It was fun getting online while travelling, back before public connectivity was widespread. I used to pack my hefty old 486 portable with a modem cord with alligator clips on the end (beige box style) and some straight pins of the type normally used for sewing. If you could stick two pins into the phone cord at different spots, one touching the "ring" line and the other touching the "tip," you could clip your modem onto those pins and get online without having to explain to some backwater motel clerk (or whoever else owned the line you were fiddling with) what BBSes and Usenet were all about, and your work would be pretty much undetectable afterward.
You kids with your wireless networks and your rock-n-roll and your hula hoops and your big pants... Get off my lawn!!
As other replies to your post have noted, the option to run unsigned drivers is still quite important for many people in many fields. Thing is, I can sort of see why you would take the stance you do. I'm not much of a Windows programmer, least of all for Vista which I never plan to touch, but I have to ask: would it really be so hard to keep the option to run unsigned drivers available to the end user? There's got to be a better way, even if you needed to do something so hardcore and idiot-proof as changing an INI file or registry entry by hand in a text editor, download a disclaimer-filled patch from MS, or click through a gang of rabid "Are you sure?" / "Are you really sure?" / "Are you really, really, piggy-squealy sure?" dialogs to enable unsigned drivers.
It seems to me that if MS doesn't provide the option to even its most expert users, the developers-developers-developers-developers could end up either banging out their own unsupported hacks to defeat the purpose, or just abandoning Vista for a platform which doesn't charge them out the eyeballs for supplying reasons to use it.
If Spamhaus does end up switching to a non-US registrar, I wonder how casually ICANN will be able to brush off responsibility then. It's dangerous ground, and any resulting US vs ICANN battle would set one hell of a legal precedent either way.
Notably, most of the Stewart and Colbert stuff is already streamed for free on Comedy Central's own site. Adult Swim has been streaming entire seasons of their shows over their own site. More networks and production companies are following suit every day, with either free streams or cheap downloads on iTunes and the like.
The one thing filesharing in general and Youtube in particular have really helped to jumpstart, is letting progressive rights-holders like these know that demand for streaming their stuff online is there, and people are even willing to sit in front of an ad-peppered site to see them. If you're some TV honcho and you see people taking it upon themselves to upload and share your content, you'll probably have to take steps to protect your content, and stop the service provider from profiting from your work. However, you can take the popularity and success of the format to realize how you can do what they do even better and still profit, either by streaming it yourself for free, or selling downloads. Remember how much the entertainment industry bitched about people taping their stuff from television, spreading FUD about how it would kill the industry? Eventually they woke up and realized they could sell their own tapes, and later DVDs, which are now a major part of their business model. This industry has a history of initially freaking out about any change of circumstances, before actually evolving to suit them and realizing it's not so bad.
Re:And unfortunately right about YouTube
on
Ballmer Sounds Off
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Google has the resources to start cracking down on the copyrighted stuff, and the clout to start securing the rights to actually distribute (and possibly sell) the copyrighted content that they can't help but notice people want. The demand is there and measurable, they only have to work out the deals to be able to supply it legitimately. They've been doing that with Google Video for a while now, so really it looks like smooth sailing from here on in.
The only people that lose out are the Youtube users who got used to the free ride with the copyrighted stuff and don't want to pay for legit downloads on GooTube, but they can always head back to the fileshares.
Re:He's right about the rights
on
Ballmer Sounds Off
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· Score: 4, Insightful
However, now that they have money and a huge corporate staff behind it, they can actually keep up with the copyrighted stuff that gets posted, while at the same time using their squadron of entertainment lawyers to actually start securing the rights to the stuff that people obviously want.
Google Video has been selling legit videos for a while now, they have the experience. YouTube had started legitamizing some of their videos, cf. their recent deal with (I think) Warner. This whole situation has the potential to converge quite nicely for all concerned, and combine the freebies and community YouTube developed with a full-fledged digital video competitor to iTunes and Amazon.
My vendetta against the pits goes back to when I was a young Firefly, back in the 1980s with the wood-grain 2600 and the E.T. game with all the instructions and a love for Reese's Pieces. I knew how to play it and it was indeed not that bad a game, but the pits were a royal pain in the butt.
Seconded. I first read the "Press Start to Continue" version of the book after finding it in the clearance bin at Gamestop for $2. It is just as informative on the history of Nintendo as a video game empire, as it is on the diverse personalities that broght it about.
Sadly, the book seems to be out of print now, but it is still in demand. My $2 paperback seems to be going for insane prices on Amazon's secondhand market, from $35 to almost $200... now I wish I'd bought the rest out of that clearance bin!
Plus, I can throw my DVD into a DVD player, computer, games console, or whatever else comes out in the future to support the format. I can enjoy whatever special features and extras are thrown in to appeal to my movie-geek side. I can even rip media from a DVD and freely convert it to any digital format I could ever want, in order to transfer to whatever video-playing gadgets I desire, and with no loss in quality other than what I dictate in the settings. And, I'm able to do this all from a physical medium that I only pay for once and for all, and that (barring accidents) will probably be around and viable longer than I will.
Can you say the same for any file on a hard disk, DRM'd or not? My oldest DVDs have outlasted something like five or six failed hard drives at this point, and I was a relatively late adopter of DVD.
Slashdot Mirror
So we've done eyes, and we're talking about ears. Why have we not yet examined the possibilities of sticking a big tongue out into the sky?
It was fun getting online while travelling, back before public connectivity was widespread. I used to pack my hefty old 486 portable with a modem cord with alligator clips on the end (beige box style) and some straight pins of the type normally used for sewing. If you could stick two pins into the phone cord at different spots, one touching the "ring" line and the other touching the "tip," you could clip your modem onto those pins and get online without having to explain to some backwater motel clerk (or whoever else owned the line you were fiddling with) what BBSes and Usenet were all about, and your work would be pretty much undetectable afterward.
You kids with your wireless networks and your rock-n-roll and your hula hoops and your big pants... Get off my lawn!!
Surely, this gadget will provide a ray of hope for cold, unfeeling, wireframe mothers everywhere.
OMG, there's KDE news in BSD! This isn't SOP, it's a SNAFU. Someone IM the IT staff at OSTG and ask them WTF, OK?
I dare any of you to go out, armed with this article, and expense a pair of massive huge-screen monitors.
...If it works, send me the extra.
As other replies to your post have noted, the option to run unsigned drivers is still quite important for many people in many fields. Thing is, I can sort of see why you would take the stance you do. I'm not much of a Windows programmer, least of all for Vista which I never plan to touch, but I have to ask: would it really be so hard to keep the option to run unsigned drivers available to the end user? There's got to be a better way, even if you needed to do something so hardcore and idiot-proof as changing an INI file or registry entry by hand in a text editor, download a disclaimer-filled patch from MS, or click through a gang of rabid "Are you sure?" / "Are you really sure?" / "Are you really, really, piggy-squealy sure?" dialogs to enable unsigned drivers.
It seems to me that if MS doesn't provide the option to even its most expert users, the developers-developers-developers-developers could end up either banging out their own unsupported hacks to defeat the purpose, or just abandoning Vista for a platform which doesn't charge them out the eyeballs for supplying reasons to use it.
If Spamhaus does end up switching to a non-US registrar, I wonder how casually ICANN will be able to brush off responsibility then. It's dangerous ground, and any resulting US vs ICANN battle would set one hell of a legal precedent either way.
Notably, most of the Stewart and Colbert stuff is already streamed for free on Comedy Central's own site. Adult Swim has been streaming entire seasons of their shows over their own site. More networks and production companies are following suit every day, with either free streams or cheap downloads on iTunes and the like.
The one thing filesharing in general and Youtube in particular have really helped to jumpstart, is letting progressive rights-holders like these know that demand for streaming their stuff online is there, and people are even willing to sit in front of an ad-peppered site to see them. If you're some TV honcho and you see people taking it upon themselves to upload and share your content, you'll probably have to take steps to protect your content, and stop the service provider from profiting from your work. However, you can take the popularity and success of the format to realize how you can do what they do even better and still profit, either by streaming it yourself for free, or selling downloads. Remember how much the entertainment industry bitched about people taping their stuff from television, spreading FUD about how it would kill the industry? Eventually they woke up and realized they could sell their own tapes, and later DVDs, which are now a major part of their business model. This industry has a history of initially freaking out about any change of circumstances, before actually evolving to suit them and realizing it's not so bad.
Google has the resources to start cracking down on the copyrighted stuff, and the clout to start securing the rights to actually distribute (and possibly sell) the copyrighted content that they can't help but notice people want. The demand is there and measurable, they only have to work out the deals to be able to supply it legitimately. They've been doing that with Google Video for a while now, so really it looks like smooth sailing from here on in.
The only people that lose out are the Youtube users who got used to the free ride with the copyrighted stuff and don't want to pay for legit downloads on GooTube, but they can always head back to the fileshares.
However, now that they have money and a huge corporate staff behind it, they can actually keep up with the copyrighted stuff that gets posted, while at the same time using their squadron of entertainment lawyers to actually start securing the rights to the stuff that people obviously want.
Google Video has been selling legit videos for a while now, they have the experience. YouTube had started legitamizing some of their videos, cf. their recent deal with (I think) Warner. This whole situation has the potential to converge quite nicely for all concerned, and combine the freebies and community YouTube developed with a full-fledged digital video competitor to iTunes and Amazon.
As possible names go, I think "Goofice" would be more gallant.
You may not have missed out on it, depending on where you ate your lunch thirteen years ago.
My vendetta against the pits goes back to when I was a young Firefly, back in the 1980s with the wood-grain 2600 and the E.T. game with all the instructions and a love for Reese's Pieces. I knew how to play it and it was indeed not that bad a game, but the pits were a royal pain in the butt.
No, aliens use MacOS.
Never lost your wristwatch in the lunch rush, have you?
Seconded. I first read the "Press Start to Continue" version of the book after finding it in the clearance bin at Gamestop for $2. It is just as informative on the history of Nintendo as a video game empire, as it is on the diverse personalities that broght it about.
Sadly, the book seems to be out of print now, but it is still in demand. My $2 paperback seems to be going for insane prices on Amazon's secondhand market, from $35 to almost $200... now I wish I'd bought the rest out of that clearance bin!
It could have been worse, they could have given him the old "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" game.
I ran the fryer for a bit as a teenager. Trust me, you really don't want all that material disclosed.
Plus, I can throw my DVD into a DVD player, computer, games console, or whatever else comes out in the future to support the format. I can enjoy whatever special features and extras are thrown in to appeal to my movie-geek side. I can even rip media from a DVD and freely convert it to any digital format I could ever want, in order to transfer to whatever video-playing gadgets I desire, and with no loss in quality other than what I dictate in the settings. And, I'm able to do this all from a physical medium that I only pay for once and for all, and that (barring accidents) will probably be around and viable longer than I will.
Can you say the same for any file on a hard disk, DRM'd or not? My oldest DVDs have outlasted something like five or six failed hard drives at this point, and I was a relatively late adopter of DVD.
I don't want Duck god dammit, I'm a Dapper Drake man!
Somewhere Lou Albano, Danny Wells, Bob Hoskins, and John Leguizamo are all watching this and thinking "at least I didn't look that stupid."
Had you not posted this, I might have had to rent "Underworld Evolution." Whew, that was a close one..