That's the download directory. Right now it has 1.0, 1.1a, 1.2, 1.3a_test, and 1.3b_test. The testing distributions are appended with _test. The main reason that there are now testing distributions is gcc 3.1 - usually, there isn't much difference between the versions and they're just updated build utilities and/or different versions of portage. GCC 3.1 will not build everything that 2.95 will - it's not quite up to "reliable" quality that won't choke up. I'm writing this from a fluxbox'd galeon on 1.3b_test that works perfectly - faster than 2.95 was.
The release numbers don't mean anything because of the portage system - you download an up-to-date copy of the portage tree when you install (if you use a stage1 tarball that's just tools for bootstrapping, as opposed to a bootstrapped stage2 or a base system stage3). For example, there was no test (that I was aware of) from 1.0 to 1.1a, 1.1a to 1.2, and a few release candidates before 1.0 to 1.0.
If you've got another (faster) computer and some extra hard drive space, that's the ticket. Substitute vmware for a nice fat directory on your box and you'll be rocking.
Alternatively, you can hook your cd-rom-less's computer's hard drive up to one with a cdrom and compile with the appropriate flags.
The 1.3b_test just went online for download yesterday morning. It blows 1.2 away - completely based on gcc3.1 for a sweet performance increase. 1.2 is based on gcc2.95.
From the changelog:
"The 1.3 series is meant to get Gentoo ready for total world domination with Gentoo 1.4;o)"
I haven't had many compile issues with it yet - this is a distro to watch out for.
I just finished my trig/precalculus/basic calculus course. My observations:
TI-89's will do the math for you. TI-83's will signifigantly aid, but will require understanding of the problem and concepts to use. PDA's will provide for battleship after tests are done, and will get a second glance from everyone in the room.
Seriously - I had a little PDA app for my 83, but got rid of it because I didn't want to type on that non-QWERTY keyboard in the middle of English class and look like a freak. I used pen and paper and did it in a fraction of the time. For high schoolers, the minute you've got a QWERTY keyboard or a stylus input your new toy is officially outlawed from standardized testing like the SATs and ACTs.
Another thing: our teachers don't quiz over stuff we can do on a calculator. That means stuff like identities and variable equations (instead of ones with nice numbers). Doesn't help much to use a calc on those.
One thing you didn't mention are the environmental impacts of actually producing the biodiesel. If, say, the US were to switch to biodiesel, that would be great and fine, but who would grow all the biomass to make into fuel? That presents another dimension that really needs to be carefully considered. You talk about carbon sinks, reducing NOx and SOx emissions, but what about reducing the amounts of phosphates and nitrates going into our waters that start off a sequence of events that ends up killing most of the life in a stream or river? Where is all the land going to come from to grow all this?
I like the idea of biodiesel, but not as much as hydrogen. There are litteraly oceans of hydrogen waiting to be tapped. I certainly don't want to live in a bark house, and don't know many people that do. Certainly the country of Iceland, which is converting away from oil to alternative sources like geothermal, solar, and, yes, hydrogen, don't want to wear bushes.
I've found my uberdistro in Gentoo. It uses a simple tbz2 package system (now that I think about it, a lot like Slackware's). This means that I can use RPMs and debs through simple conversion process.
Gentoo: the portage package management utility is based off the BSD ports system and downloads, compiles, and installs programs instead of using binaries for increased optimization. The only graphical configuration tools are the ones the user 'emerges' using the portage system. Much like Slackware and Linux from Scratch, you have complete control over your system.
Linux From Scratch: step-by-step instructions to compile your very own Linux from the ground up. Excellent docs that are worth a read even if you don't decide to install it.
Transgaming seems to not be doing any work right now to support the Windows version of The Sims. However, I believe that the topic has come up in a current poll - subscribers will decided what kind of attention that gets.
Have you tried The Sims using the new version of WineX? I don't know about that game, but the admittedly quite different Jedi Knight II works out of the box just as speedy as on Windows for me. I just need to remember to make my Windows partitions user-writeable and I'll be set!
I was very skeptical of buying anything from them, especially a monthly plan, but after I tried Jedi Knight II I think I'm going to sign up. $5/month, $15 minimum - you get precompiled binaries with copy-protection support and voting rights. Think Mandrake Club (or maybe not:)
-- Make no mistake, as emperor, Palpatine is a dictator--but a relatively benign one, like Pinochet. --
When I first read that sentence, I honestly thought it was sarcasm. Then I became a bit disgusted when it wasn't. Things cannot be good or evil by themselves; people can. Just because Pinochet couldn't round up millions like Stalin or Hitler did, doesn't mean he didn't do the same thing with death squads and 'mysterious dissaperances'.
Dictatorships can be good or evil. The Romans (pre-Empire) had a good dictatorship system - a man was voted emergency powers for six months. The example is Cincinnatius, who was asked while he was working on his farm, went, won a war, gave up his powers, and returned to his farm, all in the span of a week or so. He forwent the other five months of his powers, didn't kill any of his countrymen, and defended Rome. Hitler, of course, is an evil dictator, and I don't particularly think I need to give examples.
Can any Mandrake Club members who've used StarOffice attest? How much better is it than OpenOffice? Particularly, are the MSOffice filters better?
In any event, hoo rah to Sun for marketing this. Few would use OpenOffice because it's free. $75 is an excellent price - enough to make people consider it serious software but inexpensive enough to make the switch.
NASA has produced a lot of stuff that has benefited the entire country, not just the 'geeks' that are interested in it - I'm thinking nylon off the top of my head. Saying that the 'geeks' who want space exploration outght to be taxed for it is somewhat analagous to saying the people who want some other benefit seen specific to them (low-cost housing, riparian rights people) should foot the bill for those agencies. It just doesn't seem right.
Personally, I think this is great. I mean, while I don't exactly relish having money tacked on to my computer, I'd rather pay $25 now than be drinking leaked chemicals down the road.
Some of you Germans can verify me on this, but I understand that in Germany they've got a law that forces venders to take back packaging and recycle it (not allowed to incinerate/dump it). This has taken down their excess waste a lot. I'd love to see that be put into place - think how much foam and plastic crap comes with a moniter, much less with a computer (especailly if you put it together yourself and buy everything seperately). Less solid waste is always a good thing.
[snip] Look at it this way: if the company planned to close your office in 15 months would they tell you? [/snip]
That says it all. Yes, honesty is good. But not telling them what you plan to do over a year from now isn't being dishonest or unethical. If they could fire you without any warning, you don't need to give them much notice before you go away.
Plus, it's 15 months. A lot could happen in between now and then.
I guess that opening the (deregulated) (customer-gouging) (proprietary) (won't let me run any servers) broadband industry to government competition would be like when FDR created the TVA and opened up the private companies to government competition. I'm happy with the energy we get here. They offer competitive, renewable options. Much better than some of its competitors, like the nearby incenerator which provides power but is going to be shut down because it's incredibly toxic.
As long as there remains private competition, this is a good thing.
From the article: {snip} Burrell used wheat for his experiments, planting the crop in lead-contaminated soil. The roots accumulated the metal, which moved to the shoots -- the portion of the plant above the ground. The plants were then harvested. {/snip}
So I'm assuming the basis of this is to have plants "soak" up the metals as they grow. The plants would then be smelted or dumped somewhere else.
What happens to the critters that eat the plants? Wouldn't it be just as bad for the animals to eat toxic metals as them live in them? Biological magnification would still take place.
Top-down was used by Christianity for a long time. When it became the official religion of the Roman empire, it was not the most practiced religion or even close - rich, powerful people had been converted (like Constantine and many of the emperors up to whoever actually made it official). When the Christians went to convert the barbarians, they'd target the leaders of the tribe (mostly because it was the leader's beliefs that dictated the beliefs of the tribe).
>It's a common misconception that rockets simply >explode for no good reason
Oh, I'm not real worried about them exploding for no good reason - human error has been the problem with all the rocket mishaps I've read about. Stuff like unit conversions, faulty switches, stuff like that happens.
I'm also a little unsure about your claim that vaporizing the uranium would sent it to the upper atmosphere where it won't hurt anyone. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last thing I'd want would be vaporization - all those nice little particles of uranium ready to be inhaled or cover the surrounding area like the iridium layer did. I doubt they'd go to the upper atmosphere - that'd have to be a pretty damn big safety mechanism considering that when bombs detonate they don't send all the stuff up there.
There was another reply to my post that was talking about putting them in fuel pellets - that seemed like a reasonable way to go about it, provided that they didn't break up or 'vaporize'.
Also, I wouldn't trust a safety mechanism. Who says that can't fail?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that sending the fuel off planet is pretty dangerous. If a second Challenger were to happen, all those nuclear materials would be spread out in the atmosphere, which sounds pretty dad-gum dangerous.
The sterile flies with compete with the non-sterile flies for resources. So some sterile flies will die. This will leave a lot more than 2 sterile flies left.
It won't screw up natural selection one bit. The most fit will still pass on their genes. It might actually improve it. Remember, natural selection isn't the survival of the strongest, but of the fittest. So the flies most fit for thier environment will reproduce. Yeah, there will be some blanks in there when the fit but sterile flies try to mate. But fit non-sterile flies will still reproduce, breeding a larger percentage of 'more fit' flies for the next generation.
That's bad.
This is what happens with antibacterial stuff. So the weak bacteria get killed, but the fit reproduce, and the fit are the ones that resisted the antibiotics in the first place. And now antibacterials don't work as well. Go figure.
Does Blizzard Entertainment® allow or support other Battle.net® like or emulation servers? Can I host one of these rogue servers?
No. Except as set forth in the next paragraph, Blizzard Entertainment® does not support or condone network play of its games anywhere but Battle.net®. Specifically, you may not host or provide matchmaking services for any of our games or emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by Blizzard Entertainment® in the network feature of its games, through protocol emulation, tunneling, modifying or adding components to the game(s), use of a utility program or any other techniques now known or hereafter developed, for any purpose including, but not limited to network play over the Internet, network play utilizing commercial or non-commercial gaming networks or as part of content aggregation networks without the prior written consent of Blizzard Entertainment®.
------
This is to prevent guys like MSN Gaming Zone, MPlayer, TEN (does that still exist?), Gamespy, etc. from drawing users away from Battle.net. Why? Blizzard can't check keys if people play outside of battle.net, and battle.net runs ads. Mostly Blizzard ones and some from the server hosts, but ads none the less. Most importantly, it makes sure their servers are populated. All the time. If you think this is bad and they'd like to send people elsewhere, you've never played an online game that has just about no one hanging around.
Although the reasons for taking down the bnetd are probably EULA-ized, I think this is crap. Personally, I won't buy any more of thier games. My purchase won't hurt them, but it will make me feel better.
Oh, and my copy of bnetd is now being stored with DeCSS, Unfuck, and a host of other DMCA violations.:)
You say this, and I'll agree with you: they are the ones that signed the contract. But that's not the whole story.
(all of this is before minimum wage)
Back in the early days of US industrialization (I'll call it post-Reconstruction/pre-Taft), there were lots of immigrants. Mostly unskilled. They'd seek out work in the factory, the coal mine, iron forge, wherever they could find it. They chose the job, but they were normally paid ~$500 a year, which in today's currency would be about 8k, or 1/3 the standard of living. Now remember, they chose these jobs. They weren't the only jobs they could get, but that's pretty close to the truth. Why didn't they strike for more money? Well, they tried, sort of, but factors such as Pinkerton men (hired strike-breakers that were a big cause of the Haymarket Square Riot in Chicago), influencing the media to portray all labor unions as socialist radicals, and the fact that there were plenty more workers than jobs took a bunch of the wind out of the labor union's sails. Why didn't they go somewhere else? They didn't have the skill/education to get a desk job, and couldn't afford to move out to the West where land was cheap and they could farm. So it ended up that the industrial workers were getting paid nothing in horrible conditions, but it was their choice. Sort of. Not really, but sort of.
So then along comes reform. One really great piece was in New York - the law dealt with limiting baker's workdays to 10 hours (I think it was 10, but the number isn't important - the prescence of a limit is). The bill becomes law, but gets struck down in court. Why? It limited the Constitutional right to work as long as one pleased. This argument seems resonable, right? I mean, it's basically limiting the amount of money a person can earn, and that's against capitalism and moves dangerously towards socialism. So what's the problem? Although it gets struck down and seems like a victory of capitalism and free will over socialism and whatnot, there seems to be a lack of bakers cheering that they can work longer than 10 hours. That's a suprise.
Now I'm not going to say that being Britney Spears is as good as being a wage slave. Wearing tight skimpy clothing doesn't seem to be quite as harsh as working in a bakery with huge hot ovens, unsanitary conditions because of the quality of food and rats and disease that would happen while being in close contact with coworkers for 16 hours a day, but it's the same principle.
There are more artists than jobs. Supply and demand says (quite truthfully) that the companies dictate the wages. This would be allieveated if the companies were competing, but they're not really. They've got what amounts to a huge trust. So, in a sense, the artists are in the same situation as the immigrants were: there is only one place you can realistically work, and they'll tell you how much they will pay you.
This is a pretty big generalization that takes out a bunch of factors. Artists can go into other jobs, although they might not pay as much (or maybe they do, with the.000000000023 cents a song they seem to be getting from the above sort of deal).
Again, I have to say that the artists did sign the contract, and there are stories of artists that made it on their own - another post in this story mentioned Linkin Park (but they too now have a record deal). And in the above mentioned era, guys like Carnegie got rich. But I'd say that your statement is like saying that Windows users have nobody to blame but themselves for picking a Windows computer. It's just not accurate considering the OEM deals that Microsoft can push, and although consumers can go and use non-Microsoft stuff, their strong-armed tactics have been well documented.
--- Note: I'm not any sort of history deity. Corrections/opinions from more knowledgable sources are always welcome.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gen too/releases/build/
That's the download directory. Right now it has 1.0, 1.1a, 1.2, 1.3a_test, and 1.3b_test. The testing distributions are appended with _test. The main reason that there are now testing distributions is gcc 3.1 - usually, there isn't much difference between the versions and they're just updated build utilities and/or different versions of portage. GCC 3.1 will not build everything that 2.95 will - it's not quite up to "reliable" quality that won't choke up. I'm writing this from a fluxbox'd galeon on 1.3b_test that works perfectly - faster than 2.95 was.
The release numbers don't mean anything because of the portage system - you download an up-to-date copy of the portage tree when you install (if you use a stage1 tarball that's just tools for bootstrapping, as opposed to a bootstrapped stage2 or a base system stage3). For example, there was no test (that I was aware of) from 1.0 to 1.1a, 1.1a to 1.2, and a few release candidates before 1.0 to 1.0.
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=21311#213 11
If you've got another (faster) computer and some extra hard drive space, that's the ticket. Substitute vmware for a nice fat directory on your box and you'll be rocking.
Alternatively, you can hook your cd-rom-less's computer's hard drive up to one with a cdrom and compile with the appropriate flags.
The 1.3b_test just went online for download yesterday morning. It blows 1.2 away - completely based on gcc3.1 for a sweet performance increase. 1.2 is based on gcc2.95.
;o)"
From the changelog:
"The 1.3 series is meant to get Gentoo ready for total world domination with Gentoo 1.4
I haven't had many compile issues with it yet - this is a distro to watch out for.
I just finished my trig/precalculus/basic calculus course. My observations:
TI-89's will do the math for you.
TI-83's will signifigantly aid, but will require understanding of the problem and concepts to use.
PDA's will provide for battleship after tests are done, and will get a second glance from everyone in the room.
Seriously - I had a little PDA app for my 83, but got rid of it because I didn't want to type on that non-QWERTY keyboard in the middle of English class and look like a freak. I used pen and paper and did it in a fraction of the time. For high schoolers, the minute you've got a QWERTY keyboard or a stylus input your new toy is officially outlawed from standardized testing like the SATs and ACTs.
Another thing: our teachers don't quiz over stuff we can do on a calculator. That means stuff like identities and variable equations (instead of ones with nice numbers). Doesn't help much to use a calc on those.
I don't think PDAs stand a chance against TI.
>> Essentially, try to look at this situation with other eyes.
X-10 webcam?
One thing you didn't mention are the environmental impacts of actually producing the biodiesel. If, say, the US were to switch to biodiesel, that would be great and fine, but who would grow all the biomass to make into fuel? That presents another dimension that really needs to be carefully considered. You talk about carbon sinks, reducing NOx and SOx emissions, but what about reducing the amounts of phosphates and nitrates going into our waters that start off a sequence of events that ends up killing most of the life in a stream or river? Where is all the land going to come from to grow all this?
I like the idea of biodiesel, but not as much as hydrogen. There are litteraly oceans of hydrogen waiting to be tapped. I certainly don't want to live in a bark house, and don't know many people that do. Certainly the country of Iceland, which is converting away from oil to alternative sources like geothermal, solar, and, yes, hydrogen, don't want to wear bushes.
I was about ready to say that Slashdot doesn't like Oracle, but then I remembered that it's the first Wednesday of the month. Silly me!
I've found my uberdistro in Gentoo. It uses a simple tbz2 package system (now that I think about it, a lot like Slackware's). This means that I can use RPMs and debs through simple conversion process.
Other good ways to learn linux:
Gentoo: the portage package management utility is based off the BSD ports system and downloads, compiles, and installs programs instead of using binaries for increased optimization. The only graphical configuration tools are the ones the user 'emerges' using the portage system. Much like Slackware and Linux from Scratch, you have complete control over your system.
Linux From Scratch: step-by-step instructions to compile your very own Linux from the ground up. Excellent docs that are worth a read even if you don't decide to install it.
Transgaming seems to not be doing any work right now to support the Windows version of The Sims. However, I believe that the topic has come up in a current poll - subscribers will decided what kind of attention that gets.
:)
Have you tried The Sims using the new version of WineX? I don't know about that game, but the admittedly quite different Jedi Knight II works out of the box just as speedy as on Windows for me. I just need to remember to make my Windows partitions user-writeable and I'll be set!
I was very skeptical of buying anything from them, especially a monthly plan, but after I tried Jedi Knight II I think I'm going to sign up. $5/month, $15 minimum - you get precompiled binaries with copy-protection support and voting rights. Think Mandrake Club (or maybe not
--
Make no mistake, as emperor, Palpatine is a dictator--but a relatively benign one, like Pinochet.
--
When I first read that sentence, I honestly thought it was sarcasm. Then I became a bit disgusted when it wasn't. Things cannot be good or evil by themselves; people can. Just because Pinochet couldn't round up millions like Stalin or Hitler did, doesn't mean he didn't do the same thing with death squads and 'mysterious dissaperances'.
Dictatorships can be good or evil. The Romans (pre-Empire) had a good dictatorship system - a man was voted emergency powers for six months. The example is Cincinnatius, who was asked while he was working on his farm, went, won a war, gave up his powers, and returned to his farm, all in the span of a week or so. He forwent the other five months of his powers, didn't kill any of his countrymen, and defended Rome. Hitler, of course, is an evil dictator, and I don't particularly think I need to give examples.
Can any Mandrake Club members who've used StarOffice attest? How much better is it than OpenOffice? Particularly, are the MSOffice filters better?
In any event, hoo rah to Sun for marketing this. Few would use OpenOffice because it's free. $75 is an excellent price - enough to make people consider it serious software but inexpensive enough to make the switch.
NASA has produced a lot of stuff that has benefited the entire country, not just the 'geeks' that are interested in it - I'm thinking nylon off the top of my head. Saying that the 'geeks' who want space exploration outght to be taxed for it is somewhat analagous to saying the people who want some other benefit seen specific to them (low-cost housing, riparian rights people) should foot the bill for those agencies. It just doesn't seem right.
Personally, I think this is great. I mean, while I don't exactly relish having money tacked on to my computer, I'd rather pay $25 now than be drinking leaked chemicals down the road.
Some of you Germans can verify me on this, but I understand that in Germany they've got a law that forces venders to take back packaging and recycle it (not allowed to incinerate/dump it). This has taken down their excess waste a lot. I'd love to see that be put into place - think how much foam and plastic crap comes with a moniter, much less with a computer (especailly if you put it together yourself and buy everything seperately). Less solid waste is always a good thing.
Dude, Michael, you're 10 days late :)
[snip]
Look at it this way: if the company planned to close your office in 15 months would they tell you?
[/snip]
That says it all. Yes, honesty is good. But not telling them what you plan to do over a year from now isn't being dishonest or unethical. If they could fire you without any warning, you don't need to give them much notice before you go away.
Plus, it's 15 months. A lot could happen in between now and then.
I guess that opening the (deregulated) (customer-gouging) (proprietary) (won't let me run any servers) broadband industry to government competition would be like when FDR created the TVA and opened up the private companies to government competition. I'm happy with the energy we get here. They offer competitive, renewable options. Much better than some of its competitors, like the nearby incenerator which provides power but is going to be shut down because it's incredibly toxic.
As long as there remains private competition, this is a good thing.
>Microsoft hopes professors will use the code in
>computer-science classes, and students will modify
>it in the lab and even suggest improvements.
Oh my. They're trying to embrace, extend, and extinguish the GPL.
:)
From the article:
{snip}
Burrell used wheat for his experiments, planting the crop in lead-contaminated soil. The roots accumulated the metal, which moved to the shoots -- the portion of the plant above the ground. The plants were then harvested.
{/snip}
So I'm assuming the basis of this is to have plants "soak" up the metals as they grow. The plants would then be smelted or dumped somewhere else.
What happens to the critters that eat the plants? Wouldn't it be just as bad for the animals to eat toxic metals as them live in them? Biological magnification would still take place.
Top-down was used by Christianity for a long time. When it became the official religion of the Roman empire, it was not the most practiced religion or even close - rich, powerful people had been converted (like Constantine and many of the emperors up to whoever actually made it official). When the Christians went to convert the barbarians, they'd target the leaders of the tribe (mostly because it was the leader's beliefs that dictated the beliefs of the tribe).
But it is pretty effective.
>It's a common misconception that rockets simply
>explode for no good reason
Oh, I'm not real worried about them exploding for no good reason - human error has been the problem with all the rocket mishaps I've read about. Stuff like unit conversions, faulty switches, stuff like that happens.
I'm also a little unsure about your claim that vaporizing the uranium would sent it to the upper atmosphere where it won't hurt anyone. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last thing I'd want would be vaporization - all those nice little particles of uranium ready to be inhaled or cover the surrounding area like the iridium layer did. I doubt they'd go to the upper atmosphere - that'd have to be a pretty damn big safety mechanism considering that when bombs detonate they don't send all the stuff up there.
There was another reply to my post that was talking about putting them in fuel pellets - that seemed like a reasonable way to go about it, provided that they didn't break up or 'vaporize'.
Also, I wouldn't trust a safety mechanism. Who says that can't fail?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that sending the fuel off planet is pretty dangerous. If a second Challenger were to happen, all those nuclear materials would be spread out in the atmosphere, which sounds pretty dad-gum dangerous.
Basically.
The sterile flies with compete with the non-sterile flies for resources. So some sterile flies will die. This will leave a lot more than 2 sterile flies left.
It won't screw up natural selection one bit. The most fit will still pass on their genes. It might actually improve it. Remember, natural selection isn't the survival of the strongest, but of the fittest. So the flies most fit for thier environment will reproduce. Yeah, there will be some blanks in there when the fit but sterile flies try to mate. But fit non-sterile flies will still reproduce, breeding a larger percentage of 'more fit' flies for the next generation.
That's bad.
This is what happens with antibacterial stuff. So the weak bacteria get killed, but the fit reproduce, and the fit are the ones that resisted the antibiotics in the first place. And now antibacterials don't work as well. Go figure.
From http://www.blizzard.com/legalfaq.shtml:
:)
Does Blizzard Entertainment® allow or support other Battle.net® like or emulation servers? Can I host one of these rogue servers?
No. Except as set forth in the next paragraph, Blizzard Entertainment® does not support or condone network play of its games anywhere but Battle.net®. Specifically, you may not host or provide matchmaking services for any of our games or emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by Blizzard Entertainment® in the network feature of its games, through protocol emulation, tunneling, modifying or adding components to the game(s), use of a utility program or any other techniques now known or hereafter developed, for any purpose including, but not limited to network play over the Internet, network play utilizing commercial or non-commercial gaming networks or as part of content aggregation networks without the prior written consent of Blizzard Entertainment®.
------
This is to prevent guys like MSN Gaming Zone, MPlayer, TEN (does that still exist?), Gamespy, etc. from drawing users away from Battle.net. Why? Blizzard can't check keys if people play outside of battle.net, and battle.net runs ads. Mostly Blizzard ones and some from the server hosts, but ads none the less. Most importantly, it makes sure their servers are populated. All the time. If you think this is bad and they'd like to send people elsewhere, you've never played an online game that has just about no one hanging around.
Although the reasons for taking down the bnetd are probably EULA-ized, I think this is crap. Personally, I won't buy any more of thier games. My purchase won't hurt them, but it will make me feel better.
Oh, and my copy of bnetd is now being stored with DeCSS, Unfuck, and a host of other DMCA violations.
You say this, and I'll agree with you: they are the ones that signed the contract. But that's not the whole story.
.000000000023 cents a song they seem to be getting from the above sort of deal).
(all of this is before minimum wage)
Back in the early days of US industrialization (I'll call it post-Reconstruction/pre-Taft), there were lots of immigrants. Mostly unskilled. They'd seek out work in the factory, the coal mine, iron forge, wherever they could find it. They chose the job, but they were normally paid ~$500 a year, which in today's currency would be about 8k, or 1/3 the standard of living. Now remember, they chose these jobs. They weren't the only jobs they could get, but that's pretty close to the truth. Why didn't they strike for more money? Well, they tried, sort of, but factors such as Pinkerton men (hired strike-breakers that were a big cause of the Haymarket Square Riot in Chicago), influencing the media to portray all labor unions as socialist radicals, and the fact that there were plenty more workers than jobs took a bunch of the wind out of the labor union's sails. Why didn't they go somewhere else? They didn't have the skill/education to get a desk job, and couldn't afford to move out to the West where land was cheap and they could farm. So it ended up that the industrial workers were getting paid nothing in horrible conditions, but it was their choice. Sort of. Not really, but sort of.
So then along comes reform. One really great piece was in New York - the law dealt with limiting baker's workdays to 10 hours (I think it was 10, but the number isn't important - the prescence of a limit is). The bill becomes law, but gets struck down in court. Why? It limited the Constitutional right to work as long as one pleased. This argument seems resonable, right? I mean, it's basically limiting the amount of money a person can earn, and that's against capitalism and moves dangerously towards socialism. So what's the problem? Although it gets struck down and seems like a victory of capitalism and free will over socialism and whatnot, there seems to be a lack of bakers cheering that they can work longer than 10 hours. That's a suprise.
Now I'm not going to say that being Britney Spears is as good as being a wage slave. Wearing tight skimpy clothing doesn't seem to be quite as harsh as working in a bakery with huge hot ovens, unsanitary conditions because of the quality of food and rats and disease that would happen while being in close contact with coworkers for 16 hours a day, but it's the same principle.
There are more artists than jobs. Supply and demand says (quite truthfully) that the companies dictate the wages. This would be allieveated if the companies were competing, but they're not really. They've got what amounts to a huge trust. So, in a sense, the artists are in the same situation as the immigrants were: there is only one place you can realistically work, and they'll tell you how much they will pay you.
This is a pretty big generalization that takes out a bunch of factors. Artists can go into other jobs, although they might not pay as much (or maybe they do, with the
Again, I have to say that the artists did sign the contract, and there are stories of artists that made it on their own - another post in this story mentioned Linkin Park (but they too now have a record deal). And in the above mentioned era, guys like Carnegie got rich. But I'd say that your statement is like saying that Windows users have nobody to blame but themselves for picking a Windows computer. It's just not accurate considering the OEM deals that Microsoft can push, and although consumers can go and use non-Microsoft stuff, their strong-armed tactics have been well documented.
---
Note: I'm not any sort of history deity. Corrections/opinions from more knowledgable sources are always welcome.