It's not profitable because streaming sucks. People want to pay for something they can download and "own". I don't want to pay $5 to watch something once, and have it hiccup if the network glitches for even a second.
Even if I only watch it once, I like knowing I have a copy of that movie on my hard drive.
Then why are online DRM-free music sales so successful? iTunes and Amazon and such are selling more music than ever, even though it's DRM free. And this is WITH music being even easier to pirate that movies; you can practically E-mail a song to someone else in seconds these days.
This argument doesn't fly. If you make access convenient, DRM-free, high quality and at a reasonable price, people WILL buy it.
High quality DRM-free movie downloads at a resonable price. As in, $5 or so.
I guarantee you most people will switch to downloading legally.
No more "rentals" and other stupid crap like that. Most people only see a movie once, so the revenue lost by just giving them a copy is minimal.
Most people I know stopped pirating music once legal, DRM-free downloads came about. The movie industry should do the same thing, but they're too afraid.
People have short attention spans. They can only really be fan-crazy about a small number of people at a particular moment in time. Many people go see movies just so they can see the actors/actresses they are crazy about. Therefore the industry has to create a small number of "big names". Once these names are created, they pretty much can ask whatever they want and the studios have to pay them.
The big names are rotated out over time, but at any given moment the number of "superstars" is not all that large.
It sucks, but that's part of how the entertainment industry works.
Personally I've never been one to see a movie just because a particular person is in it. But apparently I'm in the minority.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It performs fairly well in my testing so far. Yes. Yes. Yes, if the pool version is below the currently supported Linux port's version (28). Yes. Yes.
Granted, we haven't been using it long, but so far it's been fairly stable and capable.
E-mail will not go away as long as the Internet maintains its structure where no single entity controls it.
Think about it: What do you need in order to sign up for a Facebook, Twitter, Steam, or pretty much any online account? An e-mail address.
Right now the only truly guaranteed way two random people online can contact each other is e-mail. Not everyone has a Facebook account. Not everyone is on Twitter, or on AIM. But everyone online has an e-mail address, even if they don't use it very much, because you NEED one to sign up for these services!:)
Can't we come up with scrubbers to clean up the pollution that coal plants put out?
It's a shame coal is so polluting, because we have so damn much of it. It's one of the most plentiful fuels in the world! There has to be a way to burn it cleanly!
Don't pretty much all computer users, especially those of the geeky variety, pirate software when they're kids and have little to no money to buy it?
I sure as hell did! Not because I wanted to "stick it to the man", but because I had no other way of getting software. I was a kid, I had no cash, no income. The software publishers lost nothing on me because had I not been able to pirate, I wouldn't have been able to buy the software anyway.
Now as an adult, I spend quite a bit of money on software and media. The only time I'll still download something questionable is when I cannot obtain it legally otherwise.
So surveying people asking if they've ever pirated software is going to be a naturally inflated number, because many of us did when we were kids.
Now if only they'd get rid of the fake "4G" tag the iPhone 4S has on AT&T. It's barely faster than the "3G" on the iPhone 4, and isn't real "4G" by any means.
I'm about as geek as you can get, but have no desire to surf the web on a TV. Web surfing is a more personal thing; I'd rather do it on a desktop, laptop, or tablet than on a big TV.
I don't mind paying for something that requires servers that MS has to maintain, like multiplayer gaming.
However, paying to do things like watch Netflix, YouTube, or use a web browser is too far, because I'm not actually using Microsoft's servers to do any of that. Why should I have to pay monthly for it?
I know it's not much money, it's more about principle than anything else. I hardly even use my Xbox 360 anymore because I got tired of all the nickel and diming and crippled games. Anyone who has ever compared Team Fortress 2 on the PC with the Xbox version will know what I'm talking about.
Gaming on the PC is far superior; unfortunately publishers using excessive DRM and requiring $600 video cards are frustrating even some of the strongest holdouts over to consoles, so it's become a niche market.
I've always found it disgusting how quick school administrators are to ruin a kid's life over innocent mistakes.
Bring a multitool that happens to have a blade to school? Call the police. Arrest them, rather than just confiscate the device and send it home to parents.
Draw a movie action scene where some guy is blowing people away with a machine gun? OH NOS HE MIGHT DO IT FOR REAL. Call the cops. Suspend him. Ruin him psychologically for being creative!
It's gotten way beyond control. Stuff that would have gotten a kid suspended or detention when I was in school 20 years ago is getting them thrown in jail, expelled or placed into psychiatric care these days. It's no wonder our kids are growing up not-quite-centered. Sigh.
>California building code requires dimmable switches to be built in as the first switch in most rooms.
Are you serious? What in the hell led to such a stupid requirement? Especially since dimmed incandescent bulbs use far more watts per lumen than bulbs of a lower wattage?
To hell with the building code, I'd be swapping those out for regular switches once I move in if I don't want dimmers in those rooms. The dimmers are easily kept in a drawer to put back in before move-out day.
I also get the advertised life. I sometimes wonder why some people have such bad luck with CFLs. Power quality is the most likely cause, I think; as we have excellent power quality here and I have friends whose power is constantly having little issues. At one particular friend's place, the UPS beeps around once every visit.
Also, when CFLs end up lasting far longer than their advertised life, they need to be replaced for another reason: They start getting dim. I replaced about three bulbs that get a lot of use and were over six years old when I noticed a brand new bulb of the same wattage was twice as bright. If you're getting really long life out of your CFLs you might want to check this, as you don't notice them getting dimmer since it happens so gradually.
Heh, I'm sure you're being facetious.. but in the tiny event that you're not...
A while back we had some IBM big iron on campus, and our regular IBM tech was a guy in his (estimated) high 50s. Never have I seen someone who so *intricately* knows their shit as this man. He casually explained to me, while working, exactly what the capacitor cards do in the p690, why the system is designed the way it is, and so on. His troubleshooting ability was amazing, too.
This is expected when you have three to four DECADES of experience. A newly minted college grad may be able to sling C# code like there's no tomorrow but he won't have this experience.
I think IBM is making a mistake by letting these people go, and I'm betting they'll suffer down the line for it.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not profitable because streaming sucks. People want to pay for something they can download and "own". I don't want to pay $5 to watch something once, and have it hiccup if the network glitches for even a second.
Even if I only watch it once, I like knowing I have a copy of that movie on my hard drive.
Then why are online DRM-free music sales so successful? iTunes and Amazon and such are selling more music than ever, even though it's DRM free. And this is WITH music being even easier to pirate that movies; you can practically E-mail a song to someone else in seconds these days.
This argument doesn't fly. If you make access convenient, DRM-free, high quality and at a reasonable price, people WILL buy it.
High quality DRM-free movie downloads at a resonable price. As in, $5 or so.
I guarantee you most people will switch to downloading legally.
No more "rentals" and other stupid crap like that. Most people only see a movie once, so the revenue lost by just giving them a copy is minimal.
Most people I know stopped pirating music once legal, DRM-free downloads came about. The movie industry should do the same thing, but they're too afraid.
People have short attention spans. They can only really be fan-crazy about a small number of people at a particular moment in time. Many people go see movies just so they can see the actors/actresses they are crazy about. Therefore the industry has to create a small number of "big names". Once these names are created, they pretty much can ask whatever they want and the studios have to pay them.
The big names are rotated out over time, but at any given moment the number of "superstars" is not all that large.
It sucks, but that's part of how the entertainment industry works.
Personally I've never been one to see a movie just because a particular person is in it. But apparently I'm in the minority.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It performs fairly well in my testing so far. Yes. Yes. Yes, if the pool version is below the currently supported Linux port's version (28). Yes. Yes.
Granted, we haven't been using it long, but so far it's been fairly stable and capable.
http://zfsonlinux.org/
Controlling information flow is the key to controlling a populace.
This has always been the case since the beginning of time.
We have to move forward. The main reason is efficient use of spectrum.
Modern protocols can squeeze a lot more data into each MHz of spectrum than older ones.
If we followed your philosophy, we'd still have a huge part of the band wasted on AMPS, which is about as inefficient as you can get! (AM audio)
E-mail will not go away as long as the Internet maintains its structure where no single entity controls it.
Think about it: What do you need in order to sign up for a Facebook, Twitter, Steam, or pretty much any online account? An e-mail address.
Right now the only truly guaranteed way two random people online can contact each other is e-mail. Not everyone has a Facebook account. Not everyone is on Twitter, or on AIM. But everyone online has an e-mail address, even if they don't use it very much, because you NEED one to sign up for these services! :)
Now if only this would happen with the premium beer. :)
I've actually not run into any other bronies here on Slashdot, so you should be okay.
In any case, I'm certainly glad I'm not on any forums that ban people just for liking a cartoon.
Can't we come up with scrubbers to clean up the pollution that coal plants put out?
It's a shame coal is so polluting, because we have so damn much of it. It's one of the most plentiful fuels in the world! There has to be a way to burn it cleanly!
Well, herp a derp, feel free to ignore me. :)
I find the terms amusing. Also Derpy Hooves is best pony.
Don't pretty much all computer users, especially those of the geeky variety, pirate software when they're kids and have little to no money to buy it?
I sure as hell did! Not because I wanted to "stick it to the man", but because I had no other way of getting software. I was a kid, I had no cash, no income. The software publishers lost nothing on me because had I not been able to pirate, I wouldn't have been able to buy the software anyway.
Now as an adult, I spend quite a bit of money on software and media. The only time I'll still download something questionable is when I cannot obtain it legally otherwise.
So surveying people asking if they've ever pirated software is going to be a naturally inflated number, because many of us did when we were kids.
What the heck do they talk about so much? 5200 messages a month sounds completely ridiculous!
Now if only they'd get rid of the fake "4G" tag the iPhone 4S has on AT&T. It's barely faster than the "3G" on the iPhone 4, and isn't real "4G" by any means.
I'm about as geek as you can get, but have no desire to surf the web on a TV. Web surfing is a more personal thing; I'd rather do it on a desktop, laptop, or tablet than on a big TV.
Exactly. I'd have no problems paying $5 a month if I was an avid online player on the xbox 360, because I'm actually using Microsoft's servers.
But to watch YouTube? That's plain ridiculous. It'd be like having to pay Apple $5 a month to be able to surf the web on my iPad.
Ugh. I better shut up. Don't want to give them ideas.
I don't mind paying for something that requires servers that MS has to maintain, like multiplayer gaming.
However, paying to do things like watch Netflix, YouTube, or use a web browser is too far, because I'm not actually using Microsoft's servers to do any of that. Why should I have to pay monthly for it?
I know it's not much money, it's more about principle than anything else. I hardly even use my Xbox 360 anymore because I got tired of all the nickel and diming and crippled games. Anyone who has ever compared Team Fortress 2 on the PC with the Xbox version will know what I'm talking about.
Gaming on the PC is far superior; unfortunately publishers using excessive DRM and requiring $600 video cards are frustrating even some of the strongest holdouts over to consoles, so it's become a niche market.
You can think of "hot water" as the product. You want a heater that makes hot water... so it's a "hot water heater".
I know, it sounds silly.. but you can grammatically justify it if you stretch a little. :)
I've always found it disgusting how quick school administrators are to ruin a kid's life over innocent mistakes.
Bring a multitool that happens to have a blade to school? Call the police. Arrest them, rather than just confiscate the device and send it home to parents.
Draw a movie action scene where some guy is blowing people away with a machine gun? OH NOS HE MIGHT DO IT FOR REAL. Call the cops. Suspend him. Ruin him psychologically for being creative!
It's gotten way beyond control. Stuff that would have gotten a kid suspended or detention when I was in school 20 years ago is getting them thrown in jail, expelled or placed into psychiatric care these days. It's no wonder our kids are growing up not-quite-centered. Sigh.
>California building code requires dimmable switches to be built in as the first switch in most rooms.
Are you serious? What in the hell led to such a stupid requirement? Especially since dimmed incandescent bulbs use far more watts per lumen than bulbs of a lower wattage?
To hell with the building code, I'd be swapping those out for regular switches once I move in if I don't want dimmers in those rooms. The dimmers are easily kept in a drawer to put back in before move-out day.
I also get the advertised life. I sometimes wonder why some people have such bad luck with CFLs. Power quality is the most likely cause, I think; as we have excellent power quality here and I have friends whose power is constantly having little issues. At one particular friend's place, the UPS beeps around once every visit.
Also, when CFLs end up lasting far longer than their advertised life, they need to be replaced for another reason: They start getting dim. I replaced about three bulbs that get a lot of use and were over six years old when I noticed a brand new bulb of the same wattage was twice as bright. If you're getting really long life out of your CFLs you might want to check this, as you don't notice them getting dimmer since it happens so gradually.
I was about to ask "are people really this stupid?" but then I realized that the answer to that is always "yes"
Heh, I'm sure you're being facetious.. but in the tiny event that you're not...
A while back we had some IBM big iron on campus, and our regular IBM tech was a guy in his (estimated) high 50s. Never have I seen someone who so *intricately* knows their shit as this man. He casually explained to me, while working, exactly what the capacitor cards do in the p690, why the system is designed the way it is, and so on. His troubleshooting ability was amazing, too.
This is expected when you have three to four DECADES of experience. A newly minted college grad may be able to sling C# code like there's no tomorrow but he won't have this experience.
I think IBM is making a mistake by letting these people go, and I'm betting they'll suffer down the line for it.
Why the heck does IBM need to cut so many jobs? They're actually doing rather well by all business standards.
Yet here they're acting like they're hemorrhaging money and need to cut costs fast.
American Airlines did this sort of thing too, along with voluntary furloughs... But they're actually in trouble and have a reason to.
WTF?!