Many times when I connect to a public access point or hotel ethernet port, I get a page describing the service (even if it's free) that I must acknowledge before I get normal internet service. If it were a choice between that confirmation page and embedding that same information in a clearly delimited header on top of my normal request until it was acknowledged in the same manner, would one option be clearly more insidious than the other? In either case, if it is acceptable for internet service that I only temporarily subscribe to, why not for more permanent services like a home ISP?
Yeah, I know, you want a reliable pipe between yourself and a server, that has not been tampered with by the network. But since this is just an information system over an exceedingly common protocol, and can be opted-out of, is it really that odious?... Ok, enough of Devil's Advocate; let them burn.
I agree that it's a bit ridiculous that the GP is only now starting to realize that a boycott may be warranted - it's a bit late to jump on the bandwagon and brag about it on slashdot.
Ironically, in recent times I find myself purchasing more CDs than ever before, although, for me that translates to approximately one a month, only some of which are mainstream. Still, I'm buying major label albums (not of current music though) partly as a result of developing complex opinions regarding intellectual property law, culture, and the industry. While on one level I can't abide the RIAA's tactics and domination, I appreciate what it means to be an owner of a (copy of a) work and find my selection to be a statement of individuality, mush moreso than I did before I started thinking about IP and free culture.
I guess that's just a long winded way of saying, "I buy mainstream music while despising the establishment, in order to be unique". Sigh. Well, I try to make up for it with independent music. I still love magnatune.com.
Reading about (on wikipedia) nuclear incidents such as Chernobyl have been kind of reassuring for me. Whenever there are major issues, they're always the result of the incompetence of management or operators, or not adhering to established safety protocols. It's good to know that the technology itself is mature and well-understood, that it can be controlled if only we can address the human element.
You mention Robin Beanland and Graeme Norgate, but not Grant Kirkhope? Traitor! Besides Koji Kondo, Kirkhope produces my favorite game music: Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, and Donkey Kong 64. It's a hell of a lot of fun to play one of his themes on a mallet percussion instrument like a xylophone or vibraphone.
But Mario and Zelda music is ridiculously addictive. I used to beat third bowser in SM64 over and over again, just to hear the end credits theme again.
God how I wish I had a marimba in front of me right now.
It doesn't matter what the NSA wants; this auction is (hopefully) being run by the FCC, which for all their faults appears genuinely interested in obliterating the stagnated status quo.
Yeah, their recent actions have thrown off my EvilRadar too. But then I remember: they're anticompetitive and aim to crush outside VoIP service with patent litigation, and my faith is restored. After that, the hard part is justifying how I can subscribe to any telecom or wireless carrier without being a hypocrite.
Your steadfast adherence to the US Constitution is inconsistent with life as we know it. As much as I'd like to claim Constitutional rights left and right, if we implemented a strictly Constitutional government we would have something that does not even closely resemble this nation at any point in its history since the Civil War (If memory serves, the 14th Amendment was the first one to cause the Bill of Rights to apply to the states in addition to the central government, something that was not intended by the founders). A very, very small fraction of the national government's activities today can be directly related back to their Constitutional authority, so it would be improper for you to pick and choose which functions you allow the government to perform under the Elastic Clause and which functions you require remain unregulated, while justifying them with a Constitutional argument.
That said, my favorite freedoms are the right to privacy and, el numero uno, right to free expression, and I will be very sad when those two disappear. At the same time, I don't give a damn about things like gun freedom. Anonymity can be a dangerous thing, but it is more important to have it than to be saved a little slander here and there.
You already got plenty of replies stating that you were outright wrong about this information, but what I don't understand is what the alternative is. Did you think OLPC was being sold to individual 2nd-world families and private schools? That the governments were entirely uninvolved?
Why the hell would I want to pay $1000 to lose my insurance coverage? Knowing your genetic predispositions to illness is damned dangerous, because if it's recorded on paper then - just like every other bit of information about your life - it will be leaked at some point or another. I'll take the six-months notice + life insurance + health insurance to 15 years of dread followed by financially burdening my family.
Cue "You must be new here...". Thompson is the most blatantly childish, condescending, self-righteous, illogical, idiotic, opportunistic, and biased lawyer known as a public figure. His arguments are absurd and unfounded (my favorite was when he accused Will Wright of cooperating with the porn industry to distribute it to minors), yet he still attracts a ludicrous amount of attention and spreads FUD about the issues of violence and sexuality in games and other media. He makes it a point to generate as much legal uncertainty as possible about any given situation by distorting the intent of the law, so as to try to intimidate his opponents; this rarely succeeds as, to any rational individual on the planet, his arguments are transparently flawed and harmless. He also doesn't know a damned thing about IP law - I heard him confuse trademark and copyright on a radio show, and I was left to wonder what areas of law he can actually demonstrate competency in.
I thought the entire philosophy of purchasing Apple products was that you expect them to work and do everything you need them to, because you're royally screwed and have no recourse if they don't. You know, the part of that old operating system to airline analogy where the stewardess politely tells you that you don't need to know this and that, so just enjoy the ride?
Still, it did strike me as weird that Apple was responsible for a Java VM, and not Sun.
Is... Is that sarcasm? You ARE joking in some manner, right? No? This is Slashdot; I would've thought almost everyone here understood copyright law.
Perhaps ripping code from publicly viewable sources without consent is a common business practice in your company, but it is certainly not legitimate, and in any environment where the someone within the company actually gives a damn about liability, it goes without explanation that this is a huge no-no. Code is copyrightable. Copyrightable materials are, by default, copyrighted by their creators. You can't put copyrighted code in your own software product and distribute it without permission in the form of some contract or license from the original author, unless you intend to violate the law. Please explain to me what set of assumptions would contradict this logic. You could potentially argue that the length of the code is too short for copyright to be applicable, but that's a dangerous decision when you actually do have the option to fix this before shipping.
This really caught me by surprise. If it's lawsuit related, I would've liked to see mention of that in the summary. My guess was that they're realizing they're nearing the end of an era of one form of lock in and want to practice others before their obviated by other open networks. Pressure from the 700 MHz spectrum?
I think it's clever how AS has practically been running Futurama non stop ever since they lost the bid to Comedy Central. Maybe part of their plan is to dilute its rerun value when the contract switches hands.
At first I didn't like Venture Brothers that much, but I caught a marathon of it about a year ago and got hooked. It really is a lot of fun to watch back to back. Unfortunately I haven't gotten around to seeing them all yet.
As a fellow venture fan, I'd recommend Stroker and Hoop to you.
'Course it's a job. They're the ones responsible for maintaining the Wikipedia article about Slashdot, particularly its subculture... You insensitive clod.
> "On the other we have a bunch of folk who want to have everything for free and construct elaborate explanations as to how this is great for the artists."
Well, not exactly, but after decades of erosion of rights we never even named because we never conceived they could be taken away, and after seeing so much IP concentrated in the hands of so few, I wouldn't mind seeing the intellectual anarchist approach take effect for a few years as a change of pace. If it's a choice between two extremes, I'll take the one I'm not yet sick of.
I'm glad Magnatune is being mentioned more and more in the comments of these kinds of articles these days - heck this time it even made it as a tag. Free decent-quality full-length samples, name-your-own-price, creative-commons licensed goodness, officially endorsed by Lawrence Lessig; what's not to love?
I'm a huge fan of Drop Trio, check out their album Cezanne if you like any kind of Jazz. I only wish I had known to pay them more at the time I bought it, it was certainly worth more than I gave them.
Slashdot Mirror
Many times when I connect to a public access point or hotel ethernet port, I get a page describing the service (even if it's free) that I must acknowledge before I get normal internet service. If it were a choice between that confirmation page and embedding that same information in a clearly delimited header on top of my normal request until it was acknowledged in the same manner, would one option be clearly more insidious than the other? In either case, if it is acceptable for internet service that I only temporarily subscribe to, why not for more permanent services like a home ISP?
...
Yeah, I know, you want a reliable pipe between yourself and a server, that has not been tampered with by the network. But since this is just an information system over an exceedingly common protocol, and can be opted-out of, is it really that odious?
Ok, enough of Devil's Advocate; let them burn.
I agree that it's a bit ridiculous that the GP is only now starting to realize that a boycott may be warranted - it's a bit late to jump on the bandwagon and brag about it on slashdot.
Ironically, in recent times I find myself purchasing more CDs than ever before, although, for me that translates to approximately one a month, only some of which are mainstream. Still, I'm buying major label albums (not of current music though) partly as a result of developing complex opinions regarding intellectual property law, culture, and the industry. While on one level I can't abide the RIAA's tactics and domination, I appreciate what it means to be an owner of a (copy of a) work and find my selection to be a statement of individuality, mush moreso than I did before I started thinking about IP and free culture.
I guess that's just a long winded way of saying, "I buy mainstream music while despising the establishment, in order to be unique". Sigh. Well, I try to make up for it with independent music. I still love magnatune.com.
Reading about (on wikipedia) nuclear incidents such as Chernobyl have been kind of reassuring for me. Whenever there are major issues, they're always the result of the incompetence of management or operators, or not adhering to established safety protocols. It's good to know that the technology itself is mature and well-understood, that it can be controlled if only we can address the human element.
You mention Robin Beanland and Graeme Norgate, but not Grant Kirkhope? Traitor! Besides Koji Kondo, Kirkhope produces my favorite game music: Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, and Donkey Kong 64. It's a hell of a lot of fun to play one of his themes on a mallet percussion instrument like a xylophone or vibraphone.
But Mario and Zelda music is ridiculously addictive. I used to beat third bowser in SM64 over and over again, just to hear the end credits theme again.
God how I wish I had a marimba in front of me right now.
It doesn't matter what the NSA wants; this auction is (hopefully) being run by the FCC, which for all their faults appears genuinely interested in obliterating the stagnated status quo.
Yeah, their recent actions have thrown off my EvilRadar too. But then I remember: they're anticompetitive and aim to crush outside VoIP service with patent litigation, and my faith is restored. After that, the hard part is justifying how I can subscribe to any telecom or wireless carrier without being a hypocrite.
Do what I did: Watch that Will Ferril racing movie, and you'll be immune to product placement forever.
Your steadfast adherence to the US Constitution is inconsistent with life as we know it. As much as I'd like to claim Constitutional rights left and right, if we implemented a strictly Constitutional government we would have something that does not even closely resemble this nation at any point in its history since the Civil War (If memory serves, the 14th Amendment was the first one to cause the Bill of Rights to apply to the states in addition to the central government, something that was not intended by the founders). A very, very small fraction of the national government's activities today can be directly related back to their Constitutional authority, so it would be improper for you to pick and choose which functions you allow the government to perform under the Elastic Clause and which functions you require remain unregulated, while justifying them with a Constitutional argument.
That said, my favorite freedoms are the right to privacy and, el numero uno, right to free expression, and I will be very sad when those two disappear. At the same time, I don't give a damn about things like gun freedom. Anonymity can be a dangerous thing, but it is more important to have it than to be saved a little slander here and there.
You already got plenty of replies stating that you were outright wrong about this information, but what I don't understand is what the alternative is. Did you think OLPC was being sold to individual 2nd-world families and private schools? That the governments were entirely uninvolved?
Why the hell would I want to pay $1000 to lose my insurance coverage? Knowing your genetic predispositions to illness is damned dangerous, because if it's recorded on paper then - just like every other bit of information about your life - it will be leaked at some point or another. I'll take the six-months notice + life insurance + health insurance to 15 years of dread followed by financially burdening my family.
Cue "You must be new here...". Thompson is the most blatantly childish, condescending, self-righteous, illogical, idiotic, opportunistic, and biased lawyer known as a public figure. His arguments are absurd and unfounded (my favorite was when he accused Will Wright of cooperating with the porn industry to distribute it to minors), yet he still attracts a ludicrous amount of attention and spreads FUD about the issues of violence and sexuality in games and other media. He makes it a point to generate as much legal uncertainty as possible about any given situation by distorting the intent of the law, so as to try to intimidate his opponents; this rarely succeeds as, to any rational individual on the planet, his arguments are transparently flawed and harmless. He also doesn't know a damned thing about IP law - I heard him confuse trademark and copyright on a radio show, and I was left to wonder what areas of law he can actually demonstrate competency in.
I thought the entire philosophy of purchasing Apple products was that you expect them to work and do everything you need them to, because you're royally screwed and have no recourse if they don't. You know, the part of that old operating system to airline analogy where the stewardess politely tells you that you don't need to know this and that, so just enjoy the ride?
Still, it did strike me as weird that Apple was responsible for a Java VM, and not Sun.
Is... Is that sarcasm? You ARE joking in some manner, right? No? This is Slashdot; I would've thought almost everyone here understood copyright law.
Perhaps ripping code from publicly viewable sources without consent is a common business practice in your company, but it is certainly not legitimate, and in any environment where the someone within the company actually gives a damn about liability, it goes without explanation that this is a huge no-no. Code is copyrightable. Copyrightable materials are, by default, copyrighted by their creators. You can't put copyrighted code in your own software product and distribute it without permission in the form of some contract or license from the original author, unless you intend to violate the law. Please explain to me what set of assumptions would contradict this logic. You could potentially argue that the length of the code is too short for copyright to be applicable, but that's a dangerous decision when you actually do have the option to fix this before shipping.
Is it April already? Normally joke summaries are a bit longer and more convincingly outrageous though.
This really caught me by surprise. If it's lawsuit related, I would've liked to see mention of that in the summary. My guess was that they're realizing they're nearing the end of an era of one form of lock in and want to practice others before their obviated by other open networks. Pressure from the 700 MHz spectrum?
Waiting... What, no one's going to say it? Nobody? Okay. Ahem.
I, for one, bow to our new amphibian overlords.
I think it's clever how AS has practically been running Futurama non stop ever since they lost the bid to Comedy Central. Maybe part of their plan is to dilute its rerun value when the contract switches hands.
At first I didn't like Venture Brothers that much, but I caught a marathon of it about a year ago and got hooked. It really is a lot of fun to watch back to back. Unfortunately I haven't gotten around to seeing them all yet.
As a fellow venture fan, I'd recommend Stroker and Hoop to you.
ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD
(It's not redundant - I believe that's the correct quote. Unless there were multiple ones.)
On the other hand, if the price is significantly lower, they may be within range of competing with pirated/illegal copies. *shrug*
'Course it's a job. They're the ones responsible for maintaining the Wikipedia article about Slashdot, particularly its subculture... You insensitive clod.
Damnit. I may have found a new webcomic. That thing's like Dinosaurs but without the Suck.
I'm no thermomechanical engineer, but I think spam has high entropy, and as such, is not suitable as a source of useful energy.
> "On the other we have a bunch of folk who want to have everything for free and construct elaborate explanations as to how this is great for the artists."
Well, not exactly, but after decades of erosion of rights we never even named because we never conceived they could be taken away, and after seeing so much IP concentrated in the hands of so few, I wouldn't mind seeing the intellectual anarchist approach take effect for a few years as a change of pace. If it's a choice between two extremes, I'll take the one I'm not yet sick of.
I'm glad Magnatune is being mentioned more and more in the comments of these kinds of articles these days - heck this time it even made it as a tag. Free decent-quality full-length samples, name-your-own-price, creative-commons licensed goodness, officially endorsed by Lawrence Lessig; what's not to love?
I'm a huge fan of Drop Trio, check out their album Cezanne if you like any kind of Jazz. I only wish I had known to pay them more at the time I bought it, it was certainly worth more than I gave them.