Slashdot Mirror


User: dangitman

dangitman's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
8,784
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 8,784

  1. Re:Failure? on Why Microsoft's Zune is Still Failing · · Score: 1

    It's a failure, because Microsoft's goal was to "eat Apple's lunch" and stop the iPod in its tracks. So, it has failed at the intended goal. Not to mention it was also about stopping Apple's ecosystem of non-WMA formats and non-Microsoft music software.

  2. Re:Great Works on Copyright Alliance Presses Presidential Candidates · · Score: 1

    Why waste my time and energy finding and using the latest DRM disabling software, region stripping tools, or pulling the excessive promotions off the start of the DVD when I can just grab what someone else has done?

    1. It takes less time and effort than looking for it on Bittorrent

    2. The quality is better

    3. You have control over which extra features you want to keep - usually BT releases don't come with things like subtitles or bonus features.

    I'm not sure where you get the idea that ripping a DVD is difficult or time-consuming.

    The artist got my money, or as much as he's going to get fromi me buying it.

    How does ripping it instead of downloading change this? I wasn't aware the artist gets more money when you rip a disc.

  3. Re:Great Works on Copyright Alliance Presses Presidential Candidates · · Score: 1

    Then go grab a PiratesBay copy of the same show, *which you already paid for on the DVD*, and tell me it doesn't make sense to reburn and use the P2P shared version instead

    It doesn't make sense. Why download it and burn it from the Pirate Bay, when you can simply rip and burn the DVD *which you already own* without the offending bits?

    Using the Pirate Bay doesn't make sense, as you are converting from MPEG-2 to DivX, and back to DivX again. If you rip and burn from the DVD, there is no conversion, you are getting the original MPEG-2. Not to mention the bandwidth that downloading takes.

  4. Re:Great Works on Copyright Alliance Presses Presidential Candidates · · Score: 1

    Ron Paul ... is quite high!

    I agree.

  5. Re:Capitals? on Gene Simmons Blames College Kids For Music Industry Woes · · Score: 1

    But those aren't good reasons to bring the power of the state to bear on those who don't agree. If an adult doesn't want to wear a helmet, what business is it of the state?

    The state builds the roads, so it's up to the state to set the rules and conditions for using them.

  6. Re:Music's dead? on Gene Simmons Blames College Kids For Music Industry Woes · · Score: 1

    But honestly, why is it that if you say your main reason for doing something is "making money", that somehow cheapens it?

    Because it does. Art isn't really art if it's just for the money. It's supposed to mean something.

    I don't see why money as a motivation is so repugnant to some people, especially people in creative fields.

    Well, then you have a long way to go in developing empathy and understanding of your fellow human beings. You may as well be a robot if you don't understand this.

  7. Re:why? on Google Plans to Bid 4.6 Billion on 700MHz Band · · Score: 1

    No, that is anarchy.

    It is also a "free market" if you take "free" to mean "free," rather than using "free" as double-speak to mean something else. Why do you use the term "free market" if that's not what you mean?

    The General Welfare Theorem requires that firms lack Market Power, that Externalities don't exist, and there is perfect regulation.

    What the fuck? What is "The General Welfare Theorem," and why should we care?

    It is the responsibility of government to approximate these conditions as accurately as possible.

    Why? because you say so/

  8. Re:Music without the work on UK Music Retailers Beg, Drop the DRM · · Score: 1

    Computers and derived products like the iPod changed all that. By copying the music to a larger collective storage such as a hard drive or flash memory, it was possible to not only play the music back with very little work, in many forms it became practical to also carry music around with you.

    Have you never heard of radio stations and the portable transistor radio? They removed the work from listening to music decades before personal computers and iPods. I think your history is pretty skewed.

  9. Re:Don't know about the UK... on UK Music Retailers Beg, Drop the DRM · · Score: 1

    It's Goodwin's Law only applied to recordings not money.

    What the fuck is Goodwin's Law?

  10. Re:Good. Better. Best. on UK Music Retailers Beg, Drop the DRM · · Score: 1

    Then, it's just a matter of using the MS/Apple model of a binary choice of getting fucked or screwed.

    Why did you leave out Linux?

  11. Re:Low production run? on Amazon's Kindle Sells Out In 5.5 Hours · · Score: 1

    Anyway, given the specs for the Kindle (167 dpi), it should be able to do a pretty good Helvetica, assuming Amazon felt like getting a license from Linotype (the default serif font they use is also from Linotype, so it's possible).

    I thought it only had one font available, and it wasn't Helvetica? I can't see them wanting to pay licensing fees for fonts.

  12. Re:DRM Suckage on Amazon's Kindle Sells Out In 5.5 Hours · · Score: 1

    But the greedy fucks at the universities desire to hide all knowlege behind high costs to keep it out of the hands of the commoner.

    Yeah, right, it's all the fault of the universities and professors. Never mind the fact that universities and academics have very little power over the commercial world. Never mind the fact that most academics want their material as widely disseminated as possible. No, it's they who are to blame. Not the commercial publishing world at all.

  13. Re:He's right though on Gene Simmons Blames College Kids For Music Industry Woes · · Score: 1

    Drugs aren't invented by magic - there is significant investment involved and if there is no return on that investment then it just plain won't happen.

    Helping people isn't enough of an incentive for making new drugs? Saving lives isn't enough of an incentive? That's pretty fucked up.

    I think people would continue to create new drugs without profit motives, because money is less important than human survival and love.

  14. Re:Music's dead? on Gene Simmons Blames College Kids For Music Industry Woes · · Score: 1

    Why should it be? Would you still do *your* job if nobody paid you to do it, just for the love of doing it? I sure wouldn't.

    It depends on what you do.

    I don't get why artists are held to a different standard? Why do they have to just do it for the love of doing it then give it away? Why shouldn't they get paid too?

    I don't recall anybody saying that they shouldn't get paid. Just that it's clear that Simmons is doing this ONLY for the money. When it comes to art and music, then the money shouldn't be everything. Sure, you need to get paid so you can keep creating - but it should never be about the money alone. That's just how it is in creative fields. But there's no reason for Gene Simmons to make any more money than he already has.

  15. Re:Well, he's over 40. on Gene Simmons Blames College Kids For Music Industry Woes · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but Willie was freakin' loaded.

  16. Re:Capitals? on Gene Simmons Blames College Kids For Music Industry Woes · · Score: 1

    The helmet isn't to protect the rider - it's to protect the state.

    That's fucking retarded. If there was no such thing as "The State", the helmet would still protect the rider. There are hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been saved by helmets. Who is stupid enough to ride without a helmet, anyway?

  17. Re:Capitals? on Gene Simmons Blames College Kids For Music Industry Woes · · Score: 1

    Believe in evolution - it's completely about inequality. It's a fact of life. But that won't stop me from helping the less fortunate and enriching my life and the lives of others in the process.

    That's clearly nonsense, because you oppose the most effective measure to help the less fortunate - universal health care. It sounds more like you want to make a profit, or feel better about yourself, rather than doing the most good.

  18. Re:why? on Google Plans to Bid 4.6 Billion on 700MHz Band · · Score: 1

    In a true free-market, governments robustly monitor companies to enforce copyright.

    That doesn't make sense. If it were a truly free market, there would be no government regulation.

  19. Re:Irony? on WWII Colossus Codecracker Outdone by a German · · Score: 1

    A German cracking an "uncrackable" code used by the German forces in WWII on a computer the British used to crack the same code when the Allied cracking of German "uncrackable" codes helped lead to Allied victory is.

    Why? I mean, the signal for this challenge was transmitted from Germany! Germans were in a prime position to receive the signals to be cracked.

    If you don't see it, though, I'm afraid I can't help you in your semantic crusades.

    Or maybe the irony just isn't there, if you can't adequately explain it?

  20. Re:Questions.... on High-Quality YouTube Videos Coming Soon · · Score: 1

    At least they can do away with the artifical scaling they're doing now on playback, which is really horrible.

    As opposed to real scaling? I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are they faking the scaling or something? Making you think it has been scaled via hypnosis, when it is actually playing at the original size?

  21. Re:Better encoding doesn't imply better videos... on High-Quality YouTube Videos Coming Soon · · Score: 1

    And how many poorly-produced copycats for any given video on the site?

    42.

  22. Re: Put your money where your mouth is, Ed. on Warner Music CEO Says War With Consumers Was Wrong · · Score: 1

    it would surely work with CD vs. MP3 and CD's vastly superior sound

    Except for the fact that CDs don't have a vastly superior sound to MP3s. Almost all the disadvantages are on the CD's side - mostly due to it being a physical product, with all of the associated inconvenience, and environmental and manufacturing costs. We can get CD-quality music without all that "disc" nonsense.

  23. Re:Interesting coincidence on WWII Colossus Codecracker Outdone by a German · · Score: 1

    North Pole in Holland.

    The North pole is not in Holland.

  24. Re:Irony? on WWII Colossus Codecracker Outdone by a German · · Score: 1

    Actually, if you look irony up in a few [reference.com] online [m-w.com] dictionaries [thefreedictionary.com], you'll find that "unexpected outcome of events" is now an accepted meaning.

    But how does this fall under "unexpected outcome of events"? Is there some reason that a German was uniquely unlikely to crack to code? I thought Germans were generally pretty good at math and computing. This doesn't fit under ANY definition of irony that I can think of.

  25. Re:Irony? on WWII Colossus Codecracker Outdone by a German · · Score: 1

    Sure it is. It's like rain on your wedding day, which is the most ironic thing that could ever happen to anybody.