...is that if content is mirrored inside your provider's network, it's frequently unmetered and thus doesn't count towards your monthly bandwidth limit...
Of course, there are lies, damn lies and statistics like these. But there is some truth to this figure -- especially in terms of expensive applications such as Photoshop. People who wouldn't pirate _anything_ else _will_ pirate Photoshop or Microsoft Office because they can't justify the expense until they establish the demand.
Of course, once they establish the demand, since they already have the software, it's 'easy' for them to 'forget' to buy a paid copy.
Happily, Adobe has seen the light and offers trialware versions of its stuff -- if more companies did the same, had reduced prices for trialware users, and so-forth, that 50-odd percent figure would likely drop dramatically.
The flaw in the argument that we've got nothing to lose by trying to reduce emissions and everything to lose (hypothetically) if we don't is that it completely and blatantly ignores the local human element.
If I mandate an emissions cut tomorrow that has a heavy effect on industrial employment (and renewables such as solar do require far fewer people to operate, let's face it) and that leads to layoffs, and then some laid-off worker's child ends up disadvantaged because they end up living an underprivileged life -- and that child could have grown up to become the next Einstein, that mandate no longer has no net loss.
This idea that you can curb emissions for 'no net loss' is one of the arguments I have the biggest problem with, and when someone can truly show me a carbon reduction scheme that can prove a zero net loss in near-term employment (the near-term part of that is the most important bit) I'll be much happier accepting the 'better safe than sorry' argument.
I agree. To use an analogy, what if I made a start-up that downloaded a paid copy of today's New York Times, then provided customers with a ten-cent version that used freely-sourced content, but slotted into topically equivalent spaces inside today's NYT layout, effectively 'reproducing' it?
Firstly, these 'freely-sourced' works (blogs, etc.) are likely to be derivative in some degree to the original articles (taken from AP or Reuters, etc.) Secondly, the replaced op-ed columns would be filled with 'free' pieces that are likely to be inspired by the originals. The content would effectively be merely paraphrased. You may as well do the text in software, and use Flickr to slot in 'equivalent' images out of CC-licensed sources.
Would this be legal? Heck no. It's counterfeiting!
Indeed, when you translate this concept from textbooks to newspapers, it quickly becomes quite obvious that there is infringement, since the form is an inherent part of the work, and the replacement work is quite likely to be derivative.
Now, I don't like paying $100 for a book either, but this isn't the way to go about lowering prices. Making cheaper books, and marketing them to over-stressed student loan schemes is. Convincing educators to create internet-based lesson plans is. But this is counterfeiting, pure and simple.
Regarding TV 'piracy' in Australia, popular television programs are aired in the US/Canada days, weeks or months before here, so people download them in order to stay up to date. That said, many people (myself included) have subscription television that does eventually broadcast these programs, generally commercial free. Does downloading these programs ahead of their broadcast in Australia constitute piracy if you're paying for the subscription television services that eventually broadcast them?
With regards to film, movies can be delayed by as much as six months (to match 'summer movies' with the Australian summer) from their US debuts. Sometimes, the DVD becomes available overseas before a movie is shown in Australia! Obviously, this is absurd. Peer pressure in internet social groups to download and watch these films can be immense. Australians cannot be expected to have a popular movie 'spoiled' for them by idle chit-chat, nor should the other 95% of users who HAVE seen the movie be forced to keep quiet until Australians get a chance to see it. If release dates were universal, this would be far less of a problem.
However, since Australians already pay per-gigabyte (either through a cap or pre-paid) perhaps the easiest and best solution for all concerned is to whack on a modest per-GB tariff, similar to the Canadian levy on blank media, to be paid back to content producers. It would be controversial, but perhaps less riotous than attempting to police piracy and 'shut down' accused offenders without due process.
Hey Canada, I don't hear music companies down here in Australia jumping up and down complaining about commercial-free ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission)-broadcast radio services such as http://abc.net.au/triplej, the ABC's commercial-free music video program http://abc.net.au/rage or free on-line streaming services such as http://triplejunearthed.com/.
There are also a number of 'community' radio stations in Australia that have blanket licenses to permit them to broadcast copyright work as they please. None of these have had a particularly negative effect on the Australian music industry -- quite the contrary, you have a much better chance in Australia as an independent musician getting your music heard than in Canada or the US, and this has arguably led to the much more dynamic and thriving music culture in Australia.
The for-profit labels seem content to wait for new artists to become known through these non-commercial, ABC-funded arenas -- Triple J, rage and so forth -- then approach them for commercial distribution and concert promotion. Many big international Australian acts gained their start this way.
Maybe the Canadian music labels need to look down under, and stop being dinosaurs. Having the public broadcaster promote music has contributed heavily to Australia becoming the international force in music that it is today.
My family couldn't afford a Mac, but could manage a 'Jackintosh' -- a 520ST with a single-sided floppy drive and a monochrome monitor. Sure, it wasn't as fancy as a Mac, but neither is a Toyota Corolla as fancy as a Ferrari. It had a mouse-driven GUI, didn't need a bunch of disks just to get to the desktop, could play some pretty cool games -- even in monochrome mode (Bolo anyone?) -- could use a standard printer, and the floppies were PC-compatible!
In terms of business, gaming and design and music, the ST was a really cheap way to touch on all of these when no other contemporary computer could, at an even-remotely similar price-point. Amiga for business? Yeah, right. Macintosh for home gaming? Not that inspiring, Dark Castle notwithstanding. PC for design? Bleah. Never mind MIDI. You can't really argue with the ST's flexibility -- and it was remarkably easy to sell the idea of buying one to parents who already felt burned when they discovered too late that using that 8-bit computer you talked them into had an extremely steep learning curve when it came to business and productivity applications.
The ST's only real failing was it wasn't marketed particularly well. Had Jack been willing to lift prices to cover advertising costs I expect that it would have done much better, but he seems to have always had a bit of a personal philosophy on that matter that in retrospect was perhaps a little naive.
Regardless, were it not for the ST I probably wouldn't have had a 16-bit computer until several years later. Thanks Jack.
First off, not all linux applications need to follow the GNU. You can distribute a linux application with any license you please -- it may hinder repository access with particular distributions, but there's nothing stopping you from creating your own application manager, putting THAT in the repository, and then using that to distribute your games. Just saying.
Second, freemium is how it's all going to be in a decade full stop. You might as well get on that wagon now. And GNOME and KDE are almost to the point where Grandma can be trained to use it just as easily as Windows, which is the benchmark I tend to use when I consider the emerging market for a particular operating system. So, I expect that in another decade, there'll be a fair whack of linux machines with a fair whack of non-nerd users.
Finally, why you'd write anything in any language you can't cross-compile without great expense or redevelopment I just don't understand.
There's a representation of the Sydney Harbour Bridge but stranger, off to the south-west you'll find a couple of kids wearing propeller beanies. Are there other beanie-wearers in the 8-bit Google Maps?
Australia already does this -- you have to clear immigration to leave. They make you fill out a card specifying who you are, if you're coming back, when, where you're staying overseas and so forth.
Having emigrated here from Canada, this got my freedom-deluded ire up at first, but I've since become used to it. It also prevents criminals from fleeing the country, so once again it comes down to that whole liberty vs security equation.
In a way, though, the US already has 'emigration' clearance itself -- since all flight passenger manifests must be cleared by the TSA, they could keep you from leaving if they wanted to.
The fellow who is now foreign minister of Australia, Bob Carr, also reported today that South Korea was pointing nukes at us, even though he was really referring to a missile test to be possibly conducted somewhere in our general area (between here and the Philippines.
There was also an election in the Australian state of Queensland today where the Labor government was completely wiped out. (The Federal government is also Labor.)
So, "We protect you from those Commies" was Australia's order-of-the-day, and I suspect that in the long term, this position will not hold -- especially given that China could simply elect to cease purchasing resources from this country, and send it backward economically twenty years.
I think the new paradigm is that you'll be accessing your VM-resident server via a remote-access client on your touch device. Thus although the server itself is not a touch device, you will be administering it on one.
As someone teaching people how to use the GIMP, I have to disagree with you. Manipulation, layers, masking, filters, etc. are all concepts that are easily transferrable to Photoshop. If someone truly understands the GIMP, they'll go zero to 60 on Photoshop in 2.5 seconds.
Knowledge isn't properly imparted if it leaves the student unable to transfer concepts to similar applications. But in the case of digital arts, it can be assumed that in order to use any artistic application properly, students must learn the underlying concepts behind how the functions of the application work -- and once those concepts are understood, the student can migrate to other applications with minimal transition time.
I think Canada should call the US's bluff on this one. I know sentiment here isn't going to allow the US to enforce SOPA style laws on Australia, and frankly, without Australia this whole TPP thing isn't going to happen.
Give it a year, and then once Australia makes the Yanks go home with their tails between their legs, Canada can join the TPP without having to yield to the American's strange notion of 'rights'.
...that if a property is doing sluggishly the PR arms of the studios put it out on the 'net to try to raise buzz. The irony is that then the legal arms of these same companies go after those very people the other side of their company want to resuscitate their ailing properties by word-of-mouth.
It's cynical, hypocritical and just downright fucked up.
Slashdot Mirror
...is that if content is mirrored inside your provider's network, it's frequently unmetered and thus doesn't count towards your monthly bandwidth limit...
Of course, there are lies, damn lies and statistics like these. But there is some truth to this figure -- especially in terms of expensive applications such as Photoshop. People who wouldn't pirate _anything_ else _will_ pirate Photoshop or Microsoft Office because they can't justify the expense until they establish the demand.
Of course, once they establish the demand, since they already have the software, it's 'easy' for them to 'forget' to buy a paid copy.
Happily, Adobe has seen the light and offers trialware versions of its stuff -- if more companies did the same, had reduced prices for trialware users, and so-forth, that 50-odd percent figure would likely drop dramatically.
Er, in terms of FPS's, I think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI_Maze Midi Maze beats your Hovertank game by around 4 years (1987)...
The flaw in the argument that we've got nothing to lose by trying to reduce emissions and everything to lose (hypothetically) if we don't is that it completely and blatantly ignores the local human element.
If I mandate an emissions cut tomorrow that has a heavy effect on industrial employment (and renewables such as solar do require far fewer people to operate, let's face it) and that leads to layoffs, and then some laid-off worker's child ends up disadvantaged because they end up living an underprivileged life -- and that child could have grown up to become the next Einstein, that mandate no longer has no net loss.
This idea that you can curb emissions for 'no net loss' is one of the arguments I have the biggest problem with, and when someone can truly show me a carbon reduction scheme that can prove a zero net loss in near-term employment (the near-term part of that is the most important bit) I'll be much happier accepting the 'better safe than sorry' argument.
See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089049/ "Black Mirror: Fifteen Million Merits"
Actually, a hyphen would fix it:
Feds shut down Tor-using narcotics store.
I agree. To use an analogy, what if I made a start-up that downloaded a paid copy of today's New York Times, then provided customers with a ten-cent version that used freely-sourced content, but slotted into topically equivalent spaces inside today's NYT layout, effectively 'reproducing' it?
Firstly, these 'freely-sourced' works (blogs, etc.) are likely to be derivative in some degree to the original articles (taken from AP or Reuters, etc.) Secondly, the replaced op-ed columns would be filled with 'free' pieces that are likely to be inspired by the originals. The content would effectively be merely paraphrased. You may as well do the text in software, and use Flickr to slot in 'equivalent' images out of CC-licensed sources.
Would this be legal? Heck no. It's counterfeiting!
Indeed, when you translate this concept from textbooks to newspapers, it quickly becomes quite obvious that there is infringement, since the form is an inherent part of the work, and the replacement work is quite likely to be derivative.
Now, I don't like paying $100 for a book either, but this isn't the way to go about lowering prices. Making cheaper books, and marketing them to over-stressed student loan schemes is. Convincing educators to create internet-based lesson plans is. But this is counterfeiting, pure and simple.
Regarding TV 'piracy' in Australia, popular television programs are aired in the US/Canada days, weeks or months before here, so people download them in order to stay up to date. That said, many people (myself included) have subscription television that does eventually broadcast these programs, generally commercial free. Does downloading these programs ahead of their broadcast in Australia constitute piracy if you're paying for the subscription television services that eventually broadcast them?
With regards to film, movies can be delayed by as much as six months (to match 'summer movies' with the Australian summer) from their US debuts. Sometimes, the DVD becomes available overseas before a movie is shown in Australia! Obviously, this is absurd. Peer pressure in internet social groups to download and watch these films can be immense. Australians cannot be expected to have a popular movie 'spoiled' for them by idle chit-chat, nor should the other 95% of users who HAVE seen the movie be forced to keep quiet until Australians get a chance to see it. If release dates were universal, this would be far less of a problem.
However, since Australians already pay per-gigabyte (either through a cap or pre-paid) perhaps the easiest and best solution for all concerned is to whack on a modest per-GB tariff, similar to the Canadian levy on blank media, to be paid back to content producers. It would be controversial, but perhaps less riotous than attempting to police piracy and 'shut down' accused offenders without due process.
Hey Canada, I don't hear music companies down here in Australia jumping up and down complaining about commercial-free ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission)-broadcast radio services such as http://abc.net.au/triplej, the ABC's commercial-free music video program http://abc.net.au/rage or free on-line streaming services such as http://triplejunearthed.com/.
There are also a number of 'community' radio stations in Australia that have blanket licenses to permit them to broadcast copyright work as they please. None of these have had a particularly negative effect on the Australian music industry -- quite the contrary, you have a much better chance in Australia as an independent musician getting your music heard than in Canada or the US, and this has arguably led to the much more dynamic and thriving music culture in Australia.
The for-profit labels seem content to wait for new artists to become known through these non-commercial, ABC-funded arenas -- Triple J, rage and so forth -- then approach them for commercial distribution and concert promotion. Many big international Australian acts gained their start this way.
Maybe the Canadian music labels need to look down under, and stop being dinosaurs. Having the public broadcaster promote music has contributed heavily to Australia becoming the international force in music that it is today.
My family couldn't afford a Mac, but could manage a 'Jackintosh' -- a 520ST with a single-sided floppy drive and a monochrome monitor. Sure, it wasn't as fancy as a Mac, but neither is a Toyota Corolla as fancy as a Ferrari. It had a mouse-driven GUI, didn't need a bunch of disks just to get to the desktop, could play some pretty cool games -- even in monochrome mode (Bolo anyone?) -- could use a standard printer, and the floppies were PC-compatible!
In terms of business, gaming and design and music, the ST was a really cheap way to touch on all of these when no other contemporary computer could, at an even-remotely similar price-point. Amiga for business? Yeah, right. Macintosh for home gaming? Not that inspiring, Dark Castle notwithstanding. PC for design? Bleah. Never mind MIDI. You can't really argue with the ST's flexibility -- and it was remarkably easy to sell the idea of buying one to parents who already felt burned when they discovered too late that using that 8-bit computer you talked them into had an extremely steep learning curve when it came to business and productivity applications.
The ST's only real failing was it wasn't marketed particularly well. Had Jack been willing to lift prices to cover advertising costs I expect that it would have done much better, but he seems to have always had a bit of a personal philosophy on that matter that in retrospect was perhaps a little naive.
Regardless, were it not for the ST I probably wouldn't have had a 16-bit computer until several years later. Thanks Jack.
First off, not all linux applications need to follow the GNU. You can distribute a linux application with any license you please -- it may hinder repository access with particular distributions, but there's nothing stopping you from creating your own application manager, putting THAT in the repository, and then using that to distribute your games. Just saying.
Second, freemium is how it's all going to be in a decade full stop. You might as well get on that wagon now. And GNOME and KDE are almost to the point where Grandma can be trained to use it just as easily as Windows, which is the benchmark I tend to use when I consider the emerging market for a particular operating system. So, I expect that in another decade, there'll be a fair whack of linux machines with a fair whack of non-nerd users.
Finally, why you'd write anything in any language you can't cross-compile without great expense or redevelopment I just don't understand.
I had a Wyse 286 back in the day. Now I know what happened to them...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J9KhpgYVB0
There's a representation of the Sydney Harbour Bridge but stranger, off to the south-west you'll find a couple of kids wearing propeller beanies. Are there other beanie-wearers in the 8-bit Google Maps?
Australia already does this -- you have to clear immigration to leave. They make you fill out a card specifying who you are, if you're coming back, when, where you're staying overseas and so forth.
Having emigrated here from Canada, this got my freedom-deluded ire up at first, but I've since become used to it. It also prevents criminals from fleeing the country, so once again it comes down to that whole liberty vs security equation.
In a way, though, the US already has 'emigration' clearance itself -- since all flight passenger manifests must be cleared by the TSA, they could keep you from leaving if they wanted to.
The fellow who is now foreign minister of Australia, Bob Carr, also reported today that South Korea was pointing nukes at us, even though he was really referring to a missile test to be possibly conducted somewhere in our general area (between here and the Philippines.
There was also an election in the Australian state of Queensland today where the Labor government was completely wiped out. (The Federal government is also Labor.)
So, "We protect you from those Commies" was Australia's order-of-the-day, and I suspect that in the long term, this position will not hold -- especially given that China could simply elect to cease purchasing resources from this country, and send it backward economically twenty years.
There's been a poke command on IRC bots forever too (and I think maybe even in MajorBBS chat even earlier).
Anyhow, the threat here is they can ban you from Facebook. Sadly, for many Facebook users, this is a weighty incentive to comply.
If your audience starts to look bored, take off your shoes and start nibbling on your feet...
I think the new paradigm is that you'll be accessing your VM-resident server via a remote-access client on your touch device. Thus although the server itself is not a touch device, you will be administering it on one.
I have two words for you, "Virtual Machines".
Desktops are dead.
Yeah, I'm not sure how they missed AR:TC and AR:TD either. If you had an 8-bit Atari in particular, you probably had these games.
I agree. My first RPG and will always (to me) be the best RPG.
As someone teaching people how to use the GIMP, I have to disagree with you. Manipulation, layers, masking, filters, etc. are all concepts that are easily transferrable to Photoshop. If someone truly understands the GIMP, they'll go zero to 60 on Photoshop in 2.5 seconds.
Knowledge isn't properly imparted if it leaves the student unable to transfer concepts to similar applications. But in the case of digital arts, it can be assumed that in order to use any artistic application properly, students must learn the underlying concepts behind how the functions of the application work -- and once those concepts are understood, the student can migrate to other applications with minimal transition time.
I think Canada should call the US's bluff on this one. I know sentiment here isn't going to allow the US to enforce SOPA style laws on Australia, and frankly, without Australia this whole TPP thing isn't going to happen.
Give it a year, and then once Australia makes the Yanks go home with their tails between their legs, Canada can join the TPP without having to yield to the American's strange notion of 'rights'.
...that if a property is doing sluggishly the PR arms of the studios put it out on the 'net to try to raise buzz. The irony is that then the legal arms of these same companies go after those very people the other side of their company want to resuscitate their ailing properties by word-of-mouth.
It's cynical, hypocritical and just downright fucked up.