As downloadable media becomes larger and more proliferic, we're likely to see more and more ISP's either closing down, raising prices, or capping/metering transfers to survive.
We're also likely to see/need a paradigm change in which people - including ISPs - don't have to pay by the byte. 'Course, that'll probably only happen when consumer-level hardware gets pipes fat and fast and automagical enough to handle global-scale networking without needing to be babysat by humans.
The reason why, is you're all winging customers. I'm a shareholder - and when you're a shareholder, and you see they've raised the prices, you think "fantastic" as opposed to "crap".
When I'm a shareholder, and I see them raise prices, I think "why?". Increased prices is NOT an exact correspondance to increased share value. If Ford suddenly decided to double the price of their cars, would the price of their stock likewise double? I don't think so.
Of course, I don't use them for my broadband services.
As a stockholder, always try to see it from the customer's perspective - because if they abandon ship, your stock is going to suffer...
To me increased prices (especially combined with decreased service) suggests a company is too incompetant to make a profit at the prices it chose, was incompetant in setting prices too low, or is ripping off customers to sate short-term greed. None of those options says good things about the company's management.
After all, if management is willing to rip off its customers, it'll rip off the stockholders too if it can get away with it.
A slap on the wrist is a $2100 fine, 80 hours community service, god-only-knows how much in legal fees, and the loss of his job?! The state charged him with *eight felony counts* for installing software to use idle cycles on some CPUs.
Yikes. I pray you're never put in charge of wrist-slapping.
In a startling development today, Ukraine City announced it had joined the Republic of United States of America, in light of that Civilization's great wisdom and power.
The President of the USA was reportedly aghast at the decision, especially when he reviewed the Ukraine City Window. "Don't they realise all those Unhappy People will lower the morale of my Republic?! I'll have to switch to a Monarchy or face civil war! And good grief, they're surrounded by Barbarians, they'll rob my Treasury blind when they capture the city!"
Er, so you'd give the book to your class to learn from it, but then you'd zero anyone who actually used what they learnt from the book?
Major studios trying to play King Lear...
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Broadband Obstacles
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· Score: 1
"Even if the speed were there, the major studios are not making their video entertainment available online until they are certain it cannot be pirated."
Guess we're NEVER going to see anything from the major studios then. If it can be recorded once, it can be recorded again. Still, that's a silver lining for the independants I suppose.
If they can work out who owns what enough to ensure who gets what slice of the profit pie, then they can work out how much of the profit pie should be *cut* to represent the public funds. I wonder if they do that, however, instead of just saying 'ooh, more profit for us'.
However I don't trust your Government, even though I like and respect some of the people I know in it, and a lot of other people share my distrust - including many US citizens if the postings here on slashdot are any indication.
The US, at least as a political entity, *is* hated, feared or distrusted to varying degrees by a significant portion of the world's population.
Quite rightly, almost no-one in the industry is going to give you the same amount of credit in your position as a guy who's been running a network full-time for 8 years.
Hey, give the guy a break. You should know the IT industry - less hours doesn't automatically mean less work. More often than not, it simply reduces the time you have to do the work *in*.
Case in point - imagine being the only local IT guy for a network supporting eighty-odd people spread over seven buildings. Imagine the budget wizards in accounting deciding that they can't afford to have you on full-time. Do you suddenly have less work to do because you're only part-time? Heck no. Good thing I love my job!:)
Re:Self-inflicted piracy, or Why I would use Chips
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Sony vs Modchips
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· Score: 1
"permit charging different prices in different regions"
And the problem with this is?.... They have every right to charge whatever they want in whatever region they want. You have every right not to buy from them. Buying from them is a convenience, not a necessity.
Hey, they can sell DVDs wherever they want for whatever they want, fine by me. The trouble is they threaten legal force if it then gets resold to folks in another "region".
Basically, if X is selling it to Y, the moment Y is on the other side of some imaginary geopolitical line Z goes "Hey! That's our turf, only we get to sell them those DVDs, so nick off!" It's obscenely monopolistic, and some countries have told them where they can shove it (eg, New Zealand - its courts decided that the DVD region coding system is restrictive and therefore illegal, and it allows region-free players to be sold commercially).
Why is it that government officials aren't paid based on performance, like the rest of us are? If you give the greedy bastards the option of either being an idiot and making $100,000 per year, or being halfway intelligent and making $250,000, which do you think they'd choose.
Uh, we tried that in Australia. It didn't work. Guess who decides whether government officials get their performance bonus each year...
Yep, other government officials who depend on the first lot for their own funding. Doh! Heck, our porky pollies down under took this a step further - they get to decide their own salaries and superannuation benefits! It's obscene. Hrm. Maybe we could get Germany to ban them as well.:p
Re:The freedom to swing your fist
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Freedom or Power?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Yep, you can "give it away, or destroy it", but it only gets interesting when you say "here it is, but you can't give it to anyone else".
Once you've given it away once, the only way you can ultimately stop the recipient from likewise giving it away is to use your fists. Oops.
Copyright is not the same thing as private property. If it was, I'd need your permission to build my own house on my own land with my own materials just because it was the same design as yours.
Re:Doesn't answer my question...trees
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Review: K-PAX
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· Score: 1
Trees - and other flora - often engage in some rather vicious chemical warfare. And "strangling vines" aren't called that without reason. See also "venus flytraps". The time scale is long, often much longer, but plants can be every bit as lethal as animals.
Odd thing that - I thought I had. Silly me for expecting it to be unabridged when it didn't mention anywhere on the box that it wasn't...
Re:No, this is scary, not funny. I mean that.
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RIAA to DoS Pirates?
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· Score: 1
Aside from the fact that the above is a "no-no" in speechmaking (a little rule about life: Practice what you preach), it does seem a little strange that no-one was complaining about this issue until the beginning of napster.
Oh, some folks have been complaining for ages. They're just louder / easier to hear / more numerous now.
People were fine paying $10-15 dollars for a CD, until they were getting it for free, and it was taken away.
Some people. Not all people. Count me in the latter group.
What I want to know is, how the hell would they know what I have in my 'CD Case' and what I don't have.
Oh, that's simple. They will have everyone register their 'CD licenses' - just like Microsoft is doing with Windows XP. If you can't register, you can't listen. Activation code check each time you put the CD in a new CD drive (which is fitted with DRM and requires a net connection - if you've no net connection, it refuses to play).
And in this near-future scenario, shiny new portable CD players will offer a wireless connection so you can listen to your licensed CDs on the move.
It doesn't matter if you independently come up with the idea, or if you use someone elses patent as a source of information. Either way, you are infringing on their patent.
So we're all screwed when ET shows up and hires a law firm?
It was the Oklo site I was referring to. It had more than one such reactor. I was generalising somewhat too.
Good point about the soot, although I'd prefer to have more control over where such waste goes. Fission plants, done well, are tidier - though as you state their waste is more concentrated, a pro/con thing. I suppose the big catch is that "done well" part. Still, the recent developments in small-scale reactor design are very interesting.
I agree dumping nuclear waste in a salt mine isn't the greatest of ideas (by far). However I did not mean just casually tossing it into the ocean instead. I meant making sure it goes into one of those natural areas of the earth's crust that gets pushed under the plates (over a geological span). It just happens that they're mostly underwater (AFAIK).
There are plenty of places on Earth neither you nor anything else would want to live in already, care of natural causes (unless you have a deathwish). Heck, there are even rare cases of natural fission reactors.
Coal plants produce more radioactive waste (radioactive carbon soot) than fission plants, and worse the stuff is airborne. If I had to choose between radioactive slugs I could regularly bury in a subduction fault at the bottom of an oceanic trench to get recycled by the earth's tectonics over an eon or two, or radioactive soot being pumped into the atmosphere 24/7, I'd bloody well choose the fission plant. At least then I get a *choice* where it goes.
Someone please mod the parent (by eVarmint) down. Sound decreases the further away you are, not increases. What 72dBA at 1m means is this fuel cell is much quieter than a combustion engine.
This communication is intended for the addressee only, is private and confidential, and is subject to all applicable terms and conditions. Access to this email by any third party is unauthorised. This message should not be read if delivered in error.
The funniest part of these is the way they put the "should not be read" warning at the END of the message. Er, bit too late...
Slashdot Mirror
To me increased prices (especially combined with decreased service) suggests a company is too incompetant to make a profit at the prices it chose, was incompetant in setting prices too low, or is ripping off customers to sate short-term greed. None of those options says good things about the company's management.
After all, if management is willing to rip off its customers, it'll rip off the stockholders too if it can get away with it.
Yikes. I pray you're never put in charge of wrist-slapping.
The President of the USA was reportedly aghast at the decision, especially when he reviewed the Ukraine City Window. "Don't they realise all those Unhappy People will lower the morale of my Republic?! I'll have to switch to a Monarchy or face civil war! And good grief, they're surrounded by Barbarians, they'll rob my Treasury blind when they capture the city!"
Er, so you'd give the book to your class to learn from it, but then you'd zero anyone who actually used what they learnt from the book?
Guess we're NEVER going to see anything from the major studios then. If it can be recorded once, it can be recorded again. Still, that's a silver lining for the independants I suppose.
If they can work out who owns what enough to ensure who gets what slice of the profit pie, then they can work out how much of the profit pie should be *cut* to represent the public funds. I wonder if they do that, however, instead of just saying 'ooh, more profit for us'.
Interesting. Maybe the SETI folks should be looking for signs of ET science experiments instead of ET cellphones. :)
However I don't trust your Government, even though I like and respect some of the people I know in it, and a lot of other people share my distrust - including many US citizens if the postings here on slashdot are any indication.
The US, at least as a political entity, *is* hated, feared or distrusted to varying degrees by a significant portion of the world's population.
Cheers.
Evil or not, it's what I'm waiting for. AVI and MPG videos with Ogg multi-channel surround sound anyone?
Hey, give the guy a break. You should know the IT industry - less hours doesn't automatically mean less work. More often than not, it simply reduces the time you have to do the work *in*.
Case in point - imagine being the only local IT guy for a network supporting eighty-odd people spread over seven buildings. Imagine the budget wizards in accounting deciding that they can't afford to have you on full-time. Do you suddenly have less work to do because you're only part-time? Heck no. Good thing I love my job! :)
Basically, if X is selling it to Y, the moment Y is on the other side of some imaginary geopolitical line Z goes "Hey! That's our turf, only we get to sell them those DVDs, so nick off!" It's obscenely monopolistic, and some countries have told them where they can shove it (eg, New Zealand - its courts decided that the DVD region coding system is restrictive and therefore illegal, and it allows region-free players to be sold commercially).
Uh, we tried that in Australia. It didn't work. Guess who decides whether government officials get their performance bonus each year...
Yep, other government officials who depend on the first lot for their own funding. Doh! Heck, our porky pollies down under took this a step further - they get to decide their own salaries and superannuation benefits! It's obscene. Hrm. Maybe we could get Germany to ban them as well. :p
Once you've given it away once, the only way you can ultimately stop the recipient from likewise giving it away is to use your fists. Oops.
Copyright is not the same thing as private property. If it was, I'd need your permission to build my own house on my own land with my own materials just because it was the same design as yours.
Trees - and other flora - often engage in some rather vicious chemical warfare. And "strangling vines" aren't called that without reason. See also "venus flytraps". The time scale is long, often much longer, but plants can be every bit as lethal as animals.
And in this near-future scenario, shiny new portable CD players will offer a wireless connection so you can listen to your licensed CDs on the move.
Seriously, it is worrying how easily the people elected to govern the free world can toss away its freedoms, ostensibly in the name of freedom itself.
Good point about the soot, although I'd prefer to have more control over where such waste goes. Fission plants, done well, are tidier - though as you state their waste is more concentrated, a pro/con thing. I suppose the big catch is that "done well" part. Still, the recent developments in small-scale reactor design are very interesting.
I agree dumping nuclear waste in a salt mine isn't the greatest of ideas (by far). However I did not mean just casually tossing it into the ocean instead. I meant making sure it goes into one of those natural areas of the earth's crust that gets pushed under the plates (over a geological span). It just happens that they're mostly underwater (AFAIK).
Coal plants produce more radioactive waste (radioactive carbon soot) than fission plants, and worse the stuff is airborne. If I had to choose between radioactive slugs I could regularly bury in a subduction fault at the bottom of an oceanic trench to get recycled by the earth's tectonics over an eon or two, or radioactive soot being pumped into the atmosphere 24/7, I'd bloody well choose the fission plant. At least then I get a *choice* where it goes.
(that post got 3, informative? gah....)
Hope it was wearing a seatbelt. :)