Isn't this behavior outside their mission statement? If Google's just going to be another patent farm and start using geniuses to come up with obvious ideas, I'd hardly call that not being evil . . . but that's just me.
Correct, this is a very hard to grasp concept. Why would anyone do anything if not for power, money or sex? Perhaps for the betterment of the world? Perhaps for innovation itself? Perhaps because it's a passion, a way to contribute to the progress of mankind without blowing something up or overpopulating the planet, etc. Open Source software is more secure by default.
I may eat my words, as never is a harsh word . . . but I do believe that we will never see Firefox suffer from the amount of malware that IE is susceptible to.
Obviously you don't understand the strength of Open Source software in combating these issues . . .
I'm not going to be redundant and go into it here, but you should take a look at this article and you may agree that it is in fact better for the source to be open with regards to security.
We live in a world with International trade, and nice little marketplaces like eBay. Surely if you're paying $4k for a drive in taxes, you'll just hop on eBay and buy the drive from the US for $19 bucks? Does this insane tax happen when items arrive via airmail, or just at the point of sale?
I've had Rhapsody since they just about came out. It's mainly streaming, not DRM'd, unless you download the song to disk. Think of it as a jukebox that you pay $9.95 per month that has just about every song you've ever heard available on it. Now it doesn't sound so bad! I've got my system at home, work, and at a couple of friend's house. They let you install it on 5 machines. At home, I've got it hooked up to a wireless router, which serves music to my stereo system via analog conversion. (of course, now you can see a way to un-DRM it . . . ) As of yesterday, I can download the songs locally so I don't have to stream them. Sure, I've got to have the service to listen to them, but I can burn them on CDs and take them to any of the 5 systems I've got Rhapsody installed on. I'll never understand why slashdotters are so anxious to rip shit they haven't even tried . . .
don't want to listen to intelligent and creative music played through $40 speakers at a smoky, dirty, bar
Hmmm . . . The Aggie Theatre here in Fort Collins, Colorado (US) holds at least a thousand people, tickets range from $2.00 to $30.00+ for a show, there is not smoking, the sound system is decent! What about The Fox in Boulder, or The Fillmore in Denver. There are a lot of venues here in Colorado - and there are a lot of larger, unsigned indie bands . . . well maybe not a lot but there could be if people would support the movement more! Perhaps artists should notice that when they get unpopular, they wind up playing these venues anyway.
But heh, you're right. Most people don't care. Perhaps it's because most people don't realize the extent of what is happening. This is much more than about the music. This is about our rights as individuals, the right not to have everything we do, the ideas we trade, etc. stomped on by large companies that have only the goal of maintaining revenue.
100% of $500 is $500, 6% of $1,000,000 is $60,000... there's a reason bands sell out to "the man"
This ignorant statement shows me about how much you really know about this scene. The performers get far more than $500.00 for a large show, maybe they get $500.00 for a bar night, but playing in a theatre fetches a much better pay, it simply depends on HOW MANY PEOPLE COME and listen to your music. On the independant scene, this often means your music actually has to be good, since the money to market it to 12 year olds isn't there.
Your point is valid, but what we need here is balls. People will have to not buy their favorite artist if their artist signed on with the industry players which the RIAA represents. We all have choices in life, and some of them suck. I assure you that the longer this goes on, the more we will lose.
Don't you understand that no one is winning? We are not only getting the music taken away and sued, but lobbyists are pushing for new laws, things are even included in the patriot act that help the RIAA get your information! We're losing our rights as Americans (whats left of them after 9-11 anyway). Do you consider these kids in college terrorists? It's just stupid, and the longer we sit here and take it the more its going to hurt when they pull out and we look at the damage done to our rights, freedom and the music industry.
Ok, there is a way to beat this cartel at their own game. It's like diamonds, similarly run by cartels. You see, when a person gives their whole life mining nice, beautiful diamonds, they get only pennies . . . the pay for the people actually producing the diamonds is very little. The cartel that runs the industry, and the owners of the diamond companies make all the money.
Music, unlike diamonds, does not rely on a natural resource. I've yet to figure out why the hell people just don't switch to independent music. You'd be amazed at how good this type of music really is. You can go to a show for $0.00 to $10.00, RECORD it if you want, TRADE it at will usually, and the MAJORITY of the money goes to the artists!
The key here is that the MUSIC INDUSTRY is SUING the people IN COLLEGE who should simply REVOLUTIONIZE the industry! Go to your local jam band concerts, frequent the college shows, screw the big labels, use your own mind and broaden it. If the money goes independent, then so will the artists. And the artists who want to keep making sixty cents for every ten bucks their parent company makes can go right ahead. They're done getting my money.
Hmmm . . . so when I'm online and streaming Real Rhapsody at 128 kbps, while downloading the latest OpenOffice.org beta AND broadcasting my connection via a wireless router so my stereo upstairs can stream music as well I'll be reported??
Has it ever occured to this ignorant cartel that perhaps people download things besides music? I'm so pissed off at the music industry anymore that I only listen to public radio stations like NPR and my local University's station.
You wouldn't believe how much better music actually sounds when it comes from an artist instead of a billfold.
Exactly. Throughout history we have passed things from generation to generation. During this generation the practice has clearly gone digital.
We're not talking about mass produced music cd's, we're talking about once in a lifetime events. History. If this pace keeps up, we may lose our rights to make or transfer a lot of our history to future generations.
If the artist allows it, it should be permitted. Especially when the industry isn't even offering the goods for sale!
I sure wish someone would grow some ballz one of these days and stand up for their right to free speech. Doesn't anyone have hosting to offer? This site was the only legit way to download music, and now it's over. Artists give permission for CD-trading of live shows - attorney sends letter to an ISP - now music is gone? Get another ISP, quite letting these cartels control our access to entertainment. We are people, not sheep.
If we really cared . . . there wouldn't have been a whole bunch of "Viva Bush" billboards all along the New Mexica and Arizona border crossing regions. Ever really wonder why the number of illegals entering our country has increased since Bush has been in office?
I bought one five minutes after they launched here in northern Colorado.
I love it, it's beautiful. It feels EXTREMELY solid, mine only had ONE dead pixel, and it's dead on, not dead off which doesn't seem that distractive.
The volume is surprisingly loud via the speaker.
The UI is the most ingenius GUI ever, reminds me a little of the Danger Sidekick's GUI.
Best Buy had a line setup and a large quantity of these . . . I don't think they'll sell out too quickly here.
Oh . . . I almost forgot. I gotta PSP, mwaaa, mwahahah, mwaaaahahahhahahah.
Yeah, my post sucks . . . but heh, ever since I said I hate microsoft in my sig, I've been modded down anyway. Guess when it comes to Slashdot's biggest source of funding you shouldn't talk smack!
I guess it depends on what is considered abuse. Since Paypal was sued and lost millions because it allowed people to use its service to pay for online poker and gaming. They were sued due to the Patriot Act. (institutions aiding in the transfer of funds used for illegal purposes)
Furthermore, the RIAA is MUCH MUCH stronger now due to the Patriot Act, since individuals downloading music are terrorists, they have the right to obtain search warrants now and track you down through your ip address. Thank God for the Patriot Act! Way to keep those 13 year old music download terrorists at bay! This IS TRUE, the Patriot Act enables the RIAA to charge unknown people with crimes, and THEN find out who did the crime later.
I think we should be careful when we allow a law that takes away our Constitutional rights. We must make a stand and let people know that it is not right. The Patriot Act has done much more harm than good as far as I can see, it has furthered the Corporate agenda in this country, but done little to get rid of terrorism.
Here we see yet another example of Microsoft ruining an entire industry, in order to avoid fixing a problem themselves. We must look at the history of the spyware problem first, to see what really happened.
Spyware has been around for a long time. Microsoft knew about it, they saw it and even were around to watch an entire industry spring up to combat the spyware. Initially they did nothing, simply patched their operatins system occasionally and watched as companies begin to spring up offering combative services to spyware infiltration.
Once an established group of companies, which were both competent and profitable begin showing up, Microsoft started eyeing who to buy. They had discussions with many companies, including Giant and Webroot. They even made Webroot an offer, which was countered and finally rejected by Microsoft. Only then did they decide on Giant (perhaps it was cheaper - not better).
Now, instead of charging they are going to give it away free!! This is awful, and at the very least extremely anti-competitive. It would be one thing if they changed the operating system to be strong enough to eliminate attacks, but buying out an element of an industry they are not involved in (other than having created the need) and then GIVING IT AWAY FOR FREE will cost the jobs and livelihoods of thousands of people!
Why would they do this? I believe it holds the "God" like image that MS seeks to maintain. They wish to provide solutions, without third parties so they can maintain the illusion that they are the be all and end all to the desktop. In fact, MS has admitted in the past that not only do they refuse to be proactive in design, they actually wait until a product is released and simply copy the functionality! Who wants to bet IE7 will contain many FireFox features?
It has long been a known stance that Microsoft avoids innovation, prefering to be reactive to customers's needs instead of creating new and innovative products first.
Examples of this come up all the time, when Microsoft quickly releases reactive products such as desktop search, anti-spyware, etc.
Does Microsoft have a plan in the future to innovate and create products on its own? Or will the company continue to follow the leader when a superior product comes out?
This is Horrible . . . God Forbid We Recycle
on
The Sub-$100 Laptop?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
At first glance . . . sounds like a great idea. We are polluting our landfills with old laptops that would perform at least as well as these units, and are already assembled. Doesn't it make more sense to recycle Pentium I and II laptops, place textbooks on them and then send them to the third world?
It seems really bad to manufacture a bunch of already obsolete machines, that will wind up in the trash anyway! Why not reuse what we already have, at least for this cycle? Someone is making money here, otherwise recycling would have come to mind first.
There really is a way to strike back! Start a non profit company and simply file for unpatentable patent after unpatentable patent and give them back to the community!
This would accomplish two goals, first it would protect those items that the non profit group does patent, second it would increase (greatly if the group grew in size) the amount of requests the USPTO would receive, and may actually cause them to hire someone who understand software to throw out these clearly unfair patents.
Well, it is obvious that forks can be good, that argument can cause improvement and flame wars show passion which in turn creates the motivation to create something better . . .
The downside is that when a project forks, there is much less opportunity for the public (non slashdot readers) to ever catch onto a good thing. Imagine the effect that it would have if Firefox forked, its current maintainers left the project b/c all the devs went to the forked project. You would have a bunch of people still using Firefox that would never switch to the new one (hell it took them long enough to trust something without the little "e" already). Firefox would go to shit because no one would maintain it. The fork would grow in popularity among the educated. Once Firefox broke the people that switched would slowly migrate back to IE.
Previous place of employment:
Me: Can I switch to Firefox?
Boss: What's that?
Me: A browser that is much better than IE. It's open source and doesn't suffer from all the malware that IE does.
Boss: No, its open source so it might be insecure. We've always used IE, we need to stick with that.
Me: Can I install Thunderbird?
Boss: What's that?
Me: An email client that's much better than Outlook Express. It's free too!
Boss: Definitely not.
Me: What about OpenOffice.org?
Boss: What's that?
Me: An open source, easy to use Office suite. It's free and the database inside the spreadsheet is really powerful. You can save things like you are in MS Office, but it doesn't suffer from a lot of the problems, like broken AutoCorrect.
Boss: No way, it could be hard to uninstall.
Me: Fuck it, I quit.
Slashdot Mirror
Repeat parent . . . get modded up with a Karma Bonus?
Isn't this behavior outside their mission statement? If Google's just going to be another patent farm and start using geniuses to come up with obvious ideas, I'd hardly call that not being evil . . . but that's just me.
I may eat my words, as never is a harsh word . . . but I do believe that we will never see Firefox suffer from the amount of malware that IE is susceptible to.
I'm not going to be redundant and go into it here, but you should take a look at this article and you may agree that it is in fact better for the source to be open with regards to security.
We live in a world with International trade, and nice little marketplaces like eBay. Surely if you're paying $4k for a drive in taxes, you'll just hop on eBay and buy the drive from the US for $19 bucks? Does this insane tax happen when items arrive via airmail, or just at the point of sale?
I've had Rhapsody since they just about came out. It's mainly streaming, not DRM'd, unless you download the song to disk. Think of it as a jukebox that you pay $9.95 per month that has just about every song you've ever heard available on it. Now it doesn't sound so bad! I've got my system at home, work, and at a couple of friend's house. They let you install it on 5 machines. At home, I've got it hooked up to a wireless router, which serves music to my stereo system via analog conversion. (of course, now you can see a way to un-DRM it . . . ) As of yesterday, I can download the songs locally so I don't have to stream them. Sure, I've got to have the service to listen to them, but I can burn them on CDs and take them to any of the 5 systems I've got Rhapsody installed on. I'll never understand why slashdotters are so anxious to rip shit they haven't even tried . . .
Hmmm . . . The Aggie Theatre here in Fort Collins, Colorado (US) holds at least a thousand people, tickets range from $2.00 to $30.00+ for a show, there is not smoking, the sound system is decent! What about The Fox in Boulder, or The Fillmore in Denver. There are a lot of venues here in Colorado - and there are a lot of larger, unsigned indie bands . . . well maybe not a lot but there could be if people would support the movement more! Perhaps artists should notice that when they get unpopular, they wind up playing these venues anyway.
But heh, you're right. Most people don't care. Perhaps it's because most people don't realize the extent of what is happening. This is much more than about the music. This is about our rights as individuals, the right not to have everything we do, the ideas we trade, etc. stomped on by large companies that have only the goal of maintaining revenue.
100% of $500 is $500, 6% of $1,000,000 is $60,000... there's a reason bands sell out to "the man"
This ignorant statement shows me about how much you really know about this scene. The performers get far more than $500.00 for a large show, maybe they get $500.00 for a bar night, but playing in a theatre fetches a much better pay, it simply depends on HOW MANY PEOPLE COME and listen to your music. On the independant scene, this often means your music actually has to be good, since the money to market it to 12 year olds isn't there.
Don't you understand that no one is winning? We are not only getting the music taken away and sued, but lobbyists are pushing for new laws, things are even included in the patriot act that help the RIAA get your information! We're losing our rights as Americans (whats left of them after 9-11 anyway). Do you consider these kids in college terrorists? It's just stupid, and the longer we sit here and take it the more its going to hurt when they pull out and we look at the damage done to our rights, freedom and the music industry.
Music, unlike diamonds, does not rely on a natural resource. I've yet to figure out why the hell people just don't switch to independent music. You'd be amazed at how good this type of music really is. You can go to a show for $0.00 to $10.00, RECORD it if you want, TRADE it at will usually, and the MAJORITY of the money goes to the artists!
The key here is that the MUSIC INDUSTRY is SUING the people IN COLLEGE who should simply REVOLUTIONIZE the industry! Go to your local jam band concerts, frequent the college shows, screw the big labels, use your own mind and broaden it. If the money goes independent, then so will the artists. And the artists who want to keep making sixty cents for every ten bucks their parent company makes can go right ahead. They're done getting my money.
Has it ever occured to this ignorant cartel that perhaps people download things besides music? I'm so pissed off at the music industry anymore that I only listen to public radio stations like NPR and my local University's station.
You wouldn't believe how much better music actually sounds when it comes from an artist instead of a billfold.
We're not talking about mass produced music cd's, we're talking about once in a lifetime events. History. If this pace keeps up, we may lose our rights to make or transfer a lot of our history to future generations.
If the artist allows it, it should be permitted. Especially when the industry isn't even offering the goods for sale!
I sure wish someone would grow some ballz one of these days and stand up for their right to free speech. Doesn't anyone have hosting to offer? This site was the only legit way to download music, and now it's over. Artists give permission for CD-trading of live shows - attorney sends letter to an ISP - now music is gone? Get another ISP, quite letting these cartels control our access to entertainment. We are people, not sheep.
If we really cared . . . there wouldn't have been a whole bunch of "Viva Bush" billboards all along the New Mexica and Arizona border crossing regions. Ever really wonder why the number of illegals entering our country has increased since Bush has been in office?
you probably shouldn't purchase any LCD device then . . . there are dead pixels in laptops, LCD televisions, and everything else.
I bought one five minutes after they launched here in northern Colorado.
I love it, it's beautiful. It feels EXTREMELY solid, mine only had ONE dead pixel, and it's dead on, not dead off which doesn't seem that distractive.
The volume is surprisingly loud via the speaker.
The UI is the most ingenius GUI ever, reminds me a little of the Danger Sidekick's GUI.
Best Buy had a line setup and a large quantity of these . . . I don't think they'll sell out too quickly here.
Oh . . . I almost forgot. I gotta PSP, mwaaa, mwahahah, mwaaaahahahhahahah.
Yeah, my post sucks . . . but heh, ever since I said I hate microsoft in my sig, I've been modded down anyway. Guess when it comes to Slashdot's biggest source of funding you shouldn't talk smack!
Great, just what the third world needs . . . credit from the good ol boys in Redmond . . .
Be sure to celebrate soon! If you skip this one and wait for the next 1, you'll be dead . . .
I guess it depends on what is considered abuse. Since Paypal was sued and lost millions because it allowed people to use its service to pay for online poker and gaming. They were sued due to the Patriot Act. (institutions aiding in the transfer of funds used for illegal purposes) Furthermore, the RIAA is MUCH MUCH stronger now due to the Patriot Act, since individuals downloading music are terrorists, they have the right to obtain search warrants now and track you down through your ip address. Thank God for the Patriot Act! Way to keep those 13 year old music download terrorists at bay! This IS TRUE, the Patriot Act enables the RIAA to charge unknown people with crimes, and THEN find out who did the crime later. I think we should be careful when we allow a law that takes away our Constitutional rights. We must make a stand and let people know that it is not right. The Patriot Act has done much more harm than good as far as I can see, it has furthered the Corporate agenda in this country, but done little to get rid of terrorism.
Spyware has been around for a long time. Microsoft knew about it, they saw it and even were around to watch an entire industry spring up to combat the spyware. Initially they did nothing, simply patched their operatins system occasionally and watched as companies begin to spring up offering combative services to spyware infiltration.
Once an established group of companies, which were both competent and profitable begin showing up, Microsoft started eyeing who to buy. They had discussions with many companies, including Giant and Webroot. They even made Webroot an offer, which was countered and finally rejected by Microsoft. Only then did they decide on Giant (perhaps it was cheaper - not better).
Now, instead of charging they are going to give it away free!! This is awful, and at the very least extremely anti-competitive. It would be one thing if they changed the operating system to be strong enough to eliminate attacks, but buying out an element of an industry they are not involved in (other than having created the need) and then GIVING IT AWAY FOR FREE will cost the jobs and livelihoods of thousands of people!
Why would they do this? I believe it holds the "God" like image that MS seeks to maintain. They wish to provide solutions, without third parties so they can maintain the illusion that they are the be all and end all to the desktop. In fact, MS has admitted in the past that not only do they refuse to be proactive in design, they actually wait until a product is released and simply copy the functionality! Who wants to bet IE7 will contain many FireFox features?
Examples of this come up all the time, when Microsoft quickly releases reactive products such as desktop search, anti-spyware, etc.
Does Microsoft have a plan in the future to innovate and create products on its own? Or will the company continue to follow the leader when a superior product comes out?
It seems really bad to manufacture a bunch of already obsolete machines, that will wind up in the trash anyway! Why not reuse what we already have, at least for this cycle? Someone is making money here, otherwise recycling would have come to mind first.
This would accomplish two goals, first it would protect those items that the non profit group does patent, second it would increase (greatly if the group grew in size) the amount of requests the USPTO would receive, and may actually cause them to hire someone who understand software to throw out these clearly unfair patents.
The downside is that when a project forks, there is much less opportunity for the public (non slashdot readers) to ever catch onto a good thing. Imagine the effect that it would have if Firefox forked, its current maintainers left the project b/c all the devs went to the forked project. You would have a bunch of people still using Firefox that would never switch to the new one (hell it took them long enough to trust something without the little "e" already). Firefox would go to shit because no one would maintain it. The fork would grow in popularity among the educated. Once Firefox broke the people that switched would slowly migrate back to IE.
So, in turn forks make Microsoft happy.
Do we want to do this?
Previous place of employment: Me: Can I switch to Firefox? Boss: What's that? Me: A browser that is much better than IE. It's open source and doesn't suffer from all the malware that IE does. Boss: No, its open source so it might be insecure. We've always used IE, we need to stick with that. Me: Can I install Thunderbird? Boss: What's that? Me: An email client that's much better than Outlook Express. It's free too! Boss: Definitely not. Me: What about OpenOffice.org? Boss: What's that? Me: An open source, easy to use Office suite. It's free and the database inside the spreadsheet is really powerful. You can save things like you are in MS Office, but it doesn't suffer from a lot of the problems, like broken AutoCorrect. Boss: No way, it could be hard to uninstall. Me: Fuck it, I quit.
. . . I thought we were already using that version!