Fully agreed. The comment you replied to was a shortened version of the reply to his blog, which says this. I won't re-type it, but you should look at some of my other replies to people in this thread; you just happened to do the math to support our argument.
Actually, I skipped the title. Only saw the "-Chris" at the end, hence assuming. Now I know for sure.
You're right, Chris doesn't argue for stripping the DRM. That part of my argument is a bit out of context in that light; but the remainder stands. He's asking to sell a freely-reproducible digital object. Buying a 'used' copy is literally identical to buying a 'new' copy, except the recipient of your money isn't the original publisher, it's some person who no longer wants access to the book, and the price is lower. The main argument here seems to be price; I posit that if the e-book price is set to the expected difference in value between new and used, would you still resent being unable to lend or sell the digital copy? Your total cost of ownership is identical. With the e-book, you will always have access, but you would be unable to loan or resell your copy - just like if you had bought, used, then sold your physical copy.
In my reply to Chris's blog, I offer b) as a point of consideration, though I set the price at the expected depreciation of value of the book between new and used copies, since that's how much you'd be out if you bought a physical version and re-sold it again via the First Sale Doctrine; at least with the e-book, you will always* have access.
I'm assuming that's your blog, and your point there is ridiculous. Stop trying to map physical objects to digital versions. That's what the RIAA is trying to do and most/.ers (as well as most people informed on the subject) think it's unreasonable to expect a digital medium to have the same restrictions the physical medium does. Treat each medium separately, and instead of pointing out advantages one has over the other and pushing for those to be mapped into each domain, KEEP THEM SEPARATE. It's an e-book. It's digital, can be copied for zero cost, etc. etc. Don't whine about not being able to share it with a friend. Yes, that's an advantage of the physical book. But it isn't a physical book, it's an e-book. So why try to create a system to match physical books?
You can't have it both ways. Cheap, DRM-free music and e-books, or RIAA versions of both. All the arguments being made for physical media -> digital media are the same the RIAA uses. Pick one.
Not posting as AC because I stand by what I believe. DRM sucks and needs to be removed, but publishers/artists/companies AND CONSUMERS need to understand that the two media are not the same and stop trying to make them such. In case someone gets the wrong idea from this post, I want the DRM-free versions and can't wait for companies like the RIAA to stop existing. I just think wanting to have it both ways makes you a hypocrite.
Diesel's actually not that bad. It gets a bad rap because it's used in a lot of truly awful applications, but it's not much worse than regular gasoline when combusted reasonably efficiently - like most modern cars do. Just google "clean diesel" and read up!
Also, I believe GP misspoke with regards to BTUs/gal - diesel engines tend to be more efficient than petrol engines, to the tune of ~30%.
I'd give you a quote and link you to Wikipedia, but/.'s new comment system sucks and won't let me paste anything. It's in the "Fuel efficiency" wikipedia entry, just before "efficiency in microgravity".
In other, unrelated news, why is/., a site for programming/tech oriented people, such a mass of crap code?
Not everyone is CS. I was a Chemistry major, and I was in Richard Schrock's inorganic chemistry class when he won the Nobel Prize. Two of my professors were the top consultants for Novartis and GSK, who both had offices within a mile of campus. You'd think that professors like this would be top notch, but you'd be 100% incorrect - those 3 professors were the worst I had, by a long shot. Doing cutting edge research and being able to effectively communicate information in a classroom are entirely different skillsets.
When I worked in a lab on campus, I learned more about chemical experimentation and lab technique than any class (even lab classes) taught; all my internships were more focused on research that required basic background knowledge, which I had because previous internships had prepared me for it. My off-campus internships were even more educational. In fact, I'd already used all the instruments we were supposed to learn in lab at previous internships. My classmates who had no internship experience were lost and even after the class had only the vaguest notion of how to use these devices; those of us with the experience ended up walking them through it because we were so familiar with it (and in one notable case, more familiar than the TA).
As for the CS department, many of my friends could tell you how that worked out for them. They all came out with a decent working knowledge of Scheme, some with Python, and some with Java; not a single one came out with any classroom experience writing C/C++. They didn't have a grasp on fundamental principles of software design. Their first jobs were a bit of a shock; most of their internships were on campus, because hey, it's easy to land one of those and they paid well, but they were completely different from a real job or real internship.
They wished they had had more classwork that would have prepared them for their jobs. All of them. But nothing really compares to real world experience, IMO.
The breadth of knowledge would be missing, but the depth would more than make up for it. And, if instead of staying in school for 4 years, I had had 4 different internships for 1 year each, I guarantee the breadth and depth would have been greater than my university education. I learned more at my first job out of school than I did in the first 3 years in school, and that's only because I finished school in 3 years and took graduate-level classes afterwards.
Remember, it's not a simple 3- or 6-month internship, it's a series of internships that could last 5-10 months. That amount of work experience is invaluable compared to a generalized curriculum of fundamentals.
I 100% believe this. What I learned in school has almost no application to what I do for work.
I went to MIT. It was hard. But I could have learned the same material in half the time and gotten more work experience if I'd just had an internship instead. I've already had to fill in the gaps in fundamental knowledge for the material that wasn't covered in my classes, and know plenty of my fellow alums have had the same experience. We disagree with the argument that it gives students a good foundation, and that what you learn has any bearing on what you do later.
Not quite. That's for x^3 + x + 1, not x^3 + x^2 + x. Also, that's finding roots, which essentially requires that 'troll' be a variable. We know trolls aren't variable.
Invariably, they make asinine comments, post things like 'first post'/'frosty piss', and otherwise stir trouble via inflammatory remarks.
+1. Your sensitivity to the name is understandable, but I would wager most people use the word 'gay' to mean 'of bad taste/not very professional' (or the synonym, 'lame'), and not as a pejorative term against homosexuals. I think you'd be better served by being less sensitive to the word and its modern usage.
By the modern standards of today, "alchemy" is considered a pseudoscience. Why do new "researchers" (and I use the term VERY liberally) continue to apply modern context to historical figures? Newton was a pioneer of his day. Alchemy was considered a real science, one he spent quite a bit of time furthering, and to condemn 30 years of his life for searching for a way to turn lead into gold is insulting to his memory and legacy as well as insulting to researchers and historians who actually understand that modern opinions, ideas, and knowledge don't always apply in the past.
I am getting very tired of "researchers" making claims with unpublished data that cannot be verified for accuracy (Gliese 581 g possibly a hoax), making 'groundbreaking' claims about history without even considering historical context (this and about 50% of similar posts on/.), and a total failure to understand basic statistics (most 'shocking' studies posted on/.). These idiots give the rest of us researchers a bad name.
The thought that someone doesn't deserve to make what independent people are willing to pay them is one of the most bone-chilling authoritarian sentiments that have the misfortune of being popular on this site.
I have no problem with them making money from independent people willing to pay them. I have a problem with them taking more than half of what people are due. Yes, yes, they have expenses, but the biggest one (in many cases) is paying themselves.
Also, just because people are willing to pay doesn't make what they're doing OK. See: price fixing. Example: Samsung, Toshiba, Etc Fined For Price Fixing. Lots of people were willing to pay the price, but it still isn't right.
I'm not saying lawyers are colluding and demanding higher prices than they deserve, I'm saying there should be more restrictions on what kind of payout lawyers are entitled to in any case. The result of which would most likely be lawyers not being one of the highest paid professions, but still well-compensated.
Why does everyone blow this kind of stuff out of proportion and automatically go to authoritarian/socialist/etc?
I would argue a majority of lawyers do not produce any measurable value. That puts me in the range of 50+epsilon% to 100%, and I won't argue that some laywers do help. However, I would be shocked if they made anywhere near the amount of money that the ones who don't contribute any value do.
Though, it is nice to hear that there are some lawyers who do look to do the right thing and make the world a better place.
Or, as non-value-producing citizens, they could lead lifestyles that didn't require them to make money hand over fist to sustain. They have the potential to make more than doctors, and I can't imagine anyone would argue that doctors contribute much more to society than lawyers ever could.
If you browse the games they offer, you'll quickly change your assumption of "multi-gig" downloads to "multi-meg" downloads, which are a lot more reasonable to download across a connection with none of the error correcting you mentioned. These games aren't the cutting-edge, multi-DVD games; a lot of what they offer came on multiple floppy disks back in the day, and ranges up to (gasp!) games from CDs. Granted, this doesn't apply to EVERY game they offer, but a significant majority for sure.
Now, in the future, when a store like GoG offers 'retro' games like Borderlands, Dragon Age, etc., and Comcast/AT&T/Time Warner/etc. have their way and never upgrade from current speeds... yeah, those error correcting features will be VERY handy.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish there was a +1: Irony mod option.
Fully agreed. The comment you replied to was a shortened version of the reply to his blog, which says this. I won't re-type it, but you should look at some of my other replies to people in this thread; you just happened to do the math to support our argument.
Actually, I skipped the title. Only saw the "-Chris" at the end, hence assuming. Now I know for sure.
You're right, Chris doesn't argue for stripping the DRM. That part of my argument is a bit out of context in that light; but the remainder stands. He's asking to sell a freely-reproducible digital object. Buying a 'used' copy is literally identical to buying a 'new' copy, except the recipient of your money isn't the original publisher, it's some person who no longer wants access to the book, and the price is lower. The main argument here seems to be price; I posit that if the e-book price is set to the expected difference in value between new and used, would you still resent being unable to lend or sell the digital copy? Your total cost of ownership is identical. With the e-book, you will always have access, but you would be unable to loan or resell your copy - just like if you had bought, used, then sold your physical copy.
In my reply to Chris's blog, I offer b) as a point of consideration, though I set the price at the expected depreciation of value of the book between new and used copies, since that's how much you'd be out if you bought a physical version and re-sold it again via the First Sale Doctrine; at least with the e-book, you will always* have access.
Otherwise, agreed.
*: you know exactly why I starred this word.
I'm assuming that's your blog, and your point there is ridiculous. Stop trying to map physical objects to digital versions. That's what the RIAA is trying to do and most /.ers (as well as most people informed on the subject) think it's unreasonable to expect a digital medium to have the same restrictions the physical medium does. Treat each medium separately, and instead of pointing out advantages one has over the other and pushing for those to be mapped into each domain, KEEP THEM SEPARATE. It's an e-book. It's digital, can be copied for zero cost, etc. etc. Don't whine about not being able to share it with a friend. Yes, that's an advantage of the physical book. But it isn't a physical book, it's an e-book. So why try to create a system to match physical books?
You can't have it both ways. Cheap, DRM-free music and e-books, or RIAA versions of both. All the arguments being made for physical media -> digital media are the same the RIAA uses. Pick one.
Not posting as AC because I stand by what I believe. DRM sucks and needs to be removed, but publishers/artists/companies AND CONSUMERS need to understand that the two media are not the same and stop trying to make them such. In case someone gets the wrong idea from this post, I want the DRM-free versions and can't wait for companies like the RIAA to stop existing. I just think wanting to have it both ways makes you a hypocrite.
Hence using 'not that bad' instead of 'good' ;)
I had to look up Quantum Fireball. I concede defeat in this matter.
Diesel's actually not that bad. It gets a bad rap because it's used in a lot of truly awful applications, but it's not much worse than regular gasoline when combusted reasonably efficiently - like most modern cars do. Just google "clean diesel" and read up!
/.'s new comment system sucks and won't let me paste anything. It's in the "Fuel efficiency" wikipedia entry, just before "efficiency in microgravity".
/., a site for programming/tech oriented people, such a mass of crap code?
Also, I believe GP misspoke with regards to BTUs/gal - diesel engines tend to be more efficient than petrol engines, to the tune of ~30%.
I'd give you a quote and link you to Wikipedia, but
In other, unrelated news, why is
My 13Gb one is still working from the late 90's...
Not everyone is CS. I was a Chemistry major, and I was in Richard Schrock's inorganic chemistry class when he won the Nobel Prize. Two of my professors were the top consultants for Novartis and GSK, who both had offices within a mile of campus. You'd think that professors like this would be top notch, but you'd be 100% incorrect - those 3 professors were the worst I had, by a long shot. Doing cutting edge research and being able to effectively communicate information in a classroom are entirely different skillsets.
When I worked in a lab on campus, I learned more about chemical experimentation and lab technique than any class (even lab classes) taught; all my internships were more focused on research that required basic background knowledge, which I had because previous internships had prepared me for it. My off-campus internships were even more educational. In fact, I'd already used all the instruments we were supposed to learn in lab at previous internships. My classmates who had no internship experience were lost and even after the class had only the vaguest notion of how to use these devices; those of us with the experience ended up walking them through it because we were so familiar with it (and in one notable case, more familiar than the TA).
As for the CS department, many of my friends could tell you how that worked out for them. They all came out with a decent working knowledge of Scheme, some with Python, and some with Java; not a single one came out with any classroom experience writing C/C++. They didn't have a grasp on fundamental principles of software design. Their first jobs were a bit of a shock; most of their internships were on campus, because hey, it's easy to land one of those and they paid well, but they were completely different from a real job or real internship.
They wished they had had more classwork that would have prepared them for their jobs. All of them. But nothing really compares to real world experience, IMO.
The breadth of knowledge would be missing, but the depth would more than make up for it. And, if instead of staying in school for 4 years, I had had 4 different internships for 1 year each, I guarantee the breadth and depth would have been greater than my university education. I learned more at my first job out of school than I did in the first 3 years in school, and that's only because I finished school in 3 years and took graduate-level classes afterwards.
Remember, it's not a simple 3- or 6-month internship, it's a series of internships that could last 5-10 months. That amount of work experience is invaluable compared to a generalized curriculum of fundamentals.
I 100% believe this. What I learned in school has almost no application to what I do for work.
I went to MIT. It was hard. But I could have learned the same material in half the time and gotten more work experience if I'd just had an internship instead. I've already had to fill in the gaps in fundamental knowledge for the material that wasn't covered in my classes, and know plenty of my fellow alums have had the same experience. We disagree with the argument that it gives students a good foundation, and that what you learn has any bearing on what you do later.
I want my money back.
Not to derail this, but the first thing that came to mind when reading this was 'If you're wearing a penguin, you're doing it wrong.'
Sorry. Sometimes a pedant can't help themselves.
Don't forget Zawinski's Law of Software Envelopment:
Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.
Says the man with a 5-digit UID, who was 94 signups late for a 4-digit UID. ;P
Not quite. That's for x^3 + x + 1, not x^3 + x^2 + x. Also, that's finding roots, which essentially requires that 'troll' be a variable. We know trolls aren't variable.
Invariably, they make asinine comments, post things like 'first post'/'frosty piss', and otherwise stir trouble via inflammatory remarks.
No, it's troll + troll^2 + troll^3, or troll * ( 1 + troll + troll^2 )
+1. Your sensitivity to the name is understandable, but I would wager most people use the word 'gay' to mean 'of bad taste/not very professional' (or the synonym, 'lame'), and not as a pejorative term against homosexuals. I think you'd be better served by being less sensitive to the word and its modern usage.
By the modern standards of today, "alchemy" is considered a pseudoscience. Why do new "researchers" (and I use the term VERY liberally) continue to apply modern context to historical figures? Newton was a pioneer of his day. Alchemy was considered a real science, one he spent quite a bit of time furthering, and to condemn 30 years of his life for searching for a way to turn lead into gold is insulting to his memory and legacy as well as insulting to researchers and historians who actually understand that modern opinions, ideas, and knowledge don't always apply in the past.
/.), and a total failure to understand basic statistics (most 'shocking' studies posted on /.). These idiots give the rest of us researchers a bad name.
I am getting very tired of "researchers" making claims with unpublished data that cannot be verified for accuracy (Gliese 581 g possibly a hoax), making 'groundbreaking' claims about history without even considering historical context (this and about 50% of similar posts on
The thought that someone doesn't deserve to make what independent people are willing to pay them is one of the most bone-chilling authoritarian sentiments that have the misfortune of being popular on this site.
I have no problem with them making money from independent people willing to pay them. I have a problem with them taking more than half of what people are due. Yes, yes, they have expenses, but the biggest one (in many cases) is paying themselves.
Also, just because people are willing to pay doesn't make what they're doing OK. See: price fixing. Example: Samsung, Toshiba, Etc Fined For Price Fixing. Lots of people were willing to pay the price, but it still isn't right.
I'm not saying lawyers are colluding and demanding higher prices than they deserve, I'm saying there should be more restrictions on what kind of payout lawyers are entitled to in any case. The result of which would most likely be lawyers not being one of the highest paid professions, but still well-compensated.
Why does everyone blow this kind of stuff out of proportion and automatically go to authoritarian/socialist/etc?
Do they make money hand over fist?
I would argue a majority of lawyers do not produce any measurable value. That puts me in the range of 50+epsilon% to 100%, and I won't argue that some laywers do help. However, I would be shocked if they made anywhere near the amount of money that the ones who don't contribute any value do.
Though, it is nice to hear that there are some lawyers who do look to do the right thing and make the world a better place.
Or, as non-value-producing citizens, they could lead lifestyles that didn't require them to make money hand over fist to sustain. They have the potential to make more than doctors, and I can't imagine anyone would argue that doctors contribute much more to society than lawyers ever could.
Thanks for the nightmares, jerk!
I bet that one hurt. It's ok, the ambulance is on it's way to stop you from dying due to the self-induced aneurysm.
If you browse the games they offer, you'll quickly change your assumption of "multi-gig" downloads to "multi-meg" downloads, which are a lot more reasonable to download across a connection with none of the error correcting you mentioned. These games aren't the cutting-edge, multi-DVD games; a lot of what they offer came on multiple floppy disks back in the day, and ranges up to (gasp!) games from CDs. Granted, this doesn't apply to EVERY game they offer, but a significant majority for sure.
Now, in the future, when a store like GoG offers 'retro' games like Borderlands, Dragon Age, etc., and Comcast/AT&T/Time Warner/etc. have their way and never upgrade from current speeds... yeah, those error correcting features will be VERY handy.