Let's be honest now, has Slashdot ever really "broke" a story? When you are a site that primarily links to other news sites, I wouldn't expect it to happen very often...(if at all) Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I think I am forgetting something...
Oh yeah, "You must be new here"
Riffs don't matter, unless you copy ALL of them (or a great deal) from a song. There are very few cases where someone was awarded rights to someone else's song for sounding the same. (George Harrison "My Sweet Lord"/Chiffons "He's So Fine", Ray Parker Jr. "Ghostbusters"/Huey Lewis "I Want a New Drug" are the only exceptions I can think of offhand. I'm sure there are more, but it isn't very common.) When you are playing blues-based rock, you only have 12 chords to play more or less, and there really aren't an infinite amount of combinations. Just make sure you don't crib any lyrics, which are much easier to copyright and prove someone else used them. Beleive it or not, copyrighting lyrics is a good way to prevent the little guy from getting screwed.(in some cases) Even if someone else performs the song, you still get royalties for the writing part of it. There are some writers who got rich writing songs for others and never performed a single one of them. (And the flip side where performers who only sing other people's songs didn't make squat performing them, because they didn't own the rights to the song.) Copyrighting in general isn't a terrible thing, but they need to put the limit back down to the original 28 years, instead of the currently rasied limit of 95.
"Also, it's great that you think a band can sell 20 of each piece of their merch at a show (I'm not being sarcastic), and on a good night that might be true but much of the time it just doesn't work like that"
So true. If the band I manage sells 5-10 CDs at a show at $12 each I consider that a good night. T-shirts sell even slower, maybe a couple a night at $10.
"That's 4 shows a week for $30,000 a year... split that 2, 3, 4, 5 ways or more. You'd better not have a house or apartment waiting at home that you need to pay rent/mortgage for. Plus the cost of gas, food, paying your booking agent, paying for places to stay on the rare occasions that you don't have to sleep in your disgusting, noxious van, the cost of repairing your broken equipment and who knows what else you'll break on tour..."
I can tell you have gone on tour a few times before..(lol) Yeah, that is pretty much the reality. If you can break even on your bills, be able to eat and have a few beers, and MAYBE make a few bucks, I would consider that successful. I know plenty of bands that have had to pay to go on tour before, and that sucks.
Hire a booking agent. A lot of venue bookers don't like to deal with random "Hey, my band wants to play there" calls and will deal with people they know already much differently. Most booking agents are known to bookers at venues, have dealt with each other before, and that makes it much easier to get gigs. Plus, if you get a booking agent that has a bunch of other bands, they can put together "package" tours where 2 or 3 bands will tour together. Most venues really like it when you have all the bands for a show and they don't need to find openers. Short of that, persistence, persistence, persistence....
"It did not make sense for us to have more power against drug cartels than terrorist cells"
That must be why the DEA held seminars on how to apply the patriot act (screw the capitals)against drug dealers, and why more American drug dealers have had this used against them than terrorists. I mean hell, everybody knows the long haired guy down the street that occasionally takes a puff of marijuana (grown in the US, sold in the US) is definitely supporting terrorists. If you really think about it, cultivating marijuana in the US would be putting drug dealers from other countries out of work. (You know, those badass terrorists from British Columbia!)
Yeah, I have heard of microphones to detect gunshots in cities before, and in China. Especially if they have them all over, they can triangulate and know exactly where the gunshots come from. The mics work without giving false positive because they only register if the dBs are high enough. You would need a serious amp and speaker combo to pull off 150+ dBs...
I doubt you have ever shot a.45 before, or been near one when one is fired. The.22 I'll give you - not that loud, could easily be mistaken for a backfire or fireworks. I can guarantee you a.45 would not be mistaken for a car backfiring - even with ear protection it still is quite a bang. Without earplugs, even being on the range when.45s are being fired will cause you to cover your ears instinctively. I have shot thousands of rounds from 4 or so different models of.45s, and not a single one of them could even laughingly be called "semi-quiet". 9mms are not as loud either, but usually they are so rapid in succession that you know it isn't anything but gunfire. See, living in the city CAN teach you things!
It would be very hard to realisticly duplicate the decibel level of actual gunfire on a boombox. The sounds you could get, but not the volume. And IANAL, but as far as I can tell, playing sounds of gunfire isn't illegal (unless done with intent to commit some other crime perhaps), but discharging a firearm is. If playing gunfire sounds was illegal, gangster rap would have been over shortly after it started in the 80s.
No, my point is the absolutely secure system you want is impossible for anyone to deliver on. What one person thinks is a completely secure usable system another thinks is full of holes and barely usable. I'm not saying complaining is wrong, or discussing security is bad. Just that satisfying everyone is impossible. There is always a tradeoff between user-friendliness and security and software developers need to decide where to draw that line. Some want it way to one side while others want it way to the other, but someone is always complaining. People need to be a little more realistic in their expectations.
No matter how well of a security system MS designs, idiots will always find a way to break it.(and Slashdotters will always find something to bitch about it)
"A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."
~Douglas Adams.
"The point you seem to have willingly ignored is that in order to drive a car, in the real world, people have to have achieved a certain level of proficiency. Which is why the "you wouldn't blame Chevrolet..." arguments are so weak. Computer users mostly don't have to take a test - so please don't ignore that - it's rather a large aspect of modern computing."
Yes, in order to drive you need to take a test proving your proficiency AT DRIVING - not at basic care and operation of a car. All of my users where I work also have to take some security tests before they have access to anything like medical records, etc that are protected. Tests are nice, but about as much as a "feel good" solution as the Microsoft's warnings. Does the test prove they are 100% infallible when it comes to security? Hell no. But it does cover my ass and lets the user know that a great deal of the responsibility of security rests on them and their practices.
"If you look at the marketing for most other real-world security products they usually say something along the lines of "Provides security if properly fitted". Microsoft say Provides Security, without the Properly fitted bit."
So you are saying if MS added the "if properly fitted" blurb, you would have no problems with their security claims? Somehow I don't buy it...
I don't know what world YOU live in, but ignoring security recommendations, not researching anything, and just clicking "Allow" without a clue to what you are allowing is not Microsoft's fault.
Will it happen all the time? Absolutely. Are a significant number of computer operators basically shaved apes without a clue about security? Absolutely. Does that make it Microsoft's fault? Absolutuely not.
How do you suggest Microsoft cures the world of dumb computer users who won't do what they are told, and what go against what common sense would dictate? Say someone bought a car, drove it until it died and then brought it to a repair shop where it was discovered there was no oil or engine coolant in it. ("Well, I saw some lights go on, but there are so many lights on the dashboard I just ignored them and kept driving.") Would it be the fault of Chevrolet because the operator couldn't be bothered to RTFM or understand how to properly operate a car before doing so?
Yes, I was trolling, but only half-heartedly, and not maliciously...
And IIRC, the Vista buttons are labeled "Allow" and "Cancel", which I believe are both verbs. I agree that Windows should have more unique dialog boxes, as to not lull the user into clicking when the see a box that they recognize. And for the record, I think Microsoft and Apple both stole the bases of their respective UIs from Xerox at the Palo Alto Research Center way back in the day...
You can turn off the Security warnings in the Security Center under the control panel, and clicking the Change the way Security Center alerts me.
You can turn off the Desktop Cleanup Wizard by going into the Display Properties and clicking the Customize Desktop button on the Desktop tab and unchecking the box that says "Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard every 60 days".
You can turn off printing notification by going into Printers and Faxes and from the File menu, select Server Properties. Click the Advanced tab, and then check or uncheck the checkbox next to Notify when remote documents are printed to either enable or disable the printing notification.
Maybe instead of blindly clicking close notifications, you should actually spend 5 seconds googling and figure out how to change the interface. XP really isn't too hard to use if you spend some time learning about the features.
I think you were probably saying that statement tounge-in-cheek, but that is the kind of attitude that lets all kinds of bad crap happen because "Well, it doesn't effect me, so why should I care?".
See also Martin Niemöller's "First They Came" poem
Where I live in Minneapolis the police put up cameras in various locations around the city. They were in operation for a few scant months when a court case decided that they were illegal, because they couldn't prove beyond doubt who the driver of the car at the time was. So our city spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to put up cameras that aren't being used. Great planning, huh? Maybe the city should consider a new legal department...
"Photo enforcement suffered a double blow today as judges in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Steubenville, Ohio struck down new ordinances that have allowed red light and speed cameras to operate in each city.
Hennepin County District Judge Mark S. Wernick struck down the Minneapolis red light camera program on constitutional grounds. The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota had brought suit, charging the program violated the due process rights of citizens. One man, for example, was falsely accused twice and only had his cases dismissed after he contacted the media. The Minneapolis program will no longer issue tickets pending the outcome of a likely appeal."
Ah yes, but the negative attitude is caused by the souls of dead space aliens who were brought to Earth, 75 million years ago, by an evil galactic ruler named Xenu in an attempt to solve galactic overpopulation. The cost for ridding yourself of these "body thetans" is $440 per hour, according to a recent price-list.
Um, I haven't posted any pictures anywhere - if you were literate you would see I am not the person you originally replied to. (Apparently you have about as much intelligence as you have tact.) Just someone who can tell you are a gigantic insecure asshole that has no friends and must try to insult other to make yourself seem better. Nobody cares about what you think, or your stupid little stories where you try to make your assholish actions seem like charity. Nice try loser.
And why do you care so much about what this person looks like? Are you tring to be his boyfriend or something??
Yeah, because big retailers know that putting restrictions on products is the way to make them fly off the shelves. If Amazon tried anything even remotely like that, they would lose 100 times the money they did on the DVD pricing flap.
But if you side with Amazon on this one, it opens a rather large can of worms. Amazon can advertise a product at a ridiculously low price, wait until thousands "take advantage" of their "mistake", then turn around and set a much higher price and charge customers without their consent??
I don't think so. A contract is a contract - just because you screw up your end of it doesn't invalidate that fact.
And if I had a nickel for every Slashdot prediction that "[fill in the blank] is Microsoft's stupidest move ever and will finish them off." I could buy them myself and put them under... Apple may well live and die by selling their music, but Microsft is hardly going to be put out of business by DRMless music. I mean what do you think is on all those CDs they sell every year? Right, DRMless music and yet MS is still somehow in busines...
1) Nobody gives a rat's ass what an AC thinks about someones appearance. You don't even have the balls to post under a real user account. You are less than insignificant.
2) Even if you did post under a real account, nobody still cares about what you think about someone else's appearance. You must be pretty insecure with your own looks if you have to resort to criticizing someone else.
I'm just sayin' man. Consider this constructive criticism, kinda like when someone says your fly is down, or you have a zit on your nose.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, Packard Bell is still MAKING computers... I doubt they are SELLING many though..
Let's be honest now, has Slashdot ever really "broke" a story? When you are a site that primarily links to other news sites, I wouldn't expect it to happen very often...(if at all) Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I think I am forgetting something...
Oh yeah, "You must be new here"
Riffs don't matter, unless you copy ALL of them (or a great deal) from a song. There are very few cases where someone was awarded rights to someone else's song for sounding the same. (George Harrison "My Sweet Lord"/Chiffons "He's So Fine", Ray Parker Jr. "Ghostbusters"/Huey Lewis "I Want a New Drug" are the only exceptions I can think of offhand. I'm sure there are more, but it isn't very common.) When you are playing blues-based rock, you only have 12 chords to play more or less, and there really aren't an infinite amount of combinations. Just make sure you don't crib any lyrics, which are much easier to copyright and prove someone else used them. Beleive it or not, copyrighting lyrics is a good way to prevent the little guy from getting screwed.(in some cases) Even if someone else performs the song, you still get royalties for the writing part of it. There are some writers who got rich writing songs for others and never performed a single one of them. (And the flip side where performers who only sing other people's songs didn't make squat performing them, because they didn't own the rights to the song.) Copyrighting in general isn't a terrible thing, but they need to put the limit back down to the original 28 years, instead of the currently rasied limit of 95.
"Also, it's great that you think a band can sell 20 of each piece of their merch at a show (I'm not being sarcastic), and on a good night that might be true but much of the time it just doesn't work like that"
So true. If the band I manage sells 5-10 CDs at a show at $12 each I consider that a good night. T-shirts sell even slower, maybe a couple a night at $10.
"That's 4 shows a week for $30,000 a year... split that 2, 3, 4, 5 ways or more. You'd better not have a house or apartment waiting at home that you need to pay rent/mortgage for. Plus the cost of gas, food, paying your booking agent, paying for places to stay on the rare occasions that you don't have to sleep in your disgusting, noxious van, the cost of repairing your broken equipment and who knows what else you'll break on tour..."
I can tell you have gone on tour a few times before..(lol) Yeah, that is pretty much the reality. If you can break even on your bills, be able to eat and have a few beers, and MAYBE make a few bucks, I would consider that successful. I know plenty of bands that have had to pay to go on tour before, and that sucks.
"But if you've got the secret for booking venues"
Hire a booking agent. A lot of venue bookers don't like to deal with random "Hey, my band wants to play there" calls and will deal with people they know already much differently. Most booking agents are known to bookers at venues, have dealt with each other before, and that makes it much easier to get gigs. Plus, if you get a booking agent that has a bunch of other bands, they can put together "package" tours where 2 or 3 bands will tour together. Most venues really like it when you have all the bands for a show and they don't need to find openers. Short of that, persistence, persistence, persistence....
"It did not make sense for us to have more power against drug cartels than terrorist cells"
That must be why the DEA held seminars on how to apply the patriot act (screw the capitals)against drug dealers, and why more American drug dealers have had this used against them than terrorists. I mean hell, everybody knows the long haired guy down the street that occasionally takes a puff of marijuana (grown in the US, sold in the US) is definitely supporting terrorists. If you really think about it, cultivating marijuana in the US would be putting drug dealers from other countries out of work. (You know, those badass terrorists from British Columbia!)
Yeah, I have heard of microphones to detect gunshots in cities before, and in China. Especially if they have them all over, they can triangulate and know exactly where the gunshots come from. The mics work without giving false positive because they only register if the dBs are high enough. You would need a serious amp and speaker combo to pull off 150+ dBs...
I doubt you have ever shot a .45 before, or been near one when one is fired. The .22 I'll give you - not that loud, could easily be mistaken for a backfire or fireworks. I can guarantee you a .45 would not be mistaken for a car backfiring - even with ear protection it still is quite a bang. Without earplugs, even being on the range when .45s are being fired will cause you to cover your ears instinctively. I have shot thousands of rounds from 4 or so different models of .45s, and not a single one of them could even laughingly be called "semi-quiet". 9mms are not as loud either, but usually they are so rapid in succession that you know it isn't anything but gunfire. See, living in the city CAN teach you things!
It would be very hard to realisticly duplicate the decibel level of actual gunfire on a boombox. The sounds you could get, but not the volume. And IANAL, but as far as I can tell, playing sounds of gunfire isn't illegal (unless done with intent to commit some other crime perhaps), but discharging a firearm is. If playing gunfire sounds was illegal, gangster rap would have been over shortly after it started in the 80s.
No, my point is the absolutely secure system you want is impossible for anyone to deliver on. What one person thinks is a completely secure usable system another thinks is full of holes and barely usable. I'm not saying complaining is wrong, or discussing security is bad. Just that satisfying everyone is impossible. There is always a tradeoff between user-friendliness and security and software developers need to decide where to draw that line. Some want it way to one side while others want it way to the other, but someone is always complaining. People need to be a little more realistic in their expectations.
No matter how well of a security system MS designs, idiots will always find a way to break it.(and Slashdotters will always find something to bitch about it)
"A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."
~Douglas Adams.
"The point you seem to have willingly ignored is that in order to drive a car, in the real world, people have to have achieved a certain level of proficiency. Which is why the "you wouldn't blame Chevrolet ..." arguments are so weak. Computer users mostly don't have to take a test - so please don't ignore that - it's rather a large aspect of modern computing."
Yes, in order to drive you need to take a test proving your proficiency AT DRIVING - not at basic care and operation of a car.
All of my users where I work also have to take some security tests before they have access to anything like medical records, etc that are protected. Tests are nice, but about as much as a "feel good" solution as the Microsoft's warnings. Does the test prove they are 100% infallible when it comes to security? Hell no. But it does cover my ass and lets the user know that a great deal of the responsibility of security rests on them and their practices.
"If you look at the marketing for most other real-world security products they usually say something along the lines of "Provides security if properly fitted". Microsoft say Provides Security, without the Properly fitted bit."
So you are saying if MS added the "if properly fitted" blurb, you would have no problems with their security claims? Somehow I don't buy it...
I don't know what world YOU live in, but ignoring security recommendations, not researching anything, and just clicking "Allow" without a clue to what you are allowing is not Microsoft's fault.
Will it happen all the time? Absolutely. Are a significant number of computer operators basically shaved apes without a clue about security? Absolutely. Does that make it Microsoft's fault? Absolutuely not.
How do you suggest Microsoft cures the world of dumb computer users who won't do what they are told, and what go against what common sense would dictate? Say someone bought a car, drove it until it died and then brought it to a repair shop where it was discovered there was no oil or engine coolant in it. ("Well, I saw some lights go on, but there are so many lights on the dashboard I just ignored them and kept driving.") Would it be the fault of Chevrolet because the operator couldn't be bothered to RTFM or understand how to properly operate a car before doing so?
And if you are just blindly clicking "Allow" without ever reading or thinking about what you are doing, how is it anyone else's fault but your own?
Yes, I was trolling, but only half-heartedly, and not maliciously...
And IIRC, the Vista buttons are labeled "Allow" and "Cancel", which I believe are both verbs. I agree that Windows should have more unique dialog boxes, as to not lull the user into clicking when the see a box that they recognize. And for the record, I think Microsoft and Apple both stole the bases of their respective UIs from Xerox at the Palo Alto Research Center way back in the day...
You can turn off the Security warnings in the Security Center under the control panel, and clicking the Change the way Security Center alerts me.
You can turn off the Desktop Cleanup Wizard by going into the Display Properties and clicking the Customize Desktop button on the Desktop tab and unchecking the box that says "Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard every 60 days".
You can turn off printing notification by going into Printers and Faxes and from the File menu, select Server Properties. Click the Advanced tab, and then check or uncheck the checkbox next to Notify when remote documents are printed to either enable or disable the printing notification.
Maybe instead of blindly clicking close notifications, you should actually spend 5 seconds googling and figure out how to change the interface. XP really isn't too hard to use if you spend some time learning about the features.
"MS hires the worst UI people on the planet"
Wait, I thought Vista stole it's UI from OS X, which supposedly has the best UI on the planet. Hmmm...
I think you were probably saying that statement tounge-in-cheek, but that is the kind of attitude that lets all kinds of bad crap happen because "Well, it doesn't effect me, so why should I care?".
See also Martin Niemöller's "First They Came" poem
Where I live in Minneapolis the police put up cameras in various locations around the city. They were in operation for a few scant months when a court case decided that they were illegal, because they couldn't prove beyond doubt who the driver of the car at the time was. So our city spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to put up cameras that aren't being used. Great planning, huh? Maybe the city should consider a new legal department...
"Photo enforcement suffered a double blow today as judges in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Steubenville, Ohio struck down new ordinances that have allowed red light and speed cameras to operate in each city.
Hennepin County District Judge Mark S. Wernick struck down the Minneapolis red light camera program on constitutional grounds. The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota had brought suit, charging the program violated the due process rights of citizens. One man, for example, was falsely accused twice and only had his cases dismissed after he contacted the media. The Minneapolis program will no longer issue tickets pending the outcome of a likely appeal."
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/10/1014.asp
And when one person or "peer" talks to another person on the phone, isn't that "peer to peer" or "person to person" networking??
Ah yes, but the negative attitude is caused by the souls of dead space aliens who were brought to Earth, 75 million years ago, by an evil galactic ruler named Xenu in an attempt to solve galactic overpopulation. The cost for ridding yourself of these "body thetans" is $440 per hour, according to a recent price-list.
Um, I haven't posted any pictures anywhere - if you were literate you would see I am not the person you originally replied to. (Apparently you have about as much intelligence as you have tact.) Just someone who can tell you are a gigantic insecure asshole that has no friends and must try to insult other to make yourself seem better. Nobody cares about what you think, or your stupid little stories where you try to make your assholish actions seem like charity. Nice try loser.
And why do you care so much about what this person looks like? Are you tring to be his boyfriend or something??
Yeah, because big retailers know that putting restrictions on products is the way to make them fly off the shelves. If Amazon tried anything even remotely like that, they would lose 100 times the money they did on the DVD pricing flap.
But if you side with Amazon on this one, it opens a rather large can of worms. Amazon can advertise a product at a ridiculously low price, wait until thousands "take advantage" of their "mistake", then turn around and set a much higher price and charge customers without their consent??
I don't think so. A contract is a contract - just because you screw up your end of it doesn't invalidate that fact.
And if I had a nickel for every Slashdot prediction that "[fill in the blank] is Microsoft's stupidest move ever and will finish them off." I could buy them myself and put them under... Apple may well live and die by selling their music, but Microsft is hardly going to be put out of business by DRMless music. I mean what do you think is on all those CDs they sell every year? Right, DRMless music and yet MS is still somehow in busines...
Just a couple of notes here:
1) Nobody gives a rat's ass what an AC thinks about someones appearance. You don't even have the balls to post under a real user account. You are less than insignificant.
2) Even if you did post under a real account, nobody still cares about what you think about someone else's appearance. You must be pretty insecure with your own looks if you have to resort to criticizing someone else.
I'm just sayin' man. Consider this constructive criticism, kinda like when someone says your fly is down, or you have a zit on your nose.
You're welcome!