Give it up for MP3! My first encounter with mp3 was february 1998 if I recall correct. It was during some small-time space expo. Some dudes brought their computers for demo's. One of them was playing songs with a quality that really overwhelmed all of us. Upon enquiring what devilish technology was capable of making such sound: we met mp3 and winamp!
* insert stark raving mad rant including browsers, the software industry, the governement, the white house, UFO's, Mulder & Scully, cover-ups and Bill Gates' most darkest secret (you know which: the one about his hair planning to run off to Cleveland with the toupet from next door) *
Copyright infringement is neither theft nor robberty. True enough. But it's *still* a crime. You are not physically depriving the creator of the orginal. No, what you are actually doing is stealing the creator his right to do with the original as he choses.
To be more exact: you are violating his *exlusive* right to reproduce and sell copies. Buying an album, DVD or a game doesn't give you the right to make copies of the content (unless for home use that is) and distributing them!
This is the very basic meaning of copyright and it seams in all the FUD spread by either big firms or the pirates, that meaning is getting lost and deformed. Copyright is not something tangible. It's a basic right which shouldn't be violated.
Re:At least Jim Anchower is still there
on
The Onion in 2056
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
50 years from now it's going to be pretty much like it is now with a few more conveniences, but we aren't going to see a wholesale change in the world as is frequently supposed by so-called futurists.
Global warming, pollution, shifting global powerbalance (china and India establishing as major world powers!), massmigration, falling birth numbers in the western world,...
I'd say, in fifty years I'll still be working to get some money on the table while our asian overlords decide which kind of rice we should eat the day after that. What I am saying: the western world is already over it's top. We shouldn't be surprised to wake up one day and notice that we aren't the center of the world (anymore).
Then again: having a "big" brain is rather relative if you are small. Again, Yoda proofs that. I'd use him as a football if he hadn't such damn big brain.
What if Columbus said: "Okay, so it has a lot of gold and free labor. But it's so damn far away and I have an appointement with my dentist tommorow!"
What if Queen Isabella said "Okay, so it has a lot of gold and free labor. But I'd rather spent my money waging war with the french and the english!"
Granted, the moon is a place of no interest to us. So it seems. But I'd rather take my chances and go up there a second time to make sure there's *really* nothing that we could benefit from.
Maybe those invisible primitive moonmen took all the gold and stored in some dark mooncave. Maybe they are trying to make us believe that there's nothing out there by sending out subliminal messages with their giant disc-antenna's!
Tin foil hats for everyone when get up there, I say! You never know!
Well. That's the point: rather then using existing technology, they steal borrow an existing concept, implement it they way my cats vomit after eating something bad, and finally redistribute it saying it's "innovative" and "light years better" then the original.
The bases of Unix is simplicity. How can this be simple if it takes them three to five frickin' years to get running? And I'don't even start talking about the performance or versatility of the darn thing!
A microsoft Offical disclosed that the rotating blue e icon will be replaced by a globe wrapped with a weasel. Ballmer: "We'll eventually be changing the name to WetWeasel in the process of upgrading". Already, Microsoft registered domains like getwetweasel.com and spreadwetweasel.com."
Looks like a really good point. The problem is: who is the rightsholder and who gets the moneys? In reality, it's not very clear. The last thing we want to is to tax the people that make money while some manager profits from the royalities. So some legislation regarding who is who would be in order I guess.
Maybe not a classic atomic bomb. But I remember reading somewhere that the Nazi bomb would have been something closer to a "dirty bomb". Which spreads radioactive material with conventional explosives.
The effect would be more local. Instead of flattening an entire city, it would pollute a small area. But the demoralising on troops would be quite effective I guess.
"Will this be the real end of innovation in videogames?"
What innovation?
Or do they mean EA moneymilking "The Sims"?
Moreover, since large companies like EA took over, innovation is hard to find without a magnifying glass. It's easier to "sell the same stuff that sold great last time" then to make a totally new game. Or to make a new game based on proven concepts like RTS or FPS. Or they produce some monster based on a popular movie (Harry Potter, LOTR) just to cash in some easy money based on the license they bought
Don't get me wrong, I am dying to get Battlefield 2. And it sure will have some great new feats. But saying a game like HL2 is totally innovative for the industry is wrong in my perception. It's got some nice worked-out features - the buggy, the hovercraft, the source engine, the physics engine - but nothing totally new or even "original" (or perhaps the gravity gun).
imho innovation died the day Peter Molyneux decided to leave Bullfrog. They made some really innovative games like Theme Hospital, Theme Park, Dungeon Kepper,...
Great! From TFA I saw one of the feats will be: news reader. So you would be able to subscribe to your fav feeds. Indispensable to a good pda with web capabilities, me thinks.
Even better: noticing on the screenshots they've included my fav newsreader: liferea!
... on booze! NASA just wants to take credit for the double depiction of those spacevehicles while in fact, it's just my morning wodka that makes me see double.
We have the same thing in belgium. Although it isn't as outrages a tax as proposed/passed in Holland, we pay an extra tax on blank media, hard disks,... and there's even a proposal to extend this to computers in general (adding a hefty 40 euro's per pc).
So basically, all Belgians that own a computer or digital technology in general are considered to be pirates.
Then again, the actual control/exploitation is delegated to a NGO called SABAM. A financial investigation several weeks ago revealed that there's possible fraud. The investigation happened after a claim from a memberartist that hadn't seen ANY financial compensation in years. Another belgian company called URADEX seems to be following the same strategy. It seems that these kind of organisations are quite greedy in collecting the moneys, but are very reluctant into actual passing the moneys to the actual artists. Moreover, they keep the money on several high interest bank accounts making a lot of profit. Which is, to say the least, a very discutable practice.
I'm telling you guys, we should encourage artists all together to sue these companies right into hell.
1. Ban all hollywood and other corporate produced products like music and games out of your house.
2. start a community of independant production groups that make their's own movies, music,...
3. license all material under creative commons
4....
5. profit! $$$ (oh... wait!)
There's more to it than just french chauvinism the likes. I see it as a two-fold problem.
1. Selection. Digitisation implicates selection of the materials you are going to digitize. Even Google can't digitise every book in the world. A lot of people feel that the selection of several North-American university libraries doesn't reflect world culture but just North-American culture.
Now, I'm a bit pragmatic on the issue: the selection of the works isn't language-based or geography-located. So I suppose a great deal of (at least translations of) world literature is going to find it's way into the Google project.
Still, the issue stands that making a balanced selection is a big responsibility that should be shared. Not centralised in one big company.
2. This brings me to my second point: interests. At best you could say this is just Google's patronage of the preservation of our cultural heritage. But what are the interests of a commercial firm like Google? Actual preservation of important works and improving access to those works? Or rather monopolising the control over the access and dissemination of information? Already the - imho false - notion that "if it's not on Google, it doesn't exist" is gaining field. I feel this is just one expression of the increasing control of Google over how the general public perceives information.
Now, in this respect, this new european project is perhaps perceived as biased towards futile and useless fighting against Google and "americanisation" but I, for one, wouldn't like to wake up noticing that our perception of the world and world culture is being dictated by some companies based on the other side of the globe.
Anyone remembers Celine Dion's album wrecking havoc amongst iMacs?
Put one of hers into an iMac and you could kiss your machine goodbye.
I find that the most excellent example of how DRM is bad for the industry ánd the consumer.
I, for one, still lament the day this monsterous entity winded up in my disc drive. I should have returned it to Sony strapped to several kilo's of semtex...
- When waking up, the first thing you will see is a message saying "where do you want to go today?"
- When bumping against something, clippy *will* show up and annoy you to death.
- When watching pr0n, at 'the moment of truth' you *will* get a BSOD
- Bionic Eye 2039 (tm) *will* feature WiFi connection and IE7.001 making it possible for retail shops, wall mart and even grocery shops to blast you away with pop-ups from hell.
If I was born blind in 2039 and got one of these babies. I'd rather shoot myself before I install Mickeysoft on it. I dearly hope someone has ported GNU/Linux by then!
1. post how to generate more traffic to one's website by exploiting a flow in google on/.
2. show a "random" ad (336px by 280 px) promoting 'google adsense' clearly stating "how to turn your website into a revenue generator in minutes" at said post.
What about public news providers like the BBC? It's the taxpayer who's paying for the uppance of the on line stuff. I don't see how I should pay extra through some sort of premium membership for something I'm already paying with my taxes.
Anyway, I just got the following idea: why not a ffplugin that sends seperate http request to every ad on a page that matches ads in a whitelist? The content itself should not be rendered on screen but rather be dropped by the browser. Would that count as a 'click' on an ad? As a 'not programmer' I'm just trying to make an educated guess here...
Slashdot Mirror
Give it up for MP3! My first encounter with mp3 was february 1998 if I recall correct. It was during some small-time space expo. Some dudes brought their computers for demo's. One of them was playing songs with a quality that really overwhelmed all of us. Upon enquiring what devilish technology was capable of making such sound: we met mp3 and winamp!
It's a plot to trick us all...
... tinfoil hats for everyone!!
* insert stark raving mad rant including browsers, the software industry, the governement, the white house, UFO's, Mulder & Scully, cover-ups and Bill Gates' most darkest secret (you know which: the one about his hair planning to run off to Cleveland with the toupet from next door) *
* ducks *
Copyright infringement is neither theft nor robberty. True enough. But it's *still* a crime. You are not physically depriving the creator of the orginal. No, what you are actually doing is stealing the creator his right to do with the original as he choses.
To be more exact: you are violating his *exlusive* right to reproduce and sell copies. Buying an album, DVD or a game doesn't give you the right to make copies of the content (unless for home use that is) and distributing them!
This is the very basic meaning of copyright and it seams in all the FUD spread by either big firms or the pirates, that meaning is getting lost and deformed. Copyright is not something tangible. It's a basic right which shouldn't be violated.
50 years from now it's going to be pretty much like it is now with a few more conveniences, but we aren't going to see a wholesale change in the world as is frequently supposed by so-called futurists.
Global warming, pollution, shifting global powerbalance (china and India establishing as major world powers!), massmigration, falling birth numbers in the western world,...
I'd say, in fifty years I'll still be working to get some money on the table while our asian overlords decide which kind of rice we should eat the day after that. What I am saying: the western world is already over it's top. We shouldn't be surprised to wake up one day and notice that we aren't the center of the world (anymore).
Looking at syntax. I'd say: Master Yoda.
Then again: having a "big" brain is rather relative if you are small. Again, Yoda proofs that. I'd use him as a football if he hadn't such damn big brain.
What if Columbus didn't return to the New World?
What if Columbus said: "Okay, so it has a lot of gold and free labor. But it's so damn far away and I have an appointement with my dentist tommorow!"
What if Queen Isabella said "Okay, so it has a lot of gold and free labor. But I'd rather spent my money waging war with the french and the english!" Granted, the moon is a place of no interest to us. So it seems. But I'd rather take my chances and go up there a second time to make sure there's *really* nothing that we could benefit from.
Maybe those invisible primitive moonmen took all the gold and stored in some dark mooncave. Maybe they are trying to make us believe that there's nothing out there by sending out subliminal messages with their giant disc-antenna's!
Tin foil hats for everyone when get up there, I say! You never know!
Well. That's the point: rather then using existing technology, they steal borrow an existing concept, implement it they way my cats vomit after eating something bad, and finally redistribute it saying it's "innovative" and "light years better" then the original.
The bases of Unix is simplicity. How can this be simple if it takes them three to five frickin' years to get running? And I'don't even start talking about the performance or versatility of the darn thing!
A microsoft Offical disclosed that the rotating blue e icon will be replaced by a globe wrapped with a weasel. Ballmer: "We'll eventually be changing the name to WetWeasel in the process of upgrading". Already, Microsoft registered domains like getwetweasel.com and spreadwetweasel.com."
Looks like a really good point. The problem is: who is the rightsholder and who gets the moneys? In reality, it's not very clear. The last thing we want to is to tax the people that make money while some manager profits from the royalities. So some legislation regarding who is who would be in order I guess.
Why is it getting here so damn cold? Oh! Odds are, hell is frozen over by now!
Billzebub, turn that heater up, will ya?!
Maybe not a classic atomic bomb. But I remember reading somewhere that the Nazi bomb would have been something closer to a "dirty bomb". Which spreads radioactive material with conventional explosives.
The effect would be more local. Instead of flattening an entire city, it would pollute a small area. But the demoralising on troops would be quite effective I guess.
Or do they mean EA moneymilking "The Sims"?
Moreover, since large companies like EA took over, innovation is hard to find without a magnifying glass. It's easier to "sell the same stuff that sold great last time" then to make a totally new game. Or to make a new game based on proven concepts like RTS or FPS. Or they produce some monster based on a popular movie (Harry Potter, LOTR) just to cash in some easy money based on the license they bought
Don't get me wrong, I am dying to get Battlefield 2. And it sure will have some great new feats. But saying a game like HL2 is totally innovative for the industry is wrong in my perception. It's got some nice worked-out features - the buggy, the hovercraft, the source engine, the physics engine - but nothing totally new or even "original" (or perhaps the gravity gun).
imho innovation died the day Peter Molyneux decided to leave Bullfrog. They made some really innovative games like Theme Hospital, Theme Park, Dungeon Kepper,...
Great! From TFA I saw one of the feats will be: news reader. So you would be able to subscribe to your fav feeds. Indispensable to a good pda with web capabilities, me thinks.
Even better: noticing on the screenshots they've included my fav newsreader: liferea!
... on booze! NASA just wants to take credit for the double depiction of those spacevehicles while in fact, it's just my morning wodka that makes me see double.
Now. Where are those pink elephants and Dumbo?
... Lamborghini decided to get the engine of their next model be designed by kia
Hm. Since NASA is so afraid of ice debris, I guess we won't be landing on any comet that's on a collision course with earth anytime soon.
On the other side, there's enough ice on Mars, carrying the extra weight over there to make some cold Bailey's would just be silly.
We have the same thing in belgium. Although it isn't as outrages a tax as proposed/passed in Holland, we pay an extra tax on blank media, hard disks,... and there's even a proposal to extend this to computers in general (adding a hefty 40 euro's per pc).
So basically, all Belgians that own a computer or digital technology in general are considered to be pirates.
Then again, the actual control/exploitation is delegated to a NGO called SABAM. A financial investigation several weeks ago revealed that there's possible fraud. The investigation happened after a claim from a memberartist that hadn't seen ANY financial compensation in years. Another belgian company called URADEX seems to be following the same strategy. It seems that these kind of organisations are quite greedy in collecting the moneys, but are very reluctant into actual passing the moneys to the actual artists. Moreover, they keep the money on several high interest bank accounts making a lot of profit. Which is, to say the least, a very discutable practice.
I'm telling you guys, we should encourage artists all together to sue these companies right into hell.
1. Ban all hollywood and other corporate produced products like music and games out of your house. 2. start a community of independant production groups that make their's own movies, music,... 3. license all material under creative commons 4. ...
5. profit! $$$ (oh... wait!)
There's more to it than just french chauvinism the likes. I see it as a two-fold problem.
1. Selection. Digitisation implicates selection of the materials you are going to digitize. Even Google can't digitise every book in the world. A lot of people feel that the selection of several North-American university libraries doesn't reflect world culture but just North-American culture.
Now, I'm a bit pragmatic on the issue: the selection of the works isn't language-based or geography-located. So I suppose a great deal of (at least translations of) world literature is going to find it's way into the Google project.
Still, the issue stands that making a balanced selection is a big responsibility that should be shared. Not centralised in one big company.
2. This brings me to my second point: interests. At best you could say this is just Google's patronage of the preservation of our cultural heritage. But what are the interests of a commercial firm like Google? Actual preservation of important works and improving access to those works? Or rather monopolising the control over the access and dissemination of information? Already the - imho false - notion that "if it's not on Google, it doesn't exist" is gaining field. I feel this is just one expression of the increasing control of Google over how the general public perceives information.
Now, in this respect, this new european project is perhaps perceived as biased towards futile and useless fighting against Google and "americanisation" but I, for one, wouldn't like to wake up noticing that our perception of the world and world culture is being dictated by some companies based on the other side of the globe.
Same goes for /dev/null too...
Obviously
This is going to give a total new meaning to the 'void' keyword in high level programming languages like Java, I suppose.
Anyone remembers Celine Dion's album wrecking havoc amongst iMacs?
Put one of hers into an iMac and you could kiss your machine goodbye.
I find that the most excellent example of how DRM is bad for the industry ánd the consumer.
I, for one, still lament the day this monsterous entity winded up in my disc drive. I should have returned it to Sony strapped to several kilo's of semtex...
- When waking up, the first thing you will see is a message saying "where do you want to go today?"
- When bumping against something, clippy *will* show up and annoy you to death.
- When watching pr0n, at 'the moment of truth' you *will* get a BSOD
- Bionic Eye 2039 (tm) *will* feature WiFi connection and IE7.001 making it possible for retail shops, wall mart and even grocery shops to blast you away with pop-ups from hell.
If I was born blind in 2039 and got one of these babies. I'd rather shoot myself before I install Mickeysoft on it. I dearly hope someone has ported GNU/Linux by then!
1. post how to generate more traffic to one's website by exploiting a flow in google on /.
...
2. show a "random" ad (336px by 280 px) promoting 'google adsense' clearly stating "how to turn your website into a revenue generator in minutes" at said post.
3. $$$
What about public news providers like the BBC? It's the taxpayer who's paying for the uppance of the on line stuff. I don't see how I should pay extra through some sort of premium membership for something I'm already paying with my taxes.
Anyway, I just got the following idea: why not a ffplugin that sends seperate http request to every ad on a page that matches ads in a whitelist? The content itself should not be rendered on screen but rather be dropped by the browser. Would that count as a 'click' on an ad? As a 'not programmer' I'm just trying to make an educated guess here...