It comes down to two issues: Quantity (the ammount of piracy going on) and, in the case of music, Quality (how good the copies are).
Ulrich is on record as having said that taping is no biggie. Why? Signal loss. Even first generation copies are noticably degraded from the original. Playing tapes degrades them. Copying from a tape... forget it.
In the case of your software being pirated, the copy is either perfect or non-functional. All or none. And so your only real "bitch" would be if so many copies were made that you no longer have a market.
The happy medium lies therein... Napster makes the files too easily and widely available for the labels' comfort.
One could draw a parallel with the War on Drugs. A quote (FAIR USE, GODDAMNIT!) from Drug Crazy, by Mike Grey, "Open markets promote use, prohibition peddles use"... para: "They found out that the demand curve for drugs isn't linear..." - with respect to the level of prohibition, ranging from absolute to nonexistant - "...it's U-shaped."
That is, you make it absolutely freely available and it will mushroom uncontrollably. You clamp down on it 100% and it will again mushroom.
What the labels need to come to terms with (the commercial software producers seem to have "got" this one already) is that easing up just a little will push the problem into the underground. There will be piracy (and drug use) no matter what they do, but the kind of piracy that goes on in the software field is of the "baseball card" type - the software isn't going to be USED, just warehoused, and it wouldn't have been purchased anyway.
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
Disclaimers... I don't use Napster. I get my MP3s from a different distributed (yet slowly congealing) source.
Yes, it's possible to rename a file to make it look incriminating, or to rename an incriminating file to make it look innocent. There is a legal problem with this: Offering something AS an illegal item MAKES IT an illegal item.
Nevertheless, people keep claiming that filename matching should be done away with in favor of pattern matching the content itself. One question: HOW?
These are compressed audio files. How do you know how tightly squeezed they are? How big a sample do you need before you can call it a match? Ulrich's snare drum is likely to sound like a whole lot of snare drums, no?
Even if we were talking about WAVs, there's still the little-understood and often forgotten problem of (if this is the right word for it) JITTER. IIRC, CDDA rips aren't perfect. They might miss a bit or two, and subsequent bytes will be bit shifted. (How they still sound correct is beyond me, somehow it works).
So now we're searching for a bit pattern within a compressed bit pattern that might be bit shifted by some arbitrary ammount? Please...
And while we're at it, can people please be a bit more realistic about this whole thing? MP3 is not going to destroy the RIAA. They're going to do that themselves by gouging their customers and producing crap. The other side of the spectrum is shouting about MP3 being free advertising which helps the labels. Neither is correct; MP3 is just a tiny blip on the radar screen. The RIAA HAS to defend their copyrights or else lose them.
(Let's see the moderators cope with this... The first part is informative, the second part is flamebait and probably redundant, masquerading as informative and insightful.)
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
Before splitting MS up, I hope the judge thinks really hard about what the breakup is supposed to accomplish. No, it's not about punishing MS. It's about ensuring that MS can't leverage the Desktop OS to sell Apps and Server software.
So, without further ado...
Desktop OS - Windows 3.1, 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME - Just the core of the OS. If they need to package drivers, fonts, text editors, and the like with the OS, they can license them from other baby-MSs.
Applications - Office, the "accessories".
Hardware - MS Mouse, gamepads, etc. The entire MS driver base.
Languages - All the development tools. (Yes, break off dev tools. J++ was invented to E,E,&E Java in defense of Windows.)
Server OS - NT Server, 2000 Server. As above, just the core of the OS. If they want drivers and such they will have to license them.
Server Software - Exchange, IIS, etc.
Media and Internet - MSN, Hotmail, IE, Media Player, and any Codecs that MS may own. Also, fonts, images, videos, and sounds MS currently owns.
Consumer Electronics OS - WinCE, as above just the core. Also, DirectX (can't put DX in with the hardware group or they'd exploit it).
....
The above will force them to price things at what they're worth, compete with other companies without tie-ins, sell pieces of the pie to non-MS companies, and comply with standards - all things that any other company would HAVE to do, or die.
My favorite example of how this would work to help the industry: The hardware company would be under pressure to make a profit, and that would provide the motivation to not only make better quality drivers, but also to license the driver-base to any and all comers - and likely in more than just one format. That eliminates one of the greatest barriers to entry in the OS game.
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
I believe a good piece of that particular difficulty can be traced back to the American National Standards Institute.
When ANSI C was being defined, the standard library was known to have these flaws. It was decided that strcpy, etc. were too widely used to change and the task of checking bounds on these calls was left to the coder.
So, much as we might regret it, we can't blame Canada for this one.
(Source: Some book about RTM's internet worm that I read 8 years ago. I think Cliff Stoll had a hand in the writing but I can't say for sure.)
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
I wrote cute things in basic on an Apple//e because it was fun. My goal was to enjoy myself. Enjoyment led to games, and games led to machine language. An insurmountable obstacle for the limited resources available to me. I had the assembler, but no documentation. Stuck, dead in the water, for years.
I stopped programming for a while, then I moved on to a WinTel box and discovered Demos. I was awed. I wanted to do polygons. 3D was my goal. But, WTF is this? DOS/Windows doesn't come with any real development tools? I have to PAY for languages? Oh well, I got a job and went shopping for an assembler (because everyone knows all the coolest demos were written in assembly). The salespeople were stunned... "Assembly language? We don't stock that. Here, this box says it includes a mini-assembler"
I went home with Borland Turbo C++ 3 for DOS. I had to learn C just to create the framework for my assembly programs to run in. By the time I'd learned enough, I discovered that developing for DOS is a pain in the arse. I dunno... It just stopped being fun around the time I figured out that to get anything really cool on the screen required practically writing your own device drivers. Dead in the water again.
But with a kicker... Someone was willing to pay for my talent. I started writing windows software and was spoiled by frameworks. I lost my interest in writing "cool" stuff. My new goal was to write GOOD stuff.
At about the same time I got fed up with Windows, I rediscovered Linux. I'd given it a go once, but it didn't seem "ready for prime time". Now, it was almost ready and seemed worth the effort. It was a bit longer before I ventured to write any code on a linux machine.
As it stands, I do very little linux development and a lot of windows stuff. I'm heavily influenced by the "UNIX way", and I'm constantly agravated by the need to make Win32 calls to get any real work done.
I'm impressed with the quality of the libre compilers, but I'm a bit underwhelmed by nearly every other aspect of linux development. At least the documentation never lies to you on a unix system.
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
But it only creates the function wrappers, it's still up to you to go into the editor and write the code of what happens when button X is pushed.
And it does a damn fine job of it. Seriously, it's worlds away from older Borland C++ tools. A project that took 6 months to plan and another 4 to code (and still came out wrong) on Borland C++ 5.1 was redesigned and implemented (and had EXTENSIVE functionality added) in less than 2 weeks using Builder.
I will do Win32 code in nothing else.
ObTopic: I just installed Builder 5 yesterday, and caught a similar piece of the lisence(sp?) out of the corner of my eye. At first, I thought "Oh, great..." but two things hit me. 1) My project is not open source. 2) The paragraphs that follow clarify that they don't want you to write a simple wrapper for their redistributables and sell it. Reasonable enough; their class library and other components are absolutly TOP NOTCH and are worth protecting with whatever legalese it takes.
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
In the interview, someone asked "What should I do with the Metallica MP3s I have? Delete them?" Metallica replied (para): Enjoy them, we're going after Napster, not users.
I think all current Metallica MP3 posessors have just been grandfathered out of any future action Metallica might take against individuals.
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
1) KWrite, if the bugs ever get worked out. 2) If you gotta ask, I gotta suggest KDE. 3) Depends - Do you think you could sell it? 4) Can't go wrong with C++. 5) If you gotta ask, I gotta suggest Mandrake. 6) Eventually, it's gonna be called just "GNU". 7) If you know enough to ask, you don't need my opinon. 8) Lease, but if the dealer's smiling at signing, you know you're getting screwed. 9) Doesn't matter, so long as I can't see 'em peeking out over your belt. 10) Blonde - I like my women just a little on the trashy side... 11) Plastic - doesn't rip when your ice-cream condenses water onto it. 12) Neither is a geek. 13) Tastes great. 14) Too tired to do the math. 15) TNG, and ONLY TNG! 16) Stirred. 17) Color... Good god, man... 18) NO FRAMES DAMNIT! 19) Country, but only circa 1993. Newer stuff sucks. 20) Don't walk. Run! 21) Dr. Suess. 22) Keyboard. 23) Deathmatch. 24) CuciPOP. 25) 0x 26) Yo! 27) Flamebait.
A few more...
Dog or Cat? Soundblaster or GUS? Marlboro, Camel, or Newport? Black, or Cream/Sugar? Marijuana or Alcohol? Metallica or Napster? Bic or Zippo? Physics or Chemistry? Big Bang or Steady State? Karma Whore or Regular Poster?
Wow, I must be suffering from sleep deprivation induced dementia...
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
The federal gov't wanted to institute a national speed limit in response to a percieved shortage of petroleum. Nowhere in the constitution are they given that power, but the supreme court allows them to blackmail the states into passing uniform codes (this should be of interest to all hackers, the shrink-wrap liscense laws are going to be implemented this way!). And so, conformance with the national speed limit was tied to block-grants of federal monies to state highway maintainance funds.
The speed limit was 55mph for as far back as I can remember (hence, Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55"). American nature being what it is, most people felt it safe to go a bit faster, but with increased speed comes increased fines if caught. In some cases, the fine could DOUBLE if the driver went 15mph over the limit.
Thus, a lot of people feel that 70 is the safest practical speed for an automobile on american highways.
The current situation has changed. The blackmail laws are gone and some of the western states have completely repealed their speed limits (for highways, at least). Montana, iirc, is one of these.
For myself, my top speed is 110, and I only do that on this one section of road that I know is safe and I never see any cops.:) Elsewhere I go with the flow of traffic.
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
This post probably comes in a bit too late to get the moderation it will need to rise to the top, where it might be seen by someone who could benefit from it, but here's hoping...
For those who are not themselves bipolar, but whose interest in the disease and its treatment comes from a loved one, there is a very helpful web/email support group: BPSO.ORG
I'm almost loath to mention it at all, because there IS a lot of bigotry out there (that I am not entirely innocent of, but have through education changed my thinking about), but if you've been through it you can attest that it's a stone bitch up one side and down the other...
Watching your sweetie blow through thousands of hard earned dollars with little to show for it.
Having to make the decision of whether or not your parent, mate, sibling, or child has to spend the next month or so in the hospital, even though there's nothing visibly wrong with them. Having them turn on you for making the decision.
Having doctors tell you that it's all up to them, there's nothing you can do, maybe this new medicine might help... Then dealing with the side effects...
Wondering if they might try to do away with themselves, or YOU... Hiding the steak knives, not getting any sleep.
The BPSO mailing list is a life line where any and all traffic about bipolar, the pain it causes, the worry, anguish, and rage against the disease and the diseased is all specifically ON TOPIC, and the list is specifically CLOSED to bipolars themselves.
Final note: They can do all the research they want, they can test new drugs, they can attempt cognitive psychotherapy, and they can go on about "major depressive episodes with mixed mania", but all their clinical jargon does nothing but belittle the real and excruciating torture of the disease and the havoc it wreaks on those surrounding it. "recovery" "stability" "return to the work force" likewise belittle the true beauty of the victims themselves.
--Threed Statistics show that most people don't really give a shit.
And you know what, that tactic works: The little rat that did the crime probably had an accomplice or at least someone else was in the know. The pressure of 20 other kids not getting recess will cause the perp's buddys to crack, and the perp is uncovered.
If not, he probably gets the snot beat out of him when recess is reinstated, so long as teacher conveniently looks the other way.
It takes a pretty childish mentality to break such a useful resource to begin with, so why not treat them like children? I say take the servers down permanently, leaving web pages up that say "Here's what happens when you abuse the internet. Don't blame us, blame THEM."
Then again, I don't IRC much anymore.
--Threed Browsing at +2, or else on my Cell Phone. I see no trolls.
I have several legacy apps that often require the bare-bones direct access to the hardware that only DOS can provide. One of these days, I hope someone makes an emu, vm, loader, driver, or something that will let me run them.
Here's a short list:
Second Reality Panic Optic Nerve Crystal Dream II
Anyone get any of these running under Linux?
--Threed Browsing at +2, or else on my Cell Phone. I see no trolls.
whether CPHack is GPL'd, owned in whole by Mattel, or whatever, because we don't need CPHack anymore.
The essay was written. The list was exposed. It is (and has always been) well known that CP is a piece of crap that doesn't do what it's supposed to and does other stuff behind your back if you let it.
Now, if they want to use this as a test case for the GPL, they are only going to wind up hurting the FSF and the Open Source community. The GPL had more teeth when companies took it at face value. To test it is to weaken it.
--Threed Browsing at +2, or else on my Cell Phone. I see no trolls.
I used to use CheckFree in combination with MS Money (sosueme) to pay for everything. I never had a single problem with the service itself. It wasn't web-accessible, and I considered that a plus.
My only problem was that once I lost a receipt for $200 and some change. Coincidentally, my auto insurance bill for that month was two cents off of that. When I went to balance my account, Money told me I hadn't payed that bill yet, but I saw that unaccounted-for $200 and figured I must have payed it the old-fashioned way (which I did periodically).
My insurance coverage lapsed for a little while because of that screwup, and I wound up getting in an accident and having to pay a lot of stuff out of pocket and nearly lost my license.
That two-cent screwup cost me thousands in the end.
As for the question: If you're going paperless, remember: "the computer is never wrong."
--Threed Browsing at +2, or else on my Cell Phone. I see no trolls.
Up until the Columbine shootings, I had never heard of JonKatz. I may have by chance read an article or two, but I never bothered to look at the by-line. If/. was the source, then that was good enough for me.
(That opening paragraph probably has some kind of cultural significance re: trust / media accuracy / blind consumerism, but I'll leave it to the philosophers. And, BTW, some of you may remember when you didn't have to filter your/., because it was ALL good... Another excersize for the reader: what happened?)
It was only after the posting of the Downtrodden Goths/Geeks/Techies/Nerds articles that I began to notice "Katz" as a seprate breed of/. articles. For the record, I considered this a good thing. I figured if someone's writing articles about geek culture history and what-not, it'd be a cool counterpoint to the regular postings of tech news, star wars, and linux.
Then I noticed the anti-Katz backlash. Like many, I just shook my head, thinking it was just normal flamage, to be ignored like any common troll. If they don't like Katz, they could just shut up and not read him, couldn't they?
I've just changed sides. I don't know for sure what caused it, but if I never see another Katz article again it'll be too damn soon.
So here's my parting shot:
Katz, after squeezing the life out of the Columbine tragedy (which America seems to have forgotten due to being deluged with nothing BUT Columbine for a few months), completely misrepresenting the connection between the DMCA and the RIAA, harping on the old atoms vs. bits theories that were WIRED's bailiwick for the longest time, and trying to make yourself the Hero of the Geeks, you have lost ALL credibility. I am now turning on the Slashdot Katz Filter. RIP.
Back to reading some News for Nerds, and some Stuff that Matters.
--Threed Browsing at +2, or else on my Cell Phone. I see no trolls.
"Mike Pearson" plainly stated on at least two occasions that he did NOT want the domain, that he'd been trying to get his name out of whois...
So, can someone please tell me why the WTO decided to use expensive arbitration procedures to handle this? It'd seem that NSI could have dealt with this one on its own. This was a horrid waste of time and money.
You answered "yes" to 62 of 200 questions, making you 69.0% slashdot pure (31.0% slashdot corrupt). According to the scoring guide, your slashdot experience level is: JonKatz Wannabe
All I gotta say is I'm user #886 and was one of the first moderators. So WTF is with that score?
Then again, I like JonKatz's stuff, even if I think he's misguided sometimes.
I don't recall ever having heard of our interviewee, but boy does he ever have some intelligent stuff to say! Every single one of his points about good web design is SPOT ON! I know that these are the things that make me HATE a page: slow loading, banners, popups, breaking the back button...
How do web designers get away with this stuff? Do the PHBs behind them say "Wow, they can't hit the back button! They're forced to stay on our site! You deserve a raise, you HTML wizard you!"
Who is behind all of this idiocy? Are they having meetings about the next big way to piss off their users? Do they work for Microsoft?
Skaven's tune (the end-theme from the demo) makes much better office background noise, IMHO.
The best MODs, though, are the chip-tunes. They're usually groovy, but they sound wierd. An acquired taste, so you get the added benefit of annoying anyone who comes within earshot. Works great for keeping out the office-campers.
- a 6-foot stack of source code, punch cards, old Algol and FORTRAN programs. Unreadable by current hardware. Value:zero/sentimental.
Historian: "What's with all these pieces of paper? Do you think those holes could be encoding something?" (researcher then trips, falls, and unsettles the whole 6-foot deck)
- a stack of Apple ][ disk with "all Apple ][ software ever written". Unreadable by current hardware. Value:near-zero.
Apple IIs are like cockroaches:)
- A couple of thousand 400K diskettes containing Mac System 1.0, Microsoft Word 1.0, Adobe Photoshop 1.0 and similar stuff. Unreadable by current hardware. Value:who knows?
Still good for competitive upgrades in some situations:)
Sauron, Orc, Troll, Saruman, The One Ring, and Frodo are probably owned by a media conglomerate, especially with a string of feature films about them coming out soon.
Slashdot Mirror
It comes down to two issues: Quantity (the ammount of piracy going on) and, in the case of music, Quality (how good the copies are).
... para: "They found out that the demand curve for drugs isn't linear..." - with respect to the level of prohibition, ranging from absolute to nonexistant - "...it's U-shaped."
Ulrich is on record as having said that taping is no biggie. Why? Signal loss. Even first generation copies are noticably degraded from the original. Playing tapes degrades them. Copying from a tape... forget it.
In the case of your software being pirated, the copy is either perfect or non-functional. All or none. And so your only real "bitch" would be if so many copies were made that you no longer have a market.
The happy medium lies therein... Napster makes the files too easily and widely available for the labels' comfort.
One could draw a parallel with the War on Drugs. A quote (FAIR USE, GODDAMNIT!) from Drug Crazy, by Mike Grey, "Open markets promote use, prohibition peddles use"
That is, you make it absolutely freely available and it will mushroom uncontrollably. You clamp down on it 100% and it will again mushroom.
What the labels need to come to terms with (the commercial software producers seem to have "got" this one already) is that easing up just a little will push the problem into the underground. There will be piracy (and drug use) no matter what they do, but the kind of piracy that goes on in the software field is of the "baseball card" type - the software isn't going to be USED, just warehoused, and it wouldn't have been purchased anyway.
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
Disclaimers...
I don't use Napster. I get my MP3s from a different distributed (yet slowly congealing) source.
Yes, it's possible to rename a file to make it look incriminating, or to rename an incriminating file to make it look innocent. There is a legal problem with this: Offering something AS an illegal item MAKES IT an illegal item.
Nevertheless, people keep claiming that filename matching should be done away with in favor of pattern matching the content itself. One question: HOW?
These are compressed audio files. How do you know how tightly squeezed they are? How big a sample do you need before you can call it a match? Ulrich's snare drum is likely to sound like a whole lot of snare drums, no?
Even if we were talking about WAVs, there's still the little-understood and often forgotten problem of (if this is the right word for it) JITTER. IIRC, CDDA rips aren't perfect. They might miss a bit or two, and subsequent bytes will be bit shifted. (How they still sound correct is beyond me, somehow it works).
So now we're searching for a bit pattern within a compressed bit pattern that might be bit shifted by some arbitrary ammount? Please...
And while we're at it, can people please be a bit more realistic about this whole thing? MP3 is not going to destroy the RIAA. They're going to do that themselves by gouging their customers and producing crap. The other side of the spectrum is shouting about MP3 being free advertising which helps the labels. Neither is correct; MP3 is just a tiny blip on the radar screen. The RIAA HAS to defend their copyrights or else lose them.
(Let's see the moderators cope with this... The first part is informative, the second part is flamebait and probably redundant, masquerading as informative and insightful.)
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
Before splitting MS up, I hope the judge thinks really hard about what the breakup is supposed to accomplish. No, it's not about punishing MS. It's about ensuring that MS can't leverage the Desktop OS to sell Apps and Server software.
So, without further ado...
Desktop OS - Windows 3.1, 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME - Just the core of the OS. If they need to package drivers, fonts, text editors, and the like with the OS, they can license them from other baby-MSs.
Applications - Office, the "accessories".
Hardware - MS Mouse, gamepads, etc. The entire MS driver base.
Languages - All the development tools. (Yes, break off dev tools. J++ was invented to E,E,&E Java in defense of Windows.)
Server OS - NT Server, 2000 Server. As above, just the core of the OS. If they want drivers and such they will have to license them.
Server Software - Exchange, IIS, etc.
Media and Internet - MSN, Hotmail, IE, Media Player, and any Codecs that MS may own. Also, fonts, images, videos, and sounds MS currently owns.
Consumer Electronics OS - WinCE, as above just the core. Also, DirectX (can't put DX in with the hardware group or they'd exploit it).
....
The above will force them to price things at what they're worth, compete with other companies without tie-ins, sell pieces of the pie to non-MS companies, and comply with standards - all things that any other company would HAVE to do, or die.
My favorite example of how this would work to help the industry: The hardware company would be under pressure to make a profit, and that would provide the motivation to not only make better quality drivers, but also to license the driver-base to any and all comers - and likely in more than just one format. That eliminates one of the greatest barriers to entry in the OS game.
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
I believe a good piece of that particular difficulty can be traced back to the American National Standards Institute.
When ANSI C was being defined, the standard library was known to have these flaws. It was decided that strcpy, etc. were too widely used to change and the task of checking bounds on these calls was left to the coder.
So, much as we might regret it, we can't blame Canada for this one.
(Source: Some book about RTM's internet worm that I read 8 years ago. I think Cliff Stoll had a hand in the writing but I can't say for sure.)
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
I wrote cute things in basic on an Apple //e because it was fun. My goal was to enjoy myself. Enjoyment led to games, and games led to machine language. An insurmountable obstacle for the limited resources available to me. I had the assembler, but no documentation. Stuck, dead in the water, for years.
I stopped programming for a while, then I moved on to a WinTel box and discovered Demos. I was awed. I wanted to do polygons. 3D was my goal. But, WTF is this? DOS/Windows doesn't come with any real development tools? I have to PAY for languages? Oh well, I got a job and went shopping for an assembler (because everyone knows all the coolest demos were written in assembly). The salespeople were stunned... "Assembly language? We don't stock that. Here, this box says it includes a mini-assembler"
I went home with Borland Turbo C++ 3 for DOS. I had to learn C just to create the framework for my assembly programs to run in. By the time I'd learned enough, I discovered that developing for DOS is a pain in the arse. I dunno... It just stopped being fun around the time I figured out that to get anything really cool on the screen required practically writing your own device drivers. Dead in the water again.
But with a kicker... Someone was willing to pay for my talent. I started writing windows software and was spoiled by frameworks. I lost my interest in writing "cool" stuff. My new goal was to write GOOD stuff.
At about the same time I got fed up with Windows, I rediscovered Linux. I'd given it a go once, but it didn't seem "ready for prime time". Now, it was almost ready and seemed worth the effort. It was a bit longer before I ventured to write any code on a linux machine.
As it stands, I do very little linux development and a lot of windows stuff. I'm heavily influenced by the "UNIX way", and I'm constantly agravated by the need to make Win32 calls to get any real work done.
I'm impressed with the quality of the libre compilers, but I'm a bit underwhelmed by nearly every other aspect of linux development. At least the documentation never lies to you on a unix system.
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
Are you drunk?
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
But it only creates the function wrappers, it's still up to you to go into the editor and write the code of what happens when button X is pushed.
And it does a damn fine job of it. Seriously, it's worlds away from older Borland C++ tools. A project that took 6 months to plan and another 4 to code (and still came out wrong) on Borland C++ 5.1 was redesigned and implemented (and had EXTENSIVE functionality added) in less than 2 weeks using Builder.
I will do Win32 code in nothing else.
ObTopic: I just installed Builder 5 yesterday, and caught a similar piece of the lisence(sp?) out of the corner of my eye. At first, I thought "Oh, great..." but two things hit me. 1) My project is not open source. 2) The paragraphs that follow clarify that they don't want you to write a simple wrapper for their redistributables and sell it. Reasonable enough; their class library and other components are absolutly TOP NOTCH and are worth protecting with whatever legalese it takes.
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
I just turned the Katz-Filter back off so I'll get a shot at reading the serial. If the htmlized version is a good read, I may just buy it.
Which begs the question... If I have the html, is there any need to kill a tree? Should I buy the book, or can I just Pay Lars?
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
In the interview, someone asked "What should I do with the Metallica MP3s I have? Delete them?" Metallica replied (para): Enjoy them, we're going after Napster, not users.
I think all current Metallica MP3 posessors have just been grandfathered out of any future action Metallica might take against individuals.
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
1) KWrite, if the bugs ever get worked out.
2) If you gotta ask, I gotta suggest KDE.
3) Depends - Do you think you could sell it?
4) Can't go wrong with C++.
5) If you gotta ask, I gotta suggest Mandrake.
6) Eventually, it's gonna be called just "GNU".
7) If you know enough to ask, you don't need my opinon.
8) Lease, but if the dealer's smiling at signing, you know you're getting screwed.
9) Doesn't matter, so long as I can't see 'em peeking out over your belt.
10) Blonde - I like my women just a little on the trashy side...
11) Plastic - doesn't rip when your ice-cream condenses water onto it.
12) Neither is a geek.
13) Tastes great.
14) Too tired to do the math.
15) TNG, and ONLY TNG!
16) Stirred.
17) Color... Good god, man...
18) NO FRAMES DAMNIT!
19) Country, but only circa 1993. Newer stuff sucks.
20) Don't walk. Run!
21) Dr. Suess.
22) Keyboard.
23) Deathmatch.
24) CuciPOP.
25) 0x
26) Yo!
27) Flamebait.
A few more...
Dog or Cat?
Soundblaster or GUS?
Marlboro, Camel, or Newport?
Black, or Cream/Sugar?
Marijuana or Alcohol?
Metallica or Napster?
Bic or Zippo?
Physics or Chemistry?
Big Bang or Steady State?
Karma Whore or Regular Poster?
Wow, I must be suffering from sleep deprivation induced dementia...
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
Make a contribution and you'll get a better seat!
--Metallica, Leper Messiah
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
In the Good Ole U S of A......
:) Elsewhere I go with the flow of traffic.
The federal gov't wanted to institute a national speed limit in response to a percieved shortage of petroleum. Nowhere in the constitution are they given that power, but the supreme court allows them to blackmail the states into passing uniform codes (this should be of interest to all hackers, the shrink-wrap liscense laws are going to be implemented this way!). And so, conformance with the national speed limit was tied to block-grants of federal monies to state highway maintainance funds.
The speed limit was 55mph for as far back as I can remember (hence, Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55"). American nature being what it is, most people felt it safe to go a bit faster, but with increased speed comes increased fines if caught. In some cases, the fine could DOUBLE if the driver went 15mph over the limit.
Thus, a lot of people feel that 70 is the safest practical speed for an automobile on american highways.
The current situation has changed. The blackmail laws are gone and some of the western states have completely repealed their speed limits (for highways, at least). Montana, iirc, is one of these.
For myself, my top speed is 110, and I only do that on this one section of road that I know is safe and I never see any cops.
--Threed
The Slashdot Sig Virus was foiled before it could spread.
New meme... must propagate... Someone tell WiReD...
--Threed
Statistics show that most people don't really give a shit.
This post probably comes in a bit too late to get the moderation it will need to rise to the top, where it might be seen by someone who could benefit from it, but here's hoping...
For those who are not themselves bipolar, but whose interest in the disease and its treatment comes from a loved one, there is a very helpful web/email support group: BPSO.ORG
I'm almost loath to mention it at all, because there IS a lot of bigotry out there (that I am not entirely innocent of, but have through education changed my thinking about), but if you've been through it you can attest that it's a stone bitch up one side and down the other...
Watching your sweetie blow through thousands of hard earned dollars with little to show for it.
Having to make the decision of whether or not your parent, mate, sibling, or child has to spend the next month or so in the hospital, even though there's nothing visibly wrong with them. Having them turn on you for making the decision.
Having doctors tell you that it's all up to them, there's nothing you can do, maybe this new medicine might help... Then dealing with the side effects...
Wondering if they might try to do away with themselves, or YOU... Hiding the steak knives, not getting any sleep.
The BPSO mailing list is a life line where any and all traffic about bipolar, the pain it causes, the worry, anguish, and rage against the disease and the diseased is all specifically ON TOPIC, and the list is specifically CLOSED to bipolars themselves.
Final note: They can do all the research they want, they can test new drugs, they can attempt cognitive psychotherapy, and they can go on about "major depressive episodes with mixed mania", but all their clinical jargon does nothing but belittle the real and excruciating torture of the disease and the havoc it wreaks on those surrounding it. "recovery" "stability" "return to the work force" likewise belittle the true beauty of the victims themselves.
--Threed
Statistics show that most people don't really give a shit.
And you know what, that tactic works: The little rat that did the crime probably had an accomplice or at least someone else was in the know. The pressure of 20 other kids not getting recess will cause the perp's buddys to crack, and the perp is uncovered.
If not, he probably gets the snot beat out of him when recess is reinstated, so long as teacher conveniently looks the other way.
It takes a pretty childish mentality to break such a useful resource to begin with, so why not treat them like children? I say take the servers down permanently, leaving web pages up that say "Here's what happens when you abuse the internet. Don't blame us, blame THEM."
Then again, I don't IRC much anymore.
--Threed
Browsing at +2, or else on my Cell Phone. I see no trolls.
I have several legacy apps that often require the bare-bones direct access to the hardware that only DOS can provide. One of these days, I hope someone makes an emu, vm, loader, driver, or something that will let me run them.
Here's a short list:
Second Reality
Panic
Optic Nerve
Crystal Dream II
Anyone get any of these running under Linux?
--Threed
Browsing at +2, or else on my Cell Phone. I see no trolls.
whether CPHack is GPL'd, owned in whole by Mattel, or whatever, because we don't need CPHack anymore.
The essay was written. The list was exposed. It is (and has always been) well known that CP is a piece of crap that doesn't do what it's supposed to and does other stuff behind your back if you let it.
Now, if they want to use this as a test case for the GPL, they are only going to wind up hurting the FSF and the Open Source community. The GPL had more teeth when companies took it at face value. To test it is to weaken it.
--Threed
Browsing at +2, or else on my Cell Phone. I see no trolls.
I used to use CheckFree in combination with MS Money (sosueme) to pay for everything. I never had a single problem with the service itself. It wasn't web-accessible, and I considered that a plus.
My only problem was that once I lost a receipt for $200 and some change. Coincidentally, my auto insurance bill for that month was two cents off of that. When I went to balance my account, Money told me I hadn't payed that bill yet, but I saw that unaccounted-for $200 and figured I must have payed it the old-fashioned way (which I did periodically).
My insurance coverage lapsed for a little while because of that screwup, and I wound up getting in an accident and having to pay a lot of stuff out of pocket and nearly lost my license.
That two-cent screwup cost me thousands in the end.
As for the question: If you're going paperless, remember: "the computer is never wrong."
--Threed
Browsing at +2, or else on my Cell Phone. I see no trolls.
Up until the Columbine shootings, I had never heard of JonKatz. I may have by chance read an article or two, but I never bothered to look at the by-line. If /. was the source, then that was good enough for me.
/., because it was ALL good... Another excersize for the reader: what happened?)
/. articles. For the record, I considered this a good thing. I figured if someone's writing articles about geek culture history and what-not, it'd be a cool counterpoint to the regular postings of tech news, star wars, and linux.
(That opening paragraph probably has some kind of cultural significance re: trust / media accuracy / blind consumerism, but I'll leave it to the philosophers. And, BTW, some of you may remember when you didn't have to filter your
It was only after the posting of the Downtrodden Goths/Geeks/Techies/Nerds articles that I began to notice "Katz" as a seprate breed of
Then I noticed the anti-Katz backlash. Like many, I just shook my head, thinking it was just normal flamage, to be ignored like any common troll. If they don't like Katz, they could just shut up and not read him, couldn't they?
I've just changed sides. I don't know for sure what caused it, but if I never see another Katz article again it'll be too damn soon.
So here's my parting shot:
Katz, after squeezing the life out of the Columbine tragedy (which America seems to have forgotten due to being deluged with nothing BUT Columbine for a few months), completely misrepresenting the connection between the DMCA and the RIAA, harping on the old atoms vs. bits theories that were WIRED's bailiwick for the longest time, and trying to make yourself the Hero of the Geeks, you have lost ALL credibility. I am now turning on the Slashdot Katz Filter. RIP.
Back to reading some News for Nerds, and some Stuff that Matters.
--Threed
Browsing at +2, or else on my Cell Phone. I see no trolls.
"Mike Pearson" plainly stated on at least two occasions that he did NOT want the domain, that he'd been trying to get his name out of whois...
So, can someone please tell me why the WTO decided to use expensive arbitration procedures to handle this? It'd seem that NSI could have dealt with this one on its own. This was a horrid waste of time and money.
Here is the result of your Slashdot Purity Test.
You answered "yes" to 62 of 200 questions, making you 69.0% slashdot pure (31.0% slashdot corrupt).
According to the scoring guide, your slashdot experience level is: JonKatz Wannabe
All I gotta say is I'm user #886 and was one of the first moderators. So WTF is with that score?
Then again, I like JonKatz's stuff, even if I think he's misguided sometimes.
I don't recall ever having heard of our interviewee, but boy does he ever have some intelligent stuff to say! Every single one of his points about good web design is SPOT ON! I know that these are the things that make me HATE a page: slow loading, banners, popups, breaking the back button...
How do web designers get away with this stuff? Do the PHBs behind them say "Wow, they can't hit the back button! They're forced to stay on our site! You deserve a raise, you HTML wizard you!"
Who is behind all of this idiocy? Are they having meetings about the next big way to piss off their users? Do they work for Microsoft?
Or do they just not know any better?
XMMS will play 'em with the mikmod plugin.
Skaven's tune (the end-theme from the demo) makes much better office background noise, IMHO.
The best MODs, though, are the chip-tunes. They're usually groovy, but they sound wierd. An acquired taste, so you get the added benefit of annoying anyone who comes within earshot. Works great for keeping out the office-campers.
- a 6-foot stack of source code, punch cards, old Algol and FORTRAN programs. Unreadable by current hardware. Value:zero/sentimental.
:)
:)
Historian: "What's with all these pieces of paper? Do you think those holes could be encoding something?" (researcher then trips, falls, and unsettles the whole 6-foot deck)
- a stack of Apple ][ disk with "all Apple ][ software ever written". Unreadable by current hardware. Value:near-zero.
Apple IIs are like cockroaches
- A couple of thousand 400K diskettes containing Mac System 1.0, Microsoft Word 1.0, Adobe Photoshop 1.0 and similar stuff. Unreadable by current hardware. Value:who knows?
Still good for competitive upgrades in some situations
Sauron, Orc, Troll, Saruman, The One Ring, and Frodo are probably owned by a media conglomerate, especially with a string of feature films about them coming out soon.
(It's funny, laugh.)