Um... many of the manufacturers of DVD burners are actually competitors. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they want to take your consumer dollars. This would lead them to attempt to produce a better product/price and/or better marketting. Have you seen much marketting for DVD burners? Again, I go out on a limb and suggest that they are giving you the best product for the price of their R&D. If they haven't given you something, I suspect it's 'cause it's hard to give you.
I know I'm going to get flamed to pieces for this, but isn't the i* software suite just doing what Microsoft did with Windows and Internet Explorer?
Um... FYI, MacOS also includes Internet Explorer.
Surely the point of taking Microsoft to court for bundling IE and therefore slaying the browser market was not just to get at Microsoft, but to prevent OS vendors from dominating and killing off large sectors of the software market?
Well... most of the people *testifying* against Microsoft did it because they were competing with Microsoft and felt that it should be easier. But that has nothing to do with the reason the government's reason: It is illegal to use your monopoly in one market to leverage a monopoly in another market. That is the one and *only* "point" of taking MS to court.
I would also submit that Apple has made it clear that they only produce iApps in software markets that do not have sufficient attention from other software makers. iMovie got made because Apple felt that otherwise, new computer users would *never* seek out such software, and they would never get such a valuable use out of their computer. Apple created dead-end user video editing.
Also, if competitor's apps don't integrate as well as the iApps... then those competitors make a lower quality product. Apple isn't using hidden APIs. It's a level playing ground in that regard.
But this is a matter of principle, not of bashing the monopolists. What good is it in downsizing a monopoly, and replacing it with a monopoly run by two companies?
Uh... That's the dumbest question I've heard in a while. The good is: A monopoly run by two companies is not a monopoly. *All* of the disadvantages of a monopoly are diminished greatly. For example, the two companies must compete for your business.
Of course, if the two companies collude to keep prices high, that's price fixing, and it's got it's own set of problems. It's also illegal, IIRC.
Eh. No. You're right about why it got canned, but... that doesn't make it good television. Perhaps you were entertained by it, but I felt like it had less actual content than even the "watered-down network news."
Every time I turned on the show, it would be a conversation about an issue that mattered to me, and all five of the participants had would show a serious lack of knowledge of the issues. That's pretty upsetting. Compare that to PBS... I just watched five former Secretaries of Defense have a conversation about current foreign policy. It was polite. They knew exactly what they were talking about. They were not partisan for a second. I learned an incredible amount in the half hour I watched the show. No adverts.
Dude, skip the network news too. Watch yourself some News Hour with Jim Lehrer.
Um... Yes, iCal will deal with "network transport"... but probably not in the way that you'd hope.
It'll allow you to publish and subscribe to other people's calendars over the network to a WebDAV server. It will let you "invite" other users via email, whom can then rsvp. I've never worked in an office with serious groupware software, so I have no idea what Exchange can do, but I assume it's more powerful than that.
Of course, I hate to sound cliched, but since it's standards based, I'm going to go out on a limb and *guess* that it would be very easy to make customizations that would run on the WebDAV server. Perl scripts that would run when people made changes, or something. Iduno how that shazz works.
Also, as people keep posting here, notice the recent advent of Mozilla Calendar. I've got *no* idea what sort of feature set it has.
Yes, true. I'm trying to say that species is a broken concept.
Anyway. Humans isolated on an island for a long period of time, like several thousand years, would absolutely be considered a separate species by this definition. Of course, the second they're discovered, if they can still interbreed, they're no longer a separate species.
Also, who says homosexuals don't breed? Three of my best friends have gay parents. It doesn't matter for the definition, though. People who don't breed aren't separate species, they're just unsuccessful members of their species.
That has never been the scientist's definition of species. The definition of species is not, "A group of animals that can interbreed and produce viable offspring."
The definition of species is, and always has been, "A group of animals that can and do produce viable offspring."
If this seems vague to you, good! The definition of species *is* vague. It has to be. "Species" is a concept that humans invented to help them describe the world around them. Very very often, it doesn't work. There's no way to change it so that it will work.
You've got to be out of your mind. Some really intelligent people aren't going to have canned jokes for you at all. Some of them aren't going to want to tell a stranger (whom they don't want to offend) any jokes they know. Some of them won't want to work for an employer that would ask them interview questions simply designed to make them uncomfortable.
I realize the whole "make them uncomfortable" plan might be popular, and it might weed out everyone that is upset by it, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
Jesus. Make your interview more like a day at work. If that's how your office works, I'd quit.
Some places ask if you'd ever consider going skydiving. Apparently people that answer "yes" to that question are less likely to steal from their employers.
After writing the reply I read your other comments. You're a lot more reasonable that I originally expected.
I was trying to say that the current deals you make with distributors are predicated on the current term of copyright... but they cannot possibly be counting on the value they will receive based on your work 20 years from now. Anyway, here's a new point:
The holy grail you propose is 100% provably unattainable by technical means. If people continue to err 'till it's found, they will be doing so forever. This is a problem for me.
Please recognize that distributors have been attempting to remove fair use long before Napster ever existed. And they can try, but all they can succeed at is inconvenience.
On the other hand, the... um... unholy grail, a system that allows untraceable, unstoppable IP theft, is absolutely attainable. The concepts are all in place. It doesn't matter if I do it, or anyone else on/. does it. At some point it will get done.
When it is done, if distributors have not changed, they really will come crashing down. Their only hope would be to remove the consumer's desire to break the law. Music stores that have ever album ever made, all in stock, all for $4. Video stores that will sell you any movie (that's been digitized...) on a sliding price scale. No copy protection. You could do something like this and still afford to double artist royalties per unit. And they'd be selling a lot more units.
Think that's not feasible? I think it is. And I'm the one holding the gun. Someone like me, at any rate.
And if a better official distribution network existed, all of a sudden IP pirates would look like real criminals. There's no way my mom would consider stealing music. She'd pay you your royalty or she wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Right now, she'll be stealing music on Kazaa.
A better/fair official distribution network would remove the potential user base of an illicit network, and thus remove the powder keg.
Are you still sure the **AA is working in your best interest? I'll tell you, at the currect trajectory, I'm *real* worried about the well being of artists.
Jag-wahr = Jungle cat. Jag-yu-ahr = British pronunciation/car
I'll point out that:
Jag-wire = OS X update.
You're not supposed to pronounce it like the cat. There should be no confusion when you *hear* the word. This is not mentioned in any documentation, it's just how Steve pronounces it in keynotes.
Well, I'm not that person, but you can hear from me. My 600 mHz iBook doesn't have a Jaguar compatible video card (not even close) and its video performance has been vastly improved.
Scrolling, window creation, etc. is all much much snappier.
Also, everyone keeps maligning iChat. I don't see why. My main use for my computer is personal network communications. The integration between Mail, Addressbook, and iChat is really really nice.
Um... The reason I said "we" is pretty straightforward: The grandparent poster did. I was trying to make a counterpoint to what he said. You're right, I should have pointed out the mistake in refering to/.ers as a single group. I always hate it when I read other people making the same "we" mistake.
Also, there is very good (some would say perfect) rationale for a specific duration of copyright. Creation of a copyrighted work is a capital expense. It produces a continuing return on that expense. The present value of that return in the future diminishes for each year into the future that you project.
The present value of the return on investment in year 50 is something like $0.02 per $1000 invested. It's been a while since I've been hanging out with an intelligent enough MBA to do this math, so I can't back up that number at all right now. Sorry.
This means that *no* one would *ever* invest more time/money in a copyrighted work so that it will be more valuable in year 50. The only reason that we give artists the ability to restrict distrobution of their work is to give them a monetary reason to produce art. Now. It does not necessarily follow that we should pay artists more for work that they have already produced. Whether or not you would defend a 90 year copyright, would you defend the extension of copyrights for works that have already been produced?
Anyway. At some point in the future, the expected ROI for the rest of perpetuity is guaranteed to be less than the initial cost of producing the artwork. From my calculations with my Wharton MBA friend, this occured, believe it or not, IIRC, around year 20. A good example is the movie Gone with the Wind. It is incredibly valuable right now to its copyright owner. However, when they produced the movie, the potential value of the movie in the year 2002 was not a motivator. Thus the gov't should not give them such a long copyright.
I would not push for a 20 year copyright, however, because it'd be pretty politically stupid. 20 years feels really short to people who imagine (for some reason) that copyright for perpetuity is a natural right. So, I'd push for something like 50 years. In a perfect world, copyright would end when it could no longer provide a reason for artists to produce art. Between 20 and 30 years.
A copyright that lasts for 90 years and prohibits fair use will lead otherwise law abiding citizens to violate the law. That doesn't help content providers at all. Read what Macaulay had to say about it in 1841.
Also. You've got mouths to feed. Is that the government's problem? In 1920, buggy whip experts had mouths to feed too. The government doesn't owe you anything because you have mouths to feed. Figure out an argument for why 90 years of copyright will help you or your children. *That* would change my mind.
As for needing a more efficient soap box than/.... Well, that was exactly my point. Political activism on/. is pretty worthless. However, there might be a very few/. readers that are imaginative/skilled enough coders that they could destroy copyright in a couple of weeks of work. I'm not trying to say that I would prefer to live in a world without copyright. I'm trying to say that if content providers want to take away fair use, I want to take away their copyright.
Please do respond. I've always wanted to talk about this with someone who depended on copyright. I want society to figure out a more efficient and fair way to give you money for your art.
Huh. You can't submit to an ombudsman anonymously? Would that be somehow unethical or ineffectual? I have no idea how newspapers operate in this regard.
Of course, I agree with you, this will need to be a legal battle. However, consider:
1) Every single slashdotter worked actively towards creating a content distribution system that destroys copyright. Obliterates it. Type of content, origin, and destination are opaque.
2) Every single slashdotter worked actively towards political activism to change the law.
In scenario 2, we can be stopped. The **AA has more money than we do. Nothing we can do about that.
In scenario 1... they might not be able to stop us. At all.
The reason it needs to be a legal battle is because of the lengths that Hollings/Valenti are willing to go. They'll legislate DRM on our digital rectal thermometers. Or they'll hack our digital rectal thermometers if they have a reason to believe we might be distributing copyrighted body tempuratures.
I'd much prefer a reasonable copyright system, but the current one encourages illegal activity. Copyrights last over 90 years? Fair Use is effectively illegal? At that point, copyright laws encourage widespread daily illegal activity. It's like making it illegal to masturbate: Anyone can do it, everyone has a reason to, and the law can't tell when you do it. Civil disobedience begins to make sense.
And of course, the stakes aren't as high as previous inspirations for civil disobedience. That's not the point I'm making.
Huh... For some reason all your respondents seem to think you aren't American.
I agree wholeheartedly with all of your comments, and I'm an American ST TOS/TNG fan. Just because someone maligns propaganda (or jingoistic faux patriotism, separate discussion) doesn't mean they aren't American. It doesn't even mean they're not a red blooded American patriot. I just don't like watching people try to manipulate me.
My guess is these white box specials will come without Dell technical support and will sell at a lower price, all the while helping Dell get penetration into small to medium sized businesses.
If you'd like to stop guessing:
The price starts at $499 for a unit with an Intel Celeron processor, CD-ROM and floppy disk drive and Windows XP. A monitor is not included and the PCs can be upgraded upon request. Each computer includes a one-year warranty on parts and telephone service for the dealer.
My question is what kind of telephone service does the dealer get. I mean, if you can get an unlimited number of lines/long distance, $499 is a great deal for one year. My dad pays SBC/Pac Bell $500 a month for telephone service.
My company makes *half* as much per-unit when we ship in qty to a reseller vs direct to a customer. We want out resellers to be happy so they'll promote the product, but at the same time we miss the margins for direct sales. You can't be greedy though. Sometimes a smaller piece of a bigger pie is better. Good luck Dell!
Doesn't everyone already know that this is how business works?
My company makes *half* as much per-unit when we ship in qty to a dealer vs direct to a customer. We want out dealers to be happy so we don't have to do all the pushing, but at the same time we miss the margins for direct sales. You can't be greedy though. Sometimes a smaller piece of a bigger pie is better.
Slashdot Mirror
Um... many of the manufacturers of DVD burners are actually competitors. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they want to take your consumer dollars. This would lead them to attempt to produce a better product/price and/or better marketting. Have you seen much marketting for DVD burners? Again, I go out on a limb and suggest that they are giving you the best product for the price of their R&D. If they haven't given you something, I suspect it's 'cause it's hard to give you.
Otherwise one of them would have done it.
In order to do that, you need to have the same DVD burning/blank media setup that the distributor uses (You know, like Warner Bros?).
The burner/media that you can get in a standard PC cannot store CSS keys. You can't do a full bit-by-bit copy.
I know I'm going to get flamed to pieces for this, but isn't the i* software suite just doing what Microsoft did with Windows and Internet Explorer?
Um... FYI, MacOS also includes Internet Explorer.
Surely the point of taking Microsoft to court for bundling IE and therefore slaying the browser market was not just to get at Microsoft, but to prevent OS vendors from dominating and killing off large sectors of the software market?
Well... most of the people *testifying* against Microsoft did it because they were competing with Microsoft and felt that it should be easier. But that has nothing to do with the reason the government's reason: It is illegal to use your monopoly in one market to leverage a monopoly in another market. That is the one and *only* "point" of taking MS to court.
I would also submit that Apple has made it clear that they only produce iApps in software markets that do not have sufficient attention from other software makers. iMovie got made because Apple felt that otherwise, new computer users would *never* seek out such software, and they would never get such a valuable use out of their computer. Apple created dead-end user video editing.
Also, if competitor's apps don't integrate as well as the iApps... then those competitors make a lower quality product. Apple isn't using hidden APIs. It's a level playing ground in that regard.
But this is a matter of principle, not of bashing the monopolists. What good is it in downsizing a monopoly, and replacing it with a monopoly run by two companies?
Uh... That's the dumbest question I've heard in a while. The good is: A monopoly run by two companies is not a monopoly. *All* of the disadvantages of a monopoly are diminished greatly. For example, the two companies must compete for your business.
Of course, if the two companies collude to keep prices high, that's price fixing, and it's got it's own set of problems. It's also illegal, IIRC.
Eh. No. You're right about why it got canned, but... that doesn't make it good television. Perhaps you were entertained by it, but I felt like it had less actual content than even the "watered-down network news."
Every time I turned on the show, it would be a conversation about an issue that mattered to me, and all five of the participants had would show a serious lack of knowledge of the issues. That's pretty upsetting. Compare that to PBS... I just watched five former Secretaries of Defense have a conversation about current foreign policy. It was polite. They knew exactly what they were talking about. They were not partisan for a second. I learned an incredible amount in the half hour I watched the show. No adverts.
Dude, skip the network news too. Watch yourself some News Hour with Jim Lehrer.
You're exactly correct. That makes me... not a fucking idiot.
What does that make you?
If this isn't flamebait than my name isn't Elwood P Dowd.
And it isn't.
Um... Yes, iCal will deal with "network transport"... but probably not in the way that you'd hope.
It'll allow you to publish and subscribe to other people's calendars over the network to a WebDAV server. It will let you "invite" other users via email, whom can then rsvp. I've never worked in an office with serious groupware software, so I have no idea what Exchange can do, but I assume it's more powerful than that.
Of course, I hate to sound cliched, but since it's standards based, I'm going to go out on a limb and *guess* that it would be very easy to make customizations that would run on the WebDAV server. Perl scripts that would run when people made changes, or something. Iduno how that shazz works.
Also, as people keep posting here, notice the recent advent of Mozilla Calendar. I've got *no* idea what sort of feature set it has.
Laugh. It's funny.
Yes, true. I'm trying to say that species is a broken concept.
Anyway. Humans isolated on an island for a long period of time, like several thousand years, would absolutely be considered a separate species by this definition. Of course, the second they're discovered, if they can still interbreed, they're no longer a separate species.
Also, who says homosexuals don't breed? Three of my best friends have gay parents. It doesn't matter for the definition, though. People who don't breed aren't separate species, they're just unsuccessful members of their species.
That has never been the scientist's definition of species. The definition of species is not, "A group of animals that can interbreed and produce viable offspring."
The definition of species is, and always has been, "A group of animals that can and do produce viable offspring."
If this seems vague to you, good! The definition of species *is* vague. It has to be. "Species" is a concept that humans invented to help them describe the world around them. Very very often, it doesn't work. There's no way to change it so that it will work.
That's funny on so many levels.
You've got to be out of your mind. Some really intelligent people aren't going to have canned jokes for you at all. Some of them aren't going to want to tell a stranger (whom they don't want to offend) any jokes they know. Some of them won't want to work for an employer that would ask them interview questions simply designed to make them uncomfortable.
I realize the whole "make them uncomfortable" plan might be popular, and it might weed out everyone that is upset by it, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
Jesus. Make your interview more like a day at work. If that's how your office works, I'd quit.
Some places ask if you'd ever consider going skydiving. Apparently people that answer "yes" to that question are less likely to steal from their employers.
After writing the reply I read your other comments. You're a lot more reasonable that I originally expected.
/. does it. At some point it will get done.
I was trying to say that the current deals you make with distributors are predicated on the current term of copyright... but they cannot possibly be counting on the value they will receive based on your work 20 years from now. Anyway, here's a new point:
The holy grail you propose is 100% provably unattainable by technical means. If people continue to err 'till it's found, they will be doing so forever. This is a problem for me.
Please recognize that distributors have been attempting to remove fair use long before Napster ever existed. And they can try, but all they can succeed at is inconvenience.
On the other hand, the... um... unholy grail, a system that allows untraceable, unstoppable IP theft, is absolutely attainable. The concepts are all in place. It doesn't matter if I do it, or anyone else on
When it is done, if distributors have not changed, they really will come crashing down. Their only hope would be to remove the consumer's desire to break the law. Music stores that have ever album ever made, all in stock, all for $4. Video stores that will sell you any movie (that's been digitized...) on a sliding price scale. No copy protection. You could do something like this and still afford to double artist royalties per unit. And they'd be selling a lot more units.
Think that's not feasible? I think it is. And I'm the one holding the gun. Someone like me, at any rate.
And if a better official distribution network existed, all of a sudden IP pirates would look like real criminals. There's no way my mom would consider stealing music. She'd pay you your royalty or she wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Right now, she'll be stealing music on Kazaa.
A better/fair official distribution network would remove the potential user base of an illicit network, and thus remove the powder keg.
Are you still sure the **AA is working in your best interest? I'll tell you, at the currect trajectory, I'm *real* worried about the well being of artists.
Someone has already pointed out that:
Jag-wahr = Jungle cat.
Jag-yu-ahr = British pronunciation/car
I'll point out that:
Jag-wire = OS X update.
You're not supposed to pronounce it like the cat. There should be no confusion when you *hear* the word. This is not mentioned in any documentation, it's just how Steve pronounces it in keynotes.
Well, I'm not that person, but you can hear from me. My 600 mHz iBook doesn't have a Jaguar compatible video card (not even close) and its video performance has been vastly improved.
Scrolling, window creation, etc. is all much much snappier.
Also, everyone keeps maligning iChat. I don't see why. My main use for my computer is personal network communications. The integration between Mail, Addressbook, and iChat is really really nice.
A copyright that lasted half as long and allowed fair use would not mean that writers and musicians would make less money.
I even think it *might* mean that you'd make more money. Because fewer people would feel like they had to steal your work.
Read Macaulay on Kuro5hin.
Um... The reason I said "we" is pretty straightforward: The grandparent poster did. I was trying to make a counterpoint to what he said. You're right, I should have pointed out the mistake in refering to /.ers as a single group. I always hate it when I read other people making the same "we" mistake.
/. ... Well, that was exactly my point. Political activism on /. is pretty worthless. However, there might be a very few /. readers that are imaginative/skilled enough coders that they could destroy copyright in a couple of weeks of work. I'm not trying to say that I would prefer to live in a world without copyright. I'm trying to say that if content providers want to take away fair use, I want to take away their copyright.
Also, there is very good (some would say perfect) rationale for a specific duration of copyright. Creation of a copyrighted work is a capital expense. It produces a continuing return on that expense. The present value of that return in the future diminishes for each year into the future that you project.
The present value of the return on investment in year 50 is something like $0.02 per $1000 invested. It's been a while since I've been hanging out with an intelligent enough MBA to do this math, so I can't back up that number at all right now. Sorry.
This means that *no* one would *ever* invest more time/money in a copyrighted work so that it will be more valuable in year 50. The only reason that we give artists the ability to restrict distrobution of their work is to give them a monetary reason to produce art. Now. It does not necessarily follow that we should pay artists more for work that they have already produced. Whether or not you would defend a 90 year copyright, would you defend the extension of copyrights for works that have already been produced?
Anyway. At some point in the future, the expected ROI for the rest of perpetuity is guaranteed to be less than the initial cost of producing the artwork. From my calculations with my Wharton MBA friend, this occured, believe it or not, IIRC, around year 20. A good example is the movie Gone with the Wind. It is incredibly valuable right now to its copyright owner. However, when they produced the movie, the potential value of the movie in the year 2002 was not a motivator. Thus the gov't should not give them such a long copyright.
I would not push for a 20 year copyright, however, because it'd be pretty politically stupid. 20 years feels really short to people who imagine (for some reason) that copyright for perpetuity is a natural right. So, I'd push for something like 50 years. In a perfect world, copyright would end when it could no longer provide a reason for artists to produce art. Between 20 and 30 years.
A copyright that lasts for 90 years and prohibits fair use will lead otherwise law abiding citizens to violate the law. That doesn't help content providers at all. Read what Macaulay had to say about it in 1841.
Also. You've got mouths to feed. Is that the government's problem? In 1920, buggy whip experts had mouths to feed too. The government doesn't owe you anything because you have mouths to feed. Figure out an argument for why 90 years of copyright will help you or your children. *That* would change my mind.
As for needing a more efficient soap box than
Please do respond. I've always wanted to talk about this with someone who depended on copyright. I want society to figure out a more efficient and fair way to give you money for your art.
Huh. You can't submit to an ombudsman anonymously? Would that be somehow unethical or ineffectual? I have no idea how newspapers operate in this regard.
A technical solution will also work.
Of course, I agree with you, this will need to be a legal battle. However, consider:
1) Every single slashdotter worked actively towards creating a content distribution system that destroys copyright. Obliterates it. Type of content, origin, and destination are opaque.
2) Every single slashdotter worked actively towards political activism to change the law.
In scenario 2, we can be stopped. The **AA has more money than we do. Nothing we can do about that.
In scenario 1... they might not be able to stop us. At all.
The reason it needs to be a legal battle is because of the lengths that Hollings/Valenti are willing to go. They'll legislate DRM on our digital rectal thermometers. Or they'll hack our digital rectal thermometers if they have a reason to believe we might be distributing copyrighted body tempuratures.
I'd much prefer a reasonable copyright system, but the current one encourages illegal activity. Copyrights last over 90 years? Fair Use is effectively illegal? At that point, copyright laws encourage widespread daily illegal activity. It's like making it illegal to masturbate: Anyone can do it, everyone has a reason to, and the law can't tell when you do it. Civil disobedience begins to make sense.
And of course, the stakes aren't as high as previous inspirations for civil disobedience. That's not the point I'm making.
Huh... For some reason all your respondents seem to think you aren't American.
I agree wholeheartedly with all of your comments, and I'm an American ST TOS/TNG fan. Just because someone maligns propaganda (or jingoistic faux patriotism, separate discussion) doesn't mean they aren't American. It doesn't even mean they're not a red blooded American patriot. I just don't like watching people try to manipulate me.
If you'd like to stop guessing:
My question is what kind of telephone service does the dealer get. I mean, if you can get an unlimited number of lines/long distance, $499 is a great deal for one year. My dad pays SBC/Pac Bell $500 a month for telephone service.
Wait a second...
My company makes *half* as much per-unit when we ship in qty to a reseller vs direct to a customer. We want out resellers to be happy so they'll promote the product, but at the same time we miss the margins for direct sales. You can't be greedy though. Sometimes a smaller piece of a bigger pie is better. Good luck Dell!
Doesn't everyone already know that this is how business works?
My company makes *half* as much per-unit when we ship in qty to a dealer vs direct to a customer. We want out dealers to be happy so we don't have to do all the pushing, but at the same time we miss the margins for direct sales. You can't be greedy though. Sometimes a smaller piece of a bigger pie is better.
Right. I was making fun of the engineers on slashdot being full of themselves. We couldn't agree more.
I thought my post was pretty easy to get, too. Perhaps you felt dumber for a different reason than you think...?