Mr Stay Puft was certainly trying to climb to get them, iirc, but that's not the point - if you look at the screen short more closely, you'll see one of the Ghostbusters is suspended from a line and harness. *That* definitely didn't happen in the film, so it can't be a flashback unless they're taking some licence with it.
No, I don't think so. Don't forget it's not just development of the software that must be paid for, there's the design, requirements gathering, testing, etc. Compared to the total cost of developing a given module, taking it out of the downgraded version is most likely next to free.
Yes, in a sense it's an added cost; but you're spending (say) $2 to remove $200 of functionality and charge $100 less (figures illustrative only, ie pulled out of my arse) to people who wouldn't have paid the full price in the first place.
Production is a sunk cost, you've spent it no matter how many copies you end up selling. If a little bit of extra work enables you to sell a boatload more copies at a reduced price, it may well be worth it.
On the other hand, they may actually develop the basic version, then develop the bolt-ons that make up the corporate versions. Besides which with Vista, Ultimate is a merger of Home and Business; it's *more* than the corporate version. If they do the corporate version first, then Ultimate really is an added cost.
It won't take long before anyone with a clue realises ponying up $400 in monopoly rent every couple of years for a document writer is pointless when there's another option for half the price and better longevity.
While I agree with the general point, I feel I have to point out that I'm still using Office 2000, as are a number of my colleagues. There really isn't any need to buy each new version of Office you know.
(Yes, file incompatibilities - well I haven't suffered anywhere near enough to justify even beginning to think about asking for an upgrade, literally only two or three over the years)
A newly registered guy, even if they're named secPM_MS, doesn't buy much.
Why does it matter how long he's had an account here? I've been here for years and have the UID to prove it (well, if you believe I registered this account rather than buying it), but what does that say about how much I know about any given topic?
Does making it smaller make it inherently faster or more efficient?
Yes, basically. For one thing, a smaller chip size means that you can get more of them out of a silicon wafer, and wafer defects kill fewer chips. As for efficiency, that should be obvious - smaller chips mean shorter electrical pathways means less distance for the electrons to travel means less energy required to move them about and less heat generated means higher efficiency.
That's because XP Home (and presumably Vista Home) can't be connected to a domain, and group policy is intended for use in a domain, to set permissions network-wide which can be overridden (if necessary/desirable) on a per-machine basis by someone with (domain?) admin access.
Cheaper products with mostly unneeded features removed, or more expensive products with features a home user won't even understand let alone need; that's basically your choice, and I always thought that choice was supposed to be good.
So what about non-personal, non-profit duplication/sharing? What about an organised P2P (or FTP or whatever) system created specifically to enable widespread distribution of copyrighted works?
I'm just curious if your distinction is based on the scale of the distribution, the fact that money is involved, or some combination of the two.
Actually it would make me feel better if they took Microsoft's cash as well. The more sources of income a company has, the more secure it is. With only one or two big sources, if they lose one they may well be screwed.
Not saying that the Mozilla Foundation is likely to lose Google's cash any time soon, but that's a general principle - don't put all your eggs in one basket, and all that.
The simple fact of the matter is that once you give someone the ability to spy on you they will use it, for themselves.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's inevitable that they will use it for themselves, but I think it's almost certain that their successor will.
The real issue isn't whether you trust your current government with sweeping powers, it's whether or not you trust any and all future governments with those same powers.
That's all very interesting, but I think you'll find that the number one reason why increasing levels of technology aren't shortening peoples working weeks is money. So a new process, technology, computer, robot, etc has made your job easier and quicker? Excellent! You can do more then!
As long as we have money, people (and especially companies) will want to make more. That means that given the choice between earning the same and working less, or earning more and working the same, while some individuals may choose the former I challenge you to find a single company that won't choose the latter, and drag the staff along with them.
If Apple has a secretive, closed development model, it's not creating problems for consumers
Yes and no. True, the affected consumers could just switch to Windows PCs, but then the same is true of Windows users. In a sense Apple has a 100% monopoly on OS X machines. Now I don't suppose that holds water legally (in fact I'd expect to be laughed out of court if I tried to argue it), but I think your statement is a little simplistic.
Apart from that I agree with you, although I'm also not convinced that the market ever properly moderates what's "fair" and what's "unfair" - just look at broadband provision, and how many services that claim to be unlimited really aren't.
The real hilarity of it is, in the Netherlands, of all places, you can find tons of english speakers.
I went to Amsterdam for the weekend with my university back in 1994 or so. While we were there, one of my friends decided to ask for directions to somewhere or other (I forget where), so he went in to a little tourist shop and asked the girl behind the counter. Not expecting to get anywhere in English, he tried German instead.
She replied in perfect English. Not only did she speak Dutch (of course), English and German, but recognised a native English speaker when she heard one speaking German.
I particularly liked the "if you find yourself socially awkward" bit - so aspergers is the medical term for shyness now?
I don't know about the proportion of slashdot users with Aspergers, but I get the distinct feeling that the proportion who are self-diagnosed is way too high...
In that case I can certainly see the desire to tip, but surely it would be better in the long run to stop tipping altogether, to try to force employers to stop flouting the law like that and to pay a decent, legal wage.
Of course in the short term, it would suck for the staff. It's also questionable whether it would work, if there are enough people desperate enough to work even with the lack of tips. The real solution would be to change the law, but I appreciate that that's not really your fight.
Of course, if that's the real reason why most people tip, then it weakens the original argument that people will pay for free downloads for the same reason they tip...
When you go out to dinner how much do you tip? 15%? 20%?
Actually in my experience the large, practically mandatory tip is almost entirely an American thing. Certainly here in the UK I'll tip maybe 10% or so if I think the service warrants it, and less (or nothing) if not. It's just not as ingrained in our culture as it appears to be in yours.
The ideal for the record companies is to keep it this way, so they can give the band as little in advances as they can get away with, and keep all of the rest.
That doesn't make sense, unless you (and they) are using a different definition of the word "recoup". If the record label doesn't recoup the initial investment, then they lose money on the deal. That may allow them to pay a smaller advance, but that would hardly seem to matter if they're losing money anyway. Or is there some strange new definition of recoup that they're using, that actually means "returns a significant profit"? (Or am I just misunderstanding what you wrote?)
Anyone else see a problem with leaving immediate security questions to be answered by the person who happens to be at the keyboard?
Yes I do, but the alternative is to whitelist the applications that are allowed to run and disallow everything else. That may work fine in the corporate environment, but it would fail utterly in the home environment where the user is the admin.
Teens may have pushed social networking sites to prominence, but there's an awful lot of us 30-somethings using them too now. In fact most of the people I know, the youngest of which is 27, have Facebook accounts.
Of course, depending on your age we may still qualify as youngsters to you;)
Better to work in Europe and the far east methinks.
Yeah, software piracy is a tad rife there
I don't think you'll find that software piracy (or any other kind) is any more rife in Europe than it is in the US. I don't suppose that was what you meant to say, but it certainly was what you actually said:)
You'd wouldn't expect dragging a Word file named "happy.doc" into a folder already containing a "happy.doc" to perform a merge operation; so why would you expect that with a folder in the same situation?
Because folders are containers. To use a real-world analogy, it's perfectly possible to take the paper out of a folder and put it in another, rather than to throw out the original folder and put the new one in its place.
Of course, it's also perfectly possible to have identically-labelled pieces of paper in a folder, so you can't take the analogy too far...
I'm a Windows and Unix guy, so to me merging folders makes perfect sense. I know I'm biased, but I'd have thought that a new user would think "hang on, if folders contain files, how come I can't just put all the files from the new folder into the old one like this? Why does it replace them all?" I know you could do it manually, but then you have to manually recurse through all the subdirectories. (And I appreciate you can use the command line, but that just raises another question - how come the GUI operates on a completely different principle?)
The BBC stats on Linux userbase is flawed for the same reason. Linux users don't return when the content is incompatible.
In the article originally posted about this a little while ago (that these new figures are correcting), it was made perfectly clear that the figures were for the whole of the bbc.co.uk domain not just the new streaming media stuff. Of course Linux users return to the BBC site - it's one of the most popular sites in the UK. The Windows-only section is a new, so-far tiny addition.
This is nothing like non-iPod owners using or not using iTMS (although I own an ageing iRiver and still use iTMS from time to time...). The vast majority of the content on the bbc.co.uk domain works just fine with Linux, as it's plain old HTML web pages.
Slashdot Mirror
Mr Stay Puft was certainly trying to climb to get them, iirc, but that's not the point - if you look at the screen short more closely, you'll see one of the Ghostbusters is suspended from a line and harness. *That* definitely didn't happen in the film, so it can't be a flashback unless they're taking some licence with it.
No, I don't think so. Don't forget it's not just development of the software that must be paid for, there's the design, requirements gathering, testing, etc. Compared to the total cost of developing a given module, taking it out of the downgraded version is most likely next to free.
Yes, in a sense it's an added cost; but you're spending (say) $2 to remove $200 of functionality and charge $100 less (figures illustrative only, ie pulled out of my arse) to people who wouldn't have paid the full price in the first place.
Production is a sunk cost, you've spent it no matter how many copies you end up selling. If a little bit of extra work enables you to sell a boatload more copies at a reduced price, it may well be worth it.
On the other hand, they may actually develop the basic version, then develop the bolt-ons that make up the corporate versions. Besides which with Vista, Ultimate is a merger of Home and Business; it's *more* than the corporate version. If they do the corporate version first, then Ultimate really is an added cost.
(Yes, file incompatibilities - well I haven't suffered anywhere near enough to justify even beginning to think about asking for an upgrade, literally only two or three over the years)
Indeed, and I was about to say much the same myself. See, for example, the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary definition here.
That's because XP Home (and presumably Vista Home) can't be connected to a domain, and group policy is intended for use in a domain, to set permissions network-wide which can be overridden (if necessary/desirable) on a per-machine basis by someone with (domain?) admin access.
Cheaper products with mostly unneeded features removed, or more expensive products with features a home user won't even understand let alone need; that's basically your choice, and I always thought that choice was supposed to be good.
So what about non-personal, non-profit duplication/sharing? What about an organised P2P (or FTP or whatever) system created specifically to enable widespread distribution of copyrighted works?
I'm just curious if your distinction is based on the scale of the distribution, the fact that money is involved, or some combination of the two.
Actually it would make me feel better if they took Microsoft's cash as well. The more sources of income a company has, the more secure it is. With only one or two big sources, if they lose one they may well be screwed.
Not saying that the Mozilla Foundation is likely to lose Google's cash any time soon, but that's a general principle - don't put all your eggs in one basket, and all that.
The real issue isn't whether you trust your current government with sweeping powers, it's whether or not you trust any and all future governments with those same powers.
That's all very interesting, but I think you'll find that the number one reason why increasing levels of technology aren't shortening peoples working weeks is money. So a new process, technology, computer, robot, etc has made your job easier and quicker? Excellent! You can do more then!
As long as we have money, people (and especially companies) will want to make more. That means that given the choice between earning the same and working less, or earning more and working the same, while some individuals may choose the former I challenge you to find a single company that won't choose the latter, and drag the staff along with them.
Apart from that I agree with you, although I'm also not convinced that the market ever properly moderates what's "fair" and what's "unfair" - just look at broadband provision, and how many services that claim to be unlimited really aren't.
She replied in perfect English. Not only did she speak Dutch (of course), English and German, but recognised a native English speaker when she heard one speaking German.
I particularly liked the "if you find yourself socially awkward" bit - so aspergers is the medical term for shyness now?
I don't know about the proportion of slashdot users with Aspergers, but I get the distinct feeling that the proportion who are self-diagnosed is way too high...
Oh it was better than that - if she sank and drowned then she was innocent and her soul would be accepted into heaven.
It really was win-win. Well, apart from for the women.
In that case I can certainly see the desire to tip, but surely it would be better in the long run to stop tipping altogether, to try to force employers to stop flouting the law like that and to pay a decent, legal wage.
Of course in the short term, it would suck for the staff. It's also questionable whether it would work, if there are enough people desperate enough to work even with the lack of tips. The real solution would be to change the law, but I appreciate that that's not really your fight.
Of course, if that's the real reason why most people tip, then it weakens the original argument that people will pay for free downloads for the same reason they tip...
Anyone else see a problem with leaving immediate security questions to be answered by the person who happens to be at the keyboard?
Yes I do, but the alternative is to whitelist the applications that are allowed to run and disallow everything else. That may work fine in the corporate environment, but it would fail utterly in the home environment where the user is the admin.
Teens may have pushed social networking sites to prominence, but there's an awful lot of us 30-somethings using them too now. In fact most of the people I know, the youngest of which is 27, have Facebook accounts.
;)
Of course, depending on your age we may still qualify as youngsters to you
Better to work in Europe and the far east methinks.
:)
Yeah, software piracy is a tad rife there
I don't think you'll find that software piracy (or any other kind) is any more rife in Europe than it is in the US. I don't suppose that was what you meant to say, but it certainly was what you actually said
Of course, it's also perfectly possible to have identically-labelled pieces of paper in a folder, so you can't take the analogy too far...
I'm a Windows and Unix guy, so to me merging folders makes perfect sense. I know I'm biased, but I'd have thought that a new user would think "hang on, if folders contain files, how come I can't just put all the files from the new folder into the old one like this? Why does it replace them all?" I know you could do it manually, but then you have to manually recurse through all the subdirectories. (And I appreciate you can use the command line, but that just raises another question - how come the GUI operates on a completely different principle?)
This is nothing like non-iPod owners using or not using iTMS (although I own an ageing iRiver and still use iTMS from time to time...). The vast majority of the content on the bbc.co.uk domain works just fine with Linux, as it's plain old HTML web pages.