Exactly that is why we have libraries though. The publishers also have to calculate and estimate the best price point where most people will buy it at best price, to generate the most profit. The $14.99 vs $19.99 change might just be what's required to make me not to buy it.
While everyone getting any book at lets say $1 or having access to all the entertainment in the world for free, that's not how our society works currently. Frankly I also don't see a better way for it to work. People work for money, which drives the entertainment and book industry too. If it didn't, we would have access to even less books and information. Currently almost anyone can enjoy books being made and information flowing, and having them available in libraries even if you can't afford to buy yourself a copy.
So what does that has to do with anything then? Nothing in the world is sold at marginal costs, even less so digital items. But the work of people needs to be paid, and they probably have to pay other people (like distribution channels, royalties) for their costs. And then theres the obvious profit margin, which is why companies work in the first place. Otherwise we would be working in a communism system where people work for free as long as they get food.
You're doing something wrong if you're buying an eBook/game/whatever for it's bits. I'm buying it for the value it gives me - be that information, entertainment or something else.
First of all, we don't spam our links in the post here on slashdot. Anyone can click your Homepage button.
Secondly, where did you get the idea that eBooks are supposed to be cheaper so the publishing industry goes to the "right" direction? Frankly if I buy a book, I want it as hardcover/paperback. Sure, music I want to download digitally, but books just aren't the same thing.
Thirdly, this thing most likely isn't about eBooks being $14.99 while paperbacks are $5. The $14.99 eBooks are for books that cost $30 or more as a hardcover.
I really doubt it's the lawyers who find artists and get them to sign up with the labels.
You do know no one forces them to join a big music label, do you? But new artists want to. They want to make music, not worry about distribution or marketing. Nor do they even have experience in that.
And no, putting your album to The Pirate Bay and just hoping people will find it isn't proper method.
Yeah that sounds a little bit stupid. Of course they have "monopoly" over their own titles. Duh.
For that matter, why do the RIAA's members still control the music business? Why do these dinosaur publishing businesses still manage to thrive despite the Internet?"
Because they 1) Provide money and pay the big costs while artists are producing their album 2) Provide marketing 3) Find the promising artists and writers 4) Have the distribution channels
You can say anything you want about the internet as a marketing channel and cheap personal computers being capable of producing albums, but they really aren't. You need a good studio. I'm not going to listen to something that sound like demo tracks. They're horrible if you've ever listened to any other than your favorite band's. They also filter out the crap.
This might be a little bit different with books, but you still need those distribution channels and marketing. Books don't just magically show up in book stores, libraries or have articles in magazines, nor do people just accidentally hear about it. And eBooks aren't going to replace paperback books yet.
It wasn't a comprehensive example, but just to point out that the content coming from your TV isn't something you have bought. You're paying for your TV company just to see it.
As someone later in the comments point, you do not have broadcasting rights to the material so you can't just do anything with it or show it to lots of people in public places. If you want those rights, you have to either get a license to do so from the content owners, or buy it completely from them (which costs hell of a lot more than merely acquiring viewing rights from your local TV company, like with the renting example too).
And you just couldn't read a few words more to understand the whole thing and that it starts to shutdown every two hours on March? The original warning about that wasn't that it works until June, it was that on March it starts to shutdown every two hours, and finally on June it will stop booting. That's three months for you to take your files and settings and update. Stop being so freaking difficult.
I know it's the usual thing to badmouth MS on slashdot, but everyone knew it was going to expire and you would need to update.
Maybe he wants to keep some of that mystery alive. If he made a "comeback" now, even with a different comic, I doubt it would be nearly as successful and would most likely just fail, big part in that being because people would expect him to deliver moon from the sky.
I actually started liking Simpsons again after season 20 began, it felt like it went back to roots and the humor was back there. I earlier stopped watching around season 14. Now I do not know Groening comes in to play with this, but Simpsons has definitely picked up again.
But I wouldn't say Groening didn't contribute much to the show. Even if the other writers did have a lot to do in it, he must have played some role. Remember that Futurama is great too and he was vocal against Fox when it got cancelled.
If you think about it, it is actually quite hard to say what makes a good comic. Humor plays some role, but it isn't so straightforward either. Calvin and Hobbes was definitely my favorite comic as a kid. I did read Donald Duck too (obviously, as everyone did), but apart from that I can't remember any other as good comic. And I went to library solely to read Calvin and Hobbes. I didn't like the alien parts, but otherwise it was great fun.
RSS programs today make it really nice to read comics too. I am reading Cyanide & Happiness, Pearls Before Swine, a few local comics and xkcd. I actually have some others in my rss program, but a lot of times I skip them because they're not that up to quality and not that funny.
Now a days I like Pearls Before Swine for its good humor and references to other comics, culture and politics. The random appearances of Stephan Pastis himself and being self-satiric also make it great. I remember there being some reference to Calvin and Hobbes sometimes too.
Good lord, it's depressing how completely corporations have people brainwashed.
you're using other peoples entertainment content to create a nicer place, which in turn creates you income.
No, you're using entertainment you *paid for* in a way that suits you.
....
* And don't start talking about how "it's licensed, not bought" either. Try to tell someone the carpet they bought is "licensed, not bought" and see if you can finish talking before they start laughing and throw you off of their "purchased, not licensed" property.
No but I can give you another example. If you're living on rent, you're not allowed to do just anything you want to the apartment. You need to ask your landlord if its acceptable, and he will probably make sure it's done correctly, or if he doesn't like it, he will deny you from doing it.
Now try to still do your "I'm gonna open this wall and break windows" thing and then tell in court that "but I was just using what I *paid for* in a way that suited me".
Now if you actually bought the apartment, things are different and you can decide yourself. Otherwise you're getting it at certain rules and you have to follow them.
Pockets full of devices? I can't see why. Two devices would be perfectly reasonable - one for things that demand connectivity (talk, text, net), and one for the other stuff (games, videos, music).
No thank you. I already struggle carrying my things and I especially chose a jacket with good pockets so I don't need to keep them in my jeans. It's not just the phone - it's money purse, passport, phone, keys and everything else you could need. My pockets are full, and I do not want to carry a suitcase (nor a women's purse).
When people say phones are for talking, it's not a frivolous argument - they need to be available for talking. Which has two implications:
1) What should happen when you have an incoming call?
Game is paused and you can normally answer the call. Afterwards you can "alt-tab" back to it (not sure about iPhone, but every other phone is perfectly capable of multitasking).
2) The battery needs to stand up to the demands.
As it is, 3G devices struggle to get through a day. It's not going to help matters by gaming on them for an hour or two - pushing the cpu, graphics, display to the limit. If your games console runs out of juice, it's generally less of an issue than if you suddenly can't make or receive calls.
Phones work perfectly fine for 3-5 days battery, and you do not usually play hours with them. You play 5-15 mins when you need to wait for something. If a person seems his/her battery is probably going to run out, he/she stops playing so it doesn't.
And where people tend to upgrade their phones more or less as often as they change underwear,
And that, slashdotters, is why you have trouble getting a date.
And the closed-minded thinking that just because you use phone only for talking (probably quite randomly), other people couldn't use it for other things. Not everyone spends their time sitting on computer 24/7. They could enjoy little quick browsing, latest facebook/twitter updates and some gaming while on the go or sitting on bus or train or generally anywhere you need to wait.
This is the same thing why I always hate the comments about "stupidness" of facebook games and how they should be playing "real" games instead. While I don't ever play them and don't want to (with exception of the upcoming Civilization Network), I can see why some people do. Maybe social awkwardness and closed-minded thinking goes hand to hand? I know I enjoy being more with people who accept what I like doing even if they don't like the same thing, and can see that peoples lives aren't 1:1 and we can enjoy different things. Instead of trying to make them exact 1:1 copies of our habits and things we enjoy.
You have a point, and splitting the cost like that is actually allowed where I live (as long as its happening at ones home) But if you have a bar and ask people to pay to see that match, it's a different business.
I quickly looked over the prices for cable channels (don't have PPV events here), and the prices per channel are 20 euros for home, 45 euros for public places like malls (people can walk in freely), 13 euros for workplaces, schools and such.
For public places that cost to walk in, like bars/restaurants, the equivalent prices are 49 euros for max 80 customers 79 euros for max 160 customers 99 euros for >160 customers (and yes you need to keep count of the customers because of fire regulations and such too).
Not so overly priced, and you're using other peoples entertainment content to create a nicer place, which in turn creates you income.
And browsing is especially good to have on phones. No, I wouldn't use it for basic surfing because it's nowhere as nice as computer, but it has been really helpful in many situations where I wasn't at home or workplace. Or the rare case where I had to look up my ISP's adsl modem settings from the internet as I reset the settings and forgot to do it beforehand.
This is why iPhone "one-size-fits-all" is kind of bad too. Sure it's generally good for everyone, but you don't have the choice to choose like with other manufacturers. Nokia, HTC and others have many models to choose from exactly the one that suits you best.
The usual "phone is just for calling and texting" rant is stupid. People have different needs.
This is why Sony nor Nintendo should be looking to create a gaming phone, they should be looking to create PSP/DS with phone capabilities. Otherwise it's just going to fail.
But why not go the other way? Integrate phone capabilities to PSP or DS. It's a lot easier than creating a new platform which can never really live up to those two.
Nokia did already try it, but it lost to PSP and DS. It was semi-popular with guys in my country and at my age, but I didn't really felt like getting one. And there really wasn't any good games.
To be fair, it does make sense for NFL. The summary is little bit bad worded, but you are perfectly fine to watch it at home with friends, on any size TV, as long as isn't considered public place like a sports bar, church or workplace and you do not explicitly charge for viewing the game. You can however ask for compensation on foods and drinks.
I don't think it's that hard to see what is considered a home and a public gathering place. It's not that stupid for NFL (or any other sports league or movie studio) to ask for compensation if their content is being shown on a public place to many people and they're profiting from it.
Okay, not completely. You cannot make a "direct charge" to "see or hear the transmission," though you can apparently ask friends to cover the cost of food and drink. You also cannot further transmit the broadcast "to the public," so diverting a live video stream onto the Internet and streaming it to the world is right out. Otherwise, you're fine.
Or are you just thinking that not that much has changed between NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X. One could say the same thing about Windows 95 and Windows 7, they kind of look alike. But the codebase grows as new features are being added. Those usually provide faster experience on newer machines with more power, but they don't work all that well on lower end machines. Not that they are bloat, but they use extra hardware features better and also require the base power to provide more power. Here's my graph on the issue, if it helps to understand the point.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly that is why we have libraries though. The publishers also have to calculate and estimate the best price point where most people will buy it at best price, to generate the most profit. The $14.99 vs $19.99 change might just be what's required to make me not to buy it.
While everyone getting any book at lets say $1 or having access to all the entertainment in the world for free, that's not how our society works currently. Frankly I also don't see a better way for it to work. People work for money, which drives the entertainment and book industry too. If it didn't, we would have access to even less books and information. Currently almost anyone can enjoy books being made and information flowing, and having them available in libraries even if you can't afford to buy yourself a copy.
So what does that has to do with anything then? Nothing in the world is sold at marginal costs, even less so digital items. But the work of people needs to be paid, and they probably have to pay other people (like distribution channels, royalties) for their costs. And then theres the obvious profit margin, which is why companies work in the first place. Otherwise we would be working in a communism system where people work for free as long as they get food.
You're doing something wrong if you're buying an eBook/game/whatever for it's bits. I'm buying it for the value it gives me - be that information, entertainment or something else.
First of all, we don't spam our links in the post here on slashdot. Anyone can click your Homepage button.
Secondly, where did you get the idea that eBooks are supposed to be cheaper so the publishing industry goes to the "right" direction? Frankly if I buy a book, I want it as hardcover/paperback. Sure, music I want to download digitally, but books just aren't the same thing.
Thirdly, this thing most likely isn't about eBooks being $14.99 while paperbacks are $5. The $14.99 eBooks are for books that cost $30 or more as a hardcover.
Why? If they have a book I want and I think the $14.99 price is worth it, why wouldn't I buy it?
I really doubt it's the lawyers who find artists and get them to sign up with the labels.
You do know no one forces them to join a big music label, do you? But new artists want to. They want to make music, not worry about distribution or marketing. Nor do they even have experience in that.
And no, putting your album to The Pirate Bay and just hoping people will find it isn't proper method.
Yeah that sounds a little bit stupid. Of course they have "monopoly" over their own titles. Duh.
For that matter, why do the RIAA's members still control the music business? Why do these dinosaur publishing businesses still manage to thrive despite the Internet?"
Because they
1) Provide money and pay the big costs while artists are producing their album
2) Provide marketing
3) Find the promising artists and writers
4) Have the distribution channels
You can say anything you want about the internet as a marketing channel and cheap personal computers being capable of producing albums, but they really aren't. You need a good studio. I'm not going to listen to something that sound like demo tracks. They're horrible if you've ever listened to any other than your favorite band's. They also filter out the crap.
This might be a little bit different with books, but you still need those distribution channels and marketing. Books don't just magically show up in book stores, libraries or have articles in magazines, nor do people just accidentally hear about it. And eBooks aren't going to replace paperback books yet.
It wasn't a comprehensive example, but just to point out that the content coming from your TV isn't something you have bought. You're paying for your TV company just to see it.
As someone later in the comments point, you do not have broadcasting rights to the material so you can't just do anything with it or show it to lots of people in public places. If you want those rights, you have to either get a license to do so from the content owners, or buy it completely from them (which costs hell of a lot more than merely acquiring viewing rights from your local TV company, like with the renting example too).
While your post makes no sense, it makes no sense.
And you just couldn't read a few words more to understand the whole thing and that it starts to shutdown every two hours on March? The original warning about that wasn't that it works until June, it was that on March it starts to shutdown every two hours, and finally on June it will stop booting. That's three months for you to take your files and settings and update. Stop being so freaking difficult.
I know it's the usual thing to badmouth MS on slashdot, but everyone knew it was going to expire and you would need to update.
Maybe he wants to keep some of that mystery alive. If he made a "comeback" now, even with a different comic, I doubt it would be nearly as successful and would most likely just fail, big part in that being because people would expect him to deliver moon from the sky.
I actually started liking Simpsons again after season 20 began, it felt like it went back to roots and the humor was back there. I earlier stopped watching around season 14. Now I do not know Groening comes in to play with this, but Simpsons has definitely picked up again.
But I wouldn't say Groening didn't contribute much to the show. Even if the other writers did have a lot to do in it, he must have played some role. Remember that Futurama is great too and he was vocal against Fox when it got cancelled.
If you think about it, it is actually quite hard to say what makes a good comic. Humor plays some role, but it isn't so straightforward either. Calvin and Hobbes was definitely my favorite comic as a kid. I did read Donald Duck too (obviously, as everyone did), but apart from that I can't remember any other as good comic. And I went to library solely to read Calvin and Hobbes. I didn't like the alien parts, but otherwise it was great fun.
RSS programs today make it really nice to read comics too. I am reading Cyanide & Happiness, Pearls Before Swine, a few local comics and xkcd. I actually have some others in my rss program, but a lot of times I skip them because they're not that up to quality and not that funny.
Now a days I like Pearls Before Swine for its good humor and references to other comics, culture and politics. The random appearances of Stephan Pastis himself and being self-satiric also make it great. I remember there being some reference to Calvin and Hobbes sometimes too.
Good lord, it's depressing how completely corporations have people brainwashed.
you're using other peoples entertainment content to create a nicer place, which in turn creates you income.
No, you're using entertainment you *paid for* in a way that suits you.
....
* And don't start talking about how "it's licensed, not bought" either. Try to tell someone the carpet they bought is "licensed, not bought" and see if you can finish talking before they start laughing and throw you off of their "purchased, not licensed" property.
No but I can give you another example. If you're living on rent, you're not allowed to do just anything you want to the apartment. You need to ask your landlord if its acceptable, and he will probably make sure it's done correctly, or if he doesn't like it, he will deny you from doing it.
Now try to still do your "I'm gonna open this wall and break windows" thing and then tell in court that "but I was just using what I *paid for* in a way that suited me".
Now if you actually bought the apartment, things are different and you can decide yourself. Otherwise you're getting it at certain rules and you have to follow them.
Pockets full of devices? I can't see why. Two devices would be perfectly reasonable - one for things that demand connectivity (talk, text, net), and one for the other stuff (games, videos, music).
No thank you. I already struggle carrying my things and I especially chose a jacket with good pockets so I don't need to keep them in my jeans. It's not just the phone - it's money purse, passport, phone, keys and everything else you could need. My pockets are full, and I do not want to carry a suitcase (nor a women's purse).
When people say phones are for talking, it's not a frivolous argument - they need to be available for talking. Which has two implications:
1) What should happen when you have an incoming call?
Game is paused and you can normally answer the call. Afterwards you can "alt-tab" back to it (not sure about iPhone, but every other phone is perfectly capable of multitasking).
2) The battery needs to stand up to the demands.
As it is, 3G devices struggle to get through a day. It's not going to help matters by gaming on them for an hour or two - pushing the cpu, graphics, display to the limit. If your games console runs out of juice, it's generally less of an issue than if you suddenly can't make or receive calls.
Phones work perfectly fine for 3-5 days battery, and you do not usually play hours with them. You play 5-15 mins when you need to wait for something. If a person seems his/her battery is probably going to run out, he/she stops playing so it doesn't.
And where people tend to upgrade their phones more or less as often as they change underwear,
And that, slashdotters, is why you have trouble getting a date.
And the closed-minded thinking that just because you use phone only for talking (probably quite randomly), other people couldn't use it for other things. Not everyone spends their time sitting on computer 24/7. They could enjoy little quick browsing, latest facebook/twitter updates and some gaming while on the go or sitting on bus or train or generally anywhere you need to wait.
This is the same thing why I always hate the comments about "stupidness" of facebook games and how they should be playing "real" games instead. While I don't ever play them and don't want to (with exception of the upcoming Civilization Network), I can see why some people do. Maybe social awkwardness and closed-minded thinking goes hand to hand? I know I enjoy being more with people who accept what I like doing even if they don't like the same thing, and can see that peoples lives aren't 1:1 and we can enjoy different things. Instead of trying to make them exact 1:1 copies of our habits and things we enjoy.
You have a point, and splitting the cost like that is actually allowed where I live (as long as its happening at ones home) But if you have a bar and ask people to pay to see that match, it's a different business.
I quickly looked over the prices for cable channels (don't have PPV events here), and the prices per channel are
20 euros for home,
45 euros for public places like malls (people can walk in freely),
13 euros for workplaces, schools and such.
For public places that cost to walk in, like bars/restaurants, the equivalent prices are
49 euros for max 80 customers
79 euros for max 160 customers
99 euros for >160 customers
(and yes you need to keep count of the customers because of fire regulations and such too).
Not so overly priced, and you're using other peoples entertainment content to create a nicer place, which in turn creates you income.
And browsing is especially good to have on phones. No, I wouldn't use it for basic surfing because it's nowhere as nice as computer, but it has been really helpful in many situations where I wasn't at home or workplace. Or the rare case where I had to look up my ISP's adsl modem settings from the internet as I reset the settings and forgot to do it beforehand.
This is why iPhone "one-size-fits-all" is kind of bad too. Sure it's generally good for everyone, but you don't have the choice to choose like with other manufacturers. Nokia, HTC and others have many models to choose from exactly the one that suits you best.
The usual "phone is just for calling and texting" rant is stupid. People have different needs.
This is why Sony nor Nintendo should be looking to create a gaming phone, they should be looking to create PSP/DS with phone capabilities. Otherwise it's just going to fail.
But why not go the other way? Integrate phone capabilities to PSP or DS. It's a lot easier than creating a new platform which can never really live up to those two.
Nokia did already try it, but it lost to PSP and DS. It was semi-popular with guys in my country and at my age, but I didn't really felt like getting one. And there really wasn't any good games.
To be fair, it does make sense for NFL. The summary is little bit bad worded, but you are perfectly fine to watch it at home with friends, on any size TV, as long as isn't considered public place like a sports bar, church or workplace and you do not explicitly charge for viewing the game. You can however ask for compensation on foods and drinks.
I don't think it's that hard to see what is considered a home and a public gathering place. It's not that stupid for NFL (or any other sports league or movie studio) to ask for compensation if their content is being shown on a public place to many people and they're profiting from it.
You can ask a "charge" for food
Okay, not completely. You cannot make a "direct charge" to "see or hear the transmission," though you can apparently ask friends to cover the cost of food and drink. You also cannot further transmit the broadcast "to the public," so diverting a live video stream onto the Internet and streaming it to the world is right out. Otherwise, you're fine.
Or are you just thinking that not that much has changed between NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X. One could say the same thing about Windows 95 and Windows 7, they kind of look alike. But the codebase grows as new features are being added. Those usually provide faster experience on newer machines with more power, but they don't work all that well on lower end machines. Not that they are bloat, but they use extra hardware features better and also require the base power to provide more power. Here's my graph on the issue, if it helps to understand the point.
Doesn't really bother me too much, but it has these stupid link underlines on Opera. While a tiny thing, it's incredibly annoying looking.
Exactly, I wouldn't worry too much about them. What worries me more is the Umbrella Corporation, and they're doing some serious shit on earth.