These are corporations, not the government; there is no "right" to free speech that's being infringed upon. Whether these are sensible approaches from the companies is a different question, of course.
... although I should note that I *do* work in marketing, as a Webmaster. But cookies really do have a great number of uses, and often provide a good amount of convenience to users without having too many pernicious uses in practice. When people who don't know better are prompted by adaware to delete all of their cookies, the net effect is more likely to be frustration than anything--people don't tend to remember their passwords, for example, so being "forgotten" by some sites is likely to be a pain.
And while cookies might be used to 'serve up targeted ads', it seems to me that if you're going to be served ads *anyhow* then you might as well see things that might be of interest to you...
Funnily enough, this is precisely why I've radically cut down on the number of purchases I make of music on CD. When the music itself can be purchased in a digital format, I find it difficult to countenance the purchase of a CD that will, sooner or later, wind up a landfill (cd cases etc. inclusive). Now, yes, there's something nice about having the physical medium - particularly for things like cd booklets etc. - but then I figure that most of these things wind up sitting in my CD folders, ignored, a few days after I buy them.
For the music fan, I suspect that the true appeal of the physical media lies in being able to establish oneself as a true music snob: having hundreds to thousands of CDs (or records!) is a far greater statement than is having gigabytes of mp3s....
Your argument presupposes that 'free' in Linux refers to price. It doesn't. There are other, more important reasons to run the OS than low cost of entry.
With all of the complexities involved in determining what the top questions are, the obvious issue is: who will be counting up the votes as to the top question?
And who will be disenfranchised?
Let's just hope that some competent, open, responsible and honest system is in place to tally everything up. Has anyone considered Diebold?
I don't understand the distinction you make between "how [the way in which] something is said contributes towards a goal" and "what it means or how it was stated".. surely these are usually one and the same thing, for the novellist as for the technical writer?
That the mechanisms good writers use in creating prose may be subconscious and automatic doesn't mean that those mechanisms don't exist.. I'd say that the best writers are often those with the firmest grasp of their medium, and I don't hold much stock in those who believe that "what you have to say" is more important than--or even especially distinct from--"how you say it".
At any rate, I suspect that we're in agreement here.. but it seems that "a series of concise, actionable statements" isn't necessarily a long way away from what can be considered literature -- especially if we consider Robbe-Grillet..:)
Where is the "misfortune" in, say, a good bad pun? In any number of Monty Python jokes, for those so inclined -- or, better yet, in half the League of Gentlemen sketches (which certainly do eke humour from other emotions, but rarely from a sense of misfortune)?
Q: What's brown and sticky? A: A stick.
Not everything is a "coping mechanism for dealing with bad things". Cheer up.
Your use of "anymore" -- a compound word whose use is unorthodox but generally accepted -- is a good example of the way in which the English language is a fluid, changing thing. And the Internet has played its part in this. And since written language in particular has generally followed attempts to codify spoken language, it shouldn't be too surprising - or too disturbing - when its use by greater numbers of people leads to changes in linguistic trends. And, after all, the average reader would probably have a harder time reading Chaucer than he or she would reading a blog or an IRC channel.
That's not to say that careless language is a good thing, of course; but we should be careful when it comes to railing too much against different usage of language on the basis that it's "incorrect".
Kinda funny that first clicking on the story brought up "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.".. perhaps the/. editors have experienced this web cam worm thing first-hand and are.. covering up, so to speak?
On second thoughts, no.. let's not even go there. *shudder*
Sure, there're some open-source options out there, but until the big players take up Linux then at least one of my machines will always need to run Windows (or I could get a Mac, I suppose). If it were possible to use a sequencer with decent audio and MIDI, and to run VST plugins/instruments/etc. on Linux.. that'd be fab. But until then, Windows is a necessary evil for me.
.. because they can't get it. They don't have the capacity for it. Whatever this guy's resume says, it's clear as soon as he starts using inane terms like 'monetize', and when he pulls out the TCO argument that MS loves to flaunt but seems unable to justify independently, that he's just another blind marketing goon toeing the Microsoft line without any real understanding.
These people will never understand what's happening because they don't have any context for it. I mean - come on: citing the lack of a "lockdown, hardened firewall" as the area in which Microsoft is lacking when it comes to security merely demonstrates a lack of understanding of the extent of Microsoft's failings in this area. The assertion that a large peer-review process doesn't "guarantee a level of quality" supposes that those working on Linux are a group of monkeys -- although Taylor then goes on to basically contradict himself by saying "the end of the day, there are only about 14 to 25 guys that actually check code into the Linux kernel".
Microsoft will continue to try to marginalise Linux by suggesting that it's just "edge services" or "high-performance computing" (Windows is for "low performance" by implication, I guess!) - while pushing out the same hackneyed old nonsense about "hamburgers and bigmacs" and TCO. The only alternative to them, of course, is the true -- but rather circular -- argument, that Windows has supremacy because it's what most people use (and never mind the monopoly stuff). And it's here that Microsoft will eventually fall: once enough of the "key players" port to Linux in a variety of fields, we're going to see a critical mass as Linux becomes considered a "real platform" in the eyes of the masses. And Microsoft's tactics in trying to hold off that day simply don't seem to be working too well.
Your reasoning is flawed. "Revenue per customer" is a rather meaningless term, for starters; at any rate, you are again falling into the trap of believing that companies are not aiming to *maximize profit* - which means selling their products at the price point before that at which they see a greater proportionate drop in sales. In other words: If product x costs $10, and five people buy it, and raising the price to $11 means only forty four people will buy it, then the price hitch is a *bad* thing for the company, since they will *lose* revenue by hiking the price. If raising the price to $11 will *still* have 5 people buying the product, then it makes sense for the company to raise the price. This is true whether or not people are pirating the product; indeed, it's *especially* true when people are pirating the product because it means that the price point that people will bear is generally *lower*, since people figure "oh, if it gets too expensive we'll just pirate it (as you say). Now, what piracy *may* do is to lead companies to go out of business because they can no longer sell their software at an adequate profit - but this is *not* the same thing as saying "piracy leads to higher prices".
No. Even if Adobe loses customers as a result of piracy, the implication that you draw - that they will therefore raise prices in order to recoup revenue - is an illogical one. Unless you believe Adobe are selling their product for the common good, rather than as a means of making money, then the price point at which they sell their product is that at which they will make the most profit.
Let's say ten people are buying Photoshop at $300. Then someone pirates the next version, and five of the ten people decide to use the pirated version rather than to upgrade; the other five upgrade. Now, what you're saying is that Adobe would raise the price of the software - let's say to $600 - in order to compensate for the lost revenue due to piracy. But if we go with the assumption that the five buyers are willing to bear this cost, then it therefore follows that those people would have been willing to pay $600 from the start, irrespective of piracy: therefore, Adobe should (and would) have been charging $600 right from the beginning.
Software piracy should not in any sane universe lead to increases in price. The only way in which I can see that they *may* is that they shift consumer perception: people are so duped into believing that software piracy *is* to blame for higher costs ("oh, those poor software companies - I can understand why they're charging me more, now") that their standards change in terms of what they're willing to pay.
You are mistaken (although the gist of your question was fair enough). The Republic of Ireland (i.e. the South) is categorically *not* a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland, however, *is*.
And again we have the bizarre assertion that people pirating software leads to increased software prices. How can this possibly be true? If high software prices mean that the revenue loss to the company from people electing not to buy the company is lower than the revenue gain to the company from the increased costs, the company should *lower* the price of the software. This is true irrespective of whether people are pirating the software.
The anti-piracy crusaders really need to stop pushing their bogus economics - software isn't expensive because people pirate it: it's expensive because software companies like making money.
Re:Why review only the beta version?
on
Mplayer Revisited
·
· Score: 1
That's nice. But it's also an answer to the _opposite_ of the question that was asked.
I think it depends on the application (in every sense of the word), as well as on a multitude of other factors including vendor lock-in, expectations, etc. But I think that the move towards better user interfaces by users is generally a part of a reactive process: until users are shown a better option, they take what's given to them - or whatever parts of it that they understand. Most people can handle a VCR, but few bother to set the clock. I'm not saying that UI design isn't important - and I think it is beneficial. And of course it depends on the extent to which an application is poorly designed - if it's truly awful then, yes, users may reject it. But if it's merely mediocre, and if users are used to, say, the Microsoft Word brand, then they're unlikely to spend the time looking for an alternative. And in the case of things like web sites, it seems that many users -- particularly non-technical users -- would prefer to look at a pretty screen that they can't quite figure out than an ugly one that they can.
In fact, I think there's an interesting relationship between technical knowhow and willingness to suffer a poor interface: I suspect that to many truly non-technical users, it's all 'magic' anyhow and they will put up with whatever's offered them because they don't expect anything better - and yet these are the users whom decent GUI design would most benefit. More experienced users, if they're not already inured to the horrors of bad interface design, will be more able and apt to look for alternatives when given a poorly usable design.
Still, consider that many users - even technical ones - still care more about things like "skinability" (which tends to lead to truly awful usability) than much else.
Slashdot Mirror
These are corporations, not the government; there is no "right" to free speech that's being infringed upon. Whether these are sensible approaches from the companies is a different question, of course.
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/rejigger
Say what? "Adverbs of do"?
Do they not teach you what an adverb is in "grammar school"?
If you're visiting MY Web site, shouldn't you abide by my rules for visiting it?
... although I should note that I *do* work in marketing, as a Webmaster. But cookies really do have a great number of uses, and often provide a good amount of convenience to users without having too many pernicious uses in practice. When people who don't know better are prompted by adaware to delete all of their cookies, the net effect is more likely to be frustration than anything--people don't tend to remember their passwords, for example, so being "forgotten" by some sites is likely to be a pain.
And while cookies might be used to 'serve up targeted ads', it seems to me that if you're going to be served ads *anyhow* then you might as well see things that might be of interest to you...
Actually, 'do you mean' is entirely acceptable, in English. "Do you mean by your sentence to say that [so-and-so]."
Glad I could help.
It's time you read some usage notes... or just learned English. ;)
That's not what irony is, though.
It's ironic that, in railing against the irony police, you provide an example of why we need 'em.
Actually, that wouldn't be ironic.
Funnily enough, this is precisely why I've radically cut down on the number of purchases I make of music on CD. When the music itself can be purchased in a digital format, I find it difficult to countenance the purchase of a CD that will, sooner or later, wind up a landfill (cd cases etc. inclusive). Now, yes, there's something nice about having the physical medium - particularly for things like cd booklets etc. - but then I figure that most of these things wind up sitting in my CD folders, ignored, a few days after I buy them.
For the music fan, I suspect that the true appeal of the physical media lies in being able to establish oneself as a true music snob: having hundreds to thousands of CDs (or records!) is a far greater statement than is having gigabytes of mp3s....
Your argument presupposes that 'free' in Linux refers to price. It doesn't. There are other, more important reasons to run the OS than low cost of entry.
With all of the complexities involved in determining what the top questions are, the obvious issue is: who will be counting up the votes as to the top question?
And who will be disenfranchised?
Let's just hope that some competent, open, responsible and honest system is in place to tally everything up. Has anyone considered Diebold?
I don't understand the distinction you make between "how [the way in which] something is said contributes towards a goal" and "what it means or how it was stated".. surely these are usually one and the same thing, for the novellist as for the technical writer?
:)
That the mechanisms good writers use in creating prose may be subconscious and automatic doesn't mean that those mechanisms don't exist.. I'd say that the best writers are often those with the firmest grasp of their medium, and I don't hold much stock in those who believe that "what you have to say" is more important than--or even especially distinct from--"how you say it".
At any rate, I suspect that we're in agreement here.. but it seems that "a series of concise, actionable statements" isn't necessarily a long way away from what can be considered literature -- especially if we consider Robbe-Grillet..
Where is the "misfortune" in, say, a good bad pun? In any number of Monty Python jokes, for those so inclined -- or, better yet, in half the League of Gentlemen sketches (which certainly do eke humour from other emotions, but rarely from a sense of misfortune)?
Q: What's brown and sticky?
A: A stick.
Not everything is a "coping mechanism for dealing with bad things". Cheer up.
Your use of "anymore" -- a compound word whose use is unorthodox but generally accepted -- is a good example of the way in which the English language is a fluid, changing thing. And the Internet has played its part in this. And since written language in particular has generally followed attempts to codify spoken language, it shouldn't be too surprising - or too disturbing - when its use by greater numbers of people leads to changes in linguistic trends. And, after all, the average reader would probably have a harder time reading Chaucer than he or she would reading a blog or an IRC channel.
That's not to say that careless language is a good thing, of course; but we should be careful when it comes to railing too much against different usage of language on the basis that it's "incorrect".
Kinda funny that first clicking on the story brought up "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along." .. perhaps the /. editors have experienced this web cam worm thing first-hand and are.. covering up, so to speak?
On second thoughts, no.. let's not even go there. *shudder*
Sure, there're some open-source options out there, but until the big players take up Linux then at least one of my machines will always need to run Windows (or I could get a Mac, I suppose). If it were possible to use a sequencer with decent audio and MIDI, and to run VST plugins/instruments/etc. on Linux.. that'd be fab. But until then, Windows is a necessary evil for me.
.. because they can't get it. They don't have the capacity for it. Whatever this guy's resume says, it's clear as soon as he starts using inane terms like 'monetize', and when he pulls out the TCO argument that MS loves to flaunt but seems unable to justify independently, that he's just another blind marketing goon toeing the Microsoft line without any real understanding.
These people will never understand what's happening because they don't have any context for it. I mean - come on: citing the lack of a "lockdown, hardened firewall" as the area in which Microsoft is lacking when it comes to security merely demonstrates a lack of understanding of the extent of Microsoft's failings in this area. The assertion that a large peer-review process doesn't "guarantee a level of quality" supposes that those working on Linux are a group of monkeys -- although Taylor then goes on to basically contradict himself by saying "the end of the day, there are only about 14 to 25 guys that actually check code into the Linux kernel".
Microsoft will continue to try to marginalise Linux by suggesting that it's just "edge services" or "high-performance computing" (Windows is for "low performance" by implication, I guess!) - while pushing out the same hackneyed old nonsense about "hamburgers and bigmacs" and TCO. The only alternative to them, of course, is the true -- but rather circular -- argument, that Windows has supremacy because it's what most people use (and never mind the monopoly stuff). And it's here that Microsoft will eventually fall: once enough of the "key players" port to Linux in a variety of fields, we're going to see a critical mass as Linux becomes considered a "real platform" in the eyes of the masses. And Microsoft's tactics in trying to hold off that day simply don't seem to be working too well.
With apologies if it's been posted before..
The Prior-Art-O-Matic
Your reasoning is flawed. "Revenue per customer" is a rather meaningless term, for starters; at any rate, you are again falling into the trap of believing that companies are not aiming to *maximize profit* - which means selling their products at the price point before that at which they see a greater proportionate drop in sales. In other words: If product x costs $10, and five people buy it, and raising the price to $11 means only forty four people will buy it, then the price hitch is a *bad* thing for the company, since they will *lose* revenue by hiking the price. If raising the price to $11 will *still* have 5 people buying the product, then it makes sense for the company to raise the price. This is true whether or not people are pirating the product; indeed, it's *especially* true when people are pirating the product because it means that the price point that people will bear is generally *lower*, since people figure "oh, if it gets too expensive we'll just pirate it (as you say). Now, what piracy *may* do is to lead companies to go out of business because they can no longer sell their software at an adequate profit - but this is *not* the same thing as saying "piracy leads to higher prices".
No. Even if Adobe loses customers as a result of piracy, the implication that you draw - that they will therefore raise prices in order to recoup revenue - is an illogical one. Unless you believe Adobe are selling their product for the common good, rather than as a means of making money, then the price point at which they sell their product is that at which they will make the most profit.
Let's say ten people are buying Photoshop at $300. Then someone pirates the next version, and five of the ten people decide to use the pirated version rather than to upgrade; the other five upgrade. Now, what you're saying is that Adobe would raise the price of the software - let's say to $600 - in order to compensate for the lost revenue due to piracy. But if we go with the assumption that the five buyers are willing to bear this cost, then it therefore follows that those people would have been willing to pay $600 from the start, irrespective of piracy: therefore, Adobe should (and would) have been charging $600 right from the beginning.
Software piracy should not in any sane universe lead to increases in price. The only way in which I can see that they *may* is that they shift consumer perception: people are so duped into believing that software piracy *is* to blame for higher costs ("oh, those poor software companies - I can understand why they're charging me more, now") that their standards change in terms of what they're willing to pay.
You are mistaken (although the gist of your question was fair enough). The Republic of Ireland (i.e. the South) is categorically *not* a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland, however, *is*.
And again we have the bizarre assertion that people pirating software leads to increased software prices. How can this possibly be true? If high software prices mean that the revenue loss to the company from people electing not to buy the company is lower than the revenue gain to the company from the increased costs, the company should *lower* the price of the software. This is true irrespective of whether people are pirating the software.
The anti-piracy crusaders really need to stop pushing their bogus economics - software isn't expensive because people pirate it: it's expensive because software companies like making money.
That's nice. But it's also an answer to the _opposite_ of the question that was asked.
I think it depends on the application (in every sense of the word), as well as on a multitude of other factors including vendor lock-in, expectations, etc. But I think that the move towards better user interfaces by users is generally a part of a reactive process: until users are shown a better option, they take what's given to them - or whatever parts of it that they understand. Most people can handle a VCR, but few bother to set the clock. I'm not saying that UI design isn't important - and I think it is beneficial. And of course it depends on the extent to which an application is poorly designed - if it's truly awful then, yes, users may reject it. But if it's merely mediocre, and if users are used to, say, the Microsoft Word brand, then they're unlikely to spend the time looking for an alternative. And in the case of things like web sites, it seems that many users -- particularly non-technical users -- would prefer to look at a pretty screen that they can't quite figure out than an ugly one that they can.
In fact, I think there's an interesting relationship between technical knowhow and willingness to suffer a poor interface: I suspect that to many truly non-technical users, it's all 'magic' anyhow and they will put up with whatever's offered them because they don't expect anything better - and yet these are the users whom decent GUI design would most benefit. More experienced users, if they're not already inured to the horrors of bad interface design, will be more able and apt to look for alternatives when given a poorly usable design.
Still, consider that many users - even technical ones - still care more about things like "skinability" (which tends to lead to truly awful usability) than much else.