I wonder if Verese saw this coming? Late at night our local college radio sometimes plays 'music' that includes fax machines, line printers, and anything that can be recorded.
Since I'm stuck at work w/o the soundcard can anyone verify if this sounds good?
"Pretty Poor Privacy" was the name of the paper that they forgot to link to.
(It's been like this everywhere I go today...NetSol "forgot" to double check before switching the administrative contact and DNS info for my ISP. Gotta love when that happens.)
Re:BFD, another @hotmail address I'll give out.
on
Pretty Poor Privacy
·
· Score: 1
You would be amazed how many newbies are out there. As a general rule, maybe 1 of the 20 people I talk to each day at my ISP's support line are familiar with the concept of 'munging'. My mom was shocked to see me type in;
first name: nunya last name: bidnes
on an online form. The thought that we shouldn't just answer these questions is totally new to some people, who have been led to believe (for many years) that in order to receive good things we must first reveal all sorts of information, and trust that it won't be abused.
noone really want's to *read* a document in pdf format, but think about this. The linux HOWTOs. You want to print it out so you hit the print button on the index page, and that's all you get. Then you must load each page, print that ad nauseum. The plaintext versions are harder to read than staring at the screen, and all you want is an offline copy. A pdf solves this problem, and also insures that you are able to print that document *exactly* the same from any source, the unix command line, dos, Macinsmak, it makes no difference at all.
It always prints out just the way you want it (except four up on our lexmarks here for some reason:/ )
I'm fairly positive that those are either cracked e-books or that the files were originally purchased elsewhere. Iremember the SAMS teach yourself Linux, it came with 5.2 on a bonus CD, etc. etc...
In orlando Fl. there's a store something like this called Skycraft. All kinds of stuff, from circuit boards all piled up in a box (no telling what they're from), rack mount instruments (seismic instruments, radio gear etc.) bulk wire and even some NASA surplus'd items. WW doesn't have a web presence, do they? I might have to stop in if I'm ever up there, sounds like a geek's tourist trap if ever there was one...
Read the Courtney article. The artists stand to get screwed in a major way no matter how this goes. The companies haven't just been trying to make it harder for music listeners to have it their way, the artists have lost virtually all control over their own music, can no longer revert copyrights after 35 years to help support themselves, and it may soon be impossible for them to declare bankruptcy to get out of these indenturing contracts.
OTOH the artists have until now had the industry as it's only option to get any recognition and distrobution, and THIS is what the R.I.A.A. is concerned with, moreso than all the 13 year olds downloading the latest MTV act. As it is very few artists ever break even on their contracts, and virtually 100% of the profits from their music goes straight to the RIAA.
I would love to see this end. The RIAA must go, it's as simple as that, however realize that the musicians are going to get massively reamed in the process. As a balance, napster may have to go too. It's a shame IMO however they pretty much brought it onto themselves. So yeah, keep downloading b/c you know it pisses off the suits, but think about what to do next. I reccomend starting by copying Courtney's speech onto flyers and placing in conspicuous locations. Encourage more artists to sell direct by patronizing the ones who already do (the few I know but still). Be thinking about how you as a user can replace the Industry that has (barely) kept artists fed the past century.
Anyway, pretty long answer for a rhetorical question, I know. Peace.
I would say that's a very bad boo-boo on Napster's part. Much as the whole minimizing on "X" instead of closing thing, which is mostly the reason that the early colleges banned it. Napster is a wonderful idea, and I'm glad it happened, however perhaps their own greed/stupidity/unwillingness to 'play nice' is going to get them martyred.
OTOH you're not supposed to be ripping CD's to mp3's according to the RIAA. I know, I know, they can blow me too.
Re:Class-action law suit against RIAA
on
Napster Wars
·
· Score: 1
one of the reader provided articles near the top of the comments led to a story stating that a group in Ct. are planning a class action suit to the tune of 1.5 billion.
I would never be one to defend the RIAA or Valenti, however this argument has one big hole: scarcity. The reason libraries are currently tolerated is the fact that popular works are usually constantly in use, meaning that when Mr. A uthor's latest work first comes out, maybe they pick up a few copies. Everyone is out buying it, the libraries have their few copies, which not surprisingly, are never in when you go to check it out. You still go to buy it. The older, not-as-popular books may be extremely difficult to find and stock in bookstores, and you still only get them for about a week or two from the library. To be honest, I'd rather own the O'reilly's definitive guide to being an evil genius than to have to keep taking it back and re-checking it out.
Napster, and other file sharing programs break down any illusion of scarcity, and completely devalue anything popular that gets shared. This is what has them so scared- it's not the fact that people can now get ahold of it with such ease, but rather that they now no longer see any incentive to pay for recordings.
Actually, artists are often pushed by their label to release material in a timely basis, meaning that they often have to include songs that they normally wouldn't want distributed. This is one reason why people complain that they only want one or two songs from a CD nd don't want to purchase the whole ball of crap to get them. Some artists take their albums seriously (or are *allowed* to anyway) and a lot of times the less 'marketable' music on the album is some of the better music. Everyone I'm sure has at least one example of this phenomena in their music collection, a CD w/ several half hearted tracks and a CD that you put in, push play, and leave it like that. Just want to let you know that what you say isn't always the case. I'm sure you can see how new distrobution mechanisms could actually free the artist to release on their own schedule, and only what they want, and how that could improve the quality of pop music all around.
Don't forget OLGA, the "We used to house 33,000 song titles now we have 1400". For non-musicians it was basically an online repository of online guitar and bass "tabletures" (basically transcriptions in guitarist shorthand, kind of like source code). Mirrored all to hell and back, there are a few sites that still carry the entire thing, but by and large the Harry Fox agency killed them. How giving a few computer savvy teens the instructions for playing cool riffs (most were actually excerpts with commentary on how to technically pull off the riffs, I would think fair use would apply) could damage the RIAA is irrelavent. Anyway, they at least have a search engine on their site that supposedly indexes the 'rogue' sites, and a few of the tabletures actually contain lyrics, so...
Actually, after seeing one too many of those cute little hondas (the ones with all the branding, neuspeed etc. of their own) parked diagonally taking up two spots in my apartment, I came up with a marketing idea of my own.
A Pack of 5 high adhesive stickers that say "LEARN TO PARK ASSHOLE" on them. Include a warning that these are only for use on your own car, they *will* remove paint etc... I wonder if anyone would buy those?
I've always liked the VW badges. In fact the only ones I've left on are the VW's I've owned (especially the wolfsburg and Karmann ones.) The cute little bunny on the back of my rabbit convertable was losing it's chrome, so I actually touched that up with white paint. Oh and the red GTI badge I stuck on the grille to confuse other rabbit owners:-)
I used a razor at a shallow angle to the body to get the logo started, then peeled the rest with my fingers. Of course there's still the little outline of adhesive...I've found that a *little* WD-40, sprayed onto the rag and not the car will remove that. A freind of mine purchased an Isuzu Hombre and after noting that it was exactly the same truck as a Chevy (S-10 I think) except for the logo, we commenced to desuzizing it.
Re:Spread the message, brothers
on
Copyrant
·
· Score: 1
A few things to consider, Does the OEM prepurchase the copies of Linux. Do they also provide outsourced technical support (hint: The big OEMs pretty much all farm out most of their support anyuway) to Linuxcare, or do they rely on the Linux-Vendor's support (read:they are probably paying some money up front for the support on each installation, how much?). How much time do they spend setting up the distro in-house before shipping it out to you, or do they bother setting it up at all? Have they already contracted with Microsoft to install Windows on every one of that line of machines, and have just spent $50-80 on a copy of MS-Coaster98(tm)?
Not saying that it's right mind you. I would just as soon order a PC without *ANY* software on it at all (after all I'm buying a computer from these people, not software), and get my Linux (or *BSD or Ath/B/eos) on there myself. However I'd bet at least one of the above are factors coming into play as to why you're paying a "RedHat Tax" on that new computer:)
Re:Spread the message, brothers
on
Copyrant
·
· Score: 1
At my call center we just gathered up all the CD's before doing the rollout, booted the new Dells up once to make sure they worked, and then Norton Ghost'ed the whole shebang. I'm sure someone else much higher up took care of the licensing, as the CD's that came were marked for personal use or some crap.
The worst part is watching the 8 gig drives get shrunk as the image leaves 6 gig untouched.
Aside from the banner-sized "This space for hire" box on the original version (do they still have that?) I imagine that becoming a show promoter must be at least a little lucrative. I don't have an inside track or anything, but wouldn't they be making at least a percentage of ticket sales back off the limp-bizquick shows? If they were smart they could come up with some sort of napstapalooza tour or something. That would be pretty ironic as well, take the VC from the music-trading side and support a good old-media-fashioned side business out of it to make money. Of course only time will tell...
I think the article that is quoted from can be found on Rollingstone.com. I found it by going to the offspring homepage, clicking on their own press release, then the rolling stone story, then 'more about the offspring'. Pretty funny stuff.
(Feel free to hover that link before following. Can't say as I blame as of late.)
Re:Reason to be civil
on
DeCSS Update
·
· Score: 1
That's a very good point. It would be impossible to prove, however it does make quite a bit of sense, especially if they *have* been reading the advocacy HOWTOs as the poster above reminded us of.
There are a couple of legitimate reasons both MS and the OEM do not want you distributing their CD's. For one thing, a lot of OEM CD's contain drivers and code that are specific to that manufacturer, and are designed to boot from CD and reinstall the complete system, settings and all. I believe Compaq sets up their "quick restore" CD's to do this. Now, while you may be able to use this CD to replace system files during a "Copying Files" window on a whitebox, they aren't made to install from scratch on anything other than the system they were made for. Most end users would rather just by the full retail or upgrade than try to get the OEM version working on a different computer.
From MS's side they also provide those OEM licenses at a discount in a lot of cases. Shitty yes, but it makes sense that they don't want those just floating around in the world when they can make much more money directly by selling the Retail boxes as the poster above said.
Slashdot Mirror
They are taking donations, you know :-)
I wonder if Verese saw this coming? Late at night our local college radio sometimes plays 'music' that includes fax machines, line printers, and anything that can be recorded.
Since I'm stuck at work w/o the soundcard can anyone verify if this sounds good?
"Pretty Poor Privacy" was the name of the paper that they forgot to link to.
(It's been like this everywhere I go today...NetSol "forgot" to double check before switching the administrative contact and DNS info for my ISP. Gotta love when that happens.)
You would be amazed how many newbies are out there. As a general rule, maybe 1 of the 20 people I talk to each day at my ISP's support line are familiar with the concept of 'munging'. My mom was shocked to see me type in;
first name: nunya
last name: bidnes
on an online form. The thought that we shouldn't just answer these questions is totally new to some people, who have been led to believe (for many years) that in order to receive good things we must first reveal all sorts of information, and trust that it won't be abused.
Do they also have a patent on footnotes and indexes? How about a patent on giving someone directions?
I certainly hope someone can dig up this patent. Unless it predates Gopher, I don't think they have much of a case.
...and to start producing audio programs in it ourselves.
This is key. Since you have some weight around here you may want to mention this to Jeff and Rob before they do the next "Geeks In Space"...
noone really want's to *read* a document in pdf format, but think about this. The linux HOWTOs. You want to print it out so you hit the print button on the index page, and that's all you get. Then you must load each page, print that ad nauseum. The plaintext versions are harder to read than staring at the screen, and all you want is an offline copy. A pdf solves this problem, and also insures that you are able to print that document *exactly* the same from any source, the unix command line, dos, Macinsmak, it makes no difference at all.
It always prints out just the way you want it (except four up on our lexmarks here for some reason:/ )
I'm fairly positive that those are either cracked e-books or that the files were originally purchased elsewhere. Iremember the SAMS teach yourself Linux, it came with 5.2 on a bonus CD, etc. etc...
In orlando Fl. there's a store something like this called Skycraft. All kinds of stuff, from circuit boards all piled up in a box (no telling what they're from), rack mount instruments (seismic instruments, radio gear etc.) bulk wire and even some NASA surplus'd items. WW doesn't have a web presence, do they? I might have to stop in if I'm ever up there, sounds like a geek's tourist trap if ever there was one...
Read the Courtney article. The artists stand to get screwed in a major way no matter how this goes. The companies haven't just been trying to make it harder for music listeners to have it their way, the artists have lost virtually all control over their own music, can no longer revert copyrights after 35 years to help support themselves, and it may soon be impossible for them to declare bankruptcy to get out of these indenturing contracts.
OTOH the artists have until now had the industry as it's only option to get any recognition and distrobution, and THIS is what the R.I.A.A. is concerned with, moreso than all the 13 year olds downloading the latest MTV act. As it is very few artists ever break even on their contracts, and virtually 100% of the profits from their music goes straight to the RIAA.
I would love to see this end. The RIAA must go, it's as simple as that, however realize that the musicians are going to get massively reamed in the process. As a balance, napster may have to go too. It's a shame IMO however they pretty much brought it onto themselves. So yeah, keep downloading b/c you know it pisses off the suits, but think about what to do next. I reccomend starting by copying Courtney's speech onto flyers and placing in conspicuous locations. Encourage more artists to sell direct by patronizing the ones who already do (the few I know but still). Be thinking about how you as a user can replace the Industry that has (barely) kept artists fed the past century.
Anyway, pretty long answer for a rhetorical question, I know. Peace.
I would say that's a very bad boo-boo on Napster's part. Much as the whole minimizing on "X" instead of closing thing, which is mostly the reason that the early colleges banned it. Napster is a wonderful idea, and I'm glad it happened, however perhaps their own greed/stupidity/unwillingness to 'play nice' is going to get them martyred.
OTOH you're not supposed to be ripping CD's to mp3's according to the RIAA. I know, I know, they can blow me too.
one of the reader provided articles near the top of the comments led to a story stating that a group in Ct. are planning a class action suit to the tune of 1.5 billion.
I would never be one to defend the RIAA or Valenti, however this argument has one big hole: scarcity.
The reason libraries are currently tolerated is the fact that popular works are usually constantly in use, meaning that when Mr. A uthor's latest work first comes out, maybe they pick up a few copies. Everyone is out buying it, the libraries have their few copies, which not surprisingly, are never in when you go to check it out. You still go to buy it. The older, not-as-popular books may be extremely difficult to find and stock in bookstores, and you still only get them for about a week or two from the library. To be honest, I'd rather own the O'reilly's definitive guide to being an evil genius than to have to keep taking it back and re-checking it out.
Napster, and other file sharing programs break down any illusion of scarcity, and completely devalue anything popular that gets shared. This is what has them so scared- it's not the fact that people can now get ahold of it with such ease, but rather that they now no longer see any incentive to pay for recordings.
Actually, artists are often pushed by their label to release material in a timely basis, meaning that they often have to include songs that they normally wouldn't want distributed. This is one reason why people complain that they only want one or two songs from a CD nd don't want to purchase the whole ball of crap to get them. Some artists take their albums seriously (or are *allowed* to anyway) and a lot of times the less 'marketable' music on the album is some of the better music. Everyone I'm sure has at least one example of this phenomena in their music collection, a CD w/ several half hearted tracks and a CD that you put in, push play, and leave it like that. Just want to let you know that what you say isn't always the case. I'm sure you can see how new distrobution mechanisms could actually free the artist to release on their own schedule, and only what they want, and how that could improve the quality of pop music all around.
Don't forget OLGA, the "We used to house 33,000 song titles now we have 1400". For non-musicians it was basically an online repository of online guitar and bass "tabletures" (basically transcriptions in guitarist shorthand, kind of like source code). Mirrored all to hell and back, there are a few sites that still carry the entire thing, but by and large the Harry Fox agency killed them. How giving a few computer savvy teens the instructions for playing cool riffs (most were actually excerpts with commentary on how to technically pull off the riffs, I would think fair use would apply) could damage the RIAA is irrelavent. Anyway, they at least have a search engine on their site that supposedly indexes the 'rogue' sites, and a few of the tabletures actually contain lyrics, so...
Actually, after seeing one too many of those cute little hondas (the ones with all the branding, neuspeed etc. of their own) parked diagonally taking up two spots in my apartment, I came up with a marketing idea of my own.
A Pack of 5 high adhesive stickers that say "LEARN TO PARK ASSHOLE" on them. Include a warning that these are only for use on your own car, they *will* remove paint etc... I wonder if anyone would buy those?
I've always liked the VW badges. In fact the only ones I've left on are the VW's I've owned (especially the wolfsburg and Karmann ones.) The cute little bunny on the back of my rabbit convertable was losing it's chrome, so I actually touched that up with white paint. Oh and the red GTI badge I stuck on the grille to confuse other rabbit owners :-)
I used a razor at a shallow angle to the body to get the logo started, then peeled the rest with my fingers. Of course there's still the little outline of adhesive...I've found that a *little* WD-40, sprayed onto the rag and not the car will remove that. A freind of mine purchased an Isuzu Hombre and after noting that it was exactly the same truck as a Chevy (S-10 I think) except for the logo, we commenced to desuzizing it.
A few things to consider, Does the OEM prepurchase the copies of Linux. Do they also provide outsourced technical support (hint: The big OEMs pretty much all farm out most of their support anyuway) to Linuxcare, or do they rely on the Linux-Vendor's support (read:they are probably paying some money up front for the support on each installation, how much?). How much time do they spend setting up the distro in-house before shipping it out to you, or do they bother setting it up at all? Have they already contracted with Microsoft to install Windows on every one of that line of machines, and have just spent $50-80 on a copy of MS-Coaster98(tm)?
:)
Not saying that it's right mind you. I would just as soon order a PC without *ANY* software on it at all (after all I'm buying a computer from these people, not software), and get my Linux (or *BSD or Ath/B/eos) on there myself. However I'd bet at least one of the above are factors coming into play as to why you're paying a "RedHat Tax" on that new computer
At my call center we just gathered up all the CD's before doing the rollout, booted the new Dells up once to make sure they worked, and then Norton Ghost'ed the whole shebang. I'm sure someone else much higher up took care of the licensing, as the CD's that came were marked for personal use or some crap.
The worst part is watching the 8 gig drives get shrunk as the image leaves 6 gig untouched.
Aside from the banner-sized "This space for hire" box on the original version (do they still have that?) I imagine that becoming a show promoter must be at least a little lucrative. I don't have an inside track or anything, but wouldn't they be making at least a percentage of ticket sales back off the limp-bizquick shows? If they were smart they could come up with some sort of napstapalooza tour or something. That would be pretty ironic as well, take the VC from the music-trading side and support a good old-media-fashioned side business out of it to make money. Of course only time will tell...
I think the article that is quoted from can be found on Rollingstone.com. I found it by going to the offspring homepage, clicking on their own press release, then the rolling stone story, then 'more about the offspring'. Pretty funny stuff.
(Feel free to hover that link before following. Can't say as I blame as of late.)
That's a very good point. It would be impossible to prove, however it does make quite a bit of sense, especially if they *have* been reading the advocacy HOWTOs as the poster above reminded us of.
There are a couple of legitimate reasons both MS and the OEM do not want you distributing their CD's. For one thing, a lot of OEM CD's contain drivers and code that are specific to that manufacturer, and are designed to boot from CD and reinstall the complete system, settings and all. I believe Compaq sets up their "quick restore" CD's to do this. Now, while you may be able to use this CD to replace system files during a "Copying Files" window on a whitebox, they aren't made to install from scratch on anything other than the system they were made for. Most end users would rather just by the full retail or upgrade than try to get the OEM version working on a different computer.
From MS's side they also provide those OEM licenses at a discount in a lot of cases. Shitty yes, but it makes sense that they don't want those just floating around in the world when they can make much more money directly by selling the Retail boxes as the poster above said.
I would say patent the method for halting legitimate trade by the swinging of a bag of attorneys, then charge Microsoft for use of that?