My point was, that you haven't been ripped off if the money is still in your wallet. There is a lot of value in a product that "Just Works". In my house, we have three computers; G4 iBook, G5 iMac, and a Compaq Presario to which I've made extensive modifications (including installing Ubuntu in a dual boot config). The only one I'd gladly throw in a lake today is the Compaq.
I bought it because I wanted a (middling decent) game machine and I didn't want to buy a MacPro to get a decent video card. Does it piss me off that I can't buy a Mac with a decent graphics card? Yes it does. Did Apple rip me off? No, because HP got money that I would have otherwise spent on an Apple product. Do you see the difference?
I've been much happier with the Macs, I don't feel ripped off, because they do the job they were meant to do, and do it very well.
But how are they killing the competition? Dell, HP, and many many others are still selling hardware, and a lot more of it than Apple is. If Apple is pricing their hardware higher than the competition, how are they stifling competition?
Well, leaps and bounds in relative terms, but I don't think Apple is up over 10% yet in market-share for the os, and Linux is lower than that. (my figures may be somewhat out of date) I do agree that changes are coming in that regard, but Apple's chaining the OS to the hardware doesn't have much to do with it (directly).
People feeling ripped off is what makes Apple a rip-off. If you're happy with your Mac, and feel you got good value for it, you haven't been ripped off. If you're unhappy with your Windows/PC, and want a Mac to replace it, but can't find one with comparable specs, don't buy one and you won't be ripped off.
Er. Apple is a) a very small player in a market locked up by Microsoft (for OSs), and b) just one of many players in the home computer hardware market. By tying their hardware so firmly to the OS, they aren't so much killing competition as denying themselves extra sales of the OS.
I'm all for holding Apple to account for their licensing policies, but hyperbole doesn't help.
Except that Glider's sole purpose is to circumvent anti-cheating protection, while Cedega, ReactOS etc do not have this problem. Don't read more into the Windows example than I meant. The OS is essential to load the game into ram. The Glider software is a) not essential and b) violates the EULA (and cheats other customers too).
It would depend on how the EULA is worded. Launching WoW in a non-standard way may not be a problem, but launching it in a way specifically designed to circumvent anti-cheating technology is probably explicitly forbidden by the EULA (of course I haven't read it, so I can't say for sure).
Strictly speaking, you may need permission to launch WoW with your countdown, but in reality, Blizzard isn't going to bother with something like that as it would be too expensive.
Buying/renting isn't the point, the point is that the way the copy is being made isn't essential. Glider pulls in WoW, which is not essential to get use of the game you bought, as Windows (or Mac OSX) is perfectly capable of doing the same job.
(I am a law student)...this section of copyright law which says that it is not an infringement for you to make a copy of a legally acquired program provided "that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program...
Loading a copy of WoW using Glider is not an essential step, Windows will load up WoW for you just fine.
Yeah. Sorry about the snarky reply, but American politics makes me RAGE, mainly because it seems like your fascists are dragging the rest of the world down with them.
The tabulature is infringing on the music publisher's copyrights. It is exactly the medium that matters, as someone (sometimes the artist, usually a music publisher) holds rights to make written representations of the music, and it's not the author of the tab.
large telcos, Hollywood, Big Oil, Big Pharma...I'm sure I'm missing some. Thanks for raising that point and risking the wrath of the mods. I'd have modded you up but my points just expired.
Your assumption is somewhat incorrect. Certainly I agree with you that a religion class should be an important part of a school curriculum, but what has been obscured in this discussion (and many others) is the fact that the Intelligent Design debate isn't a philosophical debate between athiests and believers, it's a political debate between a particular form of Christianity and...well everyone else.
These Dominionist Christians aren't interested in introducing alternate ideas into the classroom, they're interested in taking over and replacing scientific or even critical thinking with Scripture-based reasoning. Intelligent Design represents their secondary position, after they lost the Creationism-in-classroom battles in the Courts.
Correlation is not causation, and I think there is some legitimate doubt as to whether advertising, subliminal or otherwise, really does work. I wish I weren't at work and could take the time to google it more thoroughly, but I was under the impression that current research showed advertising's primary effect is just to brand a product, and that the advsertising only gets you to recognize a brand, not to prefer it. In other words, Coca Cola's advertising, doesn't make you want more Coca cola, it just makes sure you don't forget that Coke exists.
I do recall watching a presentation online given by Google's CTO, in which the CTO demonstrates their use of eye-tracking equipment to analyse web pages. The subject didn't look once at any of the visual advertizing on a given web page, not once.
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My point was, that you haven't been ripped off if the money is still in your wallet. There is a lot of value in a product that "Just Works". In my house, we have three computers; G4 iBook, G5 iMac, and a Compaq Presario to which I've made extensive modifications (including installing Ubuntu in a dual boot config). The only one I'd gladly throw in a lake today is the Compaq.
I bought it because I wanted a (middling decent) game machine and I didn't want to buy a MacPro to get a decent video card. Does it piss me off that I can't buy a Mac with a decent graphics card? Yes it does. Did Apple rip me off? No, because HP got money that I would have otherwise spent on an Apple product. Do you see the difference?
I've been much happier with the Macs, I don't feel ripped off, because they do the job they were meant to do, and do it very well.
But how are they killing the competition? Dell, HP, and many many others are still selling hardware, and a lot more of it than Apple is. If Apple is pricing their hardware higher than the competition, how are they stifling competition?
Well, leaps and bounds in relative terms, but I don't think Apple is up over 10% yet in market-share for the os, and Linux is lower than that. (my figures may be somewhat out of date) I do agree that changes are coming in that regard, but Apple's chaining the OS to the hardware doesn't have much to do with it (directly).
People feeling ripped off is what makes Apple a rip-off. If you're happy with your Mac, and feel you got good value for it, you haven't been ripped off. If you're unhappy with your Windows/PC, and want a Mac to replace it, but can't find one with comparable specs, don't buy one and you won't be ripped off.
Er. Apple is a) a very small player in a market locked up by Microsoft (for OSs), and b) just one of many players in the home computer hardware market. By tying their hardware so firmly to the OS, they aren't so much killing competition as denying themselves extra sales of the OS.
I'm all for holding Apple to account for their licensing policies, but hyperbole doesn't help.
Except that Glider's sole purpose is to circumvent anti-cheating protection, while Cedega, ReactOS etc do not have this problem. Don't read more into the Windows example than I meant. The OS is essential to load the game into ram. The Glider software is a) not essential and b) violates the EULA (and cheats other customers too).
It would depend on how the EULA is worded. Launching WoW in a non-standard way may not be a problem, but launching it in a way specifically designed to circumvent anti-cheating technology is probably explicitly forbidden by the EULA (of course I haven't read it, so I can't say for sure).
Strictly speaking, you may need permission to launch WoW with your countdown, but in reality, Blizzard isn't going to bother with something like that as it would be too expensive.
I came, I drank wine, I threw up.
Buying/renting isn't the point, the point is that the way the copy is being made isn't essential. Glider pulls in WoW, which is not essential to get use of the game you bought, as Windows (or Mac OSX) is perfectly capable of doing the same job.
(I am a law student) ...this section of copyright law which says that it is not an infringement for you to make a copy of a legally acquired program provided "that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program ...
Loading a copy of WoW using Glider is not an essential step, Windows will load up WoW for you just fine.
What makes the copy illegal is not that it was put in ram, but the way it was put there.
Click on the WoW executable, windows sticks a copy in RAM; that's a legal copy, per the license agreement.
Click on the Glider executable, glider calls the WoW executable, that's an unlicensed copy of WoW and hence is infringing.
The specific copy of WoW in your RAM is illegal not because it's a copy, but because of how it got there.
"Beware of the Leopard" indeed, and perhaps also the Heron.
Yeah. Sorry about the snarky reply, but American politics makes me RAGE, mainly because it seems like your fascists are dragging the rest of the world down with them.
That's great! Maybe Congress can pass a bill to that effect! Oh wait...
Great Googleymoogaly!
But that would be awesome!! It would almost make the friendly avatar worth having. Almost. Or not.
So you didn't have problems with workers stealing your photons?
The tabulature is infringing on the music publisher's copyrights. It is exactly the medium that matters, as someone (sometimes the artist, usually a music publisher) holds rights to make written representations of the music, and it's not the author of the tab.
large telcos, Hollywood, Big Oil, Big Pharma...I'm sure I'm missing some. Thanks for raising that point and risking the wrath of the mods. I'd have modded you up but my points just expired.
And advanced degree would be the way to go. CS types have unusually high success rates in Law, for example.
Your assumption is somewhat incorrect. Certainly I agree with you that a religion class should be an important part of a school curriculum, but what has been obscured in this discussion (and many others) is the fact that the Intelligent Design debate isn't a philosophical debate between athiests and believers, it's a political debate between a particular form of Christianity and...well everyone else.
These Dominionist Christians aren't interested in introducing alternate ideas into the classroom, they're interested in taking over and replacing scientific or even critical thinking with Scripture-based reasoning. Intelligent Design represents their secondary position, after they lost the Creationism-in-classroom battles in the Courts.
Correlation is not causation, and I think there is some legitimate doubt as to whether advertising, subliminal or otherwise, really does work. I wish I weren't at work and could take the time to google it more thoroughly, but I was under the impression that current research showed advertising's primary effect is just to brand a product, and that the advsertising only gets you to recognize a brand, not to prefer it. In other words, Coca Cola's advertising, doesn't make you want more Coca cola, it just makes sure you don't forget that Coke exists.
I do recall watching a presentation online given by Google's CTO, in which the CTO demonstrates their use of eye-tracking equipment to analyse web pages. The subject didn't look once at any of the visual advertizing on a given web page, not once.
This thread is cromulent.
Posting to clear a mod.
Fair enough. I was referring to the Inciteful/Insightful pun, however.