"I don't ship internationally", come on! I'll never be able to buy something from you! Why don't you have a more flexible way, like a minimun number of stars, or only allow paypal as payment? Please, think in the other 95% of the world
as a seller, I can see his point. There are so many scams that go on when you allow international shipping.
If he is still making money while not "thinking in the other 95% of the world" I don't see a problem.
Just like the 14 yr old with the lawsuit because she was dumb enough to meet up with a complete stranger from myspace. Why doesn't she just sue her parents for poor genetics resulting in lack of brains. Obviously we need to make a class on common sense mandatory to teens and preteens. No, nevermind, they never listen anyway....
Her mother was interviews a couple of days ago and she said "there's nothing we can do to stop this". It's pure stupidity that starts with the parents.
Just for his trouble they probably signed him up again for 6 free months!
I hate AOL. It took me at least 6 months of non-stop calling to get my account cancelled a few years back. I think they are realizing that their shit service just doesn't cut it anymore and they are trying to keep as many customers as possible. Even if it means forcibly keeping their accounts active.
There are democratic governments all over the world we could study and emulate. I kinda like what they do in Australia - voting is mandatory for all citizens, but they have some really cool parties ye can choose as a protest or whatever.
I think forced voting is a bad idea. If people are too lazy or just don't feel like voting that day, it just means they don't have a say in who their next leader will be. I see that as fair.
We could certainly take a long hard look at copyright law in this country. It's become clear to me that the public domain is, for all intents and purposes, closed. Everytime Mickey gets close to falling into PD congress will suddenly find it in their interest to extend copyright
The copyright laws we have today are ridiculous. If they decreased the total time to maybe 10 or 15 years, rather than 75 after the person is dead, it would still benefit the original person or company creating the copyright and benefit the public by putting it into public domain.
It also might increase innovation. Companies would be forced to come out with new things every decade or so.
From another perspective: why should women be necesarily interested in IT ? So what if there are very few women in this line of work ? Does it mean that there should be no smart analytical women in other lines of work? Or it means that there is more glory in "computing" than in "accounting" or "housewifing" ? Does it matter what you do more than how you do it?
Speaking of sexist, that comment is uncalled for. Contrary to what the (former?) President of Harvard thinks, women are indeed capable of participating in math and science fields. It is merely social structure that "guides" them away from these traditionally "masculine" enterprises.
Im tired of hearing this bullshit argument. The reason there is a vast imbalance of men vs women in math and science fields is not because of a social structure that "guides" them away from these fields. It's because they just aren't interested.
Women are more social than men. Math and Science fields many times requires no social interaction. Coding away for hours at a time alone may be interesting to a lot of guys (including me), but not women. There are of course, exceptions.
Why can't we just conclude that men and women have different goals and ambitions in life rather than trying to push everyone along the same path? On the flip-side, there is a large imbalance of men and women in the nursing and elementary school fields. I don't see many groups getting up and arms over it.
What's so lousy? Wierd Al is making millions of dollars singing his songs. He renegotiated his contract, and he signed it, all in spite of this strange little loophole which appears to give him the shaft on digital downloads. Everybody is getting rich, except for Weird Al's customers, who are buying his music at a steep price, but one they are obviously willing to pay to hear him make fun of Emenem. Where's the harm?
I think if you were in weird al's position, you would be pissed too.
Does anyone else see the humor in this?
on
AppleBerry Predicted?
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· Score: 0, Redundant
Why is this so scary? If wages were pretty much the same in all countries, you would never again have to worry about your job being outsourced, and you wouldn't have to listen to lectures about children starving in China either. Granted, you'd probably be able to afford fewer toys, but I am pretty sure you would not starve to death.
This will never happen..unless governments change. The main reason there are people in China startving is because the opressive government. Prosperity will only go so far.
Being responsible about the 'web ecosystem' means working to prevent it from becoming a monoculture. Part of the monoculture is Google itself. There shouldn't be 'one big' search engine that everyone uses. There should be multiple search engines. I recently started using a different one for some of my searches and have found the lack of 'spamming' links refreshing.
THe web ecosystem should evolve on its own. If millions of people flock to google, so be it. If they decide to use another search engine...that might be good too.
By being stored in a format I can not access without paying the MS tax.
Last time I checked, open office was free (as in price)? Have things changed?
No, you can't. You can take the data, but it isn't easy.
Really? I can copy and paste it with ease or use various utilities available on the internet to convert to almost any format I want. It may not be easy for you, but that doesn't define data-lockin.
Your point was what, exactly?
My point being that many open source apps prove that Microsft isn't doing as bad of a job as people say. You say data locking, I call bullshit. Open office proves it. I can easily open up almost any microsoft format and get my data, without having to use MS-word, powerpoint, or excel.
You must've missed the part where they explained the free in "free market". Hint: It's about me choosing where I spend my money. No choice == no free marke
so what's your point? You can either choose a proprietary app or an open source app...There is your free market.
Free Software is important because it prevents data lock-in. One of the main reasons for Free Software by governments is that you can't make electronic tax forms mandatory if using the system requires a proprietory software that costs money (such as Windos). It's just not the government's job to force people into the direction of a specific company.
When using Microsoft products, how is your data being "locked-in". You can easily take data from a word or excel document and move it to any format. Openoffice can even open these documents. It doesn't sound locked to me.
Most governments don't care about free software ideals. They see the "free" and immediately associate it with no cost, which is not necessarily the case. Most open source projects need programmers to maintain them/fix bugs/add updates, which cost the same as or possibly even more than a support contract for a proprietary app.
It also doesn't really help that much to have the source. With either a proprietary app or an open source app, a company will start using an app and not change it that much over time. I've worked at a few big companies, and once an app is purchased and in place, things sometimes don't change for years.
The only thing you really save on is the cost of licenses, which is small in the overall cost of things.
THen they should be coming to Linux in droves. My last Windows install took 4 hours and required me to hunt for drivers all over the web, and reboot a dozen times. My last Linux install worked smoothly with all hardware recognized.
I have never had this experience. Most XP or 2003 installs that I do (and I do at least 30-40 per week) need almost no extra drivers. If a problem does arise, a quick check of the vendor's website will almost always give you a download link to the driver. 4 hours is way to be long to be spending on one system. One hour at the most.
Linux has always given me hardware issues. The most is with wireless network cards. Many vendors also do not have driver support.
I think it's actually the massive security holes that allow in spyware and viruses that give Windows a bad rap. There's also many other things that you don't mention such as settings organization, the registry, lack of bundled software, etc
I know, because receiving an email that says "click here to see jennifer lopez's tits" and leading the user to a download with spyware is really the fault of Microsoft.
Working for a small software company, I can say you're wrong. It's not uncommon to discover that sales are being generated because a warezed version of our software has become widespread and given us some nice grass-roots publicity.
well, I own a small software company and I know many people in the biz and we have all had people cracking our software.
What usually happens is the pirate sites will pick up on our app, release a crack, we will get a surge of downloads (which wastes bandwidth), and sales will start dropping over time. When a patch is released, sales will increase once again. It's pretty obvious what's happening.
so you guys don't care if people crack your software? Can I have a free copy?
If the price of stealing software (risk of prosecution) is smaller than the price of actually buying the software, then people will choose the lesser of the two costs. Software is just too expensive, and in our world of software oligopolies/monopolies, people have few competative choices.
The only alternative when competition is stifled? STEAL THE SOFTWARE.
I guess linux is only mentioned when it benefits the GNU and not to show that yes folks, there are alternatives!
How much does it cost you if I steal one of your chairs or desks? How much does it cost you if I copy one of your CDs? See the difference?
The difference is that copying software isn't comparable to stealing. It's more comparable to counterfeiting. When more and more people pirate a piece of software, over time, it becomes the norm to just "get it from your friend" rather than buying it. It will eventually be seen as having less value, and the company will lose money.
The U.S government doesn't want people countefeiting money for the same reason Microsoft doesn't want a business conterfeiting their software.
The only good I got from Lose95 was the urge to switch to GNU/Linux. I was spending half an hour each day rebooting. Thank you, Microsoft, wherever you are! I cannot remember the last time I had to reboot Linux for any cause except for loss of power or equipment failure
and when was this...in 1995?
windows sucked from 3.1-98 (incuding ME), but XP,2000, and 2003 are great operating systems. It's the dumb users, spyware companies, virus writers, and horrible programs that give it a bad rap. Linux, for the most part, does not have dumb users (it takes some nohow to stray from the norm), spyware (not enough critical mass to be profitable), or viruses (not enough critical mass to spread), which takes many headaches out of the equation.
I use both linux and microsoft operating systems and each have their strong points. But, Microsft did bring the world into the computer age as we know it. They deserve a little more credit.
Every few months I will try out the latest and greatest linux distro for my desktop (madrake,xandros,redhat,ubantu)..and for the most part, I am disappointed and eventually un-install it and put XP or 2003 back on my system.
Where is the free market there? And I don't even live in the states!
Capitalism, in its current form, just doesn't work. Big companies just get bigger by swallowing up the little ones, government can be bought and the companies end up being able to do close to whatever they want.
What you don't understand, is that that is what the free market is all about. If the US had a truly free market, there would be even less restrictions than there are now.
Actually, I am. To start with, microsoft is on every computer in the company I work for. (nearly) And I'm expected to be capable of using it in order to do my job. The better I know microsoft windows and networking and office the better I get paid. Or haven't you worked in an office in the past 8 years?
yeah, I have. But that doesn't mean you are forced. You need to dress nicely at an interview (or you most likely won't get the job. Does this mean you are forced?).
If everyone was using linux, you might be "forced" to use it as well in the workplace.
At the end of the day, the only people truly hurt by strong DRM are the plain old joe consumers. And it still won't fix the RIAA and MPAA sales slumps. Because the product they "make" simply isn't worth what they ask for it. Doubly so when it only works on a limited platform.
hmm..so a product not worth watching or listening to is the most heavily copied and downloaded across the Internet. I fail to see the reasoning here.
If it wasn't worth it. People wouldn't buy or download it.
Slashdot Mirror
"I don't ship internationally", come on! I'll never be able to buy something from you! Why don't you have a more flexible way, like a minimun number of stars, or only allow paypal as payment?
Please, think in the other 95% of the world
as a seller, I can see his point. There are so many scams that go on when you allow international shipping.
If he is still making money while not "thinking in the other 95% of the world" I don't see a problem.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
someone who has a sig like that sure has no problem living there.
Just like the 14 yr old with the lawsuit because she was dumb enough to meet up with a complete stranger from myspace. Why doesn't she just sue her parents for poor genetics resulting in lack of brains. Obviously we need to make a class on common sense mandatory to teens and preteens. No, nevermind, they never listen anyway....
Her mother was interviews a couple of days ago and she said "there's nothing we can do to stop this". It's pure stupidity that starts with the parents.
Just for his trouble they probably signed him up again for 6 free months!
I hate AOL. It took me at least 6 months of non-stop calling to get my account cancelled a few years back. I think they are realizing that their shit service just doesn't cut it anymore and they are trying to keep as many customers as possible. Even if it means forcibly keeping their accounts active.
Yeah, I think he misspelled "Skype."
Not only that, but Firefox loads the page just fine. What an idiotic submission.
I think skype will continue to be the leader. Especially since they are now offering free phone calls to anywhere in the US until january 1st.
There are democratic governments all over the world we could study and emulate. I kinda like what they do in Australia - voting is mandatory for all citizens, but they have some really cool parties ye can choose as a protest or whatever.
I think forced voting is a bad idea. If people are too lazy or just don't feel like voting that day, it just means they don't have a say in who their next leader will be. I see that as fair.
We could certainly take a long hard look at copyright law in this country. It's become clear to me that the public domain is, for all intents and purposes, closed. Everytime Mickey gets close to falling into PD congress will suddenly find it in their interest to extend copyright
The copyright laws we have today are ridiculous. If they decreased the total time to maybe 10 or 15 years, rather than 75 after the person is dead, it would still benefit the original person or company creating the copyright and benefit the public by putting it into public domain.
It also might increase innovation. Companies would be forced to come out with new things every decade or so.
From another perspective: why should women be necesarily interested in IT ? So what if there are very few women in this line of work ? Does it mean that there should be no smart analytical women in other lines of work? Or it means that there is more glory in "computing" than in "accounting" or "housewifing" ? Does it matter what you do more than how you do it?
no, this was my point
But I support the idea. The idea has been picked up by our communists. I guess I'll become a comrade. :)
;-)
and we see how far its gotten them
Speaking of sexist, that comment is uncalled for. Contrary to what the (former?) President of Harvard thinks, women are indeed capable of participating in math and science fields. It is merely social structure that "guides" them away from these traditionally "masculine" enterprises.
Im tired of hearing this bullshit argument. The reason there is a vast imbalance of men vs women in math and science fields is not because of a social structure that "guides" them away from these fields. It's because they just aren't interested.
Women are more social than men. Math and Science fields many times requires no social interaction. Coding away for hours at a time alone may be interesting to a lot of guys (including me), but not women. There are of course, exceptions.
Why can't we just conclude that men and women have different goals and ambitions in life rather than trying to push everyone along the same path? On the flip-side, there is a large imbalance of men and women in the nursing and elementary school fields. I don't see many groups getting up and arms over it.
What's so lousy? Wierd Al is making millions of dollars singing his songs. He renegotiated his contract, and he signed it, all in spite of this strange little loophole which appears to give him the shaft on digital downloads. Everybody is getting rich, except for Weird Al's customers, who are buying his music at a steep price, but one they are obviously willing to pay to hear him make fun of Emenem. Where's the harm?
I think if you were in weird al's position, you would be pissed too.
Rim-Jobs
Why is this so scary? If wages were pretty much the same in all countries, you would never again have to worry about your job being outsourced, and you wouldn't have to listen to lectures about children starving in China either. Granted, you'd probably be able to afford fewer toys, but I am pretty sure you would not starve to death.
This will never happen..unless governments change. The main reason there are people in China startving is because the opressive government. Prosperity will only go so far.
Being responsible about the 'web ecosystem' means working to prevent it from becoming a monoculture. Part of the monoculture is Google itself. There shouldn't be 'one big' search engine that everyone uses. There should be multiple search engines. I recently started using a different one for some of my searches and have found the lack of 'spamming' links refreshing.
THe web ecosystem should evolve on its own. If millions of people flock to google, so be it. If they decide to use another search engine...that might be good too.
Google just happens to be on top right now.
By being stored in a format I can not access without paying the MS tax.
Last time I checked, open office was free (as in price)? Have things changed?
No, you can't. You can take the data, but it isn't easy.
Really? I can copy and paste it with ease or use various utilities available on the internet to convert to almost any format I want. It may not be easy for you, but that doesn't define data-lockin.
Your point was what, exactly?
My point being that many open source apps prove that Microsft isn't doing as bad of a job as people say. You say data locking, I call bullshit. Open office proves it. I can easily open up almost any microsoft format and get my data, without having to use MS-word, powerpoint, or excel.
You must've missed the part where they explained the free in "free market". Hint: It's about me choosing where I spend my money. No choice == no free marke
so what's your point? You can either choose a proprietary app or an open source app...There is your free market.
Free Software is important because it prevents data lock-in. One of the main reasons for Free Software by governments is that you can't make electronic tax forms mandatory if using the system requires a proprietory software that costs money (such as Windos). It's just not the government's job to force people into the direction of a specific company.
When using Microsoft products, how is your data being "locked-in". You can easily take data from a word or excel document and move it to any format. Openoffice can even open these documents. It doesn't sound locked to me.
Most governments don't care about free software ideals. They see the "free" and immediately associate it with no cost, which is not necessarily the case. Most open source projects need programmers to maintain them/fix bugs/add updates, which cost the same as or possibly even more than a support contract for a proprietary app.
It also doesn't really help that much to have the source. With either a proprietary app or an open source app, a company will start using an app and not change it that much over time. I've worked at a few big companies, and once an app is purchased and in place, things sometimes don't change for years.
The only thing you really save on is the cost of licenses, which is small in the overall cost of things.
THen they should be coming to Linux in droves. My last Windows install took 4 hours and required me to hunt for drivers all over the web, and reboot a dozen times. My last Linux install worked smoothly with all hardware recognized.
I have never had this experience. Most XP or 2003 installs that I do (and I do at least 30-40 per week) need almost no extra drivers. If a problem does arise, a quick check of the vendor's website will almost always give you a download link to the driver. 4 hours is way to be long to be spending on one system. One hour at the most.
Linux has always given me hardware issues. The most is with wireless network cards. Many vendors also do not have driver support.
I think it's actually the massive security holes that allow in spyware and viruses that give Windows a bad rap. There's also many other things that you don't mention such as settings organization, the registry, lack of bundled software, etc
I know, because receiving an email that says "click here to see jennifer lopez's tits" and leading the user to a download with spyware is really the fault of Microsoft.
Working for a small software company, I can say you're wrong. It's not uncommon to discover that sales are being generated because a warezed version of our software has become widespread and given us some nice grass-roots publicity.
well, I own a small software company and I know many people in the biz and we have all had people cracking our software.
What usually happens is the pirate sites will pick up on our app, release a crack, we will get a surge of downloads (which wastes bandwidth), and sales will start dropping over time. When a patch is released, sales will increase once again. It's pretty obvious what's happening.
so you guys don't care if people crack your software? Can I have a free copy?
Pirating software increases a software's value if enough people do it, not decrease it.
this may be the case with really populat software apps, but it is rare that a company gets to that level. For most, it just hurts them.
If the price of stealing software (risk of prosecution) is smaller than the price of actually buying the software, then people will choose the lesser of the two costs. Software is just too expensive, and in our world of software oligopolies/monopolies, people have few competative choices.
The only alternative when competition is stifled? STEAL THE SOFTWARE.
I guess linux is only mentioned when it benefits the GNU and not to show that yes folks, there are alternatives!
How much does it cost you if I steal one of your chairs or desks?
How much does it cost you if I copy one of your CDs?
See the difference?
The difference is that copying software isn't comparable to stealing. It's more comparable to counterfeiting. When more and more people pirate a piece of software, over time, it becomes the norm to just "get it from your friend" rather than buying it. It will eventually be seen as having less value, and the company will lose money.
The U.S government doesn't want people countefeiting money for the same reason Microsoft doesn't want a business conterfeiting their software.
The only good I got from Lose95 was the urge to switch to GNU/Linux. I was spending half an hour each day rebooting. Thank you, Microsoft, wherever you are! I cannot remember the last time I had to reboot Linux for any cause except for loss of power or equipment failure
and when was this...in 1995?
windows sucked from 3.1-98 (incuding ME), but XP,2000, and 2003 are great operating systems. It's the dumb users, spyware companies, virus writers, and horrible programs that give it a bad rap. Linux, for the most part, does not have dumb users (it takes some nohow to stray from the norm), spyware (not enough critical mass to be profitable), or viruses (not enough critical mass to spread), which takes many headaches out of the equation.
I use both linux and microsoft operating systems and each have their strong points. But, Microsft did bring the world into the computer age as we know it. They deserve a little more credit.
Every few months I will try out the latest and greatest linux distro for my desktop (madrake,xandros,redhat,ubantu)..and for the most part, I am disappointed and eventually un-install it and put XP or 2003 back on my system.
Where is the free market there? And I don't even live in the states!
Capitalism, in its current form, just doesn't work. Big companies just get bigger by swallowing up the little ones, government can be bought and the companies end up being able to do close to whatever they want.
What you don't understand, is that that is what the free market is all about. If the US had a truly free market, there would be even less restrictions than there are now.
Actually, I am. To start with, microsoft is on every computer in the company I work for. (nearly) And I'm expected to be capable of using it in order to do my job. The better I know microsoft windows and networking and office the better I get paid. Or haven't you worked in an office in the past 8 years?
yeah, I have. But that doesn't mean you are forced. You need to dress nicely at an interview (or you most likely won't get the job. Does this mean you are forced?).
If everyone was using linux, you might be "forced" to use it as well in the workplace.
At the end of the day, the only people truly hurt by strong DRM are the plain old joe consumers. And it still won't fix the RIAA and MPAA sales slumps. Because the product they "make" simply isn't worth what they ask for it. Doubly so when it only works on a limited platform.
hmm..so a product not worth watching or listening to is the most heavily copied and downloaded across the Internet. I fail to see the reasoning here.
If it wasn't worth it. People wouldn't buy or download it.