I had originally modded this as flamebait so that it would cost _you_ something, but decided to post instead since no one would get it anyway.
I also can't help finding it odd that _free_ speech should cost something. I have to agree with you on that, but only to a point. If the cost is too high, then your freedom isn't very free. If Natalie Maines has to risk her livelihood (or her life) to express her views, where is free speech then?
Clearly there ARE freebies and there ARE knights in shining armor. The problem is with education--people need to learn to distinguish the good free stuff from the bad.
That's actually a serious problem. These people deserve to be boycotted but we ad blockers don't even know who they are anymore. Is there a website like boycottthejerks.com or something to keep track of who to hate?
It's the same problem we have now because it's already simple to filter your mail into whitelisted stuff from known senders and the rest. Having two accounts doesn't really change this at all. Same thing for the challenge-response system--it might as well be on your mail account to begin with.
That's not a solution--If you lose the one legitimate email in the 900 spams you get during the week to the public address then you're back to the same problem we have now, or one very much like it.
A googolplex is not "sometimes just called a google." Well, I guess it is, but only by mistake. A googolplex is 10^googol or a 1 followed by 10^100 0s. Note that the search engine is spelled google, and the number googol.
I find those things to be annoying. I find it a disaster waiting to happen to train people to hit a key combination that on other systems causes a reboot. This was especially true at the time Microsoft first starting using it for login.
It's more than a minor annoyance if you use different OS's on a regular basis. Nothing like having the habit of hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL to login and instead rebooting your machine. Is it any wonder uses complained when that first came out?
It seems obvious that to the reporter, and probably to most of his readers, computers==Windows systems. It's sad (and bad reporting) that Windows isn't even mentioned.
Re:It's not an acronym, it's an abbreviation
on
Euro DMCA Fails
·
· Score: 1
My quick check of the alt.usage.english FAQ (now that's an acronym!) reveals the following, which agrees seems to agree with me in spirit, but then more or less gives up:
Strictly, an acronym is a string of initial letters pronounceable as a word, such as "NATO". Abbreviations like "NBC" have been variously designated "alphabetisms" and "initialisms", although some people do call them acronyms. WDEU says, "Dictionaries, however, do not make this distinction [between acronyms and initialisms] because writers in general do not"; but two or the best known books on acronyms are titled _Acronyms, Initialisms and Abbreviations Dictionary_ (19th ed., Gale 1993) and _Concise Dictionary of Acronyms and Initialisms_ (Facts on File, 1988).
Strangely, the Acronym Database, which that same FAQ references, is much more insistent that I'm wrong:
No, there is nothing about acronyms which means that, it's a mistaken idea perpetuated by some American dictionaries who should know better. FBI is indisputably an acronym but it's pronounced Eff-Bee-Eye.
I guess I'm willing to consider DMCA an acronym if one accepts that it's a _word_ pronounced "dee em see ay," which, while I may be forced to accept, I find unappealing.
I wonder if William Safire has a column on the matter.
It's not an acronym, it's an abbreviation
on
Euro DMCA Fails
·
· Score: 2, Informative
An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word (replacing the letters IGITAL with a "." in the D of D.M.C.A for example). An acronym is when an abbreviation itself works as a word, liked RADAR.
I really don't understand why people hated the DIVX thing so much. People are perfectly happy to rent a videotape for $3 and have to return it in a day or so, why not get a DIVX DVD for $3 and simply NOT have to return it?
Now, if legislation like the DMCA is used to keep you from trying to crack the thing, _that_ is bad,
but DMCA didn't even exist when Circuit City was pushing DIVX.
The one bad thing I remember thinking at the time was that one was in danger of buying a DVD player that couldn't play DIVX and being left out, or buying one that could and paying extra for something which might (and did) become completely
useless.
I browsed around emusic and it looks interesting. I guess since their music is all MP3s they don't have any DRM stuff which gets in your way, but does anyone know if they have watermarks in the files?
Shouldn't there be a way to post a EULA for the open ports on your file sharing machine, or for filesharing software itself, that says "this is only for the use of users distributing files, any use in the service of law enforcement is prohibited" and then suing the violators?
Slashdot Mirror
and I'll laugh at myself for spelling privilege
wrong. Ugh.
Did you really just write that the right to drive a car on a public road is a priviledge? Go ahead and laugh at yourself :)
I had originally modded this as flamebait so that it would cost _you_ something, but decided to post instead since no one would get it anyway.
I also can't help finding it odd that _free_ speech should cost something. I have to agree with you on that, but only to a point. If the cost is too high, then your freedom isn't very free. If Natalie Maines has to risk her livelihood (or her life) to express her views, where is free speech then?
Like linux for example?
Clearly there ARE freebies and there ARE knights in shining armor. The problem is with education--people need to learn to distinguish the good free stuff from the bad.
That's actually a serious problem. These people deserve to be boycotted but we ad blockers don't even know who they are anymore. Is there a website like boycottthejerks.com or something to keep track of who to hate?
It's the same problem we have now because it's already simple to filter your mail into whitelisted stuff from known senders and the rest. Having two accounts doesn't really change this at all. Same thing for the challenge-response system--it might as well be on your mail account to begin with.
That's not a solution--If you lose the one legitimate email in the 900 spams you get during the week to the public address then you're back to the same problem we have now, or one very much like it.
A googolplex is not "sometimes just called a google." Well, I guess it is, but only by mistake. A googolplex is 10^googol or a 1 followed by 10^100 0s. Note that the search engine is spelled google, and the number googol.
I find those things to be annoying. I find it a disaster waiting to happen to train people to hit a key combination that on other systems causes a reboot. This was especially true at the time Microsoft first starting using it for login.
It's more than a minor annoyance if you use different OS's on a regular basis. Nothing like having the habit of hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL to login and instead rebooting your machine. Is it any wonder uses complained when that first came out?
"flash in the pants"
Great phrase, did you coin it?
What about the "you misspelled 'misspelled'" posts?
It seems obvious that to the reporter, and probably to most of his readers, computers==Windows systems. It's sad (and bad reporting) that Windows isn't even mentioned.
Not true, your statistic was made up ages ago.
An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word (replacing the letters IGITAL with a "." in the D of D.M.C.A for example). An acronym is when an abbreviation itself works as a word, liked RADAR.
The link in the story has instructions on how to deactivate it.
Fair enough. Though I really don't think that's why the slashdot crowd considered the whole idea "evil."
Now, if legislation like the DMCA is used to keep you from trying to crack the thing, _that_ is bad, but DMCA didn't even exist when Circuit City was pushing DIVX.
The one bad thing I remember thinking at the time was that one was in danger of buying a DVD player that couldn't play DIVX and being left out, or buying one that could and paying extra for something which might (and did) become completely useless.
Could it have anything to do with the three and a half pounds of sodium in the other story I just saw?
Spamfilter D'oh!
I browsed around emusic and it looks interesting.
I guess since their music is all MP3s they don't
have any DRM stuff which gets in your way,
but does anyone know if they have watermarks in
the files?
Shouldn't there be a way to post a EULA for the open ports on your file sharing machine, or for filesharing software itself, that says "this is only for the use of users distributing files, any use in the service of law enforcement is prohibited" and then suing the violators?
HBO seems to do just fine wihtout ads. That's a pay channel with good content worth paying for with no "extortion" involved.
And most sites don't ask you to agree to view their ads to support their revenue stream, they just thrust them upon you.
See subject line