Did you really just imply that no one really needs or uses macros? Wow. I better tell all of those journalists, authors, court reporters, university students, and generally anyone that does any large amount of data entry that they are using archaic technology.
Or maybe macros actually save many people from pointless redundancy and massive headaches, and you don't really know what you're talking about. But nah, that couldn't be. Not on Slashdot...
That's funny, because I attempted to install Last-Exit just a few days ago, and had a bitch of a time doing so with KDE 3.5.4 on top of Slackware 11.0. I ended up having to install almost half of the damn GDM. There were plenty of needed dependencies.
I think maybe you have "Guhnome" blinders on. The simple fact is that both DMs have tailored applications that depend on their libs and headers. It really isn't such an issue in the current Linux environment as long as you are using a distro with good package management, but it is equally noticeable on both sides of the fence when you're compiling from source the majority of the time.
I am running Kubuntu 6.10, and I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised with Upstart, for the most part. It really is much quicker than the older boot sequences, as well as Windows XP, in my personal tests. I still have a couple qualms, however.
The lack of a method to switch back to the traditional, detailed boot sequence is annoying. Editing/boot/grub/menu.lst and commenting out "quiet splash" takes care of it, but I don't always want to perform a status check when booting. This is a really simple thing to provide accomodation for, and I may just be unaware of a more simple solution that is already in place. If anyone knows of one, please enlighten me.
The other problem comes as a result of the first. There is, with no option to switch to a detailed boot sequence, also no way to skip network detection. I am used to just issuing 'Ctrl+C' to skip it, and so it is quite frustrating sometimes. If you aren't connected to a network, or if you connect only after you have brought the system up, you are stuck waiting however long the default timeout is, unless you, again, perform a manual edit. This wouldn't be so much of an issue if arguments could be passed by default at boot-time, but as far as I know they cannot.
Once again, if anyone knows of solutions to these issues that I am ignorant of, I'd be grateful to hear them. Other than what I have related, though, K/X/Ubuntu 6.10 boots very quickly, and I am quite happy with it.
Yeah! That's such a great idea! Kill two birds with one stone, right? Nobody wants those pesky poor people around anyway. Their ghettos get in the way of my sunset vista. We could take a pointer from fucking China! Regulate births! If you fall below a certain tax bracket and you want a child, well, sorry, you're fucked! Just treat 'em exactly like you would a fucking television!
Nice thinly veiled classist and racist bullshit, dude. Hopefully one day you will end up poor with children to raise, and we can all see how quickly you backpedal.
Here's one last fucking hint, douchebag: It is not a fucking endless summer, by any means, to be a parent with a low income, but you know what? Weirdly enough, some people love their children regardless. The minute you start advocating treating them like material fucking goods, you have shown yourself to be devastatingly ignorant.
Actually, there is one more, which I have been engaging in for the better part of ten years now, since I was thirteen:
Do not buy it, do not watch it, do not listen to it. I decided long ago that they could go shovel their shit to someone else. They effectively do not exist to me. I support independent, local, and DIY bands. I only go to local punk or indie shows, and will never pay more than thirty dollars for one. I support my local independent record shop, which (surprise) still sells vinyl 7" splits, and merchandise that is often actually created by the band themselves! What a thought, huh? The punk and indie scenes really have no need for major label exploitation money. They have gotten by just fine for longer than I have been alive, and will still be making real music long after I am dead and gone.
More people need to be following this path. It is one of the best ways to join the effort to kill off the prehistoric music industry, and as a bonus, you can listen to music that actually has meaning.
Anyway, I just thought I would correct your list a bit.
As a musician as well, I would question where exactly this "slippery slope" will end up. I actually believe that this is an extremely good thing for music as well as musicians. Many of us have been waiting for the lumbering RIAA dinosaur to sink into the La Brea tar pit that it has created for itself over time. This really isn't anything new at all. Anyone who has been involved with music at any point within the last sixty years or so has realized that the RIAA (and by extension the "Big Five") will do absolutely whatever it takes to rake in that last dollar. They don't give a flying fuck about music, or what they are attempting to shovel on the masses. They're business men.
I hope beyond all hope that this pushes the DIY ethic into the mainstream. We that dwell in the scene have been doing it ourselves for quite awhile, and could really care less about the RIAA. Who exactly gives a shit if every single RIAA-endorsed artist is taken off of internet radio? Why exactly is that a bad thing? Internet radio will adapt, and in an extremely good way: More unsigned and independent artists, more esoteric genres of music, more concentration on music as an art-form, less cookie-cutter feel-good bullshit, and more than anything else, less people in it for the money.
Another aspect that may have a chance to thrive is community. Until now, the community has been relegated to local scenes. The internet can change that significantly, yet for the most part the insanely popular band or plastic-pop-singer-of-the-week has managed to drown all semblance of this out. Maybe as more internet radio stations distance themselves from the RIAA labels this will change.
In short, I really only see good things coming of this. The moment I heard about these new insane regulations and fees, I couldn't stop smiling. Everyone says that the RIAA is perpetually shooting themselves in the foot, but this time, I think they have finally fucked around and managed to shoot themselves right in the junk.
My only hope is that they don't tone it all down after of the backlash.
If you seriously believe that all famine in the world is caused by the "evil socialists," then you may want to have yourself checked for schizophrenia. The "red scare" was 50+ years ago, and has been thoroughly debunked and laughed at. Trying to give people a bad name and advocate violence toward them because you don't agree with their world view is a pretty underhanded and stupid thing to do. Also, capitalism is not some sort of fucking panacea for every world problem. Good god, some of you libertarians have fucked up principles.
One thing that many seem to be forgetting is that short excerpts are defined as fair-use. I believe that if Viacom actually does succeed with this lawsuit, it will set a very bad precedent. The majority of videos that have been taken down so far have been short clips, and thus fair-use compliant. I actually tried in vain recently to look up the clip of John Stewart's take on Senator "Series of Tubes" Stevens and Net Neutrality. It has been taken down (probably many times), and yet I am fairly certain that it would fall within the boundaries of fair-use.
I support the removal of full content, such as movies. It does not make a difference if they are chopped up into ten minute segments or not, because it is quite simple to put the full movie back together again. Regarding full television shows, though, I am still unsure. I believe that the boundary is blurred at that point. However, short clips of shows or movies should not by any means be removed. It does not matter if it is in order to placate the parent corporation or not. I hope that Google makes this one of the cornerstones of their defense, and really drives it home that fair-use is actively being usurped.
Wow, quite a bit of strawmen there. How, exactly, you can legitimately compare iTMS lock-in to console systems is beyond me. Programmers create games specifically for a particular console, unless they decide to make the game, at extra initial cost, multi-platform. Porting a game to multiple consoles and/or PC is sometimes difficult, definitely time consuming, and costly. How is that in any way analogous to creating music? Do artists and bands create music specifically designed to play on only one platform? Is it time consuming and costly to make their music multi-platform? Of course it isn't. Music was, from the very beginning, inherently easily reproduced, as well as being "multi-platform."
It is not a question of people wanting to do more than they should be able to with their music. It is, in actuality, the exact opposite. It is a prehistoric music industry attempting to do more than they should be allowed to with the artists' music, because it realizes that it is dying. Apple's DRM is a result of this. Apple had no real choice in the matter. If they wanted to sell RIAA-endorsed music, they had to provide DRM of some sort. Yet Apple most certainly is benefitting from FairPlay. Whether you would like to admit it or not makes no difference. They have in effect cornered the music download market, and are in a position where they could, if they felt strongly enough, start making inroads toward the eventual death of DRM. Maybe we have actually witnessed the beginning of this with Steve Jobs' recent "Thoughts on Music" open letter, yet I remain unconvinced. It would be a trivial thing, as well as a great symbolic gesture, for iTMS to cut the DRM requirement for indie labels and unsigned artists, yet they have not. If it has anything to do with the contract that they signed with the RIAA, then that can be taken to court and quite easily be dealt with.
Secondly, the fact that WMA and PlaysForSure are Windows-only is a red herring. PlaysForSure is at least licensed out. That has nothing to do with the issue, of course. PlaysForSure is also a form of DRM, and should be abolished along with FairPlay. I would imagine that the European Union feels the same way about both of the DRM implementations respectively. Attempting to apply bias before having given sufficient thought to something is defective. Judge the past along with the present. Consider relations between the EU and Microsoft over time, and then try to make an informed hypothesis as to how this situation will further unravel.
Lastly, the fact that iTunes is not locked-in to OSX has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand. I do not understand why you even mentioned this unless it was yet another attempt to obfuscate the true concern. iTunes is available on both Macintosh and Windows-based computers for one simple reason: more customers equal more cash flow.
I do not understand how the Slashbots can be so liberal, pro-choice, and pro-freedom when the issue suits their bias, and yet as soon as Apple is brought up, they turn into mindless, apologetic shills spouting inadequate excuses left and right.
The most obvious [problem] is deciding which version of Linux to offer. There are more than 100 distros, and everybody seems to want a different one -- or the same one with a different desktop, or whatever...
There is a horribly easy solution for this "problem": Support only one major distro, yet make sure that all hardware included with the PC is compatible with Linux. Slap a "Linux Certified" sticker on the damn thing and quite a few people will buy it. If they're more advanced, then they'll appreciate the fact that when they install their favorite distro instead of whatever the PC comes with, they won't have to hunt down a forum thread that points to an obscure hardware driver that is still in alpha, because they know that the hardware will "Just Work (tm)." If they're new to computers, or are the "A computer is an appliance" type, they won't have any need to switch from the supplied distro to anything else in the first place. It's a win win situation.
Either this guy didn't think his objections through very well, or he is just spouting FUD and hoping people take it at face value.
Sorry to burst your attempt at stereotyping, but I am a FLOSS advocate, and I happen to be a Democratic Socialist. Not everyone believes that giving corporations even more freedom than they already possess would be a great thing for the economy, much less for human and workers rights. No matter how much you may praise the concept of a totally free market, it all boils down to one thing, and one thing only: The sole concern of corporations and businesses is money and how to make it. The benefits to society and innovation are side affects. If you think that corporations would still be paying lip service to environmental issues or setting up a charity if they did not receive a massive return on those "investments", then you are kidding yourself.
Basically what I'm trying to say is: Do not attempt to lump those of us who do not agree with you by any means into your non-existent free market libertarian dream of who uses and advocates FLOSS.
That isn't the point of this. The point is that state governments are beginning to adopt completely open formats. OOXML is not a completely open format, and so that leaves it out of the running. I don't know about you, but I want my government as transparent as possible. This helps with that, albeit in a small way. It really doesn't matter if it's ODF, or if some other format is chosen in the end, just so long as it is totally transparent. This isn't the type of thing that is really "Microsoft Bashfest" material.
What the GP said is actually very true. I do not understand why you asked for proof, because he gave you an example immediately after his allegation:
They carry cocteau twins and breeders (for example) who are on 4ad. And who owns 4ad? Beggars Banquet - and BB is an RIAA affiliate.
It is a little trick that the big five use, and it has been going on for a good little while now. Take Island Records, as another example. It was the largest indie label in history. Who owns it now? Everyone's favorite dickheads, UMG. Check out the Island Records website, though. See any mention of it being a UMG affiliate?
That is how it works. The big five know that they are hated by the majority of the people who listen to real indie, punk, rock n' roll, et cetera. They buy up independents or spin off their own little "divisions", keep it as quiet as possible, and hope that you won't notice.
If you want to be certain that what you are planning to purchase, whether it be a download or a CD in a store, is in fact not affiliated in any way with the RIAA, I suggest bookmarking the RIAA Radar, and using it constantly. That's what I do, anyway.
... A single app in 2007. and we're just talking about image browsing.. not something fancy...
By no means is there a single application that excels for image browsing. Personally, I prefer Gwenview, and don't see how it "sucks completely" at all, but c'est la vie, I suppose. Anyway, there are plenty more that work perfectly well:
... My professors sometimes send out home-work and papers in word or visio...
I'm a student at USC, and I get homework, papers, and other things that are.doc,.vis,.ppt, et cetera. I also have to send assignments as email attachments, and so I have to make sure that they are compatible. I have never once had a problem switching between MS Office and OpenOffice.org. I do keep a small partition on one of my computers with Windows XP installed, just in case problems ever do crop up, but that isn't a fault of Linux or FLOSS. As you said, the lock-in is purely Microsoft's doing.
... when rendering small fonts it just seems blurry. not as sharp and pretty as in windows...
That is completely subjective. I don't notice much of a difference between modern fonts in Linux versus Windows TrueType. To each his own.
... Not to mention the horrifying ordeal i had to go through just to set-up my legacy atheros card...
I can't relate to your wifi issues either. I had a bit of trepidation concerning wireless when I installed Kubuntu 6.10 on my new laptop, just because of all of the horror stories that I've heard about wireless support in Linux. I was pleasantly surprised, though. Kubuntu automagically detected my internal wireless, and the only thing required of me was to type in the WEP key. Wireless support is getting very close to being ubiquitous in most distros now.
I realize that you aren't a troll, and neither am I flaming Vista. On the contrary, I believe that Microsoft has finally done some things right with this version of Windows. UAC, no matter what the Slashbots may think, is a step in the right direction. "Protected Mode" for IE7 is another Good Thing (TM).
Nonetheless, I still believe that the bad outweighs the good. Vista's DRM implementation, WGA and license restrictions, overpricing (in my opinion), the company's continued attempts at lock-in, proprietary code, disdain for open standards, and a host of other reasons keep me away from Windows.
By the way, maybe you should test drive more "user-friendly" distros. Gentoo is great, and Portage rocks - only second to the original FreeBSD Ports system (again, in my opinion), but it doesn't have the "just works" mentality that K/X/Ubuntu, Fedora Core, Mandriva, and yes, even SuSE (for now) possess. That just isn't its MO.
What it all boils down to is the nature of FLOSS, which is evolution - getting better and better over time. We've been witnessing it in Linux for the past fourteen years, and I am nothing but optimistic about the future.
Re:Starting to annoy...
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Is Vista a Trap?
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I really don't understand why you included this. OpenOffice.org, KOffice, AbiWord; all more than comparable to MS Word.
... Not to mention decent looking fonts...
In Debian based distros, sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts. Rather simple. Other distros have packages of their own.
In short, I'm under the impression that you haven't really tried to use a modern Linux distro for more than the five minutes it took you to stereotype it, say, "This sucks because it's not what I'm used to!", and go back to Windows.
No one is claiming that copyright should not be enforceable by law. Patents are enforced retroactively; we don't have officers breaking down the doors of "inventors" who did a slack job of searching for prior art. If Soulless Corporation A decides to create a web-based content delivery system (disregarding the fact that software patents are Satan), Soulless Corporation B cannot stop them. What they can do is sue the hell out of Soulless Corporation A once they have implemented that system.
DRM is preemptive and non-discriminatory. Whether you are attempting to use your newly purchased song in a legal, fair-use compliant way or not, you are uniformly shafted.
Her speed limit "analogy" was not well thought out either. If you break a speed limit, you run the risk of being caught. If you are caught, you must pay a fine. DRM is nothing like this. It is the equivalent of all cars being manufactured with a set top speed that cannot be changed, no matter the situation.
DRM cannot be compared to patent law or speed limits. If not to spread FUD and misinformation, then I really don't understand why Mrs. Bono decided to use those specific "analogies", because in short, they both suck.
I take it that you didn't bother to "self-educate" yourself on the subjects of grammar, spelling, and composition? May want to go back and look into that, dude. If you lack basic functions in any or all of those areas, people are much less likely to take what you are saying seriously, because you come off as deficient and uninformed, even if that is not the case. This is just as true online as it is in the real world.
Anyway, on the topic at hand, it seems to me as if you are trying to justify, in your own mind, the choices you have made, rather than seriously advocate going it alone with nothing more than a high school diploma. No matter what you may think, you will most definitely learn new things and better ways to accomplish existing things by attending university. Along with the technical skills that you gain, you will also evolve socially, and grow as an individual.
I'm twenty-three years old, and like the other poster who replied, I dropped out of high school at seventeen and received a GED. I tried to make a living for a good while like that. The only real way to end up in a good position in that situation is through internal advancement, so I started at the beginning, on the front line fielding tech support calls. After two years of low pay and daily being stressed almost beyond my breaking point, I dropped that job like a bad fucking habit and decided to get my ass into college. I'm at USC now, majoring in CIS with a minor in Journalism, and the only regret that I have is that I fucked around for so long before enrolling.
I suppose that everyone has to find their own way to succeed, but not having a degree can only be detrimental to your career. If I were you, I would sit down and put some real thought into it. If you wait until you're in your thirties and stuck with bills to pay and mouths to feed, it will be really difficult to make time for anything else.
We already have one. They're currently looking for graphic artists, lawyers, and writers/journalists that would like to help out, as well as researchers to contribute to the State Ballots wiki. Any help is greatly appreciated, I'm sure, even if it's just a small donation.
You're using semantics. Every definition of the word immigrant that I've ever come across says nothing about a "unified government", or "peaceful migration". It's absurd to think that all immigrants throughout history have migrated peacefully anyway. Who exactly set these rules up?
immigrant - A person who leaves one country to settle permanently in another.
We most certainly were immigrants. The natives didn't exactly want us there in the first place, and so you could say that our ancestors, in a way, "illegally" immigrated from England to North America. We may have "conquered" part of North America in time, in a loose sense of the word, but it certainly did not start out that way. Early attempts to make peace with the native people and coexist provide ample evidence of that.
I'd really like to know where you get your claim that this country was "built by LEGAL immigrants" from. I think that you are forgetting that, at one time, we were "illegal" immigrants. We sailed to this country, set up colonies, and proceeded to rape, murder, and pillage the true natives. Now those true natives are reduced to living on reservations that are sanctioned by the government. At least they were able to exploit "Joe Sixpack True American!"'s tendency to throw money away by gambling. That's a saving grace that gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, everytime I think of what our ancestors did to them.
I would mod you up in a second, if I had any mod points. The only thing that we should care about in our country right now is the capitalist bourgeois that the government has become, and what can be done about it.
I'm sorry dude, but alcoholism is most definitely not a disease. A disease implies that there is no positive effect that a person can have via willpower alone, and must seek medical treatment. Getting technical and throwing out a definition does not change the fact that people that are addicted to alcohol are in control of whether they stay addicted or not. I should know, because I was an alcoholic for six years, after a particularly traumatic event in my life. Alcoholism was a method of coping with that event. Saying that it is a disease is nothing more than an attempt at displacing blame. "Oh, it's a disease, it's not my fault, woe is me!" will not get you anywhere. I quit drinking excessively by myself. No AA, no "treatment facilities", etc. The first step to overcoming alcoholism is admitting that it is up to you to change your behavior, and that you are by no means powerless over it. Alcohol is psychologically addictive, and physically addictive in extreme cases, but so is cocaine. If you're addicted to cocaine, do people refer to your addiction as a disease?
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Did you really just imply that no one really needs or uses macros? Wow. I better tell all of those journalists, authors, court reporters, university students, and generally anyone that does any large amount of data entry that they are using archaic technology.
Or maybe macros actually save many people from pointless redundancy and massive headaches, and you don't really know what you're talking about. But nah, that couldn't be. Not on Slashdot...
That's funny, because I attempted to install Last-Exit just a few days ago, and had a bitch of a time doing so with KDE 3.5.4 on top of Slackware 11.0. I ended up having to install almost half of the damn GDM. There were plenty of needed dependencies.
I think maybe you have "Guhnome" blinders on. The simple fact is that both DMs have tailored applications that depend on their libs and headers. It really isn't such an issue in the current Linux environment as long as you are using a distro with good package management, but it is equally noticeable on both sides of the fence when you're compiling from source the majority of the time.
I am running Kubuntu 6.10, and I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised with Upstart, for the most part. It really is much quicker than the older boot sequences, as well as Windows XP, in my personal tests. I still have a couple qualms, however.
/boot/grub/menu.lst and commenting out "quiet splash" takes care of it, but I don't always want to perform a status check when booting. This is a really simple thing to provide accomodation for, and I may just be unaware of a more simple solution that is already in place. If anyone knows of one, please enlighten me.
The lack of a method to switch back to the traditional, detailed boot sequence is annoying. Editing
The other problem comes as a result of the first. There is, with no option to switch to a detailed boot sequence, also no way to skip network detection. I am used to just issuing 'Ctrl+C' to skip it, and so it is quite frustrating sometimes. If you aren't connected to a network, or if you connect only after you have brought the system up, you are stuck waiting however long the default timeout is, unless you, again, perform a manual edit. This wouldn't be so much of an issue if arguments could be passed by default at boot-time, but as far as I know they cannot.
Once again, if anyone knows of solutions to these issues that I am ignorant of, I'd be grateful to hear them. Other than what I have related, though, K/X/Ubuntu 6.10 boots very quickly, and I am quite happy with it.
It's never difficult to upgrade to a final release with Debian-based distros. Just issue 'sudo apt-get dist-upgrade' once it has been announced.
Yeah! That's such a great idea! Kill two birds with one stone, right? Nobody wants those pesky poor people around anyway. Their ghettos get in the way of my sunset vista. We could take a pointer from fucking China! Regulate births! If you fall below a certain tax bracket and you want a child, well, sorry, you're fucked! Just treat 'em exactly like you would a fucking television!
Nice thinly veiled classist and racist bullshit, dude. Hopefully one day you will end up poor with children to raise, and we can all see how quickly you backpedal.
Here's one last fucking hint, douchebag: It is not a fucking endless summer, by any means, to be a parent with a low income, but you know what? Weirdly enough, some people love their children regardless. The minute you start advocating treating them like material fucking goods, you have shown yourself to be devastatingly ignorant.
There's FOUR solutions:
Actually, there is one more, which I have been engaging in for the better part of ten years now, since I was thirteen:
Do not buy it, do not watch it, do not listen to it. I decided long ago that they could go shovel their shit to someone else. They effectively do not exist to me. I support independent, local, and DIY bands. I only go to local punk or indie shows, and will never pay more than thirty dollars for one. I support my local independent record shop, which (surprise) still sells vinyl 7" splits, and merchandise that is often actually created by the band themselves! What a thought, huh? The punk and indie scenes really have no need for major label exploitation money. They have gotten by just fine for longer than I have been alive, and will still be making real music long after I am dead and gone.
More people need to be following this path. It is one of the best ways to join the effort to kill off the prehistoric music industry, and as a bonus, you can listen to music that actually has meaning.
Anyway, I just thought I would correct your list a bit.
I completely disagree with you.
It will be massively enjoyable to watch.
As a musician as well, I would question where exactly this "slippery slope" will end up. I actually believe that this is an extremely good thing for music as well as musicians. Many of us have been waiting for the lumbering RIAA dinosaur to sink into the La Brea tar pit that it has created for itself over time. This really isn't anything new at all. Anyone who has been involved with music at any point within the last sixty years or so has realized that the RIAA (and by extension the "Big Five") will do absolutely whatever it takes to rake in that last dollar. They don't give a flying fuck about music, or what they are attempting to shovel on the masses. They're business men.
I hope beyond all hope that this pushes the DIY ethic into the mainstream. We that dwell in the scene have been doing it ourselves for quite awhile, and could really care less about the RIAA. Who exactly gives a shit if every single RIAA-endorsed artist is taken off of internet radio? Why exactly is that a bad thing? Internet radio will adapt, and in an extremely good way: More unsigned and independent artists, more esoteric genres of music, more concentration on music as an art-form, less cookie-cutter feel-good bullshit, and more than anything else, less people in it for the money.
Another aspect that may have a chance to thrive is community. Until now, the community has been relegated to local scenes. The internet can change that significantly, yet for the most part the insanely popular band or plastic-pop-singer-of-the-week has managed to drown all semblance of this out. Maybe as more internet radio stations distance themselves from the RIAA labels this will change.
In short, I really only see good things coming of this. The moment I heard about these new insane regulations and fees, I couldn't stop smiling. Everyone says that the RIAA is perpetually shooting themselves in the foot, but this time, I think they have finally fucked around and managed to shoot themselves right in the junk.
My only hope is that they don't tone it all down after of the backlash.
If you seriously believe that all famine in the world is caused by the "evil socialists," then you may want to have yourself checked for schizophrenia. The "red scare" was 50+ years ago, and has been thoroughly debunked and laughed at. Trying to give people a bad name and advocate violence toward them because you don't agree with their world view is a pretty underhanded and stupid thing to do. Also, capitalism is not some sort of fucking panacea for every world problem. Good god, some of you libertarians have fucked up principles.
One thing that many seem to be forgetting is that short excerpts are defined as fair-use. I believe that if Viacom actually does succeed with this lawsuit, it will set a very bad precedent. The majority of videos that have been taken down so far have been short clips, and thus fair-use compliant. I actually tried in vain recently to look up the clip of John Stewart's take on Senator "Series of Tubes" Stevens and Net Neutrality. It has been taken down (probably many times), and yet I am fairly certain that it would fall within the boundaries of fair-use.
I support the removal of full content, such as movies. It does not make a difference if they are chopped up into ten minute segments or not, because it is quite simple to put the full movie back together again. Regarding full television shows, though, I am still unsure. I believe that the boundary is blurred at that point. However, short clips of shows or movies should not by any means be removed. It does not matter if it is in order to placate the parent corporation or not. I hope that Google makes this one of the cornerstones of their defense, and really drives it home that fair-use is actively being usurped.
Wow, quite a bit of strawmen there. How, exactly, you can legitimately compare iTMS lock-in to console systems is beyond me. Programmers create games specifically for a particular console, unless they decide to make the game, at extra initial cost, multi-platform. Porting a game to multiple consoles and/or PC is sometimes difficult, definitely time consuming, and costly. How is that in any way analogous to creating music? Do artists and bands create music specifically designed to play on only one platform? Is it time consuming and costly to make their music multi-platform? Of course it isn't. Music was, from the very beginning, inherently easily reproduced, as well as being "multi-platform."
It is not a question of people wanting to do more than they should be able to with their music. It is, in actuality, the exact opposite. It is a prehistoric music industry attempting to do more than they should be allowed to with the artists' music, because it realizes that it is dying. Apple's DRM is a result of this. Apple had no real choice in the matter. If they wanted to sell RIAA-endorsed music, they had to provide DRM of some sort. Yet Apple most certainly is benefitting from FairPlay. Whether you would like to admit it or not makes no difference. They have in effect cornered the music download market, and are in a position where they could, if they felt strongly enough, start making inroads toward the eventual death of DRM. Maybe we have actually witnessed the beginning of this with Steve Jobs' recent "Thoughts on Music" open letter, yet I remain unconvinced. It would be a trivial thing, as well as a great symbolic gesture, for iTMS to cut the DRM requirement for indie labels and unsigned artists, yet they have not. If it has anything to do with the contract that they signed with the RIAA, then that can be taken to court and quite easily be dealt with.
Secondly, the fact that WMA and PlaysForSure are Windows-only is a red herring. PlaysForSure is at least licensed out. That has nothing to do with the issue, of course. PlaysForSure is also a form of DRM, and should be abolished along with FairPlay. I would imagine that the European Union feels the same way about both of the DRM implementations respectively. Attempting to apply bias before having given sufficient thought to something is defective. Judge the past along with the present. Consider relations between the EU and Microsoft over time, and then try to make an informed hypothesis as to how this situation will further unravel.
Lastly, the fact that iTunes is not locked-in to OSX has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand. I do not understand why you even mentioned this unless it was yet another attempt to obfuscate the true concern. iTunes is available on both Macintosh and Windows-based computers for one simple reason: more customers equal more cash flow.
I do not understand how the Slashbots can be so liberal, pro-choice, and pro-freedom when the issue suits their bias, and yet as soon as Apple is brought up, they turn into mindless, apologetic shills spouting inadequate excuses left and right.
The most obvious [problem] is deciding which version of Linux to offer. There are more than 100 distros, and everybody seems to want a different one -- or the same one with a different desktop, or whatever...
There is a horribly easy solution for this "problem": Support only one major distro, yet make sure that all hardware included with the PC is compatible with Linux. Slap a "Linux Certified" sticker on the damn thing and quite a few people will buy it. If they're more advanced, then they'll appreciate the fact that when they install their favorite distro instead of whatever the PC comes with, they won't have to hunt down a forum thread that points to an obscure hardware driver that is still in alpha, because they know that the hardware will "Just Work (tm)." If they're new to computers, or are the "A computer is an appliance" type, they won't have any need to switch from the supplied distro to anything else in the first place. It's a win win situation.
Either this guy didn't think his objections through very well, or he is just spouting FUD and hoping people take it at face value.
Sorry to burst your attempt at stereotyping, but I am a FLOSS advocate, and I happen to be a Democratic Socialist. Not everyone believes that giving corporations even more freedom than they already possess would be a great thing for the economy, much less for human and workers rights. No matter how much you may praise the concept of a totally free market, it all boils down to one thing, and one thing only: The sole concern of corporations and businesses is money and how to make it. The benefits to society and innovation are side affects. If you think that corporations would still be paying lip service to environmental issues or setting up a charity if they did not receive a massive return on those "investments", then you are kidding yourself.
Basically what I'm trying to say is: Do not attempt to lump those of us who do not agree with you by any means into your non-existent free market libertarian dream of who uses and advocates FLOSS.
That isn't the point of this. The point is that state governments are beginning to adopt completely open formats. OOXML is not a completely open format, and so that leaves it out of the running. I don't know about you, but I want my government as transparent as possible. This helps with that, albeit in a small way. It really doesn't matter if it's ODF, or if some other format is chosen in the end, just so long as it is totally transparent. This isn't the type of thing that is really "Microsoft Bashfest" material.
What the GP said is actually very true. I do not understand why you asked for proof, because he gave you an example immediately after his allegation:
They carry cocteau twins and breeders (for example) who are on 4ad. And who owns 4ad? Beggars Banquet - and BB is an RIAA affiliate.
It is a little trick that the big five use, and it has been going on for a good little while now. Take Island Records, as another example. It was the largest indie label in history. Who owns it now? Everyone's favorite dickheads, UMG. Check out the Island Records website, though. See any mention of it being a UMG affiliate?
That is how it works. The big five know that they are hated by the majority of the people who listen to real indie, punk, rock n' roll, et cetera. They buy up independents or spin off their own little "divisions", keep it as quiet as possible, and hope that you won't notice.
If you want to be certain that what you are planning to purchase, whether it be a download or a CD in a store, is in fact not affiliated in any way with the RIAA, I suggest bookmarking the RIAA Radar, and using it constantly. That's what I do, anyway.
... A single app in 2007. and we're just talking about image browsing.. not something fancy ...
... My professors sometimes send out home-work and papers in word or visio ...
.doc, .vis, .ppt, et cetera. I also have to send assignments as email attachments, and so I have to make sure that they are compatible. I have never once had a problem switching between MS Office and OpenOffice.org. I do keep a small partition on one of my computers with Windows XP installed, just in case problems ever do crop up, but that isn't a fault of Linux or FLOSS. As you said, the lock-in is purely Microsoft's doing.
... when rendering small fonts it just seems blurry. not as sharp and pretty as in windows ...
... Not to mention the horrifying ordeal i had to go through just to set-up my legacy atheros card ...
By no means is there a single application that excels for image browsing. Personally, I prefer Gwenview, and don't see how it "sucks completely" at all, but c'est la vie, I suppose. Anyway, there are plenty more that work perfectly well:
DigiKam, F-Spot, et cetera.
I'm a student at USC, and I get homework, papers, and other things that are
That is completely subjective. I don't notice much of a difference between modern fonts in Linux versus Windows TrueType. To each his own.
I can't relate to your wifi issues either. I had a bit of trepidation concerning wireless when I installed Kubuntu 6.10 on my new laptop, just because of all of the horror stories that I've heard about wireless support in Linux. I was pleasantly surprised, though. Kubuntu automagically detected my internal wireless, and the only thing required of me was to type in the WEP key. Wireless support is getting very close to being ubiquitous in most distros now.
I realize that you aren't a troll, and neither am I flaming Vista. On the contrary, I believe that Microsoft has finally done some things right with this version of Windows. UAC, no matter what the Slashbots may think, is a step in the right direction. "Protected Mode" for IE7 is another Good Thing (TM).
Nonetheless, I still believe that the bad outweighs the good. Vista's DRM implementation, WGA and license restrictions, overpricing (in my opinion), the company's continued attempts at lock-in, proprietary code, disdain for open standards, and a host of other reasons keep me away from Windows.
By the way, maybe you should test drive more "user-friendly" distros. Gentoo is great, and Portage rocks - only second to the original FreeBSD Ports system (again, in my opinion), but it doesn't have the "just works" mentality that K/X/Ubuntu, Fedora Core, Mandriva, and yes, even SuSE (for now) possess. That just isn't its MO.
What it all boils down to is the nature of FLOSS, which is evolution - getting better and better over time. We've been witnessing it in Linux for the past fourteen years, and I am nothing but optimistic about the future.
... doesn't have a single decent image-browser ...
... dc++ client ...
... office suite ...
... Not to mention decent looking fonts ...
Gwenview, Picasa...
Is in production. Check the CVS for latest builds.
I really don't understand why you included this. OpenOffice.org, KOffice, AbiWord; all more than comparable to MS Word.
In Debian based distros, sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts. Rather simple. Other distros have packages of their own.
In short, I'm under the impression that you haven't really tried to use a modern Linux distro for more than the five minutes it took you to stereotype it, say, "This sucks because it's not what I'm used to!", and go back to Windows.
No one is claiming that copyright should not be enforceable by law. Patents are enforced retroactively; we don't have officers breaking down the doors of "inventors" who did a slack job of searching for prior art. If Soulless Corporation A decides to create a web-based content delivery system (disregarding the fact that software patents are Satan), Soulless Corporation B cannot stop them. What they can do is sue the hell out of Soulless Corporation A once they have implemented that system.
DRM is preemptive and non-discriminatory. Whether you are attempting to use your newly purchased song in a legal, fair-use compliant way or not, you are uniformly shafted.
Her speed limit "analogy" was not well thought out either. If you break a speed limit, you run the risk of being caught. If you are caught, you must pay a fine. DRM is nothing like this. It is the equivalent of all cars being manufactured with a set top speed that cannot be changed, no matter the situation.
DRM cannot be compared to patent law or speed limits. If not to spread FUD and misinformation, then I really don't understand why Mrs. Bono decided to use those specific "analogies", because in short, they both suck.
I take it that you didn't bother to "self-educate" yourself on the subjects of grammar, spelling, and composition? May want to go back and look into that, dude. If you lack basic functions in any or all of those areas, people are much less likely to take what you are saying seriously, because you come off as deficient and uninformed, even if that is not the case. This is just as true online as it is in the real world.
Anyway, on the topic at hand, it seems to me as if you are trying to justify, in your own mind, the choices you have made, rather than seriously advocate going it alone with nothing more than a high school diploma. No matter what you may think, you will most definitely learn new things and better ways to accomplish existing things by attending university. Along with the technical skills that you gain, you will also evolve socially, and grow as an individual.
I'm twenty-three years old, and like the other poster who replied, I dropped out of high school at seventeen and received a GED. I tried to make a living for a good while like that. The only real way to end up in a good position in that situation is through internal advancement, so I started at the beginning, on the front line fielding tech support calls. After two years of low pay and daily being stressed almost beyond my breaking point, I dropped that job like a bad fucking habit and decided to get my ass into college. I'm at USC now, majoring in CIS with a minor in Journalism, and the only regret that I have is that I fucked around for so long before enrolling.
I suppose that everyone has to find their own way to succeed, but not having a degree can only be detrimental to your career. If I were you, I would sit down and put some real thought into it. If you wait until you're in your thirties and stuck with bills to pay and mouths to feed, it will be really difficult to make time for anything else.
We already have one. They're currently looking for graphic artists, lawyers, and writers/journalists that would like to help out, as well as researchers to contribute to the State Ballots wiki. Any help is greatly appreciated, I'm sure, even if it's just a small donation.
You're using semantics. Every definition of the word immigrant that I've ever come across says nothing about a "unified government", or "peaceful migration". It's absurd to think that all immigrants throughout history have migrated peacefully anyway. Who exactly set these rules up?
immigrant - A person who leaves one country to settle permanently in another.
We most certainly were immigrants. The natives didn't exactly want us there in the first place, and so you could say that our ancestors, in a way, "illegally" immigrated from England to North America. We may have "conquered" part of North America in time, in a loose sense of the word, but it certainly did not start out that way. Early attempts to make peace with the native people and coexist provide ample evidence of that.
I'd really like to know where you get your claim that this country was "built by LEGAL immigrants" from. I think that you are forgetting that, at one time, we were "illegal" immigrants. We sailed to this country, set up colonies, and proceeded to rape, murder, and pillage the true natives. Now those true natives are reduced to living on reservations that are sanctioned by the government. At least they were able to exploit "Joe Sixpack True American!"'s tendency to throw money away by gambling. That's a saving grace that gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, everytime I think of what our ancestors did to them.
I would mod you up in a second, if I had any mod points. The only thing that we should care about in our country right now is the capitalist bourgeois that the government has become, and what can be done about it.
I'm sorry dude, but alcoholism is most definitely not a disease. A disease implies that there is no positive effect that a person can have via willpower alone, and must seek medical treatment. Getting technical and throwing out a definition does not change the fact that people that are addicted to alcohol are in control of whether they stay addicted or not. I should know, because I was an alcoholic for six years, after a particularly traumatic event in my life. Alcoholism was a method of coping with that event. Saying that it is a disease is nothing more than an attempt at displacing blame. "Oh, it's a disease, it's not my fault, woe is me!" will not get you anywhere. I quit drinking excessively by myself. No AA, no "treatment facilities", etc. The first step to overcoming alcoholism is admitting that it is up to you to change your behavior, and that you are by no means powerless over it. Alcohol is psychologically addictive, and physically addictive in extreme cases, but so is cocaine. If you're addicted to cocaine, do people refer to your addiction as a disease?