The thing about the kindle though is that you can still purchase or acquire ebooks outside of their store, so while it's a pain for consumers I don't think there's anything legally wrong with it.
While I'm oh so certain the omission of LCD screen quality has nothing to do with any possible bias of yours, I would like to remind you that the Kindle has a e-ink screen is much easier on the eyes than an LCD is. The development of new kinds of e-ink tech (both color and faster refreshing) also gives Amazon a road-map for future screen improvements. Apple's tablet requirements mean they will be stuck with LCD for the foreseeable future. OLED would solve their problems I imagine, but it will be years before 10 inch OLEDs are affordable enough for mass market adoption.
I've always felt that $100 was the magic barrier for turning a netbook into an impulse buy, and that if the barrier was ever reached it would truly become a mass market phenomenon.
What I want to see now is an attempt to make the screens a little larger and obviously specs a little faster over time, all while maintaining that same price point.
What are you talking about? Cell phones that can play reasonable games are expensive as all heck. More than any netbook, that's for sure.
The high price is exactly why pirates pirate. They just don't have the money for all those games.
You think someone with hundreds of gigabytes of songs would have really bought all those songs if he couldn't pirate? Or a person with 2 TB of games would actually purchase all those games if he couldn't pirate?
You are so incredibly delusional. What makes you think pirates would actually buy the game if they couldn't pirate it? People don't have infinite amounts of money. Why do you think piracy is so rampant in China? People don't legitimately have any money to spend. They can't justify spending money on entertainment when they have to feed their families.
There's no guarantee a pirate would buy a game if he couldn't pirate the game in the first place. You have no real data to back up your claims. It's all just misguided speculation based on preconceived notions of the effect of piracy on the game industry.
First off, I don't see education and wealth spotlighting corruption in the US political system.
Second of all, Asians value harmony above all else, including individual rights. They don't really hate their government, and they don't believe government should stay out of their lives.
I don't think you really understand the Chinese mindset. Asians value harmony over individual rights. Their attitude towards government is very different than the attitudes of people in America.
While I applaud Nintendo for their financial success, I can't help but worry that this will simply encourage developers to skimp on innovation in future games. After all, if you can make an inexpensive game that sells millions to casual gamers, why bother spending time and money to create an innovative new experience?
Still, I must admit 2D Mario has always had great appeal to me. It really is a fun game.
Ridiculously left wing? Are you serious? Is your only source of news Fox? Obama completely fooled his constituency with his economic policies. He hired the people who drove our economy into the dust to 'reform' the industry. He completely two-timed everyone who believed in him. I'm endlessly frustrated with his lack of progressive policies, and I severely regret voting him in instead of Hillary. Sometimes you need a woman to come in and clean the mess up (then get out of the way and let the men get back to work...heh).
Per hour productivity in Asian countries is horrible. Koreans work the longest hours per year by far, and their per hour productivity is something like less than half the US's.
France has a 35 hour work week, and their productivity is 113% (where the US is 100%).
Strawman. Unions are run by employees who are fully aware that their survival depends on the continued success of their employer. This is why you don't see auto workers with $300,000 salaries.
Get over yourself please. How about actually talking to union members instead of spouting irrational garbage?
Unions don't get in the way of that. Reality gets in the way of that. Your fantasy word of altruistic companies and managers doesn't exist. Companies exist to make profits. They don't care about their employees. It must be nice to live in that tiny snow globe of yours.
Unions can be good or bad, but in general, with the labor laws in the US, they do more harm than good in this age. Back in the early 1900s when labor laws were in their infancy, they were necessary. Currently all most unions do is destroy the business they work in by hindering innovation (auto, port, and teacher's unions come to mind).
In the ports industry, it took a company 5 years to negotiate the use of remote operated dock machinery because it could reduce the necessary staff...even though its 10x safer than having someone in the cabs. You can't strong arm the union either because they cover the entire coast..."oh, you don't like that? Well, I'll have my union go on strike on the entire east coast in only your terminals...". Its straight up extortion, and their wages reflect it. Putting clauses in contracts that prohibit innovation is disgusting.
The teacher unions are way different by trade, but you get the problems of being unable to fire poor teachers, resulting in bad education (this is VERY prevalent in the SE US).
I still beleive unions have cases where they are necessary, but at the moment they are far too far-reaching and do more damage than good. I think their power should be scaled back a bit.
Complete strawman. How is Ford managing to succeed where their competition failed? Education has more to do with the government's incompetence than unions.
Innovation is nice and all, but people need to live. Unions never stopped innovation in the past. You're oversimplifying. Your opinion of what an employee's wage should be is completely irrelevant to the discussion.
I always wondered, if they owned the majority shares in the company, couldn't they give themselves huge, huuuge salaries and slowly buy back company stock? That way they'd never have to worry about being below the 50% threshold.
Oh please. We used to have much, much larger capital gains taxes in the past without any problems. It's only so low now because of the Republican domination of the government for the last 12-13 years.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish I had mod points for you.
I get the sneaking suspicion the content industry will backwardly interpret the results of this study as proof that they need even *more* DRM.
The thing about the kindle though is that you can still purchase or acquire ebooks outside of their store, so while it's a pain for consumers I don't think there's anything legally wrong with it.
While I'm oh so certain the omission of LCD screen quality has nothing to do with any possible bias of yours, I would like to remind you that the Kindle has a e-ink screen is much easier on the eyes than an LCD is. The development of new kinds of e-ink tech (both color and faster refreshing) also gives Amazon a road-map for future screen improvements. Apple's tablet requirements mean they will be stuck with LCD for the foreseeable future. OLED would solve their problems I imagine, but it will be years before 10 inch OLEDs are affordable enough for mass market adoption.
And who do you think is the majority shareholder in Google? Oh that's right, the founders.
I've always felt that $100 was the magic barrier for turning a netbook into an impulse buy, and that if the barrier was ever reached it would truly become a mass market phenomenon. What I want to see now is an attempt to make the screens a little larger and obviously specs a little faster over time, all while maintaining that same price point.
Why would pirating their game prevent you from buying games from their competitors?
What are you talking about? Cell phones that can play reasonable games are expensive as all heck. More than any netbook, that's for sure. The high price is exactly why pirates pirate. They just don't have the money for all those games. You think someone with hundreds of gigabytes of songs would have really bought all those songs if he couldn't pirate? Or a person with 2 TB of games would actually purchase all those games if he couldn't pirate?
You are so incredibly delusional. What makes you think pirates would actually buy the game if they couldn't pirate it? People don't have infinite amounts of money. Why do you think piracy is so rampant in China? People don't legitimately have any money to spend. They can't justify spending money on entertainment when they have to feed their families.
There's no guarantee a pirate would buy a game if he couldn't pirate the game in the first place. You have no real data to back up your claims. It's all just misguided speculation based on preconceived notions of the effect of piracy on the game industry.
First off, I don't see education and wealth spotlighting corruption in the US political system. Second of all, Asians value harmony above all else, including individual rights. They don't really hate their government, and they don't believe government should stay out of their lives.
Scientists don't care about politics. Their innovation and creativity are uneffected by political climates.
I don't think you really understand the Chinese mindset. Asians value harmony over individual rights. Their attitude towards government is very different than the attitudes of people in America.
While I applaud Nintendo for their financial success, I can't help but worry that this will simply encourage developers to skimp on innovation in future games. After all, if you can make an inexpensive game that sells millions to casual gamers, why bother spending time and money to create an innovative new experience? Still, I must admit 2D Mario has always had great appeal to me. It really is a fun game.
Who isn't a free marketer? The problem is that free markets don't exist in real life.
Ridiculously left wing? Are you serious? Is your only source of news Fox? Obama completely fooled his constituency with his economic policies. He hired the people who drove our economy into the dust to 'reform' the industry. He completely two-timed everyone who believed in him. I'm endlessly frustrated with his lack of progressive policies, and I severely regret voting him in instead of Hillary. Sometimes you need a woman to come in and clean the mess up (then get out of the way and let the men get back to work...heh).
Per hour productivity in Asian countries is horrible. Koreans work the longest hours per year by far, and their per hour productivity is something like less than half the US's. France has a 35 hour work week, and their productivity is 113% (where the US is 100%).
Strawman. Unions are run by employees who are fully aware that their survival depends on the continued success of their employer. This is why you don't see auto workers with $300,000 salaries. Get over yourself please. How about actually talking to union members instead of spouting irrational garbage?
The evidence is there for you to find. The reality is you're just stubborn and refuse to look for evidence that contradicts your belief system.
Unions don't get in the way of that. Reality gets in the way of that. Your fantasy word of altruistic companies and managers doesn't exist. Companies exist to make profits. They don't care about their employees. It must be nice to live in that tiny snow globe of yours.
Unions can be good or bad, but in general, with the labor laws in the US, they do more harm than good in this age. Back in the early 1900s when labor laws were in their infancy, they were necessary. Currently all most unions do is destroy the business they work in by hindering innovation (auto, port, and teacher's unions come to mind).
In the ports industry, it took a company 5 years to negotiate the use of remote operated dock machinery because it could reduce the necessary staff...even though its 10x safer than having someone in the cabs. You can't strong arm the union either because they cover the entire coast..."oh, you don't like that? Well, I'll have my union go on strike on the entire east coast in only your terminals...". Its straight up extortion, and their wages reflect it. Putting clauses in contracts that prohibit innovation is disgusting.
The teacher unions are way different by trade, but you get the problems of being unable to fire poor teachers, resulting in bad education (this is VERY prevalent in the SE US).
I still beleive unions have cases where they are necessary, but at the moment they are far too far-reaching and do more damage than good. I think their power should be scaled back a bit.
Complete strawman. How is Ford managing to succeed where their competition failed? Education has more to do with the government's incompetence than unions. Innovation is nice and all, but people need to live. Unions never stopped innovation in the past. You're oversimplifying. Your opinion of what an employee's wage should be is completely irrelevant to the discussion.
To compete with the truly high-quality AAA titles you need more than a small team. Reality runs in the face of your fantasy.
It's the attitude of people like you that has driven America deeper and deeper into the toiletbowl.
I always wondered, if they owned the majority shares in the company, couldn't they give themselves huge, huuuge salaries and slowly buy back company stock? That way they'd never have to worry about being below the 50% threshold.
Oh please. We used to have much, much larger capital gains taxes in the past without any problems. It's only so low now because of the Republican domination of the government for the last 12-13 years.