> if it had no value, they wouldn't want to copy it.
If you set the selling price to be closer to the actual value, perhaps you would have made a sale.
Sometimes the value is not in the product itself. I'll admit it: I'm a dirty filesharer. I'm a pirate (Arrrr). I'm a criminal (according to some). I downloaded tons of music (not as much any more, though). Most of it was received in bulk -- I wasn't looking for your song in particular, I was looking for any song that I hadn't heard before in some genre.
You see, I consider myself a collector. I have no delusions with regard to this -- I am still "breaking the law" the same as if I was doing because I think artists smell bad & deserve to be stolen from. In this case, the value is in the collection as a whole, not from the individual songs in it. Each MP3 is worth perhaps a nickel to me. I downloaded them because they were offered at a price I could afford ($0), not because I thought "I must have these exact songs," although, admittedly, there are many individual songs that I searched for.
My favorites, I have bought, but I won't lie to you: they are very few, compared to the ones I have not bought. That doesn't make me an evil person, although I may be for other reasons. I don't know exactly what my point is, except that nothing is ever black & white.
I don't feel that I deserve free music, but I don't feel the need to justify myself. I also don't feel that I am taking away money from anyone. If I didn't have the music, the creators would not have more money. I would probably be at the library instead, getting free content there in the form of books. But since the music is available, I get it. If it stops being available, I'll simply not get any more, purchased or otherwise).
Calling someone a bad person does not make it so. Giving them reasons why they are evil does not really help your position even if your observations are correct. If someone feels that there is nothing wrong with what they are doing, it will be very difficult to convince them otherwise. When you keep screaming at them (in general, I don't mean to say that you are screaming at anyone), they just get defensive & pissed off that someone would attack them for such a "petty" reason.
Any monetary value placed on a nonphysical (or even physical, IMO) item is purely made-up. Nothing has inherent value unless it is a necessity for life & exists in small quantities (such as, water is "valuable" in the desert). This does not make my actions "right." In fact, regardless of what you think of me, there is no right or wrong here, only actions. The right and wrong are simply perceptions that you choose to see. Go ahead: say I'm justifying my "unlawful activities," call me a moral relativist. Do you think it will make the slightest difference on my opinion?
(If you were offended by anything in this post other than the fact that I hold the viewpoint I do, it was not intentional. Also, sorry for the long-windedness, I'm not a professionally trained debater.)
> That's like complaining about the cost of Ferraris
However, what happens when, because of the Ferraris, there are no longer any Kias, Neons, or Cavaliers made? Why would anyone want a Sunfire, when a GTO is only a "little" more?
In retrospect, I shouldn't have opened my stupid mouth to begin with:)
> And I don't think $500 is too much (or too little) for a graphics card
It is if I want to spend $800 on the whole thing. I don't want to play Doom 3, I want a PC to work with.
> Our lifes are dominated by what we see, so the graphics chip has become *the* major component of the PC
But when "what we see" is limited to OpenOffice and Mozilla (work PC, no games), do we really need 4096x3072 resolution and 20 petahertz rendering? The power of the card does not matter at that point, the processing speed of the PC (and RAM, I know) is pretty much the selling point -- so I can put out two Powerpoint presentations in the time it used to take to do 1. If I could opt for a crappier video card & double the RAM in a new system, I would in a second, but I do not have that option, short of buying used EQ.
> how do you expect games and such to get better/more realistic
Not exactly what I meant, and it's not just video cards, but all hardware. An 8MB video card does way more than enough for a workstation, yet you cannot find anything under 64 any more in a new system. I don't expect (or want, actually) ANY new games to run on it. I want to run Office, a web browser, etc. I want cheap, dependable PCs to stock the office, yet companies are too busy working on the next-gen products before the previous ones are even released, affecting stability & quality. Basically, I want cheap PCs that work and I want them to be stable, but if I want to buy a PC for work, all the PC makers make sure that I am forced to buy 10x more than what I need. The majority of PCs are never used to play games (other than Solitaire, etc).
> We're talking gaming here, not general desktop usage.
I'm not, which is where the disconnect in the conversation lays.
> SINCE WHEN DID 200 DOLLAR VIDEO CARDS BECOME MIDRANGE!
Agreed. Up until a few months ago, I was using a Diamond Speedstar A50 (8MB, _EARLY_ AGP card). Then I tried playing a game. I had to go to a 32 Meg card. Then I tried playing a real game. I thought 32 megs was pretty good until I realized that these days, anything more complex than Tetris requires 128MB. Crazy. When 128MB is low-end, there's a problem somewhere.
> which only came to our attention, because the card was monitored by an adult
If you were only using it for verification, why would they see anything on the bill? Did you have an entrance fee or something? Was there an access-but-no-charge line on the bill?
> It really opened my eyes to how much demand is out there for that kind of crap, and the danger kids are in online.
Not that it makes any legal difference if caught (I assume), but just because someone is willing to download kiddy porn, rape porn, bestiality, etc. it does NOT mean they are willing to do the act themselves. Another extremely important thing to consider are scouring bots. Some people just search for certain words (sex, f***, etc) and have programs automatically collect all images it can find. So there may be people who downloaded 500 images from that site & didn't know what it was until hours later when they sorted through it. I have friends who download buttloads of porn from KaZaA, and they get pedo stuff mixed in with the rest.
> A National ID card issued to every citizen would be all that, and more.
Just make sure you remember all the negative things contained in "and more" as well as the positive.
Re:Finally a voice of reason
on
Less Might Be More
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
I agree, this guy's a moron, first, for throwing away a 700Mhz PC even if it IS a vegetable (celery-on), and second for even trying to put XP on a 700Mhz Celeron! With Win2K or Linux it would be a great PC.
> Who knows best how to spend my own money to educate my own children? Me, or somebody in D.C.?
You may think you know better, but you are probably completely wrong. That is not to claim that you don't know anything about it, or that anyone in D.C. knows how to tie a shoe, but it's not an either/or between those two options.
The people that should be making the decisions are local administrators, but they are too bogged down by regulations & fear (of lawsuits, violence, whatever) to hire competent teachers. Oh, and incompetence -- locally, at least, school boards are elected through politics, so they may be more interested in image than education. Add into that that most people who are actually qualified go into the private sector, whereas the current teachers went to school ONLY to become teachers and know only the theoretical applications of the things they teach and the methods to do so. There is no incentive for a smart person to become a teacher other than a desire to help people. I may be too pessimistic, but those people are pretty rare.
Hah, I got around that one... I only work near the pharmacy!
Uh... oh yeah, on-topic. Umm.. I agree too! Don't reward people for bad behavior. It's not a good idea to punish them for crimes they've already "paid for," but it's a fine line, and there's nothing wrong with erring on the side of caution on this one. It should be preferred, in fact.
> He didn't do squat to my valued internet... I'm a linux user.
Yeah, and because you use Linux, all the MS-running hosts between you and "The Internet" magically weren't slowed to a freaking crawl. I guess the solution is to put one Linux box on every network segment in existence, and worms will disappear!
> It has been that way since the 1980's. Only in the last 8 or 9 years have idiots like
Cracker has been used to mean someone who breaks into safes. It's been that way since the 1800s. Only in the last 20 or 25 years have idiots like you tried to equate to word with computers. You are an idiot, don't be like...you?
> where is the lawful contract that authorizes the spending of ammo on the problem?
It's not a lawful contract, but "When in the Course of human events...*" would generally lead to violent revolution. Now you just need to define when "it becomes necessary." If it isn't something that warrants political revolution, you're stuck with suffering with the problem or suffering with the consequences that arise from doing what you feel you must.
> People telling me I need to arm up if I don't get my way through the judicial process really push my hot buttons.
Understandably, but what else is there to do when justice is unjust? Live with it or deal with it another way. You have chosen to live with it. There's nothing wrong with that, it is your choice only to make and no one can rightly say you are wrong for it.
The idea, however, is that if justice is not fulfilled by the methods you are "allowed" to use, you must go outside the lines to get it. Of course the question is then, is the potential punishment for doing what you must worth the reward of being "right?" And you have to be very careful who you blame. Nuking Washington would not make a point as to why the USAPATRIOT act is a bad thing, although the "bad people" would most likely be taken along with a few million "innocents." It's all about the details...
I can also understand why you don't want to get into a back-and-forth on it with people who have no idea the intricaces of your position, so I too will leave it at that.
(* The Declaration of Independence, for those who don't recognize it right off the bat)
Cul-de-herd, to take out those that do not accept/are deeply affected by the rules forced upon them by society. If they kill themselves, they can't pass on their habits of questioning authority.
(FYI, there is nothing completely serious in this post -- I don't believe there's any political conspiracy or anything)
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> if it had no value, they wouldn't want to copy it.
If you set the selling price to be closer to the actual value, perhaps you would have made a sale.
Sometimes the value is not in the product itself. I'll admit it: I'm a dirty filesharer. I'm a pirate (Arrrr). I'm a criminal (according to some). I downloaded tons of music (not as much any more, though). Most of it was received in bulk -- I wasn't looking for your song in particular, I was looking for any song that I hadn't heard before in some genre.
You see, I consider myself a collector. I have no delusions with regard to this -- I am still "breaking the law" the same as if I was doing because I think artists smell bad & deserve to be stolen from. In this case, the value is in the collection as a whole, not from the individual songs in it. Each MP3 is worth perhaps a nickel to me. I downloaded them because they were offered at a price I could afford ($0), not because I thought "I must have these exact songs," although, admittedly, there are many individual songs that I searched for.
My favorites, I have bought, but I won't lie to you: they are very few, compared to the ones I have not bought. That doesn't make me an evil person, although I may be for other reasons. I don't know exactly what my point is, except that nothing is ever black & white.
I don't feel that I deserve free music, but I don't feel the need to justify myself. I also don't feel that I am taking away money from anyone. If I didn't have the music, the creators would not have more money. I would probably be at the library instead, getting free content there in the form of books. But since the music is available, I get it. If it stops being available, I'll simply not get any more, purchased or otherwise).
Calling someone a bad person does not make it so. Giving them reasons why they are evil does not really help your position even if your observations are correct. If someone feels that there is nothing wrong with what they are doing, it will be very difficult to convince them otherwise. When you keep screaming at them (in general, I don't mean to say that you are screaming at anyone), they just get defensive & pissed off that someone would attack them for such a "petty" reason.
Any monetary value placed on a nonphysical (or even physical, IMO) item is purely made-up. Nothing has inherent value unless it is a necessity for life & exists in small quantities (such as, water is "valuable" in the desert). This does not make my actions "right." In fact, regardless of what you think of me, there is no right or wrong here, only actions. The right and wrong are simply perceptions that you choose to see. Go ahead: say I'm justifying my "unlawful activities," call me a moral relativist. Do you think it will make the slightest difference on my opinion?
(If you were offended by anything in this post other than the fact that I hold the viewpoint I do, it was not intentional. Also, sorry for the long-windedness, I'm not a professionally trained debater.)
> That's like complaining about the cost of Ferraris
:)
However, what happens when, because of the Ferraris, there are no longer any Kias, Neons, or Cavaliers made? Why would anyone want a Sunfire, when a GTO is only a "little" more?
In retrospect, I shouldn't have opened my stupid mouth to begin with
> And I don't think $500 is too much (or too little) for a graphics card
It is if I want to spend $800 on the whole thing. I don't want to play Doom 3, I want a PC to work with.
> Our lifes are dominated by what we see, so the graphics chip has become *the* major component of the PC
But when "what we see" is limited to OpenOffice and Mozilla (work PC, no games), do we really need 4096x3072 resolution and 20 petahertz rendering? The power of the card does not matter at that point, the processing speed of the PC (and RAM, I know) is pretty much the selling point -- so I can put out two Powerpoint presentations in the time it used to take to do 1. If I could opt for a crappier video card & double the RAM in a new system, I would in a second, but I do not have that option, short of buying used EQ.
I should have been clearer...
> how do you expect games and such to get better/more realistic
Not exactly what I meant, and it's not just video cards, but all hardware. An 8MB video card does way more than enough for a workstation, yet you cannot find anything under 64 any more in a new system. I don't expect (or want, actually) ANY new games to run on it. I want to run Office, a web browser, etc. I want cheap, dependable PCs to stock the office, yet companies are too busy working on the next-gen products before the previous ones are even released, affecting stability & quality. Basically, I want cheap PCs that work and I want them to be stable, but if I want to buy a PC for work, all the PC makers make sure that I am forced to buy 10x more than what I need. The majority of PCs are never used to play games (other than Solitaire, etc).
> We're talking gaming here, not general desktop usage.
I'm not, which is where the disconnect in the conversation lays.
> SINCE WHEN DID 200 DOLLAR VIDEO CARDS BECOME MIDRANGE!
Agreed. Up until a few months ago, I was using a Diamond Speedstar A50 (8MB, _EARLY_ AGP card). Then I tried playing a game. I had to go to a 32 Meg card. Then I tried playing a real game. I thought 32 megs was pretty good until I realized that these days, anything more complex than Tetris requires 128MB. Crazy. When 128MB is low-end, there's a problem somewhere.
Damn, and I just bought a Radeon 9600XT because it was cheap & available on eBay. Now I have to throw it away because new cards came out...
> which only came to our attention, because the card was monitored by an adult
If you were only using it for verification, why would they see anything on the bill? Did you have an entrance fee or something? Was there an access-but-no-charge line on the bill?
> It really opened my eyes to how much demand is out there for that kind of crap, and the danger kids are in online.
Not that it makes any legal difference if caught (I assume), but just because someone is willing to download kiddy porn, rape porn, bestiality, etc. it does NOT mean they are willing to do the act themselves. Another extremely important thing to consider are scouring bots. Some people just search for certain words (sex, f***, etc) and have programs automatically collect all images it can find. So there may be people who downloaded 500 images from that site & didn't know what it was until hours later when they sorted through it. I have friends who download buttloads of porn from KaZaA, and they get pedo stuff mixed in with the rest.
> Adds a whole new meaning to "I'm feeling lucky,"
If I was feeling "lucky," I certainly wouldn't be hanging out on the Internet!
> A National ID card issued to every citizen would be all that, and more.
Just make sure you remember all the negative things contained in "and more" as well as the positive.
I agree, this guy's a moron, first, for throwing away a 700Mhz PC even if it IS a vegetable (celery-on), and second for even trying to put XP on a 700Mhz Celeron! With Win2K or Linux it would be a great PC.
> Whoever you want. It's your phone, after all.
I misunderstood "reputation database" to mean a comprehensive list of other companies' "reputations" that would be shared between subscribers.
It seems a little unrealistic to me to expect every single customer to enter every single IP/phone# they think might be calling them.
> Who knows best how to spend my own money to educate my own children? Me, or somebody in D.C.?
You may think you know better, but you are probably completely wrong. That is not to claim that you don't know anything about it, or that anyone in D.C. knows how to tie a shoe, but it's not an either/or between those two options.
The people that should be making the decisions are local administrators, but they are too bogged down by regulations & fear (of lawsuits, violence, whatever) to hire competent teachers. Oh, and incompetence -- locally, at least, school boards are elected through politics, so they may be more interested in image than education. Add into that that most people who are actually qualified go into the private sector, whereas the current teachers went to school ONLY to become teachers and know only the theoretical applications of the things they teach and the methods to do so. There is no incentive for a smart person to become a teacher other than a desire to help people. I may be too pessimistic, but those people are pretty rare.
> Or hire a junkie to take care of the pharmacy?
Hah, I got around that one... I only work near the pharmacy!
Uh... oh yeah, on-topic. Umm.. I agree too! Don't reward people for bad behavior. It's not a good idea to punish them for crimes they've already "paid for," but it's a fine line, and there's nothing wrong with erring on the side of caution on this one. It should be preferred, in fact.
> He didn't do squat to my valued internet... I'm a linux user.
Yeah, and because you use Linux, all the MS-running hosts between you and "The Internet" magically weren't slowed to a freaking crawl. I guess the solution is to put one Linux box on every network segment in existence, and worms will disappear!
> It has been that way since the 1980's. Only in the last 8 or 9 years have idiots like
Cracker has been used to mean someone who breaks into safes. It's been that way since the 1800s. Only in the last 20 or 25 years have idiots like you tried to equate to word with computers. You are an idiot, don't be like...you?
Words change. I don't like it, but it's a fact.
> in 5 years time the new boy, fresh from uni, will still be able to work out what its doing
If only the unis would put out students able to read code, that wouldn't generally be a problem.
> Jobs was a coke dealer
I knew there was a reason I liked him & feared him at the same time.
> cracker: chaotic evil
Sadly, that's the most appropriate phrasing I've ever seen. Well, maybe the sad part is that I immediately know exactly what it means.
> A real hacker would never label themself a hacker. Ergo, you are not a hacker. Poseur.
Anyone who calls another a poseur without knowing the person is himself a poseur.
Just saying something doesn't make it true, dork. Except the statement that you are a dork -- that's true.
> Yeah, if someone shows that they are immature, you should not reward them. They won't change at all.
> Then how do you explain Congress?
I don't get it. Congress hasn't changed. Maybe the names, but the situation has not.
> "Hey, wow! You *can* buy a law!"
I think they already knew that: if they can buy laws from the U.S. government, the CA government is easie.r
> where is the lawful contract that authorizes the spending of ammo on the problem?
It's not a lawful contract, but "When in the Course of human events...*" would generally lead to violent revolution. Now you just need to define when "it becomes necessary." If it isn't something that warrants political revolution, you're stuck with suffering with the problem or suffering with the consequences that arise from doing what you feel you must.
> People telling me I need to arm up if I don't get my way through the judicial process really push my hot buttons.
Understandably, but what else is there to do when justice is unjust? Live with it or deal with it another way. You have chosen to live with it. There's nothing wrong with that, it is your choice only to make and no one can rightly say you are wrong for it.
The idea, however, is that if justice is not fulfilled by the methods you are "allowed" to use, you must go outside the lines to get it. Of course the question is then, is the potential punishment for doing what you must worth the reward of being "right?" And you have to be very careful who you blame. Nuking Washington would not make a point as to why the USAPATRIOT act is a bad thing, although the "bad people" would most likely be taken along with a few million "innocents." It's all about the details...
I can also understand why you don't want to get into a back-and-forth on it with people who have no idea the intricaces of your position, so I too will leave it at that.
(* The Declaration of Independence, for those who don't recognize it right off the bat)
> Kick a dog first. Try that out.
Please don't, too many people will try it on a dog they don't like, then extrapolate the feeling of power to humans.
Death to PETA, but the concept is good.
> Cul-de-something
Cul-de-herd, to take out those that do not accept/are deeply affected by the rules forced upon them by society. If they kill themselves, they can't pass on their habits of questioning authority.
(FYI, there is nothing completely serious in this post -- I don't believe there's any political conspiracy or anything)