"Many users with clone cables are now without the ability to charge their iPhones."
Why is that, did they all just throw away the cables that came with their phone? I'm sure there are a few people who lost theirs, but overall that statement is unfounded.
From what I can see there is a *lot* more eye candy (and I'm not talking about the icon changes) - it seems like the decided they needed to animate every single action and control in the OS now. Not to mention transparency, animated blur effects (especially in the camera), etc.
I don't notice any slowdown from it, though - seems like they are using the 3D HW to do it, and the latest devices have pretty decent graphics. In fact, the perception is often that it's faster (which is the point of transition animation) but that's just a subjective observation...
Sounds like a lot of AF duties involved lots of idle time (basically perennially on standby for bringing about the end of the world). Maybe a bit *too much* idle time, if my father-in-law's stories can be believed...:)
He was AFJAG, and some of the guys he defended, man. His best story involved someone who thought it would be a good idea to get out with a dishonorable discharge by sitting on top of a Titan missile silo and lighting a joint. I think he got 5 years for it, but they wanted to give him 20...
Hundreds of B-52s with dozens or maybe even hundreds of H-bombs each, ready to rain nuclear hell on the commies.
Hmm, even Wikipedia tells us B-52s could carry 8 nuclear bombs back then, or more recently up to 20 smaller nuclear cruise missiles, definitely not "hundreds of H-bombs"... I assume your job was not as a weapons loader;) But I kid, I'm sure it was still interesting times...
As far as laughing - Dr. Strangelove isn't a new movie. If you can't laugh at it you might as well just go cower in a hole.
Same with Canada, and it's a moot point as it's irrelevant if not one really lives in the boonies, only if a lot of people live in the boonies. For example, in Sweden, 1.4M people are considered "rural". In the US, it's 55M. In fact the *entire* Scandanavian population is still well under what would just be considered rural America.
Also, in my country public transportation is phenomenally good so I don't have to fill up my tank with anything. We don't even own a car.
That was a major part of my point. Works when you live in an urban setting and don't want to go anywhere outside of your metropolitan area you have different requirements and expectations, just like with broadband.
Besides, I *like* driving, and I like the places I can go by driving. There are a lot of things I want to do nearby where public transportation makes no sense. Try transporting 2 kayaks to the ocean, or 2 mountain bikes to the mountain - with public transportation. Try using public transportation to go on a day trip to your favorite remote beach 100km away. Unless by "phenomenally good" public transportation you mean you can close your eyes and be teleported into the middle of a 2000 year old redwood forest, maybe your "high standards" are too low.
But my point is not to criticize your leisure time... it's more to criticize the arrogance in thinking your specific lifestyle is somehow better than other countries (regardless of the costs involved).
And while I am in fact in favor of nationalized health care (and to a lesser extent for at least some subsidized education), to say it's "free" is completely naive. You just pay for those things upfront in higher taxes, and in the US people pay them on demand. Not saying that is better, but it is a fact.
Yeah, and I filled up my last gas tank for half of what you did. BFD.
Prices for various services vary in various countries. Fact of life. And it's getting faster and cheaper in the US, but a bit slower than wherever you are (which as an AC with absolutely no citation we have to take with the tiniest grain of salt anyway). But again as none of these are significant prices your tidbit is totally irrelevant to the OP.
Nothing in your post about population densities or average bandwidth and prices of NE US vs. Tokyo was remotely accurate. Look it up, not going to bother reposting for an AC. Bye-bye now.
Yeah, rural broadband sucks, but that was my point... (I'm sure you can take US rural broadband infrastructure expenses and multiply by 5x for rural Canada...)
On the bright side, you probably actually get a YARD, and a VIEW of the stars, and FRESH AIR, etc. There are times I wouldn't mind trading my suburban CA Bay Area home for those things... it's all on a spectrum, don't discount the advantages;)
So you had tech support issues? Welcome to technology, that's annoying as hell but not really relevant unless you think things always run 100% smoothly everywhere else in the world...
As for options - that's mostly stupid Baltimore politicians making exclusive agreements with Comcast, not companies not *interested* in competition...
Why? Why is it not enough? Please give any *useful* examples of why it's not enough for the price at present time? It will get faster for the same price in the future, or I could pay more now (I think it's $115?) for 100Mbps service. I could afford that service, no problem, but I have zero use for it so why waste money?
I have 50/10 Mbps for $70 and yes, it actually has been as advertised every time I have tested it for the last couple years. We routinely use two 9Mbps video streams with no issues and plenty of bandwidth left for browsing/downloading/whatever.
People in the US have routinely paid $100+ for cable/satellite TV for years. $8/month gets you Netflix or Hulu (or x2 for both) and there are a tons of VOD services now (VUDU, Amazon, CinemaNow, etc) to rent (or buy) movies/TV instead of using Showtime/HBO/Starz/etc.
The big problem is not necessarily US infrastructure (at least by expenditure) vs. other countries, it's the fact that the US has a lot less population density. In urban areas, there are almost always options and the performance/price is pretty decent. In rural areas it hasn't caught up because frankly it will cost a lot of $$ per customer. Yes, South Korea has great broadband, but that's because it's mostly VDSL, etc running to multi-unit high rises...
I'm not even going to bother responding at length to most of your post, since it largely relies on the same idea that the cost of production is somehow the fault of the creators and not relevant to what they want to ask you to pay to consume it. Which is impossible to argue with since it makes about as much sense as demanding your own price for any other product - if you don't get that price, walk away from the deal, don't walk away with the product. WALK AWAY. It's easy. Otherwise you are basically blaming the victim!
If it means that movies with gigantic budgets stop getting made, that's fine. After all, no one misses the super-gigantic budget movies we don't make now, because copyright law isn't even worse than it is. All you need is good writing and good acting, which aren't too expensive, and the rest basically takes care of itself.
For you. But why does your completely subjective opinion get to set the standard? Oh yeah, it doesn't. Which is why this is all pretty much pointless since the vast majority actually prefer giant productions with big CGI budgets (as shitty as they can sometimes be, I agree with that).
Your analogies to prohibition make no sense (make your own booze, fine - but are you saying if someone else makes some you should be able to take it?) You just don't seem to understand the basic idea of "me" vs "them". Do whatever the fuck with your own creation, but after someone spends years making something with the expectation that they will own it and be able to receive compensation if someone else consumes it. I have absolutely NO idea how you think a major collaboration can pay for itself if they are not allowed to have a (limited, even) chance to recoup their expenses. Give ONE, just ONE actual VIABLE solution and maybe someone might take you remotely seriously...
There is also that aging is for snobs; it was mostly invented by the British upper classes, and the Americans took it over without thinking.
Most wines are meant to be drunk fairly young. Any amount of aging necessary to bring out the taste will happen, as you correctly point out, with the oxygen available during bottling.
Not sure which Americans you are talking about (maybe American billionaires?) but for the garden variety wine snob (who believe yes, Two Buck Chuck is not close to a decent Napa/Sonoma wine - but it's honestly better than some 5x the price) I don't think there is a particular trend towards heavily aging wines. I've never been able to keep one more than a few years because I'm too eager to try it;)
Though I have on occasion had some wines of 15-20+ years that were let age. Some of the best I have ever had in recent years have been from the 80's-90's i.e. aged 20+ years. Then again they may have been great wines after 5 years, guess I'll never know:) But they certainly weren't ruined...
Corks are permeable which allows the oxidation process (aging) to continue. Using materials other that cork stops the oxidation process making the wine less desirable and reduces the price of the wine.
No, not really. Oenology research mostly says the oxygen that gets into the wine from the bottling is plenty enough to age for years, and extra oxygen is MUCH more likely to spoil the wine than improve it.
There may be a very VERY slight percentage of wine aged for a very long time that might improve with a perfect cork letting in just enough oxygen to keep the aging going without spoiling it, but for the VAST majority of wine current research says it's (and by "it's" that's the the Bordeauxs, cabs, etc) probably at its best in 25 years. And it's a crapshoot as to whether anything older will be any good at all. For the ABSOLUTELY OVERWHELMING majority of wines a synthetic cork will be as good if not better.
Ok, I'm not including citations because seriously why bother, but search this topic and the top 5 results will say the same thing...
And "Driving Miss Daisy" had a relatively tiny budget for Hollywood ($7.5M) but it is literally impossible to have a small budget for a modern CGI-heavy action or animated movie. The special effects for something like Avatar, Star Trek, The Avengers, etc, for $100M+ alone. And while you may not be into those sorts of movies, clearly many millions of people are.
Arguing that "if someone spent too much creating their content that's their problem, everyone should still be able to consume it for free" or "expensive movies are sometimes worse than cheap ones, and I should be able to watch bad movies for free" make no sense either. If it's bad don't watch it. If you watch it you apparently thought it was worth watching so compensate the creators.
And comparing copyright issues from today and 300 years ago doesn't make sense, as copying was limited by technology or skill (copying a book required writing it by hand or typesetting the entire thing and copying a painting or sculpture required almost much skill as the original artist). Today 1000 people can put 2 years of work into a movie, and it can be copied in 10 minutes using cheaply available hardware. The only ways to limit it are through education/morality (clearly doesn't work), technology (clearly doesn't work), or legal threats (debatable as to whether it really works, but it's always been the fallback enforcement for everything from burglary to running a red light when the previous two don't work, and until someone comes up with something better it's not going anywhere).
Here's a response: "delete message". Or for those really advanced users: "delete and filter". The only reason to reply with an insulting comment that even doesn't even answer a possibly ignorant question is a misplaced need to abuse or bully someone. It doesn't really solve anything, and frankly I don't even know why you'd want to make the effort if replying is such a burden.
Despite what you think, reputation counts. A lot of good open source projects have been derailed, unnecessarily forked, or abandoned by the community because of ego and arrogance over cooperation and communication.
And finally, you might want to look up what "ignorance" actually means. It simply means lacking knowledge, which means anyone asking a question about anything is by definition ignorant about the answer. Like many words, it's only really an insult if you make it one. The way to fix that ignorance is information, not insults.
That's not true. You are free to use that copying machine to copy a DVD as a backup/for your OWN use. You are not free to give or sell that copy to someone ELSE.
the 'fake' products might be sold at a lower price
A lower price is still a price. "We have established what you are, madam. We are now merely haggling over the price..."
might be more convenient
This is the UK. How on earth is "some dude selling counterfeit movies" more convenient than the other gazillion ways to buy them?
the creators of the product haven't yet made it available in the country that the 'fakes' are being sold in.
Game of Thrones (one of the DVD sets counterfeited) is available on amazon.uk.
Any other pointless, incorrect hypotheticals? This was a specific story about counterfeit DVDs in the UK. I don't need to consider any "possibilities" because I actually RTFA. And if you now feel like actually going back and reading TFA, note that in another post (well, and really also in this one) I already said the other numbers quoted for general industry "loss" are stupid, and in fact should be a completely different discussion from basic counterfeiting.
Besides, not gaining something is not the same as losing something, so even if people would have bought the products otherwise, that does not mean harm was done.
If a movie studio (or game company, etc) spends $100M+ making a product and expects to get at least that much a return on sales but pirates copy and SELL the product for their own profit, that sure as hell does harm to the original producer of the content. If there are no laws or enforcement of that, there is no motivation to invest in large entertainment projects. I mean jesus christ. This is such a stupid argument. A movie in fact *is* entertainment, not some fundamental component of life. If you don't want to support the creator, don't watch it. How simple is that?
Yup, that number is just unbelievably stupid - it's basically equal to the entire world entertainment industry, so they are claiming without piracy they's make 2x the revenue. Yeah, right, dream on...
But on the other hand, this article overall was NOT about "unauthorized downloading", it was about pirates arrested for SELLING COUNTERFEIT DVDs, which is so obviously not a debatable copyright issue it's getting pretty absurd. Do these two mostly unrelated issues have to be conflated EVERY TIME by the media (and slashdot)? I guess both the mainsteam media and slashdot deserves what they get (which should be ridicule from both reasonable ends of the issue) if they want to use obvious criminal activities to argue for or against these made up statistics...
Well, I guess I'm not a hypocrite, since I think selling or freely copying copyrighted works is wrong. But it's absurd to claim profiting on someone else's work is not worse than just copying it. If someone copies a movie for free it's hard to justify the studio claims that they lost money because someone "would have paid for it" - who knows if the "consumer" would have bothered to watch it if they had to pay. But if someone copies a movie and SELLS IT FOR MONEY then obviously that question was answered and the studio has a valid point...
And I can't imagine how the hell you think preventing you from copying someone else's original work is censorship, let alone "loss of control of private property" - which is inherently idiotic because now you are trying to claim content both is and is not "private property". At least if it's not then it is (in non-commercial piracy cases, at least) a civil issue. If it *is* then it becomes the same as stealing a car and then would be criminal theft!
These people should not be answering questions from rank newbies.
Yes, and there are ways of saying that to someone that are not condescending, rude, or just plain assholish.
Though you know, some people in fact DO like helping others, even newbies (sometimes we call those "teachers", and sometimes they are just good people). But even if someone doesn't want to help, "please use XXX list for this question" is really not any harder to type than than "stupid question, stop posting here and RTFM".
Everything you say is true. But are the Linux developers really all that different? There have been some epic flamewars on LKML and plenty of RTFM...
The fact is OS developers are generally extremely smart, "self-confident" (I'll try not to say "egotistical" or "arrogant"), and possibly somewhat socially awkward/blunt. The only reason you don't get that from Windows and OSX is that MS and Apple hide their kernel developers away from public debate:)
Slashdot Mirror
"Many users with clone cables are now without the ability to charge their iPhones."
Why is that, did they all just throw away the cables that came with their phone? I'm sure there are a few people who lost theirs, but overall that statement is unfounded.
From what I can see there is a *lot* more eye candy (and I'm not talking about the icon changes) - it seems like the decided they needed to animate every single action and control in the OS now. Not to mention transparency, animated blur effects (especially in the camera), etc.
I don't notice any slowdown from it, though - seems like they are using the 3D HW to do it, and the latest devices have pretty decent graphics. In fact, the perception is often that it's faster (which is the point of transition animation) but that's just a subjective observation...
Sounds like a lot of AF duties involved lots of idle time (basically perennially on standby for bringing about the end of the world). Maybe a bit *too much* idle time, if my father-in-law's stories can be believed... :)
He was AFJAG, and some of the guys he defended, man. His best story involved someone who thought it would be a good idea to get out with a dishonorable discharge by sitting on top of a Titan missile silo and lighting a joint. I think he got 5 years for it, but they wanted to give him 20...
Hundreds of B-52s with dozens or maybe even hundreds of H-bombs each, ready to rain nuclear hell on the commies.
Hmm, even Wikipedia tells us B-52s could carry 8 nuclear bombs back then, or more recently up to 20 smaller nuclear cruise missiles, definitely not "hundreds of H-bombs"... I assume your job was not as a weapons loader ;) But I kid, I'm sure it was still interesting times...
As far as laughing - Dr. Strangelove isn't a new movie. If you can't laugh at it you might as well just go cower in a hole.
Same with Canada, and it's a moot point as it's irrelevant if not one really lives in the boonies, only if a lot of people live in the boonies. For example, in Sweden, 1.4M people are considered "rural". In the US, it's 55M. In fact the *entire* Scandanavian population is still well under what would just be considered rural America.
Also, in my country public transportation is phenomenally good so I don't have to fill up my tank with anything. We don't even own a car.
That was a major part of my point. Works when you live in an urban setting and don't want to go anywhere outside of your metropolitan area you have different requirements and expectations, just like with broadband.
Besides, I *like* driving, and I like the places I can go by driving. There are a lot of things I want to do nearby where public transportation makes no sense. Try transporting 2 kayaks to the ocean, or 2 mountain bikes to the mountain - with public transportation. Try using public transportation to go on a day trip to your favorite remote beach 100km away. Unless by "phenomenally good" public transportation you mean you can close your eyes and be teleported into the middle of a 2000 year old redwood forest, maybe your "high standards" are too low.
But my point is not to criticize your leisure time... it's more to criticize the arrogance in thinking your specific lifestyle is somehow better than other countries (regardless of the costs involved).
And while I am in fact in favor of nationalized health care (and to a lesser extent for at least some subsidized education), to say it's "free" is completely naive. You just pay for those things upfront in higher taxes, and in the US people pay them on demand. Not saying that is better, but it is a fact.
Yeah, and I filled up my last gas tank for half of what you did. BFD.
Prices for various services vary in various countries. Fact of life. And it's getting faster and cheaper in the US, but a bit slower than wherever you are (which as an AC with absolutely no citation we have to take with the tiniest grain of salt anyway). But again as none of these are significant prices your tidbit is totally irrelevant to the OP.
Nothing in your post about population densities or average bandwidth and prices of NE US vs. Tokyo was remotely accurate. Look it up, not going to bother reposting for an AC. Bye-bye now.
Yeah, rural broadband sucks, but that was my point... (I'm sure you can take US rural broadband infrastructure expenses and multiply by 5x for rural Canada...)
On the bright side, you probably actually get a YARD, and a VIEW of the stars, and FRESH AIR, etc. There are times I wouldn't mind trading my suburban CA Bay Area home for those things... it's all on a spectrum, don't discount the advantages ;)
So you had tech support issues? Welcome to technology, that's annoying as hell but not really relevant unless you think things always run 100% smoothly everywhere else in the world...
As for options - that's mostly stupid Baltimore politicians making exclusive agreements with Comcast, not companies not *interested* in competition...
http://www.webpronews.com/baltimore-working-to-bring-more-internet-options-to-its-businesses-and-residents-2013-08
Why? Why is it not enough? Please give any *useful* examples of why it's not enough for the price at present time? It will get faster for the same price in the future, or I could pay more now (I think it's $115?) for 100Mbps service. I could afford that service, no problem, but I have zero use for it so why waste money?
I have 50/10 Mbps for $70 and yes, it actually has been as advertised every time I have tested it for the last couple years. We routinely use two 9Mbps video streams with no issues and plenty of bandwidth left for browsing/downloading/whatever.
People in the US have routinely paid $100+ for cable/satellite TV for years. $8/month gets you Netflix or Hulu (or x2 for both) and there are a tons of VOD services now (VUDU, Amazon, CinemaNow, etc) to rent (or buy) movies/TV instead of using Showtime/HBO/Starz/etc.
The big problem is not necessarily US infrastructure (at least by expenditure) vs. other countries, it's the fact that the US has a lot less population density. In urban areas, there are almost always options and the performance/price is pretty decent. In rural areas it hasn't caught up because frankly it will cost a lot of $$ per customer. Yes, South Korea has great broadband, but that's because it's mostly VDSL, etc running to multi-unit high rises...
I'm not even going to bother responding at length to most of your post, since it largely relies on the same idea that the cost of production is somehow the fault of the creators and not relevant to what they want to ask you to pay to consume it. Which is impossible to argue with since it makes about as much sense as demanding your own price for any other product - if you don't get that price, walk away from the deal, don't walk away with the product. WALK AWAY. It's easy. Otherwise you are basically blaming the victim!
If it means that movies with gigantic budgets stop getting made, that's fine. After all, no one misses the super-gigantic budget movies we don't make now, because copyright law isn't even worse than it is. All you need is good writing and good acting, which aren't too expensive, and the rest basically takes care of itself.
For you. But why does your completely subjective opinion get to set the standard? Oh yeah, it doesn't. Which is why this is all pretty much pointless since the vast majority actually prefer giant productions with big CGI budgets (as shitty as they can sometimes be, I agree with that).
Your analogies to prohibition make no sense (make your own booze, fine - but are you saying if someone else makes some you should be able to take it?) You just don't seem to understand the basic idea of "me" vs "them". Do whatever the fuck with your own creation, but after someone spends years making something with the expectation that they will own it and be able to receive compensation if someone else consumes it. I have absolutely NO idea how you think a major collaboration can pay for itself if they are not allowed to have a (limited, even) chance to recoup their expenses. Give ONE, just ONE actual VIABLE solution and maybe someone might take you remotely seriously...
There is also that aging is for snobs; it was mostly invented by the British upper classes, and the Americans took it over without thinking.
Most wines are meant to be drunk fairly young. Any amount of aging necessary to bring out the taste will happen, as you correctly point out, with the oxygen available during bottling.
Not sure which Americans you are talking about (maybe American billionaires?) but for the garden variety wine snob (who believe yes, Two Buck Chuck is not close to a decent Napa/Sonoma wine - but it's honestly better than some 5x the price) I don't think there is a particular trend towards heavily aging wines. I've never been able to keep one more than a few years because I'm too eager to try it ;)
Though I have on occasion had some wines of 15-20+ years that were let age. Some of the best I have ever had in recent years have been from the 80's-90's i.e. aged 20+ years. Then again they may have been great wines after 5 years, guess I'll never know :) But they certainly weren't ruined...
I already posted this earlier, but just for you...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fuj1aKxET8Y
Corks are permeable which allows the oxidation process (aging) to continue. Using materials other that cork stops the oxidation process making the wine less desirable and reduces the price of the wine.
No, not really. Oenology research mostly says the oxygen that gets into the wine from the bottling is plenty enough to age for years, and extra oxygen is MUCH more likely to spoil the wine than improve it.
There may be a very VERY slight percentage of wine aged for a very long time that might improve with a perfect cork letting in just enough oxygen to keep the aging going without spoiling it, but for the VAST majority of wine current research says it's (and by "it's" that's the the Bordeauxs, cabs, etc) probably at its best in 25 years. And it's a crapshoot as to whether anything older will be any good at all. For the ABSOLUTELY OVERWHELMING majority of wines a synthetic cork will be as good if not better.
Ok, I'm not including citations because seriously why bother, but search this topic and the top 5 results will say the same thing...
That's true - there is fine art to cork soaking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fuj1aKxET8Y
And "Driving Miss Daisy" had a relatively tiny budget for Hollywood ($7.5M) but it is literally impossible to have a small budget for a modern CGI-heavy action or animated movie. The special effects for something like Avatar, Star Trek, The Avengers, etc, for $100M+ alone. And while you may not be into those sorts of movies, clearly many millions of people are.
Arguing that "if someone spent too much creating their content that's their problem, everyone should still be able to consume it for free" or "expensive movies are sometimes worse than cheap ones, and I should be able to watch bad movies for free" make no sense either. If it's bad don't watch it. If you watch it you apparently thought it was worth watching so compensate the creators.
And comparing copyright issues from today and 300 years ago doesn't make sense, as copying was limited by technology or skill (copying a book required writing it by hand or typesetting the entire thing and copying a painting or sculpture required almost much skill as the original artist). Today 1000 people can put 2 years of work into a movie, and it can be copied in 10 minutes using cheaply available hardware. The only ways to limit it are through education/morality (clearly doesn't work), technology (clearly doesn't work), or legal threats (debatable as to whether it really works, but it's always been the fallback enforcement for everything from burglary to running a red light when the previous two don't work, and until someone comes up with something better it's not going anywhere).
Here's a response: "delete message". Or for those really advanced users: "delete and filter". The only reason to reply with an insulting comment that even doesn't even answer a possibly ignorant question is a misplaced need to abuse or bully someone. It doesn't really solve anything, and frankly I don't even know why you'd want to make the effort if replying is such a burden.
Despite what you think, reputation counts. A lot of good open source projects have been derailed, unnecessarily forked, or abandoned by the community because of ego and arrogance over cooperation and communication.
And finally, you might want to look up what "ignorance" actually means. It simply means lacking knowledge, which means anyone asking a question about anything is by definition ignorant about the answer. Like many words, it's only really an insult if you make it one. The way to fix that ignorance is information, not insults.
That's not true. You are free to use that copying machine to copy a DVD as a backup/for your OWN use. You are not free to give or sell that copy to someone ELSE.
the 'fake' products might be sold at a lower price
A lower price is still a price. "We have established what you are, madam. We are now merely haggling over the price..."
might be more convenient
This is the UK. How on earth is "some dude selling counterfeit movies" more convenient than the other gazillion ways to buy them?
the creators of the product haven't yet made it available in the country that the 'fakes' are being sold in.
Game of Thrones (one of the DVD sets counterfeited) is available on amazon.uk.
Any other pointless, incorrect hypotheticals? This was a specific story about counterfeit DVDs in the UK. I don't need to consider any "possibilities" because I actually RTFA. And if you now feel like actually going back and reading TFA, note that in another post (well, and really also in this one) I already said the other numbers quoted for general industry "loss" are stupid, and in fact should be a completely different discussion from basic counterfeiting.
Besides, not gaining something is not the same as losing something, so even if people would have bought the products otherwise, that does not mean harm was done.
If a movie studio (or game company, etc) spends $100M+ making a product and expects to get at least that much a return on sales but pirates copy and SELL the product for their own profit, that sure as hell does harm to the original producer of the content. If there are no laws or enforcement of that, there is no motivation to invest in large entertainment projects. I mean jesus christ. This is such a stupid argument. A movie in fact *is* entertainment, not some fundamental component of life. If you don't want to support the creator, don't watch it. How simple is that?
Yup, that number is just unbelievably stupid - it's basically equal to the entire world entertainment industry, so they are claiming without piracy they's make 2x the revenue. Yeah, right, dream on...
But on the other hand, this article overall was NOT about "unauthorized downloading", it was about pirates arrested for SELLING COUNTERFEIT DVDs, which is so obviously not a debatable copyright issue it's getting pretty absurd. Do these two mostly unrelated issues have to be conflated EVERY TIME by the media (and slashdot)? I guess both the mainsteam media and slashdot deserves what they get (which should be ridicule from both reasonable ends of the issue) if they want to use obvious criminal activities to argue for or against these made up statistics...
Well, I guess I'm not a hypocrite, since I think selling or freely copying copyrighted works is wrong. But it's absurd to claim profiting on someone else's work is not worse than just copying it. If someone copies a movie for free it's hard to justify the studio claims that they lost money because someone "would have paid for it" - who knows if the "consumer" would have bothered to watch it if they had to pay. But if someone copies a movie and SELLS IT FOR MONEY then obviously that question was answered and the studio has a valid point...
And I can't imagine how the hell you think preventing you from copying someone else's original work is censorship, let alone "loss of control of private property" - which is inherently idiotic because now you are trying to claim content both is and is not "private property". At least if it's not then it is (in non-commercial piracy cases, at least) a civil issue. If it *is* then it becomes the same as stealing a car and then would be criminal theft!
These people should not be answering questions from rank newbies.
Yes, and there are ways of saying that to someone that are not condescending, rude, or just plain assholish.
Though you know, some people in fact DO like helping others, even newbies (sometimes we call those "teachers", and sometimes they are just good people). But even if someone doesn't want to help, "please use XXX list for this question" is really not any harder to type than than "stupid question, stop posting here and RTFM".
Everything you say is true. But are the Linux developers really all that different? There have been some epic flamewars on LKML and plenty of RTFM...
The fact is OS developers are generally extremely smart, "self-confident" (I'll try not to say "egotistical" or "arrogant"), and possibly somewhat socially awkward/blunt. The only reason you don't get that from Windows and OSX is that MS and Apple hide their kernel developers away from public debate :)