Not really. See Athlon II X4 631. It costs quite a bit less than the A6-3650. Not much, but enough for GP to have a point. Why pay even little for something that you're not going to use at all?
I agree with you. AMD can't keep using stars forever. When I called BD a failure, though, I was merely commenting on general performance, power consumption and price of the current incarnation. Even when dealing with highly parallelized workloads, BD's strong suit, all AMD could do was achieve relative parity with the i5, and while drawing much more power and costing a bit more. So the tradeoffs weren't really worth it. I'm hoping they can improve on it, but one wonders why they have released something that obviously wasn't fit for competition yet and then hyped the fuck out of it.
As for me not being the target market, based on your own definition of what it is, I'll have to disagree. I'm a video editor on a budget, so I'm in on two counts. Still, I have no reason to ditch my Athlon II X3. Not for something like the FX-4100. It's too much of an investment for too little gain. As for servers, I remember Anand running benches on the new Opterons and calling them a "disaster". I don't really know much about server workloads, so I won't comment, but I suspect power consumption plays an even higher role there.
What I'm saying is I understand what they did. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Not yet. Interestingly enough, the FX-4100 is on par with the A8-3850, CPU-wise on threaded workloads, and they cost about the same. So why would you pass on what amounts to a free discrete-level GPU? Forget about AMD vs Intel - Bulldozer, right now, makes AMD vs AMD hard enough for... huh... both of them.
Brazos, the ultra low power processor, is a success.
Llano, the A series, is actually a very solid product. For the cost of an i3, you get a quad core that is about 1/4 slower overall, but whose integrated graphics about 3 times faster. Actually selling very well.
Bulldozer is a disaster unless all you do is video encoding.
Now, here's the puzzling part: they want to use bulldozer, the failure, as the new core for the A series, the success. I hope they find a way to fix it, otherwise my next rig will have an Intel for the first time in ten years.
I think it's more about Unity being integrated with Ubuntu services, from where they plan to get revenue, than focusing. Because more important than discarding Kubuntu would be only releasing LTS versions. When I was a Linux newbie, the most frustrating thing was never finding instructions for dealing with bugs and updates that wouldn't work in a different DE, but outdated ones that no longer work in the current version. Since Debian moves things around so much and the internet pretty much archives everything, it's bound to happen. Also, it's better for software distributors, since their target would move around a lot less. Skype, for instance, is originally only packaged for Ubuntu 10.04.
That's not the point, though. The point is the same that says that stricter, more severe laws will not end crime. More driving restrictions will not end all traffic accidents. A more policing will probably have an impact on crime, but citizen's rights will often be trampled in the process (think TSA). If you forbid going more than 10mph on highways, you might reduce accidents, but at the cost of sacrificing the whole point of using the infrastructure - fast travel. Prohibition and excessive regulation are bad because they don't address the problem, meaning they don't take away your reasons for behaving like before. Think of the famous prohibition. Did it end alcohol consumption? No. And a major side effect was the rise in organized crime.
So that's what it's being said, even though most people are less then eloquent when phrasing "fuck the MAFIAA, they should adapt": if you find a way to undercut the pirates economically, you solve the problem as much as with legal action, but without nasty social side effects like SOPA or ACTA. What is usually proposed is that they offer convenience - a big catalog of high-speed delivery of DRM-free files that you can play and take anywhere, at lower prices. That would deal a major blow to PirateBay, but currently no legal store offers such service, so it's much better to scrounge around the internet for torrents (and then for cracks or subtitles, if applicable) than to purchase crippled products at higher-than-premium pricing. It is already happening, but the RIAA and MPAA refuse to try a more modern model, which means that they'll either fail or we'll have to put up with those unpleasant social side effects I mentioned.
If they do anything enforcing existing and Constitutional immigration laws, they are labeled racists.
If they want to lower taxes for everyone, they are accused of only supporting the rich.
If they they give workers the right to accept a job without joining a union, they are labeled as being anti-worker and in the pocket of big business.
These may or may not be the case, obviously, though one can argue that usually #2 is made in a way that rich people get way more cuts and #3 invariably leads to workers being put in a disadvantageous position when not united (I don't even know if it's a good argument, not having access to relevant data, but it's the idea behind unions and, thus, the rationale behind the labeling). #1 seems to be, more often than not, just economic policy. However, how can
If they support a strong defense, they are accused of supporting the "military industrial complex".
not be true? Really, when people say "strong defense", what they mean is "big military". And that means supporting the "military industrial complex". I'd personally argue that non-interventionism is a better defensive strategy in the long run, but I know that's not what any politician means by "strong defense".
If they want to improve education and/or cut educational costs, they are accused of being anti-teacher.
This one puzzles me. I can understand wanting to cut spending and not being "anti-teacher", by, say, cutting bullshit spending like iPads for the students. I can also understand wanting to improve education, but I cannot see how wanting to improve education would lead someone to being labeled anti-teacher. Unless they do ir moronically, like mandating a stupid curriculum change or high rates of approval. I also have a little difficulty thinking of ways to "improve education and cut educational costs". I suppose it's possible in some way, but in a world where teachers are already grossly underpaid, I cannot fathom them both happening concomitantly. As for
If they oppose abortion, they are labeled as anti-woman bigots.
I'm not even going to enter the debate, but it's pretty obvious how wanting to criminalize abortion would make them be viewed as male chauvinists by women. They are the ones who might need abortions, after all, and some old guy is taking away their right to decide.
GPL - stuff must remain free for everyone to use, modify and distribute Typical copyright - stuff must remain mine and everyone has to pay me and agree to be subject to my whims to see or use even part of it
Oversimplification, of course, but the point is that they are not both "nukes", because they aren't the same thing at all, just use a the same legal framework for completely different results.
And voting for a third party candidate is like throwing your vote away.
It never ceases to amaze me how you guys haven't figured this out yet. We have a very simple system in place, here: if no one got more than 50% of the total votes, the election enters a second stage, with just the "winner" and the runner-up. It's not perfect, but it's quite functional. You can vote for whoever you want, then if your candidate didn't even come close to winning, you can pick the one you dislike less. That way no one fears "wasting" their votes.
I know the ones in power don't really want more competition to be viable, but it's something the populace really should be pushing and news never got to me about anyone from up there voicing such a proposal.
I think mormonism is actually worse. While it's tough to compare different strands or craziness, mormonism isn't like scientology - brand new bullshit. It takes christinanity and adds even more nonsense to it. Recent nonsense, from the 1800s. So, interms of weirdness, I figure A+B has to be greater than A (for non-negative values of B, in case someone is thinking about being a jackass).
Unlike the iPad design patent (and unlike the Galaxy Tab 10.1), both the Prime and Xoom have manufacturer logos on the front. That was one of the things mentioned in the brief that Samsung could have done differently.
Isn't that weird, though? In my time, you branded your stuff if you wanted it to be unique and to avoid confusion, you didn't leave them plain and then sued everyone else into branding theirs.
As said, I am a customer but divided on this. The point is simple, if I buy a game first hand and you buy it second hand from someone else, I am subsidizing your gameplay. That does not seem like a good deal to me.
Then don't take it. Buy used, if you think it's the better option. Of course, if enough people follow such route, there won't be enough games to go around and you will eventually have a far easier time buying new. Then you could say "well, but if everyone waits to buy used, then the game won't sell at all". That isn't true. Steam allows trading games, now, and it hasn't negatively impacted their sales. You can see how it would: I buy a game, you buy another one and, when we're done playing them, we trade. They just lost two sales, right? Doesn't happen often, though, because if you enjoy a game, odds are you'll want to keep it. And as Steam offers discounts pretty frequently, you simply wait for a sale and hoard titles like a pig. Seriously, Steam has its issues, but it's been booming continuously forever, now, while most publishers and developers whine and apply crazier and crazier DRM schemes. People should take notes on what Gabe Newell is doing right (he has explained it again and again) instead of keeping this atmosphere of denial.
As for the used game retailers, their margins are way too high, agreed. Frankly, I'd much rather find a person who owns the game and buy from them. Buying/selling from/to people is so economically advantageous that I'm often surprised as how little it's done. Then again, saving/earning a few extra bucks isn't all there is to a transaction, and that's why people wouldn't stop buying new.
Yeah, but see that only works so many times. Even Apple users aren't dumb.
Sorry, but that's incorrect. I'm not trying to troll here, it's just that Apple does have the ability of selling vastly overpriced items, meaning their customers aren't that big on gauging their options. While I'll admit that Apple has solid, useful products and that they are just what some users need (not every Apple customer is a moron - some actually make a very informed decision to pay extra for the added convenience they get), mostly they sell their devices because they are shiny and fashionable. An interesting case study, the iPhone 4S, contract-free, where I live, costs about $900 if you purchase it from a carrier, but it costs about $1500 on an Apple Store. First of all, they are both obviously overpriced, but eletronics here are all incredibly expensive (A Galaxy Tab 10.1 costs the same $900, for comparison, and an i3-2100 retails for $180) and that's not the point. The point is people buy them. A lot. Sometimes from an Apple Store, which is bordering Gary Busey on a scale of craziness, but that isn't even the worst part. Now, about 50% of these buyers have pre-paid plans. The ones that give you no discount on your phone purchase and are actually more expensive per call minute/Mb, but have the advantage of not forcing a quota on you, which is only advantageous if you use your phone very little. Think about that for a second. They'll gladly spend $900 on a device they'll mostly use as a dumb phone. A very pretty dumb phone that they'll rarely use. Because as with all things fashion, the iPhone is a status symbol more than anything, and your need for its features are a secondary concern. They are first jewelry, second toys, and useful products in a distant third.
So Apple can release the iPhone 4 again, unchanged except for a cosmetic detail, and the thing will sell like hotcakes. Because, in general, customers are borderline retarted. Theirs are doubly so.
Nope, it's KDE 4. KDE 3 has 1%. You read it wrong (which is pretty easy to do, since the graph is quite shitty). Also, you do know 2 people could never be 43%, right? Unless you dismember one or more integrants.
Alright, I agree. Try getting a pro-piracy advocate to admit to this though, and I'll give you a cookie. They want to be able to freely copy IP to their local drive, and then sell the original used and keep their copy. That's obviously the best of both worlds for them (IP-is-free for copying, IP-is-property for selling), but it's terribly inconsistent in terms of philosophy.
Such scenario is a non-issue. Before the internet it was practical to copy an album to a tape and then resell the original, but now it's just wasted work. If I can infringe copyright now easily and for free by visiting The PirateBay, why would I go through the trouble of buying something, then copying and then reselling for part of my money back? It's much more work for the exact same result: copyright infringement. If you are concerned that someone would buy the original digital file and then sell a plethora of digital copies, it's a self-defeating distortion of the market. Again, why would I buy an illegal product when I can get it just as illegally for free?
Now, while I've seen a lot of pirated DVDs being sold on the streets, what's actually being bought is the service of finding, downloading and burning the file (and subtitles, if applicable) on a media for use in DVD players. It would be a lot better for the pirate if he could charge you for loading an usb key of yours with a movie, but this would never fly. People are not buying the exact same product they can get for free, they're buying convenience. Which is something you could very well do if you could resell IP. I buy a bunch, make my own collection, burn it, create a cool cover and resell it. For a physical analogy, it'd be no different than buying leather and selling pants. Yes, I'm reselling the leather, but with added value.
I'm someone who likes it and I can tell you what changed. Stuff works properly now. That's a pretty good summary. For example, 4.4 still had Dolphin launching four instances of your media player if you launched four video files, instead of simply queueing them for play in a single window. That sorf of jerky behaviour is now gone and bugs are quite rare.
This is absurd, for most definitions of "normal". Your opinion is popular among the artistic, but total nonsense.
It's not absurd. Quite the opposite, it's a truism. Most people don't write great works of art, therefore people who do write them are abnormal.
If you want to think a little deeper about it, one who is perfectly adjusted will never write something thought-provoking because his own thoughts aren't being rattled to begin with. Such person can have a fluid prose, tell a nice story and write a popular book, but it probably won't break any new ground because, by definition, one who thinks and feels mostly like everyone, being "normal", will, based on the zeitgeist, create like most other people are creating. Now a disturbed individual, being part of an emotional and/or intellectual minority, has much better odds of piecing together something new and significant. Of course everyone is disturbed in some way, but the more distubed you are, the more your thoughts deviate from the norm.
They should prompt you for buying a new data allowance when your expires. And, ideally, they should charge you for Mb, not simply shove another 300Mb/1Gb down your throat. Sometimes you run into your cap on the last few days of the month and would rather simply wait for the refresh instead of paying 100% more for 10% more data.
but as a slippery slope argument that the US has now taken one big step backwards when it comes to civil liberties so now it is doomed to take all the other steps until it falls into a full blown totalitarian nightmare is a very weak argument.
That's not what I was arguing at all. The reference point moves back and forth all the time, and takes some time to so it, that's what I was saying. In regard to civil liberties, EO 9066 is a good example. It was atrociously signed on the 40s. But in the 60s, there were massive political protests, big public mobilizations, the U.S. (the world, really) made a great leap in the other direction during that period, and EO 9066 was eventually repealed. All I'm saying is the Patriot Act (and let's not forget Guantanamo bay) is one of the signs of a massive step back. One that the US still hasn't recovered from, and I don't think it's about to right now, before PIPA and SOPA pass.
Let's face it, the Internet has totally changed the picture of information exchange. [...] Pretty much every restriction there has been on speech, be it libel, slander, threats, pump&dump stock scams, copyright, kiddie porn, every balance struck between privacy and rule of law through use of warrants and wiretaps is cracking up. I think in the end it will come down to a showdown that either everything must be traced, recorded and tracked or none of it is.
Well, the internet is sort of an enourmous, universal poorly lit back alley. Historically, though, it's difficult to talk about outcomes, since everything is always transitioning and we can't really tell the difference between and end and a hiatus in present time. But we are definitely moving towards all things online being more monitored and regulated right now. Not that I think we'll ever get to a period in which everything is monitored. The amount of information is just so big that it isn't really feasible. A great deal of everything can be logged, though, and if that's what you meant, we're in agreement. What may also happen, I think, is that a lot of common web habits can be legally prohibited. And when normal, socially accepted behavior is prohibited and easy to investigate, one of two things can to happen: either is ceases to be prohibited, because imprisioning of fining almost everyone almost everyday is highly idiotic and isn't sustainable behavior in any moderately democratic society like ours, or selective law enforcement begins to take place. Which is the worst case scenario I envision. SOPA, however, is something else entirely, something I could never see coming. It isn't regulation, it's... well, it's akin to a parent saying "I've had it with you kids bothering me with your bickering. From now on, you sort it out among yourselves. And so you won't reach an impass and come to bother me every time you disagree, I'm going to give one of you a submachine gun. That's bound to solve all your problems really quickly without any need for me to intervene. Ever. Now scram." Then again, if the internet becomes too constrictive, alternative networks like Netsukuku might get more traction and become a new standard. Or the end of all standards, with us having to choose nets like we used to choose IRC servers.
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Not really. See Athlon II X4 631. It costs quite a bit less than the A6-3650. Not much, but enough for GP to have a point. Why pay even little for something that you're not going to use at all?
Yes, but which family of CPUs was affected? I couldn't find that information in TFAs. Bulldozers? Llanos? A specific subset of either?
It's not like it hasn't been done before.
Greeks invented democracy...Sorry USA, you can't take it over without paying off some of the national debt your members hold.
I don't think they're even trying.
I agree with you. AMD can't keep using stars forever. When I called BD a failure, though, I was merely commenting on general performance, power consumption and price of the current incarnation. Even when dealing with highly parallelized workloads, BD's strong suit, all AMD could do was achieve relative parity with the i5, and while drawing much more power and costing a bit more. So the tradeoffs weren't really worth it. I'm hoping they can improve on it, but one wonders why they have released something that obviously wasn't fit for competition yet and then hyped the fuck out of it.
As for me not being the target market, based on your own definition of what it is, I'll have to disagree. I'm a video editor on a budget, so I'm in on two counts. Still, I have no reason to ditch my Athlon II X3. Not for something like the FX-4100. It's too much of an investment for too little gain. As for servers, I remember Anand running benches on the new Opterons and calling them a "disaster". I don't really know much about server workloads, so I won't comment, but I suspect power consumption plays an even higher role there.
What I'm saying is I understand what they did. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Not yet. Interestingly enough, the FX-4100 is on par with the A8-3850, CPU-wise on threaded workloads, and they cost about the same. So why would you pass on what amounts to a free discrete-level GPU? Forget about AMD vs Intel - Bulldozer, right now, makes AMD vs AMD hard enough for... huh... both of them.
Well, here's AMD on a nutshell:
Brazos, the ultra low power processor, is a success.
Llano, the A series, is actually a very solid product. For the cost of an i3, you get a quad core that is about 1/4 slower overall, but whose integrated graphics about 3 times faster. Actually selling very well.
Bulldozer is a disaster unless all you do is video encoding.
Now, here's the puzzling part: they want to use bulldozer, the failure, as the new core for the A series, the success. I hope they find a way to fix it, otherwise my next rig will have an Intel for the first time in ten years.
No. Making it interesting, though, does.
I think it's more about Unity being integrated with Ubuntu services, from where they plan to get revenue, than focusing. Because more important than discarding Kubuntu would be only releasing LTS versions. When I was a Linux newbie, the most frustrating thing was never finding instructions for dealing with bugs and updates that wouldn't work in a different DE, but outdated ones that no longer work in the current version. Since Debian moves things around so much and the internet pretty much archives everything, it's bound to happen. Also, it's better for software distributors, since their target would move around a lot less. Skype, for instance, is originally only packaged for Ubuntu 10.04.
That's not the point, though. The point is the same that says that stricter, more severe laws will not end crime. More driving restrictions will not end all traffic accidents. A more policing will probably have an impact on crime, but citizen's rights will often be trampled in the process (think TSA). If you forbid going more than 10mph on highways, you might reduce accidents, but at the cost of sacrificing the whole point of using the infrastructure - fast travel. Prohibition and excessive regulation are bad because they don't address the problem, meaning they don't take away your reasons for behaving like before. Think of the famous prohibition. Did it end alcohol consumption? No. And a major side effect was the rise in organized crime.
So that's what it's being said, even though most people are less then eloquent when phrasing "fuck the MAFIAA, they should adapt": if you find a way to undercut the pirates economically, you solve the problem as much as with legal action, but without nasty social side effects like SOPA or ACTA. What is usually proposed is that they offer convenience - a big catalog of high-speed delivery of DRM-free files that you can play and take anywhere, at lower prices. That would deal a major blow to PirateBay, but currently no legal store offers such service, so it's much better to scrounge around the internet for torrents (and then for cracks or subtitles, if applicable) than to purchase crippled products at higher-than-premium pricing. It is already happening, but the RIAA and MPAA refuse to try a more modern model, which means that they'll either fail or we'll have to put up with those unpleasant social side effects I mentioned.
Oh, yes, I've seen your site.
I have a few doubts about what you said.
If they do anything enforcing existing and Constitutional immigration laws, they are labeled racists.
If they want to lower taxes for everyone, they are accused of only supporting the rich.
If they they give workers the right to accept a job without joining a union, they are labeled as being anti-worker and in the pocket of big business.
These may or may not be the case, obviously, though one can argue that usually #2 is made in a way that rich people get way more cuts and #3 invariably leads to workers being put in a disadvantageous position when not united (I don't even know if it's a good argument, not having access to relevant data, but it's the idea behind unions and, thus, the rationale behind the labeling). #1 seems to be, more often than not, just economic policy. However, how can
If they support a strong defense, they are accused of supporting the "military industrial complex".
not be true? Really, when people say "strong defense", what they mean is "big military". And that means supporting the "military industrial complex". I'd personally argue that non-interventionism is a better defensive strategy in the long run, but I know that's not what any politician means by "strong defense".
If they want to improve education and/or cut educational costs, they are accused of being anti-teacher.
This one puzzles me. I can understand wanting to cut spending and not being "anti-teacher", by, say, cutting bullshit spending like iPads for the students. I can also understand wanting to improve education, but I cannot see how wanting to improve education would lead someone to being labeled anti-teacher. Unless they do ir moronically, like mandating a stupid curriculum change or high rates of approval. I also have a little difficulty thinking of ways to "improve education and cut educational costs". I suppose it's possible in some way, but in a world where teachers are already grossly underpaid, I cannot fathom them both happening concomitantly. As for
If they oppose abortion, they are labeled as anti-woman bigots.
I'm not even going to enter the debate, but it's pretty obvious how wanting to criminalize abortion would make them be viewed as male chauvinists by women. They are the ones who might need abortions, after all, and some old guy is taking away their right to decide.
GPL - stuff must remain free for everyone to use, modify and distribute
Typical copyright - stuff must remain mine and everyone has to pay me and agree to be subject to my whims to see or use even part of it
Oversimplification, of course, but the point is that they are not both "nukes", because they aren't the same thing at all, just use a the same legal framework for completely different results.
Cut the Rope [android.com] is 99 cents with at least half a million downloads.
Shit, for a moment there I thought this (warning: not Goatse) was the current bomb in gaming.
And voting for a third party candidate is like throwing your vote away.
It never ceases to amaze me how you guys haven't figured this out yet. We have a very simple system in place, here: if no one got more than 50% of the total votes, the election enters a second stage, with just the "winner" and the runner-up. It's not perfect, but it's quite functional. You can vote for whoever you want, then if your candidate didn't even come close to winning, you can pick the one you dislike less. That way no one fears "wasting" their votes.
I know the ones in power don't really want more competition to be viable, but it's something the populace really should be pushing and news never got to me about anyone from up there voicing such a proposal.
it's tough to compare different strands OF craziness
I think mormonism is actually worse. While it's tough to compare different strands or craziness, mormonism isn't like scientology - brand new bullshit. It takes christinanity and adds even more nonsense to it. Recent nonsense, from the 1800s. So, interms of weirdness, I figure A+B has to be greater than A (for non-negative values of B, in case someone is thinking about being a jackass).
Unlike the iPad design patent (and unlike the Galaxy Tab 10.1), both the Prime and Xoom have manufacturer logos on the front. That was one of the things mentioned in the brief that Samsung could have done differently.
Isn't that weird, though? In my time, you branded your stuff if you wanted it to be unique and to avoid confusion, you didn't leave them plain and then sued everyone else into branding theirs.
As said, I am a customer but divided on this. The point is simple, if I buy a game first hand and you buy it second hand from someone else, I am subsidizing your gameplay. That does not seem like a good deal to me.
Then don't take it. Buy used, if you think it's the better option. Of course, if enough people follow such route, there won't be enough games to go around and you will eventually have a far easier time buying new. Then you could say "well, but if everyone waits to buy used, then the game won't sell at all". That isn't true. Steam allows trading games, now, and it hasn't negatively impacted their sales. You can see how it would: I buy a game, you buy another one and, when we're done playing them, we trade. They just lost two sales, right? Doesn't happen often, though, because if you enjoy a game, odds are you'll want to keep it. And as Steam offers discounts pretty frequently, you simply wait for a sale and hoard titles like a pig. Seriously, Steam has its issues, but it's been booming continuously forever, now, while most publishers and developers whine and apply crazier and crazier DRM schemes. People should take notes on what Gabe Newell is doing right (he has explained it again and again) instead of keeping this atmosphere of denial.
As for the used game retailers, their margins are way too high, agreed. Frankly, I'd much rather find a person who owns the game and buy from them. Buying/selling from/to people is so economically advantageous that I'm often surprised as how little it's done. Then again, saving/earning a few extra bucks isn't all there is to a transaction, and that's why people wouldn't stop buying new.
Yeah, but see that only works so many times. Even Apple users aren't dumb.
Sorry, but that's incorrect. I'm not trying to troll here, it's just that Apple does have the ability of selling vastly overpriced items, meaning their customers aren't that big on gauging their options. While I'll admit that Apple has solid, useful products and that they are just what some users need (not every Apple customer is a moron - some actually make a very informed decision to pay extra for the added convenience they get), mostly they sell their devices because they are shiny and fashionable. An interesting case study, the iPhone 4S, contract-free, where I live, costs about $900 if you purchase it from a carrier, but it costs about $1500 on an Apple Store. First of all, they are both obviously overpriced, but eletronics here are all incredibly expensive (A Galaxy Tab 10.1 costs the same $900, for comparison, and an i3-2100 retails for $180) and that's not the point. The point is people buy them. A lot. Sometimes from an Apple Store, which is bordering Gary Busey on a scale of craziness, but that isn't even the worst part. Now, about 50% of these buyers have pre-paid plans. The ones that give you no discount on your phone purchase and are actually more expensive per call minute/Mb, but have the advantage of not forcing a quota on you, which is only advantageous if you use your phone very little. Think about that for a second. They'll gladly spend $900 on a device they'll mostly use as a dumb phone. A very pretty dumb phone that they'll rarely use. Because as with all things fashion, the iPhone is a status symbol more than anything, and your need for its features are a secondary concern. They are first jewelry, second toys, and useful products in a distant third.
So Apple can release the iPhone 4 again, unchanged except for a cosmetic detail, and the thing will sell like hotcakes. Because, in general, customers are borderline retarted. Theirs are doubly so.
Nope, it's KDE 4. KDE 3 has 1%. You read it wrong (which is pretty easy to do, since the graph is quite shitty). Also, you do know 2 people could never be 43%, right? Unless you dismember one or more integrants.
Alright, I agree. Try getting a pro-piracy advocate to admit to this though, and I'll give you a cookie. They want to be able to freely copy IP to their local drive, and then sell the original used and keep their copy. That's obviously the best of both worlds for them (IP-is-free for copying, IP-is-property for selling), but it's terribly inconsistent in terms of philosophy.
Such scenario is a non-issue. Before the internet it was practical to copy an album to a tape and then resell the original, but now it's just wasted work. If I can infringe copyright now easily and for free by visiting The PirateBay, why would I go through the trouble of buying something, then copying and then reselling for part of my money back? It's much more work for the exact same result: copyright infringement. If you are concerned that someone would buy the original digital file and then sell a plethora of digital copies, it's a self-defeating distortion of the market. Again, why would I buy an illegal product when I can get it just as illegally for free?
Now, while I've seen a lot of pirated DVDs being sold on the streets, what's actually being bought is the service of finding, downloading and burning the file (and subtitles, if applicable) on a media for use in DVD players. It would be a lot better for the pirate if he could charge you for loading an usb key of yours with a movie, but this would never fly. People are not buying the exact same product they can get for free, they're buying convenience. Which is something you could very well do if you could resell IP. I buy a bunch, make my own collection, burn it, create a cool cover and resell it. For a physical analogy, it'd be no different than buying leather and selling pants. Yes, I'm reselling the leather, but with added value.
I'm someone who likes it and I can tell you what changed. Stuff works properly now. That's a pretty good summary. For example, 4.4 still had Dolphin launching four instances of your media player if you launched four video files, instead of simply queueing them for play in a single window. That sorf of jerky behaviour is now gone and bugs are quite rare.
Normal people don't write great works of art.
This is absurd, for most definitions of "normal". Your opinion is popular among the artistic, but total nonsense.
It's not absurd. Quite the opposite, it's a truism. Most people don't write great works of art, therefore people who do write them are abnormal.
If you want to think a little deeper about it, one who is perfectly adjusted will never write something thought-provoking because his own thoughts aren't being rattled to begin with. Such person can have a fluid prose, tell a nice story and write a popular book, but it probably won't break any new ground because, by definition, one who thinks and feels mostly like everyone, being "normal", will, based on the zeitgeist, create like most other people are creating. Now a disturbed individual, being part of an emotional and/or intellectual minority, has much better odds of piecing together something new and significant. Of course everyone is disturbed in some way, but the more distubed you are, the more your thoughts deviate from the norm.
They should prompt you for buying a new data allowance when your expires. And, ideally, they should charge you for Mb, not simply shove another 300Mb/1Gb down your throat. Sometimes you run into your cap on the last few days of the month and would rather simply wait for the refresh instead of paying 100% more for 10% more data.
but as a slippery slope argument that the US has now taken one big step backwards when it comes to civil liberties so now it is doomed to take all the other steps until it falls into a full blown totalitarian nightmare is a very weak argument.
That's not what I was arguing at all. The reference point moves back and forth all the time, and takes some time to so it, that's what I was saying. In regard to civil liberties, EO 9066 is a good example. It was atrociously signed on the 40s. But in the 60s, there were massive political protests, big public mobilizations, the U.S. (the world, really) made a great leap in the other direction during that period, and EO 9066 was eventually repealed. All I'm saying is the Patriot Act (and let's not forget Guantanamo bay) is one of the signs of a massive step back. One that the US still hasn't recovered from, and I don't think it's about to right now, before PIPA and SOPA pass.
Let's face it, the Internet has totally changed the picture of information exchange. [...] Pretty much every restriction there has been on speech, be it libel, slander, threats, pump&dump stock scams, copyright, kiddie porn, every balance struck between privacy and rule of law through use of warrants and wiretaps is cracking up. I think in the end it will come down to a showdown that either everything must be traced, recorded and tracked or none of it is.
Well, the internet is sort of an enourmous, universal poorly lit back alley. Historically, though, it's difficult to talk about outcomes, since everything is always transitioning and we can't really tell the difference between and end and a hiatus in present time. But we are definitely moving towards all things online being more monitored and regulated right now. Not that I think we'll ever get to a period in which everything is monitored. The amount of information is just so big that it isn't really feasible. A great deal of everything can be logged, though, and if that's what you meant, we're in agreement. What may also happen, I think, is that a lot of common web habits can be legally prohibited. And when normal, socially accepted behavior is prohibited and easy to investigate, one of two things can to happen: either is ceases to be prohibited, because imprisioning of fining almost everyone almost everyday is highly idiotic and isn't sustainable behavior in any moderately democratic society like ours, or selective law enforcement begins to take place. Which is the worst case scenario I envision. SOPA, however, is something else entirely, something I could never see coming. It isn't regulation, it's... well, it's akin to a parent saying "I've had it with you kids bothering me with your bickering. From now on, you sort it out among yourselves. And so you won't reach an impass and come to bother me every time you disagree, I'm going to give one of you a submachine gun. That's bound to solve all your problems really quickly without any need for me to intervene. Ever. Now scram." Then again, if the internet becomes too constrictive, alternative networks like Netsukuku might get more traction and become a new standard. Or the end of all standards, with us having to choose nets like we used to choose IRC servers.