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Comment Re:So... (Score 1) 65

From TFS:

There is too much emphasis throughout this book on how to fill out form fields that are fairly obvious, and yet the most important subject matter is oftentimes glossed over. For instance, the topic of conditional actions arguably deserves its own chapter, or at least an extended section — not one and a half pages up front, and then several paragraphs later. A few key e-commerce topics are absent. A glaring example of this is the lack of discussion of how to sell digital products in one's store, which nowadays is important enough to warrant its own chapter. Subscription services (typically with recurring payments) is another worthy topic completely skipped. These deficiencies may be due to the authors' focus on explaining the admin pages and settings found within the basic Ubercart modules, rather than a much more pragmatic approach of exploring the steps needed to reach a goal (e.g., selling downloadable files) regardless of what modules are utilized. Admittedly, Ubercart and all of its constituent modules comprise enough details and moving parts that could justify a book of greater length. Yet room could have been made for those details and advanced topics by spending less time describing (obvious) form fields. Lastly, if the authors had expected the reader to be able to follow their instructions throughout the book, they should have made it more clear as to which modules and options should be enabled at each step.

Books can provide a good overview of a topic, but it seems as if this particular book is somewhat lacking in that regard, preferring to explain the obvious. Also, the preceding paragraph implies that the book is poorly written and/or edited. Hence my question: Why prefer this to free tutorials and wikis?

Comment So... (Score 2, Insightful) 65

Its a poorly written tutorial in book form? I don't understand these things. Who buys them? Why don't they use free badly written tutorials from the internet? Is there a lack of organization for these things online? It seems hard to imagine that the market for this kind of thing could be maintained when there are up-to-date wikis out there.

Comment Damages? (Score 5, Insightful) 339

If the 'innocent infringer' defense doesn't fly, how about awarding full damages? $0.99 cents per song seems reasonable. If she left bittorent running till the share ratio hit 2.0, maybe she should even pay &1.98 per song. Thats like 70 bucks, or three albums. The price is steep, but she did "steal" the songs. The RIAA deserves to be fairly compensated for their losses.

Comment Sudden Outbreak of Common Sense (Score 5, Interesting) 175

As others have explained above, this judgment isn't so much a precedent as it is a judge saying that the argument *might* work. However- it shows remarkable reasonableness on the part of the judge. After all, if I put a fruit bowl on a table with a note that said "Take one and have a nice day!", I could hardly turn around and sue you for banana-theft.

Comment Re:Why not just merge with Fedora or Ubuntu (Score 2, Interesting) 206

There is always the question: Diversify or focus? However, we do not need redundant diversity. Basically, in order to decide if it is worth keeping a separate distro, we should determine if Mandriva had any goals that were unique. If not, by all means merge. However, if there is something unique about Mandriva (I haven't used it, I have no idea), than some effort should be made to preserve those unique goals. I am guessing that the people who are forking the project feel that it is worth keeping Mandriva alive as a separate project.

Comment Investigative Journalism? (Score 4, Insightful) 156

If news is always a resource, and we expect to get it for free now that the distribution method is relatively free, how will we, as a community, pay for investigative journalism? Surely we can agree that news is significantly more valuable when there is someone who makes the effort to dig it up rather than waiting for it to land on their desks. I am willing to allow all the news about Brad and Angelina to be left to bloggers who just do it for kicks, but what about covered up scandals and government conspiracies (ie- NSA Wiretapping Program, Secret CIA Prisons, Torture)? I would really rather have some competing news outlets paying people to investigate things like that.

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