Unfortunately, many other goverments routinely import US solutions, mostly the bad ones. So if something stupid is invented in your country, the disease soon propagates to my country.
I think it was revenue rather than profits, as there are many ways to have artificially low profits - and a fine based on these would not deter a corporation...
Back then "state of the art" was much less demanding. You didn't need CD quality music (anyway, there was no CD yet;-)), hundreds of textures, 10000-poly models, etc etc.
Unless you're an IT company, IT is a loss. IT sucks profits from the company.
Ooooh I love these words.
Let's see... Accounting is a loss, they don't bring money. Logistics is a loss... Management... well, it's a money pit also... Customer support? Waste of money. Cleaning staff... Yeah, only sales is profit - so let's fire all these moneysuckers! The company shall the flourish like never before. Right?
I still remember "satellite outage table" posted at the Warsaw University - they had a satellite link, but the actual satellite had some solar cells broken and would go offline unless properly lighted by sun.
When I moved to Poland, back in 1994 I think, it was all automatic (dial a number on the phone, it would connect you).
Mostly - unless you went to some godforsaken rural area, where manual switches were still in use. Last ones decomissioned about 2004. Larger cities had it mostly automatic much earlier.
But a little further down the line, perhaps 5-10 years for the things I can think of off the top of my head, the public always win. The next big swing I'm expecting is for DRM, when the public start to realise that they've been had.
That's what I mean by "it must get worse before it gets better". Until there is widespread, and I mean really widespread, not just geeks but significant portion of the society in general, movement to get rid of the idiocy, nothing will change. And that may happen only after people realize that they've been had. Not a day sooner.
So the worse it gets, the sooner they will notice something is wrong. To that end I propose 25 to life for downloading Hollywood movies or rap MP3s;-)
You will probably be still able to. Except not having money to pay for PremiumIP(r) that allows transfers from your hosts to exceed 1kbps, having to put your personal data all over the site to discourage Terrorism(tm) (and encourage stalkers), I'm sure they can invent some other niceties to discourage - but not ban (that pesky 1st amendment) - anything not sanctioned by big money.
There is a concerted effort to turn the internet into cable television.
I'm having doubts that it is really a coordinated attack, yet it is clear that corporations want complete control of the internet. This may be not a conspiracy, but rather them having similar plans and simply wanting the net for themselves, where trampling of the users is a prelude before fight between the megacorps. There can be only a few;-)
This is not the worst part IMHO. Really bad is the fact, that people in general (aka "the masses") do not see this grab for control. The internet as we know it is dying, because no one sees it's getting sick.
Like with political dictatorships, "it has to get worse before it gets better". Until it actually bites them in the ass, people will not care. So, I welcome our new corporate overlords, modem tax overlords, *AA overlords - come here, fuck it up and be quick about it! Maybe then the masses will notice. Maybe. Lets hope so.
I personally don't, but you should ask around Lucent or Avaya, I think they have. But hurry before Bell Labs are razed to make space for a new golf field for the board & CEO.
Also Lucent (BCS, later Avaya) had softphone application (though working with their PBX only) back then. It was quite crappy piece of software, but it did have all the features mentioned. It could work both VoIP (proprietary) or forwarding to actual phone.
What you are suggesting is good old-fashioned forcible redistribution. That never works out well.
That very much depends on how it is done.
And there is a good way to do it, without taking away the choice. Just make it not a regular tax on internet access, but a sort of indemnity plan, where people would sign up (via their ISP) if they want to have legal downloads/sharing. So the ISP would have to run a two-tiered service, one with the plan and oune without - that's not a big deal, they have the infrastructure already - and they would get some share to keep it up.
What's more, once it's legal, the p2p software could even do reporting on what's being downloaded, so the money could be accurately divided.
All that's needed is a will to change. We'll have that soon after the pigs learn to fly. Real soon now...
You can be a (suspected) terrorist too. Nowadays, anyone can be. Only after you spend your time in Gitmo (if you're lucky) or Egyptian secret police dungeons (if you're not so lucky) and they fail to "interrogate" confession from you, you become a (suspected) non-terrorist.
I don't think lusers would understand the issue. Rather they'll be saying "oh fuck this computer thingy crap is broken again I musta have done something wrong" and paying again:-(
I'm really not sure that's true. Certainly in the current climate oif short term investment outlook and focus on short term growth it is true, but I really doubt it is true in general.
That's the point. The management does not believe in necessity of having any long term plans, because they have set themselves up for short term profit. So why should they bother? If they drive the company into ground by losing the edge, they still get their millions for a parting gift and go on to destroy something else. Do you think McGinn, who nearly destroyed Lucent, got any trouble for that? No, he got a fat bonus and a farewell party.
If they build a better foundation for the company, what they get for that? Nothing, no bonus, no recognition. Or even scolding by the investors, that the money was spend on some stupid things like research.
Apparently, she forgot to add "We're doing that for some time already, and while we do not expect any progress, the budgets are balanced nicely by eliminating useless shit like research.".
The death of Bell Labs started right after AT&T was dismembered. While that might be good for many reasons, none of the resulting companies really wanted that kind of R&D. It was kept, but the time has come to reduce the birthplace of transistor (among other discoveries) to another corporate R&D dept, working on introducing bugs to be fixed in next paid release.
Her words are just official confirmation of the process that is nearing the end.
That's not to say there won't be good things coming out of that - maybe they'll finally sack that idiot who sets DEL to be interrupt key by default.
As long as they can "settle without admitting wrongdoing" and utilize other cop-out schemes, this behavior will continue.
Besides, there needs to be personal responsibility. Like EU is trying to implement - not only can company be fined (which helps nothing), also person that made the illega decision can be personally punished. Only then there will be some restraint.
Once they have judgement declaring allofmp3 illegal - quite possible they'll get it - they can sue banks issuing credit cards for contributory infringement (or whatever it's called legally) and make them block customers from paying.
IANAL so I don't know how that would be done exactly, but the possibility is there.
Aside from possibility of some SNAFU where thousands of paying customers get shafted because of some minor incompatibility or the PR nightmare when word-of-mouth goes around the world saying "beware! windows will shut down on you!" (tactfully omitting the "pirated" part) - it's a great idea. It will surely hit the illegal users hard, just like activation did...
I wonder what happens if some keygen generates the same key as a honest customer has. My bet so far would be on "all copies with suspect key are deactivated".
Anyway, I don't think this will drive significant number of users towards Linux. Linux is still niche on the desktop side (dire lack of games and other unproductivity software) and Linus' stance towards drivers isn't helping. Rather a good chance for Apple.
The time I spend correcting typos is dwarfed by the time I spend thinking about what I want to type.
Indeed, when I type, the limits on speed are not from the ability to hit the keys but rather from the fact, that I'm not copying someone's memo mindlessly. All this "I can type without looking" or "I can type gazillion WPM" etc are successes in the useless skill of mindless text copying. Something fit for the dumb secretary. Or the OCR program.
I almost bought it over Steam. Since I live in Poland, that would be $20 + 22% tax. Comes out to $24,20.
Funny(?) thing is, it's available for about $19.50 as a physical DVD package in the game section of the offline shops. Something is not right here... I mean, online distribution was supposed to be cheaper, right?
Anyway, the concept of episodic releases isn't bad. The pricing is. Whole HL2 was IIRC about $50 here. This episode doesn't have comparable amount of fun that would really justify the price.
Sin "ep1" was worth the price since it did contain refereshed Sin1 game as a bonus. That old stuff made it up for the deficiences in the "ep1".
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, many other goverments routinely import US solutions, mostly the bad ones. So if something stupid is invented in your country, the disease soon propagates to my country.
I think it was revenue rather than profits, as there are many ways to have artificially low profits - and a fine based on these would not deter a corporation...
Back then "state of the art" was much less demanding. You didn't need CD quality music (anyway, there was no CD yet ;-)), hundreds of textures, 10000-poly models, etc etc.
Nowadays, try releasing without that...
Ooooh I love these words.
Let's see... Accounting is a loss, they don't bring money. Logistics is a loss... Management... well, it's a money pit also... Customer support? Waste of money. Cleaning staff... Yeah, only sales is profit - so let's fire all these moneysuckers! The company shall the flourish like never before. Right?
Another useful idea bent out of shape.
Unless you use these $1950 (or "better") cables or magic stones, that is...
I still remember "satellite outage table" posted at the Warsaw University - they had a satellite link, but the actual satellite had some solar cells broken and would go offline unless properly lighted by sun.
Mostly - unless you went to some godforsaken rural area, where manual switches were still in use. Last ones decomissioned about 2004. Larger cities had it mostly automatic much earlier.
That's what I mean by "it must get worse before it gets better". Until there is widespread, and I mean really widespread, not just geeks but significant portion of the society in general, movement to get rid of the idiocy, nothing will change. And that may happen only after people realize that they've been had. Not a day sooner.
So the worse it gets, the sooner they will notice something is wrong. To that end I propose 25 to life for downloading Hollywood movies or rap MP3s
You will probably be still able to. Except not having money to pay for PremiumIP(r) that allows transfers from your hosts to exceed 1kbps, having to put your personal data all over the site to discourage Terrorism(tm) (and encourage stalkers), I'm sure they can invent some other niceties to discourage - but not ban (that pesky 1st amendment) - anything not sanctioned by big money.
I'm having doubts that it is really a coordinated attack, yet it is clear that corporations want complete control of the internet. This may be not a conspiracy, but rather them having similar plans and simply wanting the net for themselves, where trampling of the users is a prelude before fight between the megacorps. There can be only a few
This is not the worst part IMHO. Really bad is the fact, that people in general (aka "the masses") do not see this grab for control. The internet as we know it is dying, because no one sees it's getting sick.
Like with political dictatorships, "it has to get worse before it gets better". Until it actually bites them in the ass, people will not care. So, I welcome our new corporate overlords, modem tax overlords, *AA overlords - come here, fuck it up and be quick about it! Maybe then the masses will notice. Maybe. Lets hope so.
I personally don't, but you should ask around Lucent or Avaya, I think they have. But hurry before Bell Labs are razed to make space for a new golf field for the board & CEO.
Also Lucent (BCS, later Avaya) had softphone application (though working with their PBX only) back then. It was quite crappy piece of software, but it did have all the features mentioned. It could work both VoIP (proprietary) or forwarding to actual phone.
That very much depends on how it is done.
And there is a good way to do it, without taking away the choice. Just make it not a regular tax on internet access, but a sort of indemnity plan, where people would sign up (via their ISP) if they want to have legal downloads/sharing. So the ISP would have to run a two-tiered service, one with the plan and oune without - that's not a big deal, they have the infrastructure already - and they would get some share to keep it up.
What's more, once it's legal, the p2p software could even do reporting on what's being downloaded, so the money could be accurately divided.
All that's needed is a will to change. We'll have that soon after the pigs learn to fly. Real soon now...
You can be a (suspected) terrorist too. Nowadays, anyone can be. Only after you spend your time in Gitmo (if you're lucky) or Egyptian secret police dungeons (if you're not so lucky) and they fail to "interrogate" confession from you, you become a (suspected) non-terrorist.
Ask Mr Arar, for example...
Yeah, tell that to Noriega, he'll be most surpised to hear that theory of yours.
US Govt respects law only as much as it suits them.
Dream on...
:-(
I don't think lusers would understand the issue. Rather they'll be saying "oh fuck this computer thingy crap is broken again I musta have done something wrong" and paying again
Microsoft Shills Ass. of America?
That's the point. The management does not believe in necessity of having any long term plans, because they have set themselves up for short term profit. So why should they bother? If they drive the company into ground by losing the edge, they still get their millions for a parting gift and go on to destroy something else. Do you think McGinn, who nearly destroyed Lucent, got any trouble for that? No, he got a fat bonus and a farewell party.
If they build a better foundation for the company, what they get for that? Nothing, no bonus, no recognition. Or even scolding by the investors, that the money was spend on some stupid things like research.
They go where the money is. Nothing surprising.
Apparently, she forgot to add "We're doing that for some time already, and while we do not expect any progress, the budgets are balanced nicely by eliminating useless shit like research.".
The death of Bell Labs started right after AT&T was dismembered. While that might be good for many reasons, none of the resulting companies really wanted that kind of R&D. It was kept, but the time has come to reduce the birthplace of transistor (among other discoveries) to another corporate R&D dept, working on introducing bugs to be fixed in next paid release.
Her words are just official confirmation of the process that is nearing the end.
That's not to say there won't be good things coming out of that - maybe they'll finally sack that idiot who sets DEL to be interrupt key by default.
As long as they can "settle without admitting wrongdoing" and utilize other cop-out schemes, this behavior will continue.
Besides, there needs to be personal responsibility. Like EU is trying to implement - not only can company be fined (which helps nothing), also person that made the illega decision can be personally punished. Only then there will be some restraint.
No need to.
Once they have judgement declaring allofmp3 illegal - quite possible they'll get it - they can sue banks issuing credit cards for contributory infringement (or whatever it's called legally) and make them block customers from paying.
IANAL so I don't know how that would be done exactly, but the possibility is there.
Yes...
Aside from possibility of some SNAFU where thousands of paying customers get shafted because of some minor incompatibility or the PR nightmare when word-of-mouth goes around the world saying "beware! windows will shut down on you!" (tactfully omitting the "pirated" part) - it's a great idea. It will surely hit the illegal users hard, just like activation did...
I wonder what happens if some keygen generates the same key as a honest customer has. My bet so far would be on "all copies with suspect key are deactivated".
So... "Microsoft activates latest anti-piracy measure. Hilarity ensues."
Anyway, I don't think this will drive significant number of users towards Linux. Linux is still niche on the desktop side (dire lack of games and other unproductivity software) and Linus' stance towards drivers isn't helping. Rather a good chance for Apple.
Well, how to put it... You're a bit out of touch with the times.
Nowadays, when it comes to the crimes against the holy Imaginary Property, we're all guilty and that's it.
The time I spend correcting typos is dwarfed by the time I spend thinking about what I want to type.
Indeed, when I type, the limits on speed are not from the ability to hit the keys but rather from the fact, that I'm not copying someone's memo mindlessly. All this "I can type without looking" or "I can type gazillion WPM" etc are successes in the useless skill of mindless text copying. Something fit for the dumb secretary. Or the OCR program.
Speed typing contests are sooo 19th century...
All your saved passwords are belong to Google?
I almost bought it over Steam. Since I live in Poland, that would be $20 + 22% tax. Comes out to $24,20.
Funny(?) thing is, it's available for about $19.50 as a physical DVD package in the game section of the offline shops. Something is not right here... I mean, online distribution was supposed to be cheaper, right?
Anyway, the concept of episodic releases isn't bad. The pricing is. Whole HL2 was IIRC about $50 here. This episode doesn't have comparable amount of fun that would really justify the price.
Sin "ep1" was worth the price since it did contain refereshed Sin1 game as a bonus. That old stuff made it up for the deficiences in the "ep1".