The music industry feared radio when it first started broadcasting. They did not like cassette tapes. In a similar vein, the movie industry did not like the VCR. They've all claimed these things would put them out of business. Last I checked, the entertainment industry is alive and well. These people should lighten up.
From Wikipedia: While tin-foil hats may have originated in some understanding of the Faraday cage effect, the use of such a hat to attenuate radio waves belongs properly to the realm of pseudoscience.
So tinfoil hats don't work. We need to legislate this problem away, not wear funny metal hats. The problem is that few are aware of the privacy issues, and fewer still who care enough to pick up the phone. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard the "well if you've nothing to hide, then what does it matter" arguement, I'd be buying Dom Perignon.
If anyone is still reading this thread...
I thought I'd chime back in to clarify my original point.
My comments were not elitist, nor am I an egomaniac. My point about having a four year degree putting you into an elite didn't state anything about brains. Anyone who can afford a $5 cup of coffee at Starbucks would be an elite in any country where people make $0.10 USD / hr. When I said I was impressed, I didn't mean impressed with myself. I meant that I was left with an impression of the level of opportunity I was granted. One percent globally is small. It IS elite. I hadn't realized that before having read that poster. Stating fact is not elitist nor egocentric. I'm talking only slightly about brains, but mainly about opportunity and exposure to ideas and technology. I have no idea how many people in the world have never used a computer, but I'm sure the numbers are quite high. The barrier to entry for these people is higher than it is for us.
Don't make the mistake of assuming everyone on/. thinks that he is Linus./joke||sarcasm
I remember seeing a poster in college stating that about 1% of the world's population has a four year degree. That impressed me. I realized that I was becoming part of an elite. The eight percent mentioned by the parent post seems a bit off based on this. Maybe complex expressions on the command line at times are the ideal tool to accomplish a specific goal, but lets remember who we're leaving out.
It would seem to me that users willing to choose Linux over Windows (or even OSX) are savvy enough consumers to be able to choose their desktop environment. I don't think we need to be told what desktop to use - we seem to be making good choices by ourselves already!
Forgive the cynicism, but it will come down to who has the most money, the most number of friends in the FDA and congress, and the best spin doctors. When there's a chance to make large sums of money on nanotech, the 'alarmists' shouting warnings of potential dangers will be dismissed as zealot quacks. It is commonplace in the USA today. (Pun optional).
That was my first thought. If you're looking for the low-down from ex-google employees, it would seem to me that using a Google-owned site might cause some problmes. I mean sure, they can do no evil./me waits to see if there's censorship @ blogger. Oh, I don't see any censorship. Maybe it was censored out?
Just because I stay away from exploited closed source software, doesn't mean I want everyone too. I have $100 in my pocket today because I fixed some nasty spywear (my comp is slow!) problems. Of course my first answer was to use Linux, but hey... if they insist, so be it!;)
Firstly, to overcome FUD, stress it's similarity to M$ office in terms of ease of use and function. Not that M$ should be the benchmark, but that it is due to its omnipresence. Secondly, allow me to relay a brief story about my aunt... She is not stupid. She owns and manages a small business that has a few million USD go through there every year, and does this quite effectivly. However, I was astounded when I was called in to 'fix' the computer - typical spyware / system performance issues. She could not understand why these things (spyware) were happening, and hasn't run ad-aware etc. even though I showed her how. She thinks that you are not on the internet until you click the 'blue E' on the desktop. I explained why this was not so. She doesn't understand how to type in http://www.whatever.com without searching, and couldn't find hotmail after her homepage was no longer MSN. I've seen others, after changing portals during an ISP change, not be able to find Google anymore because Yahoo is now on their homepage. 'Google is gone!' For these people in the business world that use computers only as tools, that resist change, and that don't want to understand technology because it's not what they do, changing from one office suite to another is a daunting task. I so wanted to install Firefox to prove that the 'blue E' was not how you get online (and to hopefully add extra security so I don't have to return as soon to fix). She has no firewall. I almost turned off the 'worm protection' in Norton Antivirus 2005 because it was confusing her due to receiving 'you are being attacked!' type messages.
What is my intended moral of the story? Basically, we need to expose children/teens in the public schools to CHOICES that don't look identical. Knowing that 'bookmarks' and 'favorites' are the same thing is critial. 'Oh no, my favorites are gone because they blocked the blue E with some firehydrant thing! What are bookmarks! This red fox thing is bad, I want my blue E!' The more diversity we have in software choices, the more opportunity we have to encourage students how to find the soultion to the problem instead of point-click-repeat. Software will change, and we need to prepare students for that change by teaching them to understand how to use software. I don't want another generation to grow up expecting to click the blue E and have everything handed to them. We don't have to all be hackers, but the lack of BASIC (no pun intended) knowledge on the part of so many M$ users astounds me - really.
I did jokingly suggest changing to Ubuntu, but she was only interested in the lack of the blue E. *SIGH*
c) once the "cost of development" had been recovered by the revenue the copyrighted work generated, non-profit copying of that work would be legal (ie: P2P and various other forms of "personal sharing")
You forget a couple of things here.
1. Assuming we want the copyright holder to have some profit, we shouldn't allow copying the instant the inventment is recouped.
2. We should allow for some decent profit, to cushion the blow of producing a commercial 'lemon' either before or after the profit-generating work.
Of course, the secret the artists don't want everyone to know is ~ a true artist would create from intrinsic motivation. They would create for free.
All of this being said, the 'draconian' punishment only goes to show you that Billy and Bush are sleeping together. Gmail hasn't yet been able to log proof of this, due to Billy's aversion of moving into this century by using email.
Slashdot Mirror
The music industry feared radio when it first started broadcasting. They did not like cassette tapes. In a similar vein, the movie industry did not like the VCR. They've all claimed these things would put them out of business. Last I checked, the entertainment industry is alive and well. These people should lighten up.
I think you mean you can find it somewhere on the internet for free by doing a Google search. Google != the internet... At least, not yet.
While tin-foil hats may have originated in some understanding of the Faraday cage effect, the use of such a hat to attenuate radio waves belongs properly to the realm of pseudoscience.
Article is here.
So tinfoil hats don't work. We need to legislate this problem away, not wear funny metal hats. The problem is that few are aware of the privacy issues, and fewer still who care enough to pick up the phone. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard the "well if you've nothing to hide, then what does it matter" arguement, I'd be buying Dom Perignon.
Downsite?
Obviously, it doesn't run Linux.
Wow! /me pulls out plastic.
Really, this is just sad. It's ugly too: look.
I thought I'd chime back in to clarify my original point.
My comments were not elitist, nor am I an egomaniac. My point about having a four year degree putting you into an elite didn't state anything about brains. Anyone who can afford a $5 cup of coffee at Starbucks would be an elite in any country where people make $0.10 USD / hr. When I said I was impressed, I didn't mean impressed with myself. I meant that I was left with an impression of the level of opportunity I was granted. One percent globally is small. It IS elite. I hadn't realized that before having read that poster. Stating fact is not elitist nor egocentric. I'm talking only slightly about brains, but mainly about opportunity and exposure to ideas and technology. I have no idea how many people in the world have never used a computer, but I'm sure the numbers are quite high. The barrier to entry for these people is higher than it is for us.
Don't make the mistake of assuming everyone on /. thinks that he is Linus. /joke||sarcasm
Mod parent up!
I remember seeing a poster in college stating that about 1% of the world's population has a four year degree. That impressed me. I realized that I was becoming part of an elite. The eight percent mentioned by the parent post seems a bit off based on this. Maybe complex expressions on the command line at times are the ideal tool to accomplish a specific goal, but lets remember who we're leaving out.
It would seem to me that users willing to choose Linux over Windows (or even OSX) are savvy enough consumers to be able to choose their desktop environment. I don't think we need to be told what desktop to use - we seem to be making good choices by ourselves already!
Forgive the cynicism, but it will come down to who has the most money, the most number of friends in the FDA and congress, and the best spin doctors. When there's a chance to make large sums of money on nanotech, the 'alarmists' shouting warnings of potential dangers will be dismissed as zealot quacks. It is commonplace in the USA today. (Pun optional).
I forgot to mention there's a MyCroft plugin for using Clutsy from FireFox.
Providing easy one-click access since 2005.
That was my first thought. If you're looking for the low-down from ex-google employees, it would seem to me that using a Google-owned site might cause some problmes. I mean sure, they can do no evil. /me waits to see if there's censorship @ blogger. Oh, I don't see any censorship. Maybe it was censored out?
I forgot TO use the preview button. Did you notice that TOO? Well, that makes TWO of us. *sigh* :)
Just because I stay away from exploited closed source software, doesn't mean I want everyone too. I have $100 in my pocket today because I fixed some nasty spywear (my comp is slow!) problems. Of course my first answer was to use Linux, but hey... if they insist, so be it! ;)
Firstly, to overcome FUD, stress it's similarity to M$ office in terms of ease of use and function. Not that M$ should be the benchmark, but that it is due to its omnipresence.
Secondly, allow me to relay a brief story about my aunt...
She is not stupid. She owns and manages a small business that has a few million USD go through there every year, and does this quite effectivly. However, I was astounded when I was called in to 'fix' the computer - typical spyware / system performance issues. She could not understand why these things (spyware) were happening, and hasn't run ad-aware etc. even though I showed her how. She thinks that you are not on the internet until you click the 'blue E' on the desktop. I explained why this was not so. She doesn't understand how to type in http://www.whatever.com without searching, and couldn't find hotmail after her homepage was no longer MSN. I've seen others, after changing portals during an ISP change, not be able to find Google anymore because Yahoo is now on their homepage. 'Google is gone!' For these people in the business world that use computers only as tools, that resist change, and that don't want to understand technology because it's not what they do, changing from one office suite to another is a daunting task. I so wanted to install Firefox to prove that the 'blue E' was not how you get online (and to hopefully add extra security so I don't have to return as soon to fix). She has no firewall. I almost turned off the 'worm protection' in Norton Antivirus 2005 because it was confusing her due to receiving 'you are being attacked!' type messages.
What is my intended moral of the story? Basically, we need to expose children/teens in the public schools to CHOICES that don't look identical. Knowing that 'bookmarks' and 'favorites' are the same thing is critial. 'Oh no, my favorites are gone because they blocked the blue E with some firehydrant thing! What are bookmarks! This red fox thing is bad, I want my blue E!' The more diversity we have in software choices, the more opportunity we have to encourage students how to find the soultion to the problem instead of point-click-repeat. Software will change, and we need to prepare students for that change by teaching them to understand how to use software. I don't want another generation to grow up expecting to click the blue E and have everything handed to them. We don't have to all be hackers, but the lack of BASIC (no pun intended) knowledge on the part of so many M$ users astounds me - really.
I did jokingly suggest changing to Ubuntu, but she was only interested in the lack of the blue E. *SIGH*
c) once the "cost of development" had been recovered by the revenue the copyrighted work generated, non-profit copying of that work would be legal (ie: P2P and various other forms of "personal sharing")
You forget a couple of things here.
1. Assuming we want the copyright holder to have some profit, we shouldn't allow copying the instant the inventment is recouped.
2. We should allow for some decent profit, to cushion the blow of producing a commercial 'lemon' either before or after the profit-generating work.
Of course, the secret the artists don't want everyone to know is ~ a true artist would create from intrinsic motivation. They would create for free.
All of this being said, the 'draconian' punishment only goes to show you that Billy and Bush are sleeping together. Gmail hasn't yet been able to log proof of this, due to Billy's aversion of moving into this century by using email.