we've got more stable secure underneath, but Person X is annoyed because s/he can't find the favourites button anymore, and doesn't want to click on those cryptic Help files. Plus Person X's friends A,B,C and D seem to all have that blue E, and they're doing OK, and they can see sites 1,2 & 3 perfectly. So there's no way they're changing. The competition has to be targeted at people who have the time to make the effort, are willing to bear the few bugs which exist currently and are generally wiling to try something new...
Dude, everything is in relative terms, there is no absolute truth...I mean IE7 will be released at the speed of light compared to Duke Nukem Forever.....
Yea this is something that used to bother me too. In India, they take it even one step further than Oz, and have the manufacturer publish a Maximum Retail Price inclusive of taxes (MRP) on the packaging itself. As for tipping, I remember reading somewhere that economists consider tipping and corruption as the same phenomenon as both exhibit the same effect on demand & supply...something like that...Paying $17 bucks for a haircut in USA used to hurt! So Americans, if you see any unkempt Indian Software Monkeys (as I'm sure you will), it's because it only costs them 90 cents to have it done back home, no tips!
Slashdot Mirror
On the contrary, it is "our" actions that have forced, I repeat forced the music companies to start offering single-song downloads at 99c per song. I'm pretty ok with that, and think so are all of the free-as-in-beer people. There's just one major problem that's left to be tackled. How are the online stores gonna be able to hold the enitre music collection of songs stretching from the 15th Century till today? So basically, if you wanted t download "Head to Toe" by Lisa Lisa and The Cult Jam, you'd ONLY be able to find it on Kazaa.
Something-for-nothing? That's purty funny there. I'm sorry, I still don't see why the fair-use clause (which has probably been rendered extinct by DMCA) doesn't apply..If I recorded music off the radio and then gave the cassette to my friend, where did I pay any money to the artist? I don't think stereo companies pay royalties. It is the Service Provider that pays the money, i.e. the Radio Station (plus isn't the opposite sometimes?). In which case, instead of suing users of Kazaa, why not negotiate the following agreement with Kazaa - Kazaa only allows MP3s which the music companies want to promote (a la the radio), and Kazaa makes money off advertising, and pays up to the music companies. We as users get to download the music for free, and we can't trade any MP3s not on the Music Company list for promotion (i.e. anything that's not playing the 'radio'). There's a solution for you - one that neither the record companies, nor the free-as-in-beer users will like. But seriously, is this analogy really so off?
There's a difference between something being doable and something that's "doable and makes sense, too."
And recompiling your OS kernel to get it running fits into this where?
Or howabout the fact that Slackware 10 doesn't automatically create a Linux partition on your HD, allowing you to use fdisk/cfdisk...and of course when you use those lovely tools, all of a sudden you find that your HD isn't even recognized...of course, installing Linux this way is doable...and it makes sense....to other linux users I guess...
Yea, that's right - thieving is not a civil right. But for us to be considered thieves, you have consider free MP3 downloads as "stealing". And it is only considered "stealing" under the current laws. If current laws were changed, then it wouldn't be stealing. Just because it's the Law, doesn't make it right. Leges Sine Moribus Vanae (Laws, without morals, are Useless). What were the RIAA's "Morals" when the DMCA was passed? The promotion of "art"? How about "Every one of you fuckers are thieves, and we're gonna corner you and make you pay $50 for using the words 'good music' in your spiral notebook"? It might be legal to stick your dick up a horse's anus, but that don't make it right.
Well I think the actual work for this book began before WWII, and he continued to work on it throughout the war (The Foreword to LOTR mentions how he sent parts of the book to his son Christopher in a serialized form). But that is neither here nor there. I think the truth is Tolkien was all English and longing for the good 'ol days - he was a bit of a luddite. So I think it's only natural that he thought according to his era, when political correctness wasn't as rampant...(i.e. that a "good" story requires a strong female lead, and black people cannot be the enemy). Everytime somebody mentions that there are no strong women roles or that Tolkien was a racist, it makes my skin crawl. It ruins what is a brilliantly told story. (I'm a "coloured-person" by the way)
Well I just wanted to say that it doesn even look like a better offer. If the issue really was just space, then there'd be other alternatives. Gmail really has a good UI, and it runs at light speed compared to Hotmail. Plus it has those label/search features....I don't care if Hotmail offered me 5 GB, I'm a gmail convert thru-and-thru and there's no going back!
Hotmail wasn't started by MS. Pls get yer facts straight. It was started by a dude called Sabeer Bhatia, who ONLY made US$ 400 Mill off the deal. Those days hotmail was already #1, way before MS stepped in. IMO, they improved the UI initially, but now it's as clunky as everything MS produces. Gmail rules!
I'm sorry I don't know about your account, but my hotmail account filters spam brilliantly. Simply set your settings to "Receive e-mail from contacts only". That gets rid of all the crud, but of course also turns up a few false-positives, which you can remove from the Junk Mail folder. But Hotmail also allows you put certain domains/addresses into the safe list. Yes Microsoft sux, but let's be a little more objective. Hotmail isn't bad. It's just beginning to suck in comparison to Gmail.
Yea, will that be before or after their share price tanks to US$0.50 or after they get sued for fraud, if they do what u suggest?
I'm one the lucky bloggers who got invited to gmail, and I fell in love...the only problem is that I'm still hanging on to my other accounts.."just in case"...I hope to eventually give up the habit that is HotMail, but in the meantime I'm still checking it occasionally.
Gmail rock however. And the thing I find funniest the whole hubbub about the fact that gmail 'scans' your e-mail and provides you with relevant ads. The ads are nice and inconspicuous, and they actually are sort of relevant...and this gets amusing at times...also I think they technology they use to display those ads is already in use on blogger and a gazillion other websites...though yes, those sites aren't as "private" as webmail....
Anyhoo, gmail rulz, hotmail used to be good until it became teh sux0r and here's my Trubute to the ObviousGuy: I don't get it (The Whole Idea is Crazy!)
Because there be oil in them thar icebergs!
I Don't Get It!
Tribute #103746271 to the ObviousGuy
Hey, the above post is hardly offtopic. Grandparent says Linux Rules becoz Win XP needs an SP2 which also seems to be teh sux0r, however parent explains why s/he'd rather stick to XP, despite flawed SP2... don't see how this is offtopic...and now I suppose I'll be modded offtopic too eh?
ummm... this would have made more sense in the primaries... at least then you had a greater choice (or illusion depending on how you see the glass)...but for those unaware of your system, the whole point is to theoretically filter out the cruft, and be left with the 2/3+ most-liked/least-hated candidates - I said theoretically. If you don't like this system, you may prefer the parliamentary democracy system instead , where you don't vote for the person, but the party. This actually localises things in that you are thinking only of voting for your local representative to the Lower House, and are counting on him/her to elect a good person as Prime Minister ... (this doesn't work too well either, however)...
What, those Americans whose jobs we took are real people? :-p *ducks*
You're absolutely on the money IMO. I happen to be one of those shameless fools who thought I should have become a COmp Sci major. I always found computers interesting and thought that (Pre-Dot-Com boom) "hey, even the idiots are making money, and I'm not dumb, and I like computers/programming/software, so lets make that my degree..." (Post-dot-com boom). I'm fired, I lost my work Visa, and now I'm working out of New Delhi, getting abused by out-of-work slashdotters, while slaving away at the GMAT so I can get an MBA and pull myself out of this mess.. :-(, now in the meantime it's 8.30 PM Indian Standard Time, and I have a teleconference with my American Client in another hour, trying to explain to them why their VB/ASP application has a big ass memory leak. Life really does suck...
Sorry dude...medicine is .....next.."What to do, we are like this only" - Late 20th Century Indian Proverb....
It is most certainly not the tuition that's sending people to USA. It's the hope that the student visa gets turned into a work visa which gets turned into a green card, which means that some day 17 years from the time of getting your student visa, you may be an American, provided you aren't murdered for being a no-good-foreigner-living-off-the-fat-o-the-land, and that your boss doesn't fire you when the going gets rough. There's that and the fact that in my country at least(India), it's exactly 15,000 times harder to get into a local college, considering the size of our population. The hardest b-school to get into in the entire world is IIM Ahmedabad. Compare that to the Admissions Page for Stanford. The same is true for engineering schools...We're leaving India for a lot of reasons, and one of them is the past few generations' high fornication (and fertility) rate. That's one of the reasons why there are so many non-resident aliens in yer schools
If a Vonage conversation trapped a paedophile who was grooming children, that's a pretty darn good argument for handing over the evidence.
Ok first of all, how are paedophiles currently caught? If they are caught without having to tap VoIP phone calls, then I fail to see any reason for Vonage's TOS to be any different from a regular telco. And if they are currently not caught very easily, I fail to see how tapping somebody's phone going to help. Ok but suppose tapping somebody's phone does help - it still doesn't justify VOnage's TOS. Just my two paise.
Your high-school principal governs your country? No wonder you're upset. Of course if your High-School Principal was smart s/he would have founded the Republic on better principles....
Finally, There are such things as democratic republics in which everybody's voice does count.
Another point people seem to miss is the network effect. Bear in mind I'm referring to the people who think that "Blue E" is the Internet. Most of them (like my parents) and a bunch of other people had to be told step by step who to connect to the Net - 1. Click Blue E. 2. Go to "Favourites". Click on Web Site Name. blah blah blah. Changing to a new browser means a change in UI - unless the competition tries to mimic IE, LOL. A typical slashdot user takes that change in his/her stride as we know we've got more stable secure underneath, but Person X is annoyed because s/he can't find the favourites button anymore, and doesn't want to click on those cryptic Help files. Plus Person X's friends A,B,C and D seem to all have that blue E, and they're doing OK, and they can see sites 1,2 & 3 perfectly. So there's no way they're changing. The competition has to be targeted at people who have the time to make the effort, are willing to bear the few bugs which exist currently and are generally wiling to try something new...
Dude, everything is in relative terms, there is no absolute truth...I mean IE7 will be released at the speed of light compared to Duke Nukem Forever.....
Er... produce content typical of any Slashdot post?.... Yea
*closes eyes tightly and concentrates, looking constipated*.....Okay.....I'm imagining them....what next?
Yea this is something that used to bother me too. In India, they take it even one step further than Oz, and have the manufacturer publish a Maximum Retail Price inclusive of taxes (MRP) on the packaging itself. As for tipping, I remember reading somewhere that economists consider tipping and corruption as the same phenomenon as both exhibit the same effect on demand & supply...something like that...Paying $17 bucks for a haircut in USA used to hurt! So Americans, if you see any unkempt Indian Software Monkeys (as I'm sure you will), it's because it only costs them 90 cents to have it done back home, no tips!