Well, it's just a variation of what people used to say when their OS got corrupted and they said "my hard drive crashed". It just meant "My PC wouldn't boot".
On the other hand, most people are so mystified by computers that the difference between software and hardware is not obvious and they don't care.
I have the same problem. A dual core machine, tons of RAM, and it is constantly glitching MP3 playback. It's amazing how bad it is when you do routine stuff like, starting a new program, opening up the task manager, copying files, emptying the trash. If people don't hear it, then they're not trying very hard.
If they don't get it fixed in SP1, I'm done with it. I'll reformat go to XP or maybe just finally give up on Windows and make the move to Linux.
If you look in the constitution itself, you'll see the U.S. specifically has copyrights/patents to further more creation of IP: http://www.conlaw.org/patent_copyright.htm
Here's a key paragraph:
"Patents and copyrights are grants to the holder, by the state, of monopoly powers, for a specific period of time, for a specific reason. The goal is to provide incentive for invention and art. "
And while certainly you as an IP owner care about making money, society only cares that there is enough incentive to make you produce more.
The Ditch-Digger analogy is exactly apropos, as you seem to be equating hard work and investment with the right for protection. The ditch-digger works as hard as any guitar player, and he has invested everything he has... his time. Therefore his work deserves special protection? Of course not. And yet you're somehow claiming a moral superiority for playing guitar.
That's why the U.S. law does is not concerned with the artist's investment, it's simply an economic protection.
I think the argument that somehow the amount of investment is what deserves protection falls apart as well. If I write a little song in 5 minutes and record in 1/2 and hour and sell 10 Million copies, do I only deserve a little protection because of the amount of time? Or do I deserve the same protection?
The bottom line is that copyright and patents are very special monopolies granted by the government (you can argue they are socialist by nature), and they only reason is because they provide an economic incentive for creative works. No more, no less.
"It would be like doing 10 years of good investing on the stock market, retiring on $10M dollars only to be told 5 years down the track to hand all your capital gains over"
It's not a great analogy really, and I think we all know that. The problem is that an investment is (a) never guaranteed a return (b) and even if it gains in value, it can disappear for no reason whatsoever (c) is taxed. While (a) is certainly true of a song/movie/book, (B) and (C) really aren't true of IP.
I made this comment several years ago... I'd be okay with longer terms for IP, provided it was treated like real property. A valuation is placed on the IP, and it a property tax is applied to it. Right now, IP owners get the best of both worlds... treated like an investment when it's suits the owner, and then treated like property when it suits the owner. And the public is not really getting any value from that.
And let's not forget the intent of IP laws is not to make you rich, it's to encourage you to create more. I wish you make a $billion on your song/painting/book/movie. But it's not the government's job to protect your investment. That's your job. If you're going to be a capitalist, go all the way. Don't stop at the first part!
I believe the mere act of creation doesn't give you any special moral rights. Otherwise, we'd have ditch-diggers getting a stipend every time one of their ditches was used. You'd agree that's ludicrous. But somehow a guy playing a guitar gets special privileges. I would think you'd enjoy the fact that the government/the people have given you that special privilege.
Let's scale things back a bit. Give Copyrights 17 year protection. And you can protect it any way you can. But after that, boom. Your special protection from the government goes away. That seems pretty fair.
Actually, if you look at their ratings, they recommend Macintosh as their top choice, but it is a reality that the vast majority of people use Windows, and so they would be remiss if they didn't recommend a good laptop to work with Windows.
For the average person who shops at the local Fry's, takes work home, would like to use a browser, email, etc etc, and doesn't want to spend a lot of money, what do you recommend as a good choice? Keep in mind, it has to be able to be purchased from Costco, Circuit City, Best Buy, etc, and you have to be able to get support either locally or via the manufacturer direct. That means a laptop at about $700. Give it your best shot.
"First, what does "more advanced tasks" actually mean?"
That's pretty clear.
What CR is saying is that if you're smart enough to ask that question, then you should get a better laptop. That is pretty self-evident.
Theit advice is decent for people who are not knowledgeable about computers. It's like if you were buying a washer/dryer. You might not know much, so you just want honest advice that will suit you, not cost too much, and not get you a piece of junk.
If tht's not worth $20-40 a year, I don't know what is.
"In which case how do you reconcile Siskel/Ebert/Roper, and Consumer Reports?"
I don't watch the movie review guys anymore (haven't for 20 years), but Consumer Reports doesn't accept advertising nor does it accept donations except from individuals. As a subscriber, I get to vote for who is on the board of directors.
I said when they came out with their 30G player last year, they needed to sell it for $175 or less. Instead, they priced it roughly the same as the iPod Video, which is a losing deal. Many of the Zune's have been selling for about $100 for the 30G version, at which point you start to consider it.
Now, they need to un-bollix the wifi sharing, add a Mac client, allow Plays-For-Sure subscriptions, and then they'll actually have a competitor.
I had to chuckle when I read this from the article:
"believing instead that the near-ubiquitous practice of file-sharing can be abolished with more draconian copy protection mechanisms"
No no no. The people running record companies are not stupid. They're smarter than most people. They know they can't stop file sharing; it's impossible. But like all businesses, they invest money to protect revenue. DRM is not an attempt to stop copying, it's an attempt to shore up revenue.
To put it more simply, the record companies must believe they are better off revenue-wise putting on copy protection. If they spend $Z to get DRM on every CD, they'll stop X% piracy leading to $Y more revenue. If Y is greater than Z, then it makes sense to put on DRM. If Y is less than Z, then the DRM won't be put on.
Call your representatives. And write them a letter.
One of mine had a staffer to answer the phone, and she said she felt betrayed by her representative. She said "I don't know what they were thinking; it doesn't make any sense what they did". She urged me to write a letter.
My other two representatives didn't have the balls to answer the phone.
For the typical Maryland family, this tax will cost us about $1K-3K per year. Possibly less if you're at the poverty line, but then it hits you harder because you don't have the opportunity to avoid things like sales tax.
And then increased spending at the same time they just raised taxes by a record amount. They get my vote as the most out-of-touch legislators I've ever been "served" by.
Verizon won't activate a phone unless they provide it. Of course, finding a CDMA phone outside of Verizon is a challenge, but even if you get one from Sprint or Alltel I think you'll find Verizon will not activate it.
Verizon has a good network, but they are not consumer friendly when it comes to equipment choice.
It wouldn't work, simply because in many parts of the country, there is a competitive landscape.
If Comcast said "10G/Month for $40", then Verizon could say "yeah, well, 20G/month for $40". To which Verizon would be forced to say "Okay, unlimited", and then they're back where they started except now they actually have promised unlimited.
And even if they promised 10G/Month, I'm guessing a huge part of their customers are lucky to download 1G/month. These people are the goofballs who get high speed internet to shop at Coldwater Creek and check their email. They could get by with dial-up, but it's less sexy. Comcast (and others) love these customers because they're pure profit. But if you promised 10G/month, then you *actually have to have the capacity to support 10G/month for all your customers*. I doubt they do!
So any way you look at it, they're better off, grudgingly supporting "unlimited", hoping you use 1G per month, and cutting you off if you hit some special, double-secret cap.
It should be obvious except to the most dim of all people that online gambling is at best a, uh, gamble. With no real oversight and no transparency, you have no idea if you're being cheated. Why anybody would bet money in that circumstance is puzzling. At least in the old west and you went into a saloon, you could at least pull your gun out and threaten to kill a cheater.
On the other hand, since it's so obvious, why do you need to "protect" people? Shouldn't it be enough for the FTC to simply point out the obvious and say that if cheated, they have no recourse with the government? In fact, if the government was smart, they'd welcome online casinos to the U.S., take their cut, and then regulate them. But I'd make it voluntary. There would be a benefit to government regulation.
But alas, people want to be protected against even obvious stupidity, so I guess that will never happen.
The obvious answer is everybody in Washington *does* know what they Telco's did, but some think the scandal may cause a lot of damage to a lot of politicians.
Slashdot Mirror
A good analogy here is that when a sports team is under performing, generally the owner fires the coach, not the entire team.
Circuit City has turned that rule upside-down and seems to be suffering the consequences of it.
If I was a shareholder, perhaps I'd want to fire the entire management team at this point.
Oh, I wasn't making an excuse, just an observation.
On a technical website, there is no excuse for misusing terms like they were employed as the Style Editor for the "Backwater Times"
Well, it's just a variation of what people used to say when their OS got corrupted and they said "my hard drive crashed". It just meant "My PC wouldn't boot".
On the other hand, most people are so mystified by computers that the difference between software and hardware is not obvious and they don't care.
Considering how the jaguars have played most of the time, you were doing your readership a favor not covering them ;)
Because you are cutting into the Network's, Radio's, and Newspaper's exclusive turf.
Don't expect to be portrayed favorably.
I have the same problem. A dual core machine, tons of RAM, and it is constantly glitching MP3 playback. It's amazing how bad it is when you do routine stuff like, starting a new program, opening up the task manager, copying files, emptying the trash. If people don't hear it, then they're not trying very hard.
If they don't get it fixed in SP1, I'm done with it. I'll reformat go to XP or maybe just finally give up on Windows and make the move to Linux.
"UAC works very well"
It's really the worst thing about Vista. You'll be forced to turn it off within an hour, it's *that* bad.
Perhaps when you say "works very well", you might be using different definition of words than me.
"I do not think IP laws exist for either reason you give. "
Actually, that's the only reason it exists in the United States. US Law is not concerned with the moral aspects of IP. Here's a good summary here:
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~pam/papers/Sweet&Maxwell_1.htm
If you look in the constitution itself, you'll see the U.S. specifically has copyrights/patents to further more creation of IP:
http://www.conlaw.org/patent_copyright.htm
Here's a key paragraph:
"Patents and copyrights are grants to the holder, by the state, of monopoly powers, for a specific period of time, for a specific reason. The goal is to provide incentive for invention and art. "
And while certainly you as an IP owner care about making money, society only cares that there is enough incentive to make you produce more.
The Ditch-Digger analogy is exactly apropos, as you seem to be equating hard work and investment with the right for protection. The ditch-digger works as hard as any guitar player, and he has invested everything he has... his time. Therefore his work deserves special protection? Of course not. And yet you're somehow claiming a moral superiority for playing guitar.
That's why the U.S. law does is not concerned with the artist's investment, it's simply an economic protection.
I think the argument that somehow the amount of investment is what deserves protection falls apart as well. If I write a little song in 5 minutes and record in 1/2 and hour and sell 10 Million copies, do I only deserve a little protection because of the amount of time? Or do I deserve the same protection?
The bottom line is that copyright and patents are very special monopolies granted by the government (you can argue they are socialist by nature), and they only reason is because they provide an economic incentive for creative works. No more, no less.
"It would be like doing 10 years of good investing on the stock market, retiring on $10M dollars only to be told 5 years down the track to hand all your capital gains over"
It's not a great analogy really, and I think we all know that. The problem is that an investment is (a) never guaranteed a return (b) and even if it gains in value, it can disappear for no reason whatsoever (c) is taxed. While (a) is certainly true of a song/movie/book, (B) and (C) really aren't true of IP.
I made this comment several years ago... I'd be okay with longer terms for IP, provided it was treated like real property. A valuation is placed on the IP, and it a property tax is applied to it. Right now, IP owners get the best of both worlds... treated like an investment when it's suits the owner, and then treated like property when it suits the owner. And the public is not really getting any value from that.
And let's not forget the intent of IP laws is not to make you rich, it's to encourage you to create more. I wish you make a $billion on your song/painting/book/movie. But it's not the government's job to protect your investment. That's your job. If you're going to be a capitalist, go all the way. Don't stop at the first part!
I believe the mere act of creation doesn't give you any special moral rights. Otherwise, we'd have ditch-diggers getting a stipend every time one of their ditches was used. You'd agree that's ludicrous. But somehow a guy playing a guitar gets special privileges. I would think you'd enjoy the fact that the government/the people have given you that special privilege.
Let's scale things back a bit. Give Copyrights 17 year protection. And you can protect it any way you can. But after that, boom. Your special protection from the government goes away. That seems pretty fair.
Actually, if you look at their ratings, they recommend Macintosh as their top choice, but it is a reality that the vast majority of people use Windows, and so they would be remiss if they didn't recommend a good laptop to work with Windows.
For the average person who shops at the local Fry's, takes work home, would like to use a browser, email, etc etc, and doesn't want to spend a lot of money, what do you recommend as a good choice? Keep in mind, it has to be able to be purchased from Costco, Circuit City, Best Buy, etc, and you have to be able to get support either locally or via the manufacturer direct. That means a laptop at about $700. Give it your best shot.
"First, what does "more advanced tasks" actually mean?"
That's pretty clear.
What CR is saying is that if you're smart enough to ask that question, then you should get a better laptop. That is pretty self-evident.
Theit advice is decent for people who are not knowledgeable about computers. It's like if you were buying a washer/dryer. You might not know much, so you just want honest advice that will suit you, not cost too much, and not get you a piece of junk.
If tht's not worth $20-40 a year, I don't know what is.
"The point of this story is that the idea of locking phones to plans in Europe is immediately recognized as something wrong by the courts,"
The story is about exactly the opposite. The German courts say there is nothing wrong with it.
"In which case how do you reconcile Siskel/Ebert/Roper, and Consumer Reports?"
I don't watch the movie review guys anymore (haven't for 20 years), but Consumer Reports doesn't accept advertising nor does it accept donations except from individuals. As a subscriber, I get to vote for who is on the board of directors.
That's a unique situation to be sure.
I said when they came out with their 30G player last year, they needed to sell it for $175 or less. Instead, they priced it roughly the same as the iPod Video, which is a losing deal. Many of the Zune's have been selling for about $100 for the 30G version, at which point you start to consider it.
Now, they need to un-bollix the wifi sharing, add a Mac client, allow Plays-For-Sure subscriptions, and then they'll actually have a competitor.
I had to chuckle when I read this from the article:
"believing instead that the near-ubiquitous practice of file-sharing can be abolished with more draconian copy protection mechanisms"
No no no. The people running record companies are not stupid. They're smarter than most people. They know they can't stop file sharing; it's impossible. But like all businesses, they invest money to protect revenue. DRM is not an attempt to stop copying, it's an attempt to shore up revenue.
To put it more simply, the record companies must believe they are better off revenue-wise putting on copy protection. If they spend $Z to get DRM on every CD, they'll stop X% piracy leading to $Y more revenue. If Y is greater than Z, then it makes sense to put on DRM. If Y is less than Z, then the DRM won't be put on.
It's really that simple.
"'boy is this guy trying to make a 5->6% move sound like a bigger deal than it is'."
Yeah, how dare he do the math and quote the correct percentage increase.
Call your representatives. And write them a letter.
One of mine had a staffer to answer the phone, and she said she felt betrayed by her representative. She said "I don't know what they were thinking; it doesn't make any sense what they did". She urged me to write a letter.
My other two representatives didn't have the balls to answer the phone.
For the typical Maryland family, this tax will cost us about $1K-3K per year. Possibly less if you're at the poverty line, but then it hits you harder because you don't have the opportunity to avoid things like sales tax.
And then increased spending at the same time they just raised taxes by a record amount. They get my vote as the most out-of-touch legislators I've ever been "served" by.
Verizon won't activate a phone unless they provide it. Of course, finding a CDMA phone outside of Verizon is a challenge, but even if you get one from Sprint or Alltel I think you'll find Verizon will not activate it.
Verizon has a good network, but they are not consumer friendly when it comes to equipment choice.
It wouldn't work, simply because in many parts of the country, there is a competitive landscape.
If Comcast said "10G/Month for $40", then Verizon could say "yeah, well, 20G/month for $40". To which Verizon would be forced to say "Okay, unlimited", and then they're back where they started except now they actually have promised unlimited.
And even if they promised 10G/Month, I'm guessing a huge part of their customers are lucky to download 1G/month. These people are the goofballs who get high speed internet to shop at Coldwater Creek and check their email. They could get by with dial-up, but it's less sexy. Comcast (and others) love these customers because they're pure profit. But if you promised 10G/month, then you *actually have to have the capacity to support 10G/month for all your customers*. I doubt they do!
So any way you look at it, they're better off, grudgingly supporting "unlimited", hoping you use 1G per month, and cutting you off if you hit some special, double-secret cap.
You know what's worse than lame scripts that disable right click?
Lame scripts that haven't been debugged properly so they only restrict you on IE.
What's even worse is lawyers who claim to be expert in IP and internet law who don't know there's another browser except IE.
I *KNEW* it was a bad thing when we let AOL hook up to the Internet. The place has gone downhill ever sine.
You never explained why the noodle place wouldn't accept Europeans, but were glad to see Americans.
It should be obvious except to the most dim of all people that online gambling is at best a, uh, gamble. With no real oversight and no transparency, you have no idea if you're being cheated. Why anybody would bet money in that circumstance is puzzling. At least in the old west and you went into a saloon, you could at least pull your gun out and threaten to kill a cheater.
On the other hand, since it's so obvious, why do you need to "protect" people? Shouldn't it be enough for the FTC to simply point out the obvious and say that if cheated, they have no recourse with the government? In fact, if the government was smart, they'd welcome online casinos to the U.S., take their cut, and then regulate them. But I'd make it voluntary. There would be a benefit to government regulation.
But alas, people want to be protected against even obvious stupidity, so I guess that will never happen.
The obvious answer is everybody in Washington *does* know what they Telco's did, but some think the scandal may cause a lot of damage to a lot of politicians.
Nothing else makes sense.
"IRL, it's not uncommon to go days without seeing ANY deer"
Come to my back and front yard. I guarantee you'll see 20-30 a day. They're a pestilence in the northeast.
"What can NetApp's patent do that Digital Equipment Corporation's AdvFS couldn't do in the 1990s? "
Survive.