Sarcasm doesn't transmit well over the internet. There's just too many idiots, you don't have the luxury of being able to assume the person you're conversing with isn't one.
No it isn't, because popularity brings money. The only valid tactic for harming EA is to at least not use their products, and even better, to use the products of their competitors. Marketshare is almost totally dependent on mindshare.
Microsoft may not make a lot of money in Russia now, but they certainly make some. Even more importantly, though, they retain their position of market dominance. In Russia's current economy that is largely because of piracy, but when the economy improves I have no doubt MS will find some way to cash in on it.
You don't need to take my word for it though. Go ahead and ask any marketer wether they'd rather have a consumer pirate their product or use a competitors.
I don't care if you do or not, I just get tired of the morons who say "I'm not just going to boycott, I'm going to pirate!" as if that hurts them more.
You don't boycott a company by using their product. That's just stupid.
If you actually want to hurt EA, _DON'T_ pirate their games. Play their competitors games instead.
People who think they can hurt software companies through piracy are stupid. All you're doing is expanding their marketshare for them, increasing the popularity of their product, and that increases their sales and profits.
Running cooler strongly implies that less power is being used. After all, the heat is really just a side effect of the watts being sucked out of the battery (with some friction from spinning drives thrown in, of course).
I think the general response would be that they seem stable because you don't have any *nix servers running next to them for comparison. Virus vulnerabilities and patching issues are still instability, just going by a different name. Planned downtime is still downtime.
If people are spending on retail items, that must mean someone is making money.
Judging by the record personal debt numbers, I'd say it's the credit card companies.
I asked before, but outside of minimum wage increases, how can you set the job wages? I agree that some increase in minimum wage would probably be good, but then you have to realize doing so means an additional cost to a corporation to account for.
I actually wouldn't support an increase in the minimum wage right now, as I think the current minimum wage is appropriate for those kinds of jobs. But, the minimum wage itself isn't the problem. The problem is that the vast majority of the jobs being created are the kind of unskilled jobs that typically pay minimum wage.
No, you can't really directly dictate what kinds of jobs get created, but you can wield significant influence by providing incentives for companies to keep those jobs in this country, and to hire citizens over H-1Bs (or equivalent).
(1) increase revenue which can be accounted for by:
(a) make new products (which is also a supply and demand sort of thing as well - have to make something people want)
(b) find additional investment (investors, government contracts, etc)
(2) cut costs which can be accounted for by
(a) make improvements in the production chains
(b) hiring cheaper employees (including outsouring)
(c) firing employees
Do you have a business degree? You certainly seem to think like an MBA, and sadly I don't consider that a compliment. There are other options, like finding ways to make your existing employees happier, which has been proven time and again to make them more productive. Hint: this isn't achieved by treating all your employees like faceless cags in the machine which can simply be hot-swapped at will.
Isn't this a relative thing as far as job production goes?
were all independent of the current administration;
I agree that (1) is independent of the current administration, but I'm not convinced that (2) is (though I'm not prepared to argue the point either, so i'll give it to you). (3) is only partially independent, and probably the area in which the administration has the greatest influence, although (4) is where the current administration has had it's biggest failure. Beyond failure, really, as the president himself basically aided and abetted in the Enron fiasco, and indeed all of the current administration that has any history in business has had their hands in similar shennanigans.
Enron in particular didn't have to happen the way it did. Love or hate Gray Davis, in the end everything he claimed the Texas energy companies were doing at the height of the energy crisis has been proven true, and Bush and company decided that his political assassination (and perhaps the pocketbooks of some personal friends) was more important than protecting consumers, investors, or the economy. that's called cronyinsm, and it's been at the driving force behind every economic or regulatory decision this administration has made.
being able to overcome all these and avoid a depression is an accomplishment in and of itself.
I disagree. in fact, it's my opinion that the Bush administration has made things worse at every turn, and we've managed to stay out of a depression despite their policies, not because of them.
And for that matter, the previous administration had the benefits of the dot-com boom (prior to the bust) where taxes from the boomers added more into the system allow for more government spending with less risk of deficits to be accounted for (if you have more money to spend, you don't have to borrow money).
You may be right, but then again I think Iraq has been a huge, unnecessary (even counterproductive) expense
Recent retail sales boosted investor confidence in the economy. Is that not "good"?
It's not "good" if it doesn't produce decent paying jobs. I'm not saying it's "bad", but it's pretty meaningless to say that the economy is booming when so many people have been effectively barred from reaping any of the benefits.
Over 1.9 million jobs have been created since August 2003 with 13 straight months of job gains. Is that considered "bad"?
Since it's the second worst job creation record of any president in the last century, yes, it is considered "bad".
Your mistake is assuming EULAs are valid, and actually have some basis in copyright law. I've got news for you: there's no such thing as a "license to use" in copyright law.
Software is covered under the same copyright law as books. Do you need a license to read a book?
Well, you might want to partition your drive differently then the restore CD is setup for so you can dual boot. Even according to the twisted logic of Microsoft's EULA that's still a legitimate use of your legally obtained copy of Windows.
However, you'd better hope you have some agreement with or permission from Microsoft, because otherwise you're violating their copyright.
Wrong.
Copyright only covers the right to make copies, and copyright law specifically grants the software users the rights to create any copies required for use (like in RAM and such).
There is no such thing as a use license in copyright law. What the software companies want you to believe is a use license is actually a contract, and as such it is ONLY valid if you agree to it. If you can find a way to use their software without agreeing to the EULA then you aren't bound by it, and you aren't violating copyright law as long as you aren't making unauthorized copies.
Think of it this way: software is covered by the exact same copyright law as books are. Do you need a license to read a book?
But hey, don't take my word for it, do what I did and read the law yourself. (It's USC17)
I basically agree with almost everything you've said, except that people don't get psychologically addicted to food. People get psychologically addicted to anything.
Also, while I don't dispute that psychological addiction is "real", it is not "real" in the same way that physical addiction is. If it were, we wouldn't make the distinction.
Coke claims that caffiene is not physically addictive, despite the fact that some people might show signs of being addicted to it. The implication is that psychological addiction has nothing to do with Coke or its products, and that any blame or liability for the addiction rests entirely on the addicted person.
Yes, I know they're wrong, and didn't need this article to tell me that. The post I was replying to claimed Coke was inconsistent in their statements and I was merely showing that they aren't, at least from their point of view.
I would like to go see movies in the theater, but all the movies I want to see just aren't appropriate for a 4 year old. So, I tell myself I'll wait till they come out on DVD (I've got a 40" HDTV, after all), but usually forget.
I used Bitkeeper for about two weeks, before being told that since I'd said this on the arch list: "I'd cringe if I had to use Bitkeeper", and because of my public pro-stance on free software (as they had researched from my homepage - http://www.souldound.net/), I was on their shitlist and they would not sell me, and therefore the company I currently work for, a license to use Bitkeeper.
Yeah, it's too bad Linus seems to be so happy with it, because Larry McVoy is a real dick. I posted something here on/. about how I don't think their "you can't develope revision control software" clause would hold up in court, and he personally flamed me (through email, of course) with all this crap about how I don't know anything and had no right to an opinion since I hadn't built a multi-million dollar company.
IMHO, the man's a complete asshat, which is really a shame, because he seems to have a good product that a lot of developers will never touch because of his childish behavior.
Do you treat your iPod the same as you treat your flash drives?
If so, I'm impressed, and possibly even corrected. I very much doubt that's the case, though. Simply put: any portable device that's solid state will be more durable on average than a device that's hard-drive based. Yeah, I know the iPod is very well designed, but hard drives are still very sensative to mechanical shock.
Even if it's perfectly reasonable at first, PC hardware is such a fast moving target that they'll have to redefine the standards every 6 months. I guess they could just keep adding levels, but then how would that be functionally different from the processor clock speeds most people go by now?
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Sarcasm doesn't transmit well over the internet. There's just too many idiots, you don't have the luxury of being able to assume the person you're conversing with isn't one.
No it isn't, because popularity brings money. The only valid tactic for harming EA is to at least not use their products, and even better, to use the products of their competitors. Marketshare is almost totally dependent on mindshare.
Microsoft may not make a lot of money in Russia now, but they certainly make some. Even more importantly, though, they retain their position of market dominance. In Russia's current economy that is largely because of piracy, but when the economy improves I have no doubt MS will find some way to cash in on it.
You don't need to take my word for it though. Go ahead and ask any marketer wether they'd rather have a consumer pirate their product or use a competitors.
I don't care if you do or not, I just get tired of the morons who say "I'm not just going to boycott, I'm going to pirate!" as if that hurts them more.
You don't boycott a company by using their product. That's just stupid.
Why don't you take a step out of Econ 101 for a moment and take a look at the real world.
A lot of people buy things because "that's what everyone else is using". That might not be the definition of marketshare, but that is it's meaning.
Of course he has, and he's understood it too, unlike the morons in the RIAA.
Windows wouldn't be where it is today if so many people couldn't get it "for free".
If you actually want to hurt EA, _DON'T_ pirate their games. Play their competitors games instead.
People who think they can hurt software companies through piracy are stupid. All you're doing is expanding their marketshare for them, increasing the popularity of their product, and that increases their sales and profits.
Use your head. Boycott, don't pirate.
Seriously, CD-Rs are probably cheaper, and almost certainly more reliable. If you multi-session they'll be even cheaper.
Running cooler strongly implies that less power is being used. After all, the heat is really just a side effect of the watts being sucked out of the battery (with some friction from spinning drives thrown in, of course).
I think the general response would be that they seem stable because you don't have any *nix servers running next to them for comparison. Virus vulnerabilities and patching issues are still instability, just going by a different name. Planned downtime is still downtime.
I'm betting you haven't spent much time in California. It's a big state, and includes a wide range of climates.
If people are spending on retail items, that must mean someone is making money.
Judging by the record personal debt numbers, I'd say it's the credit card companies.
I asked before, but outside of minimum wage increases, how can you set the job wages? I agree that some increase in minimum wage would probably be good, but then you have to realize doing so means an additional cost to a corporation to account for.
I actually wouldn't support an increase in the minimum wage right now, as I think the current minimum wage is appropriate for those kinds of jobs. But, the minimum wage itself isn't the problem. The problem is that the vast majority of the jobs being created are the kind of unskilled jobs that typically pay minimum wage.
No, you can't really directly dictate what kinds of jobs get created, but you can wield significant influence by providing incentives for companies to keep those jobs in this country, and to hire citizens over H-1Bs (or equivalent).
(1) increase revenue which can be accounted for by:
(a) make new products (which is also a supply and demand sort of thing as well - have to make something people want)
(b) find additional investment (investors, government contracts, etc)
(2) cut costs which can be accounted for by
(a) make improvements in the production chains
(b) hiring cheaper employees (including outsouring)
(c) firing employees
Do you have a business degree? You certainly seem to think like an MBA, and sadly I don't consider that a compliment. There are other options, like finding ways to make your existing employees happier, which has been proven time and again to make them more productive. Hint: this isn't achieved by treating all your employees like faceless cags in the machine which can simply be hot-swapped at will.
Isn't this a relative thing as far as job production goes?
I'm not sure what you mean here.
Since job losses due to
(1) dot-com bust
(2) 9/11
(3) globalization
(4) corporate corruption
were all independent of the current administration;
I agree that (1) is independent of the current administration, but I'm not convinced that (2) is (though I'm not prepared to argue the point either, so i'll give it to you). (3) is only partially independent, and probably the area in which the administration has the greatest influence, although (4) is where the current administration has had it's biggest failure. Beyond failure, really, as the president himself basically aided and abetted in the Enron fiasco, and indeed all of the current administration that has any history in business has had their hands in similar shennanigans.
Enron in particular didn't have to happen the way it did. Love or hate Gray Davis, in the end everything he claimed the Texas energy companies were doing at the height of the energy crisis has been proven true, and Bush and company decided that his political assassination (and perhaps the pocketbooks of some personal friends) was more important than protecting consumers, investors, or the economy. that's called cronyinsm, and it's been at the driving force behind every economic or regulatory decision this administration has made.
being able to overcome all these and avoid a depression is an accomplishment in and of itself.
I disagree. in fact, it's my opinion that the Bush administration has made things worse at every turn, and we've managed to stay out of a depression despite their policies, not because of them.
And for that matter, the previous administration had the benefits of the dot-com boom (prior to the bust) where taxes from the boomers added more into the system allow for more government spending with less risk of deficits to be accounted for (if you have more money to spend, you don't have to borrow money).
You may be right, but then again I think Iraq has been a huge, unnecessary (even counterproductive) expense
Recent retail sales boosted investor confidence in the economy. Is that not "good"?
It's not "good" if it doesn't produce decent paying jobs. I'm not saying it's "bad", but it's pretty meaningless to say that the economy is booming when so many people have been effectively barred from reaping any of the benefits.
Over 1.9 million jobs have been created since August 2003 with 13 straight months of job gains. Is that considered "bad"?
Since it's the second worst job creation record of any president in the last century, yes, it is considered "bad".
Maybe you should try looking at the actual numbers instead of just parroting party rhetoric.
The simple fact is republicans spend more than democrats, even if you ignore defense spending.
Bullshit.
Your mistake is assuming EULAs are valid, and actually have some basis in copyright law. I've got news for you: there's no such thing as a "license to use" in copyright law.
Software is covered under the same copyright law as books. Do you need a license to read a book?
Why bother?
Well, you might want to partition your drive differently then the restore CD is setup for so you can dual boot. Even according to the twisted logic of Microsoft's EULA that's still a legitimate use of your legally obtained copy of Windows.
How many times does this have to be pointed out? No matter how much you want to transfer your system, you did not pay for that kind of license.
Would you please show me the part in US copyright law where it says I have to have a license to use software I've legally obtained?
Hint: IT DOESN"T EXIST!
You can point it out as many times as you want, but you're still wrong.
However, you'd better hope you have some agreement with or permission from Microsoft, because otherwise you're violating their copyright.
Wrong.
Copyright only covers the right to make copies, and copyright law specifically grants the software users the rights to create any copies required for use (like in RAM and such).
There is no such thing as a use license in copyright law. What the software companies want you to believe is a use license is actually a contract, and as such it is ONLY valid if you agree to it. If you can find a way to use their software without agreeing to the EULA then you aren't bound by it, and you aren't violating copyright law as long as you aren't making unauthorized copies.
Think of it this way: software is covered by the exact same copyright law as books are. Do you need a license to read a book?
But hey, don't take my word for it, do what I did and read the law yourself. (It's USC17)
I was wondering the same thing. Apparently the answer is "Anywhere in Canada." Who knew there was a reason to go there?
I basically agree with almost everything you've said, except that people don't get psychologically addicted to food. People get psychologically addicted to anything.
Also, while I don't dispute that psychological addiction is "real", it is not "real" in the same way that physical addiction is. If it were, we wouldn't make the distinction.
Coke claims that caffiene is not physically addictive, despite the fact that some people might show signs of being addicted to it. The implication is that psychological addiction has nothing to do with Coke or its products, and that any blame or liability for the addiction rests entirely on the addicted person.
Yes, I know they're wrong, and didn't need this article to tell me that. The post I was replying to claimed Coke was inconsistent in their statements and I was merely showing that they aren't, at least from their point of view.
There are plenty of cases of people suffering withdrawl symptoms without any actual physical addiction behind it.
What Coke is denying is that caffeine is physically addictive.
I would like to go see movies in the theater, but all the movies I want to see just aren't appropriate for a 4 year old. So, I tell myself I'll wait till they come out on DVD (I've got a 40" HDTV, after all), but usually forget.
I used Bitkeeper for about two weeks, before being told that since I'd said this on the arch list: "I'd cringe if I had to use Bitkeeper", and because of my public pro-stance on free software (as they had researched from my homepage - http://www.souldound.net/), I was on their shitlist and they would not sell me, and therefore the company I currently work for, a license to use Bitkeeper.
/. about how I don't think their "you can't develope revision control software" clause would hold up in court, and he personally flamed me (through email, of course) with all this crap about how I don't know anything and had no right to an opinion since I hadn't built a multi-million dollar company.
Yeah, it's too bad Linus seems to be so happy with it, because Larry McVoy is a real dick. I posted something here on
IMHO, the man's a complete asshat, which is really a shame, because he seems to have a good product that a lot of developers will never touch because of his childish behavior.
Do you treat your iPod the same as you treat your flash drives?
If so, I'm impressed, and possibly even corrected. I very much doubt that's the case, though. Simply put: any portable device that's solid state will be more durable on average than a device that's hard-drive based. Yeah, I know the iPod is very well designed, but hard drives are still very sensative to mechanical shock.
Even if it's perfectly reasonable at first, PC hardware is such a fast moving target that they'll have to redefine the standards every 6 months. I guess they could just keep adding levels, but then how would that be functionally different from the processor clock speeds most people go by now?
Because an iPod will never be as durable as a solid state device.