I'd rather they actually planned ahead so he could be present for the bill signing. It's not like this need for renewal snuck up on them. I mean, I'm sure they've all read the whole Act and are aware of the various deadlines...right?
Well, if Sony hadn't so royally screwed up it's security on the PS3 and the PSN, Nintendo wouldn't have felt the need to lock down their newest system this hard! They learned that the only way to stop people from hacking their consoles is to cause the consoles TO CATCH FIRE AND EXPLODE if you do something wrong. But they realized that might end badly, so they went with the next best option and just decided to brick the things. Sony, on the other hand, is trying to perfect localized disintegration technology for the PS4 so they can just vaporize it the moment it hears the words "Linux" or "GeoHot."
Does your mortgage deduction really bring you below a 10% tax rate? I'm skeptical, but truly curious. I'm looking into buying my first house, and looking at mortgage info compared to what I've paid in taxes previous years, I can't imagine that deduction bringing my taxes that low unless my mortgage was WELL beyond what I should be able to afford (which, granted, I was offered. Here I was wondering if I could really afford a $120k mortgage, and the mortgage company offers me $175k).
I do find your definition of "grossly unfair" a bit interesting, as I would consider a flat tax applied to everyone regardless of status or class of any type to be the fairest such a tax possibly could be. That said, in the interest of kindness (which is different from "fairness"), I probably wouldn't object to a tax break for people whom taxes would bring below a "living wage" or something like that.
What? As a student I can get 3DSMax for 90% off? That's an awesome deal! I think I'll go buy it ri- oh. It's still $350. Well then.
That said, there are ways to get the software legally for free as a student. I know plenty of people who have done that when it was available and I'm still kicking myself for not taking advantage of it while I was still in college.
So let me ask you this. I used Pro-Engineer in college, an excellent 3D Cad program that costs something like $6000-8000 per license. Even the student version is several hundred if I were still in school. I've been out of college for over a year and my current job does not require me to use 3D Cad at all, but the jobs I'm aiming for once I have some experience will. How can I legally keep myself in practice on any CAD software I'm not currently using at work (I only use 2D AutoCAD at work)? I certainly can't afford to drop months worth of income on a piece of software for purely personal use(and I don't have enough money in the bank even if I stupidly decided to try), and messing with getting a friend still in college to get the Academic license and handing it off to me is just as morally borderline as pirating in my mind, not to mention a lot more complicated. So what do I do to keep my skills up-to-date and competitive without becoming a criminal in some form or another?
Human drama is fine in moderation. Human drama drawn out over a full 40 minute episode and completely overshadowing why people wanted to watch the show in the first place, is not. Hence why I lost interest in House and CSI, amongst others.
This is what really blew my mind. When people started asking for his birth certificate, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me, because I had always assumed that it was standard practice. Why is it that I have to present multiple forms of ID, my social security number, large amounts of contact info, and admit to any felonies just to get a job bagging groceries, but the person running for the highest office of one of the most powerful countries in the world does not have to produce a birth certificate to prove that they fulfill two of the basic requirements of holding the position (natural born citizenship and at least 35 years old)? Sure, you'll always have conspiracy nuts, but it seems like much of this would have been avoided if the candidates for President had to prove they fulfilled the requirements, just like every other person applying for a job in this country.
Absolutely. The people skilled enough to hack in general are not pirates. They want homebrew, a powerful development platform, etc. Linux on the PS3 gave them that. Then, once that was removed, they hacked the HECK out of the PS3 to get it back, and then the less skilled pirate hackers took what they did and finished the job, allowing piracy that likely never would have happened (or at least taken nearly until the end of the console's life-cycle) had they just left the feature there.
No, Geohot demonstrated a viable attack on the hypervisor. A contemporary report of which is here. Sony had no choice but to shut OtherOS down before the attack was refined into an ISO that people could download, burn & install on the PS3 to root the thing completely.
No choice? Huh, I could have SWORN there could be other options like "Patch the vulnerability without screwing their customers." You know, a REASONABLE response.
Maybe you should read it as well? GeoHot maybe kinda sorta found a bug, or something, that might, maybe, someday, somehow allow him to access the graphics hardware on the PS3 via OtherOS, which might, eventually, somehow, some way allow them to run pirated games via OtherOS. That was it. That's all. Nothing more. Nothing less. SCEA vs. GeoHot was about GeoHot publishing some sort of encryption key that allowed people to hack GameOS, and he did this MONTHS after OtherOS had been removed.
Yup. Because not using something you paid for is TOTALLY a legit reason for the person you bought it from taking it back. I hope you use that fire extinguisher within a few years of buying it, otherwise when you need it, you might just find that Home Depot took it back.
for 99 cents, so what if it's bad? I can find that much on my bedroom floor.
If you have all the time in the world, you can afford to try all the books you can buy with the money in your sofa. But if you don't, the difference between 99 cents and 7.99 isn't meaningful if the 99 cent version is far more likely to be a waste of your time.
That's the big "if," isn't it? But considering there's quite a bit of good writing that's cheap or free, and quite a bit of crap writing that's $10+, I don't see price as an indication of quality.
Plus, a good book is valuable enough to me that I'm willing to waste some hours on a few duds on the chance I'll find a good one.
There's still a big difference between trash and unreadable. At least you could potentially read to the end of the trash novel without wanting to pull your own brain out through your nose.
The stuff I had to read in my Modern American Lit class in high school begs to differ.
And, honestly, even if I do find huge amounts of crap from self-published people, that still isn't going to make me look for a publisher's mark. The degree of badness may vary, but I imagine if I got a hundred random recently published fantasy books (my favorite genre), I would put down just as many out of boredom or irritation. Especially when you look at this ridiculous obsession with hunk vampires going on right now.
So...if I never looked for one before, why would I start now? Because you tend to find the good, cheap ebooks tend to have one? I have read far too much trash that has not only been published, but published and highly praised to give a crap about a publisher's mark.
I have never in my life looked for a publisher's mark to determine if a book is good. I read the back, and with the advent of the internet, I read reviews. So, if I saw an independently published book with an interesting description but no reviews for 99 cents, I'd probably grab it because 1) I want to support self publishing and the end of the old publisher business model and 2) because, for 99 cents, so what if it's bad? I can find that much on my bedroom floor. I pay that much for a freaking cookie sometimes, and a good book lasts a lot longer than a cookie.
How about they...say...print fewer physical copies, then? If the number of print copies you sell is going down, don't keep printing the same quantity and then raise the price of ebooks to compensate for your bad business decision.
Besides, as has been demonstrated multiple times, when you can set the price really low, doing so can get you a lot of money as it enters "impulse buy" range.
*looks at his Incredible on which he can put any app he wants, even if he hadn't rooted the phone*
*looks at the phones from other companies that prevent you from doing that*
Huh, you know, it's almost like you have a [i]choice[/i] about what company to get your phone from. A choice you can make based on whether you want third party apps without rooting, if you are so inclined. So, tell me, what company can I get an Apple brand phone from that allows me to install any app I want without jailbreaking? I assume there is one because "at the core, [they] AREN'T ANY DIFFERENT," right?
How on earth did you get modded insightful? I thought slashdot was a place for nerds, you know, people who work in CAD or programming, where hardware (and to a lesser extent, software) upgrades every few years can make a HUGE difference. Also, you say DOS still works as well as it ever did (completely ignoring the fact that "as well as it ever did" is leagues behind what we have now), but as you bring in new people, can you imagine trying to teach someone who has only every worked in Windows XP to use DOS? Or going from AutoCAD 2011 to AutoCAD R12? Why would you want to spend days or weeks training every new employee to use your out of date crap setup, when you can just do a basic upgrade and safely assume that anyone qualified for the position will know how to use it?
But buying a new hammer wouldn't have cut the time it took him to remove it from his bag in half.
That said, the GP is correct, but misses the point. The point is, upgrades can improve the productivity of a productive worker who knows how to use the upgrades. Some people would be lost if they were given a second monitor, others who know how to make good use of it would flourish.
Of course, a good worker will not say "The reason I suck is my hardware," they will say "I can do my job even better with better hardware, and this is why."
True, but torrenting is far from the only way to download backup copies. Usenet, rapidshare (and the like), and IRC just to name a few examples of ways that don't cause you to share the files with others. Despite that, I still would not count on that being viewed as legit fair use in court.
I think, technically, he's in his right to make a backup of his copy. Downloading the movie is a backup of a different copy. Now, yes, it is complete bullcrap, but I believe that was how the music industry got that one service killed, MP3.com, I think. The one where you inserted your disk, it scanned it, and then it gave you streaming access to the copies of the songs from that CD on their servers. As I recall, the music industry got them shut down using the argument that while you are allowed to backup and stream your own disks, in this case, you were using backups and streaming someone else's disk, even though they were the exact same disk. So I wouldn't be so sure that you're safe to download a copy if you own the disk.
I do welcome corrections if I am wrong, though.
I'd rather they actually planned ahead so he could be present for the bill signing. It's not like this need for renewal snuck up on them. I mean, I'm sure they've all read the whole Act and are aware of the various deadlines...right?
Well, if Sony hadn't so royally screwed up it's security on the PS3 and the PSN, Nintendo wouldn't have felt the need to lock down their newest system this hard! They learned that the only way to stop people from hacking their consoles is to cause the consoles TO CATCH FIRE AND EXPLODE if you do something wrong. But they realized that might end badly, so they went with the next best option and just decided to brick the things. Sony, on the other hand, is trying to perfect localized disintegration technology for the PS4 so they can just vaporize it the moment it hears the words "Linux" or "GeoHot."
Does your mortgage deduction really bring you below a 10% tax rate? I'm skeptical, but truly curious. I'm looking into buying my first house, and looking at mortgage info compared to what I've paid in taxes previous years, I can't imagine that deduction bringing my taxes that low unless my mortgage was WELL beyond what I should be able to afford (which, granted, I was offered. Here I was wondering if I could really afford a $120k mortgage, and the mortgage company offers me $175k).
I do find your definition of "grossly unfair" a bit interesting, as I would consider a flat tax applied to everyone regardless of status or class of any type to be the fairest such a tax possibly could be. That said, in the interest of kindness (which is different from "fairness"), I probably wouldn't object to a tax break for people whom taxes would bring below a "living wage" or something like that.
What? As a student I can get 3DSMax for 90% off? That's an awesome deal! I think I'll go buy it ri- oh. It's still $350. Well then.
That said, there are ways to get the software legally for free as a student. I know plenty of people who have done that when it was available and I'm still kicking myself for not taking advantage of it while I was still in college.
So let me ask you this. I used Pro-Engineer in college, an excellent 3D Cad program that costs something like $6000-8000 per license. Even the student version is several hundred if I were still in school. I've been out of college for over a year and my current job does not require me to use 3D Cad at all, but the jobs I'm aiming for once I have some experience will. How can I legally keep myself in practice on any CAD software I'm not currently using at work (I only use 2D AutoCAD at work)? I certainly can't afford to drop months worth of income on a piece of software for purely personal use(and I don't have enough money in the bank even if I stupidly decided to try), and messing with getting a friend still in college to get the Academic license and handing it off to me is just as morally borderline as pirating in my mind, not to mention a lot more complicated. So what do I do to keep my skills up-to-date and competitive without becoming a criminal in some form or another?
Human drama is fine in moderation. Human drama drawn out over a full 40 minute episode and completely overshadowing why people wanted to watch the show in the first place, is not. Hence why I lost interest in House and CSI, amongst others.
Yeah, sure, the people inside the Comcast-NBC monster never use such phrases to describe what they think they are doing.
And you're suggesting they shouldn't be forcibly relocated to some sort of leper island?
This is what really blew my mind. When people started asking for his birth certificate, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me, because I had always assumed that it was standard practice. Why is it that I have to present multiple forms of ID, my social security number, large amounts of contact info, and admit to any felonies just to get a job bagging groceries, but the person running for the highest office of one of the most powerful countries in the world does not have to produce a birth certificate to prove that they fulfill two of the basic requirements of holding the position (natural born citizenship and at least 35 years old)? Sure, you'll always have conspiracy nuts, but it seems like much of this would have been avoided if the candidates for President had to prove they fulfilled the requirements, just like every other person applying for a job in this country.
Absolutely. The people skilled enough to hack in general are not pirates. They want homebrew, a powerful development platform, etc. Linux on the PS3 gave them that. Then, once that was removed, they hacked the HECK out of the PS3 to get it back, and then the less skilled pirate hackers took what they did and finished the job, allowing piracy that likely never would have happened (or at least taken nearly until the end of the console's life-cycle) had they just left the feature there.
No, Geohot demonstrated a viable attack on the hypervisor. A contemporary report of which is here. Sony had no choice but to shut OtherOS down before the attack was refined into an ISO that people could download, burn & install on the PS3 to root the thing completely.
No choice? Huh, I could have SWORN there could be other options like "Patch the vulnerability without screwing their customers." You know, a REASONABLE response.
Maybe you should read it as well? GeoHot maybe kinda sorta found a bug, or something, that might, maybe, someday, somehow allow him to access the graphics hardware on the PS3 via OtherOS, which might, eventually, somehow, some way allow them to run pirated games via OtherOS. That was it. That's all. Nothing more. Nothing less. SCEA vs. GeoHot was about GeoHot publishing some sort of encryption key that allowed people to hack GameOS, and he did this MONTHS after OtherOS had been removed.
Yup. Because not using something you paid for is TOTALLY a legit reason for the person you bought it from taking it back. I hope you use that fire extinguisher within a few years of buying it, otherwise when you need it, you might just find that Home Depot took it back.
You guys, too?! Man, and I thought the colonies declared independence so we didn't have to follow your rules...
If you have all the time in the world, you can afford to try all the books you can buy with the money in your sofa. But if you don't, the difference between 99 cents and 7.99 isn't meaningful if the 99 cent version is far more likely to be a waste of your time.
That's the big "if," isn't it? But considering there's quite a bit of good writing that's cheap or free, and quite a bit of crap writing that's $10+, I don't see price as an indication of quality.
Plus, a good book is valuable enough to me that I'm willing to waste some hours on a few duds on the chance I'll find a good one.
There's still a big difference between trash and unreadable. At least you could potentially read to the end of the trash novel without wanting to pull your own brain out through your nose.
The stuff I had to read in my Modern American Lit class in high school begs to differ.
And, honestly, even if I do find huge amounts of crap from self-published people, that still isn't going to make me look for a publisher's mark. The degree of badness may vary, but I imagine if I got a hundred random recently published fantasy books (my favorite genre), I would put down just as many out of boredom or irritation. Especially when you look at this ridiculous obsession with hunk vampires going on right now.
So...if I never looked for one before, why would I start now? Because you tend to find the good, cheap ebooks tend to have one? I have read far too much trash that has not only been published, but published and highly praised to give a crap about a publisher's mark.
I did say Fantasy, not Sci-Fi, but I know what you mean. So, I suppose I can expand the question. Anything at all worth reading on there?
I have never in my life looked for a publisher's mark to determine if a book is good. I read the back, and with the advent of the internet, I read reviews. So, if I saw an independently published book with an interesting description but no reviews for 99 cents, I'd probably grab it because 1) I want to support self publishing and the end of the old publisher business model and 2) because, for 99 cents, so what if it's bad? I can find that much on my bedroom floor. I pay that much for a freaking cookie sometimes, and a good book lasts a lot longer than a cookie.
Perhaps you'd have a different opinion if you, say, wrote books for a living.
You mean like this girl? http://www.novelr.com/2011/02/27/rich-indie-writer
How about they...say...print fewer physical copies, then? If the number of print copies you sell is going down, don't keep printing the same quantity and then raise the price of ebooks to compensate for your bad business decision. Besides, as has been demonstrated multiple times, when you can set the price really low, doing so can get you a lot of money as it enters "impulse buy" range.
Interesting site. Anything in particular on there you'd recommend to a fan of classic fantasy (or fantasy of any type, really)?
*looks at his Incredible on which he can put any app he wants, even if he hadn't rooted the phone* *looks at the phones from other companies that prevent you from doing that* Huh, you know, it's almost like you have a [i]choice[/i] about what company to get your phone from. A choice you can make based on whether you want third party apps without rooting, if you are so inclined. So, tell me, what company can I get an Apple brand phone from that allows me to install any app I want without jailbreaking? I assume there is one because "at the core, [they] AREN'T ANY DIFFERENT," right?
How on earth did you get modded insightful? I thought slashdot was a place for nerds, you know, people who work in CAD or programming, where hardware (and to a lesser extent, software) upgrades every few years can make a HUGE difference. Also, you say DOS still works as well as it ever did (completely ignoring the fact that "as well as it ever did" is leagues behind what we have now), but as you bring in new people, can you imagine trying to teach someone who has only every worked in Windows XP to use DOS? Or going from AutoCAD 2011 to AutoCAD R12? Why would you want to spend days or weeks training every new employee to use your out of date crap setup, when you can just do a basic upgrade and safely assume that anyone qualified for the position will know how to use it?
But buying a new hammer wouldn't have cut the time it took him to remove it from his bag in half. That said, the GP is correct, but misses the point. The point is, upgrades can improve the productivity of a productive worker who knows how to use the upgrades. Some people would be lost if they were given a second monitor, others who know how to make good use of it would flourish. Of course, a good worker will not say "The reason I suck is my hardware," they will say "I can do my job even better with better hardware, and this is why."
True, but torrenting is far from the only way to download backup copies. Usenet, rapidshare (and the like), and IRC just to name a few examples of ways that don't cause you to share the files with others. Despite that, I still would not count on that being viewed as legit fair use in court.
I think, technically, he's in his right to make a backup of his copy. Downloading the movie is a backup of a different copy. Now, yes, it is complete bullcrap, but I believe that was how the music industry got that one service killed, MP3.com, I think. The one where you inserted your disk, it scanned it, and then it gave you streaming access to the copies of the songs from that CD on their servers. As I recall, the music industry got them shut down using the argument that while you are allowed to backup and stream your own disks, in this case, you were using backups and streaming someone else's disk, even though they were the exact same disk. So I wouldn't be so sure that you're safe to download a copy if you own the disk. I do welcome corrections if I am wrong, though.