That's the way it's always been before, yes. The submitter is panicking because the new ToS says he won't be allowed to access it, even with his US credit card.
Is he right? Who knows. If they were already blocking based on IP, I'm sure we'd have heard that story instead.
He is jumping on it. On the other hand, you're standing in the way screaming 'Who cares!?' and then when someone says 'I care' you say 'then YOU do something about it'... But he already is.
What exactly is your point? He didn't ask you to do a single thing. If you don't care, there's no need to state that. Just walk away.
I don't go to racetracks and tell everyone there that I don't care about cars. Why do you come into a post about Linux distros and say you don't care about them?
"Pirates don't care about international borders, different launch dates for different countries, how old the content is, etc, etc."
It's precisely because they -do- care about that that creates the problem with piracy.
I know people outside the US that pirate for 2 main reasons:
1) Their country's version costs more than double what it would cost for me to buy it and ship it to them as a gift
2) Their country's version comes out 3-12 months after the US version
I think that was probably the point you were trying to make, but that isn't what you wrote.
As for why it still happens: Every country has different laws. That means different lawyers and different approval processes. In addition, as the EU stuff usually hits the entire EU at once, all those countries have to wait on the slowest one, while the US and JP releases don't have to wait on any other country. So they come out first in the easy locations, and the EU waits on their slowest members.
Money down? I see no mention of 'money down' anywhere except the FUD warning. You pay your monthly fee, and you get your internet. There's nothing to be scared of.
I think it had a lot of effect. I think it told Asus where people were looking, and Asus followed the money.
And good on them. Thanks to OLPC and Asus' following them, we now have many companies competing to bring low-priced laptops to the market, instead of hovering comfortably in the $1500 range like before.
Why do we expect this to be different than everything else? New things are initially feared and only approached slowly. It's the way we've done it since the dawn of time.
Techies are on the bleeding edge of everything and keep themselves informed constantly. But just like I don't follow car news, most people don't follow computer news. They don't have any clue what 'open source' really means and they don't care!
The solution isn't to call them names, the solution is to just keep educating people about it... Slowly.
Open Source has been gaining momentum lately. It used to be it was 'free and able to be modified, but poor quality'.
Recently, I've seen a change. It's now 'free and able to be modified, and almost as good as commercial software'.
I believe it will soon be 'free and better than commercial software'. I certainly like Kubuntu better than Windows and OS X, and I used to really hate Linux because it was such a pain in the ass all the time. I just wanted to do things, I didn't want to constantly reconfigure the system and deal with all the broken bits from the latest update. Kubuntu still has a lot of that, but it only happens every 6 months, instead of every few days like it used to. (Debian Stable was -not- stable. And Slackware was much worse.)
Open source has definitely taken over for anyone who 'gets it'. At this moment, I've got Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Aptana (based on Eclipse), VLC, and Kate running on OS X. The only commercial apps I run now are ones that don't really have a replacement, like Pages (company requirement for internal docs), and a few that are just plain better than the alternatives, like VMWare. (I've fought and fought with VirtualBox, and I'm done.)
But to expect non-techies to know all of this all the time is absurd. Most of the advancements that make my system possible came in the last couple years. That is a -short- timespan for learning about new things that aren't in your realm of knowledge.
In fact, I see posts on/. all the time talking about how someone put OO.o on a family member's computer and just didn't tell them it wasn't Office because they couldn't explain the difference. If techies can't explain it to their family, why do we expect teachers to know automatically?
And 'sorely in need' of an education in open source? That a personal agenda and not something that is necessary at all. Kids will learn about open source on their own, no matter whether a teacher says it is bad or not.
On the other hand, my eye-hand coordination often amazes people. And my locational/directional skills are quite good as well. None of the rest of my family can claim either of those.
In addition, I've learned quite a bit about history, politics, art, language... You name it.
So yeah, experiencing things makes you learn from them. No big surprise there. But don't go forgetting that learning can be both good and bad.
Why offline GMail? The interface. I love the GMail interface and far prefer it to any mail client I've ever used. (I heard Eudora was going to do an upgrade on Thunderbird, and I'm looking forward to trying it because those were my previous favorites for interface and stability, respectively.)
It sounds like I won't have access to -all- my mail, though, and that's not acceptable.
Someone else pointed out that smartphones and nearly ubiquitous internet connections are making 'offline email' less and less of a problem, though. Since I finally bought a G1, I have to agree. The interface on it is good enough that I don't feel the need to walk to a computer to check my mail now.
I use a similar technique. I read a few good reviews to make sure there are some good features. If all the good reviews just say 'good product!' I ignore them completely.
Then I start reading bad reviews. If none of the bad reviews mention something that is a show-stopper for me, I start to seriously consider the product.
Honestly, good products are not made by their features, they're made by their lack of problems. I'd rather have a mediocre phone with no drawbacks at all than the newest whiz-bang phone that has issues.
This goes for -all- products. I've used it on computer parts, phones, shoes, toaster ovens... And it's always been successful. Compared to my past purchases of like products (before I started using this system) I am a -lot- happier with my purchases. And some of them have been significantly cheaper, too.
"Mozilla has given the Wikimedia Foundation a $100,000 grant intended to fund development of the Ogg container format and the Theora and Vorbis media codecs."
The summary on/. just lazily copied the headline on the article.
A 'platform' is where you are currently standing. As it stands, he does have a 'fantastic platform'...
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fantastic 1. conceived or appearing as if conceived by an unrestrained imagination; odd and remarkable; bizarre; grotesque: fantastic rock formations; fantastic designs. 2. fanciful or capricious, as persons or their ideas or actions: We never know what that fantastic creature will say next. 3. imaginary or groundless in not being based on reality; foolish or irrational: fantastic fears. 4. extravagantly fanciful; marvelous. 5. incredibly great or extreme; exorbitant: to spend fantastic sums of money. 6. highly unrealistic or impractical; outlandish: a fantastic scheme to make a million dollars betting on horse races. 7. Informal. extraordinarily good: a fantastic musical.
Hmm... I'd be willing to bet the GP meant that 5th or 7th definition rather than the other 5, but I think they all apply.
As I was listening to his inauguration speech, I said to myself: "If he does half of that, and just leaves the other half alone, I will be very, very happy." And no, I wasn't cherry picking which half. Any random half is fine.
If Obama can pull it off, he'll have been the best President ever.
Since the patent says '1 or more fingers', wouldn't the Android interface be the same? So they're also taking one Google and possibly HTC. And Samsung. And everyone else making an Android phone right now.
I think maybe Apple has bitten off more than they can chew this time.
While I totally agree that the Sun is a much bigger effector of climate change than anything else, anywhere...
It's also a lot less in our control than other things as well. We* spend time bitching about pollution and CO2 levels because it's actually something that we -can- change, unlike the sun.
* 'We' meaning humans in general, and more specifically, tree-huggers.
Also, I find it interesting that our man-made global warming is not the most effective offset for the Sun's cooling effect... It's actually helping us, instead of hurting us. If Global Warming ends up saving humanity from freezing to death, I'm going to laugh my ass off.
Yes, because we should always concentrate all our effort on only 1 issue at a time. That makes SO much more sense.
There are many, many people in the government and they all have priorities. If they all worked on the same thing at the same time, the entire system would break down.
In fact, if they all only worked on what you think is important, the system would be just as broken. Obviously, someone thought this needed to be fixed and thought they could fix it. So they tried.
It's actually what we pay them for.
The fact that it's an idiotic bill is as much the fault of everyone that voted for him as it is the writer of the bill. (Or her.)
1) Pay someone to write a review 2) Pay someone to submit said review to/. 3) Pay someone at Slashdot to post said post about said review 4) ??? 5) Profit!
Will they include Space Operas like Firefly, too? As much as I love that show, I have to admit there's a ton of drama there.
And how about Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog?
Kyle XY?
I guess the question is: Where do you draw the line? Is it only about ridiculous shows that are on around 2pm? Or does it include all shows that are heavy on drama, especially far-fetched drama.
Before anyone defends Firefly from the 'soap opera' label: River. Seriously, what is up with her 'abilities'? The gun scene where she closes her eyes and shoots 2 people dead at once... Seriously!
Why'd you stop reading it when he died, rather than when he stopped making comics for Mad? Wouldn't that have made a lot more sense? I mean, there was 13 years in that period that you read Mad that he didn't contribute a single thing.
Sony is betting on it, actually. They've repeated said that the PS2 will last 10 years (1 more year to go, and it's all but dead in the US apparently) and the PS3 will also last 10 years.
But since Microsoft is more on a 5 or 6 year cycle o far, MS's next console is going to beat the crap out of the PS3. Look at what a single year did with 360 vs PS3. The PS3 is -still- working to gain ground on the 360, despite it being a 'better' console.
I think Sony would be much better off giving the PS3 a minor upgrade in a few years and calling it a PS4, and then having a real change for the PS5. Kind of like Nintendo just did with the DS/DSi.
Seriously, if you can't bother to type English correctly, I can't be bothered to read what you are saying. In addition, I've found that most of those posts are people asking for help, not providing information, so I really lose nothing by ignoring them.
It's no different than meatspace, really. If someone came up to me, shoved their phone in my face and said 'Fix.' I'd ignore them, too. Even my boss doesn't do that and he holds my paycheck in his hands.
I have a small amount of sympathy for people who are just learning English, but even they don't get to forget that sentences and proper nouns get capital letters. And every sentence has punctuation.
Slashdot Mirror
That's the way it's always been before, yes. The submitter is panicking because the new ToS says he won't be allowed to access it, even with his US credit card.
Is he right? Who knows. If they were already blocking based on IP, I'm sure we'd have heard that story instead.
This is probably a complete non-issue.
He is jumping on it. On the other hand, you're standing in the way screaming 'Who cares!?' and then when someone says 'I care' you say 'then YOU do something about it'... But he already is.
What exactly is your point? He didn't ask you to do a single thing. If you don't care, there's no need to state that. Just walk away.
I don't go to racetracks and tell everyone there that I don't care about cars. Why do you come into a post about Linux distros and say you don't care about them?
Call me when Linux runs as like a 'game' on the PS3 and I don't have to reboot everything and sacrifice access to my friends list, etc.
As it stands, it's just too much work to reboot into Ubuntu mode on the PS3 to have it be worth my while. (Yes, I tried it for a while.)
Maybe if all my other systems were broken and I couldn't afford to buy a new one... But then, I'd be a sad techie if that were ever the case.
And let's face it, this is only for techies.
They aren't objecting to the response time, they're objecting to the fact that the video got posted at all.
Change your analogy so we hold them accountable for letting the terrorist into the country at all and you've got it.
"Pirates don't care about international borders, different launch dates for different countries, how old the content is, etc, etc."
It's precisely because they -do- care about that that creates the problem with piracy.
I know people outside the US that pirate for 2 main reasons:
1) Their country's version costs more than double what it would cost for me to buy it and ship it to them as a gift
2) Their country's version comes out 3-12 months after the US version
I think that was probably the point you were trying to make, but that isn't what you wrote.
As for why it still happens: Every country has different laws. That means different lawyers and different approval processes. In addition, as the EU stuff usually hits the entire EU at once, all those countries have to wait on the slowest one, while the US and JP releases don't have to wait on any other country. So they come out first in the easy locations, and the EU waits on their slowest members.
I played it all the way through.
While it was indeed repetitive, it keeps adding new things as you go... Enemies change a bit, traps are added, new 'magic' is added...
Each of the 4 areas has a different boss, but you probably already knew that.
The story itself is... minimal. But it wasn't bad, just skimpy.
Money down? I see no mention of 'money down' anywhere except the FUD warning. You pay your monthly fee, and you get your internet. There's nothing to be scared of.
I think it had a lot of effect. I think it told Asus where people were looking, and Asus followed the money.
And good on them. Thanks to OLPC and Asus' following them, we now have many companies competing to bring low-priced laptops to the market, instead of hovering comfortably in the $1500 range like before.
The banks would have just sold those loans to someone other than FM instead. Preventing FM from buying loans doesn't solve anything.
If anything, it makes it worse... Because then the banks feel no need to 'conform' to FM's standards and many more loans would have been stupid.
Why do we expect this to be different than everything else? New things are initially feared and only approached slowly. It's the way we've done it since the dawn of time.
Techies are on the bleeding edge of everything and keep themselves informed constantly. But just like I don't follow car news, most people don't follow computer news. They don't have any clue what 'open source' really means and they don't care!
The solution isn't to call them names, the solution is to just keep educating people about it... Slowly.
Open Source has been gaining momentum lately. It used to be it was 'free and able to be modified, but poor quality'.
Recently, I've seen a change. It's now 'free and able to be modified, and almost as good as commercial software'.
I believe it will soon be 'free and better than commercial software'. I certainly like Kubuntu better than Windows and OS X, and I used to really hate Linux because it was such a pain in the ass all the time. I just wanted to do things, I didn't want to constantly reconfigure the system and deal with all the broken bits from the latest update. Kubuntu still has a lot of that, but it only happens every 6 months, instead of every few days like it used to. (Debian Stable was -not- stable. And Slackware was much worse.)
Open source has definitely taken over for anyone who 'gets it'. At this moment, I've got Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Aptana (based on Eclipse), VLC, and Kate running on OS X. The only commercial apps I run now are ones that don't really have a replacement, like Pages (company requirement for internal docs), and a few that are just plain better than the alternatives, like VMWare. (I've fought and fought with VirtualBox, and I'm done.)
But to expect non-techies to know all of this all the time is absurd. Most of the advancements that make my system possible came in the last couple years. That is a -short- timespan for learning about new things that aren't in your realm of knowledge.
In fact, I see posts on /. all the time talking about how someone put OO.o on a family member's computer and just didn't tell them it wasn't Office because they couldn't explain the difference. If techies can't explain it to their family, why do we expect teachers to know automatically?
And 'sorely in need' of an education in open source? That a personal agenda and not something that is necessary at all. Kids will learn about open source on their own, no matter whether a teacher says it is bad or not.
On the other hand, my eye-hand coordination often amazes people. And my locational/directional skills are quite good as well. None of the rest of my family can claim either of those.
In addition, I've learned quite a bit about history, politics, art, language... You name it.
So yeah, experiencing things makes you learn from them. No big surprise there. But don't go forgetting that learning can be both good and bad.
They're under the (mistaken) assumption that the author would write something they would like, instead, if they didn't write this.
They're pretty much totally wrong, of course. If there was something better they could do, they'd already be working on it.
Why offline GMail? The interface. I love the GMail interface and far prefer it to any mail client I've ever used. (I heard Eudora was going to do an upgrade on Thunderbird, and I'm looking forward to trying it because those were my previous favorites for interface and stability, respectively.)
It sounds like I won't have access to -all- my mail, though, and that's not acceptable.
Someone else pointed out that smartphones and nearly ubiquitous internet connections are making 'offline email' less and less of a problem, though. Since I finally bought a G1, I have to agree. The interface on it is good enough that I don't feel the need to walk to a computer to check my mail now.
I use a similar technique. I read a few good reviews to make sure there are some good features. If all the good reviews just say 'good product!' I ignore them completely.
Then I start reading bad reviews. If none of the bad reviews mention something that is a show-stopper for me, I start to seriously consider the product.
Honestly, good products are not made by their features, they're made by their lack of problems. I'd rather have a mediocre phone with no drawbacks at all than the newest whiz-bang phone that has issues.
This goes for -all- products. I've used it on computer parts, phones, shoes, toaster ovens... And it's always been successful. Compared to my past purchases of like products (before I started using this system) I am a -lot- happier with my purchases. And some of them have been significantly cheaper, too.
Actually, if you read the article:
"Mozilla has given the Wikimedia Foundation a $100,000 grant intended to fund development of the Ogg container format and the Theora and Vorbis media codecs."
The summary on /. just lazily copied the headline on the article.
A 'platform' is where you are currently standing. As it stands, he does have a 'fantastic platform'...
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fantastic
1. conceived or appearing as if conceived by an unrestrained imagination; odd and remarkable; bizarre; grotesque: fantastic rock formations; fantastic designs.
2. fanciful or capricious, as persons or their ideas or actions: We never know what that fantastic creature will say next.
3. imaginary or groundless in not being based on reality; foolish or irrational: fantastic fears.
4. extravagantly fanciful; marvelous.
5. incredibly great or extreme; exorbitant: to spend fantastic sums of money.
6. highly unrealistic or impractical; outlandish: a fantastic scheme to make a million dollars betting on horse races.
7. Informal. extraordinarily good: a fantastic musical.
Hmm... I'd be willing to bet the GP meant that 5th or 7th definition rather than the other 5, but I think they all apply.
As I was listening to his inauguration speech, I said to myself: "If he does half of that, and just leaves the other half alone, I will be very, very happy." And no, I wasn't cherry picking which half. Any random half is fine.
If Obama can pull it off, he'll have been the best President ever.
I have Hope, but I don't have Confidence.
Since the patent says '1 or more fingers', wouldn't the Android interface be the same? So they're also taking one Google and possibly HTC. And Samsung. And everyone else making an Android phone right now.
I think maybe Apple has bitten off more than they can chew this time.
While I totally agree that the Sun is a much bigger effector of climate change than anything else, anywhere...
It's also a lot less in our control than other things as well. We* spend time bitching about pollution and CO2 levels because it's actually something that we -can- change, unlike the sun.
* 'We' meaning humans in general, and more specifically, tree-huggers.
Also, I find it interesting that our man-made global warming is not the most effective offset for the Sun's cooling effect... It's actually helping us, instead of hurting us. If Global Warming ends up saving humanity from freezing to death, I'm going to laugh my ass off.
Yes, because we should always concentrate all our effort on only 1 issue at a time. That makes SO much more sense.
There are many, many people in the government and they all have priorities. If they all worked on the same thing at the same time, the entire system would break down.
In fact, if they all only worked on what you think is important, the system would be just as broken. Obviously, someone thought this needed to be fixed and thought they could fix it. So they tried.
It's actually what we pay them for.
The fact that it's an idiotic bill is as much the fault of everyone that voted for him as it is the writer of the bill. (Or her.)
Optionally:
1) Pay someone to write a review /.
2) Pay someone to submit said review to
3) Pay someone at Slashdot to post said post about said review
4) ???
5) Profit!
Will they include Space Operas like Firefly, too? As much as I love that show, I have to admit there's a ton of drama there.
And how about Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog?
Kyle XY?
I guess the question is: Where do you draw the line? Is it only about ridiculous shows that are on around 2pm? Or does it include all shows that are heavy on drama, especially far-fetched drama.
Before anyone defends Firefly from the 'soap opera' label: River. Seriously, what is up with her 'abilities'? The gun scene where she closes her eyes and shoots 2 people dead at once... Seriously!
Would you go so far as to say it has affected your grammar just being around one of these addicts?
"At least their are clinics for that."
Why'd you stop reading it when he died, rather than when he stopped making comics for Mad? Wouldn't that have made a lot more sense? I mean, there was 13 years in that period that you read Mad that he didn't contribute a single thing.
Sony is betting on it, actually. They've repeated said that the PS2 will last 10 years (1 more year to go, and it's all but dead in the US apparently) and the PS3 will also last 10 years.
But since Microsoft is more on a 5 or 6 year cycle o far, MS's next console is going to beat the crap out of the PS3. Look at what a single year did with 360 vs PS3. The PS3 is -still- working to gain ground on the 360, despite it being a 'better' console.
I think Sony would be much better off giving the PS3 a minor upgrade in a few years and calling it a PS4, and then having a real change for the PS5. Kind of like Nintendo just did with the DS/DSi.
My solution for that is simple: Ignore them both.
Seriously, if you can't bother to type English correctly, I can't be bothered to read what you are saying. In addition, I've found that most of those posts are people asking for help, not providing information, so I really lose nothing by ignoring them.
It's no different than meatspace, really. If someone came up to me, shoved their phone in my face and said 'Fix.' I'd ignore them, too. Even my boss doesn't do that and he holds my paycheck in his hands.
I have a small amount of sympathy for people who are just learning English, but even they don't get to forget that sentences and proper nouns get capital letters. And every sentence has punctuation.