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Comment Re:Don't worry (Score 1) 287

Some people, like myself, are actually forced into using it because so many friends & coworkers use facebook exclusively for communication. (So fucking sad, I know) I'd love to delete my profile, and move to the 'next facebook', which will hopefully have more discretion than this one. As a result of these changes I've stripped my profile down to the bare minimum. They get my name, my email addy, and my current city. Nothing else. I just resent the fact that facebook keeps opting me into crap automatically, resetting privacy values to 'share everything' every time they make a change, and then completely obfuscate the procedure to make everything private again.

Comment Re:And So Al Amrikee Invokes The Streisand Effect? (Score 1) 1131

Not really. Pardon the rip from wikipedia, but..

A day before Coulter's speech at the University of Western Ontario, an e-mail to Coulter from Francois Houle, provost of the University of Ottawa, was leaked to the media. The e-mail warned that "promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges." Coulter released a public statement claiming that by sending her the e-mail, Houle was promoting hatred against conservatives.

Wouldn't the more logical interpretation of the email be simply to inform her of the law? I mean, she's not really known for making statements in the past that could be considered in violation of our laws, is she? And how did her speech go at Western again? She told a muslim student to 'take a camel' instead of an airplane? I think she just had the wrong venue, an institute of higher learning just isn't the place for her. We have Holiday Inn.

Comment Re:My only question is... (Score 1) 443

Would I be able to copy mp3s to a thumb drive and play them from my car deck like I currently can? I haven't checked the android app store for a spotify client, but switching to win mobile just isn't an option. Running a client through wine on a netbook, while almost certainly possible on a 'lesser' machine, isn't ideal compared to something like xmms. Would amarok be able to read them? Ipod issues?

All of the above are just a few of the things I can currently do with my music collection, and any drm-related scheme that will either take away or complicate what I can currently do will simply never be an acceptable alternative. Drm has to add some functionality or some other value to it in order for me to get behind it.

Comment Re:It's the freeloaders time (Score 1) 1051

Not trolling, but I have a much different take on this. While under the current 'model' of the internet, yes it does cost money to create content, I don't believe that if there were no advertising revenue to be had the internet would cease to exist. People would still create content, as they do now, of varying quality, and given that the original purpose of the internet was to share information, I believe that content would still be distributed. Now, you'd have an argument that the internet as we know it now likely wouldn't have grown as quickly or widely as it has without the support of advertisers, but I think it would still contain much of the same mix of quality and trash content. We'd just have the problem of sorting through all the crap without google...

Comment Re:Alot of free anti-virus options (Score 2, Insightful) 577

It sort of boggled my mind to see how many people didn't have a basic understanding of their system.

Keeping in mind this is slashdot, come on, a basic understanding of their system? Most people drive cars every day, but have little clue of what actually makes the car go. And most simply don't care. If it breaks, they take it to a mechanic, and they do the same with computers. (Personally I pity anyone who's worked in a computer repair shop, your heads must hurt awfully bad when you hear someone say "my internet is broken.")
When it comes to computers:

People will always punch the monkey.
People will always install the 'free' toolbar.
People will always download executable attachments.
People will always pick one of the 'top 10 easily guessed' passwords
People will always $STUPID_MOVE_HERE.

I think we are technologically-informed than we were 10 years ago, just not any wiser in the actual use of it.

Comment Re:Son of WGA (Score 1) 819

I don't think you're trolling, because many of the things you mention are true, but I personally haven't met anyone who's installed a fresh copy of windows, rebooted and had everything 'just work.' There's always some litany of things to tweak and set up after an install no matter which OS you happen to favor. As for linux, if you use stuff like Ubuntu or any of the other user-friendly distros, a 'sudo apt-get (whatever)' is usually enough to fix many issues without much additional configuration. You have a point with gaming on linux, there isn't much out there, aside from whatever you can get running with wine. I gave up gaming on linux a while ago, and go for console gaming nowadays. Simpler than anything which may involve messing around with drivers.

I think the 'average user' has changed, though. Just using facebook, twitter, and all the other social networking crap has to have some positive effect as to their technological knowledge. Not to mention all the other assorted technological crap we all get exposed to. Smartphones, etc. I just think the 'average joe/jane' understands more now than they did even a couple of years ago, if my 70-year-old mother's recent questions regarding an iphone is any indication.

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