I have an MSI 6167? motherboard with an Athlon 500 and have been running Slackware 7.0 for a few months now. Since I first installed it I compiled several newer versions of the kernel including 2.2.13, 2.2.15, 2.3.99-pre3, 2.3.99-pre5, and 2.3.99-pre6. Also installed XFree 86 4.0, word perfect, star office, afterstep and several other packages. I've also swapped out some hardware: TNT2-M64 video card, ATI Rage 128 Pro video card, ne2000 compatible 10 Mbps card, and a linksys 10/100 ethernet adapter. I love the MSI motherboard. It has the ability to boot whatever drive I want in any order, which allows me to install Lilo and MS-DOS menu boot sectors on 2 harddrives to preserve at least 2 separate Win 98 installations and boot various linux kernels without openning the case. I have no complaints and never really had any problems besides the lack of 3D support for both the TNT2 and ATI video cards, and absence of the linksys driver in the linux kernel (but that was easy to compile).
If all of these napster users stopped breaking copyrights and just copied music from people who freely shared their mp3s I bet the recording industry would feel left out. They wouldn't get all the exposure they are getting now with napster. Napster should check for copyrighted work and stop letting people serve it, boot copyright offenders as soon as they are noticed and put up a web page stating that any RIAA affiliated / copyrighted 'art' can not be traded on their site.
Its doubtful that users would be smart enough to do this, but I'd sure like to see the surprise on Lar's face in a few years if some internet musician was making more than he was, simply through open-source methods of distribution.
I think Lars needs to do a little more research, it doesn't sound like he fully understand gnutella or the other technology out there for distributing files. Does anyone go after ftp sites with mp3s on them anymore?
Anyway, I am a musician and I have put out a couple mp3s. I enjoy recording and playing music and I have a real job, so I don't really need the money. I could understand how someone would want some money for the music they create if that's all they do in life, but I can't understand this damned copyright shit and how it relates to music. People used to dance around fires and play music and talk and share with their friends. Now people are sharing through the internet. But big bands like Metallica (one I used to idle when I was a kid) are whining cuz they aren't getting enough $$ out of it? Or is it just the fear of millions upon millions of copies of their music being traded? Does it matter? I got enough money to eat, and I'm sure Metallica does too. Why can't they share?
I might have wanted to get picked up by a record label and publicized a few years ago, but thanks to/. and what's left of free speech across the internet I've been taught that I should share. When I was a kid my parents told me I should share, but now those same parents seem to be upset and a bit confused over this whole napster and 'evil' internet that has been created. Is it evil or do they simply not understand it?
We _could_ take them to court, sue, threaten, etc. But then wouldn't we be fighting the same way they do? I thought open-source was all about being better. Giving instead of taking. Sharing source-code so people can learn. We could sue and try to cripple their company for using our code without giving back to the community just like those people who wrote the original code did, however, we need to keep a calm and level head about this instead of tossing in a few laywers to do the job. Companies like nVidia will learn if all of us sys admins and full time 3d gamers choose not to put up with their shit anymore. Just stop buying nVidia. If money doesn't flow their way, they won't be able to get in ours asking for more. Commercialism, unlike open-source, requires funding and lots of it. If they want to be closed they won't conform to standards for linux, their 3D drivers for linux already suck and don't conform to DRI. So I see no need to ever pay nVidia for any hardware. Use ATI or Matrox or anyone who supports Linux and the open-source community.
Reading through a few of the comments posted here I noticed that there doesn't seem to be a good understanding of exactly what an IT Professional is. Most people consider someone competent if they can setup a network of windoze boxxes and get them printing, however, there is a LOT more to IT/IS than most people think. First you must understand what an IT professional is. Unfortunately M$ would love to make everyone think that anyone with an MCSE is an IT professional. If that were the case we would not have a shortage at all, there are several hundred thousand MCSEs around and many more passing M$s easy tests every year. But what it takes to be an IT professional is a good understanding of how a company's network operates. This means a senior network administrator should know DNS, NFS, NIS, sendmail, apache, Linux and how various flavors of Unix (at least Solaris) work together. Understanding Unix and networking seems to be the challenging part to all those new MCSEs out there. I'm sure they took a course that taught them if they added TCP to M$s protocols and added in a few numbers they would be on the net, but most MCSEs don't understand how routers or switches work, and are clueless when it comes to other internet technology like IP masquerading / NAT and how these affect network services like mail or httpd requests. They should also have a basic scripting ability and preferrably a good background in perl to help automate sys admin tasks. And you can't forget the hardware side of the coin. They should know how to take any PC clone or desktop unix box apart, replace drives, memory, etc. And setup and configure all the new server hardware you buy to keep your network running soundly. Its also a good idea for an IT professional to know how to integrate a UNIX and NT network and provide 99% uptime and keep ahead on resources.
I started here in the valley 3 years ago without a clue about how networks or Unix worked. During that time I helped build up a startup that went public and watched how a company grows and what is required of IT within the first 2 years of a companies growth.
I have to disagree when they say we have enough IT professionals. Think about the growth of internet based companies in the last year. Everyone should have a competent, professional IT person on staff. And if you consider a professional someone who can work on project level assignments, such as designing and building the company intranet (I assure you no manager or CEO knows how to design a company network or recommend server hardware better than a real IT professional), we have a serious lack of the talent that is needed. I don't even think I qualify as a senior level systems administrator and I could get my MCSE tomorrow if I wanted to.
In conclusion, it would be a much nicer internet if there wasn't such a shortage of network administrators. Problems such as the DOS attacks on Ebay, yahoo, etc. wouldn't have happened if we had enough competent IT professionals. A good way to find out if you have a top notch IT department is to check what they monitor on a regular basis. Yes they do backups and keep the network running for the most part, but do they get paged whenever a production system goes down? Do they know the status of your intranet all the time without being at their desk? Can they install, upgrade, patch and for almost all situations do their job remotely? Then they are probably an IT professional.
Anyway, in order to take down these evil corporations legally we just need to take away their funding. Easy, huh?
How do AOL, Time Warner, Disney, the RIAA and the MPAA get their money? From the stupid masses who go out to see 'Mission to Mars' or whatever that flop of a movie was called, because they were told it was a good movie from companies affiliated with the MPAA. In fact I bet the whole movie was created for nothing more than getting people to pay to watch it. No artistic qualities whatsoever.
To put an end to this we need to create media and distribute it for free under a license similar to the GPL. If we started creating mp3s and mpeg video of anything that interrests us and begin giving it away on the 'net we might start to get people interrested in working with free media that they don't have to pay for and don't have to worry about any legal reprocussions for distributing it or sharing it.
mp3.com is a great start for something like this, but can we edit their mp3s and create new music via mixxing or sample editting or redistribute the music on cds and sell it? I think all software and media should be given away under a GPL like license that allows people to even sell music and stuff they don't own, because this is true freedom and just leaves the responsibility in the hands of the consumer as it always has been.
We won't notice any negative effects on these large corporations for a while, but the less money they get from the ignant masses, the less they have to spread mind numbing media hype. Who knows, maybe someday we'll figure out how to make a great movie without spending millions on special effects, and instead just use a few linux boxxes / beowolf clusters and a lot of time programming POV and editting frames in gimp. I would love to see a real open-source movie studio start up.
When you go to the store to buy a cd or a movie you believe that you will actually own that movie or the music that is on your new cd. You bring it home and rip a few of your favorite mp3s onto your computer, and a few weeks later you put up an ftp site or get on napster to share with you friends. And a few days later when you're browsing slashdot you find out that what you are doing is illegal, immoral and unethical. But what did you do wrong?
You simply shared some of your favorite media with friends. But the RIAA doesn't want you to do this. They want you to pay for this media along with your friends and everyone else. They don't want you to copy it, it isn't yours, you can't distribute it or change it in any way, because the RIAA owns it. If they could have things their way they would probably rent it to you, everytime you played a song they'd charge you a dollar for usage of their kewl hip media.
I think people need to learn and reallize that this is wrong. They need to think for themselves and look at the bigger picture. If you continue to buy CDs and movies and support he RIAA and MPAA you will continue to be found by them. They will make movies so they can sell you more junk, action figures, soundtracks, taco bell toys, etc. They don't care about the media they create, but only how much money you give them. And they only want more. These type of organizations are created so the founders and owners get rich, but they never give anything back to the community.
We need people to start creating free media. Music, art, movies and software all under licenses similar to the GPL. Where anyone can share this media with their friends or family or whomever they want. If the people like the music they will still go to the store to buy your CD (which you can sell for a lot less, btw), and you will still make lots of $$, look at Redhat.:)
Interresting point. But doesn't copy protection stand for something more than just the allowance of certain people, license holders, the right to use the media? It was built on the old standards of the world of capitalism. What people need to do is either invent a smart encryption scheme, like what you said and similar to what Quake 3 has done, where your key can only be used once at any moment in time, or stop copyrighting your media for the purpose of making money.
A new smart encryption scheme means we need people to spend time thinking about how to circumvent the mischievious consumer. This means the copy protection scheme needs to be able to adapt and change over time as 'the people' get smarter and learn how to crack it. A lot of time and money would need to go into this project, and what does it protect? It keeps those who don't pay as well as those who can't afford to pay for the product from enjoying it. I personally feel that art, wheather it is music, poetic perl, paintings, sculptures or even video, was meant to convey an emotion or an idea, but I can't understand artists today. They seem to be more concerned with money than their artwork. That is exactly what creates 'the media' and commercialism we see on our TV everyday. Don't get me wrong, commercialism pays for a LOT, and isn't necessarily bad. Entire companies on the net get their funding solely from commercialism, which allows them to bring websites and information to the people. But does real art really have a place in commercialism?
What if artists started creating media that could be freely distributed under something similar to the GPL, where their art could be admired and remaster / mixxed, or whatever the consumer wants to do with it as long as credit goes back to the original artist it could put an end to large corporations trying to spread their 'media' which usually isn't art. Then artists could experience some of the freedom and pleasure of the open-source movement. They could still make money selling their work on CDs, DVDs, mp3s, etc. But as long as money doesn't matter to them as much as their artwork, they could find comfort in knowing that the general public can enjoy what they have created without the fear of large corporations suing them for copying or otherwise using the art.
I just wish someday us Americans will wake up and reallize it isn't all about money.
P.S. Opensource economic models such as Redhat have made hundreds of millions in revenue and stock, and most of that was distributed between the artists who continue to build on their masterpiece, instead of some M$ corp's pocket book, who continue to rethink new propietary standards and find new ways to break their code.
I've been following this since DeCSS was first released. And now I think the movie industry has gone too far. I understand about their rights to disagree about open-sourcing their encryption standards, but they don't have the right to harrass everyone that fights for freedom of information, reguardless of what the laws say. Morals and ethics say otherwise.
It is our responsibility as an open-source and free information supporting society to speak out with one voice that this is wrong. In order to do that we must hurt the movie industry in the only place that matters to them. Their wallet. I ask that every open-source supporter boycot movies for a few weeks or months until paramount, turner, disney, sony, etc. stop the law suits and harrassment.
Just stop going out to the theatre, stop renting videos and stop buying movies on DVD or VHS formats from anything besides independant films. Just find something else to do for a few weeks or up to a couple months and I assure you if we all do this the movie industry will change their tune REAL fast. That's my $.02 cents.
Thought provoking? You suck! You failed to mention anything about the real technological advantages of the crusoe processors. They are basically an FPGA. Imagine a processor you could rewrite the Linux kernel for, so that it could optimize the instruction set on the processor to match the needs of your code at that time.
Plus it runs faster than any current mobile intel chip and consumes less power. What more could a person want?
I can't believe the sensors gave you such a high score for that rant. So here's mine... who knows maybe I'll score a 5 too.;)
I can't speak for other/.-ers, but I'm not really interested in people who want to talk about what can't be done...
I agree with this point. Mr. Kats has written some excellent/thought provoking articles for slashdot in the past, but this one has a very strange tone to it. It is a criticism of what computers can or cannot do with no examples of exactly what they can or cannot do. Instead it sparks stupid arguements not much more interresting than those sparked by apple and their lack of mouse buttons.
Personally I'd be more interrested in hearing about what computers have done already, beyond what we thought they could do. Or ideas on what sci-fi devices have already emerged out of the last few years of computing and what we can expect to see in the near future. Or more about how our past is unfolding in new ways, becoming more clear by the day, thanks to the net and the flow of information. But that's starting to get a little off topic.
Of course there are computing tasks that computers can't do. Ever try to divide by 0? I've tried that a lot in my calculus courses, but my little HP48 couldn't handle it. And neither can our Athlons or P4s. But through programming I could write some software to look at the equations algebraicly and follow the rules all math students have to in order to break apart the problem into smaller, easier to handle parts. And then find the derivative or integrate the equation, etc. You don't always have to use REAL numbers to solve a problem. Most of superstrings and higher mathematics is based on imaginary numbers. Computers can handle those just as easily as we can.
In short, its not the computer, its the programmer, so let's just be a little more optimistic.:)
Children today are treated as second-class citizens. Oh, sorry, wait, they arn't even treated like citizens. So what are they? Property, for the most part(at least in the eyes of the law).
I must accept this as truth, but isn't it wrong? Kids are not treated as citizens because we don't believe they can make a decision on their own. Yet in reguards to the internet, we leave it up to them to make many decisions, such as which links to click or which sites to visit.
If we really want to "protect" kids why don't we pay someone else to watch them 24 / 7. We can pay to have our car or our home watched like that, why not our kids. Afterall, our kids are our most important piece of property.
Its absurd, the lack of responsibility parents have today. Most expect the government to provide services for everything from health care, schools, and laws to "protection" but we constantly complain that our kids are not safe. That they can be exposed to the real world too easily. How easy? Even our grandparents can get access to this unadulterated information within minutes with software like AOL that's shipped to everyone's front door.
And what about us adults? Why should we only protect the kids? I have a computer in my living room that is on the net 24/7. That means anyone could accidentally sit down and be flooded with tons of unadulterated information, such as porn, that could hurt them.
There are two ways around this problem. We can either try to "protect" everyone. Govern the information that every person is allowed to view, hear and think. I think there have been books written about this... or at the very least burned. OR We could try to accept the world the way it is and accept responsibility for ourselves and our children. And keep information and society free.
I don't have kids. I'm just a kid myself, 22, but I'm on my own, learning a few things about the world, mostly bad. But I have thought long and hard about having kids and how I'd raise them. I'd first start by making sure I had enough money to support them and myself and a job that would allow me to be with them. I would pay attention to my children, putting myself in their place, teach them about the world we live in and try to ecourage them to learn and think for themselves. This means we have to teach them about the birds and the bees a little earlier, and even those sections that our parents left out about the birds and the birds or the bees and the bees. These are topics we are scared to discuss with our children, but reguardless of what we do they will find out someday... what makes you think they haven't already? But at least my kids would grow up knowing what life is really like. Not whatever fantasy world the average US citizen thinks they still live in with apple pie and the buffalo and the little house on the prairy. Come on people, wake up.
I think parents around the world need to grow up and start acting like parents (that word should be synonymous to teacher).
Interresting idea. They designed devices that could crash land on mars without using a parachute and would withstand the impact and still function properly, though they were quite compact and took a lot of testing to get it right. I doubt we could build one the size of an ICBM, though.
But what if we set up some sort of GPS satellite network, maybe 3 or 4 orbiters that built the fabric of some sort of global communications network around the planet, then send small probes similar to what we've already sent that had a couple extra devices. One communications computer / antenna that would keep the orbitting satellites clued in as to where the probe was, current position and altitude, etc. And status, if there are any problems with the onboard equipment, etc. And another device that would act as a becon, in case we "lose" another probe, so we could at least locate it and see if there is anything salvagable from the crash site. Instead of spend days searching through poor pictures for a few miscolorred pixels, hoping they could find the polar lander, like NASA is doing now. I can't believe they didn't consider a crash landing as a probability and add some sort of transmitter that's compact and extremely shock resistant that would transmit a signal of any type... long enough for something to pick it up. Its not like we can't build such a device today cheap enough to be added to one of these probes.
Also why not spend a few extra coke cans from each American's pocket and throw up something similar to Hubble with a good enough camera to pinpoint an object the size of the polar lander without too much trouble. I mean, in reality the polar lander cost me personally less than $1.00. Considerring our wonderful government takes over $1000 out of my paychecks every month I'd expect, if not demand to see a LOT more going to our space program. I'm sick of paying for all these nice new big black Suburbans for our Sherrifs and for all the extra highway patrol officers and fedral offices like the IRS, FDA, FCC, CIA, NSA, and nameless others that don't contribute anything to humanity or my well being, but instead would rather regulate me and invade my privacy and take away my rights. At least the space program gives me something interresting to read when I'm bored at work.
Where do I send my donations to NASA or other privately funded space programs, to be SURE they get the money? Y'know if we all sent a $15 check to NASA we'd be sending manned missions to mars in no time!
C'mon,I have yet to see a 70 yo politician run Linux and talk about how they got their encrypted filesystem to work by rewriting their login scripts to mount their home directory when they login. As soon as one of these old guys in congress or the senate, who are supposed to be voting on laws that affect all of us and the future of our country as a major presence on the net, read a book or two on the various operating systems out there and network architecture and where the advances are being made today, I'll feel a lot safer when I hear about new laws going into effect.
But why do we need all these laws to govern technology anyway? Is the internet really a bad place in its current state? Does your web browser seek out all those porn sites without your knowing? Or how often have your credit card numbers been stolen? The only regulation we need are to get that damned patent office to understand that software is nothing more than an idea! Copyright laws protect software, what more do you need? Enough with the patenting of CGI and the single click shopping already! Boycot Amazon!
I know one thing... what I have learned in the tech industry gives me a free ticket to move anyplace in the world and find a good job. This means if this country's gov't can't learn a few things about the net they don't deserve to have it in the first place. At the first sign of our gov't standing in my way I'll happily take my business elsewhere!
I can not predict the future and I can't speak for entry level admins, but I doubt there will be an end to a shortage of senior computer techies.
Computer are becoming an integral part of every day life. Soon walking down the road you will be able to read email, browse the web and run apps from your personal computer over some sort of remote display X term or network app. How soon? Less than 5 years. The world needs programmers and geeky admins to make sure all these services are running and bug free.
Its highly unlikely that someone is going to write smart software to replace the average programmer, and even if they do, we'll always need someone to optimize and debug that "smart" software.
We can not dispute on average people are lazy and ignorant. Most people, 51%+, don't know anything, relatively speaking, about computers. Afterall, they are the reason AOL is doing so well. They couldn't possibly learn what it takes to take my job away. And the other half of the world, the professional, are trying to find a place that suits them, not all of them are going to become programmers or network admins.
There's even a huge difference between a sys admin and a network admin. Network professionals don't need to know the equipment that runs on their network, but they do need to know the various routing protocols, topology of their network and security issues. Sys admins need to know the hardware and software every peon in the company uses as well as what servers need to be in place. And there are faded lines between these positions and even really senior people who can fill both, but those are extremely rare, even in the silicon valley.
I bet it will be more competitive in the future, I will be forces to learn faster and work smarter. But without a major geological catastrophy, computers are not going to disappear off the face of the planet. Even a stock market crash couldn't put an end to computers. Look at the Y2k problems. If we didn't need them we would simply turn them off.
What kind of country do we live in where you have to have a degree in law and politics to be able to write code?!?!?! We need to do something 'bout those old poloticians who think they can invade our privacy, put backdoors in mainstream OSs, or police the internet. Next they'll be policing the intranet with some sort of blackbox ethernet spy to let them know what you've been browsing just like Australia.
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I have an MSI 6167? motherboard with an Athlon 500 and have been running Slackware 7.0 for a few months now. Since I first installed it I compiled several newer versions of the kernel including 2.2.13, 2.2.15, 2.3.99-pre3, 2.3.99-pre5, and 2.3.99-pre6. Also installed XFree 86 4.0, word perfect, star office, afterstep and several other packages.
I've also swapped out some hardware: TNT2-M64 video card, ATI Rage 128 Pro video card, ne2000 compatible 10 Mbps card, and a linksys 10/100 ethernet adapter.
I love the MSI motherboard. It has the ability to boot whatever drive I want in any order, which allows me to install Lilo and MS-DOS menu boot sectors on 2 harddrives to preserve at least 2 separate Win 98 installations and boot various linux kernels without openning the case.
I have no complaints and never really had any problems besides the lack of 3D support for both the TNT2 and ATI video cards, and absence of the linksys driver in the linux kernel (but that was easy to compile).
Its doubtful that users would be smart enough to do this, but I'd sure like to see the surprise on Lar's face in a few years if some internet musician was making more than he was, simply through open-source methods of distribution.
Anyway, I am a musician and I have put out a couple mp3s. I enjoy recording and playing music and I have a real job, so I don't really need the money. I could understand how someone would want some money for the music they create if that's all they do in life, but I can't understand this damned copyright shit and how it relates to music. People used to dance around fires and play music and talk and share with their friends. Now people are sharing through the internet. But big bands like Metallica (one I used to idle when I was a kid) are whining cuz they aren't getting enough $$ out of it? Or is it just the fear of millions upon millions of copies of their music being traded? Does it matter? I got enough money to eat, and I'm sure Metallica does too. Why can't they share?
I might have wanted to get picked up by a record label and publicized a few years ago, but thanks to
We _could_ take them to court, sue, threaten, etc. But then wouldn't we be fighting the same way they do? I thought open-source was all about being better. Giving instead of taking. Sharing source-code so people can learn. We could sue and try to cripple their company for using our code without giving back to the community just like those people who wrote the original code did, however, we need to keep a calm and level head about this instead of tossing in a few laywers to do the job.
Companies like nVidia will learn if all of us sys admins and full time 3d gamers choose not to put up with their shit anymore. Just stop buying nVidia. If money doesn't flow their way, they won't be able to get in ours asking for more. Commercialism, unlike open-source, requires funding and lots of it. If they want to be closed they won't conform to standards for linux, their 3D drivers for linux already suck and don't conform to DRI. So I see no need to ever pay nVidia for any hardware. Use ATI or Matrox or anyone who supports Linux and the open-source community.
First you must understand what an IT professional is. Unfortunately M$ would love to make everyone think that anyone with an MCSE is an IT professional. If that were the case we would not have a shortage at all, there are several hundred thousand MCSEs around and many more passing M$s easy tests every year. But what it takes to be an IT professional is a good understanding of how a company's network operates. This means a senior network administrator should know DNS, NFS, NIS, sendmail, apache, Linux and how various flavors of Unix (at least Solaris) work together. Understanding Unix and networking seems to be the challenging part to all those new MCSEs out there. I'm sure they took a course that taught them if they added TCP to M$s protocols and added in a few numbers they would be on the net, but most MCSEs don't understand how routers or switches work, and are clueless when it comes to other internet technology like IP masquerading / NAT and how these affect network services like mail or httpd requests. They should also have a basic scripting ability and preferrably a good background in perl to help automate sys admin tasks. And you can't forget the hardware side of the coin. They should know how to take any PC clone or desktop unix box apart, replace drives, memory, etc. And setup and configure all the new server hardware you buy to keep your network running soundly. Its also a good idea for an IT professional to know how to integrate a UNIX and NT network and provide 99% uptime and keep ahead on resources.
I started here in the valley 3 years ago without a clue about how networks or Unix worked. During that time I helped build up a startup that went public and watched how a company grows and what is required of IT within the first 2 years of a companies growth.
I have to disagree when they say we have enough IT professionals. Think about the growth of internet based companies in the last year. Everyone should have a competent, professional IT person on staff. And if you consider a professional someone who can work on project level assignments, such as designing and building the company intranet (I assure you no manager or CEO knows how to design a company network or recommend server hardware better than a real IT professional), we have a serious lack of the talent that is needed. I don't even think I qualify as a senior level systems administrator and I could get my MCSE tomorrow if I wanted to.
In conclusion, it would be a much nicer internet if there wasn't such a shortage of network administrators. Problems such as the DOS attacks on Ebay, yahoo, etc. wouldn't have happened if we had enough competent IT professionals. A good way to find out if you have a top notch IT department is to check what they monitor on a regular basis. Yes they do backups and keep the network running for the most part, but do they get paged whenever a production system goes down? Do they know the status of your intranet all the time without being at their desk? Can they install, upgrade, patch and for almost all situations do their job remotely? Then they are probably an IT professional.
Anyway, in order to take down these evil corporations legally we just need to take away their funding. Easy, huh?
How do AOL, Time Warner, Disney, the RIAA and the MPAA get their money? From the stupid masses who go out to see 'Mission to Mars' or whatever that flop of a movie was called, because they were told it was a good movie from companies affiliated with the MPAA. In fact I bet the whole movie was created for nothing more than getting people to pay to watch it. No artistic qualities whatsoever.
To put an end to this we need to create media and distribute it for free under a license similar to the GPL. If we started creating mp3s and mpeg video of anything that interrests us and begin giving it away on the 'net we might start to get people interrested in working with free media that they don't have to pay for and don't have to worry about any legal reprocussions for distributing it or sharing it.
mp3.com is a great start for something like this, but can we edit their mp3s and create new music via mixxing or sample editting or redistribute the music on cds and sell it? I think all software and media should be given away under a GPL like license that allows people to even sell music and stuff they don't own, because this is true freedom and just leaves the responsibility in the hands of the consumer as it always has been.
We won't notice any negative effects on these large corporations for a while, but the less money they get from the ignant masses, the less they have to spread mind numbing media hype. Who knows, maybe someday we'll figure out how to make a great movie without spending millions on special effects, and instead just use a few linux boxxes / beowolf clusters and a lot of time programming POV and editting frames in gimp. I would love to see a real open-source movie studio start up.
You simply shared some of your favorite media with friends. But the RIAA doesn't want you to do this. They want you to pay for this media along with your friends and everyone else. They don't want you to copy it, it isn't yours, you can't distribute it or change it in any way, because the RIAA owns it. If they could have things their way they would probably rent it to you, everytime you played a song they'd charge you a dollar for usage of their kewl hip media.
I think people need to learn and reallize that this is wrong. They need to think for themselves and look at the bigger picture. If you continue to buy CDs and movies and support he RIAA and MPAA you will continue to be found by them. They will make movies so they can sell you more junk, action figures, soundtracks, taco bell toys, etc. They don't care about the media they create, but only how much money you give them. And they only want more. These type of organizations are created so the founders and owners get rich, but they never give anything back to the community.
We need people to start creating free media. Music, art, movies and software all under licenses similar to the GPL. Where anyone can share this media with their friends or family or whomever they want. If the people like the music they will still go to the store to buy your CD (which you can sell for a lot less, btw), and you will still make lots of $$, look at Redhat. :)
We need more open-source companies!
You trust them, don't you?
A new smart encryption scheme means we need people to spend time thinking about how to circumvent the mischievious consumer. This means the copy protection scheme needs to be able to adapt and change over time as 'the people' get smarter and learn how to crack it. A lot of time and money would need to go into this project, and what does it protect? It keeps those who don't pay as well as those who can't afford to pay for the product from enjoying it. I personally feel that art, wheather it is music, poetic perl, paintings, sculptures or even video, was meant to convey an emotion or an idea, but I can't understand artists today. They seem to be more concerned with money than their artwork. That is exactly what creates 'the media' and commercialism we see on our TV everyday. Don't get me wrong, commercialism pays for a LOT, and isn't necessarily bad. Entire companies on the net get their funding solely from commercialism, which allows them to bring websites and information to the people. But does real art really have a place in commercialism?
What if artists started creating media that could be freely distributed under something similar to the GPL, where their art could be admired and remaster / mixxed, or whatever the consumer wants to do with it as long as credit goes back to the original artist it could put an end to large corporations trying to spread their 'media' which usually isn't art. Then artists could experience some of the freedom and pleasure of the open-source movement. They could still make money selling their work on CDs, DVDs, mp3s, etc. But as long as money doesn't matter to them as much as their artwork, they could find comfort in knowing that the general public can enjoy what they have created without the fear of large corporations suing them for copying or otherwise using the art.
I just wish someday us Americans will wake up and reallize it isn't all about money.
P.S. Opensource economic models such as Redhat have made hundreds of millions in revenue and stock, and most of that was distributed between the artists who continue to build on their masterpiece, instead of some M$ corp's pocket book, who continue to rethink new propietary standards and find new ways to break their code.
It is our responsibility as an open-source and free information supporting society to speak out with one voice that this is wrong. In order to do that we must hurt the movie industry in the only place that matters to them. Their wallet. I ask that every open-source supporter boycot movies for a few weeks or months until paramount, turner, disney, sony, etc. stop the law suits and harrassment.
Just stop going out to the theatre, stop renting videos and stop buying movies on DVD or VHS formats from anything besides independant films. Just find something else to do for a few weeks or up to a couple months and I assure you if we all do this the movie industry will change their tune REAL fast. That's my $.02 cents.
Plus it runs faster than any current mobile intel chip and consumes less power. What more could a person want?
I can't believe the sensors gave you such a high score for that rant. So here's mine... who knows maybe I'll score a 5 too. ;)
Take it bitch!
I agree with this point. Mr. Kats has written some excellent/thought provoking articles for slashdot in the past, but this one has a very strange tone to it. It is a criticism of what computers can or cannot do with no examples of exactly what they can or cannot do. Instead it sparks stupid arguements not much more interresting than those sparked by apple and their lack of mouse buttons.
:)
Personally I'd be more interrested in hearing about what computers have done already, beyond what we thought they could do. Or ideas on what sci-fi devices have already emerged out of the last few years of computing and what we can expect to see in the near future. Or more about how our past is unfolding in new ways, becoming more clear by the day, thanks to the net and the flow of information. But that's starting to get a little off topic.
Of course there are computing tasks that computers can't do. Ever try to divide by 0? I've tried that a lot in my calculus courses, but my little HP48 couldn't handle it. And neither can our Athlons or P4s. But through programming I could write some software to look at the equations algebraicly and follow the rules all math students have to in order to break apart the problem into smaller, easier to handle parts. And then find the derivative or integrate the equation, etc. You don't always have to use REAL numbers to solve a problem. Most of superstrings and higher mathematics is based on imaginary numbers. Computers can handle those just as easily as we can.
In short, its not the computer, its the programmer, so let's just be a little more optimistic.
Children today are treated as second-class citizens. Oh, sorry, wait, they arn't even treated like citizens. So what are they? Property, for the most part(at least in the eyes of the law).
I must accept this as truth, but isn't it wrong? Kids are not treated as citizens because we don't believe they can make a decision on their own. Yet in reguards to the internet, we leave it up to them to make many decisions, such as which links to click or which sites to visit.
If we really want to "protect" kids why don't we pay someone else to watch them 24 / 7. We can pay to have our car or our home watched like that, why not our kids. Afterall, our kids are our most important piece of property.
Its absurd, the lack of responsibility parents have today. Most expect the government to provide services for everything from health care, schools, and laws to "protection" but we constantly complain that our kids are not safe. That they can be exposed to the real world too easily. How easy? Even our grandparents can get access to this unadulterated information within minutes with software like AOL that's shipped to everyone's front door.
And what about us adults? Why should we only protect the kids? I have a computer in my living room that is on the net 24/7. That means anyone could accidentally sit down and be flooded with tons of unadulterated information, such as porn, that could hurt them.
There are two ways around this problem. We can either try to "protect" everyone. Govern the information that every person is allowed to view, hear and think. I think there have been books written about this... or at the very least burned. OR We could try to accept the world the way it is and accept responsibility for ourselves and our children. And keep information and society free.
I don't have kids. I'm just a kid myself, 22, but I'm on my own, learning a few things about the world, mostly bad. But I have thought long and hard about having kids and how I'd raise them. I'd first start by making sure I had enough money to support them and myself and a job that would allow me to be with them. I would pay attention to my children, putting myself in their place, teach them about the world we live in and try to ecourage them to learn and think for themselves. This means we have to teach them about the birds and the bees a little earlier, and even those sections that our parents left out about the birds and the birds or the bees and the bees. These are topics we are scared to discuss with our children, but reguardless of what we do they will find out someday... what makes you think they haven't already? But at least my kids would grow up knowing what life is really like. Not whatever fantasy world the average US citizen thinks they still live in with apple pie and the buffalo and the little house on the prairy. Come on people, wake up.
I think parents around the world need to grow up and start acting like parents (that word should be synonymous to teacher).
But what if we set up some sort of GPS satellite network, maybe 3 or 4 orbiters that built the fabric of some sort of global communications network around the planet, then send small probes similar to what we've already sent that had a couple extra devices. One communications computer / antenna that would keep the orbitting satellites clued in as to where the probe was, current position and altitude, etc. And status, if there are any problems with the onboard equipment, etc. And another device that would act as a becon, in case we "lose" another probe, so we could at least locate it and see if there is anything salvagable from the crash site. Instead of spend days searching through poor pictures for a few miscolorred pixels, hoping they could find the polar lander, like NASA is doing now. I can't believe they didn't consider a crash landing as a probability and add some sort of transmitter that's compact and extremely shock resistant that would transmit a signal of any type... long enough for something to pick it up. Its not like we can't build such a device today cheap enough to be added to one of these probes.
Also why not spend a few extra coke cans from each American's pocket and throw up something similar to Hubble with a good enough camera to pinpoint an object the size of the polar lander without too much trouble. I mean, in reality the polar lander cost me personally less than $1.00. Considerring our wonderful government takes over $1000 out of my paychecks every month I'd expect, if not demand to see a LOT more going to our space program. I'm sick of paying for all these nice new big black Suburbans for our Sherrifs and for all the extra highway patrol officers and fedral offices like the IRS, FDA, FCC, CIA, NSA, and nameless others that don't contribute anything to humanity or my well being, but instead would rather regulate me and invade my privacy and take away my rights. At least the space program gives me something interresting to read when I'm bored at work.
Where do I send my donations to NASA or other privately funded space programs, to be SURE they get the money? Y'know if we all sent a $15 check to NASA we'd be sending manned missions to mars in no time!
C'mon,I have yet to see a 70 yo politician run Linux and talk about how they got their encrypted filesystem to work by rewriting their login scripts to mount their home directory when they login. As soon as one of these old guys in congress or the senate, who are supposed to be voting on laws that affect all of us and the future of our country as a major presence on the net, read a book or two on the various operating systems out there and network architecture and where the advances are being made today, I'll feel a lot safer when I hear about new laws going into effect.
But why do we need all these laws to govern technology anyway? Is the internet really a bad place in its current state? Does your web browser seek out all those porn sites without your knowing? Or how often have your credit card numbers been stolen? The only regulation we need are to get that damned patent office to understand that software is nothing more than an idea! Copyright laws protect software, what more do you need? Enough with the patenting of CGI and the single click shopping already! Boycot Amazon!
I know one thing... what I have learned in the tech industry gives me a free ticket to move anyplace in the world and find a good job. This means if this country's gov't can't learn a few things about the net they don't deserve to have it in the first place. At the first sign of our gov't standing in my way I'll happily take my business elsewhere!
I can not predict the future and I can't speak for entry level admins, but I doubt there will be an end to a shortage of senior computer techies.
Computer are becoming an integral part of every day life. Soon walking down the road you will be able to read email, browse the web and run apps from your personal computer over some sort of remote display X term or network app. How soon? Less than 5 years. The world needs programmers and geeky admins to make sure all these services are running and bug free.
Its highly unlikely that someone is going to write smart software to replace the average programmer, and even if they do, we'll always need someone to optimize and debug that "smart" software.
We can not dispute on average people are lazy and ignorant. Most people, 51%+, don't know anything, relatively speaking, about computers. Afterall, they are the reason AOL is doing so well. They couldn't possibly learn what it takes to take my job away. And the other half of the world, the professional, are trying to find a place that suits them, not all of them are going to become programmers or network admins.
There's even a huge difference between a sys admin and a network admin. Network professionals don't need to know the equipment that runs on their network, but they do need to know the various routing protocols, topology of their network and security issues. Sys admins need to know the hardware and software every peon in the company uses as well as what servers need to be in place. And there are faded lines between these positions and even really senior people who can fill both, but those are extremely rare, even in the silicon valley.
I bet it will be more competitive in the future, I will be forces to learn faster and work smarter. But without a major geological catastrophy, computers are not going to disappear off the face of the planet. Even a stock market crash couldn't put an end to computers. Look at the Y2k problems. If we didn't need them we would simply turn them off.
What kind of country do we live in where you have to have a degree in law and politics to be able to write code?!?!?! We need to do something 'bout those old poloticians who think they can invade our privacy, put backdoors in mainstream OSs, or police the internet. Next they'll be policing the intranet with some sort of blackbox ethernet spy to let them know what you've been browsing just like Australia.