Playing in post refers to "just playing". Yes, a computer can read a book out loud, but the interpretation of a book is the understanding and comprehension a human gets from reading a book.
Music is art. While that carries a good amount of science, I don't know anyone outside of Bose labs that would call musicians a "scientific community". Interactive art, like music, is played, yes, but all human players interpret music. Sometimes the musical sheets help out, telling us where to play with more forte. Musical notes are not mathmaticly timed perfectly, neither is speed, volume, or method of intrument play (with guitar, it would be strum and finger/slide/hammer methods).
Yes, there is a fair amount of science in music and art. However, what seperates art from science is creativity, and that's a very "wishy washy" concept.
Creativity determines the difference in the spectrum from simple playing to interpreting music. No creativity would be playing, and no more. At the other end, playing of a "set peice" would be completely removed, and nothing but interpretation would result.
At one end, you have a computer just playing classical scores. At the other end, you have a free style jazz player.
Yes, it is certainly pretentious, but is a well deserved distinction. Just as with a book, there is an infinite difference between a computer and a human reading, and that difference is comprehension and interpretation. And, it is the same with music.
Interpretation of art simply describes the meaning that people pull away from a thing (or in the case of reproducing the art, such as in music, what is put back into a thing). Interpretations can very a little from person to person, or greatly, especially with abstract art.
You make very good and valid points. By the same product, I mean a connection to the Internet. By comparison, dialup, DSL, and Cable are all completely different technologies as well, serving differing markets of customers. But, they do compete head to head, just as I think Wifi and EV DO (and also whatever format Cingular chooses).
I also have an view here that is probably unique to most. My municipality does own a local internet provider. they operate dialup, fiber optic, and a wireless solution, as well as web hosting. Did they do this because we didn't have internet here? No, they bought out an existing dial up provider... they communized an existing business. There is also plenty of other dial up services available in the area, as well as Cable and DSL. Their services directly impact local businesses that sell competing services, such as myself. I sell web hosting, but I do not sell in the local market. I simply can't compete with my own city.
I don't really have a problem with Wifi, even though I'm in a smaller town, and will never see the hotspots that say, Philadelphila will have. I have a problem with state owned information services. Even if it is coffee versus beer, the state has no business setting up coffee shops, imho.
My money is on EV DO technology for high speed cellular. Municipal Wifi isn't just wrong, imho (the idea of having to compete with a government owned business), but will always fall short of commercial endevours. For instance, with EV DO, you won't be stuck in one city. Also, they already have most of the existing infrastructure and a large base of existing customers.
But, even if all that were irrelevant, there remains the real killer of municipal Wifi, lawsuits. Municipals will be happy to break even. When people start getting hacked with even a remote connection to fault on the part of the municipality, cities will abandon it. Businesses, on the other hand, are used to dealing with customers and their problems. Cities are used to voters, and maybe the occasional lawsuit against the police.
I find it laughable that some cities were able to explain away their wifi dreams in that cellular providers had no intentions of providing the service, when the major ones have been planning them for a year and a half or more, just not using Wifi. It's coke vs pepsi, but its cola either way. It's bad enough that most power line broadband will be municipal owned. I'd like to have as much non-state owned connectivity as possible. If I want state owned internet where by owning the data they would never need a warrent to monitor my activity, I'll move to Beijing.
Music isn't played, at least, not be the even half way decent musicians. It's interpretted. My computer can "play" Bach concerts perfectly, not missing a not. I've yet to see a thousand people pack an auditorium to hear a Sound Blaster card rattle off Classical.
Music is full of so many nuances, that even the composers will spent the rest of their lives exploring their own songs. I don't care if the robot can play as well as Tom Morrello, without AI and an imagination, all it really is, is a wind up music box.
Still, props to the inventors, that'd still be a sweet robot.
With the speed with which technology grows, the best patent reform is the easiest patent reform. Simply reduce the lifespan of software patents. After 5 years, successful developments are either mainstream or die, at which time new developments are necessary. Patents, like copyright, are meant to spur innovation and creativity, not to ensure inventors are "set for life". I think 5 year patent limits (and certainly NO MORE) on any software process ensures continued innovation, not stagnation.
20 year patents are like 20 year sentences for 80 year old criminals, a virtual death sentence. Sure, you can also patent a significant improvement, but that is unrealistic with today's environment. I certainly can't make a significant improvement to the Windows code and patent it, where as 50 years ago, I really could take say, a Chevy engine, make a significant improvement, and patent/market it, without Chevy suing me for EULA violations. Mechanical improvements and the patent system developed around it simply do not translate to the software world.
I'm sure other improvements could be made, but the 5 year limit would be most benefitial, imho. Give them 5 years, no more. After that, their improvements become as outdated as the steam engine locamotive is today.
Yeah, but this one is in "politics". Tomorrow, it will re-run under "IT". But, that won't be a repeat, either. This is Politics, the other is IT. See the difference?;)
Could this be like rewatching a movie on DVD? It may have the same cast, but does it have an alternate ending?:P
Just make sure you're comfortable with what your number spells before you give out this "trick" to your friends for easy remembering. I'm sure people with the number 257-8xxx would not be enthusiastic to tell people to "Just Dial 'Al Queda!'"
Yes, that's a real number in many area codes (I blanked it out, which won't stop the ingenius here from looking up what it really is, and Googling who actually is stuck with that horrible number). I feel worse for them than people who get prank calls to Jenny at 867-5309. Just don't call these people up asking for "Ben". I'd feel bad if months from now I made that prank call and one of you spoiled it for me.;)
I love an ideological person, and even more so, an ideological politician. People that think they truly can change the world. However, the line between ideological and naive is a fine one, and one that was certainly crossed here:
"From my perspective as a parent, I'm horrified by what comes in" to her three children's e-mail accounts, Gov. Jennifer Granholm said during a news conference Thursday. "This will put an end, we hope, to inappropriate e-mail getting to our children."
It will not put an end to it. I guarantee that. Spam is not like a do-not-call list. Fly by night Chinese penis enlargement spam companies don't care what lists various states in the US have to opt out of, not to mention many spammers in the US.
Yes, this will open up a large DB of childrens e-mails, which won't be targetted by hackers. They will be targetted by pedophiles posing as children themselves. Worse, even by just knowing the state, pedophiles in Michigan know their victims will be local. One would hope that the state is smart enough to at the very least post some dummy honeypot e-mails up in order to catch such predators.
But, no, I think they are too naive even for that. If you don't want your kid getting spam, give them a GMail account. I get the most horrible spam of anyone I know, almost 200 a day, and none of them cutsey ones. I forward through GMail as my filter. In this entire year, about 5 made it through.
Government can't solve all the problems. Spam is a special problem that I really don't think any single government could solve, and if they could solve it collaboratively, the risk to civil liberties would, in my mind, probably outweigh any benefit.
The answer to technological problems is a technological solution. You can't legislate away the flaws in the current e-mail system... but you can always program a better solution. This law would be similar to Michigan making it illegal to use someone else's password, and doing so by making a giant list of the passwords everyone uses.
So the Gov. knows how to basically use e-mail. Now she thinks she's an expert on Internet security and privacy? When will politicians realize that, for the most part, they are tech amatures, and really need to call in the experts for solid advise?
This sounds like a transaction was made that was larger in net worth than the company that made the purchase. Excuse my very poor financial jargon, but if Company A buys so much stock in Company B that it would impact the entire company bottom line... well, it seems pretty clear to me that you don't need to go through the trouble of that much oversight. You just need to instruct the software to not allow trades over a certain value, especially values that would bankrupt the company.
if ($trade > $value_of_our_company) {
die ('You goddamn MORON!'); }
I would like to point out that I do pay for a RHEL license. That payment isn't for linux, I could get that free with or without a license (a la fedora). What I pay for is for support and priority up2date.
GPL companies can make money, but not from the software, imho. The great thing about GPL/BSD licenses is that it's really adaptable to: free as in beer, tiny fee for cold beer.
Sidenote: What GPL people need to do is stop pandering to dictionary arguements, and work out the cross-licensing issues with current GPL already. GPL should work easily with BSD and Apache licenses by now. Developers don't care what you mean when you say free, they care what your license says is permissible between two distinct code bases under distinct FOSS license.
The COO of Sun could say that GPL is an evil poo-poo head. What does the COO of Sun have to do with GPL licensing? Last I checked, Sun isn't the author or enforcer of GPL (correct me if I'm wrong, please). Who cares what Sun says really. The real issues are facts like combining BSD or Apache code into a GPL package often makes mere mortal developers get out the goat, black candles, and a hacksaw, and pray to the God's of IP Law for a straight answer. RMS needs to seriously prioritize, instead of flamebaiting software executives who don't have their lips superglued to his butt 24/7.
One could consider the two free's part of the same usage. When an object or person is held to a bond, release is usually by monetary exchange. This is similar to the concept of 'buying one's freedom'. IANAHBIWTV (I am not a historian, but I watch TV.)
Payment is about exchange of property. Slaves were also considered property. When something is free, it is no longer bound as any particular person's property. So, free as in beer and free as in freedom... it's not apples and oranges, it's red apples and green apples, if you look at it from a property standpoint.
Put it this way, if you had to pay $1 million to get GPL-like rights to a programs code, how is that any better, really, than buying one of those MS developer licenses to sneak a peak at the code? The difference is the free as in beer part. If it were GPL, one person could purchase the code, then give it away free. So, you can't have one without the other, not under GPL. Without any "free as in beer part", you cannot have "free as in freedom" as it exists in something like the GPL.
That's just reality. If you couldn't get GNU, linux, BSD in a free-as-in-beer package, nobody (as in those of us who don't collect every OS known to mankind) would give one rat's butt about it. Guys like RMS need a reality check. The market exists because it's free as in beer AND free as in freedom.
Just look at Firefox. Anyone honestly think that if it even cost $5 that it would be anywhere NEAR as popular as it is? Yeah, me neither. "Open source" is just a benefit for us geeks, but of no obvious benefit to non-programming users. "Free" is an obvious benefit to all.
BTW, you can have free as in beer and NOT free as in freedom. BUT, you really can't have free as in freedom WITHOUT free as in beer.
Being that it is the one that most people see the instant benefit in, and that it is necessary for the other "freedom", imho, Free As In Beer is not only a valid talking point, but may be the more-valid talking point to most.
Oh well, words to the wind... I'm 99.9999% sure RMS isn't reading this and saying to himself, "Damn, the man's got a point!"
Now, when Google decides to combine the two, with links to the Google personalized homepage news... will this become the new CNN? Fire in your home state? Just load up Google Earth, search news inside your state, double click fire, go to location, and click on icon to bring up list of pre-recorded and currently streaming video of the site. (And maybe with Google's new payment system, make small micropayments to whoever is doing the video/audio that you are watching.)
Next big thing in Google Adsense... amature video journalism.
I think I'll cut them a break here. At least they are sorta, but not really officially committed, but groaningly... trying. They'll fail, of course. They are supporting platforms with no real consumer interest (yet, though I could be proven wrong in the future).
I still don't understand why the RIAA hasn't picked up on the real money maker? Take a page from Google, RIAA, and just give all the music away free like Google gives all its popular services away free. Move to a radio-like format, only for download. Simply put a short 15 second ad randomly (every few downloads, not every song) at the beginning or end of the song, then just give them all away free. File Sharer's might still fling them to 50,000 people, but that's doing the work for you.
Will people edit out the ads? Sure they will, but it wouldn't be any worse than it is now. And, if you can legally download all the music you want at better-than-cd quality from a reliable network, why pirate?
What you music ad free? 2 options, either purchase the CD in store or per song online, or... be inventive, and sell a pay-per-use program that can remove the ads for you. Instead of paying per song, you're paying to remove the ad. Don't wanna pay, just keep the ad and stay legal.
But, hey, far be it from me to be original. The RIAA is well over 5 years behind the times here. I suspect in 5 more years they'll come up with Rmail (free e-mail accounts with 1GB storage at rmail.com) to give to people who haven't yet been sued by them as a "reward".;)
You are completely correct, and the "feature" that prompted the heaviest growth in ad blocking was the pop-up. I'm still dumbfounded at the idea of letting a webpage control how the browser program acts (window resizing, pop-ups, new windows, etc).
Don't blame the advertisers who took advantage, blame the creators of languages that gave them the tools to do it.
Right thinking person 10 years ago: If language becomes standard to allow new window creation, this will lead to annoying behaviour, most likely from the commercial sector using them as virtual highway billboards.
Doubleclick Today: If blocking the virtual language that gives us the ability to annoy into submission becomes standard, this will lead to a pay-only web.
Life is a circle, and we go round and round and round.
If a free or discounted pirate copy were not available, would you then be willing to purchase the digital information (software, music, whatever) at the asking price of the real owner?
If the answer is no, as it usually is, then you see why the numbers of "lost revenue" is complete BS. If you wouldn't buy it anyways, you are not depriving anyone else of using it, then by recieving it for free or discounted, you've not deprived the original owner of anything at all.
That, of course, doesn't answer the question of whether it is moral to use something you couldn't afford, but it answers the question relatively simply about what companies "really" lose.
Last I checked, for instance, the average Chinese worker makes 6 to 10 times less than I do, and I don't make very much at all. Software piracy is high there. Gee, I wonder why, Windows costs half a year's wages for some over there. In that context, Microsoft's "lost revenue" is completely imaginary. Nobody is going to give a software company half a year's wages for their product. But, if they "can" get it cheaper, they will. Either way, MS makes no money off them and loses nothing if they do or don't pirate. To not pirate for them simply means to do without. (Or go with Linux, like the Brazillians... which IS the smartest choice, imho.)
If you can and would be willing to pay? You're a pirate, and have no moral grounds at all to stand on, really. Stop being a penny pincher, and buy it legally already! You're the reason why Walmart uses child labor ya cheap bastard!
Thanks to Jurisenpai (261790) and you about for the info. As for EXIF, I'm didn't know that, actually. I was simply speculating on what I would like to see available to me. I'm a complete photography n00b. I would certainly like to see such GPS (et al) tags in use for my camera phone.
I just wish GPS was as common as Wifi in new laptops. My computing habits would take much more advantage of GPS than Wifi, especially in my phone.
Sure, I've got a Sanyo 8200, with GPS capabilities, but it only works for 911 calls (which isn't even supported by the operators in my normal calling areas). I've got amazing internet speeds (faster than dial up), camera phone, speaker, and all those goodies. But if the GPS capabilities out there were truly exploited in the products that could best use them, I would be in heaven.
Case in point, GPS Camera Phone that automatically tags pictures with the GPS location at the time the picture is taken (along with date/time, of course). That would go well with a universal photo meta-data tag (like mp3... and if there is something out there like this, I've not heard of it, but would welcome it, for png preferably). This could then integrate with a small Google Maps enabled blog so one could upload the pics directly to a blog with other real time location data. My phone allows for voice attachments. Some phones even have video.
Want to know the real advantage of GPS, place it in one strategic location like a camera phone with web capabilities, and you've got a complete point and shoot journalist that can get the news out faster than CNN. If that picked up, I'm sure webapps out there would allow users to circle regions and gather an RSS feed of all news coming out with GPS tags within that area.
Something like this during the Tsunami or 9/11 would have provided thousands of "man on the street" resources, none from a single news source. And, that's the point where independant producers emerge to compile this data in real time, and present it in a watchable fashion for the rest of us. Yeah, reports came out of the Tsunami, but most of the actual video and images trickled out at a snail's pace.
> Don't these people realize how accurate GPS positioning has become?
I just wish more people would realize how vital GPS could be if implamented more.
How about Windows users? Some of us work non-IT specific jobs that still heavily involve computers. Whether the IT department supports it or the company, Windows is often the only option for power users without IT priviledges to run something like CYGWIN while at work. If Monad scripting is half as powerful as even Slashdot readers think, it would be a great improvement over current Windows working conditions.
As for home.../me shrugs, got bash and perl for scripting.
Actually, the reason has little to do with Amazon's policies, and more with any company that publically masterbates in front of a croud, and tells us that it's a present for us. If this was just a company party, that'd be one thing. Pushing it as a "Show of Thanks" or gift to the customers is a joke, and they're getting called on it, big time.
Imagine it on a personal level. Imagine that your wife or whoever your significant other is comes home, and you invite them into the bedroom. Tell them "This is to say thank you for all you've done for me," then proceed to masterbate. If they don't get hit/slap/leave/laugh at/divorce you, I'd be suprised (some have kinkier partners).
This is what Amazon did. It could have given away tickets to 100 lucky customers. It could have given away other prizes. It could have done ANYTHING that actually gave some benefit to the customers. I don't even like American Idol, but I'd rather watch it on TV than a junk streaming concert. If I'm going to sit for 2+ hours to watch something, I want some chips, a drink, and a sofa. That's just me, but I would assume this is true of the average Amazon shopper as well.
This, of course, is absolutely true. I have used it in the past, and hated it. I always transfered money out same day. Once in the bank, I moved over to my non-paypal account. The account signed up with at Paypal was an empty non-minimum balance one. I constantly monitored it for any outgoing, and planned to call bank to stop payment on any activity. If Paypal terminated my account for failure to provide them money back, I really didn't care. I was looking for better payment options anyways, and closing it was not a concern for me. Here's why...
Paypal is especially nasty if you sell any type of virtual services. The specifically say that if you sell a virtual service, be it providing internet, web hosting, member only sites, program downloads... whatever, they offer you zero protection. If there is a dispute, their TOS basically says (last time I read it, and paraphrasing) "We're going to side with the buyer 100% of the time, regardless of any evidence you could provide that the transaction was completed."
Unfortunately, this is a side effect of FedEx/UPS/USPS tracking and reciepts being far more reliable, and no digital equivilant. But, imagine selling someone a years worth of hosting for a theoretical $1000, only to have them complain 10 months later that the service was not up to the advertised standards, and get every penny of their money back. I can understand giving back a partial refund for time not used, but a full refund?
That's why virtual service providers are better going with any other service. I would name what I use, but don't wish to introduce any form of slashvertising here. I'll just say, it sure as hell ain't paypal!
Slashdot Mirror
Playing in post refers to "just playing". Yes, a computer can read a book out loud, but the interpretation of a book is the understanding and comprehension a human gets from reading a book.
Music is art. While that carries a good amount of science, I don't know anyone outside of Bose labs that would call musicians a "scientific community". Interactive art, like music, is played, yes, but all human players interpret music. Sometimes the musical sheets help out, telling us where to play with more forte. Musical notes are not mathmaticly timed perfectly, neither is speed, volume, or method of intrument play (with guitar, it would be strum and finger/slide/hammer methods).
Yes, there is a fair amount of science in music and art. However, what seperates art from science is creativity, and that's a very "wishy washy" concept.
Creativity determines the difference in the spectrum from simple playing to interpreting music. No creativity would be playing, and no more. At the other end, playing of a "set peice" would be completely removed, and nothing but interpretation would result.
At one end, you have a computer just playing classical scores. At the other end, you have a free style jazz player.
Yes, it is certainly pretentious, but is a well deserved distinction. Just as with a book, there is an infinite difference between a computer and a human reading, and that difference is comprehension and interpretation. And, it is the same with music.
Interpretation of art simply describes the meaning that people pull away from a thing (or in the case of reproducing the art, such as in music, what is put back into a thing). Interpretations can very a little from person to person, or greatly, especially with abstract art.
You make very good and valid points. By the same product, I mean a connection to the Internet. By comparison, dialup, DSL, and Cable are all completely different technologies as well, serving differing markets of customers. But, they do compete head to head, just as I think Wifi and EV DO (and also whatever format Cingular chooses).
I also have an view here that is probably unique to most. My municipality does own a local internet provider. they operate dialup, fiber optic, and a wireless solution, as well as web hosting. Did they do this because we didn't have internet here? No, they bought out an existing dial up provider... they communized an existing business. There is also plenty of other dial up services available in the area, as well as Cable and DSL. Their services directly impact local businesses that sell competing services, such as myself. I sell web hosting, but I do not sell in the local market. I simply can't compete with my own city.
I don't really have a problem with Wifi, even though I'm in a smaller town, and will never see the hotspots that say, Philadelphila will have. I have a problem with state owned information services. Even if it is coffee versus beer, the state has no business setting up coffee shops, imho.
My money is on EV DO technology for high speed cellular. Municipal Wifi isn't just wrong, imho (the idea of having to compete with a government owned business), but will always fall short of commercial endevours. For instance, with EV DO, you won't be stuck in one city. Also, they already have most of the existing infrastructure and a large base of existing customers.
But, even if all that were irrelevant, there remains the real killer of municipal Wifi, lawsuits. Municipals will be happy to break even. When people start getting hacked with even a remote connection to fault on the part of the municipality, cities will abandon it. Businesses, on the other hand, are used to dealing with customers and their problems. Cities are used to voters, and maybe the occasional lawsuit against the police.
I find it laughable that some cities were able to explain away their wifi dreams in that cellular providers had no intentions of providing the service, when the major ones have been planning them for a year and a half or more, just not using Wifi. It's coke vs pepsi, but its cola either way. It's bad enough that most power line broadband will be municipal owned. I'd like to have as much non-state owned connectivity as possible. If I want state owned internet where by owning the data they would never need a warrent to monitor my activity, I'll move to Beijing.
Music isn't played, at least, not be the even half way decent musicians. It's interpretted. My computer can "play" Bach concerts perfectly, not missing a not. I've yet to see a thousand people pack an auditorium to hear a Sound Blaster card rattle off Classical.
Music is full of so many nuances, that even the composers will spent the rest of their lives exploring their own songs. I don't care if the robot can play as well as Tom Morrello, without AI and an imagination, all it really is, is a wind up music box.
Still, props to the inventors, that'd still be a sweet robot.
Actually, stealthisemail.com was not shut down as the article says. They actually stood up to him and refused to shut down.
:D
BTW, if Leo Stoller is reading this...
Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth Stealth
I'm low on toilet paper and could use a few inch thick packets of cease and desist letters.
http://www.i8-d.com/stealth.html
With the speed with which technology grows, the best patent reform is the easiest patent reform. Simply reduce the lifespan of software patents. After 5 years, successful developments are either mainstream or die, at which time new developments are necessary. Patents, like copyright, are meant to spur innovation and creativity, not to ensure inventors are "set for life". I think 5 year patent limits (and certainly NO MORE) on any software process ensures continued innovation, not stagnation.
20 year patents are like 20 year sentences for 80 year old criminals, a virtual death sentence. Sure, you can also patent a significant improvement, but that is unrealistic with today's environment. I certainly can't make a significant improvement to the Windows code and patent it, where as 50 years ago, I really could take say, a Chevy engine, make a significant improvement, and patent/market it, without Chevy suing me for EULA violations. Mechanical improvements and the patent system developed around it simply do not translate to the software world.
I'm sure other improvements could be made, but the 5 year limit would be most benefitial, imho. Give them 5 years, no more. After that, their improvements become as outdated as the steam engine locamotive is today.
Yeah, but this one is in "politics". Tomorrow, it will re-run under "IT". But, that won't be a repeat, either. This is Politics, the other is IT. See the difference? ;)
:P
Could this be like rewatching a movie on DVD? It may have the same cast, but does it have an alternate ending?
I remember Pi as 3.14, rounded off. My phone number is something like 834.21, rounded off.
;)
Seriously though, they put letters on the number keypads for a reason. http://www.phonespell.org/
Just make sure you're comfortable with what your number spells before you give out this "trick" to your friends for easy remembering. I'm sure people with the number 257-8xxx would not be enthusiastic to tell people to "Just Dial 'Al Queda!'"
Yes, that's a real number in many area codes (I blanked it out, which won't stop the ingenius here from looking up what it really is, and Googling who actually is stuck with that horrible number). I feel worse for them than people who get prank calls to Jenny at 867-5309. Just don't call these people up asking for "Ben". I'd feel bad if months from now I made that prank call and one of you spoiled it for me.
I love an ideological person, and even more so, an ideological politician. People that think they truly can change the world. However, the line between ideological and naive is a fine one, and one that was certainly crossed here:
"From my perspective as a parent, I'm horrified by what comes in" to her three children's e-mail accounts, Gov. Jennifer Granholm said during a news conference Thursday. "This will put an end, we hope, to inappropriate e-mail getting to our children."
It will not put an end to it. I guarantee that. Spam is not like a do-not-call list. Fly by night Chinese penis enlargement spam companies don't care what lists various states in the US have to opt out of, not to mention many spammers in the US.
Yes, this will open up a large DB of childrens e-mails, which won't be targetted by hackers. They will be targetted by pedophiles posing as children themselves. Worse, even by just knowing the state, pedophiles in Michigan know their victims will be local. One would hope that the state is smart enough to at the very least post some dummy honeypot e-mails up in order to catch such predators.
But, no, I think they are too naive even for that. If you don't want your kid getting spam, give them a GMail account. I get the most horrible spam of anyone I know, almost 200 a day, and none of them cutsey ones. I forward through GMail as my filter. In this entire year, about 5 made it through. Government can't solve all the problems. Spam is a special problem that I really don't think any single government could solve, and if they could solve it collaboratively, the risk to civil liberties would, in my mind, probably outweigh any benefit.
The answer to technological problems is a technological solution. You can't legislate away the flaws in the current e-mail system... but you can always program a better solution. This law would be similar to Michigan making it illegal to use someone else's password, and doing so by making a giant list of the passwords everyone uses.
So the Gov. knows how to basically use e-mail. Now she thinks she's an expert on Internet security and privacy? When will politicians realize that, for the most part, they are tech amatures, and really need to call in the experts for solid advise?
This sounds like a transaction was made that was larger in net worth than the company that made the purchase. Excuse my very poor financial jargon, but if Company A buys so much stock in Company B that it would impact the entire company bottom line... well, it seems pretty clear to me that you don't need to go through the trouble of that much oversight. You just need to instruct the software to not allow trades over a certain value, especially values that would bankrupt the company.
if ($trade > $value_of_our_company) {
die ('You goddamn MORON!');
}
I would like to point out that I do pay for a RHEL license. That payment isn't for linux, I could get that free with or without a license (a la fedora). What I pay for is for support and priority up2date.
GPL companies can make money, but not from the software, imho. The great thing about GPL/BSD licenses is that it's really adaptable to: free as in beer, tiny fee for cold beer.
Sidenote: What GPL people need to do is stop pandering to dictionary arguements, and work out the cross-licensing issues with current GPL already. GPL should work easily with BSD and Apache licenses by now. Developers don't care what you mean when you say free, they care what your license says is permissible between two distinct code bases under distinct FOSS license.
The COO of Sun could say that GPL is an evil poo-poo head. What does the COO of Sun have to do with GPL licensing? Last I checked, Sun isn't the author or enforcer of GPL (correct me if I'm wrong, please). Who cares what Sun says really. The real issues are facts like combining BSD or Apache code into a GPL package often makes mere mortal developers get out the goat, black candles, and a hacksaw, and pray to the God's of IP Law for a straight answer. RMS needs to seriously prioritize, instead of flamebaiting software executives who don't have their lips superglued to his butt 24/7.
"gearing up to fix the problem."
Let me translate for those not wearing foil hats: "Gearing up for National IDs".
One could consider the two free's part of the same usage. When an object or person is held to a bond, release is usually by monetary exchange. This is similar to the concept of 'buying one's freedom'. IANAHBIWTV (I am not a historian, but I watch TV.)
Payment is about exchange of property. Slaves were also considered property. When something is free, it is no longer bound as any particular person's property. So, free as in beer and free as in freedom... it's not apples and oranges, it's red apples and green apples, if you look at it from a property standpoint.
Put it this way, if you had to pay $1 million to get GPL-like rights to a programs code, how is that any better, really, than buying one of those MS developer licenses to sneak a peak at the code? The difference is the free as in beer part. If it were GPL, one person could purchase the code, then give it away free. So, you can't have one without the other, not under GPL. Without any "free as in beer part", you cannot have "free as in freedom" as it exists in something like the GPL.
That's just reality. If you couldn't get GNU, linux, BSD in a free-as-in-beer package, nobody (as in those of us who don't collect every OS known to mankind) would give one rat's butt about it. Guys like RMS need a reality check. The market exists because it's free as in beer AND free as in freedom.
Just look at Firefox. Anyone honestly think that if it even cost $5 that it would be anywhere NEAR as popular as it is? Yeah, me neither. "Open source" is just a benefit for us geeks, but of no obvious benefit to non-programming users. "Free" is an obvious benefit to all.
BTW, you can have free as in beer and NOT free as in freedom. BUT, you really can't have free as in freedom WITHOUT free as in beer.
Being that it is the one that most people see the instant benefit in, and that it is necessary for the other "freedom", imho, Free As In Beer is not only a valid talking point, but may be the more-valid talking point to most.
Oh well, words to the wind... I'm 99.9999% sure RMS isn't reading this and saying to himself, "Damn, the man's got a point!"
Do unto MS as MS does unto you.
:)
Embrace and Extend them.
Now, when Google decides to combine the two, with links to the Google personalized homepage news... will this become the new CNN? Fire in your home state? Just load up Google Earth, search news inside your state, double click fire, go to location, and click on icon to bring up list of pre-recorded and currently streaming video of the site. (And maybe with Google's new payment system, make small micropayments to whoever is doing the video/audio that you are watching.)
Next big thing in Google Adsense... amature video journalism.
I think I'll cut them a break here. At least they are sorta, but not really officially committed, but groaningly... trying. They'll fail, of course. They are supporting platforms with no real consumer interest (yet, though I could be proven wrong in the future).
;)
I still don't understand why the RIAA hasn't picked up on the real money maker? Take a page from Google, RIAA, and just give all the music away free like Google gives all its popular services away free. Move to a radio-like format, only for download. Simply put a short 15 second ad randomly (every few downloads, not every song) at the beginning or end of the song, then just give them all away free. File Sharer's might still fling them to 50,000 people, but that's doing the work for you.
Will people edit out the ads? Sure they will, but it wouldn't be any worse than it is now. And, if you can legally download all the music you want at better-than-cd quality from a reliable network, why pirate?
What you music ad free? 2 options, either purchase the CD in store or per song online, or... be inventive, and sell a pay-per-use program that can remove the ads for you. Instead of paying per song, you're paying to remove the ad. Don't wanna pay, just keep the ad and stay legal.
But, hey, far be it from me to be original. The RIAA is well over 5 years behind the times here. I suspect in 5 more years they'll come up with Rmail (free e-mail accounts with 1GB storage at rmail.com) to give to people who haven't yet been sued by them as a "reward".
You are completely correct, and the "feature" that prompted the heaviest growth in ad blocking was the pop-up. I'm still dumbfounded at the idea of letting a webpage control how the browser program acts (window resizing, pop-ups, new windows, etc).
Don't blame the advertisers who took advantage, blame the creators of languages that gave them the tools to do it.
Right thinking person 10 years ago: If language becomes standard to allow new window creation, this will lead to annoying behaviour, most likely from the commercial sector using them as virtual highway billboards.
Doubleclick Today: If blocking the virtual language that gives us the ability to annoy into submission becomes standard, this will lead to a pay-only web.
Life is a circle, and we go round and round and round.
If a free or discounted pirate copy were not available, would you then be willing to purchase the digital information (software, music, whatever) at the asking price of the real owner?
If the answer is no, as it usually is, then you see why the numbers of "lost revenue" is complete BS. If you wouldn't buy it anyways, you are not depriving anyone else of using it, then by recieving it for free or discounted, you've not deprived the original owner of anything at all.
That, of course, doesn't answer the question of whether it is moral to use something you couldn't afford, but it answers the question relatively simply about what companies "really" lose.
Last I checked, for instance, the average Chinese worker makes 6 to 10 times less than I do, and I don't make very much at all. Software piracy is high there. Gee, I wonder why, Windows costs half a year's wages for some over there. In that context, Microsoft's "lost revenue" is completely imaginary. Nobody is going to give a software company half a year's wages for their product. But, if they "can" get it cheaper, they will. Either way, MS makes no money off them and loses nothing if they do or don't pirate. To not pirate for them simply means to do without. (Or go with Linux, like the Brazillians... which IS the smartest choice, imho.)
If you can and would be willing to pay? You're a pirate, and have no moral grounds at all to stand on, really. Stop being a penny pincher, and buy it legally already! You're the reason why Walmart uses child labor ya cheap bastard!
Thanks to Jurisenpai (261790) and you about for the info. As for EXIF, I'm didn't know that, actually. I was simply speculating on what I would like to see available to me. I'm a complete photography n00b. I would certainly like to see such GPS (et al) tags in use for my camera phone.
I just wish GPS was as common as Wifi in new laptops. My computing habits would take much more advantage of GPS than Wifi, especially in my phone.
Sure, I've got a Sanyo 8200, with GPS capabilities, but it only works for 911 calls (which isn't even supported by the operators in my normal calling areas). I've got amazing internet speeds (faster than dial up), camera phone, speaker, and all those goodies. But if the GPS capabilities out there were truly exploited in the products that could best use them, I would be in heaven.
Case in point, GPS Camera Phone that automatically tags pictures with the GPS location at the time the picture is taken (along with date/time, of course). That would go well with a universal photo meta-data tag (like mp3... and if there is something out there like this, I've not heard of it, but would welcome it, for png preferably). This could then integrate with a small Google Maps enabled blog so one could upload the pics directly to a blog with other real time location data. My phone allows for voice attachments. Some phones even have video.
Want to know the real advantage of GPS, place it in one strategic location like a camera phone with web capabilities, and you've got a complete point and shoot journalist that can get the news out faster than CNN. If that picked up, I'm sure webapps out there would allow users to circle regions and gather an RSS feed of all news coming out with GPS tags within that area.
Something like this during the Tsunami or 9/11 would have provided thousands of "man on the street" resources, none from a single news source. And, that's the point where independant producers emerge to compile this data in real time, and present it in a watchable fashion for the rest of us. Yeah, reports came out of the Tsunami, but most of the actual video and images trickled out at a snail's pace.
> Don't these people realize how accurate GPS positioning has become?
I just wish more people would realize how vital GPS could be if implamented more.
Windows network admins?
/me shrugs, got bash and perl for scripting.
How about Windows users? Some of us work non-IT specific jobs that still heavily involve computers. Whether the IT department supports it or the company, Windows is often the only option for power users without IT priviledges to run something like CYGWIN while at work. If Monad scripting is half as powerful as even Slashdot readers think, it would be a great improvement over current Windows working conditions.
As for home...
I like to think they all perform here just for my personal pleasure. Don't tell me different and destory the fantasy. ;)
Actually, the reason has little to do with Amazon's policies, and more with any company that publically masterbates in front of a croud, and tells us that it's a present for us. If this was just a company party, that'd be one thing. Pushing it as a "Show of Thanks" or gift to the customers is a joke, and they're getting called on it, big time.
Imagine it on a personal level. Imagine that your wife or whoever your significant other is comes home, and you invite them into the bedroom. Tell them "This is to say thank you for all you've done for me," then proceed to masterbate. If they don't get hit/slap/leave/laugh at/divorce you, I'd be suprised (some have kinkier partners).
This is what Amazon did. It could have given away tickets to 100 lucky customers. It could have given away other prizes. It could have done ANYTHING that actually gave some benefit to the customers. I don't even like American Idol, but I'd rather watch it on TV than a junk streaming concert. If I'm going to sit for 2+ hours to watch something, I want some chips, a drink, and a sofa. That's just me, but I would assume this is true of the average Amazon shopper as well.
This, of course, is absolutely true. I have used it in the past, and hated it. I always transfered money out same day. Once in the bank, I moved over to my non-paypal account. The account signed up with at Paypal was an empty non-minimum balance one. I constantly monitored it for any outgoing, and planned to call bank to stop payment on any activity. If Paypal terminated my account for failure to provide them money back, I really didn't care. I was looking for better payment options anyways, and closing it was not a concern for me. Here's why...
Paypal is especially nasty if you sell any type of virtual services. The specifically say that if you sell a virtual service, be it providing internet, web hosting, member only sites, program downloads... whatever, they offer you zero protection. If there is a dispute, their TOS basically says (last time I read it, and paraphrasing) "We're going to side with the buyer 100% of the time, regardless of any evidence you could provide that the transaction was completed."
Unfortunately, this is a side effect of FedEx/UPS/USPS tracking and reciepts being far more reliable, and no digital equivilant. But, imagine selling someone a years worth of hosting for a theoretical $1000, only to have them complain 10 months later that the service was not up to the advertised standards, and get every penny of their money back. I can understand giving back a partial refund for time not used, but a full refund?
That's why virtual service providers are better going with any other service. I would name what I use, but don't wish to introduce any form of slashvertising here. I'll just say, it sure as hell ain't paypal!