That said, Gizmodo, by disassembling the phone, broke the law regarding misappropriation of found property and they showed themselves as classless and unethical....
Classless, maybe (because it certainly isn't nice), but hardly unethical. It's also hard to root against someone who hurts Apple in any way, considering Apple's routine efforts to be the biggest pricks in the technology business. No one really cares when someone publicly embarrasses the school bully.
The fact that he is listed on the patent tells me that Jobs has a great deal of hubris and wants to have his name on things, not that he actually is inventing them. Do you seriously expect me to believe that he has anything to do with product development beyond generic ideas ("Hey, let's make a phone"), and testing the prototypes out ("I like this, I don't like that, fix it")?
Better still, let's stop pretending Jobs actually invents the things Apple makes. Jobs is an excellent salesman, but he doesn't make the products, the engineers do.
Sorry, I misunderstood you then. You are entirely correct that no matter where you come down on the issue of copyright infringement, it's not something that the ethics board would mess with.
If an artist chooses to attempt to earn their living by selling small shares of their work (our current system), rather than all at once (commissions), they are dependent upon people upholding the integrity of that system. When you grab a copy of someone's music (for example), and refuse to pay for it, it is much as if you forced someone to build you a chair without compensation. You are reaping the benefits of their labor without them having been compensated.
Not all cases of not paying to enjoy someone's music fall into that (for example, you might be in a bar that plays music, but not have paid), but those are generally a case where someone else has compensated the artist for you, so you owe them nothing additionally. There is also a significant difference between temporarily benefiting on someone else's dime, as opposed to having your own copy so that you benefit all the time, whenever you want.
In essence, if buying someone's music is x% of paying for the whole work, file sharing is x% of forcing them to write music without compensation. That's what makes it unethical, although not something I'd really think is something in the purview of a school's ethics board. That's more for ethics in the classroom.
Artists don't have a right to be successful, of course, but all that they ask with the current system is that you have the decency to not take a copy if you aren't compensating them for their work. Even if it weren't unethical, it would still be a dick move.
Not necessarily. Not having met someone can simply mean that the proper circumstances haven't occurred (you haven't had a mutual friend, or been brought together by circumstance otherwise).
I guess you're correct that most people would see it that way, but then again, they're wrong.
I wouldn't say jail is merited, but yeah, what I did was wrong. On the other hand, now that I have the means, I buy good movies/games/music. It was simply that at the time, I was broke (as is pretty much any college student), so I couldn't buy these things the way I wanted to (and yes, I did want to).
None of this changes the fact that it was a lot of fun, though.
At my school, we just used SMB shares. This article reminds me of the time we were discussing the possibility of building a machine to replace that of a graduating senior, just so the location of his massive Simpsons collection wouldn't change. I also remember very fondly when I heard in conversation that my machine was down over the weekend - from a person I had never met before, and who didn't know when he mentioned it that he was talking about my machine.. When your computer is known by people before you yourself are, that's an achievement.:)
So really, all this article has accomplished is to fill my Sunday afternoon with waves of happy nostalgia. Was I supposed to be shocked and outraged?
You're living in the wrong area. You could argue that it's more that the GP (and I) live in the right area, because it's not the norm, but I would also pay $8 or $9 for an evening showing at a movie. It's like $6 or so for a matinee.
I'm torn, because while I don't really have the nerves to stomach another episode with those terrifying bastards... the episode is going to have River Song, so it'll have important story material (and it's a two-parter, as well:/).
Honestly, that's my least favorite thing about having Steven Moffat write the show... he always wrote the really scary episodes, and I have no stomach for that sort of thing.
So, since my parents elected to home-school my siblings and I, does that mean I should get a break on my taxes (since there's no cost for me to pay back, except to my parents)?
That idea appeals to me, but somehow I doubt it would appeal to the IRS.;)
This generation, Nintendo clawed its way back to the top with the Wii, with the Xbox 360 hot on its tail... Sony didn't fair so well this time around... but that could (theoretically) still turn around, as the PS3 Slim (with its price cut) has doubled PS3 sales, or so Sony said just recently.
I imagine that when the dust settles on the current generation of consoles, Sony will still be in third place, but it won't be a horrible showing, as it was turning out to be at first. The PS3 gets a lot more respect than it used to, but a lot of people simply aren't willing to buy multiple consoles, and chose the 360 a long time ago back when the PS3 was priced astronomically.
Bill Gates also predicted in the early '00s that in 5-6 years everyone would have a tablet PC.
On the other hand, it's entirely possible that now, 10 years later, everyone will have a tablet PC. I think the iPad is a shitty, shitty product... but I also know that Steve Jobs' true (only) genius is as a salesman, and if anyone can make it happen he can.
It's cheaper just to buy a console every few years than it is to upgrade my PC with every new software release.
That's not particularly true, unless you're buying very far ahead into the technology curve. A new console (at the release) will cost you $300 or $400 (The good version of the 360 was $400, as I recall), and an occasional upgrade to your PC will run you about the same. And when you're in between upgrades, you'll be able to run all the games you want just fine. It's not like every game is an order of magnitude more demanding than the last.
Profit is inheritly evil by definition. You have charged someone more for a good or service then it is actually worth. You can easily run a not-for-profit company or even a non-profit company. Net Profit is inheritly evil by the definition of charging someone more then something is worth.
This is simply false. Profit is being paid for something more than what you paid for it, true, but it isn't simply arbitrary. It is to compensate you for the effort you expended to help that product reach the hands of the person receiving it (whether that involved crafting materials into a finished product, or transporting a truck full of widgets across the country). You are merely being compensated for your expenditure of time and energy, not gouging someone.
I'm not married and don't have kids, but no one would argue that you need to have those to have a life, of course. Everything else on your list can be ignored temporarily or scheduled. I get together with my friends (when I can, as most of them have moved out of town), but that's something I schedule an entire evening for. I visit relatives, or have them visit, but I set aside all day for such a thing. I can exercise whenever I want, so it can't "interrupt" my gaming. I have all month to pay bills, so there's no need to drop what I'm doing to pay them as soon as they come in... etc, etc.
The only components of "having a life" I can think of that can instantly demand your immediate attention (and thus can interrupt your gaming) are people living in the house with you (so, pretty much wife/kids). You may do the other things that comprise "a life", but none of them would cause you to say "I can't play multiplayer games because I need to be able to quit at a moment's notice."
Look, the AC was obviously just trolling you, but it is kind of unfair to imply that not having interruptions is "not having a life". I have a good life, thank you very much, and I have tons of free time to spend as I see fit. If I'm doing something that's not gaming, I generally spend the whole evening doing it... I don't have sporadic interruptions in my gaming.
Not that I took it personally, I just think that there's a large perception that "having large blocks of time you can devote to gaming [or whatever else]" equates to not having a life, which simply isn't true, and it needs to be shown to be false whenever possible.
Really, I'm not opposed to new things, and some of the recurring villains, while interesting enough, could go away for a long while and I wouldn't miss them. However, the Daleks are a necessity imo. I love those guys too much to see them ever leave.
You must not have been watching Doctor Who, because I for one thought that Davies' writing was excellent (most of the time). Moffat's was excellent too (although I hope to God he eases up on the horror episodes), but Davies more than held his own.
Honestly, I don't care what deus ex machina is required to bring the Time Lords back. I really wanted to see them again, and was kind of irritated that Russell T Davies wrote them as "The Time War turned them all evil", and then sealed them away "forever". I'd like to see the Time Lords as an actual civilization again, not something remembered in whispers.
It's not just the Time Lords, though. As much as I loved RTD's writing for the series, he had the idiotic tendency to keep committing genocide towards the recurring villains. You know you're not going to leave them "all dead", so please stop pretending like you killed them once and for all. The tricks that you need to use to bring them back get less believable every time. As a result, I accept that Stephen Moffat is going to have to do some epic hand-waving for basically every recurring villain he wants to bring back, but hopefully after that he'll have the sense to not "kill them off" every time, and we can get past it.
Honestly, I never see anything creepy about what people call the "uncanny valley". It just looks not-quite-real, there isn't some magical point of "oooh, that's so weird".
Slashdot Mirror
Duh, Assassin's Creed tells us that the Templars are still alive and well. ;)
With a crowbar in one hand and his dick in the other...
So that's why you're limited to the first-person view.
That said, Gizmodo, by disassembling the phone, broke the law regarding misappropriation of found property and they showed themselves as classless and unethical....
Classless, maybe (because it certainly isn't nice), but hardly unethical. It's also hard to root against someone who hurts Apple in any way, considering Apple's routine efforts to be the biggest pricks in the technology business. No one really cares when someone publicly embarrasses the school bully.
The fact that he is listed on the patent tells me that Jobs has a great deal of hubris and wants to have his name on things, not that he actually is inventing them. Do you seriously expect me to believe that he has anything to do with product development beyond generic ideas ("Hey, let's make a phone"), and testing the prototypes out ("I like this, I don't like that, fix it")?
Better still, let's stop pretending Jobs actually invents the things Apple makes. Jobs is an excellent salesman, but he doesn't make the products, the engineers do.
War certainly can be artful.
Sorry, I misunderstood you then. You are entirely correct that no matter where you come down on the issue of copyright infringement, it's not something that the ethics board would mess with.
Why would file sharing be an ethics violation?
If an artist chooses to attempt to earn their living by selling small shares of their work (our current system), rather than all at once (commissions), they are dependent upon people upholding the integrity of that system. When you grab a copy of someone's music (for example), and refuse to pay for it, it is much as if you forced someone to build you a chair without compensation. You are reaping the benefits of their labor without them having been compensated.
Not all cases of not paying to enjoy someone's music fall into that (for example, you might be in a bar that plays music, but not have paid), but those are generally a case where someone else has compensated the artist for you, so you owe them nothing additionally. There is also a significant difference between temporarily benefiting on someone else's dime, as opposed to having your own copy so that you benefit all the time, whenever you want.
In essence, if buying someone's music is x% of paying for the whole work, file sharing is x% of forcing them to write music without compensation. That's what makes it unethical, although not something I'd really think is something in the purview of a school's ethics board. That's more for ethics in the classroom.
Artists don't have a right to be successful, of course, but all that they ask with the current system is that you have the decency to not take a copy if you aren't compensating them for their work. Even if it weren't unethical, it would still be a dick move.
Not necessarily. Not having met someone can simply mean that the proper circumstances haven't occurred (you haven't had a mutual friend, or been brought together by circumstance otherwise).
I guess you're correct that most people would see it that way, but then again, they're wrong.
I wouldn't say jail is merited, but yeah, what I did was wrong. On the other hand, now that I have the means, I buy good movies/games/music. It was simply that at the time, I was broke (as is pretty much any college student), so I couldn't buy these things the way I wanted to (and yes, I did want to).
None of this changes the fact that it was a lot of fun, though.
At my school, we just used SMB shares. This article reminds me of the time we were discussing the possibility of building a machine to replace that of a graduating senior, just so the location of his massive Simpsons collection wouldn't change. I also remember very fondly when I heard in conversation that my machine was down over the weekend - from a person I had never met before, and who didn't know when he mentioned it that he was talking about my machine.. When your computer is known by people before you yourself are, that's an achievement. :)
So really, all this article has accomplished is to fill my Sunday afternoon with waves of happy nostalgia. Was I supposed to be shocked and outraged?
You're living in the wrong area. You could argue that it's more that the GP (and I) live in the right area, because it's not the norm, but I would also pay $8 or $9 for an evening showing at a movie. It's like $6 or so for a matinee.
I'm torn, because while I don't really have the nerves to stomach another episode with those terrifying bastards... the episode is going to have River Song, so it'll have important story material (and it's a two-parter, as well :/).
Honestly, that's my least favorite thing about having Steven Moffat write the show... he always wrote the really scary episodes, and I have no stomach for that sort of thing.
So, since my parents elected to home-school my siblings and I, does that mean I should get a break on my taxes (since there's no cost for me to pay back, except to my parents)?
That idea appeals to me, but somehow I doubt it would appeal to the IRS. ;)
Hmm...
currency = work ethic
fiat * currency = fiat * (work ethic)
;)
This generation, Nintendo clawed its way back to the top with the Wii, with the Xbox 360 hot on its tail... Sony didn't fair so well this time around... but that could (theoretically) still turn around, as the PS3 Slim (with its price cut) has doubled PS3 sales, or so Sony said just recently.
I imagine that when the dust settles on the current generation of consoles, Sony will still be in third place, but it won't be a horrible showing, as it was turning out to be at first. The PS3 gets a lot more respect than it used to, but a lot of people simply aren't willing to buy multiple consoles, and chose the 360 a long time ago back when the PS3 was priced astronomically.
Bill Gates also predicted in the early '00s that in 5-6 years everyone would have a tablet PC.
On the other hand, it's entirely possible that now, 10 years later, everyone will have a tablet PC. I think the iPad is a shitty, shitty product... but I also know that Steve Jobs' true (only) genius is as a salesman, and if anyone can make it happen he can.
It's cheaper just to buy a console every few years than it is to upgrade my PC with every new software release.
That's not particularly true, unless you're buying very far ahead into the technology curve. A new console (at the release) will cost you $300 or $400 (The good version of the 360 was $400, as I recall), and an occasional upgrade to your PC will run you about the same. And when you're in between upgrades, you'll be able to run all the games you want just fine. It's not like every game is an order of magnitude more demanding than the last.
Profit is inheritly evil by definition. You have charged someone more for a good or service then it is actually worth. You can easily run a not-for-profit company or even a non-profit company. Net Profit is inheritly evil by the definition of charging someone more then something is worth.
This is simply false. Profit is being paid for something more than what you paid for it, true, but it isn't simply arbitrary. It is to compensate you for the effort you expended to help that product reach the hands of the person receiving it (whether that involved crafting materials into a finished product, or transporting a truck full of widgets across the country). You are merely being compensated for your expenditure of time and energy, not gouging someone.
I'm not married and don't have kids, but no one would argue that you need to have those to have a life, of course. Everything else on your list can be ignored temporarily or scheduled. I get together with my friends (when I can, as most of them have moved out of town), but that's something I schedule an entire evening for. I visit relatives, or have them visit, but I set aside all day for such a thing. I can exercise whenever I want, so it can't "interrupt" my gaming. I have all month to pay bills, so there's no need to drop what I'm doing to pay them as soon as they come in... etc, etc.
The only components of "having a life" I can think of that can instantly demand your immediate attention (and thus can interrupt your gaming) are people living in the house with you (so, pretty much wife/kids). You may do the other things that comprise "a life", but none of them would cause you to say "I can't play multiplayer games because I need to be able to quit at a moment's notice."
Look, the AC was obviously just trolling you, but it is kind of unfair to imply that not having interruptions is "not having a life". I have a good life, thank you very much, and I have tons of free time to spend as I see fit. If I'm doing something that's not gaming, I generally spend the whole evening doing it... I don't have sporadic interruptions in my gaming.
Not that I took it personally, I just think that there's a large perception that "having large blocks of time you can devote to gaming [or whatever else]" equates to not having a life, which simply isn't true, and it needs to be shown to be false whenever possible.
Really, I'm not opposed to new things, and some of the recurring villains, while interesting enough, could go away for a long while and I wouldn't miss them. However, the Daleks are a necessity imo. I love those guys too much to see them ever leave.
You must not have been watching Doctor Who, because I for one thought that Davies' writing was excellent (most of the time). Moffat's was excellent too (although I hope to God he eases up on the horror episodes), but Davies more than held his own.
Honestly, I don't care what deus ex machina is required to bring the Time Lords back. I really wanted to see them again, and was kind of irritated that Russell T Davies wrote them as "The Time War turned them all evil", and then sealed them away "forever". I'd like to see the Time Lords as an actual civilization again, not something remembered in whispers.
It's not just the Time Lords, though. As much as I loved RTD's writing for the series, he had the idiotic tendency to keep committing genocide towards the recurring villains. You know you're not going to leave them "all dead", so please stop pretending like you killed them once and for all. The tricks that you need to use to bring them back get less believable every time. As a result, I accept that Stephen Moffat is going to have to do some epic hand-waving for basically every recurring villain he wants to bring back, but hopefully after that he'll have the sense to not "kill them off" every time, and we can get past it.
Honestly, I never see anything creepy about what people call the "uncanny valley". It just looks not-quite-real, there isn't some magical point of "oooh, that's so weird".