Except there's nothing stopping the publishers from opening up their own website to sell ebooks. The barrier to entry isn't that high. Offer them for less than Amazon, with a good user experience and people will flock to it. ie. Pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap.
Or are you saying that Amazon has forced them into 'Most favoured nation' clauses where they aren't allowed to sell for lower than Amazon? (Like Apple did, which _was_ anticompetitive)
I think Amazon&Kindle is great for finding authors, especially self-published authors that I'd never have found otherwise. Or even new books from authors I do like - because I'm not going to sign up to 100 newsletters to find out when the next book is. Sure, quite a bit of self-published stuff is dross, but the 10% sample feature (usually) allows me to weed them out. I can understand that other people may have different points of view and find the occasional typo, grammatical error or bad typesetting upsettings. But OTOH, self-pub is often less than 50% of the price of a traditional book, and when you read ~150 books a year, that makes a difference.
No, but it's government procurement - small companies or one man bands don't have the paper power to be able to jump through all the hurdles. And even if they did, they would get hounded relentlessly by the anti-DP people. I suggest import from Africa.
Remote control the guns, and let random people on the internet bid to be the one who gets to pull the trigger? I'm guessing they would be the same people who get off watching beheading videos.
It would be hard to find a modern citizen without psychological problems who could stomach a guillotine.
...So use a guy with mental problems? Maybe even an inmate. Or does the idea of a person enjoying their job make you feel weird?
(Note that I'm generally against the death penalty due to the large numbers of posthumous pardons. But if a convict chooses to die, I'm not against assisted suicide.)
The smart ones go into law and politics.... Where you can buy, bamboozle or masonic handshake your way out of your crimes....or even retrospectively make it legal.
The commentary tracks are the only reason that I buy DVD/BDs. It means that I'll at least watch it twice. They aren't included in pirate rips....and more and more often they aren't included any more on the optical formats either, because "commentary doesn't sell discs' apparently. While I can't say 'No Commentary, no Sale", it's a _very_ high priority as to whether I'll pay more than GBP5 for a disc.
Or those numbers were for deep cover operations that shouldn't be disrupted by being raided randomly by other govt agencies. Thanks evil ethical developer, you just risked federal agents lives.
The flaw in the Riddle is in the assumptions. That "Evil" is a definable thing that everyone can agree on. What is evil to me may not be evil to you which may not be evil to God. If you stub your toe, is that evil? Should God have stopped you? Or would it be more evil to prevent your temporary pain because they you wouldn't learn not to do silly things? Or are you only defining certain bad things as evil? Say genocide, torture, rape, and murder? Because if all those things never existed, all that would do is change the goalposts so that thievery, vandalism and bad language were now the height of evil. Remove them also and things like being ugly, stupid and unwashed are now the height of evil?
Should God wait upon you hand and foot, serving your every whim and desire, preventing any pain of any kind because not to, you would consider evil? Or would the greater evil be that self same bubble wrapping where you never leave the womb, never to learn, never to grow, never to mature?
My favourite for one reason - the Enterprise finally get seatbelts! Seriously, did they get rid of all Health and Safety regulations in the future? How many minor injuries could have been avoided if they'd buckled up!
Not in the Star Trek universe, no. The computer is never allowed to make suggestions even though it almost always knows the answer if the crew just asks. And the Self-Destruct....just no. I think I'd rather go for being a Replicator in the Stargate universe....just a little smarter and realizing that as a machine I could just go colonize some planets that the carbon based lifeforms don't care about.
Because the person they hired for that job lied on their CV and at interview to get the job, and if they lied on their CV about having a certain specific set of skills, they *shock* may well have lied about lots of other things. So now they put the job back up, maybe asking the other interviewees is they are still available. Still not realizing that by having such a specific set of requirements, almost noone is qualified and the few people who are, aren't going to settle for the wage offered. And so everyone who does pass the filter is a liar, only ever interviewing liars....And then complain loudly how hard it is to get any good engineers.
Actually, before Apple, the publishers were making exactly the same amount of profit, because they were selling them at a fixed price to the retailers. However, Amazon was quite happy with a ~2% profit margin, and so were selling ebooks quite cheaply. But this could give an impression that books were not as valuable as the publishers would like, and so were quite happy to collude with Apple when they wanted their 30% profit.
This impression of value is why garment labels hate grey imports. The market will bear $100 labelled jeans even though it only costs them $8 to make, _if_ there is an impression of exclusivity/value. But this impression is broken when a grey market seller decides to sell the same product for $50 - the same price as a lower tier label.
We'd use drones then too. The BAU would be scanning eye movements and microgestures of the opponent. The NSA generate a mental model simulating the opponent. The CIA would drug the opponent and kidnap his family. The TSA would anally probe them entering the country. And NASA would move the board to the moon....actually, that last one wouldn't be a bad thing.
Is that related to the spherical cow? Did they ever get those cylindrical cats (aka bonsai kittens) to breed? Scientists are hunting for the tetrahedral camels as we speak.
Sure, if 6 billion people jumped off a cliff, I'd jump too. Just me jumping is pointless as I'd be replaced in 2 seconds.
Sure we can produce enough food _now_ for everyone. But what about then the population hits 15 billion? And more importantly, what happens when we run out of oil and other non-renewable resources? Last I checked, without non-renewables, we could only support about 1 billion people. Maybe with advances in tech we might be able to support 2 or even 3 billion in the future.
I guess you're really hoping that fusion power solves our energy problems huh?
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Except there's nothing stopping the publishers from opening up their own website to sell ebooks.
The barrier to entry isn't that high.
Offer them for less than Amazon, with a good user experience and people will flock to it.
ie. Pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap.
Or are you saying that Amazon has forced them into 'Most favoured nation' clauses where they aren't allowed to sell for lower than Amazon? (Like Apple did, which _was_ anticompetitive)
I think Amazon&Kindle is great for finding authors, especially self-published authors that I'd never have found otherwise. Or even new books from authors I do like - because I'm not going to sign up to 100 newsletters to find out when the next book is.
Sure, quite a bit of self-published stuff is dross, but the 10% sample feature (usually) allows me to weed them out.
I can understand that other people may have different points of view and find the occasional typo, grammatical error or bad typesetting upsettings.
But OTOH, self-pub is often less than 50% of the price of a traditional book, and when you read ~150 books a year, that makes a difference.
No, but it's government procurement - small companies or one man bands don't have the paper power to be able to jump through all the hurdles.
And even if they did, they would get hounded relentlessly by the anti-DP people.
I suggest import from Africa.
Remote control the guns, and let random people on the internet bid to be the one who gets to pull the trigger?
I'm guessing they would be the same people who get off watching beheading videos.
Too messy. Someone has to clean that up...
Criminals have had that problem solved since the start - position executee next to grave, shoot in head, body falls in, fill in hole.
It would be hard to find a modern citizen without psychological problems who could stomach a guillotine.
...So use a guy with mental problems? Maybe even an inmate. Or does the idea of a person enjoying their job make you feel weird?
(Note that I'm generally against the death penalty due to the large numbers of posthumous pardons. But if a convict chooses to die, I'm not against assisted suicide.)
Especially the double-tap to the head. Gotta make sure.
The smart ones go into law and politics.... ...or even retrospectively make it legal.
Where you can buy, bamboozle or masonic handshake your way out of your crimes.
More than just a solution for overpopulation.
The commentary tracks are the only reason that I buy DVD/BDs. It means that I'll at least watch it twice. ...and more and more often they aren't included any more on the optical formats either, because "commentary doesn't sell discs' apparently.
They aren't included in pirate rips.
While I can't say 'No Commentary, no Sale", it's a _very_ high priority as to whether I'll pay more than GBP5 for a disc.
Or those numbers were for deep cover operations that shouldn't be disrupted by being raided randomly by other govt agencies.
Thanks evil ethical developer, you just risked federal agents lives.
The flaw in the Riddle is in the assumptions.
That "Evil" is a definable thing that everyone can agree on. What is evil to me may not be evil to you which may not be evil to God.
If you stub your toe, is that evil? Should God have stopped you? Or would it be more evil to prevent your temporary pain because they you wouldn't learn not to do silly things?
Or are you only defining certain bad things as evil? Say genocide, torture, rape, and murder? Because if all those things never existed, all that would do is change the goalposts so that thievery, vandalism and bad language were now the height of evil. Remove them also and things like being ugly, stupid and unwashed are now the height of evil?
Should God wait upon you hand and foot, serving your every whim and desire, preventing any pain of any kind because not to, you would consider evil?
Or would the greater evil be that self same bubble wrapping where you never leave the womb, never to learn, never to grow, never to mature?
My favourite for one reason - the Enterprise finally get seatbelts! Seriously, did they get rid of all Health and Safety regulations in the future? How many minor injuries could have been avoided if they'd buckled up!
Defined and Static? You've not worked for a govt project then?
...to my house.
I'd have to buy a chest freezer to fit all the meat, but a whole cow would last me 6 months.
Currently it's _new_ connections or connection switchers that have it turned on by default.
Others will have it turned on next year sometime.
If he was smarter....then he wouldn't have needed to get out of the exam.
Not in the Star Trek universe, no. The computer is never allowed to make suggestions even though it almost always knows the answer if the crew just asks.
And the Self-Destruct....just no.
I think I'd rather go for being a Replicator in the Stargate universe....just a little smarter and realizing that as a machine I could just go colonize some planets that the carbon based lifeforms don't care about.
Because the person they hired for that job lied on their CV and at interview to get the job, and if they lied on their CV about having a certain specific set of skills, they *shock* may well have lied about lots of other things. ...And then complain loudly how hard it is to get any good engineers.
So now they put the job back up, maybe asking the other interviewees is they are still available. Still not realizing that by having such a specific set of requirements, almost noone is qualified and the few people who are, aren't going to settle for the wage offered.
And so everyone who does pass the filter is a liar, only ever interviewing liars.
Actually, before Apple, the publishers were making exactly the same amount of profit, because they were selling them at a fixed price to the retailers.
However, Amazon was quite happy with a ~2% profit margin, and so were selling ebooks quite cheaply.
But this could give an impression that books were not as valuable as the publishers would like, and so were quite happy to collude with Apple when they wanted their 30% profit.
This impression of value is why garment labels hate grey imports. The market will bear $100 labelled jeans even though it only costs them $8 to make, _if_ there is an impression of exclusivity/value. But this impression is broken when a grey market seller decides to sell the same product for $50 - the same price as a lower tier label.
Imagine chess replacing actual war.
We'd use drones then too. ...actually, that last one wouldn't be a bad thing.
The BAU would be scanning eye movements and microgestures of the opponent.
The NSA generate a mental model simulating the opponent.
The CIA would drug the opponent and kidnap his family.
The TSA would anally probe them entering the country.
And NASA would move the board to the moon.
Is that related to the spherical cow?
Did they ever get those cylindrical cats (aka bonsai kittens) to breed?
Scientists are hunting for the tetrahedral camels as we speak.
It's that unsupervised, these things and things like it will be vandalized, stolen, and used as public toilets.
Sure, if 6 billion people jumped off a cliff, I'd jump too.
Just me jumping is pointless as I'd be replaced in 2 seconds.
Sure we can produce enough food _now_ for everyone. But what about then the population hits 15 billion?
And more importantly, what happens when we run out of oil and other non-renewable resources?
Last I checked, without non-renewables, we could only support about 1 billion people. Maybe with advances in tech we might be able to support 2 or even 3 billion in the future.
I guess you're really hoping that fusion power solves our energy problems huh?
I still buy DVDs because they are a lot cheaper and where the movie doesn't have great SFX, it's not worth it.
I use a projector instead of a TV, so I'm _really_ not going to plonk $25,000 on upgrading to 4K. Call me when it's $2500.