I see your point, but everything is already out there now. Selling mp3's wouldn't result in more free music on the net because that market is already saturated.
First I warned everyone, normally I agree and try very hard not to swear in posts. Normally I use @#$@#$ and stuff like that to indicate swearing (err intense feeling:). But I am very passionate about this and thought I'd go more stream of consciousness than measured response for this posting. Note, I did so knowing that I had a favorable audience for this. Had my post been an open letter to the RIAA swearing would have sealed the deal and my letter would be thrown out.
Second, my son doesn't get to read/. I believe in the future he'll probably have his own account, but he's a little young right now.
Third, I hear you on the leet speak;). And on the message there as well:). But to be honest is that what is truly baffling is that if the RIAA actually just lightened up and gave their customers what they want, they would make more money!! That is why I call it stupidity and not corruption (although the corruption could be the key factor in what is causing them to be stupid).
They may win this war, but its the wrong war. They may yet be retarded enough to lose the REAL war.
I currently do not let my son download music illegally. He is allowed to buy off of iTunes with prepaid cards, and cannot use bittorrent, or any other p2p. Now I know someday, he'll be able to use these without my knowledge and thats fine. But what I'm doing is explaining to him why leagally obtaining music is the right thing to do. I also however expalain in detail that the RIAA is possibly the largest bunch of idiotic half wits on the entire planet. My eplaination basiclly goes "iTunes uses DRM at the behest of the music industry, but its not too invasive and can be removed simply by burning a CD and reimporting (lossy I know), but it doesn't bind the user too much and the price is reasonable (unlike Apples movies which we won't buy)". I also tell him that iTunes would lose every cent of our business if someone started selling unDRMed mp3s for the same (or lower price). Now allofmp3.com fits that bill but as this story shows, their legality is in question. But the RIAA is overplaying its hand!! (Sorry I'm going to yell and swear now, but can't help it). Those fucking bastards keep going after allofmp3, keep pressuring Apple to raise prices, and keep trying to get other sites with even worse DRM than fairplay fired up!! Dammit RIAA all you have to do to win the entire fucking market and make these same billions of dollars you sue everyone for is OFFER FUCKING DRM FREE MUSIC FROM YOUR OWN SITES AT THE PRICE APPLE HAS ALREADY DETERMINED WILL WORK!!!!! I mean I could steal everything for just a little bit more effort than buying from iTunes. I don't, I try to do whats right, but my patience is wearing thin, very thin.
This is a warning to the RIAA, keep this shit up and you'll make it way to easy for everyone to justify stealing from you because you are just too fucking evil. And I'll tell my son stealing from you is ok too because an group of soulless, vile, repugnant, people like you don't deserve any of our money or our respect.
Whether they treat the demand side of the problem (by segregating off abusers into their own "separate but equal" healthcare system)
Wow! that is mindblowing. Apparently civil rights are great except when allowing them is more costly, right??
Now consider this fact, blacks have a higher incidence of heart disease, does that mean they'll get treated to "separate but equal" again with federal healthcare? Forget that!!!
My position is this: If the feds want nationalized health care, then suck up the costs no matter what we do. If they want to pay for our health care fine, but its in for a penny in for a pound.
How about this small change to a very famous quote:
"Those would would trade a little liberty for a free lunch deserve neither." - Me
Considering how many of the people in the states of New York and Washinton have their health care paid for by the state, typically the elderly and infirm who are receiving expensive treatments for the effects of trans-fats and smoking, these bans seem to be a justified cost-saving measure to me.
And that is why total government health care is such a BAD idea. It would give government unheard of control over your life. It would instantly make every item on this list insignificant (and they are significant) compared to what the government would be able to force you to do or not do because it would "keep costs down".
Yeah, Adama's actions seem cold (you do know however that he WILL back down anyway), but ask youself this. If the series were actually real and a very powerful force we about to find Earth, what action would you want? You'd want to see the nukes fly, and for Earth to be safe.
You see, so much of this depends (as some other sci-fi show once said) on you point of view....
Sure, there are social benefits to space exploration, but maybe people just want their tax dollars to go towards fixing the problems we have here on earth now. Leave space for private companies for now.
Well, when you bring taxes into this, the space program becomes a bargain for what it can do and the advancements in science and technology that it generates.
With respect to problems here on Earth now, taxes are going to be the biggest problem out there. The social programs that ostensibly fix those problems on earth are setting up to cause a major collapse of the government.
I have the exact opposite viewpoint from yours. Lets spend our taxes on exploration, science, and technology, and abandon our misguided notion that we can take care of everyone after they reach a certain age, because eventually it will cost us all of our taxes just to attempt to do that.
Yes, I did just say I want no part in Social Security and would forfeit any benefits I'd receive. However, I also believe that I won't even get a choice anyway. I'm just disappointed that many many things I like, like space exploration, will be eliminated while our government tries to keep the sacred cow alive just a little bit longer.
I'm just curious which "sides" you're talking about. It sounds like you're saying there's some clear line where scientists disagree. My understanding is that disagreement exists on subtler points, but not on whether human activity contributes to global warming. (Unless there's some disagreement about the principle of cause-and-effect I'm unaware of...?)
You state that everyone agrees that human activity contributes to global warming. That's actually exactly where the disagreements are. The point where disagreement doesn't exist for is that global warming is happening.
The influence of man on global warming is a very contentious point, and rightfully so, because there are a lot of things that impact global warming. As stated before both sides have messed with their data to prove a specific point.
With respect to your cause and effect statement, I have to say that correlation does not equal causation. There are many, many factors that affect global warming, and we still have a lot to learn about it.
What bothers me with respect to politics and global warming, is that all the solutions seem to be big government and socialism. Basically all the solutions espouse only one political philosophy.
Look you want to get people excited about science? You want to foster a new generation of scientists? Here you go:
Project #1: Develop a car that does not run on fossil fuels!
Project #2: Make America energy independent!
Instead of pouring billions of dollars are stupid space programs to go to the moon and mars, let's pour billions of dollars into problems that we can solve right now, instead of waiting another 30 years to say, "We need to be energy independent."
Energy independence is a big enough subject that draw upon diverse areas of studies. The point is this is the 21st centuries space race. Stop ignoring the problems that are staring you right in the face for pie in the sky pipe dreams - there are no green alien space women who are going to have sex with you!
Here's the problem with your arguments (and I won't even stoop to calling you names!).
Look at what you stated, and then look at who is _really_ interested in that. What kids really, really want a green car and energy independence for America? Most of them are socially liberal students who want to "Change the World". Now, really there's nothing wrong with that. But the problem I see is that culturally a lot of kids identify with exactly what you said and really agree with you, BUT, those kids don't want to go into science!! Most of them seem to much prefer politics. If you can figure out how to get the kids I'm talking about interested in science so that they can actually make these things happen, great. Right now they want the problem to be solved by someone, namely the government. Thats fine, but really most of them don't have enough real interest to do the science that will need to be done.
Also, the space program has generated a lot of scientific advancement and actually can contribute to solutions for both projects you mention. To be really ambitious, in the future, I truly hope terraforming Mars is a science we will eventually need to develop. In order to do that we would truly need to generate a lot more understanding about planetary environments, something that could help us right now with climate issues on Earth (which I'm sure is another issue you are interested in).
There are actually a lot of kids interested in science, the problem is that when they get to the University level and try to be Math/Physics/Engineering majors there is a whole host of classes waiting to fail them. I go to a well-respected major state university and both our Physics and Chemistry classes weed more than 60% of young prospects out.
Then they're just not interested enough.
I know this is sounds really harsh. Kids do not need to just be interested in science to get more scientists and engineers, they need to be interested enough to really commit themselves to it.
That is why "weed out" classes exist. To get rid of those not committed enough.
Our problem is cultural, there's such an anti-intellectual problem in schools and the rest of society, actively encourage exploration (you know, the heart of science) throughout the development of today's youth, and within one generation we'll be sorted.
Amen to that. Now contrast what you just said and what the article said with this:
Earlier in the week/. had a story about NASA's new mission to the moon. A lot of conjecture in the comments was about if it would get enough funding. Now this story talks about funding contests and other shit like that. Bzzzt wrong answer. What the government should fund to get kids interested in science again (and as per your point exploration) is the Moon mission. We have to see exploration in scientific frontiers as the way to the future and I believe the kids will follow suit and learn this stuff.
Now contrast this with the worry (belief) in the Moon mission story that the project will be cut in order to spend the money on social programs. Well if the government does that why the hell should they complain about lack of kids going into the sciences? They themselves will be saying that science isn't a big interest for the country. So kids, why not go to school to be a social worker, we'll need lots of those in the future.
This isn't to say that industry won't need scientific types in the future, they will. But when your talking about influencing the next generation, something big like going back to the Moon, and to Mars is the best way to do that. Its the true building block for that spirit of exploration and adventure, that the parent post so rightly assumes we need to get back.
I know they know what OS they're being installed on. I just don't think they should waste the effort to have the installer pick the theme to go with your OS and include a different one for each OS. I'd rather they put the time and effort into functionality and not the default theme. I always get a different theme and am confident that if an OS specific theme were selected FOR me, I'd still probably get something different.
Anyway the basic point is bitching about the freaking default theme for Firefox is ridiculous.
Prove to them that their actions are potentially dangerous to them: send them emails with Trojans and steal their passwords. When they turn to you and say "whahappin?!" just tell them that you did it and even though they're ok this time, next time it might not be you. People respond to fear.
Of course, don't do that if you want to actually get _nice_ Christmas presents this year!!
I know. I was being not quite as sarcastic. As another response said all those countries I mentioned would not be on a UN committee overseeing the internet at the same time, but I personally don't want any of them to have any say about the internet.
I can't wait for the UN. I can't wait for them to start shutting down sites with "hate" speech, what ever the hell that will finally be defined as.
Being the UN, I'm sure it would be defined by a committee. Thats not so bad is it? Its not like the committee could ever be made up of China, Cuba, Libya, Iran, and North Korea, right?
For everything bad the US _could_ do, there are many many things that members of the UN _would_ do if they could get their hands on regulating the internet.
And as for how the current US administration pertains to internet regulation, I say it would only really be time to hand over control of the internet when the day comes when you can't find millions of things on the web criticizing and complaining about them anymore.
Then why is it in this story he give private industry credit for the internet?
Private industry may well have enhanced, added to, and populated much of the internet, but they never, ever would have created it in a million years. The government laid all the foundations and Gore should know this.
Personally I agree that private industry needs to get into the space business, but I don't think the profits are there yet to make that happen. We'll have to see what happens with Virgin Galactic and then what happens after that.
The last sentence is the key (to the Zune's loss of potential).
If songs received wireless cannot be shared, then it cannot be viral. That is a huge limitation that will bite them.
If it really were viral, it would have some tremendous potential to change the music scene. A small, unknown band that has a rabid fanbase could start sharing their songs. If people like it, they would share it with their friends, etc. A previously unknown band could suddenly be a hit (assuming the music was good enough to spread) and be on everyone's music list. Requiring people at each level to buy the song before they can share it will severely suppress the spreading of new and interesting music.
You are completely correct. I can't recall any feature for a product being rendered so totally worthless by the application of DRM. Wireless file sharing is an awesome feature. Automatic addition of DRM to all wirelessly shared music however, essentially iradicates this feature.
You have a couple of different options. You can run the frontend for Myth on the Mac, or you can get the mpeg-2 decoder for quicktime, nfs mount you mythbox location for your shows and watch your shows in frontrow.
The frontend is my favorite approach because then you get the wonderful benefit of automatic commercial skip.
Slashdot Mirror
I see your point, but everything is already out there now. Selling mp3's wouldn't result in more free music on the net because that market is already saturated.
First I warned everyone, normally I agree and try very hard not to swear in posts. Normally I use @#$@#$ and stuff like that to indicate swearing (err intense feeling :). But I am very passionate about this and thought I'd go more stream of consciousness than measured response for this posting. Note, I did so knowing that I had a favorable audience for this. Had my post been an open letter to the RIAA swearing would have sealed the deal and my letter would be thrown out.
/. I believe in the future he'll probably have his own account, but he's a little young right now.
;). And on the message there as well :). But to be honest is that what is truly baffling is that if the RIAA actually just lightened up and gave their customers what they want, they would make more money!! That is why I call it stupidity and not corruption (although the corruption could be the key factor in what is causing them to be stupid).
Second, my son doesn't get to read
Third, I hear you on the leet speak
They may win this war, but its the wrong war. They may yet be retarded enough to lose the REAL war.
I currently do not let my son download music illegally. He is allowed to buy off of iTunes with prepaid cards, and cannot use bittorrent, or any other p2p. Now I know someday, he'll be able to use these without my knowledge and thats fine. But what I'm doing is explaining to him why leagally obtaining music is the right thing to do. I also however expalain in detail that the RIAA is possibly the largest bunch of idiotic half wits on the entire planet. My eplaination basiclly goes "iTunes uses DRM at the behest of the music industry, but its not too invasive and can be removed simply by burning a CD and reimporting (lossy I know), but it doesn't bind the user too much and the price is reasonable (unlike Apples movies which we won't buy)". I also tell him that iTunes would lose every cent of our business if someone started selling unDRMed mp3s for the same (or lower price). Now allofmp3.com fits that bill but as this story shows, their legality is in question. But the RIAA is overplaying its hand!! (Sorry I'm going to yell and swear now, but can't help it). Those fucking bastards keep going after allofmp3, keep pressuring Apple to raise prices, and keep trying to get other sites with even worse DRM than fairplay fired up!! Dammit RIAA all you have to do to win the entire fucking market and make these same billions of dollars you sue everyone for is OFFER FUCKING DRM FREE MUSIC FROM YOUR OWN SITES AT THE PRICE APPLE HAS ALREADY DETERMINED WILL WORK!!!!! I mean I could steal everything for just a little bit more effort than buying from iTunes. I don't, I try to do whats right, but my patience is wearing thin, very thin.
This is a warning to the RIAA, keep this shit up and you'll make it way to easy for everyone to justify stealing from you because you are just too fucking evil. And I'll tell my son stealing from you is ok too because an group of soulless, vile, repugnant, people like you don't deserve any of our money or our respect.
We have large reserves of oil as well, but in what can only be economic insanity, we don't drill for them!!
Whether they treat the demand side of the problem (by segregating off abusers into their own "separate but equal" healthcare system)
Wow! that is mindblowing. Apparently civil rights are great except when allowing them is more costly, right??
Now consider this fact, blacks have a higher incidence of heart disease, does that mean they'll get treated to "separate but equal" again with federal healthcare? Forget that!!!
My position is this: If the feds want nationalized health care, then suck up the costs no matter what we do. If they want to pay for our health care fine, but its in for a penny in for a pound.
How about this small change to a very famous quote:
"Those would would trade a little liberty for a free lunch deserve neither." - Me
Considering how many of the people in the states of New York and Washinton have their health care paid for by the state, typically the elderly and infirm who are receiving expensive treatments for the effects of trans-fats and smoking, these bans seem to be a justified cost-saving measure to me.
And that is why total government health care is such a BAD idea. It would give government unheard of control over your life. It would instantly make every item on this list insignificant (and they are significant) compared to what the government would be able to force you to do or not do because it would "keep costs down".
Yeah, Adama's actions seem cold (you do know however that he WILL back down anyway), but ask youself this. If the series were actually real and a very powerful force we about to find Earth, what action would you want? You'd want to see the nukes fly, and for Earth to be safe.
You see, so much of this depends (as some other sci-fi show once said) on you point of view....
Sure, there are social benefits to space exploration, but maybe people just want their tax dollars to go towards fixing the problems we have here on earth now. Leave space for private companies for now.
Well, when you bring taxes into this, the space program becomes a bargain for what it can do and the advancements in science and technology that it generates.
With respect to problems here on Earth now, taxes are going to be the biggest problem out there. The social programs that ostensibly fix those problems on earth are setting up to cause a major collapse of the government.
I have the exact opposite viewpoint from yours. Lets spend our taxes on exploration, science, and technology, and abandon our misguided notion that we can take care of everyone after they reach a certain age, because eventually it will cost us all of our taxes just to attempt to do that.
Yes, I did just say I want no part in Social Security and would forfeit any benefits I'd receive. However, I also believe that I won't even get a choice anyway. I'm just disappointed that many many things I like, like space exploration, will be eliminated while our government tries to keep the sacred cow alive just a little bit longer.
I'm just curious which "sides" you're talking about. It sounds like you're saying there's some clear line where scientists disagree. My understanding is that disagreement exists on subtler points, but not on whether human activity contributes to global warming. (Unless there's some disagreement about the principle of cause-and-effect I'm unaware of...?)
You state that everyone agrees that human activity contributes to global warming. That's actually exactly where the disagreements are. The point where disagreement doesn't exist for is that global warming is happening.
The influence of man on global warming is a very contentious point, and rightfully so, because there are a lot of things that impact global warming. As stated before both sides have messed with their data to prove a specific point.
With respect to your cause and effect statement, I have to say that correlation does not equal causation. There are many, many factors that affect global warming, and we still have a lot to learn about it.
What bothers me with respect to politics and global warming, is that all the solutions seem to be big government and socialism. Basically all the solutions espouse only one political philosophy.
Look you want to get people excited about science? You want to foster a new generation of scientists? Here you go:
Project #1: Develop a car that does not run on fossil fuels!
Project #2: Make America energy independent!
Instead of pouring billions of dollars are stupid space programs to go to the moon and mars, let's pour billions of dollars into problems that we can solve right now, instead of waiting another 30 years to say, "We need to be energy independent."
Energy independence is a big enough subject that draw upon diverse areas of studies. The point is this is the 21st centuries space race. Stop ignoring the problems that are staring you right in the face for pie in the sky pipe dreams - there are no green alien space women who are going to have sex with you!
Here's the problem with your arguments (and I won't even stoop to calling you names!).
Look at what you stated, and then look at who is _really_ interested in that. What kids really, really want a green car and energy independence for America? Most of them are socially liberal students who want to "Change the World". Now, really there's nothing wrong with that. But the problem I see is that culturally a lot of kids identify with exactly what you said and really agree with you, BUT, those kids don't want to go into science!! Most of them seem to much prefer politics. If you can figure out how to get the kids I'm talking about interested in science so that they can actually make these things happen, great. Right now they want the problem to be solved by someone, namely the government. Thats fine, but really most of them don't have enough real interest to do the science that will need to be done.
Also, the space program has generated a lot of scientific advancement and actually can contribute to solutions for both projects you mention. To be really ambitious, in the future, I truly hope terraforming Mars is a science we will eventually need to develop. In order to do that we would truly need to generate a lot more understanding about planetary environments, something that could help us right now with climate issues on Earth (which I'm sure is another issue you are interested in).
There are actually a lot of kids interested in science, the problem is that when they get to the University level and try to be Math/Physics/Engineering majors there is a whole host of classes waiting to fail them. I go to a well-respected major state university and both our Physics and Chemistry classes weed more than 60% of young prospects out.
Then they're just not interested enough.
I know this is sounds really harsh. Kids do not need to just be interested in science to get more scientists and engineers, they need to be interested enough to really commit themselves to it.
That is why "weed out" classes exist. To get rid of those not committed enough.
Our problem is cultural, there's such an anti-intellectual problem in schools and the rest of society, actively encourage exploration (you know, the heart of science) throughout the development of today's youth, and within one generation we'll be sorted.
/. had a story about NASA's new mission to the moon. A lot of conjecture in the comments was about if it would get enough funding. Now this story talks about funding contests and other shit like that. Bzzzt wrong answer. What the government should fund to get kids interested in science again (and as per your point exploration) is the Moon mission. We have to see exploration in scientific frontiers as the way to the future and I believe the kids will follow suit and learn this stuff.
Amen to that. Now contrast what you just said and what the article said with this:
Earlier in the week
Now contrast this with the worry (belief) in the Moon mission story that the project will be cut in order to spend the money on social programs. Well if the government does that why the hell should they complain about lack of kids going into the sciences? They themselves will be saying that science isn't a big interest for the country. So kids, why not go to school to be a social worker, we'll need lots of those in the future.
This isn't to say that industry won't need scientific types in the future, they will. But when your talking about influencing the next generation, something big like going back to the Moon, and to Mars is the best way to do that. Its the true building block for that spirit of exploration and adventure, that the parent post so rightly assumes we need to get back.
Check out Oxygen, its a cross platform XML editor.
http://www.oxygenxml.com/
I know they know what OS they're being installed on. I just don't think they should waste the effort to have the installer pick the theme to go with your OS and include a different one for each OS. I'd rather they put the time and effort into functionality and not the default theme. I always get a different theme and am confident that if an OS specific theme were selected FOR me, I'd still probably get something different.
Anyway the basic point is bitching about the freaking default theme for Firefox is ridiculous.
The default theme is the user's introduction to the browser. It should have the look and feel of his native GUI.
OK, which platform's native GUI should they use? A native windows GUI look would look like shit on OS X.
Or you could just get them to switch to OS X..... Much fewer steps.
Prove to them that their actions are potentially dangerous to them: send them emails with Trojans and steal their passwords. When they turn to you and say "whahappin?!" just tell them that you did it and even though they're ok this time, next time it might not be you. People respond to fear.
Of course, don't do that if you want to actually get _nice_ Christmas presents this year!!
I know. I was being not quite as sarcastic. As another response said all those countries I mentioned would not be on a UN committee overseeing the internet at the same time, but I personally don't want any of them to have any say about the internet.
I can't wait for the UN. I can't wait for them to start shutting down sites with "hate" speech, what ever the hell that will finally be defined as.
Being the UN, I'm sure it would be defined by a committee. Thats not so bad is it? Its not like the committee could ever be made up of China, Cuba, Libya, Iran, and North Korea, right?
For everything bad the US _could_ do, there are many many things that members of the UN _would_ do if they could get their hands on regulating the internet.
And as for how the current US administration pertains to internet regulation, I say it would only really be time to hand over control of the internet when the day comes when you can't find millions of things on the web criticizing and complaining about them anymore.
Testosterone really has nothing to do with whether a child is a girl or a boy, it has more to do with having the drive to even procreate at all.
Ok, I'll agree with everything you said.
Then why is it in this story he give private industry credit for the internet?
Private industry may well have enhanced, added to, and populated much of the internet, but they never, ever would have created it in a million years. The government laid all the foundations and Gore should know this.
Personally I agree that private industry needs to get into the space business, but I don't think the profits are there yet to make that happen. We'll have to see what happens with Virgin Galactic and then what happens after that.
The last sentence is the key (to the Zune's loss of potential).
If songs received wireless cannot be shared, then it cannot be viral. That is a huge limitation that will bite them.
If it really were viral, it would have some tremendous potential to change the music scene. A small, unknown band that has a rabid fanbase could start sharing their songs. If people like it, they would share it with their friends, etc. A previously unknown band could suddenly be a hit (assuming the music was good enough to spread) and be on everyone's music list.
Requiring people at each level to buy the song before they can share it will severely suppress the spreading of new and interesting music.
You are completely correct. I can't recall any feature for a product being rendered so totally worthless by the application of DRM. Wireless file sharing is an awesome feature. Automatic addition of DRM to all wirelessly shared music however, essentially iradicates this feature.
Lack of WiFi doesn't bother me. What would you use it for? Syncing?
If I'm close enough to sync I can plug in. I need to charge anyway.
WiFi would be cool for sharing music, but the music industry would never allow THAT.
No link. You can find info about it at http://wiki.mythtv.org/
That is if the slashdotting is over....
Cool. How do you view the shows on your Mac?
You have a couple of different options. You can run the frontend for Myth on the Mac, or you can get the mpeg-2 decoder for quicktime, nfs mount you mythbox location for your shows and watch your shows in frontrow.
The frontend is my favorite approach because then you get the wonderful benefit of automatic commercial skip.