IMO music is withering, and it started right about the same time a guy named Sonny Bono sponsored legislation to extend copyright terms. Musicians with real talent can't be faked or manufactured. It takes years and years of study, practice, and dedication. Unless you control a society's access to music so much that you can convince the public that utter garbage deserves a gold little trophy called a Grammy, the best music flourishes because... well, there's yet to be another Bach. With the way things are set up, it's just a system of controlling the public. "We manufacture it. You will buy it." Sorry, I probably better quit posting. This has me pretty upset. (P. S. I'm following in your footsteps in terms of teaching music, hoping to get a Masters, but it's hard work. Cheers.)
One thing i cant stand is big companies taking "legal" action against free services just so they can charge the user money. Infuriating. It's not even the money that bothers me, it's that it flies in the face of the whole intent of copyright: that by temporarily granting limited monopolies, society benefits. I imagine the following scenario:
A young guy picks up a guitar and messes around with it. He can't play a thing, and isn't really interested in investing the time to take proper lessons. He discovers OLGA. He downloads a few simple tabs of Nirvana songs. He works his way up to Metallica, Alice in Chains. He eventually realizes his technique could use some improvement. He starts downloading Bach, Beethoven, etc., because they present more of a challenge. Eventually, he is playing complex works like Leyenda and Capricho Arabe.
Eventually, he notices there is something fundamentally different in the approach modern music takes from classical music. It "moves" differently. He starts to pay attention to the notes, chord changes, rhythms, and eventually decides that the IT career that he never really cared for just doesn't compete with the idea of learning and perhaps teaching music. He signs up for music theory at his local college. It turns out his technique is good, and he has a knack for music theory, he has perfect pitch, and has such a knack at piano that he has gone from barely being able to read a staff to playing Bach Preludes and Beethoven. All in all, a promising student. He has a 4.0 GPA and a letter of recommendation to one of the most prestigious music colleges in the US where he will study music theory.
Not so far fetched, that's me. I wouldn't be going for a masters in music theory (or composition, I haven't quite decided) had it not been for OLGA helping me learn that I have quite a knack for music to begin with. If I had to stick to public domain stuff, I probably would have given up. I simply didn't expect it to be anything but a hobby I did when I came home from programming all day. But OLGA got me started enough to realize that, for me at least, it was worth the investment.
Society benefits from the free and open spread of information. Copyright is just a means to that end: provide incentives for artists to continue creating. But IP is not Freedom of Speech or Habaeus Corpus - it is not a fundamental right. The DMCA hurts society, and I hope to God that somebody important pays attention to the fact that it is being used to shut down educational sites.
In fact, now that I think about it, nothing that was copyrighted after I was born will move into the public domain before I die of old age... That goes for me, you, my kids, anybody born within the past 20 years. Do you remember when it came out? Then you will never see it in the public domain. But no, apparently we need even tougher copyright controls, can't have people learning how to make the music that got you rich enough to buy the politicians who keep sponsoring idiotic legislation like the DMCA in the first place. Idiots./rant
A hard line on immigrants won't happen in the USA. The Democrats wouldn't think it's nice, and the Republicans are split between the social conservatives who want it and the monied folk who don't think it's in their best interest. Put a bit more cynically: Republicans want cheap labor, Democrats want cheap votes.
FTA:
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption... is primarily for the overseas markets. I'm a little confused. Am I to understand Metroid is not popular in Japan? I'm afraid I really don't understand what he meant by that... Did Metroid Prime flop in Japan? Do the Japanese not like FPS games or something? Or is their society that misogynist that a butt-kicking cyborg woman is taboo? Now that I think about it, though, most FPS games' credits are full of Americans... Is this sorta like how we never see Japanese dating sims over here, 'cause it's just, well, not something Americans want to play? I dunno. Kinda silly to ask, I guess, but all I know about Japan, I learned from Akira Kurosowa and Fred Gallagher (aka piro). Sorry, but it just boggles my mind that a game as good as Metroid Prime just wouldn't fly in Japan...
Agreed. As a beginning user I was completely baffled by all the dual boot howtos that tell you exactly the opposite. The only thing I can think of is that they wanted you to partition with Linux since the utilities typically are more effective (then and now) in managing to actually get all the disk space into a usable partition. I have never bothered to find out precisely WHY a partitioning tool has to leave several MB of free space on the drive but Linux partitioning tools typically leave about 3mb versus 30mb using windows tools.
Also agree. Not exactly brand new to Linux, but Ubuntu is just the first Linux distro nice enough that I actually decided to boot to it by default instead of Windows. "While I'm at it, I'll reinstall Ubuntu first, partion the disk the way I want..." Well, obviously you know the rest.:) Cheers.
NTLDR, the Windows bootloader Beware. When I installed XP after Ubuntu, NTLDR wiped Grub w/o so much as a warning. Getting Ubuntu reinstalled was a snap (much easier than XP, honestly), but I think for XP/Ubuntu combos, most users will want to install XP first.
The big problem with Linux distros is a lack of usable, pre-installed software and working drivers.
Wrong. Linux distros have far more drivers and preinstalled software than any flavor of windows and mac combined. In fact, it is exactly in the postinstalled market that windows (maybe mac, but I don't think so) stands stronger. Man, I am tired of *that* myth:)
I knew somebody would say that!:) Actually, I noticed Ubuntu actually did have better driver support than XP (and that's impressive). What I really meant was the combination of the two: drivers are no good w/o software to access the hardware, as in one, and only one (I'm looking at you, KDE), very simple GUI application associated with the hardware. Perfect example is EVDO/3G connectivity. I have a PC card whose drivers are correctly installed, but the basic PPP setup used by Gnome's Network Manager doesn't work (and there's no indication that you connect to the 3G network via PPP, either, you just sort of have to know that). I eventually got it working with a custom wvdial configuration file and adding a dialer link to my application menu, but that's the sort of hassle ordinary users won't want to go through, nevermind that you can't actually activate the card in Linux. Getting RoseGarden to work was even worse, to the point that I actually had to manually install two or three kernel modules, and a couple otherwise unnecessary (as in non-dependency, not even recommended) apts, including the lowlatency kernel. Yeah, I needed to install a whole new kernel to just audition a score. These are the sorts of inconveniences where people invoke their 30-day money-back guarantee. But with Dell behind it, perhaps they can eliminate these inconveniences. Anyway, I'm excited, because I really have been enjoying Feisty.
You haven't checked out the prices of Macs lately have you? Actually, come to think of it, no, because they've traditionally been so expensive. I suppose I ought to have taken a closer look when they -- I don't know -- moved to x86. Thanks for pointing that out. Cheers.
Someone... might like the idea of having all that done for them so they get a sqeaky-clean install that works out of the box?
We have a winner. This is why Windows and Macintosh have had commercial success in the desktop market while Linux flails: the computer works out of the box. And Windows wins out of the two because PCs are cheaper than Macs. The big problem with Linux distros is a lack of usable, pre-installed software and working drivers. Users have never liked or understood command lines.
You almost need a manufacturer to bother taking the time to put together a bundle where everything "just works" out of the box. If they can negotiate selling Ubuntu desktops/laptops without the Windows tax, you just might see a real shift in marketshare. The only thing missing is some form of Bootcamp: Linux Edition (UboontuCamp? nah...) so people can play their games.
Different story Same court case, though. A lot of the details were missing from the last story, but technically it is the same. I knew about this already but realized it was the comments from slashdotters who bothered to dig a little deeper and not the actual article summary or even the linked story. So I suppose you could say it's a different/. story about the same case. Either way, this is excellent news - can't hurt to post it twice.
"Ever wanted to rip all your DVDs to a big network server [...]" No, I want a butt-load of DVD jewel boxes occupying cabinet after cabinet in my living-room so they'll be convenient in the event I might want to watch one. This is much better than being stored in boxes in the basement, and streaming the content off a sever, also in the basement.
Well, this is slashdot. You would think accessing boxes or a server in the basement was as simple as rolling out of bed... <rimshot/>
Update: According to this post, I guess technically using GPOs uses administrative installs, too. I'm not the one handling the installs, so I stand corrected, but for a small (read, less-than-enterprise) environment, I still have to recommend the GPO route. Thanks to kcurtis for pointing that out further down.
You can configure and deploy Windows Installer packages in MSI format using Active Directory Group Policy Objects. We use them to enforce up-to-date SAV installations on all desktops in our domain, and plan to start rolling out more installs that way. Supposedly you can even use tools to bundle EXE serup programs in MSI files to deploy them through AD. Beats the heck out of administrative installs or VNC. Hope that helps. Cheers.
Maybe it's time for individuals and corporations to be held libel for what their computers spew. Got a botnet sending phishing emails from your business? Boom, big fine. Got an infected home machine sending out spam? Boom, a somewhat smaller fine.
That would be awful. When somebody gets shot with a stolen gun, you don't go after the person the gun was stolen from; you go after the person who actually did the shooting. Same thing - you need to go after the people causing the infections.
The infection rate in my company's machines is about 1/3rd the national average, but it's still as many as 50 infections a year. How much was that fine? Because I don't know that we could afford it. And of the infections I handle, most of them are by kiddiez running metasploit, not by users surfing porn.
Have you noticed that Altruism is the code that everyone wants everyone else to practice?
Don't think true altruism doesn't exist. Some people really do care about other people and acts of charity are purely for the sake of others. Altruism can even be observed in an MRI. Basically, nice people use a part of their brain that self-centered people don't. Article here, I think it even made it to the front page of Slashdot back in January.
Ok, I suppose you could consider Twilight Princess to have its pointing "bolted on," but after using the Wiimote for aiming, it's hard to go back to a plain old analog controller. Call of Duty is by far my favorite game series. After playing it on the Wii, forget analog controllers, I'm actually seriously considering never going back to keyboard / mouse.
When you use front row tickets to the latest concert, you don't collapse to the floor twitching as the music starts. A theory is only valid until a counterexample is provided, so here goes: Lollapalooza. Dallas, TX. 1997. Featuring Devo. QED.
Ahh, so one reminder seven thousand years ago in a document in an obscure language is sufficient notice when the fate of someones eternal soul is on the line? I think an almighty god could try a little bit harder if he really cared about his children.
And you're extension to the analogy doesn't make sense either since god doesn't pick up all the none believers after they die give them a stern talking to and drop them off at heaven, does he? Well, maybe he does but that isn't Christianity.
If you're not familiar with Raymond M. Smullyan, he's a mathematician and logician who has delved into philosophy. To give a small clue as to his credibility, he specialized in developing Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, having studying under Church. In other words, there are few people more credible than him when it comes to logic.
Well, he also wrote stories. One other them, entitled "Is God a Taoist?", is about a man who meets God and questions why God would give people free will and then hold them accountable for their actions, in very much the same vein as your line of line of reasoning. After a humorous dialog between the two, Smullyan concludes the only logical explanation is that God had no choice in the matter: a being who is both omnipotent & omniscient cannot possibly have free will. I recommend reading it in full, though. I found it in The Mind's I by Hofstadter and Dennett (yes, that Hofstadter and that Dennett), which has tons of other scientifically and/or logically compelling essays and stories on some pretty deep subject matter, so if you want to check out Smullyan's work, that's a really good place to start.
Well, I meant it as a joke, but then I did a little research...
[From OSTG Terms of Service] 9. TERMINATION
OSTG may terminate a user's account in OSTG's absolute discretion and for any reason. OSTG is especially likely to terminate for reasons that include, but are not limited to, the following: (1) violation of these Terms; (2) abuse of site resources or attempt to gain unauthorized entry to the site or site resources; (3) use of an OSTG Site in a manner inconsistent with the Purpose; (4) a user's request for such termination; (4) as required by law, regulation, court or governing agency order; or (5) for making cheeky remarks, failure to be pedantic in any and all discussions, and generally having any sort of sense of humor. Dang, busted. Well, it's been fun, everyone...
I think there's some kind of sub-motive here: to completely destroy the 'my dog at my homework' line. No homework == no doggie snack. Ahah! Animal cruelty, then! We've got 'em! Somebody call PETA!
Now, I wouldn't ordinarily expect this sort of tactic to work, but this is San Francisco we're talking about...
I'd be pulling my child out of that school with their "expections," not only due to their poor grammar, but also for their militant view on homework. Or maybe things have just changed a lot since I was in grade school. They have. We call it "spelling" now.:P
Immersion was awarded a ridiculous patent - vibration - which was found in many electronic devices already - pagers, cell phones, vibrators, and Nintendo's Rumble Pak.
As others have pointed out, the patent applies specifically to vibration in game controllers vibrate, so all those other devices you mention are right out. It also relates to a specific type of feedback that allows the rumble device to feel like it's being pushed/pulled in a specific direction, whereas other forms of vibration just sort of shake without going anywhere. Sony & MS used this technology, Nintendo didn't. Guess who pays the fees and who doesn't?
Rather than fight a patent that shouldn't have been granted at all, Microsoft decided to team up with the patent troll, for the purpose of hindering their competitor, much like they did with SCO and Linux. I suppose you support that as well.
In this case, this is more a problem with the legal system than it is with the patent system - sometimes it's just cheaper to settle. The fact that MS licensed the technology after the fact does not, however, imply that the patent is invalid. Only if MS challenged the patent and won would we have any reason to believe it's not valid. Patent reform doesn't just mean invalidating junk patents, it also means defending legitimate patents.
Sony recognized the patent was ludicrous and did the best they could at voiding the patent. Unfortunately they lost.
Then obviously the court didn't think the patent was so ridiculous after all. Bogus patents become a problem when it's cheaper to settle than it is to litigate, but if Sony fought it and lost, I think we should all agree that they lost fair and square.
Slashdot Mirror
Facts?! You are evil. ;)
I stand corrected. Cheers.
IMO music is withering, and it started right about the same time a guy named Sonny Bono sponsored legislation to extend copyright terms. Musicians with real talent can't be faked or manufactured. It takes years and years of study, practice, and dedication. Unless you control a society's access to music so much that you can convince the public that utter garbage deserves a gold little trophy called a Grammy, the best music flourishes because ... well, there's yet to be another Bach. With the way things are set up, it's just a system of controlling the public. "We manufacture it. You will buy it." Sorry, I probably better quit posting. This has me pretty upset. (P. S. I'm following in your footsteps in terms of teaching music, hoping to get a Masters, but it's hard work. Cheers.)
A young guy picks up a guitar and messes around with it. He can't play a thing, and isn't really interested in investing the time to take proper lessons. He discovers OLGA. He downloads a few simple tabs of Nirvana songs. He works his way up to Metallica, Alice in Chains. He eventually realizes his technique could use some improvement. He starts downloading Bach, Beethoven, etc., because they present more of a challenge. Eventually, he is playing complex works like Leyenda and Capricho Arabe.
Eventually, he notices there is something fundamentally different in the approach modern music takes from classical music. It "moves" differently. He starts to pay attention to the notes, chord changes, rhythms, and eventually decides that the IT career that he never really cared for just doesn't compete with the idea of learning and perhaps teaching music. He signs up for music theory at his local college. It turns out his technique is good, and he has a knack for music theory, he has perfect pitch, and has such a knack at piano that he has gone from barely being able to read a staff to playing Bach Preludes and Beethoven. All in all, a promising student. He has a 4.0 GPA and a letter of recommendation to one of the most prestigious music colleges in the US where he will study music theory.
Not so far fetched, that's me. I wouldn't be going for a masters in music theory (or composition, I haven't quite decided) had it not been for OLGA helping me learn that I have quite a knack for music to begin with. If I had to stick to public domain stuff, I probably would have given up. I simply didn't expect it to be anything but a hobby I did when I came home from programming all day. But OLGA got me started enough to realize that, for me at least, it was worth the investment.
Society benefits from the free and open spread of information. Copyright is just a means to that end: provide incentives for artists to continue creating. But IP is not Freedom of Speech or Habaeus Corpus - it is not a fundamental right. The DMCA hurts society, and I hope to God that somebody important pays attention to the fact that it is being used to shut down educational sites.
In fact, now that I think about it, nothing that was copyrighted after I was born will move into the public domain before I die of old age... That goes for me, you, my kids, anybody born within the past 20 years. Do you remember when it came out? Then you will never see it in the public domain. But no, apparently we need even tougher copyright controls, can't have people learning how to make the music that got you rich enough to buy the politicians who keep sponsoring idiotic legislation like the DMCA in the first place. Idiots.
Now I'm depressed...
Also agree. Not exactly brand new to Linux, but Ubuntu is just the first Linux distro nice enough that I actually decided to boot to it by default instead of Windows. "While I'm at it, I'll reinstall Ubuntu first, partion the disk the way I want..." Well, obviously you know the rest.
Wrong. Linux distros have far more drivers and preinstalled software than any flavor of windows and mac combined. In fact, it is exactly in the postinstalled market that windows (maybe mac, but I don't think so) stands stronger. Man, I am tired of *that* myth :)
I knew somebody would say that!We have a winner. This is why Windows and Macintosh have had commercial success in the desktop market while Linux flails: the computer works out of the box. And Windows wins out of the two because PCs are cheaper than Macs. The big problem with Linux distros is a lack of usable, pre-installed software and working drivers. Users have never liked or understood command lines.
You almost need a manufacturer to bother taking the time to put together a bundle where everything "just works" out of the box. If they can negotiate selling Ubuntu desktops/laptops without the Windows tax, you just might see a real shift in marketshare. The only thing missing is some form of Bootcamp: Linux Edition (UboontuCamp? nah...) so people can play their games.
Well, this is slashdot. You would think accessing boxes or a server in the basement was as simple as rolling out of bed... <rimshot />
Update: According to this post, I guess technically using GPOs uses administrative installs, too. I'm not the one handling the installs, so I stand corrected, but for a small (read, less-than-enterprise) environment, I still have to recommend the GPO route. Thanks to kcurtis for pointing that out further down.
You can configure and deploy Windows Installer packages in MSI format using Active Directory Group Policy Objects. We use them to enforce up-to-date SAV installations on all desktops in our domain, and plan to start rolling out more installs that way. Supposedly you can even use tools to bundle EXE serup programs in MSI files to deploy them through AD. Beats the heck out of administrative installs or VNC. Hope that helps. Cheers.
Slaughterhouse Five
Yeah, haha, Hemos, you almost had me! OMG PONIES!!!1!! Very clever April Fool's joke! And for the USPTO to be in on it... Wow. Best one yet!
That would be awful. When somebody gets shot with a stolen gun, you don't go after the person the gun was stolen from; you go after the person who actually did the shooting. Same thing - you need to go after the people causing the infections.
The infection rate in my company's machines is about 1/3rd the national average, but it's still as many as 50 infections a year. How much was that fine? Because I don't know that we could afford it. And of the infections I handle, most of them are by kiddiez running metasploit, not by users surfing porn.
Don't think true altruism doesn't exist. Some people really do care about other people and acts of charity are purely for the sake of others. Altruism can even be observed in an MRI. Basically, nice people use a part of their brain that self-centered people don't. Article here, I think it even made it to the front page of Slashdot back in January.
And you're extension to the analogy doesn't make sense either since god doesn't pick up all the none believers after they die give them a stern talking to and drop them off at heaven, does he? Well, maybe he does but that isn't Christianity.
If you're not familiar with Raymond M. Smullyan, he's a mathematician and logician who has delved into philosophy. To give a small clue as to his credibility, he specialized in developing Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, having studying under Church. In other words, there are few people more credible than him when it comes to logic.
Well, he also wrote stories. One other them, entitled "Is God a Taoist?", is about a man who meets God and questions why God would give people free will and then hold them accountable for their actions, in very much the same vein as your line of line of reasoning. After a humorous dialog between the two, Smullyan concludes the only logical explanation is that God had no choice in the matter: a being who is both omnipotent & omniscient cannot possibly have free will. I recommend reading it in full, though. I found it in The Mind's I by Hofstadter and Dennett (yes, that Hofstadter and that Dennett), which has tons of other scientifically and/or logically compelling essays and stories on some pretty deep subject matter, so if you want to check out Smullyan's work, that's a really good place to start.
Cheers.
9. TERMINATION
OSTG may terminate a user's account in OSTG's absolute discretion and for any reason. OSTG is especially likely to terminate for reasons that include, but are not limited to, the following: (1) violation of these Terms; (2) abuse of site resources or attempt to gain unauthorized entry to the site or site resources; (3) use of an OSTG Site in a manner inconsistent with the Purpose; (4) a user's request for such termination; (4) as required by law, regulation, court or governing agency order; or (5) for making cheeky remarks, failure to be pedantic in any and all discussions, and generally having any sort of sense of humor. Dang, busted. Well, it's been fun, everyone...
Now, I wouldn't ordinarily expect this sort of tactic to work, but this is San Francisco we're talking about...
Cheers.
As others have pointed out, the patent applies specifically to vibration in game controllers vibrate, so all those other devices you mention are right out. It also relates to a specific type of feedback that allows the rumble device to feel like it's being pushed/pulled in a specific direction, whereas other forms of vibration just sort of shake without going anywhere. Sony & MS used this technology, Nintendo didn't. Guess who pays the fees and who doesn't?
Rather than fight a patent that shouldn't have been granted at all, Microsoft decided to team up with the patent troll, for the purpose of hindering their competitor, much like they did with SCO and Linux. I suppose you support that as well.In this case, this is more a problem with the legal system than it is with the patent system - sometimes it's just cheaper to settle. The fact that MS licensed the technology after the fact does not, however, imply that the patent is invalid. Only if MS challenged the patent and won would we have any reason to believe it's not valid. Patent reform doesn't just mean invalidating junk patents, it also means defending legitimate patents.
Sony recognized the patent was ludicrous and did the best they could at voiding the patent. Unfortunately they lost.Then obviously the court didn't think the patent was so ridiculous after all. Bogus patents become a problem when it's cheaper to settle than it is to litigate, but if Sony fought it and lost, I think we should all agree that they lost fair and square.