Once again, I'm sure this will be doomed to failure. It will be riddled with DRM and have all sorts of technological (if not outright legal) hurdles to get the movies I buy to play when and where I want them.
...
It's the same for music.
I agree with the sentiment, but not the reasoning. DRM didn't hinder the adoption of iTMS (I think, in part, because most people didn't really notice it.)
I think it will fail because :
Most people don't watch movies on their computer, and most people don't have media center PCs.
Those that do probably already use something like iTunes, Amazon's Unbox, Vongo or CinemaNow or one of the many other services out there.
And since it doesn't appear that the movies can be burned to DVD, I don't see it becoming a bit hit with the mainstream. At no point do I see the consumer avoiding the service because of copy restrictions.
...Well, when your boss catches you "expensing" such trivialities on the company credit card and subsequently relieves your holding of such a card therein, the experience becomes a bit of a financial strain...
I want to know where you found a coke dealer that accepts credit cards.
I lived in West Memphis for a time, and it is - by far - the most depressingly corrupt place I've ever been in the United States. To those who haven't visited, picture this - a city with poor blacks on one side of the interstate, poor whites on the other and a redneck, "good ol' boy" judicial system governing both. There are a handful of affluent spots in the city, but it's a mostly ghetto/trailer park-style city.
I say that to say this - I haven't seen the DVDs you mentioned, nor done intensive research, but from the articles I've read and stories I've heard, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if those guys are sitting in prison because of a botched investigation and urgency to close the case. From what I've been told and experienced, that attitude persists to this day in West Memphis.
So what's the privacy problem? It's like someone stealing my wallet. Hell yea that's a privacy concern! What's the solution? Someone steals my iPod and they'll be able to figure out my name?!? They'll also be able to figure out what my house, wife, car, and kid look like because of the pictures on the damn thing, and don't even get me going about documents I store on the damn thing...They'll also be able to figure out my Slashdot handle, because the damn thing has "Satanic Puppy" engraved on the back.
It's really disappointing to me that Apple's efforts as a de facto liaison for legal online music sales are frequently met with criticism by people who seem to want something for nothing. I'm especially annoyed by people who insist on calling this kind of information tracking "DRM" - it really dilutes the term, and IMHO, diminishes from the serious issues associated with real DRM. Digg is rife with idiots whining about how Apple just needs to "trust" their users and how this sort of tracking "violates" their "privacy" (READ: Hinders their ability to indiscriminately share without any consequences).
For a lot of these people, the issue of FairPlay and DRM was never about playing their music under Linux or on their iRiver or whatever other legitimate issues DRM presented. It was about DRM doing exactly what it was designed to do - prevent mass-distribution of copyrighted material to non-licensees. So these people latched onto the anti-DRM movement as a means to an end. I submit to the community that we should NOT let these freeloaders taint the efforts made to solve legitimate issues with DRM. They will never be satisfied with Apple's or anyone elses efforts to address our concerns until iTMS sells all music in lossless FLACs at $.01/Megabyte with a personal liability waiver and distribution rights to 1000 of their closest Internet pals - and even then, they'll still torrent music, "just to see if I like it".
I never - in a million years - thought we'd see major label catalog, DRM-free music. And now some dweebs are giving RIAA execs ammo because they don't want to be held responsible for their actions. To said dweebs, please just go download your music with a torrent. You're ruining this for the rest of us. Oh yeah, and for the love of Christ, come off that "BUT WOT IF MY SISTAR SHAREZ IT ON P2P?? THEN WOTT??!?!" bullshit. Chances are, if you're savvy enough to care about the "privacy" associated with user data embedded into a binary file, you're savvy enough to take the precautions necessary to prevent your sister/roommate/friend from mass-distributing your music library.
That's a pretty big "if". The truth is that Linux is safer, because it's simply harder to break into. A default Ubuntu install doesn't expose any open ports. Windows is designed to expose hundreds of ports, none of which can safely be closed because that would break random bits of software that Windows depends on. Linux ought to be extremely easy to write exploits for; after all, the code is right there in the open. If it was that easy then most of the servers on the Internet would have been broken into by now, where the vast majority are Linux and Windows is a dwindling minority.
I'm always slightly torn by posts like this. Fundamentally, I agree with the statement "Linux is safer [than Windows]". The problems set in when someone like the OP starts explaining his reasoning. For all the cries of "FUD!" by the typical Slashdotian Linux zealot, these people tend to make up more horseshit on a per-topic basis than any Microsoft-sponsored TCO report could hope to. And they get away with it. Gordonjcp, as someone who would like to see a an Open and Free environment like Linux proliferate in the enterprise market, I'm asking you - and people like you - to please stop. You're doing more harm than good.
Windows is not a dwindling minority. A cursory glance at NetCraft would show that not only does IIS have a noteworthy 31% of the marketshare, it's actually gaining market, while Apache is declining, rendering your original claim almost completely incorrect.
Windows does not have hundreds of unclosable ports. Please, cut that gimmick out. SP2 (included in the current boxed release of Windows) patched a great deal of the port issues and included a decent firewall for home users. Or were you referring to the original release of XP? If that's the route you were going, let me try it on the other end - "This whole Linux thing will never take off. It's not even compatible with common hardware! I just tried to install RedHat 7 on my workstation, and XFree86 wouldn't even start unless I was using 640x480 with the framebuffer driver!".
I wish to reiterate - I would like to see Linux gain ground and acceptance, but I simply cannot stand the hypocrisy of resorting to the FUD tactics of Microsoft. Outlining reasons to not use Windows is a fucking cakewalk without making things up.
Howard Stern? Is it still 1995? Honestly, I can't think of anyone saying anything about that guy since he jumped to some subscriber radio service and nearly killed it.
I think you're thinking of Opie and Anthony.
FYI, Opie and Anthony broadcast on both XM and CBS' FreeFM in the mornings, and then switch over to an XM-exclusive portion of the show after a few hours. Of course the irony of Stern being replaced on FreeFM by the duo he gagged a couple years earlier is not lost on humble fence-sitters like myself. Regardless of who has the larger audience, I'm sure Howard is laughing all the way to the bank.
Does this tool work for Janus-locked files (commonly used in "ToGo" services)?
A little backdrop for context -
Like a lot of people, I travel a lot (commute to work, business trips, family, etc...). I have a Creative Zen Touch 40GB w/PlayForSure update that I've been pretty pleased with for the past year. However, last April I was doing my semi-annual reinstall of Windows on my Tablet PC. Being quite naive, I just assumed backing up My Music would be sufficient for license back-up -- after all, it contains the "My License Backup" folder. So you know, just going with that. Noooo sirreee, Rhapsody will have none of that. It informed me that each DRM'd file I had used with RhapsodyToGo didn't have a valid license or was corrupt. The only way I could get the files to update their licenses was to queue the files needing a license update for download, pause the download, then cancel the download. This worked great for files on my computer, but the licenses wouldn't transfer to my MP3 player. Additionally, my playlists were broken because of this mess. These inconveniences, coupled with the fact that I don't feel like browsing through Rhapsody's unresponsive IE-control and manually selecting the gigabytes of locked-up and unplayable files on my tablet and MP3 player forced me back to BitTorrent.
Words cannot capture how fucking frustrating it is to have a 5 hour drive ahead of you and be presented with a "No License To Play File" message when you try to play half the files on your MP3 player. No warning, no hint, not even a goddamn "License will expire in x days" message when I downloaded the file originally. Which brings me to another point -- I pay my RhapsodyToGo subscription quarterly, why the fuck should I have to update once a month?. Or put more accurately -- GUESS when I should have to update during the month, because that's part of the fun - YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT DAY THE FILES EXPIRE.
Anyways, I got kinda off track there. I simply downloaded MP3s and FLACs of the music I wanted and replaced most of the DRM'd horseshit, but certain artists (e.g., Robert Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson, Muddy Waters, hell even mainstream artists like Jeff Beck) are harder to find on P2P networks and BitTorrent trackers. So a tool which could unlock the files I've legitmately acquired would be really great.
If anyone from Microsoft or RealNetworks is reading this -- I'm trying to do the right thing, but you're making it so fucking difficult. It's almost as if you want me to pirate the music.
just buy the most sucky acoustic guitar there is. For less money you have more fun with a real guitar!
No. You would waste your money, develop a bad ear, and most likely pick up some bad habits that cater to the instruments poor quality. As an added bonus, you still probably won't be able to play "Crossroads" or "Texas Flood" or any of the other licensed tracks due to frustration with the quality of the instrument and time it takes to develop the methods required for songs like those.
It always puzzles me when fellow "guitarists" act sort of snobbish towards Guitar Hero. These same people have no problem playing games like NBA Street and Burnout, but suddenly, when the game is about guitar, the utmost realism is demanded. Dude, being a good guitarist, like being a good race car driver or sports player, is hard and requires time, skill and motivation, and often times this is very frustrating and intimidating to newcomers. I've not spent a lot of time in demographic research, but something tells me most people wouldn't find that a fun idea for a game.
I'm a guitarist, and I like Guitar Hero. It's obviously very unrealistic, but I don't want that kind of realism in my games. I already spend many of my waking hours in that kind of realism, and if I ever want to spend more time in it, I can walk over, pick up one of my guitars and dive right back in. But if I want some instant gratification, entertaining, DDR-style gameplay with a novelty twist (say, a plastic guitar), Guitar Hero fits the bill.
I am quite confused by this. I've read the article. I've browsed the webpage and I've read the FAQ. I don't get it.
Not to be a wet blanket or anything, but I'm completely missing the brilliance here. It seems like he's essentially selling rather overpriced banner-ad space, without any content to drive traffic or visitor click-throughs (I guess relying entirely on the notoriety of the site in the press?)
I'm having trouble understanding how firms would really think it's a wise investment to spend $x dollars advertising on a website that has zero draw. Who cares if the banner will be up there for 5 years if no one has incentive to visit the hosting website? I skimmed the FAQ, looking for promises of content or incentive for traffic, and here's all I found --
7. Why should I buy your pixels?
Because you will have an image and a link to your site on the homepage of a site that could potentially be seen by millions of people over the coming years. The site will be online for at least 5 years, that's guaranteed, but the idea is to keep it online forever. So you really could own a piece of 'internet history'!
Um, "Why would millions of people visit this website?" would be a good follow-up question. I imagine that neither I nor many other people stay up in the wee hours of the night to watch collections of paid programming advertisements or flip straight to the adverstising section of a magazine. Why would I go to a website that is just a big billboard?
I checked out the "Testimonials", which I'm skeptical of, to say the least. Lots of references to making "Internet history". Maybe I'm just completely out of it, but I really don't see how pooling a shitload of static banner-ads onto one page constitutes "Internet history".
With all this in mind, I once again raise the question how this is "genius". Clever? Sure. Exploiting of ignorance and gimmicky? Possibly. Genius? No. At best, I would say this is a lucky flash-in-the-pan bit that will never work twice, unless browsing websites devoted entirely to advertising space becomes profoundly interesting in the future.
However, if I've overlooked some massive details, or I'm not making the appropriate connections, please tell me, because I'm still in disbelief that this works on any level. An MBA I am not, so if there's some sort of defined principles for what constitutes genius in the business world, it's lost on me. Or maybe this is genius of the P.T Barnum ilk? Regardless, if this site really is riding on the coattails of its own notoriety, I guess he deserves kudos for creating such a buzz (no matter how gimmicky and seemingly undeserving such buzz is), and at least he's using the money for college (or so it is stated), and not on a new mansion or something completely materialistic in value.
It seems some of your problems might be solved with a little help from the excellent Ubuntu Guide and Ubuntu Forums. Packages like DVD::Rip and avidemux sit in some repos that are turned off by default (at least DVD::Rip is; haven't checked avidemux as I pulled my deb install from a forum user). A quick edit to/etc/apt/sources.list and an apt-get update should help.
Ubuntu Guide has a lot of great tutorials for practical tasks (e.g. -- getting DVD functionality to work, setting up DHCP client, installing nVidia drivers), and any questions I've had not found there I can usually find at the Ubuntu Wiki or the Ubuntu Forums. And it's all pretty much top-notch. The forum people and IRC people are really helpful and friendly too -- I've not encountered any of the sort of snobbery that I found in other distro support forums and channels *cough*Gentoo*cough*.
Totally agree with the kernel bit. One of the first things I do after an Ubuntu install is install a new kernel. So, if any Ubuntu devs are reading this, more kernel options for an install would be greatly appreciated kthx:)
So I can take advantage of these features if I have my blind, crippled pet monkey read out the raw HTML to me while I poke toothpicks into my eyeballs then?
Yes, but be warned that it will swiftly start clawing the flesh of your face off when it encounters a CSS margin-change directive.
I think that Google is going to buy Chuck E Cheese (NYSE: CEC). I submit as evidence the fact that Google is not yet in the Children's Entertainment Pizza n' Token business and certainly being able to put online ads on the walls around a Chuck E Cheese would be very lucrative. Children are highly impressionable and Google has lots of money.
Okey. I'm trying hard to understand what you're saying, really, I am. I like to go with the Slashdot anti-patent/Free Software belief system when I can, but what you're saying is just silly. I mean, let's not get too caught up in the emotion of our own beliefs to start speaking falsities into being, okey?
When will the execs stop wasting their money on all this ineffective DRM "technology"?
Wha? As soon as it stops being profitable and effective! If you want to combat DRM, do so by telling people how their rights are being restricted by purchasing music from iTunes or Napster, not by pretending they're not effective. iTunes has sold 100,000,000+ songs, with this "ineffective DRM".Napster is growing fast, and profitably using this "ineffective DRM". And plenty of people are happy with their rights being restricted.
If it can be seen, it can be copied.
Yes, maybe in the province of Speare, but back here in the US, right or wrong, there are laws against such things. Again, try to avoid speaking things into being -- it only alienates you further from the people you're trying persuade to your argument.
The profit comes from producing a complete package experience with liner notes and pride-of-bookshelf, not just the (approximate) digital waveform.
This cannot be true. Why would services like Rhapsody, Napster and iTunes prevail if profit wouldn't come through digital waveform? But this is beside the point -- if there's no profit to be had in selling digital copies of music, what chance does that leave that we'll ever see music sold in a non-DRM'd format? I'm sorry -- I couldn't hear you over the crickets chirping.
I'm on your team; I'm not a fan of DRM and would rather it not exist. But if we're going to motivate people to quit using DRM-encumbered products, we're going to have to engage them on a rational playing field. Instead of saying the technology is "ineffective" and that profit does not lie in selling music digitally, we should instead take people back to the roots of the Free Software movement, to the roots of the country -- that is, personal rights. Obviously many of those rights are violated, but simply speaking those rights into being won't stop lawsuits. The more we chant "FUCK THE **IAA!!", "M$ IS EVIL" and "McBrid HAS SEX W/ BABY GOATS", the more radical and less appealing we seem. What we, as a collective movement, need to do is be cool -- if your neighbors, friends and family see you as a normal person who also happens to care about his rights being violated, they may approach it with a more open mind than if they see you as a zealous hippy bent on on the downfall of modern enterprise as they see it.
Why is this is such a big deal? There has been no previous mention of Advent Rising hitting the PSP. What just because Square has released a ton of games for the PS2 that means all their content will be available on a Sony game device?
How you and the submitter missed all this is beyond me.
Re:Big woop now it's only 3 years behind. FP and F
on
Sarge is Now Frozen
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· Score: 1
Do know know what the resources of Microsoft even are? 40 billion/year buys you a lot of developers, *full time*. 40 billion/200k (counting overhead, etc..), gets you about 200,000 developers. This is much more than Debian - about 900 part time, plus another 50,000 part time for upstream (guesstimating). Very few full time developers in Debian or upstream.
I believe there's a perceived misconception about open-source efforts that, by virtue of being open-source, every free software developer in the world must be working on that project. That's what I was getting at in the previous post (hence the "in theory" bit). Obviously, this is not the case, but it won't stop companies like Microsoft from purveying this idea in a way that's to their advantage.
Re:Big woop now it's only 3 years behind. FP and F
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Sarge is Now Frozen
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I think people expect more out of open-source projects. Since you can, in theory, have many many times the manpower of a corporation that thrives on closed-source development (such as Microsoft), many people assume that quicker release cycles should follow. While I agree somewhat with that notion, I don't think the lack of frequent releases is indicative of laziness or any other such nonsense that I see from time to time on Slashdot and other forums. It's not laziness; it's a commitment to stability and order. While I tend to stick with more mainstream Linux distros for enterprise tasks, I have colleagues who swear by Debian's stability, order and ease of maintenance.
Frankly, Debian has always come across to me as a more enterprise-ready distro than, say, Gentoo or Mandrake (going off of personal experience). The kind of people I know who use Debian aren't the ones looking for the latest X.org packages so they can play Doom III or have terminal transparency. They're the kind who don't give a rip about what version of KDE comes stock, as they'll be using Debian mostly from an SSH term anyways. I think efforts like the Ubuntu project are a more appropriate approach to a modern desktop-ready Debian than pressuring for more frequent release dates from the Debian Powers that Be.
With all that bundled in, it would be nice if it came with an actual game. I am not buying the PSP to watch Spiderman.
I'll go out on a limb here--
Sony's bundling Spiderman 2 with the PSP to combat the exact kind of thinking you're presenting in your post - which is to say, that the PSP is a gaming machine. Despite what it will actually be, Sony wishes to instill within the target demographic the understanding that the PSP isn't a gaming machine, rather, a portable media device (or so I've inferred through various articles in game magazines). While I personally believe this is the bullshit-ery typical of Sony (recall the hype surrounding the PS2's prerelease about how it would function as a "media center" that downloaded movies and such nonsense that never fleshed out), Sony seems to be willing to throw lots of money at this vie for the non-exclusively-gaming market.
I personally think everyone will use the PSP strictly for gaming. I base this on the fact that multi-tasking portable devices, however superior they are to their competition, never seem to do well (see iPod vs. "iPod Killers" for proof) and also on the fact that, from personal observation, simpler devices (e.g., Palms and Blackberrys) tend to have a more stable grab on their market than more advanced media devices (like Pocket PCs). All of this from a US-centric perspective. I have no idea how Europeans feel about multi-purpose media devices.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it will fail because :
- Most people don't watch movies on their computer, and most people don't have media center PCs.
- Those that do probably already use something like iTunes, Amazon's Unbox, Vongo or CinemaNow or one of the many other services out there.
And since it doesn't appear that the movies can be burned to DVD, I don't see it becoming a bit hit with the mainstream. At no point do I see the consumer avoiding the service because of copy restrictions.Of course, I could be wrong.
...Well, when your boss catches you "expensing" such trivialities on the company credit card and subsequently relieves your holding of such a card therein, the experience becomes a bit of a financial strain...I want to know where you found a coke dealer that accepts credit cards.
Seriously.
Imagine the skymiles potential.
I actually had a pretty good time in Vegas - although I didn't really explore it outside of the casinos and downtown nightlife.
I lived in West Memphis for a time, and it is - by far - the most depressingly corrupt place I've ever been in the United States. To those who haven't visited, picture this - a city with poor blacks on one side of the interstate, poor whites on the other and a redneck, "good ol' boy" judicial system governing both. There are a handful of affluent spots in the city, but it's a mostly ghetto/trailer park-style city.
I say that to say this - I haven't seen the DVDs you mentioned, nor done intensive research, but from the articles I've read and stories I've heard, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if those guys are sitting in prison because of a botched investigation and urgency to close the case. From what I've been told and experienced, that attitude persists to this day in West Memphis.
It's really disappointing to me that Apple's efforts as a de facto liaison for legal online music sales are frequently met with criticism by people who seem to want something for nothing. I'm especially annoyed by people who insist on calling this kind of information tracking "DRM" - it really dilutes the term, and IMHO, diminishes from the serious issues associated with real DRM. Digg is rife with idiots whining about how Apple just needs to "trust" their users and how this sort of tracking "violates" their "privacy" (READ: Hinders their ability to indiscriminately share without any consequences).
For a lot of these people, the issue of FairPlay and DRM was never about playing their music under Linux or on their iRiver or whatever other legitimate issues DRM presented. It was about DRM doing exactly what it was designed to do - prevent mass-distribution of copyrighted material to non-licensees. So these people latched onto the anti-DRM movement as a means to an end. I submit to the community that we should NOT let these freeloaders taint the efforts made to solve legitimate issues with DRM. They will never be satisfied with Apple's or anyone elses efforts to address our concerns until iTMS sells all music in lossless FLACs at $.01/Megabyte with a personal liability waiver and distribution rights to 1000 of their closest Internet pals - and even then, they'll still torrent music, "just to see if I like it".
I never - in a million years - thought we'd see major label catalog, DRM-free music. And now some dweebs are giving RIAA execs ammo because they don't want to be held responsible for their actions. To said dweebs, please just go download your music with a torrent. You're ruining this for the rest of us. Oh yeah, and for the love of Christ, come off that "BUT WOT IF MY SISTAR SHAREZ IT ON P2P?? THEN WOTT??!?!" bullshit. Chances are, if you're savvy enough to care about the "privacy" associated with user data embedded into a binary file, you're savvy enough to take the precautions necessary to prevent your sister/roommate/friend from mass-distributing your music library.
Pangea... hmm, never heard of them. Anyone got a torrent?
I'm always slightly torn by posts like this. Fundamentally, I agree with the statement "Linux is safer [than Windows]". The problems set in when someone like the OP starts explaining his reasoning. For all the cries of "FUD!" by the typical Slashdotian Linux zealot, these people tend to make up more horseshit on a per-topic basis than any Microsoft-sponsored TCO report could hope to. And they get away with it. Gordonjcp, as someone who would like to see a an Open and Free environment like Linux proliferate in the enterprise market, I'm asking you - and people like you - to please stop. You're doing more harm than good.
Windows is not a dwindling minority. A cursory glance at NetCraft would show that not only does IIS have a noteworthy 31% of the marketshare, it's actually gaining market, while Apache is declining, rendering your original claim almost completely incorrect.
Windows does not have hundreds of unclosable ports. Please, cut that gimmick out. SP2 (included in the current boxed release of Windows) patched a great deal of the port issues and included a decent firewall for home users. Or were you referring to the original release of XP? If that's the route you were going, let me try it on the other end - "This whole Linux thing will never take off. It's not even compatible with common hardware! I just tried to install RedHat 7 on my workstation, and XFree86 wouldn't even start unless I was using 640x480 with the framebuffer driver!".
I wish to reiterate - I would like to see Linux gain ground and acceptance, but I simply cannot stand the hypocrisy of resorting to the FUD tactics of Microsoft. Outlining reasons to not use Windows is a fucking cakewalk without making things up.
Come on, people. Let's keep this a clean fight.
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It's actually been released, right?
FYI, Opie and Anthony broadcast on both XM and CBS' FreeFM in the mornings, and then switch over to an XM-exclusive portion of the show after a few hours. Of course the irony of Stern being replaced on FreeFM by the duo he gagged a couple years earlier is not lost on humble fence-sitters like myself. Regardless of who has the larger audience, I'm sure Howard is laughing all the way to the bank.
Does this tool work for Janus-locked files (commonly used in "ToGo" services)?
A little backdrop for context -
Like a lot of people, I travel a lot (commute to work, business trips, family, etc...). I have a Creative Zen Touch 40GB w/PlayForSure update that I've been pretty pleased with for the past year. However, last April I was doing my semi-annual reinstall of Windows on my Tablet PC. Being quite naive, I just assumed backing up My Music would be sufficient for license back-up -- after all, it contains the "My License Backup" folder. So you know, just going with that. Noooo sirreee, Rhapsody will have none of that. It informed me that each DRM'd file I had used with RhapsodyToGo didn't have a valid license or was corrupt. The only way I could get the files to update their licenses was to queue the files needing a license update for download, pause the download, then cancel the download. This worked great for files on my computer, but the licenses wouldn't transfer to my MP3 player. Additionally, my playlists were broken because of this mess. These inconveniences, coupled with the fact that I don't feel like browsing through Rhapsody's unresponsive IE-control and manually selecting the gigabytes of locked-up and unplayable files on my tablet and MP3 player forced me back to BitTorrent.
Words cannot capture how fucking frustrating it is to have a 5 hour drive ahead of you and be presented with a "No License To Play File" message when you try to play half the files on your MP3 player. No warning, no hint, not even a goddamn "License will expire in x days" message when I downloaded the file originally. Which brings me to another point -- I pay my RhapsodyToGo subscription quarterly, why the fuck should I have to update once a month? . Or put more accurately -- GUESS when I should have to update during the month, because that's part of the fun - YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT DAY THE FILES EXPIRE.
Anyways, I got kinda off track there. I simply downloaded MP3s and FLACs of the music I wanted and replaced most of the DRM'd horseshit, but certain artists (e.g., Robert Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson, Muddy Waters, hell even mainstream artists like Jeff Beck) are harder to find on P2P networks and BitTorrent trackers. So a tool which could unlock the files I've legitmately acquired would be really great.
If anyone from Microsoft or RealNetworks is reading this -- I'm trying to do the right thing, but you're making it so fucking difficult. It's almost as if you want me to pirate the music.
It always puzzles me when fellow "guitarists" act sort of snobbish towards Guitar Hero. These same people have no problem playing games like NBA Street and Burnout, but suddenly, when the game is about guitar, the utmost realism is demanded. Dude, being a good guitarist, like being a good race car driver or sports player, is hard and requires time, skill and motivation, and often times this is very frustrating and intimidating to newcomers. I've not spent a lot of time in demographic research, but something tells me most people wouldn't find that a fun idea for a game.
I'm a guitarist, and I like Guitar Hero. It's obviously very unrealistic, but I don't want that kind of realism in my games. I already spend many of my waking hours in that kind of realism, and if I ever want to spend more time in it, I can walk over, pick up one of my guitars and dive right back in. But if I want some instant gratification, entertaining, DDR-style gameplay with a novelty twist (say, a plastic guitar), Guitar Hero fits the bill.
Not to be a wet blanket or anything, but I'm completely missing the brilliance here. It seems like he's essentially selling rather overpriced banner-ad space, without any content to drive traffic or visitor click-throughs (I guess relying entirely on the notoriety of the site in the press?)
I'm having trouble understanding how firms would really think it's a wise investment to spend $x dollars advertising on a website that has zero draw. Who cares if the banner will be up there for 5 years if no one has incentive to visit the hosting website? I skimmed the FAQ, looking for promises of content or incentive for traffic, and here's all I found --
Um, "Why would millions of people visit this website?" would be a good follow-up question. I imagine that neither I nor many other people stay up in the wee hours of the night to watch collections of paid programming advertisements or flip straight to the adverstising section of a magazine. Why would I go to a website that is just a big billboard?
I checked out the "Testimonials", which I'm skeptical of, to say the least. Lots of references to making "Internet history". Maybe I'm just completely out of it, but I really don't see how pooling a shitload of static banner-ads onto one page constitutes "Internet history".
With all this in mind, I once again raise the question how this is "genius". Clever? Sure. Exploiting of ignorance and gimmicky? Possibly. Genius? No. At best, I would say this is a lucky flash-in-the-pan bit that will never work twice, unless browsing websites devoted entirely to advertising space becomes profoundly interesting in the future.
However, if I've overlooked some massive details, or I'm not making the appropriate connections, please tell me, because I'm still in disbelief that this works on any level. An MBA I am not, so if there's some sort of defined principles for what constitutes genius in the business world, it's lost on me. Or maybe this is genius of the P.T Barnum ilk? Regardless, if this site really is riding on the coattails of its own notoriety, I guess he deserves kudos for creating such a buzz (no matter how gimmicky and seemingly undeserving such buzz is), and at least he's using the money for college (or so it is stated), and not on a new mansion or something completely materialistic in value.
It knocks the fat out... in high-definition.
It seems some of your problems might be solved with a little help from the excellent Ubuntu Guide and Ubuntu Forums. Packages like DVD::Rip and avidemux sit in some repos that are turned off by default (at least DVD::Rip is; haven't checked avidemux as I pulled my deb install from a forum user). A quick edit to /etc/apt/sources.list and an apt-get update should help.
:)
Ubuntu Guide has a lot of great tutorials for practical tasks (e.g. -- getting DVD functionality to work, setting up DHCP client, installing nVidia drivers), and any questions I've had not found there I can usually find at the Ubuntu Wiki or the Ubuntu Forums. And it's all pretty much top-notch. The forum people and IRC people are really helpful and friendly too -- I've not encountered any of the sort of snobbery that I found in other distro support forums and channels *cough*Gentoo*cough*.
Totally agree with the kernel bit. One of the first things I do after an Ubuntu install is install a new kernel. So, if any Ubuntu devs are reading this, more kernel options for an install would be greatly appreciated kthx
Yes, but be warned that it will swiftly start clawing the flesh of your face off when it encounters a CSS margin-change directive.
BitRock.
I've not explored it much further than my own basic needs, but it seems to meet the criteria you've listed.
Screenies
Comparison to InstallShield.
Overview (highlighting some of your concerns)
Hope this helps.
Dvorak article in 3...2...1...
If the turtles are all operating within a maize field pipeline, does that make it one big asychronous KORN shell? :)
Okey. I'm trying hard to understand what you're saying, really, I am. I like to go with the Slashdot anti-patent/Free Software belief system when I can, but what you're saying is just silly. I mean, let's not get too caught up in the emotion of our own beliefs to start speaking falsities into being, okey?
When will the execs stop wasting their money on all this ineffective DRM "technology"?
Wha? As soon as it stops being profitable and effective! If you want to combat DRM, do so by telling people how their rights are being restricted by purchasing music from iTunes or Napster, not by pretending they're not effective. iTunes has sold 100,000,000+ songs, with this "ineffective DRM".Napster is growing fast, and profitably using this "ineffective DRM". And plenty of people are happy with their rights being restricted.
If it can be seen, it can be copied.
Yes, maybe in the province of Speare, but back here in the US, right or wrong, there are laws against such things. Again, try to avoid speaking things into being -- it only alienates you further from the people you're trying persuade to your argument.
The profit comes from producing a complete package experience with liner notes and pride-of-bookshelf, not just the (approximate) digital waveform.
This cannot be true. Why would services like Rhapsody, Napster and iTunes prevail if profit wouldn't come through digital waveform? But this is beside the point -- if there's no profit to be had in selling digital copies of music, what chance does that leave that we'll ever see music sold in a non-DRM'd format? I'm sorry -- I couldn't hear you over the crickets chirping.
I'm on your team; I'm not a fan of DRM and would rather it not exist. But if we're going to motivate people to quit using DRM-encumbered products, we're going to have to engage them on a rational playing field. Instead of saying the technology is "ineffective" and that profit does not lie in selling music digitally, we should instead take people back to the roots of the Free Software movement, to the roots of the country -- that is, personal rights. Obviously many of those rights are violated, but simply speaking those rights into being won't stop lawsuits. The more we chant "FUCK THE **IAA!!", "M$ IS EVIL" and "McBrid HAS SEX W/ BABY GOATS", the more radical and less appealing we seem. What we, as a collective movement, need to do is be cool -- if your neighbors, friends and family see you as a normal person who also happens to care about his rights being violated, they may approach it with a more open mind than if they see you as a zealous hippy bent on on the downfall of modern enterprise as they see it.
Um, yes there has been.
Sony even had PSPs on display at E3 last year showing the trailer for it.
How you and the submitter missed all this is beyond me.
I believe there's a perceived misconception about open-source efforts that, by virtue of being open-source, every free software developer in the world must be working on that project. That's what I was getting at in the previous post (hence the "in theory" bit). Obviously, this is not the case, but it won't stop companies like Microsoft from purveying this idea in a way that's to their advantage.
I think people expect more out of open-source projects. Since you can, in theory, have many many times the manpower of a corporation that thrives on closed-source development (such as Microsoft), many people assume that quicker release cycles should follow. While I agree somewhat with that notion, I don't think the lack of frequent releases is indicative of laziness or any other such nonsense that I see from time to time on Slashdot and other forums. It's not laziness; it's a commitment to stability and order. While I tend to stick with more mainstream Linux distros for enterprise tasks, I have colleagues who swear by Debian's stability, order and ease of maintenance.
Frankly, Debian has always come across to me as a more enterprise-ready distro than, say, Gentoo or Mandrake (going off of personal experience). The kind of people I know who use Debian aren't the ones looking for the latest X.org packages so they can play Doom III or have terminal transparency. They're the kind who don't give a rip about what version of KDE comes stock, as they'll be using Debian mostly from an SSH term anyways. I think efforts like the Ubuntu project are a more appropriate approach to a modern desktop-ready Debian than pressuring for more frequent release dates from the Debian Powers that Be.
Sony's bundling Spiderman 2 with the PSP to combat the exact kind of thinking you're presenting in your post - which is to say, that the PSP is a gaming machine. Despite what it will actually be, Sony wishes to instill within the target demographic the understanding that the PSP isn't a gaming machine, rather, a portable media device (or so I've inferred through various articles in game magazines). While I personally believe this is the bullshit-ery typical of Sony (recall the hype surrounding the PS2's prerelease about how it would function as a "media center" that downloaded movies and such nonsense that never fleshed out), Sony seems to be willing to throw lots of money at this vie for the non-exclusively-gaming market.
I personally think everyone will use the PSP strictly for gaming. I base this on the fact that multi-tasking portable devices, however superior they are to their competition, never seem to do well (see iPod vs. "iPod Killers" for proof) and also on the fact that, from personal observation, simpler devices (e.g., Palms and Blackberrys) tend to have a more stable grab on their market than more advanced media devices (like Pocket PCs). All of this from a US-centric perspective. I have no idea how Europeans feel about multi-purpose media devices.
It'll be interesting to watch.