And what about the dishonesty of game producers who sometimes produce a dog, that needs patches downloading from their website before the game will even work, or simply won't work on certain hardware / software configurations, and their tech help suggests "upgrade your video card" to play this game.
Piracy offers an consumer a try-before-you-buy option. You wouldn't buy a car sight unseen, neither a house, or any other purchase. Yet media producers (software, movies, music) expect you to do JUST that, and many stores will NOT refund you for substandard or simply non-merchantable quality goods due to the fact they'll assume you simply copied it anyway.
Now yes, there is probably a large proportion of illegal copiers who never get past the "try-before-you" stage, but to claim 100% of illegal copies == 100% of lost sales is simply nonsensical. Likewise the proportion of illegal downloaders who then go on to BUY the game because they were able to verify it's fitness-for-purpose first is also a factor.
So it's NOT a black and white issue, it's very very #808080... but hell, let's call them all Dirty Bastard Thieves and strap them to the chair eh ???
The seed/leech ratio on public trackers is abysmal already, even most private trackers suffer from this depending on the zealousness (or lack of it) displayed by the admins and the ratios and rules they set.
And despite whatever killer app materialises, within a week there'll be leech mods available for it to ensure you don't waste your precious upstream helping serve "the web" to your neighbors and friends.
It'll never work on a "trust" model... it has to be something enforced, just like IP4 and IP6.
Compression removes entropy, the better the compression method, the more entropy is removed and the more random the data appears.
So surely the best way to go is encryption followed by compression (or vice versa). This guarantees the file is indistinguishable from random data. Of course you'd have to strip out any headers that the compression program itself might leave etc etc...
It's funny how the same people who are scared shitless of shaking hands or touching a doorknob, will happily touch taps, soap dispensers and damp roller-towels in a public bathroom just for the sake of "washing their hands".
I'd have thought catching ANY disease early would be a good thing for all of the following reasons:-
1 - You are likely to receive more (medical) attention early on before the finance departments start making "risk assessments" and other evaluations to decide IF a certain person should even receive vaccines / treatment.
2 - You get a chance to build up an early resistance to it, so even if it mutates, you won't be hit as hard, if at all, the 2nd time around.
3 - You also get a chance for the antibiotics etc to work, before the virus itself attains drug resistant strains.
Funnily enough I just had a flu jag last week, including an H1N1 variant.
Except that universal health care, pensions, and social safety nets don't actually GENERATE any revenue, they just perpetuate and extend the lives of people who are already rrtired and not paying any taxes back into the system.
You're already in hock for 80% of your GDP, and you want to make the debt bigger ?
Slashdot Mirror
And what about the dishonesty of game producers who sometimes produce a dog, that needs patches downloading from their website before the game will even work, or simply won't work on certain hardware / software configurations, and their tech help suggests "upgrade your video card" to play this game.
Piracy offers an consumer a try-before-you-buy option. You wouldn't buy a car sight unseen, neither a house, or any other purchase. Yet media producers (software, movies, music) expect you to do JUST that, and many stores will NOT refund you for substandard or simply non-merchantable quality goods due to the fact they'll assume you simply copied it anyway.
Now yes, there is probably a large proportion of illegal copiers who never get past the "try-before-you" stage, but to claim 100% of illegal copies == 100% of lost sales is simply nonsensical. Likewise the proportion of illegal downloaders who then go on to BUY the game because they were able to verify it's fitness-for-purpose first is also a factor.
So it's NOT a black and white issue, it's very very #808080 ... but hell, let's call them all Dirty Bastard Thieves and strap them to the chair eh ???
Manbearpig flu ?
Simian lol ... phones for Monkeys. And I thought that was iPhone's marketing campaign ?
Yup, I can just imagine the future.
The seed/leech ratio on public trackers is abysmal already, even most private trackers suffer from this depending on the zealousness (or lack of it) displayed by the admins and the ratios and rules they set.
And despite whatever killer app materialises, within a week there'll be leech mods available for it to ensure you don't waste your precious upstream helping serve "the web" to your neighbors and friends.
It'll never work on a "trust" model ... it has to be something enforced, just like IP4 and IP6.
Wasn't a lot of Tolkein's work very similar to those Norse legends you mentioned ?
[citation not available, this is Slashdot, heresay will suffice]
s/remove/increase/
My bad, just woken up.
The UK Police can simply put you in jail until you hand over your father.
So this is your high-tech solution ?
Please enter the result of coin flip #1 ? ...
Please enter the result of coin flip #2 ?
Please enter the result of coin flip #256 ?
A far better method is to use my UNDETECTABLE ENCRYPTION ALGORITHM (patent pending)
A simple transform thus :-
If any bit = 0, then leave it alone
If any bit = 1, then transform it into a 0
Ha, that'll fool the bastards, they won't ever decrypt that !!!
Yup, I was going to comment something similar.
Compression removes entropy, the better the compression method, the more entropy is removed and the more random the data appears.
So surely the best way to go is encryption followed by compression (or vice versa). This guarantees the file is indistinguishable from random data. Of course you'd have to strip out any headers that the compression program itself might leave etc etc ...
Nah, it will always be the Swedish Chef song for me ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY_Yf4zz-yo
You forgot spamming copy-n-paste merchants !
Girlfriend happy with your mucus ? Cheap Tam1floo delivered to your door.
Gives the e-mail spammers something new to push I suppose.
It's funny how the same people who are scared shitless of shaking hands or touching a doorknob, will happily touch taps, soap dispensers and damp roller-towels in a public bathroom just for the sake of "washing their hands".
Yes, and with 20 data points, any 1 point in error is equal to a 5% bias on any conclusions you might reach.
Come back when there are minimum 1000 data points before jumping to any conclusions about the data.
I'd have thought catching ANY disease early would be a good thing for all of the following reasons :-
1 - You are likely to receive more (medical) attention early on before the finance departments start making "risk assessments" and other evaluations to decide IF a certain person should even receive vaccines / treatment.
2 - You get a chance to build up an early resistance to it, so even if it mutates, you won't be hit as hard, if at all, the 2nd time around.
3 - You also get a chance for the antibiotics etc to work, before the virus itself attains drug resistant strains.
Funnily enough I just had a flu jag last week, including an H1N1 variant.
Why can't we put someone in office who's not an incompetent asshole?
Because the US President has to be an American ?
(Damn, that's gonna hit my karma bad)
Except that universal health care, pensions, and social safety nets don't actually GENERATE any revenue, they just perpetuate and extend the lives of people who are already rrtired and not paying any taxes back into the system. You're already in hock for 80% of your GDP, and you want to make the debt bigger ?
US R&D only seems to make money for China these days
No, you just made an art form out of making them last > 10 years.
Unfortunately, the other 3 pillars were the Banking, Insurance and Automobile industries.
My bad ... After enduring the wall of text, I thought that thing at the bottom was his sig ;-)
Sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed from within the United States
Anyone got a US proxy I can borrow ?
So that whirring spinning noise coming from my DVD player is just a trapped hamster then ?
So that means there at at a minimum 15369 psychopaths that have posted on Slashdot ?
They should have just said she was an alcholic ... seems to work for Mel Gibson