If my 4 year old is any indication, that "total nonsense" is stuff pulled from various sources they've come in contact with. They just don't realize at that age that everyone doesn't know the source just because *they* know the source. (In a similar vein, they don't realize that they can't point to something and refer to it while talking to someone on the phone.)
I can catch about 85%-90% of the references because I've seen the TV shows my son watches. I know when he talking about pressing a button on his remote control or knocking first before going in a door, he's talking about The Upside Down Show (sometimes a specific episode). I know that talk about Pete using the balloon to go up refers to a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode where Pete used the glove balloon to rescue Mickey Mouse. Going "superfast" refers to Little Einsteins. They might be mixed up too. Pete might use the remote control and push the "superfast" button.
To an outside observer, though, who doesn't get the references, it's all gibberish, but there actually is a lot of intelligence behind all that chatter.
I first thought that an opt-in model along with protections against copyright infringement lawsuits would help repair an otherwise stupid idea, but then I realized: The RIAA members aren't the entire recording industry. There are lots of artists out there who are members of indie labels or self publish. Let's say I sign up for this Hypothetical Blanket License To Copy and then download some Marina V songs illegally from a P2P network (i.e. without properly paying for them). She's not part of a major label so will she be compensated? Does she lose her right to sue me because the major labels (of which she's not a part) have a deal with me? I highly doubt that would be a legal arrangement. So at best this deal would leave users even more confused. It would be ok to download Label A's music, but not Indie Label B's, yet just fine to download a song from Label C, but not from Artist D.
Just to make it more complicated, take the example of the Barenaked Ladies. They used to be with Warner Music but left. Warner (to my knowledge) owns their earlier work, but they own their own latest album themselves. So it would be ok to download some BNL songs but not others. (Granted they probably wouldn't sue their fans since that's one of the reasons they left their label, but that legal option of theirs shouldn't be removed from them because a third party signs a deal that doesn't directly involve BNL.)
Rick Cotton is also the one who claimed that Piracy hurts Corn growers because -- without piracy -- theaters would sell more tickets and thus more popcorn. Don't you see what you're doing all you P2P users?!! You're hurting the poor popcorn farmer. And his family. Won't someone think of the popcorn farmer's children?
I got that one also. Thought it was clever enough that I took a screenshot of it before marking it as Spam. (I obscured the URL, though, in case I post it online.)
The Doritos ad is being sent to 47 Ursae Majoris. Unfortunately, to the residents of 47 Ursae Majoris, "Doritos" loosely translates to "Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you." If we send this ad, the aliens are bound to attack us viciously with their noxious gas cannons and alien livestock catapults. When that happens, our only recourse will be to run away!
Last year, the US box office totaled $9.63 billion
Sure, that seems impressive, but once Hollywood's accountants finish up, you'll see that last year they really *lost* $50 billion dollars. They just need a little more time to fudge... I mean, figure out the numbers.
Not to mention the fact that, even if you did manage to buy control of SCO, you would inherit the pending lawsuits against them. You could easily drop your end of the lawsuit against Novell, IBM, etc, but Novell and IBM's countersuits wouldn't magically go away. And once the judgment came down requiring you to pay Novell their money back, you'd be back in Chapter 11 (or worse). So while it makes for a nice fantasy to think of a bunch of geeks buying SCO's bloodied carcass, it's just not a practical reality.
From this comment it looks like you can pull your money out before they hit the $30K figure. So if you put in your $10 now and a year later they're nowhere close to $30K, you can get your $10 back.
If they put out an album that's just bad, though, I don't know whether you could get your money back. I would think not though. It would pretty much mirror your buying a CD that didn't contain any good music. Most stores won't accept CD returns because the music stinks. However, putting out a bad CD would ensure that the band doesn't get many further sales and wouldn't get many sales on their next album.
One role that the "new middlemen" fill very well is promotion, the traditional role of the label.
This is why I don't think that labels will disappear entirely. Instead, they'll morph into something resembling ad agencies. An artist/band will hire them to promote an album. The label will then do their thing by arranging air time, sending out press releases to the proper channels, perhaps giving away a predetermined number of sample CDs, etc. They will do what they can to drum up publicity (and sales) for the artist/band. If they do a good job, then they are likely to be used by the artist/band again and the artist/band will tell all of their musician friends. If they do a bad job, they will be fired. Since the label won't get copyright ownership over the artist/band's songs, the artist/band will then be able to easily move to another label for their promotion. Of course, this means that a lot of the fat within the label organizations will be trimmed, but I don't think that many here will be crying much over that.
If we get hit with gamma rays then all that will happen is we'll all bulk up, get green skin, and be able to complete our morning commute to work with mile long leaps. Purple pants, for some odd reason, will also become the latest fashion craze. Of course, we might all need some anger management courses to prevent mass-smashing of infrastructure.
Or, at least, my wife and I recently found out that it was. While I had fun looking at all of the shots, my wife went into panic mode. She thought that this was an awful invasion of our privacy. After all, she reasoned, some pervert could use it to stake out our house where our kids live or a thief could use it to figure out which homes to rob. (The latter, apparently by figuring out which houses had expensive looking cars.) I pointed out that the pervert or thief could do the same thing by just casually driving around a few blocks. The one snapshot doesn't really reveal too much about our house. In fact, I can list the facts that it reveals in two points:
1. Our house is blue. (Though I happen to like the color blue, this doesn't reveal much about us. The person who owned our house two owners ago apparently loved blue and had literally *everything* in the house painted blue!)
2. We have a red mini-van. If you're really good, you might figure out what make/model. Maybe even which year if you happen to be a real whiz. But still, that's not much information. Does owning a mini-van mean we have kids? Maybe we haul stuff around and got a good deal on it? Maybe it means we have teenagers and need more seats/room than a small car provides.
The snapshot doesn't show my car (used to commute into work). It doesn't show us or our kids. It doesn't show how much we earn, whether we have expensive stuff in the house, whether we have a home security system, etc. It doesn't show a lot of things that a thief or pervert would be interested in. All it shows is what is available to be seen from the street. And even then, they blur out some details. You can't read our license plate and one of our neighbors (caught entering her car) either has her face blurred or the resolution is just bad. Either way, you could get more information driving down our street than you could get from Street View.
The strange thing is that I'm usually the one harping about invasions of privacy and she's usually the one rolling her eyes thinking "Is he talking about that stuff *AGAIN*?"
Maybe we should have some sort of indicator in the rear of cars to show the cars behind you that you are slowing down but haven't hit your brakes yet. Kind of like brake lights but a different color. Maybe yellow (to mirror the Red-Yellow-Green traffic lights). This would help you see when cars start slowing and then stopping. Of course, it wouldn't turn on immediately after releasing the gas, but would have some sort of delay. (No need to flash a yellow "slowing" indicator if you took your foot off the pedal for a half second.)
Of course, I can see how this might make things worse. Person A might see the yellow "slowing" indicator on the car in front of him and assume that the car in front is going to brake soon. Therefore, Person A will actually brake now. This will lead Person B (behind Person A) to brake and so forth. Still, it would be an interesting experiment. Equip a group of cars with slowing indicators, instruct the drivers as to what it means, and drive them around the same track again. See if the jams reduce in frequency and severity.
Our oldest son had a pacifier when he was a baby and is just fine. The way we see it, it's easier to get them to give up the pacifier later on than it is to get them to give up sucking on a finger. You can take the pacifiers away, but you can't take away their fingers.
Here's my situation. I have a 4 year old and a 9 month old. The 4 year old is great about getting to bed on time (around 7pm) and pretty much stays asleep all night... until about 5:45 am when he wakes up. This is, of course, 15-30 minutes before my alarm goes off on weekdays. Not enough time to go back to sleep, but enough time to feel the lack of enough sleep.
My 9 month old, on the other hand, tends to be ready for some "daddy play time" around 7pm until around 8pm. We get him into his crib and he's good until around 11pm. That's when my wife and I typically go to bed, but that's also when he tends to fuss. He'll spit out his pacifier, then whine about not having it. If we don't get in there quickly, find the pacifier (tough to do in the dark sometimes), and plop it back in his mouth soon enough, he'll go into full cry mode and wake up his big brother (they sleep in the same room). Once he has the pacifier in his mouth, he relaxes and goes back to sleep... until he relaxes so much that the pacifier pops out again. Repeat this until I take him out and rock him (which seems to put him in a deep enough sleep sometimes) or until we take him into our bed.
From 8pm until 11pm is when we get to do "adult" activities. No, not that!;-) I get to work on my computer without my son pestering me to play TuxPaint or the baby whining because I'm not playing with him. My wife gets to knit without worrying about what the kids are up to. We get to watch TV that doesn't involve blue puppies or animated bunnies (Max & Ruby).
The net effect is that we don't get to sleep until around midnight or later. Then we wake up at 5am. If you mix in a sick child (as our youngest one has been for the past few weeks), then you get even less sleep.
I won't even elaborate on the night (not many weeks ago) when our youngest had a febrile seizure, stopped breathing for awhile, and wound up in the hospital for a few days. We actually went about 36 hours without any sleep (for obvious reasons). (He's ok now... we think.)
The point is, kids are unpredictable, especially babies. Though you can try to impose a schedule and can be mostly successful, you can't expect them to fully adhere to your schedule. Things will happen that muck up those schedules. In addition, activities that *you* want to do (web development, coding, etc) are going to take a back seat to Candy Land and Blue's Clues until the kids are asleep. Then you either try to cram 5 hours of grown-up activities into 2 hours or you wind up giving up some of the things you like. Still, I wouldn't give up my kids for anything.
It may be impossible for MS to maintain compatibility with the installed base AND go upscale at the same time. Either way, they are vulnerable to attack from competitors on all sides. From the customer point of view: If you have money to spend, OS X is great. If not, Linux is cheaper. Who needs Vista at any price?
Good point. I'd only add that they are not only under attack from above (OS X) and below (Linux), but from within as well. Their own customers are deciding that the last version they purchased (sometimes two or three versions back in the case of Office) is "good enough" and an upgrade isn't needed. If large segments of their customers can run for the forseeable future on Windows XP + Office 97/2000/XP/2003, then why upgrade to Vista and Office 2007? Sure, those customers *may* buy upgrades eventually, but the days of people rushing out for the latest version the minute they hit the shelves is gone for good. I don't see many sunny days ahead for Microsoft.
Many applications that your average, everyday user needs either have similar counterparts available on Linux or are web-based (and thus available via FireFox or another Linux-based web browser). Joe Average uses his computer to write some documents (replace Microsoft Office with Open Office), send off some e-mails (replace Outlook Express with Thunderbird or use web based e-mail), and possibly look at some photos that he took using his digital camera. (I don't know the names of any off-hand, but I know that there have got to be plenty.)
However, I will agree that Linux still seems to fall just shy of the needs of the majority of users (though the gap is rapidly closing). I, myself, run my computers on Windows XP. Then again, I use many web developer/graphics specific programs such as Dreamweaver (code view only!), Paint Shop Pro, and Beyond Compare that simply don't exist in Linux. (GIMP doesn't count. Every time I try that, the GUI throws me for a loop. I want to like it, but it still has far to go.)
I don't think that Linux will overthrow Windows anytime in the next year, but there will be a slow, yet inevitable eroding of Windows' marketshare until it is just another OS that you can choose to have Dell/HP/etc install for you.
Linux has hit that point where, it may not be the best in terms of a consumer operating system, but its often good enough, and installing it just works.
That statement there might be the scariest thing for Microsoft. Microsoft pretty much based their entire business around "good enough." If Linux is "good enough" also and has the added benefit of being free, then that will take sales away from Microsoft. That combines with Microsoft's main competition (their own older versions which are "good enough" for most people) to make for a really bad situation for Microsoft to be in.
I'll admit that I've bought a few CDs over the past 5 years, but not many. (Mostly for my wife and kids and probably less than 10.) Then again, I was never a big music purchaser so they can't blame my personal "poor buying habits" on the emergence of P2P networks. Unfortunately, the RIAA doesn't look at declining CD sales and think "Gee, we have an high priced product with diminishing quality in an economic downturn and while the consumer has less money to spend on our goods, they have more choices (DVDs, games, etc) on what to spend those limited dollars on." Instead they think "@&$^! Internet Pirates! We must legislate that all Americans buy at least one CD per month or get shipped off to GitMo where they will be forced to listen to Brittney Spears tracks until their ears bleed!"
I dont quite understand the strategy of the RIAA, is this even a profitable strategy. You first need to collect evidence, then you need to file the lawsuit, and finally the defendant has to pay, that is if he or she is found in guilt. So now you to pay for the collection of evidence, then the lawyers, and then you have to hope the defendant has money to pay you to recoup the loss.
Evidence? Who needs evidence? They'll just grab some screenshots and call it a day.
When they file the lawsuits, they try to group them in bunches to save on legal fees.
As for the lawsuits themselves, they highly pressure the sued individuals to settle to further save on legal fees. Most people settle so they only have to actually fight a handful of suits. The last thing they want is to have to fight 1,000 lawsuits at once.
Besides, as another poster said. It's not about the money, it's about the control. They want to put the fear of RIAA in peoples' minds so that the RIAA can get what the RIAA wants when they want it.
It could be politically damaging, not comical, if a politician wound up on the "unfiltered Internet" list. The politician might just be a freedom-loving individual who never personally visits XXX sites, but would like for the decision to be up to him and not the government, but it could still be spun by an opposing candidate as something horrible.
"Candidate X loves visiting porn sites day and night. Meanwhile, Candidate Y supports filters to protect our children from awful, porn loving monsters. Who do you want in office?"
Of course, Australian politics might be different from US politics. That's how it would happen if this were to occur in the US. Anyone from Australia care to comment as to whether Australian politics is as dirty as US politics?
No, no, no. That would never fly. Now stick an "online" at the end, make the wording a bit more vague as to what you really mean, and you've got yourself a million dollar patent idea!
I'm no expert in such things, but why couldn't they release a Microsoft Update P2P client that:
1) Checked Microsoft's servers for a list of needed updates with MD5 hashes for those updates.
2) Check bittorrent or some other P2P network (perhaps even a custom one) for those updates.
3) Download the file, compare it against the MD5 hash.
4) If it doesn't match, delete it and find it on another computer. If it does match, alert the user to install the update. (Or install it automatically if that's the setting the user chose.)
This would reduce demands on their servers (except for the checking for updates part) and wouldn't open the possibility of someone turning the Patch The Bug Virus into an Pose As A Patch To Gain System Access Virus.
Returning to sane copyright lengths doesn't mean that some people won't illegally distribute copyrighted works. You could make copyright last for one month only and people would still distribute (and download) movies the instant they appeared in theaters (or before in some cases). The "I want it for free or I don't want it at all" crowd isn't a reason for changing copyright lengths one way or another. They'll be there no matter what you do.
The thing to look at is whether copyright laws are really fostering innovation. Despite what Disney would want you to believe, lengthy copyright doesn't encourage new works to be developed. If I make something (book, movie, music, etc) right now, my work will be protected for 70 years after my death. I'm 32 right now. Assuming I live to 80 years old (though I hope to live longer), this means that my work would be protected until the year 2126. (Given no further "Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension" laws, of course.) Assuming that my children/grand-children don't sell off all of their rights to my work, and assuming that each has a child at 28 (my oldest is 4 right now), my great-great-great-grandchild will be 11 by the time the work enters the public domain. How is granting my great-great-grandchildren copyright ownership over my works going to encourage me to make new works (when I've been dead for over half a century)?
This example also doesn't touch on how murky copyright ownership becomes. Suppose my grandson winds up selling copyright ownership to Company A. A merges with a second company, B. A spinoff company C is formed, goes bankrupt, and is bought out by D. E breaks away from B and merges with F to form a new company D. Now which company owns the rights to my work? Can't tell right now, can you? You would need to read tons of legalese documents to track down where the copyright holdings went. Your average artist looking to use my work as a basis for something else (in a way that would require permission) probably would be forced to either a) not get permission and hope to not be sued, b) not make his work, or c) hire a lawyer at great expense and spend years tracking down the proper owner (possibly failing after having spent lots of time and money). A 14+14 year system would make ownership clearer and would make abandonware less likely to occur.
When it comes to actual people distributing copyrighted works illegally, I sympathize with the statement that they should be penalized. I do disagree, however, with how much. Copyright is a civil matter and shouldn't leave someone destitute. The $150,000 per incident fine was written when the main "pirates" envisioned were CD press operations working to violate copyright for a profit. Today's "home pirate" isn't interested in a profit. I think that the punishment should fit the crime (with some padding to help deter those who aren't caught). If you violate copyright by downloading/uploading a copyrighted material without proper permission, you should be forced to pay 10x the fair market value for that work. Share an MP3? Pay $9.90 (10x$0.99). Share out a DVD movie? Pay $150 (10x$15). Obviously, one $10 fine won't deter anyone, but most folks accused by the RIAA of sharing songs illegally are accused of sharing a few hundred songs at least. This pushes the fine up to a few thousand dollars. Nothing that would bankrupt the uploader, but a fine that would hit them hard enough financially to seriously reconsider ever doing it again. Perhaps you could double fines for repeat offenders, also. First time offender? 5 times market value. Each subsequent time caught you double the multiplier.
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If my 4 year old is any indication, that "total nonsense" is stuff pulled from various sources they've come in contact with. They just don't realize at that age that everyone doesn't know the source just because *they* know the source. (In a similar vein, they don't realize that they can't point to something and refer to it while talking to someone on the phone.)
I can catch about 85%-90% of the references because I've seen the TV shows my son watches. I know when he talking about pressing a button on his remote control or knocking first before going in a door, he's talking about The Upside Down Show (sometimes a specific episode). I know that talk about Pete using the balloon to go up refers to a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode where Pete used the glove balloon to rescue Mickey Mouse. Going "superfast" refers to Little Einsteins. They might be mixed up too. Pete might use the remote control and push the "superfast" button.
To an outside observer, though, who doesn't get the references, it's all gibberish, but there actually is a lot of intelligence behind all that chatter.
I first thought that an opt-in model along with protections against copyright infringement lawsuits would help repair an otherwise stupid idea, but then I realized: The RIAA members aren't the entire recording industry. There are lots of artists out there who are members of indie labels or self publish. Let's say I sign up for this Hypothetical Blanket License To Copy and then download some Marina V songs illegally from a P2P network (i.e. without properly paying for them). She's not part of a major label so will she be compensated? Does she lose her right to sue me because the major labels (of which she's not a part) have a deal with me? I highly doubt that would be a legal arrangement. So at best this deal would leave users even more confused. It would be ok to download Label A's music, but not Indie Label B's, yet just fine to download a song from Label C, but not from Artist D.
Just to make it more complicated, take the example of the Barenaked Ladies. They used to be with Warner Music but left. Warner (to my knowledge) owns their earlier work, but they own their own latest album themselves. So it would be ok to download some BNL songs but not others. (Granted they probably wouldn't sue their fans since that's one of the reasons they left their label, but that legal option of theirs shouldn't be removed from them because a third party signs a deal that doesn't directly involve BNL.)
Rick Cotton is also the one who claimed that Piracy hurts Corn growers because -- without piracy -- theaters would sell more tickets and thus more popcorn. Don't you see what you're doing all you P2P users?!! You're hurting the poor popcorn farmer. And his family. Won't someone think of the popcorn farmer's children?
Here's a link:
http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/images/ASCIISpam.jpg
Obviously that mess of characters between "www" and "com" was their URL which I've munged so as not to give them any traffic.
I got that one also. Thought it was clever enough that I took a screenshot of it before marking it as Spam. (I obscured the URL, though, in case I post it online.)
The Doritos ad is being sent to 47 Ursae Majoris. Unfortunately, to the residents of 47 Ursae Majoris, "Doritos" loosely translates to "Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you." If we send this ad, the aliens are bound to attack us viciously with their noxious gas cannons and alien livestock catapults. When that happens, our only recourse will be to run away!
Sure, that seems impressive, but once Hollywood's accountants finish up, you'll see that last year they really *lost* $50 billion dollars. They just need a little more time to fudge... I mean, figure out the numbers.
I don't know. I'd give them a nickel. So long as my nickel bought me a rotten tomato and a clear shot at Darl.
Hey, SCO! Here's your new business plan! You can raise enough money to pay Novell back by selling Darl Target Practice sessions.
Not to mention the fact that, even if you did manage to buy control of SCO, you would inherit the pending lawsuits against them. You could easily drop your end of the lawsuit against Novell, IBM, etc, but Novell and IBM's countersuits wouldn't magically go away. And once the judgment came down requiring you to pay Novell their money back, you'd be back in Chapter 11 (or worse). So while it makes for a nice fantasy to think of a bunch of geeks buying SCO's bloodied carcass, it's just not a practical reality.
From this comment it looks like you can pull your money out before they hit the $30K figure. So if you put in your $10 now and a year later they're nowhere close to $30K, you can get your $10 back.
If they put out an album that's just bad, though, I don't know whether you could get your money back. I would think not though. It would pretty much mirror your buying a CD that didn't contain any good music. Most stores won't accept CD returns because the music stinks. However, putting out a bad CD would ensure that the band doesn't get many further sales and wouldn't get many sales on their next album.
This is why I don't think that labels will disappear entirely. Instead, they'll morph into something resembling ad agencies. An artist/band will hire them to promote an album. The label will then do their thing by arranging air time, sending out press releases to the proper channels, perhaps giving away a predetermined number of sample CDs, etc. They will do what they can to drum up publicity (and sales) for the artist/band. If they do a good job, then they are likely to be used by the artist/band again and the artist/band will tell all of their musician friends. If they do a bad job, they will be fired. Since the label won't get copyright ownership over the artist/band's songs, the artist/band will then be able to easily move to another label for their promotion. Of course, this means that a lot of the fat within the label organizations will be trimmed, but I don't think that many here will be crying much over that.
If we get hit with gamma rays then all that will happen is we'll all bulk up, get green skin, and be able to complete our morning commute to work with mile long leaps. Purple pants, for some odd reason, will also become the latest fashion craze. Of course, we might all need some anger management courses to prevent mass-smashing of infrastructure.
Or, at least, my wife and I recently found out that it was. While I had fun looking at all of the shots, my wife went into panic mode. She thought that this was an awful invasion of our privacy. After all, she reasoned, some pervert could use it to stake out our house where our kids live or a thief could use it to figure out which homes to rob. (The latter, apparently by figuring out which houses had expensive looking cars.) I pointed out that the pervert or thief could do the same thing by just casually driving around a few blocks. The one snapshot doesn't really reveal too much about our house. In fact, I can list the facts that it reveals in two points:
1. Our house is blue. (Though I happen to like the color blue, this doesn't reveal much about us. The person who owned our house two owners ago apparently loved blue and had literally *everything* in the house painted blue!)
2. We have a red mini-van. If you're really good, you might figure out what make/model. Maybe even which year if you happen to be a real whiz. But still, that's not much information. Does owning a mini-van mean we have kids? Maybe we haul stuff around and got a good deal on it? Maybe it means we have teenagers and need more seats/room than a small car provides.
The snapshot doesn't show my car (used to commute into work). It doesn't show us or our kids. It doesn't show how much we earn, whether we have expensive stuff in the house, whether we have a home security system, etc. It doesn't show a lot of things that a thief or pervert would be interested in. All it shows is what is available to be seen from the street. And even then, they blur out some details. You can't read our license plate and one of our neighbors (caught entering her car) either has her face blurred or the resolution is just bad. Either way, you could get more information driving down our street than you could get from Street View.
The strange thing is that I'm usually the one harping about invasions of privacy and she's usually the one rolling her eyes thinking "Is he talking about that stuff *AGAIN*?"
Maybe we should have some sort of indicator in the rear of cars to show the cars behind you that you are slowing down but haven't hit your brakes yet. Kind of like brake lights but a different color. Maybe yellow (to mirror the Red-Yellow-Green traffic lights). This would help you see when cars start slowing and then stopping. Of course, it wouldn't turn on immediately after releasing the gas, but would have some sort of delay. (No need to flash a yellow "slowing" indicator if you took your foot off the pedal for a half second.)
Of course, I can see how this might make things worse. Person A might see the yellow "slowing" indicator on the car in front of him and assume that the car in front is going to brake soon. Therefore, Person A will actually brake now. This will lead Person B (behind Person A) to brake and so forth. Still, it would be an interesting experiment. Equip a group of cars with slowing indicators, instruct the drivers as to what it means, and drive them around the same track again. See if the jams reduce in frequency and severity.
Our oldest son had a pacifier when he was a baby and is just fine. The way we see it, it's easier to get them to give up the pacifier later on than it is to get them to give up sucking on a finger. You can take the pacifiers away, but you can't take away their fingers.
Let me guess, you don't have kids, do you?
;-) I get to work on my computer without my son pestering me to play TuxPaint or the baby whining because I'm not playing with him. My wife gets to knit without worrying about what the kids are up to. We get to watch TV that doesn't involve blue puppies or animated bunnies (Max & Ruby).
Here's my situation. I have a 4 year old and a 9 month old. The 4 year old is great about getting to bed on time (around 7pm) and pretty much stays asleep all night... until about 5:45 am when he wakes up. This is, of course, 15-30 minutes before my alarm goes off on weekdays. Not enough time to go back to sleep, but enough time to feel the lack of enough sleep.
My 9 month old, on the other hand, tends to be ready for some "daddy play time" around 7pm until around 8pm. We get him into his crib and he's good until around 11pm. That's when my wife and I typically go to bed, but that's also when he tends to fuss. He'll spit out his pacifier, then whine about not having it. If we don't get in there quickly, find the pacifier (tough to do in the dark sometimes), and plop it back in his mouth soon enough, he'll go into full cry mode and wake up his big brother (they sleep in the same room). Once he has the pacifier in his mouth, he relaxes and goes back to sleep... until he relaxes so much that the pacifier pops out again. Repeat this until I take him out and rock him (which seems to put him in a deep enough sleep sometimes) or until we take him into our bed.
From 8pm until 11pm is when we get to do "adult" activities. No, not that!
The net effect is that we don't get to sleep until around midnight or later. Then we wake up at 5am. If you mix in a sick child (as our youngest one has been for the past few weeks), then you get even less sleep.
I won't even elaborate on the night (not many weeks ago) when our youngest had a febrile seizure, stopped breathing for awhile, and wound up in the hospital for a few days. We actually went about 36 hours without any sleep (for obvious reasons). (He's ok now... we think.)
The point is, kids are unpredictable, especially babies. Though you can try to impose a schedule and can be mostly successful, you can't expect them to fully adhere to your schedule. Things will happen that muck up those schedules. In addition, activities that *you* want to do (web development, coding, etc) are going to take a back seat to Candy Land and Blue's Clues until the kids are asleep. Then you either try to cram 5 hours of grown-up activities into 2 hours or you wind up giving up some of the things you like. Still, I wouldn't give up my kids for anything.
It may be impossible for MS to maintain compatibility with the installed base AND go upscale at the same time. Either way, they are vulnerable to attack from competitors on all sides. From the customer point of view: If you have money to spend, OS X is great. If not, Linux is cheaper. Who needs Vista at any price?
Good point. I'd only add that they are not only under attack from above (OS X) and below (Linux), but from within as well. Their own customers are deciding that the last version they purchased (sometimes two or three versions back in the case of Office) is "good enough" and an upgrade isn't needed. If large segments of their customers can run for the forseeable future on Windows XP + Office 97/2000/XP/2003, then why upgrade to Vista and Office 2007? Sure, those customers *may* buy upgrades eventually, but the days of people rushing out for the latest version the minute they hit the shelves is gone for good. I don't see many sunny days ahead for Microsoft.
Many applications that your average, everyday user needs either have similar counterparts available on Linux or are web-based (and thus available via FireFox or another Linux-based web browser). Joe Average uses his computer to write some documents (replace Microsoft Office with Open Office), send off some e-mails (replace Outlook Express with Thunderbird or use web based e-mail), and possibly look at some photos that he took using his digital camera. (I don't know the names of any off-hand, but I know that there have got to be plenty.)
However, I will agree that Linux still seems to fall just shy of the needs of the majority of users (though the gap is rapidly closing). I, myself, run my computers on Windows XP. Then again, I use many web developer/graphics specific programs such as Dreamweaver (code view only!), Paint Shop Pro, and Beyond Compare that simply don't exist in Linux. (GIMP doesn't count. Every time I try that, the GUI throws me for a loop. I want to like it, but it still has far to go.)
I don't think that Linux will overthrow Windows anytime in the next year, but there will be a slow, yet inevitable eroding of Windows' marketshare until it is just another OS that you can choose to have Dell/HP/etc install for you.
Linux has hit that point where, it may not be the best in terms of a consumer operating system, but its often good enough, and installing it just works.
That statement there might be the scariest thing for Microsoft. Microsoft pretty much based their entire business around "good enough." If Linux is "good enough" also and has the added benefit of being free, then that will take sales away from Microsoft. That combines with Microsoft's main competition (their own older versions which are "good enough" for most people) to make for a really bad situation for Microsoft to be in.
I'll admit that I've bought a few CDs over the past 5 years, but not many. (Mostly for my wife and kids and probably less than 10.) Then again, I was never a big music purchaser so they can't blame my personal "poor buying habits" on the emergence of P2P networks. Unfortunately, the RIAA doesn't look at declining CD sales and think "Gee, we have an high priced product with diminishing quality in an economic downturn and while the consumer has less money to spend on our goods, they have more choices (DVDs, games, etc) on what to spend those limited dollars on." Instead they think "@&$^! Internet Pirates! We must legislate that all Americans buy at least one CD per month or get shipped off to GitMo where they will be forced to listen to Brittney Spears tracks until their ears bleed!"
I dont quite understand the strategy of the RIAA, is this even a profitable strategy. You first need to collect evidence, then you need to file the lawsuit, and finally the defendant has to pay, that is if he or she is found in guilt. So now you to pay for the collection of evidence, then the lawyers, and then you have to hope the defendant has money to pay you to recoup the loss.
Evidence? Who needs evidence? They'll just grab some screenshots and call it a day.
When they file the lawsuits, they try to group them in bunches to save on legal fees.
As for the lawsuits themselves, they highly pressure the sued individuals to settle to further save on legal fees. Most people settle so they only have to actually fight a handful of suits. The last thing they want is to have to fight 1,000 lawsuits at once.
Besides, as another poster said. It's not about the money, it's about the control. They want to put the fear of RIAA in peoples' minds so that the RIAA can get what the RIAA wants when they want it.
It could be politically damaging, not comical, if a politician wound up on the "unfiltered Internet" list. The politician might just be a freedom-loving individual who never personally visits XXX sites, but would like for the decision to be up to him and not the government, but it could still be spun by an opposing candidate as something horrible.
"Candidate X loves visiting porn sites day and night. Meanwhile, Candidate Y supports filters to protect our children from awful, porn loving monsters. Who do you want in office?"
Of course, Australian politics might be different from US politics. That's how it would happen if this were to occur in the US. Anyone from Australia care to comment as to whether Australian politics is as dirty as US politics?
No, no, no. That would never fly. Now stick an "online" at the end, make the wording a bit more vague as to what you really mean, and you've got yourself a million dollar patent idea!
I'm no expert in such things, but why couldn't they release a Microsoft Update P2P client that:
1) Checked Microsoft's servers for a list of needed updates with MD5 hashes for those updates.
2) Check bittorrent or some other P2P network (perhaps even a custom one) for those updates.
3) Download the file, compare it against the MD5 hash.
4) If it doesn't match, delete it and find it on another computer. If it does match, alert the user to install the update. (Or install it automatically if that's the setting the user chose.)
This would reduce demands on their servers (except for the checking for updates part) and wouldn't open the possibility of someone turning the Patch The Bug Virus into an Pose As A Patch To Gain System Access Virus.
Returning to sane copyright lengths doesn't mean that some people won't illegally distribute copyrighted works. You could make copyright last for one month only and people would still distribute (and download) movies the instant they appeared in theaters (or before in some cases). The "I want it for free or I don't want it at all" crowd isn't a reason for changing copyright lengths one way or another. They'll be there no matter what you do.
The thing to look at is whether copyright laws are really fostering innovation. Despite what Disney would want you to believe, lengthy copyright doesn't encourage new works to be developed. If I make something (book, movie, music, etc) right now, my work will be protected for 70 years after my death. I'm 32 right now. Assuming I live to 80 years old (though I hope to live longer), this means that my work would be protected until the year 2126. (Given no further "Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension" laws, of course.) Assuming that my children/grand-children don't sell off all of their rights to my work, and assuming that each has a child at 28 (my oldest is 4 right now), my great-great-great-grandchild will be 11 by the time the work enters the public domain. How is granting my great-great-grandchildren copyright ownership over my works going to encourage me to make new works (when I've been dead for over half a century)?
This example also doesn't touch on how murky copyright ownership becomes. Suppose my grandson winds up selling copyright ownership to Company A. A merges with a second company, B. A spinoff company C is formed, goes bankrupt, and is bought out by D. E breaks away from B and merges with F to form a new company D. Now which company owns the rights to my work? Can't tell right now, can you? You would need to read tons of legalese documents to track down where the copyright holdings went. Your average artist looking to use my work as a basis for something else (in a way that would require permission) probably would be forced to either a) not get permission and hope to not be sued, b) not make his work, or c) hire a lawyer at great expense and spend years tracking down the proper owner (possibly failing after having spent lots of time and money). A 14+14 year system would make ownership clearer and would make abandonware less likely to occur.
When it comes to actual people distributing copyrighted works illegally, I sympathize with the statement that they should be penalized. I do disagree, however, with how much. Copyright is a civil matter and shouldn't leave someone destitute. The $150,000 per incident fine was written when the main "pirates" envisioned were CD press operations working to violate copyright for a profit. Today's "home pirate" isn't interested in a profit. I think that the punishment should fit the crime (with some padding to help deter those who aren't caught). If you violate copyright by downloading/uploading a copyrighted material without proper permission, you should be forced to pay 10x the fair market value for that work. Share an MP3? Pay $9.90 (10x$0.99). Share out a DVD movie? Pay $150 (10x$15). Obviously, one $10 fine won't deter anyone, but most folks accused by the RIAA of sharing songs illegally are accused of sharing a few hundred songs at least. This pushes the fine up to a few thousand dollars. Nothing that would bankrupt the uploader, but a fine that would hit them hard enough financially to seriously reconsider ever doing it again. Perhaps you could double fines for repeat offenders, also. First time offender? 5 times market value. Each subsequent time caught you double the multiplier.