time for a new labor movment, keep jobs here, keep money here (in Boston...all of you in India can fight globalization keeping WalMart and Microsoft out if you want, I have no problem with that)
Iteresting ideas. I take it your office is equipped with computers made in Boston, furniture made in Boston, all your documents are printed with locally-made inks on paper made in Boston from native Massachusetts trees, and that you commute to work every day in a car/motorbike/bus that was built in Boston, out of Boston steel, and it runs on oil pumped out of the ground under Boston. No? It's not like that? The local mom-and-pop coffee shop probably doesn't offer "grown in Boston" coffee either. Maybe trade isn't such a terrible thing after all.
"The success is measured in how many kids did learn from it."
A *LOT* of kids learned from DARE. They just didn't learn the lesson their teachers and the police expected. The course may be diffrent now, but back when I was an elementary and middle-school student (10-15 years ago), the emphasis was on shocking the kids into obedience, not giving them real information. The first lesson we learned was that drugs will mess you up, destroy your life, and eventually kill you. Then we had friends who smoked a little weed and didn't get addicted, messed up, or killed. Then we learned the real lesson of DARE: Our teachers, our school principals, the police, Nancy Reagan, and that girl on TV with the frying pan lied to us all through our childhood.
[i]They have a record of donating to both parties.[/i]
Care to provide us with some references for that assertion? The people spreading "bullshit" about how they only give to Republicans have a nice list of records that substantiate their claim.
The grandparent post's definition is from the 1913 edition of Webster's. English in general was wordy and redundant back them. People still use that dictionary because it's the latest English dictionary that is public domain. (sad, huh)
"The founding fathers wanted a citizen legislature to come in do the job and go home to real jobs, not an overpaid permanet ruling class."
Hear hear!
That's a noble sentiment, but your sig just reinforces the false dichotomy between "liberal" and "conservative" that keeps the people divided against each other and keeps the oligarchy in office.
They don't care *now*. They certainly *will* care in a few years when their new computer won't talk to their portable or their new portable won't play the music files on their computer.
If Apple decides next week to "refocus on their core product market" and the iPod and iTMS go the way of the Newton, those people will lose their music. The value of a DRM-free, standardized file format will quickly become obvious to everyone.
"Suggest the maglev enthusiasts turn their energies to finding out what free-market forces are at work and why, and address the issues that that investigation turns up."
In the case of long-distance passenger service there is no free market, and hasn't been since the Romans started plowing roads across Europe with government denarii. The main competitors to passenger rail today, commercial air travel and interstate highways, are already heavily subsidised. Why is it that the US government is nearly required to pour trillions of dollars of tax money into building highways and airports, but people howl about the "free market" the moment someone wants to invest tax dollars in rail?
They even hit cars with property tax now. Not just sales tax at purchase but annual property tax. Wait til they go after washers, dryers, and refrigerators.
So are you saying cars and appliances aren't propertry? Or that property shouldn't be taxed?
I'm honestly *trying* to get outraged over this, but I can't quite figure out how.
So do you disagree with the concept of a software EULA (of which the GPL is one variety)? Are you saying that if the bits are on your hard drive you should be able to do whatever you want?
False dichotomy! There is a middle road between total absence of license and hardware enforced DRM. You also seem to be confusing use with copying. The GPL makes no effort to restrict the use of GPL software, it's terms do not take effect until you try to distribute copies of the software. IMHO, that is the way to handle software licensing. Use it any way you want, just don't hand out copies unless the author specifically grants you that right.
I can relate to your slippery slope argument about Microsoft using DRM to thwart competition, but I honestly don't believe that AMD, Intel, Cyrix, IBM, etc., would all decide to include DRM that prevented the installation of Linux on all motherboards produced.
Probably not, but I'd rather not chance it. Big companies have been known to do blindingly stupid things for short-term gain in the past.
While there isn't price competition for the same song, there is competition between different distribution media for the same song. A content provider would have more piracy risk when distributing via CD than when distributing DRM'ed files, and so they would have an incentive to lower costs to drive consumers to the more secure medium.
That's not really competition. No matter which retail distribution channel you buy from, the same record label gets paid the same amount of money. The retail outlet may make a buck more or less, but there isn't competition between distributors, so there's no incentive to drive prices down overall.
"I know this comment will be modded down, but really why is DRM frowned upon by Slashdotters?"
Mostly it's the notion that hardware is a tool, and we should be able to use a tool that we bought however we want, even if that use isn't specifically intended by the manufacturer. Also, DRM's big backer is Microsoft. Given their history of anit-competitive behavior, it seems reasonable to assume that DRM would be used to keep the commodity x86 hardware we like so much from booting an unsigned (read: non-commercial) operating system. Lastly, it seems like a futile effort. We think Intel should be designing better and faster processors, instead of wasting time trying to handicap their users.
"Suppose DRM were required to prevent abuses of the GPL -- would it be OK then?"
No. Nobody should be able to tell people what software they're allowed to run on hardware they bought and paid for.
"If DRM enabled devices will make content creators feel comfortable making more content available, then I'm all for it. Also, since theft won't be an issue (unauthorized copying) they won't have to try to recover their losses by charging more for the content."
They wouldn't *have* to, but they would keep prices high anyway. CD and DVD prices aren't high to compensate for piracy, they're high because the market will bear that price. If all illegal copying stopped tomorrow, there would be no reason for the record labels to lower their prices, because music isn't a commodity. No two labels sell the same music, so there is little competition between them to drive down prices.
That's a recent philosophy, brought on by the insurgence of extreme selfishness. Good business practice really means "bring in lots of money to benefit the shareholders," but also "benefit the public at large." We're too cynical today to believe that this used to be a common philosophy, but a look at history will show that the Microsofts of the past were vilified by the public at large, and no one thought they were "just conducting good business."
It's hardly recent. Read "The Jungle" or anything by Dickens for examples of how business was run in the late 1800s. The robber-barons of the 1890s make BillG and company look like saints by comparison.
If good business really means "benefit the public at large" then the greedy bastards have not only fooled me, but the entire body of American corporate law, as well. For a corporate officer to do anything *but* try to maximize profits (at the exclusion of any other considerations) is an invitiation to be fired, and then sued by the shareholders.
But it *IS* good business practice. "Good business practice" just means "brings in lots of money". It may not be good for the consumers or even for the economy as a whole, but these underhanded tactics have made Microsoft the dominant force it is today. If embrace-and-extend development, drowning competitors in a sea of giveaways, and gouging your customers for upgrades weren't good for business, we wouldn't need antitrust laws at all.
Don't think of people blocking annoying ads as filthy media pirates stealing your work. Think of it as us voting with our browsers (and eventually our wallets) that we want to see your work on sites where the advertising doesn't pop-up, pop-under, wiggle, jiggle, scroll, flash, or obscure the text of your article.
By the way, we *don't* consume information. No matter how many times I read your post, it's still there for everyone else to see...
"If this were all done well, with proper inter-car communication, there doesn't seem to be much reason why it might not work."
I was with you until you mentioned inter-car communication. Now you're allowing a whole new source of untrusted data into the decision-making process. What happens when a group of script-kiddies figure out how to DDOS a freeway with fake emergency brake messages?
Disk space may no longer be in issue for some people, but memory space certainly is. Just think how mauch RAM you would need to run a functional desktop is every application had to keep a seperate copy of the Gnome or KDE core libraries in it's address space. Shared libraries may be messy, but they are the only way to run a system more complicated than DOS on currently available hardware.
Re:From sSomeone who pitches those PHB's...
on
Why PHBs Fear Linux
·
· Score: 1
Could it be that many PHB's fear the penguin because of the illogical, emotionally-based arguments so many Linux zealots constantly use to push their agenda? I mean, many of the nutcases I've heard from speak of Linux like the coming of some New World Order, reminiscent of how Communists pitched their ideas back during the fifties. PHB's take one look at people like that and say "there's no way in hell I'm going to trust someone so emotionally involved in this to make a valid business decision."
It's true. And the situation isn't going to improve until the PHBs realize that sales pitchess using meaningless feel-good terms like "trustability" "vendor accountability" "enterprise grade computing" and "nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft" have nothing to do with TCO analyses either, and are just as biased, just as based in emotion, and just as motivated by desire to see "their side" win as the frothyest spewings of the OSS zealots.
...for a copy of "Never Been Laid: 2003 (game of the year edition)"
1.) Gamers in America (and possibly Europe) have tragically limited tastes in the kinds of games they would like to play.
Gamers in America (and possibly Europe) already live with the stereotype of being fat, unwashed, socially inept perpetual virgins who only interact with other people over the internet. Playing "relationship sim" games is NOT going to improve that.
Care to cite a reference in U.S. law for that? Everything I've read or heard from lawyers about American libel law says that truth is an affirmative defense.
Anyone who is into cars will tell you "fastest" without some sort of qualifying statement isn't a factual claim either. A computer that's "fastest" on one benchmark may be among the worst at another, just like a car that would win one type of race easily would have no chance of finishing a different type.
Consider a race between a top fuel dragster, a 1960s Chevy Chevelle SS, a Honda Civic SI, and a 4x4 Nissan pickup. In a straight 1/4 mile drag race, the top fuel dragster would beat the rest easily. However, if the race were longer than 2 or 3 miles or had sharp curves, the dragster would probably fall apart or crash. In that race, the Chevelle would win. In a thousand-mile road race the Civic would stand a better chance, because it can cruise almost as fast as the Chevelle, but gets 30 miles to the gallon instead of the Chevelle's 7. Depending on how long gas-station stops take, the Honda may have an edge. In any sort of off-road race, the 4x4 pickup would be the only vehicle to finish. Which one is "the fastest"?
*Join to #online-poker synced in 2.32 seconds *Topic in #online-poker is "Of course we're not cheating!"
Alright gentlemen, final bets.
Oh what the hell... **sucker_bet** goes all in
Anyone else? **thehouse** looks around
Alright then. Whatcha got, sucker_bet? **sucker_bet** reveals his cards
Full house, aces and kings. Beat that, biatch **thehouse** turns over his cards
Wow, I have a royal flush
That's like the fifth one I've been dealt today
pwn j00! OMG! WFT!!1! Cheater! Five royal flushes in 12 hands. You're stacking the virtual deck!
You still lose, asshat ***sucker_bet has been kicked: Only losers cry cheater||come back when you've got more money, punk
Alright gentlement, ante up. Who's in for the next hand?
Slashdot Mirror
time for a new labor movment, keep jobs here, keep money here (in Boston...all of you in India can fight globalization keeping WalMart and Microsoft out if you want, I have no problem with that)
Iteresting ideas. I take it your office is equipped with computers made in Boston, furniture made in Boston, all your documents are printed with locally-made inks on paper made in Boston from native Massachusetts trees, and that you commute to work every day in a car/motorbike/bus that was built in Boston, out of Boston steel, and it runs on oil pumped out of the ground under Boston. No? It's not like that? The local mom-and-pop coffee shop probably doesn't offer "grown in Boston" coffee either. Maybe trade isn't such a terrible thing after all.
"The success is measured in how many kids did learn from it."
A *LOT* of kids learned from DARE. They just didn't learn the lesson their teachers and the police expected. The course may be diffrent now, but back when I was an elementary and middle-school student (10-15 years ago), the emphasis was on shocking the kids into obedience, not giving them real information. The first lesson we learned was that drugs will mess you up, destroy your life, and eventually kill you. Then we had friends who smoked a little weed and didn't get addicted, messed up, or killed. Then we learned the real lesson of DARE: Our teachers, our school principals, the police, Nancy Reagan, and that girl on TV with the frying pan lied to us all through our childhood.
Crap, I meant to use , not [i]. I must be suffering from a phpBB overdose.
[i]They have a record of donating to both parties.[/i]
Care to provide us with some references for that assertion? The people spreading "bullshit" about how they only give to Republicans have a nice list of records that substantiate their claim.
The grandparent post's definition is from the 1913 edition of Webster's. English in general was wordy and redundant back them. People still use that dictionary because it's the latest English dictionary that is public domain. (sad, huh)
"The founding fathers wanted a citizen legislature to come in do the job and go home to real jobs, not an overpaid permanet ruling class."
Hear hear!
That's a noble sentiment, but your sig just reinforces the false dichotomy between "liberal" and "conservative" that keeps the people divided against each other and keeps the oligarchy in office.
They don't care *now*. They certainly *will* care in a few years when their new computer won't talk to their portable or their new portable won't play the music files on their computer.
If Apple decides next week to "refocus on their core product market" and the iPod and iTMS go the way of the Newton, those people will lose their music. The value of a DRM-free, standardized file format will quickly become obvious to everyone.
The themes that were pulled didn't just copy the "Aqua" UI, they used the trademarked apple logo. There are quite a few aqua-style themes out there.
"Suggest the maglev enthusiasts turn their energies to finding out what free-market forces are at work and why, and address the issues that that investigation turns up."
In the case of long-distance passenger service there is no free market, and hasn't been since the Romans started plowing roads across Europe with government denarii. The main competitors to passenger rail today, commercial air travel and interstate highways, are already heavily subsidised. Why is it that the US government is nearly required to pour trillions of dollars of tax money into building highways and airports, but people howl about the "free market" the moment someone wants to invest tax dollars in rail?
They even hit cars with property tax now. Not just sales tax at purchase but annual property tax. Wait til they go after washers, dryers, and refrigerators.
So are you saying cars and appliances aren't propertry? Or that property shouldn't be taxed?
I'm honestly *trying* to get outraged over this, but I can't quite figure out how.
So do you disagree with the concept of a software EULA (of which the GPL is one variety)? Are you saying that if the bits are on your hard drive you should be able to do whatever you want?
False dichotomy! There is a middle road between total absence of license and hardware enforced DRM. You also seem to be confusing use with copying. The GPL makes no effort to restrict the use of GPL software, it's terms do not take effect until you try to distribute copies of the software. IMHO, that is the way to handle software licensing. Use it any way you want, just don't hand out copies unless the author specifically grants you that right.
I can relate to your slippery slope argument about Microsoft using DRM to thwart competition, but I honestly don't believe that AMD, Intel, Cyrix, IBM, etc., would all decide to include DRM that prevented the installation of Linux on all motherboards produced.
Probably not, but I'd rather not chance it. Big companies have been known to do blindingly stupid things for short-term gain in the past.
While there isn't price competition for the same song, there is competition between different distribution media for the same song. A content provider would have more piracy risk when distributing via CD than when distributing DRM'ed files, and so they would have an incentive to lower costs to drive consumers to the more secure medium.
That's not really competition. No matter which retail distribution channel you buy from, the same record label gets paid the same amount of money. The retail outlet may make a buck more or less, but there isn't competition between distributors, so there's no incentive to drive prices down overall.
"I know this comment will be modded down, but really why is DRM frowned upon by Slashdotters?"
Mostly it's the notion that hardware is a tool, and we should be able to use a tool that we bought however we want, even if that use isn't specifically intended by the manufacturer. Also, DRM's big backer is Microsoft. Given their history of anit-competitive behavior, it seems reasonable to assume that DRM would be used to keep the commodity x86 hardware we like so much from booting an unsigned (read: non-commercial) operating system. Lastly, it seems like a futile effort. We think Intel should be designing better and faster processors, instead of wasting time trying to handicap their users.
"Suppose DRM were required to prevent abuses of the GPL -- would it be OK then?"
No. Nobody should be able to tell people what software they're allowed to run on hardware they bought and paid for.
"If DRM enabled devices will make content creators feel comfortable making more content available, then I'm all for it. Also, since theft won't be an issue (unauthorized copying) they won't have to try to recover their losses by charging more for the content."
They wouldn't *have* to, but they would keep prices high anyway. CD and DVD prices aren't high to compensate for piracy, they're high because the market will bear that price. If all illegal copying stopped tomorrow, there would be no reason for the record labels to lower their prices, because music isn't a commodity. No two labels sell the same music, so there is little competition between them to drive down prices.
That's a recent philosophy, brought on by the insurgence of extreme selfishness. Good business practice really means "bring in lots of money to benefit the shareholders," but also "benefit the public at large." We're too cynical today to believe that this used to be a common philosophy, but a look at history will show that the Microsofts of the past were vilified by the public at large, and no one thought they were "just conducting good business."
It's hardly recent. Read "The Jungle" or anything by Dickens for examples of how business was run in the late 1800s. The robber-barons of the 1890s make BillG and company look like saints by comparison.
If good business really means "benefit the public at large" then the greedy bastards have not only fooled me, but the entire body of American corporate law, as well. For a corporate officer to do anything *but* try to maximize profits (at the exclusion of any other considerations) is an invitiation to be fired, and then sued by the shareholders.
But it *IS* good business practice. "Good business practice" just means "brings in lots of money". It may not be good for the consumers or even for the economy as a whole, but these underhanded tactics have made Microsoft the dominant force it is today. If embrace-and-extend development, drowning competitors in a sea of giveaways, and gouging your customers for upgrades weren't good for business, we wouldn't need antitrust laws at all.
"Their job is to capture criminals, not ensure their privacy."
Funny... I thought their job was to enforce the law, even the boring parts of law that don't deal with kicking in doors and hadcuffing felons.
They'll still have a satellite photo of your "house".
Get you 1-meter satellite images of Groom Lake, NV (Area 51) right here.
Don't think of people blocking annoying ads as filthy media pirates stealing your work. Think of it as us voting with our browsers (and eventually our wallets) that we want to see your work on sites where the advertising doesn't pop-up, pop-under, wiggle, jiggle, scroll, flash, or obscure the text of your article.
By the way, we *don't* consume information. No matter how many times I read your post, it's still there for everyone else to see...
"If this were all done well, with proper inter-car communication, there doesn't seem to be much reason why it might not work."
I was with you until you mentioned inter-car communication. Now you're allowing a whole new source of untrusted data into the decision-making process. What happens when a group of script-kiddies figure out how to DDOS a freeway with fake emergency brake messages?
Disk space may no longer be in issue for some people, but memory space certainly is. Just think how mauch RAM you would need to run a functional desktop is every application had to keep a seperate copy of the Gnome or KDE core libraries in it's address space. Shared libraries may be messy, but they are the only way to run a system more complicated than DOS on currently available hardware.
Could it be that many PHB's fear the penguin because of the illogical, emotionally-based arguments so many Linux zealots constantly use to push their agenda? I mean, many of the nutcases I've heard from speak of Linux like the coming of some New World Order, reminiscent of how Communists pitched their ideas back during the fifties. PHB's take one look at people like that and say "there's no way in hell I'm going to trust someone so emotionally involved in this to make a valid business decision."
It's true. And the situation isn't going to improve until the PHBs realize that sales pitchess using meaningless feel-good terms like "trustability" "vendor accountability" "enterprise grade computing" and "nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft" have nothing to do with TCO analyses either, and are just as biased, just as based in emotion, and just as motivated by desire to see "their side" win as the frothyest spewings of the OSS zealots.
Hey, don't get hostile. I was just taking your sig to heart...
...for a copy of "Never Been Laid: 2003 (game of the year edition)"
1.) Gamers in America (and possibly Europe) have tragically limited tastes in the kinds of games they would like to play.
Gamers in America (and possibly Europe) already live with the stereotype of being fat, unwashed, socially inept perpetual virgins who only interact with other people over the internet. Playing "relationship sim" games is NOT going to improve that.
"No, truth is NOT a defense to libel."
Care to cite a reference in U.S. law for that? Everything I've read or heard from lawyers about American libel law says that truth is an affirmative defense.
Anyone who is into cars will tell you "fastest" without some sort of qualifying statement isn't a factual claim either. A computer that's "fastest" on one benchmark may be among the worst at another, just like a car that would win one type of race easily would have no chance of finishing a different type.
Consider a race between a top fuel dragster, a 1960s Chevy Chevelle SS, a Honda Civic SI, and a 4x4 Nissan pickup. In a straight 1/4 mile drag race, the top fuel dragster would beat the rest easily. However, if the race were longer than 2 or 3 miles or had sharp curves, the dragster would probably fall apart or crash. In that race, the Chevelle would win. In a thousand-mile road race the Civic would stand a better chance, because it can cruise almost as fast as the Chevelle, but gets 30 miles to the gallon instead of the Chevelle's 7. Depending on how long gas-station stops take, the Honda may have an edge. In any sort of off-road race, the 4x4 pickup would be the only vehicle to finish. Which one is "the fastest"?
*Join to #online-poker synced in 2.32 seconds
*Topic in #online-poker is "Of course we're not cheating!"
Alright gentlemen, final bets.
Oh what the hell...
**sucker_bet** goes all in
Anyone else?
**thehouse** looks around
Alright then. Whatcha got, sucker_bet?
**sucker_bet** reveals his cards
Full house, aces and kings. Beat that, biatch
**thehouse** turns over his cards
Wow, I have a royal flush
That's like the fifth one I've been dealt today
pwn j00!
OMG! WFT!!1! Cheater! Five royal flushes in 12 hands. You're stacking the virtual deck!
You still lose, asshat
***sucker_bet has been kicked: Only losers cry cheater||come back when you've got more money, punk
Alright gentlement, ante up. Who's in for the next hand?