"This seems to follow their new "killer apps" strategy."
Good for them. Now how about the/. guys stop reguritating all of Apple's marketing hype until they start selling machines that will not cost more than most people are willing to pay.
I am all for Apple, and they certainly have Microsoft beat when it comes to innovation, but until they cut the shit and let me buy a machine straight up without a bunch of silly multimedia software that I have no use for, at a reasonable price, I am sticking with AMD.
Enough with the Quantum computing articles. Sure it kicks ass, and we all want them, but can't we just let this one rest until we can at least have one of the damned things?
"...by charging ISPs based on the number of tagged files they transferred, and then transferring the charge to users in the aggregate"
Is it just me, or is this among the stupidest ideas ever? I think that I might be just a bit opposed to paying even more money for my connection because little Johnny next door decides to download the entire Sony music catalog, burning the songs he likes and immediately deleting the rest.
2001: A Space Odessy is being rereleased to theatres in October (At least according to the aintitcool list for 2001). It is likely that this is a publicity stunt.
"There has never been any sort of problem with people "copying" shows off of TV in ways harmful to the industry"
That is because people have never been able to skip commercials before. Even with a VCR one must fast forward through the commercials.
With Tivo and like products, people are able to get perfect copies of shows without ever seeing the commercials. If this becomes popular, advertisers will not be willing to pay as much, and that will lead to more in-show product placement, which the networks would like to avoid.
Asking the Slashdot readers about freedom in the US is probably a pretty bad idea. If you look, you will see that America is a very free place to live- for white people, especially white people with money, and more specificially, white men.
Slashdot, being a site for geeks, is mostly going to give you responses by white men with money.
If you want the real story, ask some of the over 50% of black American males in prison. They make up over 80% of America's prison population, yet only 15% of the prison population as a whole.
Or you might ask the families of black men like Amadou Diallo, shot repeatedly, including after he had already fallen to the ground, because a white police officer claims that he thought Diallo was reaching for a gun, even though the only thing he had on his person was a small wallet.
Try asking Leonard Peltier, who has been a political prisoner for years because the government wanted a scapegoat for the killings of two FBI officers.
Or you might ask any of the blacks and hispanics recently set free because the LAPDs rampart division thought they looked like gang members, and framed them for crimes.
You could ask the people who lost poor family members in Vietnam while people like Bill Clinton and George Bush scammed their way out of going through political connections.
America is free, but only for a select few. The rest get screwed to serve those select few.
Then again, try to find a country that isn't just as bad. Europe has a few nice little countries, but if a big war breaks out in Europe, they will be prime invasion targets.
Canada isn't bad, if you can handle the taxes.
Australia looks nice, but isolated, and we all know about their government's attempts to censor all net access.
To wrap up, I'll paraphrase Ben Franklin: "[American] democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
One more reason that Napster might actually end up being worth paying for. Now if I could only get more than 10% of my download attempts to do something other than time out...
Jobs- "Earnings are in the toilet people! Nobody wants to buy our overpriced machines anymore! Microsoft won't bail us out this time, and if we get too cheap Larry Ellison will buy us just to piss off Gates! What are we going to do?"
Hapless Apple employee- "Well sir, we could always produce a reasonably priced model and stop pushing these machines as entry level computers..."
Jobs- "Kill him. Now."
*BLAM*BLAM*BLAM*
Hapless Apple employee- "AUGGHHHHH"
Legal- "Well, we could always sue someone who doesn't have any money to begin with."
Jobs- "Good idea! Why the hell can't the rest of you be that fucking smart? No wonder Rambus is worth so much more than we are. (To lawyer) How soon can you get started?"
Lawyer- "Oh, I already have a certain open source project in mind, so I can start flushing money down the... I mean, litigating, any day. Of course I'll need some money to get started. One million dollars should get things rolling..."
Is it worth the cost to have a Mac running PPC Linux? I have been considering buying a Mac of some sort to run Linux on, but for the cost of a decent Mac I could build (At least) two blazing fast AMD PCs.
The difference, of course, is in that G4 processor. Do you feel that the G4 (Or even the G3 on an iMac.) processor, combined with Linux, offers the power to match the cost?
"Can you imagine running 3DMark2000 benchmark on an ultra 10 with a 3D-creator card"
Yes, and it would blow ass. Ultrasparc II CPUs are designed for databases, not 3D. If you want fast UNIX 3D, go for SGI.
"...it seems to be mass-produced for an eager and huge American audience."
Death metal is not mass produced. While there are plenty of crappy death metal bands out there, there are not nearly as many of them as there are half-assed-pop-star-wannabes. Take a look at death metal album sales sometime as well, the big sellers barely rate as mass produced in comparison to what would be considered a commercial flop for a pop artist.
On top of that, the audience for death metal in the US us nearly nonexistant. With the exception of Slipknot and Morbid Angel, death metal bands are lucky to ever play a good club, much less a stadium, and usually end up playing to half filled metal bars.
"...Neverwinter is supposed to be the sequel to Baldur's Gate II..."
It is not the sequel to BG II. Neverwinter Nights was an old game people played on AOL that allowed them to create and swap dungeons. It eventually faded out and this is a pretty new 3D version.
This is just about the stupidest thing I have ever seen. If people must pay to link to a site, people will stop linking to the site, and the site will lose all traffic not generated from people who come in from the main page, which can then only be accessed if the user knows it exists.
On top of that, anyone could just list the URL to copy and paste without linking, defeating the purpose of link license agreements that are designed to limit negative comment on the material being linked to.
I doubt that SCSI is going to be a viable option for OEM computers. SCSI is expensive, and requires very specialized motherboards or extra controllers, neither of which OEMs are fond of.
SCSI also sucks for cheap add on drives. Have you seen the costs of SCSI hardware lately? They don't fit into many people's price ranges.
and I would do it right now, if I could get my hands around the necks of the bastards that want to pull this shit.
People seem to think that boycotts and commercial diplomacy are the only things these companies will understand.
BULLSHIT.
What we really need to do is hunt these guys down and beat the living shit out of them. And then go after the people they work for, the corporate officers that allow them to do these things. Smash their heads in with crowbars and two-by-fours, and leave them dead in the streets as a message to the others that might try to pick up where the dead have left off.
But alas, people in this age have allowed themselves to be pacified, and will write me off as a nut. Good for them. But in a hundred year's time, when our governments have been dissolved by the corporations they had been serving, when your children and grandchildren have no future but to produce and buy product, to keep the wheels of commercialism going, without ever stepping out, making waves, then you will see what all your "civilized" ways have brought you. And then, that day, when you are old and weak, and unable to fight back, remember those who wanted to stand up and fight, fight like men, and could not, because their bretheren were afraid to stand with them, and would have had them in chains instead.
"What's going to happen is IBM and others will make these drives, meanwhile overseas companies like in China will continue to make non-compliant drives and everyone will just buy them instead."
Keep dreaming. The majority of consumer-level PCs are bought from OEMs, who buy their disks from the kind of large, trustworthy, reliable manufacturers that can handle huge OEM customers. Manufacturers like... IBM.
As for server hardware, same issue. To maintain maintenance/service contracts, hard disks must be purchased from the original server manufacturer. And where do server companies get those drives? From companies like.... IBM.
The only way to deal with this is to make a lot of noise NOW. For the majority of consumers, this will not be like the intel/AMD option where OEMs were jumping all over the Athlon and customers could avoid the intel serial number. These drives will be everywhere, and for OEM customers, unavoidable.
The corporations want to dominate our content, but why do we need them to? Without the huge chunk of profit these corporations take from artisits, why will the artists stick with this?
And why would the people tolerate this? They will not, and the corportations like the idea, because it keeps us trapped in their distributional paradigms.
But we can just push forward with our own.
Free content.
Free music given away on Napster, web sites, etc.
Free stories and novels given away for the masses to enjoy.
What kind of content can we expect? The odd, the fringe, probably not the best. But the people will grow more and more dissatisfied, and the fringe will grow. People will find ways to pay the creators, beyond just advertising support. T-shirts, small print run books, etc.
A perfect example of this new paradigm is web comics. The web comics make money off merchandise, from books to t-shirts to mousepads.
It will be a low start, but eventually quality content will leave the domain of multinational corporations and return to the people.
We have seen these kinds of stories over and over again on just about every Linux friendly site out there. I love Linux, and I have the utmost respect and admiration for all of the people involved with this, especially intel for taking such a pro-linux stance the whole way.
But I need to say something to all of the web admins/authors/.etc out there.
STOP GLOATING YOU ASSHOLES!!!
Story titles like "Liunux leads MS in..." do nothing but make us look just as arrogant as Microsoft marketing. Stop talking shit about Windows, and just spread the good word. People don't need to be told that Windows sucks, they all learn it eventually.
"90% of their customers would never agree to have their Web access censored"
If you explained to them that it was being censored in an attempt to destroy those who will continue to business with spammers, and those who work with, encourage, and profit from spamming (As those who produce bulk emailers certainly do.), and that doing so could help end all of those annoying spams, I think that there is a very good chance those people would be happy to have their access censored.
If they pull the site again, would that be a violation of the GPL? And could the NSA be sued over it?
That would be another secret evidence trial for sure....
Why can't America just ignore it all?
on
Nazis on Napster
·
· Score: 1
What I want to know is: Why the hell do American companies do anything other than ignore this sort of thing? I understand that in this case BMG is based in Germany, which makes them liable under German law, but what about other cases? For example, why didn't Yahoo just tell the French to stick it? It this a result of the WTO allowing countries to restrict each other's businesses based on their own laws?
Slashdot Mirror
"This seems to follow their new "killer apps" strategy."
/. guys stop reguritating all of Apple's marketing hype until they start selling machines that will not cost more than most people are willing to pay.
Good for them. Now how about the
I am all for Apple, and they certainly have Microsoft beat when it comes to innovation, but until they cut the shit and let me buy a machine straight up without a bunch of silly multimedia software that I have no use for, at a reasonable price, I am sticking with AMD.
Enough with the Quantum computing articles. Sure it kicks ass, and we all want them, but can't we just let this one rest until we can at least have one of the damned things?
"...by charging ISPs based on the number of tagged files they transferred, and then transferring the charge to users in the aggregate"
Is it just me, or is this among the stupidest ideas ever? I think that I might be just a bit opposed to paying even more money for my connection because little Johnny next door decides to download the entire Sony music catalog, burning the songs he likes and immediately deleting the rest.
2001: A Space Odessy is being rereleased to theatres in October (At least according to the aintitcool list for 2001). It is likely that this is a publicity stunt.
"There has never been any sort of problem with people "copying" shows off of TV in ways harmful to the industry"
That is because people have never been able to skip commercials before. Even with a VCR one must fast forward through the commercials.
With Tivo and like products, people are able to get perfect copies of shows without ever seeing the commercials. If this becomes popular, advertisers will not be willing to pay as much, and that will lead to more in-show product placement, which the networks would like to avoid.
Asking the Slashdot readers about freedom in the US is probably a pretty bad idea. If you look, you will see that America is a very free place to live- for white people, especially white people with money, and more specificially, white men.
Slashdot, being a site for geeks, is mostly going to give you responses by white men with money.
If you want the real story, ask some of the over 50% of black American males in prison. They make up over 80% of America's prison population, yet only 15% of the prison population as a whole.
Or you might ask the families of black men like Amadou Diallo, shot repeatedly, including after he had already fallen to the ground, because a white police officer claims that he thought Diallo was reaching for a gun, even though the only thing he had on his person was a small wallet.
Try asking Leonard Peltier, who has been a political prisoner for years because the government wanted a scapegoat for the killings of two FBI officers.
Or you might ask any of the blacks and hispanics recently set free because the LAPDs rampart division thought they looked like gang members, and framed them for crimes.
You could ask the people who lost poor family members in Vietnam while people like Bill Clinton and George Bush scammed their way out of going through political connections.
America is free, but only for a select few. The rest get screwed to serve those select few.
Then again, try to find a country that isn't just as bad. Europe has a few nice little countries, but if a big war breaks out in Europe, they will be prime invasion targets.
Canada isn't bad, if you can handle the taxes.
Australia looks nice, but isolated, and we all know about their government's attempts to censor all net access.
To wrap up, I'll paraphrase Ben Franklin: "[American] democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."
One more reason that Napster might actually end up being worth paying for. Now if I could only get more than 10% of my download attempts to do something other than time out...
"We're sorry. The link referred to in this article is incorrect."
Ummm... Does this mean that you guys posted the story without even checking the link?
The conversation in Job's office...
Jobs- "Earnings are in the toilet people! Nobody wants to buy our overpriced machines anymore! Microsoft won't bail us out this time, and if we get too cheap Larry Ellison will buy us just to piss off Gates! What are we going to do?"
Hapless Apple employee- "Well sir, we could always produce a reasonably priced model and stop pushing these machines as entry level computers..."
Jobs- "Kill him. Now."
*BLAM*BLAM*BLAM*
Hapless Apple employee- "AUGGHHHHH"
Legal- "Well, we could always sue someone who doesn't have any money to begin with."
Jobs- "Good idea! Why the hell can't the rest of you be that fucking smart? No wonder Rambus is worth so much more than we are. (To lawyer) How soon can you get started?"
Lawyer- "Oh, I already have a certain open source project in mind, so I can start flushing money down the... I mean, litigating, any day. Of course I'll need some money to get started. One million dollars should get things rolling..."
Probably not, but it should be.
My question:
Is it worth the cost to have a Mac running PPC Linux? I have been considering buying a Mac of some sort to run Linux on, but for the cost of a decent Mac I could build (At least) two blazing fast AMD PCs.
The difference, of course, is in that G4 processor. Do you feel that the G4 (Or even the G3 on an iMac.) processor, combined with Linux, offers the power to match the cost?
Nothing like bringing stuff to light on /.. People fear the dreaded /. effect enough, but they fear us all calling, emailing, etc. even more.
"Can you imagine running 3DMark2000 benchmark on an ultra 10 with a 3D-creator card" Yes, and it would blow ass. Ultrasparc II CPUs are designed for databases, not 3D. If you want fast UNIX 3D, go for SGI.
"...it seems to be mass-produced for an eager and huge American audience."
Death metal is not mass produced. While there are plenty of crappy death metal bands out there, there are not nearly as many of them as there are half-assed-pop-star-wannabes. Take a look at death metal album sales sometime as well, the big sellers barely rate as mass produced in comparison to what would be considered a commercial flop for a pop artist.
On top of that, the audience for death metal in the US us nearly nonexistant. With the exception of Slipknot and Morbid Angel, death metal bands are lucky to ever play a good club, much less a stadium, and usually end up playing to half filled metal bars.
"...Neverwinter is supposed to be the sequel to Baldur's Gate II..."
It is not the sequel to BG II. Neverwinter Nights was an old game people played on AOL that allowed them to create and swap dungeons. It eventually faded out and this is a pretty new 3D version.
This is just about the stupidest thing I have ever seen. If people must pay to link to a site, people will stop linking to the site, and the site will lose all traffic not generated from people who come in from the main page, which can then only be accessed if the user knows it exists.
On top of that, anyone could just list the URL to copy and paste without linking, defeating the purpose of link license agreements that are designed to limit negative comment on the material being linked to.
I doubt that SCSI is going to be a viable option for OEM computers. SCSI is expensive, and requires very specialized motherboards or extra controllers, neither of which OEMs are fond of.
SCSI also sucks for cheap add on drives. Have you seen the costs of SCSI hardware lately? They don't fit into many people's price ranges.
and I would do it right now, if I could get my hands around the necks of the bastards that want to pull this shit.
People seem to think that boycotts and commercial diplomacy are the only things these companies will understand.
BULLSHIT.
What we really need to do is hunt these guys down and beat the living shit out of them. And then go after the people they work for, the corporate officers that allow them to do these things. Smash their heads in with crowbars and two-by-fours, and leave them dead in the streets as a message to the others that might try to pick up where the dead have left off.
But alas, people in this age have allowed themselves to be pacified, and will write me off as a nut. Good for them. But in a hundred year's time, when our governments have been dissolved by the corporations they had been serving, when your children and grandchildren have no future but to produce and buy product, to keep the wheels of commercialism going, without ever stepping out, making waves, then you will see what all your "civilized" ways have brought you. And then, that day, when you are old and weak, and unable to fight back, remember those who wanted to stand up and fight, fight like men, and could not, because their bretheren were afraid to stand with them, and would have had them in chains instead.
"What's going to happen is IBM and others will make these drives, meanwhile overseas companies like in China will continue to make non-compliant drives and everyone will just buy them instead."
Keep dreaming. The majority of consumer-level PCs are bought from OEMs, who buy their disks from the kind of large, trustworthy, reliable manufacturers that can handle huge OEM customers. Manufacturers like... IBM.
As for server hardware, same issue. To maintain maintenance/service contracts, hard disks must be purchased from the original server manufacturer. And where do server companies get those drives? From companies like.... IBM.
The only way to deal with this is to make a lot of noise NOW. For the majority of consumers, this will not be like the intel/AMD option where OEMs were jumping all over the Athlon and customers could avoid the intel serial number. These drives will be everywhere, and for OEM customers, unavoidable.
Information wants to be free.
The corporations want to dominate our content, but why do we need them to? Without the huge chunk of profit these corporations take from artisits, why will the artists stick with this?
And why would the people tolerate this? They will not, and the corportations like the idea, because it keeps us trapped in their distributional paradigms.
But we can just push forward with our own.
Free content.
Free music given away on Napster, web sites, etc.
Free stories and novels given away for the masses to enjoy.
What kind of content can we expect? The odd, the fringe, probably not the best. But the people will grow more and more dissatisfied, and the fringe will grow. People will find ways to pay the creators, beyond just advertising support. T-shirts, small print run books, etc.
A perfect example of this new paradigm is web comics. The web comics make money off merchandise, from books to t-shirts to mousepads.
It will be a low start, but eventually quality content will leave the domain of multinational corporations and return to the people.
We have seen these kinds of stories over and over again on just about every Linux friendly site out there. I love Linux, and I have the utmost respect and admiration for all of the people involved with this, especially intel for taking such a pro-linux stance the whole way.
..." do nothing but make us look just as arrogant as Microsoft marketing. Stop talking shit about Windows, and just spread the good word. People don't need to be told that Windows sucks, they all learn it eventually.
But I need to say something to all of the web admins/authors/.etc out there.
STOP GLOATING YOU ASSHOLES!!!
Story titles like "Liunux leads MS in
"90% of their customers would never agree to have their Web access censored"
/. poll.
If you explained to them that it was being censored in an attempt to destroy those who will continue to business with spammers, and those who work with, encourage, and profit from spamming (As those who produce bulk emailers certainly do.), and that doing so could help end all of those annoying spams, I think that there is a very good chance those people would be happy to have their access censored.
This would make a good
If they pull the site again, would that be a violation of the GPL? And could the NSA be sued over it?
That would be another secret evidence trial for sure....
What I want to know is: Why the hell do American companies do anything other than ignore this sort of thing? I understand that in this case BMG is based in Germany, which makes them liable under German law, but what about other cases? For example, why didn't Yahoo just tell the French to stick it? It this a result of the WTO allowing countries to restrict each other's businesses based on their own laws?
I wonder how much money they might have saved by not pursuing frivolous lawsuits.