Considering a custom written paper usually goes for a couple of hundred bucks if you contact a "paper writing service", even at 150,000 per infringement, they are still no where NEAR the outrageous multiple that the *IAAs want.
Absolutely agreed on NewEgg. I've dropped probably close to 10 grand over the last 6 or 7 years and have never ever had a problem with them. The 2 times I've had to RMA things, the turnaround time from my ship date to them / new item back to me has been under a week. Items returned have had costs promptly refunded and the couple of times I've had to use their customer support, things have gone smoothly. I simply won't buy from any other site or local shop unless its something I need yesterday. Most of the time as long as I order something before 1 or 2 PM, it *still* ships that day. (Granted that may be because I have a preferred customer card and get free expedited shipping, but that was usually the case before I got the card as well.) No, I'm not a shill, I just think if you need an example of how business can and should be done on the web, Newegg is a perfect example of things done right.
First you're ripping GM for charging a lot. You want them to price at cost instead? Yeah, that'd make a tidy profit!
Or are you saying that at $1000, no one is going to buy this option? I'll take that bet in a heartbeat.
Or are you making the naive argument that "they'd sell more if they lowered the price."? (Suppose they could sell 700 units of these at 1000 bucks a pop, or they could sell twice as many, 1400 units, at your price of 472 units a pop. Which is better?)
Somehow, I'm relatively sure that if you look at the numbers of units sold with rally stripes vs the numbers of units sold with the Transformers package, that the numbers will definitely be in excess of a 2:1 ratio. Also, there have been numerous articles written lately that explain how its much more expensive to produce some of these very limited edition packages because of the excess cost of the manpower required to produce them. (Now lets draw the obvious conclusion that very limited numbers, combined with higher cost of manufacturing add little, if anything, to the bottom line of a company as large as GM.) The point of my comment, which obviously went way over your head, was that in these stark economic times, this isn't a very good example of what I would call streamlining a company.
Recent articles I've read point to the fact that japanese and the korean car manufacturers have managed to lower costs quite a bit by offering 3 or 4 base models with very limited options available to them (save for dealer installed quickies).
GM is sinking faster than an anvil in a swimming pool....1000 bucks for 472 dollar rally stripes and some tacky emblems applied in a couple of spots?
WOW....HOW about 472 bucks for rally stripes and 500 bucks into a decent aftermarket exhaust?
Its obvious they are smoking the good shit in Detroit...
Actually, its not a myth, its called metabolic acidosis. It can come about as the result of being a dehydrated diabetic....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_acidosisHeres the wikipedia link...its definitely NOT an urban legend, ask any ER/ED doc or nurse....
Absolutely agreed on this, low carb diets can cause your blood to become acidotic and thats a ballgame of pain you really don't want to get involved in. There's a reason all those fad diets only have you do the hardcore, no-carbs part for a week or two, anything longer than that *can kill you*.
You have to imagine if these computers are all infected with this one trojan, they are probably infected with god only knows how much other spyware, malware, backdoors, and spambots. This might just be a GOOD thing; when these compromised twits wake up to a completely wiped drive, it might be the thing that drives them to read up on computer security a little bit, perhaps switch to a more secure browser, buy a router with a hardware firewall, etc. Not to mention, it will also wipe out all the aforementioned crapware.
But when are they going to release the fix that allows me to install something when I click on it, as opposed to some unspecified time in the future that may range from 30 seconds to 20 minutes and at speeds approaching XP?
Applications that take 5 seconds to install under XP sometimes took as long as 2 minutes under Vista, never understood it.
I'll stick with XP until they refuse to support it anymore. Hopefully by that time, some flavor of Unix will have matured to the point where I never have to use the command line *if* I don't care to, as opposed to having to use the command line at least once for damned near everything.
I really feel that the no subscription model that Anet and NCsoft are following with Guild Wars is the only real way to keep a large player base. I played WoW for a few months, and though I enjoyed it, I felt like, seeing as I was paying to play, that I HAD to play. At end game, it wasn't even fun, it was more of a job, 4 hours of a raid that would result in 3 wipes at some boss. "Oh good job people we got him down to 42% tonight"....
what?
Took me all of about 1 month between that and the limited time on EVERYTHING, wanna craft?, 72 hour cooldown, wanna run this instance? 1 week cool down... If I'm paying to play don't make it so I can only play once every week or 3 days. That's just a ripoff.
Anyhow, back to the main point...I think one of the reasons that Guild Wars is still a viable option is that you can throw the game down at any time, come back to it when you want, and not have to worry about shelling out money just to be able to log in and look around at new content from time to time.
With Guild Wars 2 on the far horizon, supposedly incorporating a lot of WoW type gameplay with no level cap and most importantly, no godawful monthly fees to play....I think its a possibility you may see the first real challenge to the MMORPG throne in the making.
Just like the other type of resources we can give breaks for per unit the more you purchase. So 1-20 gig is 50 cents a gig. 20-40 is 30 cents and so on.
This would be fantastic if that were the actual price, but TW wanted to charge 75 bucks a pop and then a buck a gig after the initial cap. When it becomes more expensive to download something than it does to have it burned to a CD and sent via snail mail, the internet ceases to have credibility as a medium. (Case in point, a game I just bought online, 3 bucks to ship it, its 4 gigs in size on a DVD, why should it cost me more to download it, than to have someone pack it, carry it 750 miles, transfer it by hand onto 3 different trucks and walk it to my doorstep?)
Left to their own devices, TW/Comcast/Cox, etc would certainly price internet right out of the range of most normal beings. Witness the current price of messaging costing more on a per bit basis than controlling a satellite..
So what exactly *would* you call someone who knowingly aids those who are looking to subvert the 4th Amendment to the Constitution? I'd call them an enemy.....seems to me that the definition totally fits...
First, the RIAA and MPAA aren't selling "entertainment"
Sure they are, its collectively called the "Entertainment Industry".
The products are meeting expectations, you're just expecting the wrong thing
What I am expecting, is to be entertained.
When I go out to eat, I don't get to skip out on the bill based on how delicious I thought the food was.
You might not, but what if the food was burned to the point that it wasn't even edible? What about games that aren't even playable? Case in point, GTA4, even with a GTX 280, latest drivers, and a recent build on modern hardware and a legitimately purchased copy of the game, I would have to load it as many as 7 or 8 times before I could get the textures loaded.
Also, "normal" items are typically paid for before you use them. If I go buy a toaster, for example, I pay for it before I get to take it home. If it's broken or doesn't meet my expectations then I return it and get back the money I already paid.
That's because this is an option with anything that isn't media. If it's a movie, if it's a game, if its music, it will be a cold day in hell before any store in this country will take it back on the grounds its just total and utter crap.
Actually, in a lot of facets aside from entertainment, that's exactly how it works. If I go to a restaurant and my meal or service was subpar, I can complain about it and get a refund. If my new car falls apart, there are lemon laws that protect me. If I purchase just about any normal item that breaks and/or doesn't perform the function that it was specifically designed to. I can return it for money or a new one. Why is it that entertainment is somehow above this?
As for real life, that's exactly what this boils down to, what you can do in real life is now CHANGING, and this is about people who rake in money and power based on the status quo.
I pay for entertainment, if I'm entertained they get money, if I'm not, then what I temporarily borrowed a copy of did not perform the function that it was specifically designed to. Just like the aforementioned dinner in a restaurant, if it didn't live up to its function, why should I be expected to pay for it? Particularly when all the aforementioned are actual products, and not just a stream of 1s and 0s that can be copied and reproduced ad lib with no effort or cost?
If you can explain the difference to me between a dinner gone bad, a car gone bad, or any other product gone wrong or that doesn't perform the function its intended to do, and entertainment, then you have no argument whatsoever to stand on aside from "Well, that is real life as its always been".
Noone should make millions from doing a small amount of work, payment should be proportional to the level of effort required to do the work and should cease when someone stops working. In most other industries this is already the case.
As a nurse, I have to completely agree with this. Be careful what you wish for, if you really want to set a precedent for this, watch the medical community jump on board. "I saved your life yesterday...still alive today? Pay me bitch....." Hey, my work is still being enjoyed....right?
I pirate stuff and buy it all the time, it depends on if its worth my money or not. If its worth it, I buy it, if its not, then I won't. The key is 'does it have value beyond the initial play or does it provide decent entertainment value?' If it doesn't then I save myself from getting ripped off, and if it does, then no ones getting ripped off. See how that works? Case in point, too many CDs to mention, Far Cry, a couple of games in the GTA series, the original copy of HL2. (All of which I have subsequently purchased and then turned around and bought more from the same companies based on my happiness with the initial purchase.)
Give me entertainment value, I give you money....
I think part of the issue, is that with the exception of the people who are comfortable with upgrading hardware and rebuilding a new bit of kit with an old case/HDD/Mobo what have you, is that when you say new hardware to most folks, it means, new tower, which in most cases means, shiny new copy of Windows with COA, which defeats the purpose in the first place.
No joke on that one, you would think with all the smart dorks already out there, we would have come up with a solution for that one long before the light bulb, the polio vaccine and dual core processors.
I highly recommend that you read the latest copy of National Geographic, it describes at least 2 studies (that I can recall offhand) that are currently being done that show species splitting. One having to do with fish of the same species living at different depths that seem to be developing different patterns of color based on the most available wavelength of light.
Does this mean when I call these bumbledweebs when my connection crashes or they suddenly decide to send my packets halfway to Zimbabwe and back to get to a server in the next state over that they can no longer deny that they support VOIP or gaming?
I can tell you that, on the whole, doctors and nurses have VERY morbid senses of humor and deal with death, disease and dying every single day. I certainly hope that you aren't suggesting we are all sociopaths?
I'm not sure how it is on other sites, but on newegg.com it allows anyone to review a product, but it will also say right before any review if the reviewer has purchased the item from newegg.com or not.
I personally wish there was a way to filter out those who had not purchased the item at newegg. That being said, at least being notified that the person didn't purchase the product from that site alerts you to the fact that the reviewer just may possible be full of crap...
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Considering a custom written paper usually goes for a couple of hundred bucks if you contact a "paper writing service", even at 150,000 per infringement, they are still no where NEAR the outrageous multiple that the *IAAs want.
Absolutely agreed on NewEgg. I've dropped probably close to 10 grand over the last 6 or 7 years and have never ever had a problem with them. The 2 times I've had to RMA things, the turnaround time from my ship date to them / new item back to me has been under a week. Items returned have had costs promptly refunded and the couple of times I've had to use their customer support, things have gone smoothly. I simply won't buy from any other site or local shop unless its something I need yesterday. Most of the time as long as I order something before 1 or 2 PM, it *still* ships that day. (Granted that may be because I have a preferred customer card and get free expedited shipping, but that was usually the case before I got the card as well.) No, I'm not a shill, I just think if you need an example of how business can and should be done on the web, Newegg is a perfect example of things done right.
First you're ripping GM for charging a lot. You want them to price at cost instead? Yeah, that'd make a tidy profit!
Or are you saying that at $1000, no one is going to buy this option? I'll take that bet in a heartbeat.
Or are you making the naive argument that "they'd sell more if they lowered the price."? (Suppose they could sell 700 units of these at 1000 bucks a pop, or they could sell twice as many, 1400 units, at your price of 472 units a pop. Which is better?)
Somehow, I'm relatively sure that if you look at the numbers of units sold with rally stripes vs the numbers of units sold with the Transformers package, that the numbers will definitely be in excess of a 2:1 ratio. Also, there have been numerous articles written lately that explain how its much more expensive to produce some of these very limited edition packages because of the excess cost of the manpower required to produce them. (Now lets draw the obvious conclusion that very limited numbers, combined with higher cost of manufacturing add little, if anything, to the bottom line of a company as large as GM.) The point of my comment, which obviously went way over your head, was that in these stark economic times, this isn't a very good example of what I would call streamlining a company.
Recent articles I've read point to the fact that japanese and the korean car manufacturers have managed to lower costs quite a bit by offering 3 or 4 base models with very limited options available to them (save for dealer installed quickies).
I used an exhaust upgrade as an example because it was one that was cited in the linked article. RTFA much?
GM is sinking faster than an anvil in a swimming pool....1000 bucks for 472 dollar rally stripes and some tacky emblems applied in a couple of spots? WOW....HOW about 472 bucks for rally stripes and 500 bucks into a decent aftermarket exhaust? Its obvious they are smoking the good shit in Detroit...
Actually, its not a myth, its called metabolic acidosis. It can come about as the result of being a dehydrated diabetic.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_acidosisHeres the wikipedia link...its definitely NOT an urban legend, ask any ER/ED doc or nurse....
Absolutely agreed on this, low carb diets can cause your blood to become acidotic and thats a ballgame of pain you really don't want to get involved in. There's a reason all those fad diets only have you do the hardcore, no-carbs part for a week or two, anything longer than that *can kill you*.
You have to imagine if these computers are all infected with this one trojan, they are probably infected with god only knows how much other spyware, malware, backdoors, and spambots. This might just be a GOOD thing; when these compromised twits wake up to a completely wiped drive, it might be the thing that drives them to read up on computer security a little bit, perhaps switch to a more secure browser, buy a router with a hardware firewall, etc. Not to mention, it will also wipe out all the aforementioned crapware.
Apparently, either type of Hummer?
But when are they going to release the fix that allows me to install something when I click on it, as opposed to some unspecified time in the future that may range from 30 seconds to 20 minutes and at speeds approaching XP?
Applications that take 5 seconds to install under XP sometimes took as long as 2 minutes under Vista, never understood it.
I'll stick with XP until they refuse to support it anymore. Hopefully by that time, some flavor of Unix will have matured to the point where I never have to use the command line *if* I don't care to, as opposed to having to use the command line at least once for damned near everything.
I really feel that the no subscription model that Anet and NCsoft are following with Guild Wars is the only real way to keep a large player base. I played WoW for a few months, and though I enjoyed it, I felt like, seeing as I was paying to play, that I HAD to play. At end game, it wasn't even fun, it was more of a job, 4 hours of a raid that would result in 3 wipes at some boss. "Oh good job people we got him down to 42% tonight" ....
what?
Took me all of about 1 month between that and the limited time on EVERYTHING, wanna craft?, 72 hour cooldown, wanna run this instance? 1 week cool down... If I'm paying to play don't make it so I can only play once every week or 3 days. That's just a ripoff.
Anyhow, back to the main point...I think one of the reasons that Guild Wars is still a viable option is that you can throw the game down at any time, come back to it when you want, and not have to worry about shelling out money just to be able to log in and look around at new content from time to time.
With Guild Wars 2 on the far horizon, supposedly incorporating a lot of WoW type gameplay with no level cap and most importantly, no godawful monthly fees to play....I think its a possibility you may see the first real challenge to the MMORPG throne in the making.
Just like the other type of resources we can give breaks for per unit the more you purchase. So 1-20 gig is 50 cents a gig. 20-40 is 30 cents and so on.
This would be fantastic if that were the actual price, but TW wanted to charge 75 bucks a pop and then a buck a gig after the initial cap. When it becomes more expensive to download something than it does to have it burned to a CD and sent via snail mail, the internet ceases to have credibility as a medium. (Case in point, a game I just bought online, 3 bucks to ship it, its 4 gigs in size on a DVD, why should it cost me more to download it, than to have someone pack it, carry it 750 miles, transfer it by hand onto 3 different trucks and walk it to my doorstep?)
Left to their own devices, TW/Comcast/Cox, etc would certainly price internet right out of the range of most normal beings. Witness the current price of messaging costing more on a per bit basis than controlling a satellite..
So what exactly *would* you call someone who knowingly aids those who are looking to subvert the 4th Amendment to the Constitution? I'd call them an enemy.....seems to me that the definition totally fits...
First, the RIAA and MPAA aren't selling "entertainment"
Sure they are, its collectively called the "Entertainment Industry".
The products are meeting expectations, you're just expecting the wrong thing
What I am expecting, is to be entertained.
When I go out to eat, I don't get to skip out on the bill based on how delicious I thought the food was.
You might not, but what if the food was burned to the point that it wasn't even edible? What about games that aren't even playable? Case in point, GTA4, even with a GTX 280, latest drivers, and a recent build on modern hardware and a legitimately purchased copy of the game, I would have to load it as many as 7 or 8 times before I could get the textures loaded.
Also, "normal" items are typically paid for before you use them. If I go buy a toaster, for example, I pay for it before I get to take it home. If it's broken or doesn't meet my expectations then I return it and get back the money I already paid.
That's because this is an option with anything that isn't media. If it's a movie, if it's a game, if its music, it will be a cold day in hell before any store in this country will take it back on the grounds its just total and utter crap.
Me thinks you are spelling practitioner B-A-N-K-E-R
Actually, in a lot of facets aside from entertainment, that's exactly how it works. If I go to a restaurant and my meal or service was subpar, I can complain about it and get a refund. If my new car falls apart, there are lemon laws that protect me. If I purchase just about any normal item that breaks and/or doesn't perform the function that it was specifically designed to. I can return it for money or a new one. Why is it that entertainment is somehow above this? As for real life, that's exactly what this boils down to, what you can do in real life is now CHANGING, and this is about people who rake in money and power based on the status quo. I pay for entertainment, if I'm entertained they get money, if I'm not, then what I temporarily borrowed a copy of did not perform the function that it was specifically designed to. Just like the aforementioned dinner in a restaurant, if it didn't live up to its function, why should I be expected to pay for it? Particularly when all the aforementioned are actual products, and not just a stream of 1s and 0s that can be copied and reproduced ad lib with no effort or cost? If you can explain the difference to me between a dinner gone bad, a car gone bad, or any other product gone wrong or that doesn't perform the function its intended to do, and entertainment, then you have no argument whatsoever to stand on aside from "Well, that is real life as its always been".
Noone should make millions from doing a small amount of work, payment should be proportional to the level of effort required to do the work and should cease when someone stops working. In most other industries this is already the case.
As a nurse, I have to completely agree with this. Be careful what you wish for, if you really want to set a precedent for this, watch the medical community jump on board. "I saved your life yesterday...still alive today? Pay me bitch....." Hey, my work is still being enjoyed....right?
I pirate stuff and buy it all the time, it depends on if its worth my money or not. If its worth it, I buy it, if its not, then I won't. The key is 'does it have value beyond the initial play or does it provide decent entertainment value?' If it doesn't then I save myself from getting ripped off, and if it does, then no ones getting ripped off. See how that works? Case in point, too many CDs to mention, Far Cry, a couple of games in the GTA series, the original copy of HL2. (All of which I have subsequently purchased and then turned around and bought more from the same companies based on my happiness with the initial purchase.) Give me entertainment value, I give you money....
I think part of the issue, is that with the exception of the people who are comfortable with upgrading hardware and rebuilding a new bit of kit with an old case/HDD/Mobo what have you, is that when you say new hardware to most folks, it means, new tower, which in most cases means, shiny new copy of Windows with COA, which defeats the purpose in the first place.
No joke on that one, you would think with all the smart dorks already out there, we would have come up with a solution for that one long before the light bulb, the polio vaccine and dual core processors.
I highly recommend that you read the latest copy of National Geographic, it describes at least 2 studies (that I can recall offhand) that are currently being done that show species splitting. One having to do with fish of the same species living at different depths that seem to be developing different patterns of color based on the most available wavelength of light.
I was wondering why my download speeds on that torrent were so slow :*(
Does this mean when I call these bumbledweebs when my connection crashes or they suddenly decide to send my packets halfway to Zimbabwe and back to get to a server in the next state over that they can no longer deny that they support VOIP or gaming?
Damned A--hats.....
I can tell you that, on the whole, doctors and nurses have VERY morbid senses of humor and deal with death, disease and dying every single day. I certainly hope that you aren't suggesting we are all sociopaths?
I'm not sure how it is on other sites, but on newegg.com it allows anyone to review a product, but it will also say right before any review if the reviewer has purchased the item from newegg.com or not.
I personally wish there was a way to filter out those who had not purchased the item at newegg. That being said, at least being notified that the person didn't purchase the product from that site alerts you to the fact that the reviewer just may possible be full of crap...