As a disgruntled Windows 98 user, I have suffered extreme amounts of emotional damage from using windows, and I demand compensation! Why just last night I was downloading a 200 meg Swedish teenage lesbian erotica video on my box, and the damn thing BSOD'ed on me after 6 hours, while I was 98% done! Realizing my hours of downloading were in vain, I not only sobbed uncontrollably, but I have also lost all sexual function and have been forced to undergo months of therapy to regain it. My sex life has been destroyed thanks to MS and its buggy OS, and had I not been forced to run Windows, I would be having a delicious pr0n spree right now. Running Windows has ruined my life, and it's your fault, MS! Oh, and all that little monopoly stuff wasn't that nice either.
I just need to clarify things here. You CAN control the amount of downloads a single user performs at once, but you CANNOT control how many users can leech from you at once, and this is what can lead to undesired loss of bandwidth. Also, I know my settings well, and you have no ability to kill a download once it starts transfering. You can kill a download BEFORE it starts, but once the file starts you have to either grin and bear the dl until its complete (and suffer bandwidth loss) or close napster (and lose your own downloads, which you probably wont be likely to resume upon connection... I almost never see the same user on twice, even in the span of minutes).
Re:Does anybody care anymore that this is Illegal?
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Easy MP3 Distribution
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All right, I've responded to similar comments before, but hopefully I'll manage to get my side of the story without sounding like some hothead wannabe revolutionary.
Well first of all, as you noted "bands themselves make very little from record sales." and then you correlate record sales with the amount of airplay of band gets. But it is completely the other way around. Airplay and concerts are the true way a band actually gets started. Nobody would go out and buy an unproven band's album... what happens is they hear the song on MTV/VH1/Radio, like it, request it more, and maybe buy the cd. Airplay for singles generally occurs weeks before the record comes out and gives the band more exposure (of course so does mp3). Record sales occur as a result of this exposure, and not vice versa.
Also, mp3 isn't just for piracy reasons. Other key reasons for mp3 are bootleg and concert album trading (they don't sell them in stores, and many bands support/condone recording of concerts, and the band has already made money through the concert) and new artists (trying to get the exposure which leads to record sales and gigs). Granted, mp3 has become a huge pirate trend, but you have to admit, it is really a great thing to be able to find a rare track or an old favorite song you want without having to pay $18 for the whole cd.
I don't think any big mp3 collectors are trying to rip off artists and put them out of business. We still go to their concerts, buy their merchandise, and maybe even buy their albums. I'll be honest and say mp3 is popular because people don't want to have to pay out the ass for their music... let's be honest, $18 a cd is really ridiculous and eventually unaffordable when it adds up, and as you said the artist gets only a small cut. Actually, though part of my motive for mp3 getting is admittedly getting free music, I assure you that I would buy my music if it was at $5 a cd like it should be. And who knows, with all the pressure of mp3, maybe the RIAA will lower prices. If anything, I hope that the mp3 collectors will do some good and show the RIAA that they cant keep ripping off the average person in the name of the almighty dollar.
First of all, I may be redundant, but I would like to emphasize the napster has been here for quite some time, there is a Linux port of napster, and the RIAA already has sued napster, as shown in this article.
Now that I have said that, I still have to wonder why napster is getting so much press as the next big mp3 thing. I have used it many times, and occasionally still do, and I find it to be nothing more than a glorified http search. Here are listed some the biggest flaws I found in napster. Note: I don't want to start a flame war, I honestly want to know why napster is such a big deal considering its vast problems.
1. Quality of mp3's - Napster is cool in that it lets you specify bitrate, but to be honest, that doesnt mean much at all. Try searching for a popular band, say Nirvana at "atleast" 128... you'll find 100's, but then try searching at "at least" 192, you'll find like 3 at most. Its search engine is a little bit better, but it doesnt change the fact that most of napster's content is regurgiated ratio ftp stuff, and the rare high quality songs are just renamed mp3 group releases (apc,bkf,rns,ksi,etc...) that are much quicker to get on irc. It's cool for the people that just want to find a quick song regardless of quality, but really no use for anyone who is knowledgeable about mp3.
2. Server Connections - I have frequent problems getting on the server, I find large amounts of lag when trying to join the channels, and I noticed something else odd. Whenever I leech from a "hot list" site of mine that is online, and I reconnect to the server, the hot list site is no longer to be found online. This has prevented me from getting a lot of complete mp3's/albums.
3. Downloads - Maybe it's just me, but downloading seems a lot slower running through napster's servers. Same goes with viewing lists. If it's not the servers fault, it could be the clogged upload on the other box (see point 4), but I'm on dsl and a rarely get >isdn speeds even when downloading from a t3. Also, why isn't there a way to save queues in case a user logs off in middownload... that would save me lots of time, and why it isn't in is beyond me.
4. Upload control - Herein lies the huge problem. Napster is about sharing, and I'm cool with that, but it gives you NO control over outcoming file transfers. Whats wrong with letting someone limit the amount of downloading users on their box? Whats wrong with killing a user in middownload to save bandwidth? It can really add up on high speed, high content boxes which tend to be targeted en masse for downloads. I can see why colleges are cracking down on napster and blocking it... napster refuses to allow upload limits, the resnet box uploads vast amounts of mp3's, and the college network will obviously experience some drop in speed as this adds up. It's the person's own computer and files... they should have the right to control access to it. I usually put my files in a dummy directory to avoid being leeched to a halt while downloading because of napster. Which brings to me another point... that devious close scheme... if you click the "X" icon to exit, napster only minimizes. For someone inexperienced, this leaves their box continuing to upload files without the user's knowledge. Yet another reason colleges such as UIUC would ban napster... I bet students "closed" napster and it u/led and consumed lots of bandwidth without the student being able to tell it was only minimized. Sure I want to encourage sharing, but deception and force is NOT the way to do it. I trust that users would rather share their files if given some control than hide their archives to avoid napster's ridiculous "sharing enforcement" scheme.
I'm not totally dissing on napster, because I have found some cool stuff there. But, it still has a long way to go from the buggy program it is now. Maybe when some bugs are fixed, people will be closer to their little online cyber-music community. But right now, napster seems more like hype and hoopla, and private ftp sites and irc will remain my methods of choice for getting mp3's
Yes many comments are reduced to -1, but whether you view it or not is up to you. You do have the option of setting your threshold should you choose to see what got moderated down to the negative range. There is no deletion of objectionable material, nor is any specific person forbidden to post. Also, it is more a public form of "censorship" (should you choose to call it censorship). A moderator may be able to trash a post, but the ruling is never truly final. If someone is unjustly marked down another moderator can always bump that post back up where it belongs. And the most important part is that WE, the people who use/. are in control of what is seen, not the goverment or the guys who run the site.
shows that computers, programmers, and industry heads are slowly starting to become part of mainstream culture. I remember about a month ago out school trivia team went to a tournament and a full bonus category about computer figures popped up, featuring questions about assorted people ranging from innovators like Torvalds (and others whom I forget) to businessmen like Steve Case and Andy Grove. I also notice computer acro questions are starting to become more popular in trivia competition, though unfortunately they tend to be mispronounced as well:)
Actually hotmail does have its own share of filter options. Just log into your hotmail account, go to options, and you will find a filter option. There, you can add e-mail adresses to a list of "blocked senders," and any e-mail from the specific sender will be sent directly to the trash can. Also, you can also direct incoming e-mails to a certain folder (including trash can) by telling it to look out for certain keywords in the subject, sender's name, or sender's e-mail. Or if you're really lazy, and you already have some spam in your inbox you can just go to the messgae and tell it to block the sender of that message from now on. Granted, it won't keep your hotmail account spam-free, but the option is there should you wish to use your hotmail account for standard e-mail purposes. But personally I would stick to one of my current POP3 accounts instead of bothering to configure my hotmail account:)
I logged in to one of my old hotmail accounts after reading this article, and if there's really been spam reduction efforts, I haven't noticed. I have about 15 spam mails dating from last week (I did not sign up for any mailing lists or register anywhere with this address. I did sign up for webspace at some odd site, but I put its spam domain on ignore already). I took a look at the domains and saw about 8 emails from various obscure/unlisted domains which I assume to be open mail servers. Moreover I had 2 emails from RealNetworks, which had supposedly been blocked according to the article. Another problem I noticed is that the rest of the spam came from major 'legit' domains like yahoo.com, aol.com, and hotmail itself. There's no way hotmail will block these huge domains off, and since a LOT of spam is generated by such sites, the spam problem will still be in effect. Despite hotmail's and MAPS' best efforts, I really don't see anything a e-mail provider can really do to fully prevent spam.
So I guess spam handling is still more of a personal issue than anything. My advice for spam control would be as follows:
1. Don't give out the adress for your main ISP account... I never even use mine since I learned my lesson with my old ISP. I gave out the account to every sleazy signup site and ended up with about 100 msgs on the server at one point... which is a real pain when on your main account.
2. Either use an extra e-mail account from your ISP, an account on a friends domain, or a low-profile free mail service for your main email adress. You most likely won't be placed on any mass spam list if you only give the adress to people you intend to communicate with. Plus you have a greater level of anonymity should you need it or desire it.
3. Hotmail accounts do have a purpose after all. My advice would be to register one or more and keep it/them as a spambox... use it to sign up for accounts, mailing lists, newsletters etc. You'll expect spam anyway, and if it gets flooded to hell, it's just a free hotmail account, so no big loss.
4. If you don't need to recieve a reply email (like website passwords or account verification) from a site that expects you to give them your adress, use a fake one. It's easy, and allows you to exercise your creative juices... I always like using root@:)
Let's just face it, spam is always going to be an issue regardless of the efforts of MAPS and the like. It can be annoying, but if you just use an extra moment of time and some common sense, you'll save yourself a lot of annoyance. (I'm actually to the point where I check my hotmail inbox just to see all the new spam since I never get any mail in my personal box:D )
Not to deride USB or anything, but it looks like its starting to become a gimmick rather than a possible hardware solution.
Yes, USB needs to be marketed by all the industry giants so it can undergo price cuts in respective hardware and get a real chance in the market. But the primary marketing point of a PC shouldnt be that it is USB exclusive. Just cause Apple got lucky with the IMAC (though that was more of an image thing) doesn't mean every vendor out there should be trying to shove his own legacy free rig in the marketplace. "Sure we used outdated, low-quality components and configured them poorly, but IT'S LEGACY FREE!" Look at Apple's original Imac for example: outdated graphics card, lack of writable media, limited RAM... they were clearly wrapped up in product image while ignoring major hardware features. Obviously companies should care more about installing quality hardware and giving customers a wide range of hardware and software options than about whether or not their boxes are perfectly legacy-free.
Also, legacy free pc's bring up a more important issue: lack of choice. Granted USB has so far proven sucessful in the area of scanners, digital cameras, and other peripherals... but that doesn't mean USB should become the sole medium for periphals as a whole. I don't see why ps/2 needs to be replaced urgently... as my old mice and keyboards always worked fine. Plus even if the new rig doesn't come with any compatible periphs, I think ISA and PCI slots should be available should the user feel like adding something (perhaps an old modem, I dunno). Then theres the whole USB/non-windows OS deal. I hear USB is coming closer to full compatibility with Linux, but I still see the normal share of competent Linux using netizens who can't get some USB device set up properly. Of course there's also other Os's, such as BeOS, of which I have no idea how much compatibility with USB is there. But I think it is clear that USB was designed with mostly Windows in mind. And of course this could reduce the number of future non-windows users if all the budding Linux newbies found USB conflicts on their new legacy free boxes and returned to Windows in annoyed frustration.
Bottom line: As good as USB may be, it shouldn't be employed as a giant marketing strategy, nor should it be forced on everyone. If it truly possesses the merits acredited to it, USB will suceed eventually.
I'm not trying to flame you or anything, but I think you missed the whole point of the post.
If you did actually bother to read the article, and not just the subject line, he never really comments on Bowie's music, just the interview (and that is kinda the point of the article).
Second of all, the man has his right to an opinion (as do you). Music taste is based on personal choice, and just because someone happens not to like Bowie or his music, it doesn't mean that he is a troll. I know I would have moderated the article up because he makes some good, controversial statements about Bowie without coming off as an attempt to piss people off. I don't think you need to resort to personal attacks and criticize his own taste (by making assumptions) because his opinions differ from yours.
Now, if you want to earnestly protest, be more informative here. If he is a genius, why is he one? If he's done many things, what are they? If he has written great music, what makes it great? Some verifiable supports would have provided a good argument on Bowie's behalf.
I myself dislike Bowie's music, and I find him to be a little too preachy and full of himself, but I'm not going to jump on your case for liking his music, since it is your choice. But if you feel compelled to comment adversely on a post, please go beyond calling people trolls for voicing their thoughts. No offense, but I think your post seems more like flamebait than his.
Allthough I am only 16, and admitedly have no experience in either real or online romances, I have to question the chances of any online love affair.
The first major problem lies in distance. Maybe you'll be lucky enough to find someone within your city or state, but chances are, you'll end up with someone who lives a considerable distance away. This usually is less of a problem when the two are adults (not teens or college students), but still the large costs in both money, time, and effort required to see the person may be overly taxing. Also, it brings up the issue of trust. You make take a distant relationship seriously, but should a nearby, real-life alternative come up, I doubt you'd have as much concern in remaining faithful to an online partner. They say "absence makes the heart grow fonder," but I think such a cliche proves itself wrong in this case.
The second issue is that the person may be highly different in "real" life. I know I tend be a lot more confident, in-your-face, and open in online situations... as opposed to my shy, timid real life nature. I can imagine the same is true for a lot of computer geeks. And this could present a problem should you meet your "partner" and find them to be a lot different in a face-to-face situation. The whole attraction might not be as strong in person. It reminds me of personal ads, where people may say a lot of things through a closed scene, but vary greatly in real life.
Which brings to mind another potential problem: phsyical appearence. I know it seems shallow, but looks have a lot to do with attraction. Most people have pics or quickcam's, but still I bet a fair share of online lovers who do meet are somewhat disappointed with each other's looks.
Maybe I'm pessmistic, and maybe it's my romantic inexperience talking, but I don't feel like online romances can really suceed. Granted, I've heard a few exceptions, including here on Slashdot, but I remain skeptical. Btw, if you did have an online romance turn into a sucessful real life one, would you mind telling me how you dealt with the issues I listed... I'm always interested in learning
I feel sorry for all those laid-off workers, but I will have to say that Packard Bell pretty much brought their demise upon themselves by selling inferior systems with limited upgradability, poor components, and little regard to customer satisfaction. It is good that the market is finally bringing companies to realize that they won't get away with cost-cutting and selling poor quality products to the consumer.
However, what concerns me is whether this incident is isolated, or whether it may be the harbinger of a potentially bad trend for the computer industry. The whole industry has been booming like crazy for the past few years, and judging by the current interest in comp sci and electrical engineering, will be bombarded with potential workers.
In the hardware level, at least, Packard Bell's downfall may signal that the big boom in the computer industry is finite, and may be leading up to a collapse at some point. And this means that with all those up-and-coming comp sci wizards, it could be very difficult to find and maintain a stable job in the industry, because competition is becoming cutthroat as ever these days. Natural selection is showing its face in the business world, and those who weren't lucky enough to work for the "fittest" may find themselves in hard times.
I'm not saying that the computer business is starting to cave in violently, nor am I implying that Packard Bell is typical of the industry, but you do have to realize that the computer sector won't be thriving forever, and will fall at some point, be it gradual or sudden. And that could be devestating to a lot of people in the industry. Just something to keep your eyes on.
I'm just curious about one thing... will infomarco be scanning their archives to verify the submitted evidence? I read the faq about bad answers, but i'd rather have any incorrect facts be checked for correctness and removed from the site than simple ratings. I also bet some people might purposely lower ratings for spite or trolling purposes, so likewise there should be away to point poor moderation out. After all, a person could always register another account if his score is low. There also needs to be some way for a person to disply verifiable credentials so that readers wont have to take any facts with a grain of salt. If this is to be a big thing, more precautions need to be taken.
OH MY GOD I JUST SAW THE LADY IN GRAY!!!! She's right over there, on that blurry spot... oh wait, maybe the webcam's images are just pretty grainy and low quality.
Seriously, I really doubt that any of these images found can be drawn to an exact conclusion. First of all, the camera simply doesn't provide suffcient quality images for one to really verify the presence of a ghost. Also, I looked at the "proof" section and noticed nothing out of the ordinary in any of the pictures. Maybe this was because these pictures were even more blurry and grainy the live webcam shots, but all I saw were random colored arrows pointing to blurs.
And as someone said earlier, how do they judge whether a picture is fit for proof or not? I bet you could easily blur or anti-alias a section in photoshop, draw a few colored lines around it, post, and you'd have yourself a spot on the page. I think some of us/. readers should try tampering just to see if they get posted as real proof.
Yeah I know this is mainly a little just for fun project, but still I'd like to see some level of realism here. Maybe it's just years of watching Unsolved Mysteries, but I think paranormal investigation is an interesting (even if it seems like a crock) field and should be given some credit. A bunch of random people posting blurry quickcam shots isn't going to prove anything, rather it would further damage the credibility of any legitimate efforts to locate paranormal activity (I think there are some, regardless whether the activity is really ghostly or logically explained).
Oh well, I bet there is no ghost in the library, because by now she would definitely have gone up to the camera and gave everybody the finger in an attempt to look leet.:) (just like every geek I know who gets a new webcam)
Heh, maybe 3Com should spend some time builing and attaching a mini toilet-paper dispenser to their next Palm model. It could prove lifesaving to Hemos and many others if they run out of TP while playing SimCity on the can:)
Aside from the obvious humor of the whole contest, I do have one quick question about the actual rules of the contest, and the mini-FAQ didn't answer me. Is the object of the contest just to time a standard reboot, or to manipulate the server machine in such a way that it causes NT to take forever to boot? If it is the latter I would tend to find that somewhat unfair to NT. I'm not a fan of MS products, but I think NT performance should not be judged based on someone who sets it up on a 486 with minimal ram and loads the box with huge apps either. Since there really isn't a minimum requirement I bet we'll have people unearthing their old boxen from the closet and firing them up as lil NT servers. Nothing wrong with using it in such a competition, but I hope NerdPerfect notes the system specs on the "winning" box. I don't think they should go as far to require that people follow the standard system requirements listed for NT and run a regular fulltime server, but at least any tweaking with the boxen to help the contest should be detailed. Win NT may be inferior to a Linux box, but I'm sure you could give a *nix box crappy performance if you put heavy effort into making it as inefficient as possible. Maybe NerdPerfect could sponser a similar contest for Linux servers or whatnot, and challenge people to downgrade performance to the max. I do think that Win NT sucks, but it would be a bit obsessive to characterize its performance based on such a contest.
Great contest idea, though a T-Shirt for a prize seems like a pretty half-assed prize imho:) Here's how I would handle the prizes if were running things:
Me: Congratulations, you have won the contest with an amazingly pathetic reboot time of 4 Hours, 57 Min! (or something to that extent)
Contestant: WOOHOO... What did I win? What did I win?
Me: Oh we have a special prize for you... this brand new, top of the line server... running on your favorite OS... WINDOWS NT!!!!!!!!!!!
Contestant: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! AGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! (goes insane and flys into a fit of violent spasms before falling to the ground, dead)
I remember a while back there is/was some site that let you register your own domain name AND extension (e.g. www.my.page) or something to that nature, and I also remember getting a "domain" during some promotional day where registration was free. I think there was also a deal where you had to download a certain program (windows native if I remember correctly) that would actually allow you to view the little domain you created. Could anybody elaborate on this? Perhaps if the requirement to download the program were done away with, this could be a viable method of domain registration that could further lower the prices for a domain and help eliminate domain name abuse.
It's good and all that Linux is starting to get some notice, but I don't exactly like the direction of this. It seems like Ellison is just trying use the inclusion of a Linux OS as a gimmick to bring some life to his hopeless network computer push. Anyway, in response to the article... I thought it was a worthless briefing which would have benefitted from the actual inclusion of any details.
Firts, maybe it's just the vagueness of this article, but I have a lot of unanswered questions here. How will he be able to price this at $199? Obviously the answer is by cutting down on the components' quality, but I think it would be of great interest to know what actually comes with the computer. It seems that Ellision is purposely trying to be sketchy with the details so that he can pass off his new plan without actually revealling the obvious cuts from the model. Maybe he's assuming that since Linux supports less than top of the line hardware, he can skimp like hell on components to be able to price the computer at an appealing price.
Also I would like to know how Ellison plans to address the current questions about network computing. Namely this issue of data security comes to mind. Obviously the whole mess of data will have to be stored at some central location... and if so how are they going to secure that? How does he intend to insure that users will be able to feel safe about storing all their data away on a remote server? Not to mention the potential damage that could result if one of the main servers crashed, or got cracked, etc. I can see how this would work at an office or school, but on a large scale network computing is nothing more than a pipe dream. It's a lovely sounding idea, as apparently Ellison thinks, but the whole idea is so impractical that even his little Linux marketing gimmick won't help.
Oh well I guess Larry is gonna have to realize the whole futility of the situation someday.
Finally, my salvation arrives! I may not be able to get any earth women, but I'm sure excited of the prospect of sex with hot moon chix0rs! Hey while youre at it, maybe you can get your brothel to import some of those 3-breasted Martian women, like that chick from Total Recall! Even better, this whole moon sex idea could lead to some wil pr0n movies:)
ACK, i forgot to finish the last line of my first question so here goes: "Do you think there will/should be any attempts to create a standardized version of Linux in order to solve the issue of potential incompatibility between different distribs?"
1. Whats your opinion on the issue of having a wide variety of different Linux distributors? Would it be best for the industry to promote "natural selection" with respect to the distributors? Do/Will you endorse a specific distributor over the others? Do you think there will/should be any attempts to create a standardized version of Linux in order to
2. What needs to be done to bring Linux to the masses? Do you think it is better that Linux is left to more technically saavy users as opposed to the average user? Would mass-marketing Linux poase a threat to its open-source status? If needed, would it be worth it to sacrifice the "do it yourself" nature of Linux in order to make it more friendly and popular to the mainstream pc user?
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yeah but we can overlook that little fact, cant we :)
As a disgruntled Windows 98 user, I have suffered extreme amounts of emotional damage from using windows, and I demand compensation! Why just last night I was downloading a 200 meg Swedish teenage lesbian erotica video on my box, and the damn thing BSOD'ed on me after 6 hours, while I was 98% done! Realizing my hours of downloading were in vain, I not only sobbed uncontrollably, but I have also lost all sexual function and have been forced to undergo months of therapy to regain it. My sex life has been destroyed thanks to MS and its buggy OS, and had I not been forced to run Windows, I would be having a delicious pr0n spree right now. Running Windows has ruined my life, and it's your fault, MS! Oh, and all that little monopoly stuff wasn't that nice either.
I just need to clarify things here. You CAN control the amount of downloads a single user performs at once, but you CANNOT control how many users can leech from you at once, and this is what can lead to undesired loss of bandwidth. Also, I know my settings well, and you have no ability to kill a download once it starts transfering. You can kill a download BEFORE it starts, but once the file starts you have to either grin and bear the dl until its complete (and suffer bandwidth loss) or close napster (and lose your own downloads, which you probably wont be likely to resume upon connection... I almost never see the same user on twice, even in the span of minutes).
All right, I've responded to similar comments before, but hopefully I'll manage to get my side of the story without sounding like some hothead wannabe revolutionary.
Well first of all, as you noted "bands themselves make very little from record sales." and then you correlate record sales with the amount of airplay of band gets. But it is completely the other way around. Airplay and concerts are the true way a band actually gets started. Nobody would go out and buy an unproven band's album... what happens is they hear the song on MTV/VH1/Radio, like it, request it more, and maybe buy the cd. Airplay for singles generally occurs weeks before the record comes out and gives the band more exposure (of course so does mp3). Record sales occur as a result of this exposure, and not vice versa.
Also, mp3 isn't just for piracy reasons. Other key reasons for mp3 are bootleg and concert album trading (they don't sell them in stores, and many bands support/condone recording of concerts, and the band has already made money through the concert) and new artists (trying to get the exposure which leads to record sales and gigs). Granted, mp3 has become a huge pirate trend, but you have to admit, it is really a great thing to be able to find a rare track or an old favorite song you want without having to pay $18 for the whole cd.
I don't think any big mp3 collectors are trying to rip off artists and put them out of business. We still go to their concerts, buy their merchandise, and maybe even buy their albums. I'll be honest and say mp3 is popular because people don't want to have to pay out the ass for their music... let's be honest, $18 a cd is really ridiculous and eventually unaffordable when it adds up, and as you said the artist gets only a small cut. Actually, though part of my motive for mp3 getting is admittedly getting free music, I assure you that I would buy my music if it was at $5 a cd like it should be. And who knows, with all the pressure of mp3, maybe the RIAA will lower prices. If anything, I hope that the mp3 collectors will do some good and show the RIAA that they cant keep ripping off the average person in the name of the almighty dollar.
First of all, I may be redundant, but I would like to emphasize the napster has been here for quite some time, there is a Linux port of napster, and the RIAA already has sued napster, as shown in this article.
Now that I have said that, I still have to wonder why napster is getting so much press as the next big mp3 thing. I have used it many times, and occasionally still do, and I find it to be nothing more than a glorified http search. Here are listed some the biggest flaws I found in napster. Note: I don't want to start a flame war, I honestly want to know why napster is such a big deal considering its vast problems.
1. Quality of mp3's - Napster is cool in that it lets you specify bitrate, but to be honest, that doesnt mean much at all. Try searching for a popular band, say Nirvana at "atleast" 128... you'll find 100's, but then try searching at "at least" 192, you'll find like 3 at most. Its search engine is a little bit better, but it doesnt change the fact that most of napster's content is regurgiated ratio ftp stuff, and the rare high quality songs are just renamed mp3 group releases (apc,bkf,rns,ksi,etc...) that are much quicker to get on irc. It's cool for the people that just want to find a quick song regardless of quality, but really no use for anyone who is knowledgeable about mp3.
2. Server Connections - I have frequent problems getting on the server, I find large amounts of lag when trying to join the channels, and I noticed something else odd. Whenever I leech from a "hot list" site of mine that is online, and I reconnect to the server, the hot list site is no longer to be found online. This has prevented me from getting a lot of complete mp3's/albums.
3. Downloads - Maybe it's just me, but downloading seems a lot slower running through napster's servers. Same goes with viewing lists. If it's not the servers fault, it could be the clogged upload on the other box (see point 4), but I'm on dsl and a rarely get >isdn speeds even when downloading from a t3. Also, why isn't there a way to save queues in case a user logs off in middownload... that would save me lots of time, and why it isn't in is beyond me.
4. Upload control - Herein lies the huge problem. Napster is about sharing, and I'm cool with that, but it gives you NO control over outcoming file transfers. Whats wrong with letting someone limit the amount of downloading users on their box? Whats wrong with killing a user in middownload to save bandwidth? It can really add up on high speed, high content boxes which tend to be targeted en masse for downloads. I can see why colleges are cracking down on napster and blocking it... napster refuses to allow upload limits, the resnet box uploads vast amounts of mp3's, and the college network will obviously experience some drop in speed as this adds up. It's the person's own computer and files... they should have the right to control access to it. I usually put my files in a dummy directory to avoid being leeched to a halt while downloading because of napster. Which brings to me another point... that devious close scheme... if you click the "X" icon to exit, napster only minimizes. For someone inexperienced, this leaves their box continuing to upload files without the user's knowledge. Yet another reason colleges such as UIUC would ban napster... I bet students "closed" napster and it u/led and consumed lots of bandwidth without the student being able to tell it was only minimized. Sure I want to encourage sharing, but deception and force is NOT the way to do it. I trust that users would rather share their files if given some control than hide their archives to avoid napster's ridiculous "sharing enforcement" scheme.
I'm not totally dissing on napster, because I have found some cool stuff there. But, it still has a long way to go from the buggy program it is now. Maybe when some bugs are fixed, people will be closer to their little online cyber-music community. But right now, napster seems more like hype and hoopla, and private ftp sites and irc will remain my methods of choice for getting mp3's
Yes many comments are reduced to -1, but whether you view it or not is up to you. You do have the option of setting your threshold should you choose to see what got moderated down to the negative range. There is no deletion of objectionable material, nor is any specific person forbidden to post. Also, it is more a public form of "censorship" (should you choose to call it censorship). A moderator may be able to trash a post, but the ruling is never truly final. If someone is unjustly marked down another moderator can always bump that post back up where it belongs. And the most important part is that WE, the people who use /. are in control of what is seen, not the goverment or the guys who run the site.
shows that computers, programmers, and industry heads are slowly starting to become part of mainstream culture. I remember about a month ago out school trivia team went to a tournament and a full bonus category about computer figures popped up, featuring questions about assorted people ranging from innovators like Torvalds (and others whom I forget) to businessmen like Steve Case and Andy Grove. I also notice computer acro questions are starting to become more popular in trivia competition, though unfortunately they tend to be mispronounced as well :)
Actually hotmail does have its own share of filter options. Just log into your hotmail account, go to options, and you will find a filter option. There, you can add e-mail adresses to a list of "blocked senders," and any e-mail from the specific sender will be sent directly to the trash can. Also, you can also direct incoming e-mails to a certain folder (including trash can) by telling it to look out for certain keywords in the subject, sender's name, or sender's e-mail. Or if you're really lazy, and you already have some spam in your inbox you can just go to the messgae and tell it to block the sender of that message from now on. Granted, it won't keep your hotmail account spam-free, but the option is there should you wish to use your hotmail account for standard e-mail purposes. But personally I would stick to one of my current POP3 accounts instead of bothering to configure my hotmail account :)
I logged in to one of my old hotmail accounts after reading this article, and if there's really been spam reduction efforts, I haven't noticed. I have about 15 spam mails dating from last week (I did not sign up for any mailing lists or register anywhere with this address. I did sign up for webspace at some odd site, but I put its spam domain on ignore already). I took a look at the domains and saw about 8 emails from various obscure/unlisted domains which I assume to be open mail servers. Moreover I had 2 emails from RealNetworks, which had supposedly been blocked according to the article. Another problem I noticed is that the rest of the spam came from major 'legit' domains like yahoo.com, aol.com, and hotmail itself. There's no way hotmail will block these huge domains off, and since a LOT of spam is generated by such sites, the spam problem will still be in effect. Despite hotmail's and MAPS' best efforts, I really don't see anything a e-mail provider can really do to fully prevent spam.
:)
:D )
So I guess spam handling is still more of a personal issue than anything. My advice for spam control would be as follows:
1. Don't give out the adress for your main ISP account... I never even use mine since I learned my lesson with my old ISP. I gave out the account to every sleazy signup site and ended up with about 100 msgs on the server at one point... which is a real pain when on your main account.
2. Either use an extra e-mail account from your ISP, an account on a friends domain, or a low-profile free mail service for your main email adress. You most likely won't be placed on any mass spam list if you only give the adress to people you intend to communicate with. Plus you have a greater level of anonymity should you need it or desire it.
3. Hotmail accounts do have a purpose after all. My advice would be to register one or more and keep it/them as a spambox... use it to sign up for accounts, mailing lists, newsletters etc. You'll expect spam anyway, and if it gets flooded to hell, it's just a free hotmail account, so no big loss.
4. If you don't need to recieve a reply email (like website passwords or account verification) from a site that expects you to give them your adress, use a fake one. It's easy, and allows you to exercise your creative juices... I always like using root@
Let's just face it, spam is always going to be an issue regardless of the efforts of MAPS and the like. It can be annoying, but if you just use an extra moment of time and some common sense, you'll save yourself a lot of annoyance. (I'm actually to the point where I check my hotmail inbox just to see all the new spam since I never get any mail in my personal box
Not to deride USB or anything, but it looks like its starting to become a gimmick rather than a possible hardware solution.
Yes, USB needs to be marketed by all the industry giants so it can undergo price cuts in respective hardware and get a real chance in the market. But the primary marketing point of a PC shouldnt be that it is USB exclusive. Just cause Apple got lucky with the IMAC (though that was more of an image thing) doesn't mean every vendor out there should be trying to shove his own legacy free rig in the marketplace. "Sure we used outdated, low-quality components and configured them poorly, but IT'S LEGACY FREE!" Look at Apple's original Imac for example: outdated graphics card, lack of writable media, limited RAM... they were clearly wrapped up in product image while ignoring major hardware features. Obviously companies should care more about installing quality hardware and giving customers a wide range of hardware and software options than about whether or not their boxes are perfectly legacy-free.
Also, legacy free pc's bring up a more important issue: lack of choice. Granted USB has so far proven sucessful in the area of scanners, digital cameras, and other peripherals... but that doesn't mean USB should become the sole medium for periphals as a whole. I don't see why ps/2 needs to be replaced urgently... as my old mice and keyboards always worked fine. Plus even if the new rig doesn't come with any compatible periphs, I think ISA and PCI slots should be available should the user feel like adding something (perhaps an old modem, I dunno). Then theres the whole USB/non-windows OS deal. I hear USB is coming closer to full compatibility with Linux, but I still see the normal share of competent Linux using netizens who can't get some USB device set up properly. Of course there's also other Os's, such as BeOS, of which I have no idea how much compatibility with USB is there. But I think it is clear that USB was designed with mostly Windows in mind. And of course this could reduce the number of future non-windows users if all the budding Linux newbies found USB conflicts on their new legacy free boxes and returned to Windows in annoyed frustration.
Bottom line: As good as USB may be, it shouldn't be employed as a giant marketing strategy, nor should it be forced on everyone. If it truly possesses the merits acredited to it, USB will suceed eventually.
I'm not trying to flame you or anything, but I think you missed the whole point of the post.
If you did actually bother to read the article, and not just the subject line, he never really comments on Bowie's music, just the interview (and that is kinda the point of the article).
Second of all, the man has his right to an opinion (as do you). Music taste is based on personal choice, and just because someone happens not to like Bowie or his music, it doesn't mean that he is a troll. I know I would have moderated the article up because he makes some good, controversial statements about Bowie without coming off as an attempt to piss people off. I don't think you need to resort to personal attacks and criticize his own taste (by making assumptions) because his opinions differ from yours.
Now, if you want to earnestly protest, be more informative here. If he is a genius, why is he one? If he's done many things, what are they? If he has written great music, what makes it great? Some verifiable supports would have provided a good argument on Bowie's behalf.
I myself dislike Bowie's music, and I find him to be a little too preachy and full of himself, but I'm not going to jump on your case for liking his music, since it is your choice. But if you feel compelled to comment adversely on a post, please go beyond calling people trolls for voicing their thoughts. No offense, but I think your post seems more like flamebait than his.
Allthough I am only 16, and admitedly have no experience in either real or online romances, I have to question the chances of any online love affair.
The first major problem lies in distance. Maybe you'll be lucky enough to find someone within your city or state, but chances are, you'll end up with someone who lives a considerable distance away. This usually is less of a problem when the two are adults (not teens or college students), but still the large costs in both money, time, and effort required to see the person may be overly taxing. Also, it brings up the issue of trust. You make take a distant relationship seriously, but should a nearby, real-life alternative come up, I doubt you'd have as much concern in remaining faithful to an online partner. They say "absence makes the heart grow fonder," but I think such a cliche proves itself wrong in this case.
The second issue is that the person may be highly different in "real" life. I know I tend be a lot more confident, in-your-face, and open in online situations... as opposed to my shy, timid real life nature. I can imagine the same is true for a lot of computer geeks. And this could present a problem should you meet your "partner" and find them to be a lot different in a face-to-face situation. The whole attraction might not be as strong in person. It reminds me of personal ads, where people may say a lot of things through a closed scene, but vary greatly in real life.
Which brings to mind another potential problem: phsyical appearence. I know it seems shallow, but looks have a lot to do with attraction. Most people have pics or quickcam's, but still I bet a fair share of online lovers who do meet are somewhat disappointed with each other's looks.
Maybe I'm pessmistic, and maybe it's my romantic inexperience talking, but I don't feel like online romances can really suceed. Granted, I've heard a few exceptions, including here on Slashdot, but I remain skeptical. Btw, if you did have an online romance turn into a sucessful real life one, would you mind telling me how you dealt with the issues I listed... I'm always interested in learning
I feel sorry for all those laid-off workers, but I will have to say that Packard Bell pretty much brought their demise upon themselves by selling inferior systems with limited upgradability, poor components, and little regard to customer satisfaction. It is good that the market is finally bringing companies to realize that they won't get away with cost-cutting and selling poor quality products to the consumer.
However, what concerns me is whether this incident is isolated, or whether it may be the harbinger of a potentially bad trend for the computer industry. The whole industry has been booming like crazy for the past few years, and judging by the current interest in comp sci and electrical engineering, will be bombarded with potential workers.
In the hardware level, at least, Packard Bell's downfall may signal that the big boom in the computer industry is finite, and may be leading up to a collapse at some point. And this means that with all those up-and-coming comp sci wizards, it could be very difficult to find and maintain a stable job in the industry, because competition is becoming cutthroat as ever these days. Natural selection is showing its face in the business world, and those who weren't lucky enough to work for the "fittest" may find themselves in hard times.
I'm not saying that the computer business is starting to cave in violently, nor am I implying that Packard Bell is typical of the industry, but you do have to realize that the computer sector won't be thriving forever, and will fall at some point, be it gradual or sudden. And that could be devestating to a lot of people in the industry. Just something to keep your eyes on.
I'm just curious about one thing... will infomarco be scanning their archives to verify the submitted evidence? I read the faq about bad answers, but i'd rather have any incorrect facts be checked for correctness and removed from the site than simple ratings. I also bet some people might purposely lower ratings for spite or trolling purposes, so likewise there should be away to point poor moderation out. After all, a person could always register another account if his score is low. There also needs to be some way for a person to disply verifiable credentials so that readers wont have to take any facts with a grain of salt. If this is to be a big thing, more precautions need to be taken.
OH MY GOD I JUST SAW THE LADY IN GRAY!!!! She's right over there, on that blurry spot... oh wait, maybe the webcam's images are just pretty grainy and low quality.
/. readers should try tampering just to see if they get posted as real proof.
:) (just like every geek I know who gets a new webcam)
Seriously, I really doubt that any of these images found can be drawn to an exact conclusion. First of all, the camera simply doesn't provide suffcient quality images for one to really verify the presence of a ghost. Also, I looked at the "proof" section and noticed nothing out of the ordinary in any of the pictures. Maybe this was because these pictures were even more blurry and grainy the live webcam shots, but all I saw were random colored arrows pointing to blurs.
And as someone said earlier, how do they judge whether a picture is fit for proof or not? I bet you could easily blur or anti-alias a section in photoshop, draw a few colored lines around it, post, and you'd have yourself a spot on the page. I think some of us
Yeah I know this is mainly a little just for fun project, but still I'd like to see some level of realism here. Maybe it's just years of watching Unsolved Mysteries, but I think paranormal investigation is an interesting (even if it seems like a crock) field and should be given some credit. A bunch of random people posting blurry quickcam shots isn't going to prove anything, rather it would further damage the credibility of any legitimate efforts to locate paranormal activity (I think there are some, regardless whether the activity is really ghostly or logically explained).
Oh well, I bet there is no ghost in the library, because by now she would definitely have gone up to the camera and gave everybody the finger in an attempt to look leet.
Heh, maybe 3Com should spend some time builing and attaching a mini toilet-paper dispenser to their next Palm model. It could prove lifesaving to Hemos and many others if they run out of TP while playing SimCity on the can :)
Aside from the obvious humor of the whole contest, I do have one quick question about the actual rules of the contest, and the mini-FAQ didn't answer me. Is the object of the contest just to time a standard reboot, or to manipulate the server machine in such a way that it causes NT to take forever to boot? If it is the latter I would tend to find that somewhat unfair to NT. I'm not a fan of MS products, but I think NT performance should not be judged based on someone who sets it up on a 486 with minimal ram and loads the box with huge apps either. Since there really isn't a minimum requirement I bet we'll have people unearthing their old boxen from the closet and firing them up as lil NT servers. Nothing wrong with using it in such a competition, but I hope NerdPerfect notes the system specs on the "winning" box. I don't think they should go as far to require that people follow the standard system requirements listed for NT and run a regular fulltime server, but at least any tweaking with the boxen to help the contest should be detailed. Win NT may be inferior to a Linux box, but I'm sure you could give a *nix box crappy performance if you put heavy effort into making it as inefficient as possible. Maybe NerdPerfect could sponser a similar contest for Linux servers or whatnot, and challenge people to downgrade performance to the max. I do think that Win NT sucks, but it would be a bit obsessive to characterize its performance based on such a contest.
Great contest idea, though a T-Shirt for a prize seems like a pretty half-assed prize imho :) Here's how I would handle the prizes if were running things:
Me: Congratulations, you have won the contest with an amazingly pathetic reboot time of 4 Hours, 57 Min! (or something to that extent)
Contestant: WOOHOO... What did I win? What did I win?
Me: Oh we have a special prize for you... this brand new, top of the line server... running on your favorite OS... WINDOWS NT!!!!!!!!!!!
Contestant: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! AGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! (goes insane and flys into a fit of violent spasms before falling to the ground, dead)
Now wouldn't that be funny and ironic?
I remember a while back there is/was some site that let you register your own domain name AND extension (e.g. www.my.page) or something to that nature, and I also remember getting a "domain" during some promotional day where registration was free. I think there was also a deal where you had to download a certain program (windows native if I remember correctly) that would actually allow you to view the little domain you created. Could anybody elaborate on this? Perhaps if the requirement to download the program were done away with, this could be a viable method of domain registration that could further lower the prices for a domain and help eliminate domain name abuse.
It's good and all that Linux is starting to get some notice, but I don't exactly like the direction of this. It seems like Ellison is just trying use the inclusion of a Linux OS as a gimmick to bring some life to his hopeless network computer push. Anyway, in response to the article... I thought it was a worthless briefing which would have benefitted from the actual inclusion of any details.
Firts, maybe it's just the vagueness of this article, but I have a lot of unanswered questions here. How will he be able to price this at $199? Obviously the answer is by cutting down on the components' quality, but I think it would be of great interest to know what actually comes with the computer. It seems that Ellision is purposely trying to be sketchy with the details so that he can pass off his new plan without actually revealling the obvious cuts from the model. Maybe he's assuming that since Linux supports less than top of the line hardware, he can skimp like hell on components to be able to price the computer at an appealing price.
Also I would like to know how Ellison plans to address the current questions about network computing. Namely this issue of data security comes to mind. Obviously the whole mess of data will have to be stored at some central location... and if so how are they going to secure that? How does he intend to insure that users will be able to feel safe about storing all their data away on a remote server? Not to mention the potential damage that could result if one of the main servers crashed, or got cracked, etc. I can see how this would work at an office or school, but on a large scale network computing is nothing more than a pipe dream. It's a lovely sounding idea, as apparently Ellison thinks, but the whole idea is so impractical that even his little Linux marketing gimmick won't help.
Oh well I guess Larry is gonna have to realize the whole futility of the situation someday.
I'd just like to know what Knuth thinks about Jesux :)
Finally, my salvation arrives! I may not be able to get any earth women, but I'm sure excited of the prospect of sex with hot moon chix0rs! Hey while youre at it, maybe you can get your brothel to import some of those 3-breasted Martian women, like that chick from Total Recall! Even better, this whole moon sex idea could lead to some wil pr0n movies :)
I can just see it now:
"Mom, I'm gonna go out with my friends and party until 3 a.m."
"But son, you have a history final and the calculus AP tomorrow!!!!"
"Oh it's ok mom, I already ate 10 baked potatoes and some super-size fries!"
"Oh all right dear, you have fun now!"
ACK, i forgot to finish the last line of my first question so here goes:
:)
"Do you think there will/should be any attempts to create a standardized version of Linux in order to solve the issue of potential incompatibility between different distribs?"
I guess preview is my friend after all
1. Whats your opinion on the issue of having a wide variety of different Linux distributors? Would it be best for the industry to promote "natural selection" with respect to the distributors? Do/Will you endorse a specific distributor over the others? Do you think there will/should be any attempts to create a standardized version of Linux in order to
2. What needs to be done to bring Linux to the masses? Do you think it is better that Linux is left to more technically saavy users as opposed to the average user? Would mass-marketing Linux poase a threat to its open-source status? If needed, would it be worth it to sacrifice the "do it yourself" nature of Linux in order to make it more friendly and popular to the mainstream pc user?