So you wanted to delete your account, and you did, but it's presumptuous to assume that Facebook is nothing more than banal games from people you barely know.
Being able to see who is attending what events is a really great feature –I often go to events that I wouldn't have known about if not for Facebook. Even more major events like birthdays where I might get a text message about it, having the event sit there in my Facebook until I RSVP is awesome.
Facebook Groups are excellent because if you're involved in some kind of organisation (dance school, protest marches etc), using a Facebook Group means you can help out with co-ordination, have somewhere to link relevant videos and so.
Sure, I don't care about most status updates, but I really enjoy seeing the photos of friends currently overseas and so on. At least for me, Facebook is actually a really useful social tool.
You just made a statement about morality, and then back it up by talking about how you're breaking the law when you're speeding.
Granted, sometimes the law and morality line up (rape is bad!), but sometimes they don't (a 16 year old girl taking a naked photo of herself and sending it to her boyfriend is producing child porn!). There can be no underlying assumption that illegal = immoral.
I think most people here are missing the point about why there are so many pirates.
As a non-jail broken iPhone owner, I'd say 80% of the apps I get on the iTunes store are free. Sure I've paid a few bucks here and there for things I'll use a lot, but given I'm going to get bored of whatever game it is in 2-seconds flat, I can't even justify the few dollars. In this case, I wouldn't buy the game that is used in this example.
But make it free, and now there's no reason NOT to download it.
I think you have a valid point, and I think people are over-reacting to your comments.
A number of years ago, I bought XP corporate licenses for a customer of mine, but used the downgrade rights that came with it to run 2000. At the time XP brand spanking new, and had the same teething problems that Vista has today. With the machines "working", the customer was never motivated to reformat the workstations to XP, even though they were licensed to do so, and it wasn't long before this customer was lagging WAY behind the rest of the world (they're still running 2000).
From a purely functionality perspective, 2000 is fine. It does the job. But the general perception within the office is that "these computers are old and crap", new staff members that are used to XP (and the XP start menu) find the 2000 interface frustrating. It costs them more in tech support too, because installing new hardware on 2000 takes longer since XP has more drivers pre-installed.
The point is, IFyou can work through Vista's problems, you'll appreciate it later on. While Vista doesn't seem to have any killer features that we can't do without, I have to admit the interface in general IS better. Having the screen darken to indicate a modal dialog box is a GOOD interface element. It's got some annoyances, sure, but like astrosmash said, they'll get worked out soon enough.
Your analogy is fundamentally flawed. If you make software, and you haven't yet sold it, it has a certain value to you (how much it cost to develop) and it has a certain value to say, the business that wants to buy this code (how much return on investment they can get).
However, the value to the buyer is MUCH MUCH less than the value to the producer: it's certainly not worth the $2mill development cost to the buyer. So you charge what the buyer is prepared to pay, say, $5K.
But with no concept of licensing instead of ownership, the second you sell one copy, there's no reason the buyer won't just put it up on BitTorrent. As far as they see it, they're saving everyone else $5K and doing everyone a favour. And since they're not taking anything away from you, it's not stealing either.
Suddenly there's no incentive to produce expensive software that has a wide appeal anymore.
Enter copyright, and LICENSING - whereby the producer sells the right to use the code, not the ownership of the code. Along with that license comes restrictions, and now the producer is more likely to be able to recover their costs and turn a profit.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no DMCA fanboy, in fact making it illegal to sell software purely on the basis that it has the abililty to help people infringe copyright is a terrible move. All I'm saying is that you can't have ownership of intellectual property, no licensing, and expect everything to come up roses.
So if you are a haliburton employee and you are against the war in iraq you should be fired? If you are a govt employee and you are against the war in iraq or you publicly state that you think George Bush is an idiot and a religious fundamendalist zealot you should be fired?
and
suppose I work for a AIDS activist organization, doing some programming. But I'm on record as saying, "AIDS is God's way of punishing sodomites." If that got around, I figure I'd be out of some work.
In both examples the hypothetical employee has an opinion against that of "the corporation", but in one it seems right to let the employee go - but not in the other.
I think the difference is the political correctness of the opinion: being against the war in Iraq is generally accepted as OK, but saying that AIDS is God's way of punishing sodomites is probably not.
Having employees saying things that are not politically correct causes company's problems, and hence he got fired.
But are you fine with someone logging in, downloading the source, setting up their own anon cvs, and selling your software for $20.00 in their own nice installer?
The problem is that by selling your software you're setting up an expectation that you'll be able to make money from the fruits of your labour, and may feel hard done by if other people capitalise on your hard work like that.
On the other hand if you gave the software away, there is no incentive for people to get the software from anywhere else, and this situation is unlikely to occur.
Any decent test or exam is written with this in mind in a way that you can't just get your calculator to answer for you.
For example, if you give the maximum of a given function as 0.92308 because the calculator said so you get 0 marks - you have to give the answer as 12/13.
Or if your dealing with probability you have to show all your working and you get up to 3 marks for the working and 1 mark for the final answer. If you use the calculator to do more than check your answer - 1 out of 4 for you.
I'm doing a course at Monash Uni in Australia called Business Systems (dept. of IT), and over here the "group assignments" are fundamentally flawed:
1. they are too short to be able to divide it, we're talking...3-4 hours work...3 major sections...amongst 4 people
2. the people who do these group assignments lack ability, or drive, or both. Meaning that in the end, one person does the work and the rest "ride" their way to a pass, while dragging down the guy who worked his arse off.
In the real world, inadequate people get the sack, and arn't a problem anymore. In uni, they get a free ride.
To top it off, the people who run these subjects "encourage you to figure it out" - read: don't care
Scrap the group assignments...all they do is drag down the people who care about getting more than a pass.
Ah, but what if bringing them back to life is *ALSO* a natural product of Darwinism, perhaps this is how it was all meant to be...not to be fatalistic or anything...perhaps the kinks were already there?
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So you wanted to delete your account, and you did, but it's presumptuous to assume that Facebook is nothing more than banal games from people you barely know.
Being able to see who is attending what events is a really great feature –I often go to events that I wouldn't have known about if not for Facebook. Even more major events like birthdays where I might get a text message about it, having the event sit there in my Facebook until I RSVP is awesome.
Facebook Groups are excellent because if you're involved in some kind of organisation (dance school, protest marches etc), using a Facebook Group means you can help out with co-ordination, have somewhere to link relevant videos and so.
Sure, I don't care about most status updates, but I really enjoy seeing the photos of friends currently overseas and so on. At least for me, Facebook is actually a really useful social tool.
You just made a statement about morality, and then back it up by talking about how you're breaking the law when you're speeding.
Granted, sometimes the law and morality line up (rape is bad!), but sometimes they don't (a 16 year old girl taking a naked photo of herself and sending it to her boyfriend is producing child porn!). There can be no underlying assumption that illegal = immoral.
I think most people here are missing the point about why there are so many pirates.
As a non-jail broken iPhone owner, I'd say 80% of the apps I get on the iTunes store are free. Sure I've paid a few bucks here and there for things I'll use a lot, but given I'm going to get bored of whatever game it is in 2-seconds flat, I can't even justify the few dollars. In this case, I wouldn't buy the game that is used in this example.
But make it free, and now there's no reason NOT to download it.
I think you have a valid point, and I think people are over-reacting to your comments.
A number of years ago, I bought XP corporate licenses for a customer of mine, but used the downgrade rights that came with it to run 2000. At the time XP brand spanking new, and had the same teething problems that Vista has today. With the machines "working", the customer was never motivated to reformat the workstations to XP, even though they were licensed to do so, and it wasn't long before this customer was lagging WAY behind the rest of the world (they're still running 2000).
From a purely functionality perspective, 2000 is fine. It does the job. But the general perception within the office is that "these computers are old and crap", new staff members that are used to XP (and the XP start menu) find the 2000 interface frustrating. It costs them more in tech support too, because installing new hardware on 2000 takes longer since XP has more drivers pre-installed.
The point is, IFyou can work through Vista's problems, you'll appreciate it later on. While Vista doesn't seem to have any killer features that we can't do without, I have to admit the interface in general IS better. Having the screen darken to indicate a modal dialog box is a GOOD interface element. It's got some annoyances, sure, but like astrosmash said, they'll get worked out soon enough.
Your analogy is fundamentally flawed. If you make software, and you haven't yet sold it, it has a certain value to you (how much it cost to develop) and it has a certain value to say, the business that wants to buy this code (how much return on investment they can get).
However, the value to the buyer is MUCH MUCH less than the value to the producer: it's certainly not worth the $2mill development cost to the buyer. So you charge what the buyer is prepared to pay, say, $5K.
But with no concept of licensing instead of ownership, the second you sell one copy, there's no reason the buyer won't just put it up on BitTorrent. As far as they see it, they're saving everyone else $5K and doing everyone a favour. And since they're not taking anything away from you, it's not stealing either.
Suddenly there's no incentive to produce expensive software that has a wide appeal anymore.
Enter copyright, and LICENSING - whereby the producer sells the right to use the code, not the ownership of the code. Along with that license comes restrictions, and now the producer is more likely to be able to recover their costs and turn a profit.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no DMCA fanboy, in fact making it illegal to sell software purely on the basis that it has the abililty to help people infringe copyright is a terrible move. All I'm saying is that you can't have ownership of intellectual property, no licensing, and expect everything to come up roses.
From the article, DSL-N has a 2.6 kernel.
It's a good point, for alternative energy sources such as solar to be effective, there needs to be a lot of them.
And 4500 acres of solar plant has some serious environmental impact.
The same goes for hyrdo, just look at the effects of the Snowy River.
But are you fine with someone logging in, downloading the source, setting up their own anon cvs, and selling your software for $20.00 in their own nice installer?
The problem is that by selling your software you're setting up an expectation that you'll be able to make money from the fruits of your labour, and may feel hard done by if other people capitalise on your hard work like that.
On the other hand if you gave the software away, there is no incentive for people to get the software from anywhere else, and this situation is unlikely to occur.
And these so-called "experts" still lose control of their attitude. Surely they would have come to grips with their emotional problems before leaving.
Any decent test or exam is written with this in mind in a way that you can't just get your calculator to answer for you.
For example, if you give the maximum of a given function as 0.92308 because the calculator said so you get 0 marks - you have to give the answer as 12/13.
Or if your dealing with probability you have to show all your working and you get up to 3 marks for the working and 1 mark for the final answer. If you use the calculator to do more than check your answer - 1 out of 4 for you.
...or the power
I'm doing a course at Monash Uni in Australia called Business Systems (dept. of IT), and over here the "group assignments" are fundamentally flawed:
1. they are too short to be able to divide it, we're talking...3-4 hours work...3 major sections...amongst 4 people
2. the people who do these group assignments lack ability, or drive, or both. Meaning that in the end, one person does the work and the rest "ride" their way to a pass, while dragging down the guy who worked his arse off.
In the real world, inadequate people get the sack, and arn't a problem anymore. In uni, they get a free ride.
To top it off, the people who run these subjects "encourage you to figure it out" - read: don't care
Scrap the group assignments...all they do is drag down the people who care about getting more than a pass.
Ah, but what if bringing them back to life is *ALSO* a natural product of Darwinism, perhaps this is how it was all meant to be...not to be fatalistic or anything...perhaps the kinks were already there?