I'd say that you're in the minority. For every artist that support Napster, for example, there are 10 tht are against it.
Id like to see statistics to support this claim. There may still be more artists, who are against it than for it, but IMO that is most out of ignorance of what it is and how it works.
To say that people would still produce movies and music for no compensation is ridiculous.
No, it is not. Many people do it already actually. But this isnt about artists getting no monetary compensation, this is about that there should be no mandatory payment. In a system with voluntary payment, artists would not starve, even tho there would probably be less who would turn multimillionaires. But that, IMO, is a Good Thing.
Voluntary payment would be a "Natural Selection"-type mechanism, where only artists who produce quality stuff get compensated. Why? Because people who like their stuff will give them some money, volunarily, in order to be able to get more. So-called "artists" who are only in it for the money would probably disappear. But is that bad?
Communism seemed like a good idea except that they didn't take in human flaws (laziness) into account.
Human laziness doesnt matter when it comes to digital information, since it can be endlessly replicated at no cost. You are confusing it with scarcity goods and services. If I make something for myself just for the hell of it, and you can have it too at no cost to me, what reason could there be not to let you have it for free if you want it?
People like you don't take in others' intent to pirate through DeCSS and Napster into account.
Oh yes, I do. Thats the beauty of it. Any one with a clue could aways get mp3s or warez before Napster and Gnutella, and will be able to even if Napster is shut down. But the great thing about Napster is that it is for Windows, and that it is so damned easy to use, that even Joe Sixpack can use it. Ten or perhaps twenty million users in less than a year, and its only the beginning...
Once the common consumer gets used to getting digital information freely, he will not let that right be taken from him again, even with draconian laws. There will be massive disregard for those laws, and they will eventually be revoked. Like it was with the prohibition. This will be the end of corporations based on the mistaken notion that information can be owned. I, for one, await that day with eager anticipation.
I'm not going to deal with your flamebait, it's pretty obvious that the only reason you're resorting to petty insults is that you agree with me.
Hardly. People arguing against you actually agreeing with you? Please go and take that Logic 101 course again. I was flaming you, yes, but you deserved it for posting such crap.
And BTW, I do think Communism can work in its original, Anarchistic commune sense, not in the Soviet sense (which was more of a kind of fascism anyway).
It's surprising that only a couple days after slashdot posted the Suck article describing how geeks are living in a fantasy world, slashbots are once again decrying the motives of the RIAA.
And what other motive does the RIAA fat cats have than continuing getting rich on the work of others, pray tell? It is not as if the artists are receiving more than a pittance as it is.
You people don't understand the importance of copyright laws and intellectual property.
Oh yes, I think most of us understand it all too well.
Most of you would love to live in a world where there were no IP laws, but guess what would happen? No one would want to publish their work online!
Guess what? There are already many people publishing their work online, without any copy obstruction or restriction, and with no demand for payment. If youre reading/. you should know that. I am one of them. You are proven wrong.
This is similar to the good intentions behind communism, yet in practice it has proven to be a failure.
Communism failed because it was imposed from above; they kept the state and the coercion. That is why it failed. But I dont see what Communism has to do with anything, other than that some people all into American Captilalism call everything they dont like Communism. Thats really inane.
The lawsuits may be hard to swallow at first
Damn right theyre hard to swallow. Or take up the ass, more like it!
but they are absolutely essential for the growth of the Internet.
Holy shit! My bullshit-o-meter just pegged! Lets read it again: Lawsuits being essential to the growth of the Internet!!!
I dont know what to say to such an abysmally stupid and brainless comment. I assume by "the growth of the Internet" mean its forced takeover by undemocratic corporate interests and its turning into a similar mixture of "entertainment", advertisement, shopping and brainwashing as the TV networks.
I will continue supporting initiatives like DeCSS, Napster, FreeNet etc., trying to spread their usage as much as I can, if only to piss you off all the more.
I have only one thing to say to you and your corporate backers: Go to Hell!
What you say about the political stability of the various regions is all very accurate, except for one thing...
We have no way of knowing what it will be like in these regions in 50 years.
Perhaps Africa is stable and growing then, perhaps Singapore is wrecked by civil war after the collapse of the dictatorship. Heck, perhaps the USA isnt stable anymore then. You never know.
Forgot to include prices for the Radeon w/64 MB. It can be had for $275, $20 less than GTS/64 and $40 more than GTS/32. The performance is much better than V5500 too.
So you would go out of your way to spend $200 extra for a card that performs WORSE just because you *think* that their lawsuit is frivolus upon first sight?
$200 extra??? More like $47 less (or $13 more, compared to the 32 MB one), tho you are right in that it performs not as good.
Methinks you are thinking of the unreleased V6000. According to Pricewatch a V5500 w/64 MB can be had for $248. GTS w/64 costs upwards of $295, while a 32 MB GTS can be had for $235.
And yes, I will indeed hear their side of the matter before deciding. I merely said I would consider not getting a NVidia card.
Sounds "broad" to you now?
Funny, I cant remember using the term "broad" at all in my post.
I'm all for competition, but when that competition starts stealing ideas from you, you should definitely have a right to recoup.
This has nothing to do with "stealing" ideas, which cant be done anyway. But patents grant you an exclusive right to any particular thing, even if your competitor came up with the idea independently, or even before you. Who is first to the patent office is the only thing that matters.
But what pisses me off the most with regard to this is that NVidia already has a very firm grip on the market - there was no need for such dirty tactics!
NVidia already has the best graphics cards (at a price). 3dfx is slipping. Isnt that enough?
I was planning to buy a new GTS, but now Im reconsidering, and might get a Radeon, or even a Voodoo 5500 instead. I dont want to support uncompetitive companies.
Yes, but those cards do not use the very fastest 4 or 4.4 ns DDR memory used in the Ultra, but mostly far more plentiful and cheap 6 ns (166*2 MHz). Also, the core is clocked at 250 MHz instead of 200, so that part should be somewhat more expensive too. By my assessment 64 MB 4 ns (250*2 Mhz) could very well cost $300, while the same amount of 6 ns memory might go for half or less.
The problem with your comment is that you seem to confuse law with ethics. Whats legal may be unethical and whats illegal may be ethical. IMO copyright infringement is clearly ethical, as long as you, the copier, do not make a profit by it.
Why is it ethical? Because there are only winners here. You get something you wouldnt otherwise have, and the copyright holder loses nothing, as long as you wouldnt have bought it in case copying had been impossible.
It is different if you sell illegal copies, because then the copyright holder loses business from people who otherwise would have been paying customers.
Why do we love the laws against spam and rail against the laws against theft? I guess that we're just not the victims.....
Spam is an irritant and bandwidth-hog for all, but copyright laws are only good for a minority of the population, and bad for a majority.
And BTW, for the umpteenth time, copyright infringement != theft. Even the legal system recognizes this - thats why theres two different fscking terms for it! In theft, someone must be bereaved of something. This does not happen in case of copying. Potential profits do not qualify; if they did Acme Cola could claim you "steal" from them since you choose not to buy their cola...
Perhaps we should just phrase it "All technology is good except that which can be used to spy on or annoy me. If the technology harms a large enough corporation it's even better."
Actually it is (IMO) good if a certain technology harms a large enough corporation. Large corporations are dangerous for the rights of common people, by their largeness alone. Large corporations have the depths of pockets needed for almost any kind of abuse of the system, and they have no qualms about doing so.
Corporations do not exist to serve the people, only to make profit for the shareholders, and if it can increase the profits so screw the environment, working conditions and health risk concerns. Corporations do not even have the pitiful checks and balances the political system has. IMO one of the worst mistakes of our current capitalism is that it allows corporations to become arbitrarily large. Already big business contol mainstream media and buy any laws they want, and it is sure to become worse in the future. So yes, anything harming big corporations is good.
A republic is generally supposed to be a form of democracy, but that is just semantics. Ask any politician whether the US is a democracy. How many do you think will say "No, it is a republic".
The govt should indeed protect the rights of everyone, but copyright is not a right. The Constituation clearly says that Congress may grant copyrights, but it is not forced to, and it should only be done if it promotes science and the useful arts - and for a limited time. This is hardly the case anymore, with the lifetime of the author+70 years.
If the law must choose between defending the rights of millions of people sharing music and the "rights" of some megacorps and certain individuals to become incredibly wealthy, I have no problem deciding what it should choose.
As for 20 vs 278 million, yes, 20 million is indeed a minority. But it is 20 million Now, less than a year after Napsters release. How many do you think it will be in one year?
So you are not impressed with the "enlightened self interest" of music fans? Why not? Do you have any data supporting your belief that it impacts record sales and royalties? CD sales were up again last year, Napster nonwithstanding. As for myself, I have bought several new CDs after having sampled them on Napster, because I liked them, and because I wanted to show my support for the artists in question. Enlightened self-interest in action. And there are more people like me too.
I almost cannot believe there are people as rotten as you. What the fuck do you think you are doing?
You are deliberately polluting a useful service, lowering the signal/noise ratio, hurting trust among people on the net, in fact you are pissing in the communitys well, or to use your own words, you are putting roaches in bags for frozen bagels in the supermarket - and you havent even the dubious defense that you need to protect your profits!!!
It seems you are doing it just because you are evil, period.
Fortunately, this kind of attack will be largely ineffective, since this kind of intentionally bad files will not spread far. Natural selection will see to that. Most people on Napster are not interested in such crap, so they will be speedily deleted from their drives.
I hope this abominable practice dies a quick and well-deserved death. And then you should die too, fucker!
A lot of comments here state that unathorized copying of copyright music is illegal. Some say that if it is done noncommercially, that is, sharing mp3s, without any kind of reimbursement - the way it is done on Napster - is not illegal (according to AHRA etc.), others say it still is. From an ethical point of view it really doesnt matter whether or not.
In a Democracy worth its name the laws should reflect the will of the people, not the will of a few rich corporations. Does the people want free (as in beer) mp3s? According to the overwhelming success of Napster (20 million users, so far), yes, the people wants this.
So, the logical conclusion of a Democracy should be to legalize mp3 swapping, not trying to stamp it out (which is futile anyway). Since this is not happening I have to conclude that we are not living in a democracy. If we are not living in a democracy it is futile trying to change unjust laws working within the system. Massive disregard for such laws will make them unenforcable, which will in the end lead to their revoking, so this is a much more effective way to do it.
And, BTW, if mp3 swapping became legal, artists would not starve. Enlightened self-interest on the part of music fans would see to it that the artists they liked could make a good living (otherwise the artist would stop making music and work at that 7-11 instead). Escrow systems a la the street performer protocol is another option.
There would be much fewer multimillionaire artists and the record industry as we know it would collapse. However, IMO that is a Good Thing.
Yes, capitalism is wrong, at least in its current unchecked state.
Why? Simply because it gives certain (rich) people vastly more influence over society than others. This is wrong and unfair, for the same reason all people have one vote in elections.
Money is just a convenient unit for rationing the limited amount of goods and services. The more money you have, the more shares are you entitled to. And the less is left for others. Because others need goods and services, money also gives you power. Power being defined as the ability to make other people do things they dont want.
Since goods and services are limited, some people getting more necessarily means that others get less. For reasons of stability, as well as basic ethics, a large difference in wealth is a Bad Thing.
I dont advocate that everyone should have the exact same income. People who work more should get more. Also, people who do a better job should get more too. But there has to be some kinds of checks and balances, to avoid the abhorrent situation today, where some people have a fortune of tens of billions of dollars.
My solution is simple, and twofold:
Eliminate interest: People used to think that all taking of interest was usury, and they were right. No interest, no bonds, no dividends to shareholders. Make it impossible to earn money just by having money. This will require a total remake of our economic system, I know.
Eliminate IP: No copyrights, no patents, no nothing. This will make it impossible for people to make lots of money on things that costs (close to) zero to duplicate.
In this way, people would make money by working and creating. Not by letting their money "work", or living forever on the royalties of something done long ago. Since a person only has so many hours there would be no billionaires, but the median income would rise. There would probably still be some millionaires, since there are some people with special skills, who could get higher pay.
This would be no utopia, but better than what we have now. But fat chance of that ever happening as long as the legislators are controlled and bought by the very same rich people and corporations who would lose their undeserved privileges then.
Now we can tuck in our cheap Durons or expensive T-birds and overclock to our hearts content! According to Toms Hardware the three Duron 700 and one Duron 650 they tested were all overclockable up to 950 MHz, and the T-bird 1000 to 1100, all at 1.85 V.
Now all we need is motherboards with chipsets supporting DDR memory...
I think manufacturers of boats should be brought to justice and imprisoned for their blatant facilitation of piracy. Especially those who make speedboats.
There hardly goes one week where you cannot read stories in the newspaper about how pirates attack shipping around the world, especially in southeast Asia. Invariably they use fast speedboats to get to the ships, which they climb during the night, proceeding to rob, beat and murder the crew. They get away using the same speedboats.
Oh, the manufacturers claim that speedboats have legitimate uses. Ha! Dont believe them! Only pirates and drug smugglers use them. They should be outlawed!
Come to think of it, the pirates use guns too in their crimes. Outlaw guns! And peg legs. And eye patches...
How often does a new landmass spring up before the eyes of a group of scientists???
I cant recall the exact figure, but new volcanic islands forming isnt that rare; once or twice a decade or so - perhaps more often still. It is rare that it happens in front of people though. Mostly it happens in uninhabited places, like e.g. in the Aleutians or off New Guineas shore.
Most of these new volcanic islands dont last though. The volcanic rock formed by the sudden cooling of magma by seawater in shallow water is brittle and easily eroded, and sea waves usually obliterate the new islands within months of the end of the eruption.
It is only when the eruption is large or long enough that the vent comes completely clear of seawater. Then the magma can solidify into a harder, more solid shield protecting the looser material below from erosion. If this happens the island should last for many decades at least, with no renewed activity. Surtsey in Iceland in 1963 is an example of this, and IIRC the only new volcanic island formed in the 20th century which still exists.
If the island lasts long enough (a few decades) the loose material (tephra) made from the phreatomagmatic (explosive activity from interaction of magma and water) activity early in the eruption undergoes a chemical transition and becomes hyaloclastite, a rock even harder than the overlying shield of lava. So, after a long time with no activity, when the lava shield is eroded away, the former soft core of the island remains as steep pillars, cliffs and seamounts.
But here's the problem: far too many people lie to themselves, pretending that they have a "right" to free speech, or to free thought, or to life for that matter. This is a lie. We have no such right. What we have are a bunch of spoiled people, acting like children and throwing tantrums (and doing evil) when they don't get their way.
Forgot this: In my mind it wuld be easy for a black hole to become positively charged. The accretion disk gets heated to very high temperatures, ionizing the gas to a plasma. When the plasma is sucked in by the BH a fraction is shot out by electomagnetic fields of incredible strength, in both directions along the rotation axis of the BH in relativistic jets.
Since electrons are some 1800 times lighter than protons, but they have as large (but opposite) charge, it seems it would be much more likely that electrons escape in the jets than protons, resulting in a net positive charge for the BH.
One thing Ive wondered about is why the rotation of galaxies cannot be explained by something else than gravity, say by electromagnetism. Since electromagnetism is some 10^40 times stronger than gravity you wouldnt need such an incredible charge (well, relatively speaking) to influence the rotation curve of a galaxy as much as a huge amount of matter would by gravity. Also, EM diminishes by the distance squared too, so the curve would look identical.
Say the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way is very strongly charged (BH:s can have charge), say positively. Also say the stars in the galaxy are negatively charged. Wouldnt they then orbit at a faster rate than with no charge?
No it is not. Information isnt property, it cannot be owned.
The reasons for this is basically twice: (as explained by others here as well)
1. There is no need to. Property denotes scarcity commodities; if I use it you cannot. Information can be copied enlessly, at zero cost. Because information is so different in its essence the concept of property does not apply to it.
2. Even if you write, say some new software, or music, or a book, or whatever - this information never originates entirely with you. You are always using earlier information, most of which you have got access to for free. You are in essence, standing on the shoulders of giants. Trying to make this your derivative work your exclusive property in not only greedy and immoral, it is theft from the commons.
Also, the US Constitution does not grant various monopolies (copyright, patents etc.) as some kind of "natural" right to the claimants; it is explicitly done only to promote the progress of the useful arts. It is a means to an end, not the end in itself, a necessary evil of sorts. These monopolies also, according to the Constitution, should be limited in duration. The current IP laws are therefore clearly unconstitutional, on two counts, as they neither promote progress nor are limited in duration (in any meaningful sense of the word).
Information cannot be owned. If any law says it can then the law is evil, and it is not only your right to disregard it, but it is your duty to do so. Moral right takes precedent over legal.
The very term "Intellectual property" is an oxymoron. There is no such thing, and the insistence of some that there is is an abomination.
And dont come dragging half-witted comparisons with stealing cars or whatever. Ill take it slowly, so you might understand:
If you steal a car you are depriving the original owner of its use.
In contrast, when you copy something the original owner still keeps his copy, with no degradation of its performance whatsoever.
And yes, the artist (or the programmer when it comes to software) of course has a right to be paid for his/her work. I would be glad to pay the artist directly for the use of their music if I like it; perhaps $5 for a CD:s worth of MP3s or so (which is far more than they are getting from the record companies), but I will not have my $ contributing to the wealth and bloat of these truly evil corporations. In fact, I will copy MP3s of their CDs for myself and my friends for the express reason of hurting them and hastening their downfall.
And BTW, I use the term "copying", not "pirating" since the latter is a Newspeak-word designed to bring about associations of murder and pillaging, something bearing no relation whatsoever to copying.
"Piracy" and "pirating" is the act of attacking ships at sea, with the intent to steal, including threats and/or violence, no matter what newer Newspeak-influenced dictionaries might say.
Censorship is always worse than what it is trying to censor. In a free society there can be no censorship, period. No exceptions whatsoever.
So there should be no censorship even of nazis. That does not imply that I embrace their ideology, just that I dont think our supposedly free society should lower itself to such fascistic measures - not even when supposedly trying to fight fascism.
Do you really think that if Intel could run Willamette at 1.5 GHz now with no special cooling that they would intro it in October at "only" 1.3?
This snippet at Aces Hardware kinda puts it into perspective:
In your opinion, could Willamette ALU run at 3GHz air-cooled on Intel's 0.18 transistors?
I am here at IDF. I saw the Albert's demo and Glen's presentation and demos. I was very impressed with the 1.5GHz. 3GHz ALU is even more impressive, although, it is only a tiny percent of the whole die.
Albert's presentation was designed for maximum effect. When a quick 1.5GHz frequency utility demo was run, Albert did not say anything about how the chip was cooled. Then he quickly switched to a different system and ran some 3D rendering. During this second demo Albert and his partner engaged in a lively conversation showing everybody that it was running air-cooled. Of course now it was not displaying the frequency.
The impression was created that the 1.5GHz system is running 3D rendering air-cooled. But for all we know, 1.5GHz system could have been floating in liquid helium, while the one running 3d rendering was running at 800MHz.
That said, Willamette could still be a very nice CPU, but Im not going to get it unless Intel has a change of heart. The point being that Intel says Willamette will only support RAMBUS memory, and Im not going to shell out 5 times as much $ fom my RAM with no advantage whatsoever (with RAMBUS yields only getting worse there is little hope in its price turning sane any time soon).
That is why Im going for AMD and DDR. In fact, my K7-500@700 should suffice for some time.
Maybe Im a pessimist, but I think you are fooling yourselves if you think the big, wealthy corporations are going to let open source cut their profit margins that much.
Of course this insanely stupid proposal will probably be a benefit to OSS in the short term, but wont that very fact lead to anti-OSS legislation?
Lets face it, the big companies has a lot of money, lawyers and lobbyists, and as we know; politicians are up for sale. Of corse they will try to disguise it to be in "the interest of the nation", or industry, or even the consumers (Sic!).
The primary function of laws is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless. It has always been thus.
Slashdot Mirror
No, But if we patented "1 click" world distruction then the world would be safe for at least 5 to 7 years while the legal battle ensued.
You cant patent that. There is prior art. You know, the Big Red Button. Only one click necessary.
/Dervak
I'd say that you're in the minority. For every artist that support Napster, for example, there are 10 tht are against it.
Id like to see statistics to support this claim. There may still be more artists, who are against it than for it, but IMO that is most out of ignorance of what it is and how it works.
To say that people would still produce movies and music for no compensation is ridiculous.
No, it is not. Many people do it already actually. But this isnt about artists getting no monetary compensation, this is about that there should be no mandatory payment. In a system with voluntary payment, artists would not starve, even tho there would probably be less who would turn multimillionaires. But that, IMO, is a Good Thing.
Voluntary payment would be a "Natural Selection"-type mechanism, where only artists who produce quality stuff get compensated. Why? Because people who like their stuff will give them some money, volunarily, in order to be able to get more. So-called "artists" who are only in it for the money would probably disappear. But is that bad?
Communism seemed like a good idea except that they didn't take in human flaws (laziness) into account.
Human laziness doesnt matter when it comes to digital information, since it can be endlessly replicated at no cost. You are confusing it with scarcity goods and services. If I make something for myself just for the hell of it, and you can have it too at no cost to me, what reason could there be not to let you have it for free if you want it?
People like you don't take in others' intent to pirate through DeCSS and Napster into account.
Oh yes, I do. Thats the beauty of it. Any one with a clue could aways get mp3s or warez before Napster and Gnutella, and will be able to even if Napster is shut down. But the great thing about Napster is that it is for Windows, and that it is so damned easy to use, that even Joe Sixpack can use it. Ten or perhaps twenty million users in less than a year, and its only the beginning...
Once the common consumer gets used to getting digital information freely, he will not let that right be taken from him again, even with draconian laws. There will be massive disregard for those laws, and they will eventually be revoked. Like it was with the prohibition. This will be the end of corporations based on the mistaken notion that information can be owned. I, for one, await that day with eager anticipation.
I'm not going to deal with your flamebait, it's pretty obvious that the only reason you're resorting to petty insults is that you agree with me.
Hardly. People arguing against you actually agreeing with you? Please go and take that Logic 101 course again. I was flaming you, yes, but you deserved it for posting such crap.
And BTW, I do think Communism can work in its original, Anarchistic commune sense, not in the Soviet sense (which was more of a kind of fascism anyway).
/Dervak
My, what a load of crap...
It's surprising that only a couple days after slashdot posted the Suck article describing how geeks are living in a fantasy world, slashbots are once again decrying the motives of the RIAA.
And what other motive does the RIAA fat cats have than continuing getting rich on the work of others, pray tell? It is not as if the artists are receiving more than a pittance as it is.
You people don't understand the importance of copyright laws and intellectual property.
Oh yes, I think most of us understand it all too well.
Most of you would love to live in a world where there were no IP laws, but guess what would happen? No one would want to publish their work online!
Guess what? There are already many people publishing their work online, without any copy obstruction or restriction, and with no demand for payment. If youre reading /. you should know that. I am one of them. You are proven wrong.
This is similar to the good intentions behind communism, yet in practice it has proven to be a failure.
Communism failed because it was imposed from above; they kept the state and the coercion. That is why it failed. But I dont see what Communism has to do with anything, other than that some people all into American Captilalism call everything they dont like Communism. Thats really inane.
The lawsuits may be hard to swallow at first
Damn right theyre hard to swallow. Or take up the ass, more like it!
but they are absolutely essential for the growth of the Internet.
Holy shit! My bullshit-o-meter just pegged! Lets read it again: Lawsuits being essential to the growth of the Internet!!!
I dont know what to say to such an abysmally stupid and brainless comment. I assume by "the growth of the Internet" mean its forced takeover by undemocratic corporate interests and its turning into a similar mixture of "entertainment", advertisement, shopping and brainwashing as the TV networks.
I will continue supporting initiatives like DeCSS, Napster, FreeNet etc., trying to spread their usage as much as I can, if only to piss you off all the more.
I have only one thing to say to you and your corporate backers: Go to Hell!
/Dervak
What you say about the political stability of the various regions is all very accurate, except for one thing...
We have no way of knowing what it will be like in these regions in 50 years.
Perhaps Africa is stable and growing then, perhaps Singapore is wrecked by civil war after the collapse of the dictatorship. Heck, perhaps the USA isnt stable anymore then. You never know.
/Dervak
Forgot to include prices for the Radeon w/64 MB. It can be had for $275, $20 less than GTS/64 and $40 more than GTS/32. The performance is much better than V5500 too.
/Dervak
So you would go out of your way to spend $200 extra for a card that performs WORSE just because you *think* that their lawsuit is frivolus upon first sight?
$200 extra??? More like $47 less (or $13 more, compared to the 32 MB one), tho you are right in that it performs not as good.
Methinks you are thinking of the unreleased V6000. According to Pricewatch a V5500 w/64 MB can be had for $248. GTS w/64 costs upwards of $295, while a 32 MB GTS can be had for $235.
And yes, I will indeed hear their side of the matter before deciding. I merely said I would consider not getting a NVidia card.
Sounds "broad" to you now?
Funny, I cant remember using the term "broad" at all in my post.
I'm all for competition, but when that competition starts stealing ideas from you, you should definitely have a right to recoup.
This has nothing to do with "stealing" ideas, which cant be done anyway. But patents grant you an exclusive right to any particular thing, even if your competitor came up with the idea independently, or even before you. Who is first to the patent office is the only thing that matters.
But what pisses me off the most with regard to this is that NVidia already has a very firm grip on the market - there was no need for such dirty tactics!
/Dervak
Stupid.
Unnecessary.
NVidia already has the best graphics cards (at a price). 3dfx is slipping. Isnt that enough?
I was planning to buy a new GTS, but now Im reconsidering, and might get a Radeon, or even a Voodoo 5500 instead. I dont want to support uncompetitive companies.
/Dervak
Yes, but those cards do not use the very fastest 4 or 4.4 ns DDR memory used in the Ultra, but mostly far more plentiful and cheap 6 ns (166*2 MHz). Also, the core is clocked at 250 MHz instead of 200, so that part should be somewhat more expensive too. By my assessment 64 MB 4 ns (250*2 Mhz) could very well cost $300, while the same amount of 6 ns memory might go for half or less.
/Dervak
The problem with your comment is that you seem to confuse law with ethics. Whats legal may be unethical and whats illegal may be ethical. IMO copyright infringement is clearly ethical, as long as you, the copier, do not make a profit by it.
Why is it ethical? Because there are only winners here. You get something you wouldnt otherwise have, and the copyright holder loses nothing, as long as you wouldnt have bought it in case copying had been impossible.
It is different if you sell illegal copies, because then the copyright holder loses business from people who otherwise would have been paying customers.
Spam is an irritant and bandwidth-hog for all, but copyright laws are only good for a minority of the population, and bad for a majority.
And BTW, for the umpteenth time, copyright infringement != theft. Even the legal system recognizes this - thats why theres two different fscking terms for it! In theft, someone must be bereaved of something. This does not happen in case of copying. Potential profits do not qualify; if they did Acme Cola could claim you "steal" from them since you choose not to buy their cola...
Actually it is (IMO) good if a certain technology harms a large enough corporation. Large corporations are dangerous for the rights of common people, by their largeness alone. Large corporations have the depths of pockets needed for almost any kind of abuse of the system, and they have no qualms about doing so.
Corporations do not exist to serve the people, only to make profit for the shareholders, and if it can increase the profits so screw the environment, working conditions and health risk concerns. Corporations do not even have the pitiful checks and balances the political system has. IMO one of the worst mistakes of our current capitalism is that it allows corporations to become arbitrarily large. Already big business contol mainstream media and buy any laws they want, and it is sure to become worse in the future. So yes, anything harming big corporations is good.
/Dervak
A republic is generally supposed to be a form of democracy, but that is just semantics. Ask any politician whether the US is a democracy. How many do you think will say "No, it is a republic".
The govt should indeed protect the rights of everyone, but copyright is not a right. The Constituation clearly says that Congress may grant copyrights, but it is not forced to, and it should only be done if it promotes science and the useful arts - and for a limited time. This is hardly the case anymore, with the lifetime of the author+70 years.
If the law must choose between defending the rights of millions of people sharing music and the "rights" of some megacorps and certain individuals to become incredibly wealthy, I have no problem deciding what it should choose.
As for 20 vs 278 million, yes, 20 million is indeed a minority. But it is 20 million Now, less than a year after Napsters release. How many do you think it will be in one year?
So you are not impressed with the "enlightened self interest" of music fans? Why not? Do you have any data supporting your belief that it impacts record sales and royalties? CD sales were up again last year, Napster nonwithstanding. As for myself, I have bought several new CDs after having sampled them on Napster, because I liked them, and because I wanted to show my support for the artists in question. Enlightened self-interest in action. And there are more people like me too.
/Dervak
I almost cannot believe there are people as rotten as you. What the fuck do you think you are doing?
You are deliberately polluting a useful service, lowering the signal/noise ratio, hurting trust among people on the net, in fact you are pissing in the communitys well, or to use your own words, you are putting roaches in bags for frozen bagels in the supermarket - and you havent even the dubious defense that you need to protect your profits!!!
It seems you are doing it just because you are evil, period.
Fortunately, this kind of attack will be largely ineffective, since this kind of intentionally bad files will not spread far. Natural selection will see to that. Most people on Napster are not interested in such crap, so they will be speedily deleted from their drives.
I hope this abominable practice dies a quick and well-deserved death. And then you should die too, fucker!
/Dervak
A lot of comments here state that unathorized copying of copyright music is illegal. Some say that if it is done noncommercially, that is, sharing mp3s, without any kind of reimbursement - the way it is done on Napster - is not illegal (according to AHRA etc.), others say it still is. From an ethical point of view it really doesnt matter whether or not.
In a Democracy worth its name the laws should reflect the will of the people, not the will of a few rich corporations. Does the people want free (as in beer) mp3s? According to the overwhelming success of Napster (20 million users, so far), yes, the people wants this.
So, the logical conclusion of a Democracy should be to legalize mp3 swapping, not trying to stamp it out (which is futile anyway). Since this is not happening I have to conclude that we are not living in a democracy. If we are not living in a democracy it is futile trying to change unjust laws working within the system. Massive disregard for such laws will make them unenforcable, which will in the end lead to their revoking, so this is a much more effective way to do it.
And, BTW, if mp3 swapping became legal, artists would not starve. Enlightened self-interest on the part of music fans would see to it that the artists they liked could make a good living (otherwise the artist would stop making music and work at that 7-11 instead). Escrow systems a la the street performer protocol is another option.
There would be much fewer multimillionaire artists and the record industry as we know it would collapse. However, IMO that is a Good Thing.
/Dervak
Yes, capitalism is wrong, at least in its current unchecked state.
Why? Simply because it gives certain (rich) people vastly more influence over society than others. This is wrong and unfair, for the same reason all people have one vote in elections.
Money is just a convenient unit for rationing the limited amount of goods and services. The more money you have, the more shares are you entitled to. And the less is left for others. Because others need goods and services, money also gives you power. Power being defined as the ability to make other people do things they dont want.
Since goods and services are limited, some people getting more necessarily means that others get less. For reasons of stability, as well as basic ethics, a large difference in wealth is a Bad Thing.
I dont advocate that everyone should have the exact same income. People who work more should get more. Also, people who do a better job should get more too. But there has to be some kinds of checks and balances, to avoid the abhorrent situation today, where some people have a fortune of tens of billions of dollars.
My solution is simple, and twofold:
Eliminate interest: People used to think that all taking of interest was usury, and they were right. No interest, no bonds, no dividends to shareholders. Make it impossible to earn money just by having money. This will require a total remake of our economic system, I know.
Eliminate IP: No copyrights, no patents, no nothing. This will make it impossible for people to make lots of money on things that costs (close to) zero to duplicate.
In this way, people would make money by working and creating. Not by letting their money "work", or living forever on the royalties of something done long ago. Since a person only has so many hours there would be no billionaires, but the median income would rise. There would probably still be some millionaires, since there are some people with special skills, who could get higher pay.
This would be no utopia, but better than what we have now. But fat chance of that ever happening as long as the legislators are controlled and bought by the very same rich people and corporations who would lose their undeserved privileges then.
I fear a revolution is necessary.
/Dervak
Way to go ASUS and ABit!
Now we can tuck in our cheap Durons or expensive T-birds and overclock to our hearts content! According to Toms Hardware the three Duron 700 and one Duron 650 they tested were all overclockable up to 950 MHz, and the T-bird 1000 to 1100, all at 1.85 V.
Now all we need is motherboards with chipsets supporting DDR memory...
/Dervak
I think manufacturers of boats should be brought to justice and imprisoned for their blatant facilitation of piracy. Especially those who make speedboats.
There hardly goes one week where you cannot read stories in the newspaper about how pirates attack shipping around the world, especially in southeast Asia. Invariably they use fast speedboats to get to the ships, which they climb during the night, proceeding to rob, beat and murder the crew. They get away using the same speedboats.
Oh, the manufacturers claim that speedboats have legitimate uses. Ha! Dont believe them! Only pirates and drug smugglers use them. They should be outlawed!
Come to think of it, the pirates use guns too in their crimes. Outlaw guns! And peg legs. And eye patches...
How often does a new landmass spring up before the eyes of a group of scientists???
I cant recall the exact figure, but new volcanic islands forming isnt that rare; once or twice a decade or so - perhaps more often still. It is rare that it happens in front of people though. Mostly it happens in uninhabited places, like e.g. in the Aleutians or off New Guineas shore.
Most of these new volcanic islands dont last though. The volcanic rock formed by the sudden cooling of magma by seawater in shallow water is brittle and easily eroded, and sea waves usually obliterate the new islands within months of the end of the eruption.
It is only when the eruption is large or long enough that the vent comes completely clear of seawater. Then the magma can solidify into a harder, more solid shield protecting the looser material below from erosion. If this happens the island should last for many decades at least, with no renewed activity. Surtsey in Iceland in 1963 is an example of this, and IIRC the only new volcanic island formed in the 20th century which still exists.
If the island lasts long enough (a few decades) the loose material (tephra) made from the phreatomagmatic (explosive activity from interaction of magma and water) activity early in the eruption undergoes a chemical transition and becomes hyaloclastite, a rock even harder than the overlying shield of lava. So, after a long time with no activity, when the lava shield is eroded away, the former soft core of the island remains as steep pillars, cliffs and seamounts.
/Dervak
And by extension...
<Sarcasm>
But here's the problem: far too many people lie to themselves, pretending that they have a "right" to free speech, or to free thought, or to life for that matter. This is a lie. We have no such right. What we have are a bunch of spoiled people, acting like children and throwing tantrums (and doing evil) when they don't get their way.
</Sarcasm>
/Dervak
Forgot this: In my mind it wuld be easy for a black hole to become positively charged. The accretion disk gets heated to very high temperatures, ionizing the gas to a plasma. When the plasma is sucked in by the BH a fraction is shot out by electomagnetic fields of incredible strength, in both directions along the rotation axis of the BH in relativistic jets.
Since electrons are some 1800 times lighter than protons, but they have as large (but opposite) charge, it seems it would be much more likely that electrons escape in the jets than protons, resulting in a net positive charge for the BH.
/Dervak
One thing Ive wondered about is why the rotation of galaxies cannot be explained by something else than gravity, say by electromagnetism. Since electromagnetism is some 10^40 times stronger than gravity you wouldnt need such an incredible charge (well, relatively speaking) to influence the rotation curve of a galaxy as much as a huge amount of matter would by gravity. Also, EM diminishes by the distance squared too, so the curve would look identical.
Say the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way is very strongly charged (BH:s can have charge), say positively. Also say the stars in the galaxy are negatively charged. Wouldnt they then orbit at a faster rate than with no charge?
/Dervak
No it is not. Information isnt property, it cannot be owned.
The reasons for this is basically twice: (as explained by others here as well)
1. There is no need to. Property denotes scarcity commodities; if I use it you cannot. Information can be copied enlessly, at zero cost. Because information is so different in its essence the concept of property does not apply to it.
2. Even if you write, say some new software, or music, or a book, or whatever - this information never originates entirely with you. You are always using earlier information, most of which you have got access to for free. You are in essence, standing on the shoulders of giants. Trying to make this your derivative work your exclusive property in not only greedy and immoral, it is theft from the commons.
Also, the US Constitution does not grant various monopolies (copyright, patents etc.) as some kind of "natural" right to the claimants; it is explicitly done only to promote the progress of the useful arts. It is a means to an end, not the end in itself, a necessary evil of sorts. These monopolies also, according to the Constitution, should be limited in duration. The current IP laws are therefore clearly unconstitutional, on two counts, as they neither promote progress nor are limited in duration (in any meaningful sense of the word).
/Dervak
No, it does not.
Information cannot be owned. If any law says it can then the law is evil, and it is not only your right to disregard it, but it is your duty to do so. Moral right takes precedent over legal.
The very term "Intellectual property" is an oxymoron. There is no such thing, and the insistence of some that there is is an abomination.
And dont come dragging half-witted comparisons with stealing cars or whatever. Ill take it slowly, so you might understand:
If you steal a car you are depriving the original owner of its use.
In contrast, when you copy something the original owner still keeps his copy, with no degradation of its performance whatsoever.
And yes, the artist (or the programmer when it comes to software) of course has a right to be paid for his/her work. I would be glad to pay the artist directly for the use of their music if I like it; perhaps $5 for a CD:s worth of MP3s or so (which is far more than they are getting from the record companies), but I will not have my $ contributing to the wealth and bloat of these truly evil corporations. In fact, I will copy MP3s of their CDs for myself and my friends for the express reason of hurting them and hastening their downfall.
And BTW, I use the term "copying", not "pirating" since the latter is a Newspeak-word designed to bring about associations of murder and pillaging, something bearing no relation whatsoever to copying.
"Piracy" and "pirating" is the act of attacking ships at sea, with the intent to steal, including threats and/or violence, no matter what newer Newspeak-influenced dictionaries might say.
Keep on copying!
/Dervak
Yeah, and dont forget that he invented the Internet!
/Dervak
Censorship is always worse than what it is trying to censor. In a free society there can be no censorship, period. No exceptions whatsoever.
So there should be no censorship even of nazis. That does not imply that I embrace their ideology, just that I dont think our supposedly free society should lower itself to such fascistic measures - not even when supposedly trying to fight fascism.
/Dervak
Come on now, guys.
Do you really think that if Intel could run Willamette at 1.5 GHz now with no special cooling that they would intro it in October at "only" 1.3?
This snippet at Aces Hardware kinda puts it into perspective:
In your opinion, could Willamette ALU run at 3GHz air-cooled on Intel's 0.18 transistors?
I am here at IDF. I saw the Albert's demo and Glen's presentation and demos. I was very impressed with the 1.5GHz. 3GHz ALU is even more impressive, although, it is only a tiny percent of the whole die.
Albert's presentation was designed for maximum effect. When a quick 1.5GHz frequency utility demo was run, Albert did not say anything about how the chip was cooled. Then he quickly switched to a different system and ran some 3D rendering. During this second demo Albert and his partner engaged in a lively conversation showing everybody that it was running air-cooled. Of course now it was not displaying the frequency.
The impression was created that the 1.5GHz system is running 3D rendering air-cooled. But for all we know, 1.5GHz system could have been floating in liquid helium, while the one running 3d rendering was running at 800MHz.
That said, Willamette could still be a very nice CPU, but Im not going to get it unless Intel has a change of heart. The point being that Intel says Willamette will only support RAMBUS memory, and Im not going to shell out 5 times as much $ fom my RAM with no advantage whatsoever (with RAMBUS yields only getting worse there is little hope in its price turning sane any time soon).
That is why Im going for AMD and DDR. In fact, my K7-500@700 should suffice for some time.
/Dervak
Maybe Im a pessimist, but I think you are fooling yourselves if you think the big, wealthy corporations are going to let open source cut their profit margins that much.
Of course this insanely stupid proposal will probably be a benefit to OSS in the short term, but wont that very fact lead to anti-OSS legislation?
Lets face it, the big companies has a lot of money, lawyers and lobbyists, and as we know; politicians are up for sale. Of corse they will try to disguise it to be in "the interest of the nation", or industry, or even the consumers (Sic!).
The primary function of laws is to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and powerless. It has always been thus.
/Dervak