Re:Karma burning for fun and profit
on
KDE 4.3 Released
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· Score: 3, Insightful
The problem, as ever, is that Kubuntu gets the seriously short end of the stick. I used to use it (before I switched to Arch with KDEmod/Chakra) and it worked alright before KDE 4 came out. However, since KDE 4 it's been generally slow and the developers have taken longer than other distros to get new KDE releases or beta/RCs out. And then there was the idea of forcing KDE 4 on all their users in version 4.1 when it wasn't ready for regular use. I see they've since realized the error and are offering both KDE3 and 4, although KDE4 has is now pretty damn good.
I'd put this down to the vast majority of *buntu users using Ubuntu/Gnome. It also gets more press than the other variants.
That's not to say the developers haven't made good contributions to the KDE community. Like making OpenOffice 3 work with KDE file dialogues.
Erm.. I may be a fool for asking this but... wouldn't such a law be a HUGE violation of one's privacy? I mean, I've always thought that copyright laws are pretty hard to enforce in this day and age without sticking cameras in everybody's living rooms. It would appear that that's exactly what Big Media is proposing here with such a law.
The idea that ISPs are going to have to watch everything their customers do is much more troubling to me than the rest of it. The right to privacy is one of the tenets of a free society. I hate to invoke Orwell but, to me, watching what everyone does on the internet is practically the same as forcing everyone to have a telescreen.
I hope to god they don't do something this stupid; my right to privacy is more important than the **AA's obscene profits.
Let's not even get into how open to abuse such a system would be...
Wait - doesn't he now oppose torture? Didn't he flip-flop on it somewhat before finally opposing it? I watched the YouTube Rep. debate and in it he was the only one who was against torture (except for Ron Paul, I guess). His position might have changed again, though, I don't know. Have you a link?
That aside, McCain's belief that going into Iraq was a good idea troubles me and, unlike the Dems who voted for it, he continues to think it was a good idea. It wasn't. It was a stupid idea. That's why I like Obama, because he knew it was a stupid idea from the start. They should've stayed in Afghanistan and continued fighting and hunting bin Laden. But because they couldn't be bothered, Al Qaeda is pretty much back to pre-9/11 strength.
The kind of thinking that led America into Iraq could lead them into Iran as well and that isn't a very pleasant thought.
They're saying the DVD layer will conform to DVD standards, this means it'll use CSS. Now, as a Linux user, I feel the need to do the happy dance.. but.. it seems almost too good to be true.
This doesn't sound like The Industry we know, who seem intent to completely destroy our fair use rights and call it "copyright protection". Would they really go for this? Part of the reason they're pushing these new formats seems to be for the sake of putting an end to piracy (and our rights); by allowing this new format to include the standards of DVD, they're pretty much allowing things to remain as they are, where movies are easy to copy. Sure, maybe in ten years time, everyone will have switched to HD, but the movies could still be ripped from the DVD layer.
Unless, of course, this is part of some elaborate plan to get everyone to buy this new format, at which point this wonderful idea will be phased out (once everyone goes HD) and we'll only have HD-DVDs, thus saving people money by giving them a nice collection of movies that can be played on the next-gen systems in the future and their current systems right now.
I hope I'm wrong though, because this is a wonderful idea.
You don't watch TV or listen to the radio then? I do: they're free, and they're supported by adds.
Ahh... but you could easily Tivo or record things you see on TV or tape record things you hear on the radio; sure the quality won't be as good, but you could still do it. With TV it depends how good the reception is or if you have satelite and/or HDTV.
I suppose I can't blame them for putting DRM into it since it's free anyhow (and you really can't put advertising INTO a song), despite me being totally against DRM. Now, if I had to pay for it then that'd be different.... either way, I'll probably stay away because DRM doesn't work for Linux users, unless we circumvent it.
The mere fact that it is a PlayStation will have every male 18-35 lining up to buy.
That's only if they could afford the 600 dollar cost.... I think that's an awful lot of money for the average person, given it's simply for a gaming console. Maybe if there's a price drop after launch...
For some reason I can't get it to work with WEP, never tried WPA; but I was overjoyed when I even got my wireless to work since it's a Broadcom card.
Suse has this thing called KInternet, which is sadly not avilable anywhere else.. and it seems like a nifty wireless hookup thing.. I'm not using Suse anymore, though.
Yeah, but only in America. That is, I think Net Neutrality is only an issue in the states because your ISPs can only two tier the net in America, not the whole world. Of course, that probably ruins it for nyone hosting sites through American providers *runs to find new web host*
That's what I heard anyway. I'm not sure if America has market dominance on the net or not (sure seems like it), but without net neutrality, I'm sure you guys will lose that, too.. because who wants to be hosted in a country that doesn't really have a free internet market anymore?
So America is screwing itself over in the name of corporate greed...
But voice chat is FREE, minus the cost of your internet. Using the phone adds another cost to your monthly internet fee. Why use the phone if you can talk to the person on the computer without the extra cost? This becomes even more obvious when you wanna talk to people who are REALLY far away; I love how the internet connects us all for a nice 30-some dollars a month.
Gaim is nice and all, but it doesn't have voice or webcam support. Since I jumped over to Linux, I've found that to be a pain since I voice chat to a few people. And, sadly, no one wants to download Skype.
So maybe, just maybe, since Yahoo is cross-platform, this will eventually work with Unix OSes, too... I know the download page doesn't now.. but perhaps it will later...... Unless M$ is gonna be a jerk and disallow it.. Though, MSN Messenger is free, so therefore I don't see why it's so terrible having it for Linux.. But heck, they released it for Mac, did they not?!
Yeah.. I might complain, but lack of MSN voice isn't gonna make me run back to Windows; the grass is greener over here.
I believe he meant the content he already paid for. That's what I hate about DRM, suddenly what you buy isn't actually YOURS anymore and therefore you can only do certain things with it, even if you want to do other stuff that's totally legal. Oh, and of course, you can only use Windows or Mac and it's illegal to watch DVDs, for example, in Linux/Unix/Any OS that aint Windows/Mac.
Yeah, good job, **AA, way to not stop piracy and just limit the rights of people who actually give you their money. Good job!
I think they're making this whole piracy problem seem much bigger then it actually is....
Anyway, let's have a look at some interesting facts, shall we? Forgive me if someone already pointed this out, didn't read ALL the comments.
Lifespans of Formats (info from wikipedia): VHS - Launched in 1976, competed against Betamax, then caught on in 1980s. DVD - Launched in.. let's say 1999, because by then it would have been available everywhere. Then DVD players started dropping in price. I'd say DVDs really caught on about 2000-2003, but I can't be really certain. Actually it's fair to say that VHS isn't COMPLETELY dead yet - some movies are still released on it and rented and I imagine a few people still buy them. My family still uses VHS to record stuff on TV, too.
So, DVD is still relatively new, but is now the universal home video standard for movies and TV. I bought my first DVD in 2001 ("The Matrix"), I think, after we'd had a DVD-ROM drive for a while. I remember when DVDs were still slightly more expensive then VHS as well, but now the prices have dropped and are more reasonable.
Yet all of a sudden, they wanna shove these new formats in our faces when DVD hasn't even lasted as long as VHS?! What. The. Crap.
DVDs are fine, better then fine even. I love the quality, I love anamorphic widescreen, I love 5.1 Dolby Digital (and DTS for the people lucky enough to have it). I don't need anything better then that. And I doubt the average consumer will, either. Not for quite some time.
Also, I'm a Linux user (Suse Linix 10) and until someone cracks AACS, I wouldn't even be able to PLAY Blu-Ray/HD-DVD anyway. I had to grab libdvdcss in order to play DVDs on my Linux box because it's illegal for some stupid reason! Well, not sure if it still is... but Novell still removed the option from Suse.
Anyway, I know it took even longer for DVD burning to catch on then DVD movies. And blank DVDs used to cost a ton of cash for each one. I think DVD-RWs are still pretty expensive. Don't know. I have three big hard drives, so I don't need that, as someone else pointed out.
I get the feeling this is more about shoving DRM down our throats and going to absurd lengths to stop piracy then anything else... and it will likely fail.
You can keep your stupid HD formats, Sony, et al. I'll keep my DVDs.
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The problem, as ever, is that Kubuntu gets the seriously short end of the stick. I used to use it (before I switched to Arch with KDEmod/Chakra) and it worked alright before KDE 4 came out. However, since KDE 4 it's been generally slow and the developers have taken longer than other distros to get new KDE releases or beta/RCs out. And then there was the idea of forcing KDE 4 on all their users in version 4.1 when it wasn't ready for regular use. I see they've since realized the error and are offering both KDE3 and 4, although KDE4 has is now pretty damn good.
I'd put this down to the vast majority of *buntu users using Ubuntu/Gnome. It also gets more press than the other variants.
That's not to say the developers haven't made good contributions to the KDE community. Like making OpenOffice 3 work with KDE file dialogues.
Erm.. I may be a fool for asking this but... wouldn't such a law be a HUGE violation of one's privacy? I mean, I've always thought that copyright laws are pretty hard to enforce in this day and age without sticking cameras in everybody's living rooms. It would appear that that's exactly what Big Media is proposing here with such a law. The idea that ISPs are going to have to watch everything their customers do is much more troubling to me than the rest of it. The right to privacy is one of the tenets of a free society. I hate to invoke Orwell but, to me, watching what everyone does on the internet is practically the same as forcing everyone to have a telescreen. I hope to god they don't do something this stupid; my right to privacy is more important than the **AA's obscene profits. Let's not even get into how open to abuse such a system would be...
Wait - doesn't he now oppose torture? Didn't he flip-flop on it somewhat before finally opposing it? I watched the YouTube Rep. debate and in it he was the only one who was against torture (except for Ron Paul, I guess). His position might have changed again, though, I don't know. Have you a link?
That aside, McCain's belief that going into Iraq was a good idea troubles me and, unlike the Dems who voted for it, he continues to think it was a good idea. It wasn't. It was a stupid idea. That's why I like Obama, because he knew it was a stupid idea from the start. They should've stayed in Afghanistan and continued fighting and hunting bin Laden. But because they couldn't be bothered, Al Qaeda is pretty much back to pre-9/11 strength.
The kind of thinking that led America into Iraq could lead them into Iran as well and that isn't a very pleasant thought.
They're saying the DVD layer will conform to DVD standards, this means it'll use CSS. Now, as a Linux user, I feel the need to do the happy dance.. but.. it seems almost too good to be true. This doesn't sound like The Industry we know, who seem intent to completely destroy our fair use rights and call it "copyright protection". Would they really go for this? Part of the reason they're pushing these new formats seems to be for the sake of putting an end to piracy (and our rights); by allowing this new format to include the standards of DVD, they're pretty much allowing things to remain as they are, where movies are easy to copy. Sure, maybe in ten years time, everyone will have switched to HD, but the movies could still be ripped from the DVD layer. Unless, of course, this is part of some elaborate plan to get everyone to buy this new format, at which point this wonderful idea will be phased out (once everyone goes HD) and we'll only have HD-DVDs, thus saving people money by giving them a nice collection of movies that can be played on the next-gen systems in the future and their current systems right now. I hope I'm wrong though, because this is a wonderful idea.
You don't watch TV or listen to the radio then? I do: they're free, and they're supported by adds.
Ahh... but you could easily Tivo or record things you see on TV or tape record things you hear on the radio; sure the quality won't be as good, but you could still do it. With TV it depends how good the reception is or if you have satelite and/or HDTV.
I suppose I can't blame them for putting DRM into it since it's free anyhow (and you really can't put advertising INTO a song), despite me being totally against DRM. Now, if I had to pay for it then that'd be different.... either way, I'll probably stay away because DRM doesn't work for Linux users, unless we circumvent it.
That's only if they could afford the 600 dollar cost.... I think that's an awful lot of money for the average person, given it's simply for a gaming console. Maybe if there's a price drop after launch...
You talking about (K?)NetworkManager?
For some reason I can't get it to work with WEP, never tried WPA; but I was overjoyed when I even got my wireless to work since it's a Broadcom card.
Suse has this thing called KInternet, which is sadly not avilable anywhere else.. and it seems like a nifty wireless hookup thing.. I'm not using Suse anymore, though.
Yeah, but only in America. That is, I think Net Neutrality is only an issue in the states because your ISPs can only two tier the net in America, not the whole world. Of course, that probably ruins it for nyone hosting sites through American providers *runs to find new web host*
That's what I heard anyway. I'm not sure if America has market dominance on the net or not (sure seems like it), but without net neutrality, I'm sure you guys will lose that, too.. because who wants to be hosted in a country that doesn't really have a free internet market anymore?
So America is screwing itself over in the name of corporate greed...
But voice chat is FREE, minus the cost of your internet. Using the phone adds another cost to your monthly internet fee. Why use the phone if you can talk to the person on the computer without the extra cost? This becomes even more obvious when you wanna talk to people who are REALLY far away; I love how the internet connects us all for a nice 30-some dollars a month.
... Unless M$ is gonna be a jerk and disallow it.. Though, MSN Messenger is free, so therefore I don't see why it's so terrible having it for Linux.. But heck, they released it for Mac, did they not?!
Gaim is nice and all, but it doesn't have voice or webcam support. Since I jumped over to Linux, I've found that to be a pain since I voice chat to a few people. And, sadly, no one wants to download Skype.
So maybe, just maybe, since Yahoo is cross-platform, this will eventually work with Unix OSes, too... I know the download page doesn't now.. but perhaps it will later...
Yeah.. I might complain, but lack of MSN voice isn't gonna make me run back to Windows; the grass is greener over here.
I believe he meant the content he already paid for. That's what I hate about DRM, suddenly what you buy isn't actually YOURS anymore and therefore you can only do certain things with it, even if you want to do other stuff that's totally legal. Oh, and of course, you can only use Windows or Mac and it's illegal to watch DVDs, for example, in Linux/Unix/Any OS that aint Windows/Mac.
Yeah, good job, **AA, way to not stop piracy and just limit the rights of people who actually give you their money. Good job!
I think they're making this whole piracy problem seem much bigger then it actually is....
Yay, first post here! ^^
Anyway, let's have a look at some interesting facts, shall we? Forgive me if someone already pointed this out, didn't read ALL the comments.
Lifespans of Formats (info from wikipedia):
VHS - Launched in 1976, competed against Betamax, then caught on in 1980s.
DVD - Launched in.. let's say 1999, because by then it would have been available everywhere. Then DVD players started dropping in price. I'd say DVDs really caught on about 2000-2003, but I can't be really certain. Actually it's fair to say that VHS isn't COMPLETELY dead yet - some movies are still released on it and rented and I imagine a few people still buy them. My family still uses VHS to record stuff on TV, too.
So, DVD is still relatively new, but is now the universal home video standard for movies and TV. I bought my first DVD in 2001 ("The Matrix"), I think, after we'd had a DVD-ROM drive for a while. I remember when DVDs were still slightly more expensive then VHS as well, but now the prices have dropped and are more reasonable.
Yet all of a sudden, they wanna shove these new formats in our faces when DVD hasn't even lasted as long as VHS?! What. The. Crap.
DVDs are fine, better then fine even. I love the quality, I love anamorphic widescreen, I love 5.1 Dolby Digital (and DTS for the people lucky enough to have it). I don't need anything better then that. And I doubt the average consumer will, either. Not for quite some time.
Also, I'm a Linux user (Suse Linix 10) and until someone cracks AACS, I wouldn't even be able to PLAY Blu-Ray/HD-DVD anyway. I had to grab libdvdcss in order to play DVDs on my Linux box because it's illegal for some stupid reason! Well, not sure if it still is... but Novell still removed the option from Suse.
Anyway, I know it took even longer for DVD burning to catch on then DVD movies. And blank DVDs used to cost a ton of cash for each one. I think DVD-RWs are still pretty expensive. Don't know. I have three big hard drives, so I don't need that, as someone else pointed out.
I get the feeling this is more about shoving DRM down our throats and going to absurd lengths to stop piracy then anything else... and it will likely fail.
You can keep your stupid HD formats, Sony, et al. I'll keep my DVDs.