So... Photoshop (aimed at professionals) is "too hard", so he gets petulant, but drool-proof bundled software that's aimed at your Granny is "too easy", so he gets petulant. This porridge is too hot... this porridge is too cold...
I think the real problem here, what Dvorak doesn't get, is that there are two kinds of people who use computers: people who know what they're doing (regardless of what that is) and idiots. There's very little middle ground here, either you "get it" or you don't. The people who "get it" will make the effort to learn the software, by whatever means they are able to (book, class, self-instruction, etc). The idiots will make zero effort to learn anything. So people who develop commercial software produce products aimed at those two groups; it doesn't pay to develop software for people in the middle, because there are so few.
John Dvorak is one of the few people who seem to be hunting for that middle ground. While he certianly doesn't fall into the "idiot" category listed above (where it comes to using a computer at least) he's not willing to put the effort into learning a professional-level product like Photoshop. Come to think of it, that meshes into my personal definition of the difference between ignorance and stupidity: If someone is ignorant of a particular topic, they do not have the knowledge or skills associated with that topic. They can be educated. Stupid people are aware of their own ignorance and simply don't care. Contrary to the common aphorism ("You can't cure stupid") you can choose not to be stupid by putting in some effort. I guess then, John Dvorak is stupid, or at least acting stupidly.
It's certianly a good idea, but I question how practical it would be. Most IT departments are so woefully understaffed as it is that maintaining specific builds for specific users (or departments) would quickly become a near-impossible task (not to mention the storage requirements of those images).
In a technology-centric company that is able to build all its software in-house, this would make more sense, but would be adding "another layer" to what is already a significant amount of work.
Are you talking about processor serial numbering, or talking about the difference between an Intel vs Sparc vs AMD vs PowerPC vs whatever? You could further granularize it by using the differences in clock speed, processor ID, etc. Interesting concept. You'd have to rebuild the entire machine to upgrade the CPU(s), though, if you did things either way.
If taking SCO's money is what keeps the product viable, and if the final product is still F/OSS, who really gives a hoot? SCO's money spends just as easy as anything else, and the OSS community hasn't lost anything.
We don't live in a world of moral absolutes. Businesses sometimes have to be practical at the expense of muddying the moral waters. I'm sure that if they could have avoided even taking SCO's calls they would have, but taking the money enables them to be a going concern.
Besides, the more SCO spends, the faster they will inevitably go out of business, so that can only be a good thing, right?
Oh noes! The Big Bad Liberal Elite is keeping the poor multibillion-dollar communications companies from regulating themselves!
Put down your talking points and wake up. Sure, the FCC could throw all its existing regulations out the window in the name of "free trade" and allow the market to regulate itself. Problem is, even the big communications companies (comcast, verizon, et al) can't even keep the billing straight, and without an outside regulator setting standards, soon you'll have to buy a Comcast TV to watch Comcast Cable and then buy a Verizon phone to talk over a Verizon line, because nothing else will work Oh, and did we mention that the hardware just became 3 times as expensive because you don't have an alternative, and you have to buy a new tv/phone/computer/wifi card/etc every 6 months because they changed the "standard" (read: didn't think you'd given them enough money)?
Regulation keeps the playing field level for new companies, by providing standards that all the players have to conform to. Competition is good for consumers (both residential and commercial), corporate greed-fueled anarchy is not. I'm actually in favor of small efficient government, but there are certian things that only a central authority can do, and this is one of them.
I don't see it so much as "stupid", it's more like "blinded by greed". We've reached the point where some of us (myself included) expect by default for something a big company does to be bad for the consumer/employees of said company. The problem is that that cynicism is well deserved.
That being said, IF this is done right (IMHO doing it right would be $3 for the PPV, additional $14 for the movie on whatever media is convenient, either a retail disc in the mail or burn your own), and that's a BIG "if", I would use this model to purchase movies. The convenience factor is huge, and if you've already seen the movie you don't mind either 1) waiting 3 to 5 days for the hardcopy (if you choose to get one in the mail) or 2) making the effort to burn your own copy. (Believe it or not that represents significant effort for a lot of people.) Even if the disk has the usual DVD DRM on it, I don't see that as a problem, as the retail disc would have that as well. (And it's not like it can't be circumvented - legally or not, that's another issue.)
However, being the cynical geek that I am, I'm sure Comcast will manage to screw up what could be a huge opportunity by applying their usual kludgy/clumsy approach to new technology. (Have you SEEN their PVR software? Ugly garbage. If it didn't record HD content and have 2 tuners, I wouldn't use it. To be fair, it works great most of the time, and it's a comparable expense to the TiVo that we had before, with more benefits.) The software to burn the DVDs will probably be buggy as hell, burning coaster after coaster, and the number of drives it supports will probably be laughable. (That's if they don't make you buy a Comcast unit.) And the DVDs will probably be stripped down, movie only, and contain advertising that can't be skipped.
And again, simple ignorance about one subject does not equal "fanatical opposition to being educated".
Again, not my point. Ignorant people don't know something; they can be educated and stop being ignorant. Stupid people either don't know or don't care that they are ignorant; you can't cure stupid. These people are stupid, so this change would need to be forced on them by removing the $1 bill from circulation.
Quite often. You see, ATMs give out $20 bills. Take out, say $100 and then use a $20 to pay for $5.99 purchase, and get $14 back, usually as a 10 and 4 ones. Repeat 5 times, and viola- $20 in singles.
You really have to put in some effort to do something that asinine. After the first $5.99 purchase you can use a $10. That gives you back 4 singles, so now you have $8 in singles. Then if you buy something else for $5.99 you use 6 of the singles, leaving you with 2 singles and 4 twenties. Lather rinse repeat.
Besides I didn't say "$20 in singles", I said "$20 in bills".
In the above scenario (if my math is correct) you would have at most 8 dollar coins in your pocket. I don't know about you but 8 coins in my pocket doesn't bother me much, and if it did it would be incentive to actually use them.
Um, the new dollar coin, the Sacagawea, cannot be mistaken for a quarter at all
Sure, if you're looking at it. (Even then, people won't recognize it as money.) In your pocket it feels like a quarter. That's enough for Americans to reject it.
I've seen plenty of machines that take dollar coins. The coin acceptor is a swappable unit in all the machines I've seen, meaning changing to accepting dollar coins is trivial- just swap the coin acceptor.
Sure, it's technically trivial. However, buying/manufacturing the acceptors and paying people to install them is a HUGE amount of money for the industry to be spending, and that's what generates the resistance.
Are you saying that, if you had never seen or heard of a two-dollar bill, you would not have thought it was fake??
The point I was trying to make is that two dollar bills have been around for decades, and people are STILL ignorant of them. Trying to educate the average moron about a NEW form of currency is the problem.
No one in America WANTS dollar coins. $20 in bills fits easily and comfortably in your pants pocket. $20 in dollar coins creates a lump in your pocket and weighs you down, swinging and bumping against your leg. Who wants that??
How often do you have 20 singles in your pocket? (And strip clubs don't count.) If Americans can be educated to equate dollar coins with lower taxes (not that big of a stretch) I think you'll find resistance decreasing. And since when have Americans' wants been the most important thing? Stupid people need to be protected from themselves.
Here in America...they've tried several times to come out with a dollar coin, only to have it fail time and again. Even when they try to change the color of the dollar coin so it's not confused with a quarter, people still balk at it. People want their paper money here.
The attempts at dollar coins have failed in the US because of several reasons:
Non-removal of one dollar bills from circulation (at the bank level)
Poor design of the coins themselves (too easily mistaken for a quarter, etc). This could be fixed by following the model of the UK one pound coin: it's about the same size as a US nickel but twice as thick, much easier to recognize in your pocket and in the cash drawer. Unfortunately this leads to:
Resistance from the vending machine industry (machines would need to be retooled to accept a coin significantly different from the ones currently in use)
The perception by the great unwashed that coins aren't "real money", lack of education about the new currency (think of the oft-repeated Taco Bell two dollar bill story); this goes hand in hand with Americans' fanatical opposition to being educated.
It's just another case of Americans' short-sightedness, where the fact that some inconvenience in the short term would lead to significant benefits in the long term (in this case, lowered US currency production expenses, in non-trivial amounts) is completely irrelevant, and stating otherwise supports terrorism | Communism | Socialism | the Liberals | the hippies | $randomUnAmericanGroup.
You know there is a difference between "lawful" and "right", "unlawful" and "wrong" don't you?
I do. "Lawful" and "Unlawful" are relevant in a court of law. "Right" and "Wrong" are subjective judgements, and are not the sole basis for a legal decision. Judges frequently are forced to make decisions that they might think are "wrong" in their personal opinions, but the law doesn't agree. In the end judges have to consider law and precedent, not what they might believe ("activist judges" notwithstanding).
If the blogger is concerned about reprisals or being sued for defamation then I can't see how that's a defence. If they should be allowed to say whatever it is then the law should protect them and defamation suits shouldn't be possible.
And in theory communism works, too. The real world works differently. Those with the resources to hire dozens of high-priced lawyers to file lawsuits can crush those who do not have those resources into settling an obviously meritless case (the most relevant current example being Stupid RIAA Tricks).
There's also the "no man is an island" factor. Say enough unpopular things and you'll soon find yourself unpopular; while in high school all that got you was a wedgie, in the real world it will keep you from earning a living. Speaking your mind may be your right, but take into account that companies don't like to hire/do business with people who are controversial, no matter what particular politics or topics are involved; it's bad for business. Plus most employers have the attitude that they own your opinions 24/7 because they pay you a salary; say disparaging things about the people who sign your checks (regardless of whether they're based in provable fact or are only opinion and represented as such) and you'll soon stop collecting them. IMHO not fair, or right, but that's how it is.
Exactly my point. The system is ripe for abuse, and your example and the RIAA's legalized extortion are good examples.
Tangent: Notice how "extortion" has "tort" in it? Hmm.
Re:This sort of thing...
on
RIAA Sues a Child
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· Score: 2, Insightful
One of the defining concepts of current tort law is that anyone can sue anyone for anything. Legally, I can sue my neighbor for mowing his lawn every 10 days instead of every seven (and this has actually happened.) Legally, I can sue my workplace for having beige cubicle walls instead of gray. I could even sue the city for having a name that has too many letters in it. Patently ridiculous, and no lawyer in their right mind (and IANAL) would take that case, but technically I do have the right to a legal forum to address my grievances.
So the RIAA has every right to sue anyone for what they perceive to be damaging to their ability to conduct their business. Whether the suit has merit or not is another matter completely. The RIAA is forcing settlements in these cases not by a preponderance of evidence (as they would in a court of law) but because the defendants cannot afford to mount a defense.
Interestingly, these cases have not been as successful in the UK (by their equivalent to the RIAA) because in their legal system, if you sue someone and lose, you are responsible for the costs incurred by the defendant in mounting a defense. Tends to curtail lawsuits to cases that actually have merit.
And seriously, "potential income," wtf is that. The RIAA is omnipotent now? They have a crystal ball that can predict the future? It is possible that they are losing sales to piracy. It's also possible that nobody would ever buy a CD ever again, for whatever reason. (It's also possible that monkeys would fly out of my butt. Improbable != impossible.) Their profits are contingent on sales. Sales can't be predicted to a certianty sufficient to stand up in court; it would follow logically that sales to a particular subset of the general population (in this case, people who download digital copies of copyrighted works) cannot be predicted either.
Have you ever had a real problem to worry about in your life?
I have very little disposable income to spend on entertainment. All work and no play makes BVis insane. I have invested money in equipment that allows for "fair use" of the media that I have bought. Now the DRM cadre wants to tell me that the content I have PAID FOR with my OWN MONEY can only be enjoyed WHEN THEY SAY SO. Thus, this is a "real problem" for me, I can't make my investment work for me.
I am able to understand their objection to file sharing of their copyrighted content. Here's a radical concept: Make the content available for a reasonable cost (in a format that allows for sufficient fair use) and piracy will go down. The success of the iTunes Music Store has at least partially proven that; people will buy content if it's priced fairly rather than go through the hassle of pirating it. There is middle ground here; it seems that Apple has at least found some acceptable compromise in terms of content that, while including DRM content (at the insistence of the recording industry), allows for fair use to a level that (IMHO) is reasonable. For those not familiar with their scheme (due to some allergy to DRM'd content in any way shape or form), the content that you have BOUGHT in a legitimate fashion can be burned to a standard audio CD up to seven times. That's more than enough for someone to burn copies for two cars, a summer home, etc, but not enough to be able to give a copy away to everyone. (Yes, you can then rip the CD to MP3 and do whatever you like, but the average consumer that shops at the ITMS most likely has niether the time nor the technical sophistication to do so.)
If the entertainment industry is looking for a model that doesn't allow the consumer to retain the content indefinitely, they need look no further than Blockbuster or Netflix. Why they want to reinvent the wheel by introducing new, obnoxiously restrictive technology to the market is frankly beyond my ability to understand. The most likely outcomes are these: Consumers will ignore it because they don't understand it (or are so turned off by having to buy new equipment, AGAIN), and the geeks will crack it immediately and post the content to BitTorrent before the ink is dry on the patents.
Star Office 8 will make a wonderful contender that will be in Massachusetts govt list of consideration.
Massachusetts hasn't switched over to OOo or StarOffice yet. There's still plenty of time for the effort to get mired in the bureaucracy or killed by some pinhead politician who thinks he's doing his constituents (and by that I mean the big companies that own him) a favor by "maintaining Massachusetts' position as a leader in industry cooperation and integration", i.e. using Microsoft products "because that's what everyone else uses".
Yes. I recently had a position at a Fortune 500 company that was still standardized on Office 97. The cost of the site license and the resources necessary to upgrade were deemed too expensive.
Granted, their IT policies also amounted to "Let the users do whatever they want whenever they want, and never try to correct them or you're fired." IOW, they were colossally dumb where IT was concerned.
He wouldn't by me. He wouldn't with the circles I live in. In fact, he'd get his ass laughed at for wasting so much money on one set of clothes. If your life is different, I pity you.
I don't want your pity. I don't give a shit what people spend on their clothes either, but the fact of the matter is most people *do* notice and act accordingly. You're denying reality if you think otherwise.
And there is a certain amount of money you need for food, clothes, rent, and a few luxuries.
I'd be happy if I had any money past food or my mortgage. Luxury to me means sending out for pizza. And forget about clothes; we have to plan for a month with 5 pay cycles in it if I need new pants.
But chances are its nowhere near as much as you think.
I know EXACTLY how much it costs me, because we budget our pay down to the cent. We have to. Where we live has the highest cost of living in the entire country. A recent study showed that the average family here had to earn more than $65,000 just to survive.
I probably live yearly off about what you make going paycheck to paycheck.
I seriously doubt you'd want to live like we do. Adjust your figures for your local cost of living and you'd seriously dislike what you saw.
Money is nice, but large amounts of it aren't necessary.
Funny how the only people who tell me that make a lot more money than I do. It also depends on how you define "large". What we make combined here would be a fortune in other parts of the country. But we'd never earn this much there.
In fact, I recently changed jobs because the shit quotient at my last was getting too high.
GFY. Most people don't have that luxury, we either put up with the shit or lose our houses.
I save the rest for eventual retirement, hopefully by age 50 if not before.
Holy crap, you're an arrogant bastard. Most people in their 30s (myself included) are wondering if we can EVER retire (because we sure as fuck can't put any of our income into our 401ks, that's if we even have one). And you're concerned that you'll have to wait until you're 50 to retire? Too fucking bad!
You don't get it. You're completely out of touch with what people have to do to survive. Most of us have crap jobs for crap pay working for crap bosses that don't give a crap about our happiness OR our pay. You're seeming to imply that we shouldn't worry about the money because we don't really need as much as we think. I got news for you, pal, we know EXACTLY HOW MUCH we need and we KNOW we're not getting it! Meanwhile, arrogant pricks like yourself get these huge paychecks that they won't work an extra minute to earn, while the rest of us have to work our asses off 60 to 80 hours a week just to keep from going bankrupt!
And I'm sure you're thinking that we're just living beyond our means and we should give up some luxuries to cut expenses. Got news for you pal, homeowner's insurance isn't a luxury! Nor are tires for the car, or the sewer bill, or the mortgage, for crying out loud.
Money buys you respect? You hang out with the wrong circles, it isn't true in mine.
Tell me that the guy in the $3000 silk suit doesn't get treated differently at the bank than the guy in the $50 Old Navy ensemble. Go on, tell me.
I didn't think so.
Social station? Again, you hang out with the wrong crowd, it doesn't in mine.
Probably because the rest of your crowd are all overpaid snots like yourself, so you don't notice the difference.
I find I use less than 25% of my salary a year
I think you'd find your perspective very much changed if you didn't have money to spare. The rest of us who are living paycheck to paycheck really resent people like you; not for the fact that you have money, but for the fact that you think you can empathize with the working poor. Donate the other 75% to charity if you don't need it.
If you can do that while being a good husband and father, more power to you. Just keep in mind that when you're 80 and retired, your kids won't give one whit how much money you spent on them. They'll remember how much time you spent with them in the back yard.
That works both ways. The kids will most certianly remember how they didn't have a back yard to play in, how the kids at school that had more than they did made fun of them, and how angry at you that made them. They might appreciate how much time you spent with them before they leave the house; after learning in the real world that most people don't have to get their clothes from the Goodwill thrift store, they'll sure as heck resent you for the past, and resent having to support your destitute senile ass in your final years.
But it's ok, because you're much happier because you chose happiness over money. (Please hang on to that delusion, more money for me.)
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John Dvorak is one of the few people who seem to be hunting for that middle ground. While he certianly doesn't fall into the "idiot" category listed above (where it comes to using a computer at least) he's not willing to put the effort into learning a professional-level product like Photoshop. Come to think of it, that meshes into my personal definition of the difference between ignorance and stupidity: If someone is ignorant of a particular topic, they do not have the knowledge or skills associated with that topic. They can be educated. Stupid people are aware of their own ignorance and simply don't care. Contrary to the common aphorism ("You can't cure stupid") you can choose not to be stupid by putting in some effort. I guess then, John Dvorak is stupid, or at least acting stupidly.
It's certianly a good idea, but I question how practical it would be. Most IT departments are so woefully understaffed as it is that maintaining specific builds for specific users (or departments) would quickly become a near-impossible task (not to mention the storage requirements of those images).
In a technology-centric company that is able to build all its software in-house, this would make more sense, but would be adding "another layer" to what is already a significant amount of work.
Are you talking about processor serial numbering, or talking about the difference between an Intel vs Sparc vs AMD vs PowerPC vs whatever? You could further granularize it by using the differences in clock speed, processor ID, etc. Interesting concept. You'd have to rebuild the entire machine to upgrade the CPU(s), though, if you did things either way.
If taking SCO's money is what keeps the product viable, and if the final product is still F/OSS, who really gives a hoot? SCO's money spends just as easy as anything else, and the OSS community hasn't lost anything.
We don't live in a world of moral absolutes. Businesses sometimes have to be practical at the expense of muddying the moral waters. I'm sure that if they could have avoided even taking SCO's calls they would have, but taking the money enables them to be a going concern.
Besides, the more SCO spends, the faster they will inevitably go out of business, so that can only be a good thing, right?
Oh noes! The Big Bad Liberal Elite is keeping the poor multibillion-dollar communications companies from regulating themselves!
Put down your talking points and wake up. Sure, the FCC could throw all its existing regulations out the window in the name of "free trade" and allow the market to regulate itself. Problem is, even the big communications companies (comcast, verizon, et al) can't even keep the billing straight, and without an outside regulator setting standards, soon you'll have to buy a Comcast TV to watch Comcast Cable and then buy a Verizon phone to talk over a Verizon line, because nothing else will work Oh, and did we mention that the hardware just became 3 times as expensive because you don't have an alternative, and you have to buy a new tv/phone/computer/wifi card/etc every 6 months because they changed the "standard" (read: didn't think you'd given them enough money)?
Regulation keeps the playing field level for new companies, by providing standards that all the players have to conform to. Competition is good for consumers (both residential and commercial), corporate greed-fueled anarchy is not. I'm actually in favor of small efficient government, but there are certian things that only a central authority can do, and this is one of them.
I don't see it so much as "stupid", it's more like "blinded by greed". We've reached the point where some of us (myself included) expect by default for something a big company does to be bad for the consumer/employees of said company. The problem is that that cynicism is well deserved.
That being said, IF this is done right (IMHO doing it right would be $3 for the PPV, additional $14 for the movie on whatever media is convenient, either a retail disc in the mail or burn your own), and that's a BIG "if", I would use this model to purchase movies. The convenience factor is huge, and if you've already seen the movie you don't mind either 1) waiting 3 to 5 days for the hardcopy (if you choose to get one in the mail) or 2) making the effort to burn your own copy. (Believe it or not that represents significant effort for a lot of people.) Even if the disk has the usual DVD DRM on it, I don't see that as a problem, as the retail disc would have that as well. (And it's not like it can't be circumvented - legally or not, that's another issue.)
However, being the cynical geek that I am, I'm sure Comcast will manage to screw up what could be a huge opportunity by applying their usual kludgy/clumsy approach to new technology. (Have you SEEN their PVR software? Ugly garbage. If it didn't record HD content and have 2 tuners, I wouldn't use it. To be fair, it works great most of the time, and it's a comparable expense to the TiVo that we had before, with more benefits.) The software to burn the DVDs will probably be buggy as hell, burning coaster after coaster, and the number of drives it supports will probably be laughable. (That's if they don't make you buy a Comcast unit.) And the DVDs will probably be stripped down, movie only, and contain advertising that can't be skipped.
It's just another case of Americans' short-sightedness, where the fact that some inconvenience in the short term would lead to significant benefits in the long term (in this case, lowered US currency production expenses, in non-trivial amounts) is completely irrelevant, and stating otherwise supports terrorism | Communism | Socialism | the Liberals | the hippies | $randomUnAmericanGroup.
+1 Sarcasm :)
Fair use?
Why do you hate America?
There's also the "no man is an island" factor. Say enough unpopular things and you'll soon find yourself unpopular; while in high school all that got you was a wedgie, in the real world it will keep you from earning a living. Speaking your mind may be your right, but take into account that companies don't like to hire/do business with people who are controversial, no matter what particular politics or topics are involved; it's bad for business. Plus most employers have the attitude that they own your opinions 24/7 because they pay you a salary; say disparaging things about the people who sign your checks (regardless of whether they're based in provable fact or are only opinion and represented as such) and you'll soon stop collecting them. IMHO not fair, or right, but that's how it is.
Exactly my point. The system is ripe for abuse, and your example and the RIAA's legalized extortion are good examples.
Tangent: Notice how "extortion" has "tort" in it? Hmm.
One of the defining concepts of current tort law is that anyone can sue anyone for anything. Legally, I can sue my neighbor for mowing his lawn every 10 days instead of every seven (and this has actually happened.) Legally, I can sue my workplace for having beige cubicle walls instead of gray. I could even sue the city for having a name that has too many letters in it. Patently ridiculous, and no lawyer in their right mind (and IANAL) would take that case, but technically I do have the right to a legal forum to address my grievances.
So the RIAA has every right to sue anyone for what they perceive to be damaging to their ability to conduct their business. Whether the suit has merit or not is another matter completely. The RIAA is forcing settlements in these cases not by a preponderance of evidence (as they would in a court of law) but because the defendants cannot afford to mount a defense.
Interestingly, these cases have not been as successful in the UK (by their equivalent to the RIAA) because in their legal system, if you sue someone and lose, you are responsible for the costs incurred by the defendant in mounting a defense. Tends to curtail lawsuits to cases that actually have merit.
And seriously, "potential income," wtf is that. The RIAA is omnipotent now? They have a crystal ball that can predict the future? It is possible that they are losing sales to piracy. It's also possible that nobody would ever buy a CD ever again, for whatever reason. (It's also possible that monkeys would fly out of my butt. Improbable != impossible.) Their profits are contingent on sales. Sales can't be predicted to a certianty sufficient to stand up in court; it would follow logically that sales to a particular subset of the general population (in this case, people who download digital copies of copyrighted works) cannot be predicted either.
I am able to understand their objection to file sharing of their copyrighted content. Here's a radical concept: Make the content available for a reasonable cost (in a format that allows for sufficient fair use) and piracy will go down. The success of the iTunes Music Store has at least partially proven that; people will buy content if it's priced fairly rather than go through the hassle of pirating it. There is middle ground here; it seems that Apple has at least found some acceptable compromise in terms of content that, while including DRM content (at the insistence of the recording industry), allows for fair use to a level that (IMHO) is reasonable. For those not familiar with their scheme (due to some allergy to DRM'd content in any way shape or form), the content that you have BOUGHT in a legitimate fashion can be burned to a standard audio CD up to seven times. That's more than enough for someone to burn copies for two cars, a summer home, etc, but not enough to be able to give a copy away to everyone. (Yes, you can then rip the CD to MP3 and do whatever you like, but the average consumer that shops at the ITMS most likely has niether the time nor the technical sophistication to do so.)
If the entertainment industry is looking for a model that doesn't allow the consumer to retain the content indefinitely, they need look no further than Blockbuster or Netflix. Why they want to reinvent the wheel by introducing new, obnoxiously restrictive technology to the market is frankly beyond my ability to understand. The most likely outcomes are these: Consumers will ignore it because they don't understand it (or are so turned off by having to buy new equipment, AGAIN), and the geeks will crack it immediately and post the content to BitTorrent before the ink is dry on the patents.
Yes. I recently had a position at a Fortune 500 company that was still standardized on Office 97. The cost of the site license and the resources necessary to upgrade were deemed too expensive.
Granted, their IT policies also amounted to "Let the users do whatever they want whenever they want, and never try to correct them or you're fired." IOW, they were colossally dumb where IT was concerned.
I was going to change my .sig but you've convinced me not to. (Apologies for the gratuitous 'me too' post.)
You don't get it. You're completely out of touch with what people have to do to survive. Most of us have crap jobs for crap pay working for crap bosses that don't give a crap about our happiness OR our pay. You're seeming to imply that we shouldn't worry about the money because we don't really need as much as we think. I got news for you, pal, we know EXACTLY HOW MUCH we need and we KNOW we're not getting it! Meanwhile, arrogant pricks like yourself get these huge paychecks that they won't work an extra minute to earn, while the rest of us have to work our asses off 60 to 80 hours a week just to keep from going bankrupt!
And I'm sure you're thinking that we're just living beyond our means and we should give up some luxuries to cut expenses. Got news for you pal, homeowner's insurance isn't a luxury! Nor are tires for the car, or the sewer bill, or the mortgage, for crying out loud.
Sheesh.
I didn't think so.Probably because the rest of your crowd are all overpaid snots like yourself, so you don't notice the difference.I think you'd find your perspective very much changed if you didn't have money to spare. The rest of us who are living paycheck to paycheck really resent people like you; not for the fact that you have money, but for the fact that you think you can empathize with the working poor. Donate the other 75% to charity if you don't need it.
But it's ok, because you're much happier because you chose happiness over money. (Please hang on to that delusion, more money for me.)