Since everybody knows that sound waves are transmitted through the air, that means that music can travel through this unsecured medium to be heard by many life forms, some larger than microscopic, which did not monetarily reimburse the music-producing entity. God was quoted as defending air: "All my land-dwelling living creatures need air to breathe! Isn't that 'fair use'?", but the RIAA responds, "He could have come up with creatures who didn't need to breathe."
Ay, but I'm thinking pragmatically. All you say is true. Now, are we going to set up a court to scrutinize every single word said about every public figure? Yes, you and I can judge and distinguish between falsehood and truth. But, rather than having a secret police hounding every newspaper, I'll put up with a few National Enquirers.
Some of you arguing in favor of HBO: do you remember a time just 25 short years ago when all television was FREE? We had some 100 channels available counting UHF. When cable came along, the selling point was "better quality, no commercials". That was only temporarily so. These days, I encounter the exact same viewing situation on any given night that I did 30 years ago- everything is crap and there's a commercial interruption every five minutes. The only difference is, now I'm charged a couple-hundred scoots for the priveledge of getting it.
We got sick of it and cancelled our cable. We still get a few local stations for news. We rent or buy only the DVDs we want to see. The kids get videos of cartoons for as cheap as 99 cents, and they get to see the *good* cartoons, without commercials. It's cheaper in the long run, more convenient, and HBO has made a habit of releasing their original series complete on DVD, which is the only way to make sense of the entirety of "Carnivale", for instance.
As for HBO, shame on them; they host Bill Maher, and I wonder what he's had to say about this.
I don't know if I'd feel the same way if some anonymous ass was slandering me on a popular website and people were believing it. It's a career killer for professional politicians,
But the nut of the matter is: Politicians have power. So, the powerless have a right to openly criticize them. The powerfull have the right to live and conduct themselves in such an honerable way that nobody would believe their critics. Otherwise, every time Jay Leno or David Letterman makes a wisecrack about the Chief, they'd be liable. But a person in power affects all of our lives, so we have to be able to discuss it openly amongst ourselves.
Nevertheless, I'm sure that no matter *what* MS did, we'd find a way around it. Linux has had a history of that. A file system is just an arbitrary rule you pick out of the air for handling disk storage: "Let's say 64 bytes for the namespace and the files are allocated in 32-byte blocks". One ought to be able to come up with a conversion algorithm which could recover data from a proprietary format...it's not like breaking strong encryption, one would hope.
A better idea is to refuse to buy proprietary-oriented hardware and buy from an open-source oriented provider instead. And if none exists, we hold out and protest until one does, or we make one!
Too bad MS didn't get their patent for FAT. I was looking forward to stripping all the FAT-supporting code from my kernel. And forever more, instead of Linux developers having to cater to that disease of the hard drive that is a FAT file, we could just say, "Sorry, you're S.O.L. that's what you get for trusting your data to a proprietary system." I'm in shock anyway, that the US patent office turned MS down - what, did Gates' latest campaign contribution check bounce? In any case, MS is better off without it.
As for the office suite - We have Google on our side in this battle. Go, Google, go!
Re:Good thing I don't live in the States...
on
RIAA Sues a Child
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· Score: 1
What do you suggest? We dress up in Indian costumes, stowaway a cargo ship in Boston, and throw cases of Brittany Spears CDs into the harbor? Come to think of it, I have a better idea. Toss in Brittany Spears while we're at it.
Lobbying is for people who live in a Free Country.
I am amazed at the hypocrisy I see when this issue appears. Many people who post they want the GPL upheld using copyright law,
Don't you think that it makes a teeny bit of difference that the GPL is for giving your work away and only restricts others from preventing anyone to have the full rights of access? Hence the term "copy-left"?
Judging from the comments, Flock is deader than disco, and it hasn't even been released, yet. It has been bludgeoned to death by Slashdot readers, most of whom are probably loyal Firefox users and know a knock-off when they see one. So, of course, they decided to advertise *here*. With a webpage that looks thrown together in five minutes. Can anybody tell me, when you're marketing a new browser, what mistakes should you not make? Show of hands? Ah, yes, you....
Flock hopes to turn the browser into a dashboard for collaborating, blogging, sharing photos, reveling in a raft of other group activities that have recently caught fire online"
So it'll be just like Firefox with all the plugins and extensions installed for me, so I can't pick and choose?
How cellphones have become so much like miniature computers that you can actually take them down with a Denial-of-Service attack! And the company responds by hiding it's head in the sand - terrific! By the way, you can spend gobs of money sending the text messages, or have pager-alerts sent for free all day from your email account; I know Yahoo already does this.
I saw this coming, and I see more coming yet. Cell phones will have all of the bad aspects of computers (crashing, viruses, spam, hacks, expense) and none of the benefits. I've never gotten one - I have too many other tech gizmos to bother with - and I'm beginning to be glad I didn't.
*whistle* Boy, you know you're an advanced geek when you've actually *burned-out* on building your own hardware!
Yeah, probably the best advice is your local Mom 'n' Pop store, where you go in and tell the techs you need x,y,and z and they'll slap it together. But then, I'm still *far* from done tinkering my own hardware myself, so take it for what it's worth. Actually, all my friends give me their old machines when they "break" (ie need a new fan) just because they know I'm the neighborhood geek, so I can't ever see buying a whole computer again. Most I'll buy is a motherboard/processor.
Huh? Assuming you don't want to dual boot, then you just run the Linux disks, same as before.
Granted. I've picked up the odd superstition along the way. I like to use DOS format first (just for the fun of watching Windows kill itself), then the fdisk in Linux. I get all my hardware used, see, so I figure to leave no possibility that anything could survive from it's previous incarnation. Then I polish my tin-foil hat...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the proceedure for installing Linux on a bare machine is: run Linux disks. The proceedure for installing Linux on a machine with Windows already on it is: Go to DOS prompt, type "format C:...y...enter volume name (I always name it something silly, like "Euclid", the computer from the movie "Pi")" then proceed as in the first example.
Or are Windows installs more tenacious to remove on a Dell machine? I've never had a Dell, for pretty much the same reason I don't eat Big Macs.
Whenever I read the derogotory comments about Linux's desktop situation, I am dead certain that they have tried, and hence base their opinion on nothing but KDE and Gnome. Well, I don't use those. For everybody's information, there are about 50 desktop environments and window managers for Linux http://xwinman.org/. Specifically, Blackbox, Fluxbox, Window Maker, IceWM, and XFCE are notable alternatives, with Fluxbox my hands-down favorite. There are also the family of TWM-based and CDE-derived managers. You don't *need* KDE running to use KDE's kicker, nor do you need Gnome to run gnome-terminal (I have both of those programs accessible from my Fluxbox menu); in fact, *any* executable application can be run from *any* environment (except window managers themselves...although you can switch desktops without shutting down X. And I've run KDE's desktop in a window...in FVWM!).
If only more people discovered the alternatives, it would both out-class the current desktop market, and put to death that Linux can do nothing on the desktop but follow Windows around. There is literally something out there for every single taste and kink. Of course, we're *all* stuck supporting Windows-clones just for the people who insist that every computer in the world must look, smell, feel, taste, and sound exactly like Windows or they won't use it...but I digress.
stop getting "news" about Linux/OSS from zdnet blogs.
A resounding AMEN!!!!! Really, I think it's time we asked Slashdot for some moderation/control over articles. Or at least something more specific in our user control preferences than who posted it and what topic: Have a "source" field also, where you can specify a blacklist of source sites from which "news" is a waste of time.
"She's not a girl who misses much.
She's well acquainted with the touch of a velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane.
The man in the crowd with the multi-colored mirrors on his hobnail boots.
Lying with his eyes while his hands were busy working over time.
A soap impression of his wife which he donated to the national trust.
I need a fix 'cuz I'm goin' down; down to the place that I left up town.
I need a fix 'cuz I'm goin' down.
Mother Superior jumped the gun...(3 times)"
hey, I probably missed a couple licks, but that ain't bad considering I haven't even owned the White Album in 15 years...
PS, See what the marine posted upthread. He's thinking right: medicines. That fits in with: basic necessities: food, water, shelter...if I want my personal data back, the US government keeps it safe for me in a database. To claim it, all I need is my fingerprint. I didn't see any headlines during Hurricane Katrina saying, "Red Cross rushes 10,000 USB drives and PGP keys to New Orleans to save victim's data". Marriage certificate? Taxes? The IRS will be happy to send me all the data I need to do my taxes, when the disaster's over.
Funny, back during the Hurricane fallout, there was a Slashdot story about providing technology assistance to victims, and the sentiment back then was, "How stupid! They need food, water, medicine, and a place to sleep. They have dead bodies in the streets that have to be buried. Leave the tech toys for later." -How soooooon we forget!
thats the stuff that you might really need in a tight spot, and it will have a post-apocalypse market value no matter where you are...
Ah, yes, some perspective! Thank you for making some more points. Yes, folks, once you've been through a *real* emergency, you learn fast what's important and what's not in a crisis. Doing your taxes and proving you're married kinda float to the bottom; food, water, and medical supplies rise to the top. During the Hurricane Katrina response, I didn't see any headlines: "Red Cross rushes 10,000 USB drives and PGP keys to New Orleans to save victim's data."
The USB version, which you are MAKING PORTABLE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, needs to be SECURE WHILE IT IS BEING MOVED in case of LOSS or THEFT. You don't carry a safe around with you.
OK, I'll slow down while you catch up. The safe is in case your domicile is robbed (same place where you keep your important paper docs). At disaster time, you take it out of the safe and carry it with you.
Slashdot Mirror
Since everybody knows that sound waves are transmitted through the air, that means that music can travel through this unsecured medium to be heard by many life forms, some larger than microscopic, which did not monetarily reimburse the music-producing entity. God was quoted as defending air: "All my land-dwelling living creatures need air to breathe! Isn't that 'fair use'?", but the RIAA responds, "He could have come up with creatures who didn't need to breathe."
Ay, but I'm thinking pragmatically. All you say is true. Now, are we going to set up a court to scrutinize every single word said about every public figure? Yes, you and I can judge and distinguish between falsehood and truth. But, rather than having a secret police hounding every newspaper, I'll put up with a few National Enquirers.
We got sick of it and cancelled our cable. We still get a few local stations for news. We rent or buy only the DVDs we want to see. The kids get videos of cartoons for as cheap as 99 cents, and they get to see the *good* cartoons, without commercials. It's cheaper in the long run, more convenient, and HBO has made a habit of releasing their original series complete on DVD, which is the only way to make sense of the entirety of "Carnivale", for instance.
As for HBO, shame on them; they host Bill Maher, and I wonder what he's had to say about this.
But the nut of the matter is: Politicians have power. So, the powerless have a right to openly criticize them. The powerfull have the right to live and conduct themselves in such an honerable way that nobody would believe their critics. Otherwise, every time Jay Leno or David Letterman makes a wisecrack about the Chief, they'd be liable. But a person in power affects all of our lives, so we have to be able to discuss it openly amongst ourselves.
Nevertheless, I'm sure that no matter *what* MS did, we'd find a way around it. Linux has had a history of that. A file system is just an arbitrary rule you pick out of the air for handling disk storage: "Let's say 64 bytes for the namespace and the files are allocated in 32-byte blocks". One ought to be able to come up with a conversion algorithm which could recover data from a proprietary format...it's not like breaking strong encryption, one would hope.
A better idea is to refuse to buy proprietary-oriented hardware and buy from an open-source oriented provider instead. And if none exists, we hold out and protest until one does, or we make one!
fdisk /dev/sda plus mkfs.ext2 are the magic spells you use to convert any USB drive to Linux.
As for the office suite - We have Google on our side in this battle. Go, Google, go!
Lobbying is for people who live in a Free Country.
Don't you think that it makes a teeny bit of difference that the GPL is for giving your work away and only restricts others from preventing anyone to have the full rights of access? Hence the term "copy-left"?
Judging from the comments, Flock is deader than disco, and it hasn't even been released, yet. It has been bludgeoned to death by Slashdot readers, most of whom are probably loyal Firefox users and know a knock-off when they see one. So, of course, they decided to advertise *here*. With a webpage that looks thrown together in five minutes. Can anybody tell me, when you're marketing a new browser, what mistakes should you not make? Show of hands? Ah, yes, you....
Wow! They advertized on "Backslashdot.com" too?
So it'll be just like Firefox with all the plugins and extensions installed for me, so I can't pick and choose?
I saw this coming, and I see more coming yet. Cell phones will have all of the bad aspects of computers (crashing, viruses, spam, hacks, expense) and none of the benefits. I've never gotten one - I have too many other tech gizmos to bother with - and I'm beginning to be glad I didn't.
Yeah, probably the best advice is your local Mom 'n' Pop store, where you go in and tell the techs you need x,y,and z and they'll slap it together. But then, I'm still *far* from done tinkering my own hardware myself, so take it for what it's worth. Actually, all my friends give me their old machines when they "break" (ie need a new fan) just because they know I'm the neighborhood geek, so I can't ever see buying a whole computer again. Most I'll buy is a motherboard/processor.
Granted. I've picked up the odd superstition along the way. I like to use DOS format first (just for the fun of watching Windows kill itself), then the fdisk in Linux. I get all my hardware used, see, so I figure to leave no possibility that anything could survive from it's previous incarnation. Then I polish my tin-foil hat...
That'd only be a factor with Ubuntu and Debian users, the rest of us could give a damn.
Or are Windows installs more tenacious to remove on a Dell machine? I've never had a Dell, for pretty much the same reason I don't eat Big Macs.
If only more people discovered the alternatives, it would both out-class the current desktop market, and put to death that Linux can do nothing on the desktop but follow Windows around. There is literally something out there for every single taste and kink. Of course, we're *all* stuck supporting Windows-clones just for the people who insist that every computer in the world must look, smell, feel, taste, and sound exactly like Windows or they won't use it...but I digress.
A resounding AMEN!!!!! Really, I think it's time we asked Slashdot for some moderation/control over articles. Or at least something more specific in our user control preferences than who posted it and what topic: Have a "source" field also, where you can specify a blacklist of source sites from which "news" is a waste of time.
Every time I've gotten a disk from Microsoft, I've played it once and then thrown it away...
"She's not a girl who misses much.
She's well acquainted with the touch of a velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane.
The man in the crowd with the multi-colored mirrors on his hobnail boots.
Lying with his eyes while his hands were busy working over time.
A soap impression of his wife which he donated to the national trust.
I need a fix 'cuz I'm goin' down; down to the place that I left up town.
I need a fix 'cuz I'm goin' down.
Mother Superior jumped the gun...(3 times)"
hey, I probably missed a couple licks, but that ain't bad considering I haven't even owned the White Album in 15 years...
Funny, back during the Hurricane fallout, there was a Slashdot story about providing technology assistance to victims, and the sentiment back then was, "How stupid! They need food, water, medicine, and a place to sleep. They have dead bodies in the streets that have to be buried. Leave the tech toys for later." -How soooooon we forget!
Ah, yes, some perspective! Thank you for making some more points. Yes, folks, once you've been through a *real* emergency, you learn fast what's important and what's not in a crisis. Doing your taxes and proving you're married kinda float to the bottom; food, water, and medical supplies rise to the top. During the Hurricane Katrina response, I didn't see any headlines: "Red Cross rushes 10,000 USB drives and PGP keys to New Orleans to save victim's data."
OK, I'll slow down while you catch up. The safe is in case your domicile is robbed (same place where you keep your important paper docs). At disaster time, you take it out of the safe and carry it with you.