"He's very lucky he did it in NZ where it appears that the courts consider him stupid rather than malicious. In other countries he might get charged with terrorism related offenses or worse."
Can anyone point to an example where "other countries" doesn't just mean the US?
Re:Whats wrong with hygiene?
on
Self Cleaning Mouse
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
If the average desk harbours 400% more bacteria than the average toilet seat wouldn't it have a helluva lot to do with the relative surface area of each.
"These books are then, I presume, dumped into the recycling vats."
I believe it's not unknown to return torn off covers for credit if the book turns out to be a real stinker and the rest of the books ends up in the dumpster.
On ebay maybe. But in general memory for old machines is going to cost you more than for current gen. The original poster is right that real old hardware isn't suited to the current versions of Ubuntu and the "small" distros are going to be beyond the average "left behind" Win98 user.
Before MTV I can remember music videos turning up at the most incongruous moments on my local TV station (UTV in Northern Ireland). I mean for instance I've watched the lunchtime news and there's 5 minutes until The Sullivans are on so lets have a video from some band I've never heard of before or since. The fact I'd never heard of them makes me suspect there was a time when music companies actually PAID to have their videos shown on mainstream TV (to the influential Sullivans audience of that era.)
"EA hopes that Spore will be another The Sims. That means a game that can be played by the non-hardcore gamer (read unlikely to pirate) on the PC they got anyway's"
With the online content being fairly necessary to get the most out of it it's even harder to pirate. Not impossible but probably beyond the technical ability/will of the casual gamer.
Theoretically how valid would it be to run a Linux Live CD when you want to P2P then copy the downloaded files to Flash drive? Or just use the Flash drive as the storage drive I suppose. You'd be limited to the size of file you could download so not much use for DVD isos but you get the idea. Feasible? I'm presuming your PC when booted normally wouldn't show any traces of the P2P activity while still looking like an un-tampered with everyday PC. Or even simpler could you just use a second PC on your network or through Internet Connection Sharing?
"Most importantly, I wrote a cron job that every 5 mins or so, wget's a particular web page from my server. In this way, I can get the IP address at which the machine is running when on. I can then remote log-in, and do "apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade -u" whenever needed, as well as any other maintenance I need to do."
I'm a Linux newb but Ubuntu Dapper tells you when there are updates and about 2 clicks later you're done. I think even a computer novice can be trained to click OK a few times. Your solution is elegant from a geek point of view but the OP was addressing a solution that doesn't require micro-management.
"DRM is a necessary evil and assuming a world without it is simply pissing in the wind."
I'm normally and logically anti-DRM but this got me thinking about the old world equivalents. In the real world a lot of thinking are easily copied and the main reason we don't is because we either lack the time or skills to do so. Look at that factory that was busted for turning out replica Ferraris a few years ago. Same with a painting - we could pay someone to reproduce it more or less exactly but most of us aren't sufficiently excited about the painting to go to the expense. The alternative is to buy a print for a few dollars. We could scan and print out a reasonable facsimile of our friend's copy of the print but for a few dollars why bother?
The problems started when we could make almost perfect copies of things for next to nothing. Tape to tape would have been the begining of that, I think. Even then people were prepared to pay for the original because they weren't that expensive and they were still better quality. But now with CDs and DVDs we can home manufacture digitally perfect copies right down to the inlays. How to discourage us? Price CDs and DVDs cheap enough to make it pointless. A DVD costs 50c to make? Sell a million of them for 2 bucks and you've got a million and a half to play with. Put half a million into shipping and advertising and there's a million dollars to make your movie. Start making movies for a million bucks or less and you don't even need studio level backing, private investment will be enough. Creativity will reign supreme and it will be as heaven on Earth.
Yeah I now. It'll never happen but at the end of the day if the Entertainment industry is going to treat itself like an industry shouldn't it be looking at the way other industries compete? Drive costs down to the minimum (no more billion dollar stars - who needs them?) and sling the product out cheap for the mass market.
US Wrestling has always been about the story lines so why not SF Wrestling - Klingons vs Borgs and such. Or I could actually see a role for a wrasslin-themed half hour SF show with a bit of preamble to build the story and a ten minute fight at the end every week. I kinda miss Cleopatra 2525.
If you didn't patent your idea first (and I'm as anti-software patents as the next Dotter...) then what's stopping someone seeing your idea and implementing it? Once it's out there it can't really be patented anyway, as far as I know, because anyone who subsequently tries to get a broad patent to cover the idea will be beaten down with prior art. In theory. Also in theory a patent should include at the very least a working model of the implementation and we know how well that's been working out.
"One of my old teachers used to always tell this story of a fridge he bought many years ago. The thing kept running for years and years (and is still running today probably) whereas most fridges now tend to die in a quarter of the time. However the company who made these fridges went out of business because people didn't need to replace the things when they get faulty."
Of course nowadays the marketing department would have solved that problem by doubling the price of the fridge and aiming it at the luxury end of the market. Maybe even limit production so there's a waiting list to get your hands on one.
"But everyone knows that BitTorrent is primarily used for people seeding Linux ISOs and other highly legal things, so what sort of bad IP addresses are you referring to?"
Microsoft? Apple? Those bastards from BeOs have been quiet lately but...
"America has the remarkable characteristic of class mobility - people can actually aspire to give their children better lives than they have, and frequently succeed in doing so."
They frequently aspire but seldom succeed. I just read a report on this in an old copy of the Economic but I would need to consult my bathroom library to find it again. Just trust me, okay? The reality is that the US is as economically stratified as any other Western country and the people with rags to riches stories tend not to be citizens by birth but recent immigrants. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Don't know where you go the idea the EU government is toothless - most people would say the reverse that in general the EU government has too much power compared to local government.
"What's special about this one, other than it's affiliation with the Pirate Party?"
I've no idea. A few people above have mentioned similar free services which I have no knowledge of. But for five bucks a month maybe it's worth backing purely from the standpoint that the Pirate Party is the only organisation taking a public stand like this. I don't even agree with a lot of what they represent but as a counter-balance to the **AAs of the world it's a case of "the enemy of my enemy"...
"Mepis and a few other distros have these. What is special about Freespire? I rtfa, and the difference seems to be an older KDE. My friend wants me to install the new Mepis on her computer. Is there any reason I should look at Freespire?"
No. But then you're not who this is aimed at. I suspect this is geared more to the people wanting to try Linux for themselves having already used Windows.
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Can anyone point to an example where "other countries" doesn't just mean the US?
If the average desk harbours 400% more bacteria than the average toilet seat wouldn't it have a helluva lot to do with the relative surface area of each.
I believe it's not unknown to return torn off covers for credit if the book turns out to be a real stinker and the rest of the books ends up in the dumpster.
http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/1125094/The_Ship /Product.html
Then lose money on it like 90% of games do and go back to step 1...
On ebay maybe. But in general memory for old machines is going to cost you more than for current gen. The original poster is right that real old hardware isn't suited to the current versions of Ubuntu and the "small" distros are going to be beyond the average "left behind" Win98 user.
Nothing will stop people submitting them but peer review should weed them out once they have.
Quit your griping about smoking, lack of exercise and junk food! It's us wheezing lard butts that are keeping America working.
Before MTV I can remember music videos turning up at the most incongruous moments on my local TV station (UTV in Northern Ireland). I mean for instance I've watched the lunchtime news and there's 5 minutes until The Sullivans are on so lets have a video from some band I've never heard of before or since. The fact I'd never heard of them makes me suspect there was a time when music companies actually PAID to have their videos shown on mainstream TV (to the influential Sullivans audience of that era.)
With the online content being fairly necessary to get the most out of it it's even harder to pirate. Not impossible but probably beyond the technical ability/will of the casual gamer.
Theoretically how valid would it be to run a Linux Live CD when you want to P2P then copy the downloaded files to Flash drive? Or just use the Flash drive as the storage drive I suppose. You'd be limited to the size of file you could download so not much use for DVD isos but you get the idea. Feasible? I'm presuming your PC when booted normally wouldn't show any traces of the P2P activity while still looking like an un-tampered with everyday PC. Or even simpler could you just use a second PC on your network or through Internet Connection Sharing?
Yup. Once the patents on the good ideas expire. :-p
"You lost me at AOL." It's sarcasm. He doesn't like any of them including GNOME.
I'm a Linux newb but Ubuntu Dapper tells you when there are updates and about 2 clicks later you're done. I think even a computer novice can be trained to click OK a few times. Your solution is elegant from a geek point of view but the OP was addressing a solution that doesn't require micro-management.
I'm normally and logically anti-DRM but this got me thinking about the old world equivalents. In the real world a lot of thinking are easily copied and the main reason we don't is because we either lack the time or skills to do so. Look at that factory that was busted for turning out replica Ferraris a few years ago. Same with a painting - we could pay someone to reproduce it more or less exactly but most of us aren't sufficiently excited about the painting to go to the expense. The alternative is to buy a print for a few dollars. We could scan and print out a reasonable facsimile of our friend's copy of the print but for a few dollars why bother?
The problems started when we could make almost perfect copies of things for next to nothing. Tape to tape would have been the begining of that, I think. Even then people were prepared to pay for the original because they weren't that expensive and they were still better quality. But now with CDs and DVDs we can home manufacture digitally perfect copies right down to the inlays. How to discourage us? Price CDs and DVDs cheap enough to make it pointless. A DVD costs 50c to make? Sell a million of them for 2 bucks and you've got a million and a half to play with. Put half a million into shipping and advertising and there's a million dollars to make your movie. Start making movies for a million bucks or less and you don't even need studio level backing, private investment will be enough. Creativity will reign supreme and it will be as heaven on Earth.
Yeah I now. It'll never happen but at the end of the day if the Entertainment industry is going to treat itself like an industry shouldn't it be looking at the way other industries compete? Drive costs down to the minimum (no more billion dollar stars - who needs them?) and sling the product out cheap for the mass market.
Phantom. End of discussion.
US Wrestling has always been about the story lines so why not SF Wrestling - Klingons vs Borgs and such. Or I could actually see a role for a wrasslin-themed half hour SF show with a bit of preamble to build the story and a ten minute fight at the end every week. I kinda miss Cleopatra 2525.
If you didn't patent your idea first (and I'm as anti-software patents as the next Dotter...) then what's stopping someone seeing your idea and implementing it? Once it's out there it can't really be patented anyway, as far as I know, because anyone who subsequently tries to get a broad patent to cover the idea will be beaten down with prior art. In theory. Also in theory a patent should include at the very least a working model of the implementation and we know how well that's been working out.
Of course nowadays the marketing department would have solved that problem by doubling the price of the fridge and aiming it at the luxury end of the market. Maybe even limit production so there's a waiting list to get your hands on one.
Microsoft? Apple? Those bastards from BeOs have been quiet lately but...
They frequently aspire but seldom succeed. I just read a report on this in an old copy of the Economic but I would need to consult my bathroom library to find it again. Just trust me, okay? The reality is that the US is as economically stratified as any other Western country and the people with rags to riches stories tend not to be citizens by birth but recent immigrants. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Don't know where you go the idea the EU government is toothless - most people would say the reverse that in general the EU government has too much power compared to local government.
I've no idea. A few people above have mentioned similar free services which I have no knowledge of. But for five bucks a month maybe it's worth backing purely from the standpoint that the Pirate Party is the only organisation taking a public stand like this. I don't even agree with a lot of what they represent but as a counter-balance to the **AAs of the world it's a case of "the enemy of my enemy"...
We should collaborate - I have an idea for a baking game featuring a Master Chef...
No. But then you're not who this is aimed at. I suspect this is geared more to the people wanting to try Linux for themselves having already used Windows.