Until they fix the "give me a good reason to buy it" hole, their vision of a world of perfect DRM won't be quite as wonderfully lucrative as they imagine it to be. To date, I've neither purchased nor pirated any Blu-Ray media. This measure doesn't change that situation one bit. Won't pirate it, won't buy it. Hope that fortune you spent on DRM was worth it.
Both of your comments (bigstrat2003 and er, Anonymous Coward) would be much more interesting if you explained *why* you thought it was one of the best or worst movies you've ever seen.
By the same token, the absence of a moustachioed villain stroking his goatee and delivering a monolog about his plans for world conquest followed by booming out a "BWAHAHAHA!" doesn't mean something isn't evil, or not motivated by evil intent. Just because you aren't bothered by something does not make it not evil. That's the difference between how adults and insightful adults view the world.*
*(and the wise insist on a meaningful definition of 'evil' before engaging in debate. No point in arguing about something if nobody is talking about the same thing.)
We have one. It's called "the rest of the technology world". Build yourself an HTPC (or other TV-attached computing device) and do anything you want (within the limits of the device). Yeah, you can't (easily) play proprietary games, but otherwise it's yours, and does just about anything that PS3 Linux can.
And that landline and old modem is being connected to what? Any how many job search sites really work that well over dial up?
More than work over nothing. And moreover, you're not taking into account services like the local library or state-provided services (that's the U.S. version of state, not the generic term for government) that include *free* access to the internet.
And it is you who seems to be out of touch with how much it actually does cost to have a landline and even dial up internet access. It's not as cheap as you think.
Oh? Really? I have a landline. I'm telling you it's much cheaper in the New England region of the U.S. than the cable-provided internet access I also subscribe to, and quite a bit cheaper than my monthly Verizon Droid bill (I have that too).
I'm not out of touch, dude. I get bills for each of these services every single month. I have actual data available to me (spanning years) to make a comparison, not just personal anecdotes. On the basis of cost, a landline plus modem would kick the shit out of the typical mobile provider, hands down. DSL, if available, would provide better bandwidth than modem, and would still be cheaper than wireless plans.
I'm telling you, "4G for everyone" won't work unless the costs come way, way down.
You're either not familiar with smartphones and the costs associated with internet access (here's a clue - that landline you propose people replace with a smartphone is mucn MUCH cheaper than the wireless data plan) or you are one of the middle-class employed people that doesn't really understand how expensive this stuff actually is, and how unaffordable for the poor. If you do the math, you might find that a landline + an old modem (remember those?) is still more cost effective for internet access. Yeah, you don't get to stream 1080p video over a modem, but the expensive smartphone data plan can barely manage that either. You'd still be able to access essential services, though (if they haven't succumbed to bandwidth-consuming web 2.0 b.s.)
Your experience in India may be relevant, but you probably missed the part where the goatherders weren't being bent over a barrel by domestic telecoms to satisfy "maximizing shareholder value". I bet their costs were a fraction of what they would be in the U.S. In other words, your experience in foreign lands was largely irrelevant to the reality that people have to face in the country that the original post was referring to.
Please spend a few minutes studying California geography using an online map. Hollywood is about 500 km from silicon valley. That's like all of Europe, which makes all the difference in the world.
I've probably been on the web much longer than you, Sweetheart. I think the days when small startups offer things for free is coming to an end. The time to choose who you want to support with your payments is coming fast. Don't confuse the web of your youth with the web of the future. I have not, and I haven't been wrong so far.
All you folks who ditched the eeeevil "traditional" services that wanted payment because stuff on the internet was free: this is your wake-up call. Now that you've had a taste of their wares, it's time to pay up if you want the good stuff.
It wasn't going to be free forever, so you need to start thinking about which businesses you want to support, because the big media conglomerates are about to roll over the web like the juggernauts they are.
What happened is you are leaving the wool over your eyes. Gitmo was not "set up outside U.S. soil to avoid the law". The laws of the U.S. do not end at US borders, and even if they did Guantanamo Bay is a US Military base, which legally counts as US soil. So the Gitmo prison is on U.S. soil.
Whose eyes is the wool being pulled over? A prison set up on an island removed from the mainland with a government declared hostile to the U.S. and to which no U. S. citizen can travel except under government prescribed restrictions? A part of U.S. soil where *only* military law has jurisdiction, not the laws of the United States? A place where apparently the U.S. legal system has *no* jurisdiction despite the fact that it is nominally, as you say, U. S. soil. So, in effect, a place that nobody who might question what's going on there can travel to as a citizen?
Are you serious? You don't see the loopholes? Really?
Nah. That's too cliche. I've known enough people personally who actually *step up and try to make things better* - and fail to make everything better - to know that it's damned hard to change everything. If you really think that it's possible to promise massive political change and then actually make every promise come true (and anyone who doesn't is a devious snake), you're a deluded fool. The best that anyone can do, even at the level of POTUS, is to nudge things one way or the other and hope that some of it takes.
If you think you can do better, then by all means step up and give it a go.
Agreed. The obvious answer is that there is some massive resistance from within the government bureaucracy that is making it a difficult task. Or he learned something after taking office and getting "commander-in-chief" security clearance that changed his mind. I'm inclined to think that it's just the former.
I'd say that the existence of the Guantanamo Bay facility (set up outside U.S. soil to avoid the law) and the fact that people can arbitrarily be sent there to rot for years without trial speaks volumes about the current commitment of the United States Government to the ideals on which it was founded. In my youth the place to be feared was the Soviet Gulag. Now people fear Guantanamo Bay. I weep for what the government that represents this country has become, and am sad that my father (Vietnam vet) and his father (WW2 vet and survivor of the Bataan Death March) fought in vain for a government that has no respect for the ideas that brought it into existence. What the hell happened?
I'm guessing that technologies used in the past to accomplish feats that are difficult to replicate in modern times would be a fruitful area to find examples. Sadly, identifying the tool itself would not be possible since they are "lost". Examples that come to mind: tools used to build the pyramids.
This probably isn't what TFA really is after, though.
That Amazon does not represent the entire book market - they sell to a subset of customers that don't mind getting their books online. The fact that a significant portion of those customers are equally happy with ebooks isn't exactly a revelation. There are still a lot of people out there who prefer to buy real books, whether or not the big bookstores are catering to them.
No, not really. "Shit happened" is about all that history really shows us. With the correct set of selected examples, it could probably also show us that things stall and stagnate so something else can provide the next large wave of advances.
So wait. Your answer to "very expensive general purpose machine" is "design many slightly less expensive single purpose machines"? Your "factor of hundred" performance improvement will likely be overshadowed by the "factor of thousand" increase in economic cost.
Provide believable numbers or your argument is bullshit. You may be right, but your style of discourse requires concrete evidence to be at all convincing.
That's just the cost of innovation. Things are moving fast because there is a lot of fast moving that needs to be done to adapt to the changing market or just make things better. Deal with it. Once the the smartphone/portable_mobile_communications_computing_device space has stabilized, so will Android (and then you'll be bored with it and go chasing after the next shiny thing). Until then, don't be disturbed if "release early, release often" happens - that's how open source is done.
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Until they fix the "give me a good reason to buy it" hole, their vision of a world of perfect DRM won't be quite as wonderfully lucrative as they imagine it to be. To date, I've neither purchased nor pirated any Blu-Ray media. This measure doesn't change that situation one bit. Won't pirate it, won't buy it. Hope that fortune you spent on DRM was worth it.
Both of your comments (bigstrat2003 and er, Anonymous Coward) would be much more interesting if you explained *why* you thought it was one of the best or worst movies you've ever seen.
By the same token, the absence of a moustachioed villain stroking his goatee and delivering a monolog about his plans for world conquest followed by booming out a "BWAHAHAHA!" doesn't mean something isn't evil, or not motivated by evil intent. Just because you aren't bothered by something does not make it not evil. That's the difference between how adults and insightful adults view the world.*
*(and the wise insist on a meaningful definition of 'evil' before engaging in debate. No point in arguing about something if nobody is talking about the same thing.)
We need another player here ....
We have one. It's called "the rest of the technology world". Build yourself an HTPC (or other TV-attached computing device) and do anything you want (within the limits of the device). Yeah, you can't (easily) play proprietary games, but otherwise it's yours, and does just about anything that PS3 Linux can.
Good. You begin to suspect the presence of the man behind the curtain. Clever boy.
And that landline and old modem is being connected to what? Any how many job search sites really work that well over dial up?
More than work over nothing. And moreover, you're not taking into account services like the local library or state-provided services (that's the U.S. version of state, not the generic term for government) that include *free* access to the internet.
And it is you who seems to be out of touch with how much it actually does cost to have a landline and even dial up internet access. It's not as cheap as you think.
Oh? Really? I have a landline. I'm telling you it's much cheaper in the New England region of the U.S. than the cable-provided internet access I also subscribe to, and quite a bit cheaper than my monthly Verizon Droid bill (I have that too).
I'm not out of touch, dude. I get bills for each of these services every single month. I have actual data available to me (spanning years) to make a comparison, not just personal anecdotes. On the basis of cost, a landline plus modem would kick the shit out of the typical mobile provider, hands down. DSL, if available, would provide better bandwidth than modem, and would still be cheaper than wireless plans.
I'm telling you, "4G for everyone" won't work unless the costs come way, way down.
You're either not familiar with smartphones and the costs associated with internet access (here's a clue - that landline you propose people replace with a smartphone is mucn MUCH cheaper than the wireless data plan) or you are one of the middle-class employed people that doesn't really understand how expensive this stuff actually is, and how unaffordable for the poor. If you do the math, you might find that a landline + an old modem (remember those?) is still more cost effective for internet access. Yeah, you don't get to stream 1080p video over a modem, but the expensive smartphone data plan can barely manage that either. You'd still be able to access essential services, though (if they haven't succumbed to bandwidth-consuming web 2.0 b.s.)
Your experience in India may be relevant, but you probably missed the part where the goatherders weren't being bent over a barrel by domestic telecoms to satisfy "maximizing shareholder value". I bet their costs were a fraction of what they would be in the U.S. In other words, your experience in foreign lands was largely irrelevant to the reality that people have to face in the country that the original post was referring to.
Please spend a few minutes studying California geography using an online map. Hollywood is about 500 km from silicon valley. That's like all of Europe, which makes all the difference in the world.
I've probably been on the web much longer than you, Sweetheart. I think the days when small startups offer things for free is coming to an end. The time to choose who you want to support with your payments is coming fast. Don't confuse the web of your youth with the web of the future. I have not, and I haven't been wrong so far.
sheesh. Wanting compensation for your efforts does not imply the devil is involved. Get a grip.
... that's the chickens coming home to roost.
All you folks who ditched the eeeevil "traditional" services that wanted payment because stuff on the internet was free: this is your wake-up call. Now that you've had a taste of their wares, it's time to pay up if you want the good stuff.
It wasn't going to be free forever, so you need to start thinking about which businesses you want to support, because the big media conglomerates are about to roll over the web like the juggernauts they are.
I think people understand the nature of war quite well. That's why they are concerned.
Oh, and yours too.
My iPhone turned FML into XML. Anyone who doubts the iPhone's nerd cred can go to hell.
Guess I'm going to hell, then, because I seriously doubt the iPhone's nerd cred.
What happened is you are leaving the wool over your eyes. Gitmo was not "set up outside U.S. soil to avoid the law". The laws of the U.S. do not end at US borders, and even if they did Guantanamo Bay is a US Military base, which legally counts as US soil. So the Gitmo prison is on U.S. soil.
Whose eyes is the wool being pulled over? A prison set up on an island removed from the mainland with a government declared hostile to the U.S. and to which no U. S. citizen can travel except under government prescribed restrictions? A part of U.S. soil where *only* military law has jurisdiction, not the laws of the United States? A place where apparently the U.S. legal system has *no* jurisdiction despite the fact that it is nominally, as you say, U. S. soil. So, in effect, a place that nobody who might question what's going on there can travel to as a citizen?
Are you serious? You don't see the loopholes? Really?
Nah. That's too cliche. I've known enough people personally who actually *step up and try to make things better* - and fail to make everything better - to know that it's damned hard to change everything. If you really think that it's possible to promise massive political change and then actually make every promise come true (and anyone who doesn't is a devious snake), you're a deluded fool. The best that anyone can do, even at the level of POTUS, is to nudge things one way or the other and hope that some of it takes.
If you think you can do better, then by all means step up and give it a go.
Agreed. The obvious answer is that there is some massive resistance from within the government bureaucracy that is making it a difficult task. Or he learned something after taking office and getting "commander-in-chief" security clearance that changed his mind. I'm inclined to think that it's just the former.
I'd say that the existence of the Guantanamo Bay facility (set up outside U.S. soil to avoid the law) and the fact that people can arbitrarily be sent there to rot for years without trial speaks volumes about the current commitment of the United States Government to the ideals on which it was founded. In my youth the place to be feared was the Soviet Gulag. Now people fear Guantanamo Bay. I weep for what the government that represents this country has become, and am sad that my father (Vietnam vet) and his father (WW2 vet and survivor of the Bataan Death March) fought in vain for a government that has no respect for the ideas that brought it into existence. What the hell happened?
At something like $1000/unit, I bet these people would be singing a different tune.
I'm guessing that technologies used in the past to accomplish feats that are difficult to replicate in modern times would be a fruitful area to find examples. Sadly, identifying the tool itself would not be possible since they are "lost". Examples that come to mind: tools used to build the pyramids.
This probably isn't what TFA really is after, though.
That Amazon does not represent the entire book market - they sell to a subset of customers that don't mind getting their books online. The fact that a significant portion of those customers are equally happy with ebooks isn't exactly a revelation. There are still a lot of people out there who prefer to buy real books, whether or not the big bookstores are catering to them.
It's a common enough name for those of germanic origin. It means "Farmer".
Your joke falls flat, because reality is much more mundane than fiction.
No, not really. "Shit happened" is about all that history really shows us. With the correct set of selected examples, it could probably also show us that things stall and stagnate so something else can provide the next large wave of advances.
So wait. Your answer to "very expensive general purpose machine" is "design many slightly less expensive single purpose machines"? Your "factor of hundred" performance improvement will likely be overshadowed by the "factor of thousand" increase in economic cost.
Provide believable numbers or your argument is bullshit. You may be right, but your style of discourse requires concrete evidence to be at all convincing.
That's just the cost of innovation. Things are moving fast because there is a lot of fast moving that needs to be done to adapt to the changing market or just make things better. Deal with it. Once the the smartphone/portable_mobile_communications_computing_device space has stabilized, so will Android (and then you'll be bored with it and go chasing after the next shiny thing). Until then, don't be disturbed if "release early, release often" happens - that's how open source is done.