I always felt the backlash against the coffee case was ridiculous. Amateur legal experts deciding without looking at any evidence that the case was stupid and it turned into the poster child for a legal system gone wrong. The case was perfectly valid, there were difficult points to consider on both sides, and the judgement was fair. It started up the whole hysteria of a tort system gone wrong though, the citizens were duped into cheerleading for the corporations.
Class actions are about the only means left to fight for consumer rights in America. This was the only way the tobacco industry was forced to make changes, which scared the rest of the corporations into finding ways to sabotage the legal system.
But compare to paying $0 a month for PC games, version $>0 on consoles.
Though there are definitely demographic differences between the two camps. Huge demographic differences even on PC between I-love-DRM players and older players. There is one camp of players that only want new games and nothing else. If the game is a month old and their friends don't play it then they don't want it.
But I'm just suprised that the first day that Sony said "there's a monthly fee if you want to do things that other platforms do for free" that no one said "what the hell?!" And when single player games that are paid for and downloaded can't be played without a monthly fee and there's no rioting in the streets?
I was at a company once where every time it was announced we were considering a merger, the stock price went up. When the merger when through, the stock price went up again. The VP of Acquisitions eventually became the CEO. The stock got up to unreasonable levels, at which point they announced considering an acquisition and an analyst said "hmm, I wonder if that's a good idea" and the stock plummed by half over the next two days. It was an industry leader though, it went through the dotcom boom and bust six months before of other companies.
But anyway, Mergers and Acquisitions has often been seen as a way to make money. And Yahoo did make money this way. They did almost too well with Alibaba which is worth more than Yahoo now (which raises tricky legal concerns about who owns who). The problem is falling into the trap of thinking mergers by itself is a good idea. Just because Google can buy useless companies by paying 100 times their estimated value does not mean everyone should follow suit.
It was my idea though. Even though I hired a whole lot of engineers to actually build it. So I should get all the profits. You know, "pet food in the cloud", no one thought of that before me.
The light bulb is basic enough that you'll be able to find one. This is just for the HUE product which are not just light bulbs but light bulbs to control with your smart phone and do all sorts of cool stuff that people like nerdy slashdot readers don't understand (I think it's got some sort of electronic MDMA emitter judging from their marketing).
Incandescents may be out, but it's only a few parts to make an LED bulb. You an even take the Philips bulbs I suspect and hack them to apply voltage directly without going through the DRM stuff.
As long as there's a bulb that takes electricity in and gives luminance out, you'll be able to use it. The Phillips thing is just for silly millenial generation features ("help, my phone can't turn on my light!").
There have been pushbacks in the past because of monopolies, as in auto dealerships could not be owned by auto makers. I think it's a part of the reason why auto makers finance and parts divisions are theoretically separate companies.
Does Tesla prevent you from getting service for your battery module somewhere else, or is it just nearly impossible to find someone who can work on them reliably? Consider the Wankel engine in Mazdas as an example.
A million years ago (more like a little over a decade) I had a friend who worked for a gaming company. He was hoping that the XBox, which was just coming out, was going to become popular. I expressed some surprise since Microsoft wasn't widely respected in other fields. His explanation was that Sony was sucking too much money from the development houses, the Playstation tax that every game must pay, and Microsoft was being much more lenient. But then fast forward and we see that Microsoft was deliberately selling below cost to get a market share, then added their subscriptions, then got into and out of hot water about plans for xbox one, console exclusives, etc. Maybe game devs got some more margins from xbox but in the end the customers of consoles have a choice between two or three evils (or more with pc).
This is the modern society trying to assign motives to historical figures. Two men who were friends, clearly they must have been gay. A man and woman who were friends, clearly there was an extramarital relationship there too. It's all prurient gossip by armchair historians.
If we went by the dictionary definition, we'd have to revoke the hero title from thousands of people. Pulled a kid out of a burning building, but it is just normal run of the mill courage and below average strength and no aristocratic heritage.
The console makers like to sell them below cost at times because they get a nice kickback from sales of the games. There's a naivete with the console makers in that they don't expect anyone else to use the boxes for other purposes, and naivete in thinking that they can stamp it out or that it's hurting their profits if they don't.
Too many games are "exclusives" now. They only appear on one console ever, and never even on a PC. Designed to make the player buy brand A instead of brand B, even if the developer making the game would prefer everyone to buy it if possible. Another reason why the PC is not a bad choice for gaming.
I'm totally baffled why console users put up with the subscription schemes in the first place, or why the console makers don't compete to have the cheapest or free-est subscriptions.
Well, Netflix may go that route too. They're focusing on original programming more and more which is not what their original customer based signed up for. It's just going to fragment things too much. 8 dollars here, 8 dollars there, and pretty soon you're paying real cable prices again.
Which is surprising since Trump is probably the least likely leader for social conservatives ever. He's in Alabama saying that his own book is his favorite book ever, then oops, he says he meant the Bible, and the crowd doesn't seem to disapprove. He won't tell a journalist what his favorite Bible verse is because it's personal and no one seems to care that it's an obvious lie. It's utterly baffling how he's pulling this off. It's like he's the loud angry drunk guy in the bar and all the other patrons are cheering because they're too drunk to understand what's being said.
It's not about being uneducated, I think there's more about the intentionally uneducated. They don't want to know too much about Trump because they'd have to think. He's flat out lying and they don't care.
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I always felt the backlash against the coffee case was ridiculous. Amateur legal experts deciding without looking at any evidence that the case was stupid and it turned into the poster child for a legal system gone wrong. The case was perfectly valid, there were difficult points to consider on both sides, and the judgement was fair. It started up the whole hysteria of a tort system gone wrong though, the citizens were duped into cheerleading for the corporations.
Class actions are about the only means left to fight for consumer rights in America. This was the only way the tobacco industry was forced to make changes, which scared the rest of the corporations into finding ways to sabotage the legal system.
I just read up on some consoles and I think the PS4 does that, if it's a downloaded game and not on disk.
But compare to paying $0 a month for PC games, version $>0 on consoles.
Though there are definitely demographic differences between the two camps. Huge demographic differences even on PC between I-love-DRM players and older players. There is one camp of players that only want new games and nothing else. If the game is a month old and their friends don't play it then they don't want it.
But I'm just suprised that the first day that Sony said "there's a monthly fee if you want to do things that other platforms do for free" that no one said "what the hell?!" And when single player games that are paid for and downloaded can't be played without a monthly fee and there's no rioting in the streets?
I was at a company once where every time it was announced we were considering a merger, the stock price went up. When the merger when through, the stock price went up again. The VP of Acquisitions eventually became the CEO. The stock got up to unreasonable levels, at which point they announced considering an acquisition and an analyst said "hmm, I wonder if that's a good idea" and the stock plummed by half over the next two days. It was an industry leader though, it went through the dotcom boom and bust six months before of other companies.
But anyway, Mergers and Acquisitions has often been seen as a way to make money. And Yahoo did make money this way. They did almost too well with Alibaba which is worth more than Yahoo now (which raises tricky legal concerns about who owns who). The problem is falling into the trap of thinking mergers by itself is a good idea. Just because Google can buy useless companies by paying 100 times their estimated value does not mean everyone should follow suit.
It was my idea though. Even though I hired a whole lot of engineers to actually build it. So I should get all the profits. You know, "pet food in the cloud", no one thought of that before me.
The light bulb is basic enough that you'll be able to find one. This is just for the HUE product which are not just light bulbs but light bulbs to control with your smart phone and do all sorts of cool stuff that people like nerdy slashdot readers don't understand (I think it's got some sort of electronic MDMA emitter judging from their marketing).
Incandescents may be out, but it's only a few parts to make an LED bulb. You an even take the Philips bulbs I suspect and hack them to apply voltage directly without going through the DRM stuff.
How many lightbulb manufacturers does it take to screw up a market?
As long as there's a bulb that takes electricity in and gives luminance out, you'll be able to use it. The Phillips thing is just for silly millenial generation features ("help, my phone can't turn on my light!").
Send a packet to your Roomba to roll over to the wall and turn on the light.
There have been pushbacks in the past because of monopolies, as in auto dealerships could not be owned by auto makers. I think it's a part of the reason why auto makers finance and parts divisions are theoretically separate companies.
Does Tesla prevent you from getting service for your battery module somewhere else, or is it just nearly impossible to find someone who can work on them reliably? Consider the Wankel engine in Mazdas as an example.
"By using the luminance provided by our light bulb in order to read this contract, you agree to the following terms: ..."
I think that was supposed to be sarcasm, as Steve Jobs was on the sociopath scale.
A million years ago (more like a little over a decade) I had a friend who worked for a gaming company. He was hoping that the XBox, which was just coming out, was going to become popular. I expressed some surprise since Microsoft wasn't widely respected in other fields. His explanation was that Sony was sucking too much money from the development houses, the Playstation tax that every game must pay, and Microsoft was being much more lenient. But then fast forward and we see that Microsoft was deliberately selling below cost to get a market share, then added their subscriptions, then got into and out of hot water about plans for xbox one, console exclusives, etc. Maybe game devs got some more margins from xbox but in the end the customers of consoles have a choice between two or three evils (or more with pc).
This is the modern society trying to assign motives to historical figures. Two men who were friends, clearly they must have been gay. A man and woman who were friends, clearly there was an extramarital relationship there too. It's all prurient gossip by armchair historians.
If we went by the dictionary definition, we'd have to revoke the hero title from thousands of people. Pulled a kid out of a burning building, but it is just normal run of the mill courage and below average strength and no aristocratic heritage.
BSD is quite fragmented. Different teams, different goals, different talent sets.
The console makers like to sell them below cost at times because they get a nice kickback from sales of the games. There's a naivete with the console makers in that they don't expect anyone else to use the boxes for other purposes, and naivete in thinking that they can stamp it out or that it's hurting their profits if they don't.
Too many games are "exclusives" now. They only appear on one console ever, and never even on a PC. Designed to make the player buy brand A instead of brand B, even if the developer making the game would prefer everyone to buy it if possible. Another reason why the PC is not a bad choice for gaming.
I'm totally baffled why console users put up with the subscription schemes in the first place, or why the console makers don't compete to have the cheapest or free-est subscriptions.
I love the "for one year" part. No one ever says what happens after that.
Well, Netflix may go that route too. They're focusing on original programming more and more which is not what their original customer based signed up for. It's just going to fragment things too much. 8 dollars here, 8 dollars there, and pretty soon you're paying real cable prices again.
Subsidies are fine, as long as they go to the right people.
Which is surprising since Trump is probably the least likely leader for social conservatives ever. He's in Alabama saying that his own book is his favorite book ever, then oops, he says he meant the Bible, and the crowd doesn't seem to disapprove. He won't tell a journalist what his favorite Bible verse is because it's personal and no one seems to care that it's an obvious lie. It's utterly baffling how he's pulling this off. It's like he's the loud angry drunk guy in the bar and all the other patrons are cheering because they're too drunk to understand what's being said.
It's not about being uneducated, I think there's more about the intentionally uneducated. They don't want to know too much about Trump because they'd have to think. He's flat out lying and they don't care.
He'd just admit to it all and get more support.