While they may be able to put the hurt long term on physical stores and permanently end them, they can't really keep websites at bay without keeping low margins. The barrier to entry is just too low. This is even more true for digital products like ebooks.
If simple fraud is against the law, then why aren't we prosecuting the fraudsters administering the tests? They are using a pseudoscientific test that will only weed out the really stupid "bad guys" and will keep out a number of qualified individuals. AFAIK, he only taught them how to fool a lie detector, and to lie about knowing how to fool a lie detector, because if you admit that, you are instantly out of the running.
He would have to be an attorney to do that, though. They don't want just anybody getting in on their racket. Even if you can pass the bar, you have to go to one of their schools in most states.
It seems more like their intent is diversify in a number of markets that all seem to eventually become sustainable. That's a healthy way to run a business long term. I know it's bizarre to see such behavior, but that doesn't make them some unspeakable evil.
Actually, some people are better at predicting than others, even if neither party is member of the bar. Some non-lawyers are probably better at predicting outcomes than a lot of lawyers.
AFAIK, Amazon made a profit on their ebooks market overall. There were certain titles they lost money on, but they usually weren't losing a great deal, and they made it up through their other titles. What you are talking about is dumping, and Amazon was not dumping. While I have many issues with Walmart, I don't think there's evidence of them dumping either. They do have prices that can drive away competitors, but it's done by a ruthless supply chain with ridiculous economy of scale, and cutting corners on their inventory to have just a passable selection of everything.
Worse, because Amazon was acting like an efficiency monopoly, not a coercive monopoly. It's like complaining about Google's dominance in search when it was due entirely to being better.
What should also be legal, is for publishers to say "you cannot sell my book for less than $X". Amazon can sell books for any price they like, down to $0, and the publisher cannot complain. Does that sound right to you? It means if a publisher irks Amazon, they can send book profits spiraling down.
It sounds right to me until you get to the 'profits spiraling down' part. Because Amazon pays the publisher the same amount no matter what the price. And yes, it does sound right to me because it's the wholesale model. If I want to just give away my stuff, I can. If I want to sell it at ridiculously low prices I can. If I want to sell milk or gas at a loss to get you into my store, where I'll make a tidy profit off of other things, I can. Amazon is doing something akin to the last thing here. They had a small number of books acting as loss leaders. Now, if they were engaging in dumping, that might be a concern, but they weren't. And even if they were, the answer is not to illegally collude with Apple to make prices rise again. The answer is to go to court against Amazon. Apparently, the feds were looking into Amazon and found their business operation perfectly legal. They also realized later that Apple was doing naughty, naughty things with the other publishers, and then they got in trouble.
There's nothing illegal about being by far the largest e-book publisher. There is something illegal about conspiring with the majority of an industry to collude in price fixing. Also, I'm amazed at the gall of being upset that an illegal conspiracy against customers is actually leading to said customers being compensated.
This. A thousand times this. If the bar for 'cyrberterrorist' is set here, then any kind of 'hacktivism' is going to be terrorism. However, if they were applying this standard both ways, the NSA has been engaged in widespread acts of war against the entire world. However, I support endorsing a peace treaty that will surrender the NSA, it's contractors, and it's co-conspirators to punishment by other nations.
The only video that is using Hi10p to any real extent is anime. If you are watching HD anime on a netbook, or really anything other than a desktop, then you will probably be derided by the encoders for using your 'shitbox', and they will probably suggest you stick with crunchyroll.
That's because 'intellectual property' is a misnomer. Patents are a government handout, and entirely a creation BY THE STATE. They are taxing the public in the form of freedom instead of money in hopes that we get a decent ROI in technological progress.
Nice strawman there. You probably wouldn't strongly prefer to live in any of Somalia's neighbors with governments either, such as Ethiopia. Whenever someone brings up Somalia in a government related argument, they are more or less screaming "I AM A DUMBASS!"
It's a bad solution for multiple reasons. One, they announced it publicly ahead of time. It's not directly a layoff since it is focused on contractors, but it has many of the same effects, and the NSA is probably a major client. There's also the issue this was likely a far greater reduction than what is feasible to do, unless they had made very poor staffing choices. An overworked IT department could mean that operational security is even more compromised, and that there's less time for proper audits. Finally, there's the whole cloud issue. They are either going to have it hosted by a third party, in which case they are subjecting themselves to the same kind of concerns, just with a different group, or it's a 'private cloud', which means they are just calling it something different, and would need about the same amount of admins.
I'm sure when this tech hits the market, the government will get to play the role of Big Mother too, and all of those features are pretty scary in that context.
Or it could be a race to the cognitive bottom. With the current information, the way Snowden got access was due to boneheaded procedures being used internally. So, it's possible the 4000 they were suspicious of were even dumber than the feds. I'm sure that they are trying to fix things, but that doesn't mean they will be handling it intelligently. Remember, one of their stated solutions is to cut the number of sysadmins by 90% and move things to the 'cloud.'
Because all of he spooks from the alphabet soup of TLAs use them for 'security clearance.' And the fact they are using pseudoscience which probably keeps out more 'good guys' than 'bad guys' is obviously this guy's fault.
I'm not answering your question because your question is stupid. Your position has the same validity as that of the Luddites. If you want to rehash that debate, go ahead, but is has been by and large settled to the point that "Luddite" is an insult.
If we had shows of people regularly fighting to the death with various awesome weapons, nobody would watch bot wars. UFC and even regular boxing probably outrank bot wars by a wide margin.
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While they may be able to put the hurt long term on physical stores and permanently end them, they can't really keep websites at bay without keeping low margins. The barrier to entry is just too low. This is even more true for digital products like ebooks.
Ah, but the DA doesn't offer near as sweet a deal on those. Same goes for an Alford plea. If they did, nobody would EVER go for a guilty plea.
If simple fraud is against the law, then why aren't we prosecuting the fraudsters administering the tests? They are using a pseudoscientific test that will only weed out the really stupid "bad guys" and will keep out a number of qualified individuals. AFAIK, he only taught them how to fool a lie detector, and to lie about knowing how to fool a lie detector, because if you admit that, you are instantly out of the running.
He would have to be an attorney to do that, though. They don't want just anybody getting in on their racket. Even if you can pass the bar, you have to go to one of their schools in most states.
It seems more like their intent is diversify in a number of markets that all seem to eventually become sustainable. That's a healthy way to run a business long term. I know it's bizarre to see such behavior, but that doesn't make them some unspeakable evil.
Actually, some people are better at predicting than others, even if neither party is member of the bar. Some non-lawyers are probably better at predicting outcomes than a lot of lawyers.
AFAIK, Amazon made a profit on their ebooks market overall. There were certain titles they lost money on, but they usually weren't losing a great deal, and they made it up through their other titles. What you are talking about is dumping, and Amazon was not dumping. While I have many issues with Walmart, I don't think there's evidence of them dumping either. They do have prices that can drive away competitors, but it's done by a ruthless supply chain with ridiculous economy of scale, and cutting corners on their inventory to have just a passable selection of everything.
Worse, because Amazon was acting like an efficiency monopoly, not a coercive monopoly. It's like complaining about Google's dominance in search when it was due entirely to being better.
It sounds right to me until you get to the 'profits spiraling down' part. Because Amazon pays the publisher the same amount no matter what the price. And yes, it does sound right to me because it's the wholesale model. If I want to just give away my stuff, I can. If I want to sell it at ridiculously low prices I can. If I want to sell milk or gas at a loss to get you into my store, where I'll make a tidy profit off of other things, I can. Amazon is doing something akin to the last thing here. They had a small number of books acting as loss leaders. Now, if they were engaging in dumping, that might be a concern, but they weren't. And even if they were, the answer is not to illegally collude with Apple to make prices rise again. The answer is to go to court against Amazon. Apparently, the feds were looking into Amazon and found their business operation perfectly legal. They also realized later that Apple was doing naughty, naughty things with the other publishers, and then they got in trouble.
There's nothing illegal about being by far the largest e-book publisher. There is something illegal about conspiring with the majority of an industry to collude in price fixing. Also, I'm amazed at the gall of being upset that an illegal conspiracy against customers is actually leading to said customers being compensated.
This. A thousand times this. If the bar for 'cyrberterrorist' is set here, then any kind of 'hacktivism' is going to be terrorism. However, if they were applying this standard both ways, the NSA has been engaged in widespread acts of war against the entire world. However, I support endorsing a peace treaty that will surrender the NSA, it's contractors, and it's co-conspirators to punishment by other nations.
The only video that is using Hi10p to any real extent is anime. If you are watching HD anime on a netbook, or really anything other than a desktop, then you will probably be derided by the encoders for using your 'shitbox', and they will probably suggest you stick with crunchyroll.
That's because 'intellectual property' is a misnomer. Patents are a government handout, and entirely a creation BY THE STATE. They are taxing the public in the form of freedom instead of money in hopes that we get a decent ROI in technological progress.
Nice strawman there. You probably wouldn't strongly prefer to live in any of Somalia's neighbors with governments either, such as Ethiopia. Whenever someone brings up Somalia in a government related argument, they are more or less screaming "I AM A DUMBASS!"
You have obviously not spoken to many teenage Call of Duty players.
But what about people who live double lives or have seemingly contradicting interests? The red blooded conservative crossdresser, for example.
I'm pretty sure it's heart disease, but the same argument still applies, likely even more.
It's a bad solution for multiple reasons. One, they announced it publicly ahead of time. It's not directly a layoff since it is focused on contractors, but it has many of the same effects, and the NSA is probably a major client. There's also the issue this was likely a far greater reduction than what is feasible to do, unless they had made very poor staffing choices. An overworked IT department could mean that operational security is even more compromised, and that there's less time for proper audits. Finally, there's the whole cloud issue. They are either going to have it hosted by a third party, in which case they are subjecting themselves to the same kind of concerns, just with a different group, or it's a 'private cloud', which means they are just calling it something different, and would need about the same amount of admins.
Grammer Nazism is a staple of geeks.
I'm sure when this tech hits the market, the government will get to play the role of Big Mother too, and all of those features are pretty scary in that context.
Or it could be a race to the cognitive bottom. With the current information, the way Snowden got access was due to boneheaded procedures being used internally. So, it's possible the 4000 they were suspicious of were even dumber than the feds. I'm sure that they are trying to fix things, but that doesn't mean they will be handling it intelligently. Remember, one of their stated solutions is to cut the number of sysadmins by 90% and move things to the 'cloud.'
Please tell me that the government isn't actually calling this "Operation Lie Busters"
Because all of he spooks from the alphabet soup of TLAs use them for 'security clearance.' And the fact they are using pseudoscience which probably keeps out more 'good guys' than 'bad guys' is obviously this guy's fault.
I'm not answering your question because your question is stupid. Your position has the same validity as that of the Luddites. If you want to rehash that debate, go ahead, but is has been by and large settled to the point that "Luddite" is an insult.
If we had shows of people regularly fighting to the death with various awesome weapons, nobody would watch bot wars. UFC and even regular boxing probably outrank bot wars by a wide margin.