The TV industry is hurting, they long for the glory days when everyone wanted to trade their old 20" SD CRT TV for a fancy new 43" HD LCD. Those were great times for the TV industry. Unfortunately for them, HD TVs have hit saturation, and there just isn't the desire for everyone to go out and replace their perfectly good HD TV with whatever today's gimmick is. We've seen 3D TVs, 4 colour pixels, Curved screens, apps, apps, and more apps, and now 4K. Nobody is rushing out to replace their TV for any of these. Sure 4K will eventually catch on, but much slower than HD did because for most people they can't tell the difference unless they can see it side by side with HD at the same time, and even then, it's only marginally better (if at all) at normal viewing distances and screen sizes.
There will likely be a new fad next year too as TV manufacturers try, yet again, to re-capture the glory days of the SD-HD shift. But those days are gone, and I don't anticipate them returning for another generation.
That's easy. Synthetics are ALWAYS BETTER IN EVERY SINGLE WAY. So it would be the synthetics. There is never a case where you'd want to risk a natural diamond for this sort of process. The risk is far too high.
Sounds to me like we actually DO know the answer now. It's not, otherwise this sample wouldn't have been destroyed when the diamond applying pressure to it broke.
You know how you can tell the difference between a natural and a synthetic diamond? There's only one way. You look for the imperfections that occur in natural ones. Synthetic ones are "too perfect" and therefore worth less money (DeBeers logic)
The last thing you'd want here is a natural diamond as it wouldn't be as good for the application as a synthetic one where you can be sure there are no impurities.
If the lost sales are minimal, then you already don't have much left, so there's no point in doing this. If there's an actual percentage left when you're done, then you are buying more bottles to get the same amount of product.
You can't really have it both ways. Either this is a real problem to be solved, in which case it will cut sales if it's solved. Or it's not a real problem, in which case there's no point spending the money on it. Either way the manufacturer has no incentive to implement it.
You grossly overestimate the cost per notice. To the rights holder the cost is basically zero. the automated system that google set up gets automated complaints generated by an automated system at the company submitting the complaints. There was a one time setup fee for developing the system, and it can run indefinitely in a closet somewhere unmonitored for decades.
Do you really think there'd be this many takedown requests if if cost actual money to process them?
When submitting that many million requests, the odds that that high a percentage are legitimate but not in the index is pretty low. My bet is that the submitter just used an algorithm to generate possible names just in case, rather than actually find real infringers. For example, you know that www.questionablesite.com tends to host some content you don't like, so you do this: - www.knownquestionablesite.com/bignamemovie.html - www.knownquestionablesite.com/b1gnam3m0v13.html - www.knownquestionablesite.com/big_name_movie.html - www.knownquestionablesite.com/big-name-movie.html - www.knownquestionablesite.com/big.name.movie.html - etc
Now you don't know if they were even going to host your movie, but instead of checking, you just spam DMCA takedown requests because they're free and there's no downside if the site doesn't exist.
I'm honestly not coming up with any use that would make sense. Consumer goods, it would be amazing, but as you point out, nobody would ever increase their manufacturing costs to decrease their sales. Industrial processes, first of all, large vats, pipelines, etc have far less loss (as a percentage) than small bottles and tubes that consumers use, but beyond that, the odds are it would need to be re-applied after each cleaning, which would more than negate the cost savings of less product waste.
This is unfortunately a pretty niche product, and although it would benefit society as a whole, it will likely never see the light of day.
As a percentage, the losses on those large vats are tiny compared to the customer end. It also seems unlikely that this coating would survive a proper cleaning, and re-applying it for each batch would likely cost far more than the product loss in the cleaning process.
And this is exactly the point. Where's the incentive to the manufacturer? - Adds cost to the manufacturing process - Decreases sales (due to less waste)
So why would any manufacturer actually use this product?
And don't say that people will pay more for it, they won't. Especially not by enough to compensate for the decreased waste and increased cost. It would take an absolute marketing genius to find a way to get customers to pay enough extra for this to make it worth it. I just don't see it ever making it to market in pre-packaged products.
You're implying that the Microsoft engineer didn't put it there on purpose in the first place. Seems somewhat unlikely that they "Accidentally" created a specific authentication system designed to prevent this from being used outside of India.
MS doesn't want anyone else to use this app. It probably has less spyware and tracking built in to make it lighter weight. They've decided they'd rather these people use it than use nothing (or worse, a competitor), but they don't want to risk anyone using this instead of the full garbage laden app.
It's the same mindset that makes software piracy ok in those countries, they'd rather people use their software without paying in those countries where the average person can't afford the ridiculous price of the software, rather than use a competitor and get used to working on a different platform.
I hate to break it to you, the US has never been an "example to the world". But I will admit that it didn't used to be the laughing stock it became just over 15 years ago.
That would likely be the case, if there even were legitimate ways to pay for such content.
Now many people may chose "don't watch the content at all", but many more will still try to watch things that the studios have worked hard to avoid allowing people to pay them for.
I'd prefer if they hadn't wasted money neutering the site in an attempt to pretend it's "mobile friendly"
Leaving the full site for use on all devices would have saved money on development (fewer ads needed to "keep the lights on") all while having a substantially better experience for the people visiting the site. Alternatively, they could have spent time actually optimizing the pages to be smaller and more efficient, saving money on bandwidth, and server processing and memory requirements, also then requiring fewer ads to "keep the lights on".
Bloat is bad for website owners, as well as users, "mobile" sites did nothing to help that in any way, but lots to make it harder to use, which frustrates your users, and decreases the number that visit your site (decreasing your revenue)
"mobile" websites need to die a horrible horrible death.
Your DNS can easily be local, on your network, and it means that everyone connecting to your network, regardless of device, has the advantage of ad blocking.
I don't need to jailbreak my mother in law's iPad for her to get the advantage of the DNS blocking, I don't have to root my wife's android, every device that comes in to the house and connects to the network automatically gets the advantage of ad blocking just by virtue of connecting. And best of all, I can make updates to one device instead of dozens as new ad domains appear.
Hosts is great for people who only use a PC, never use a mobile device, have few devices, and don't know how to configure a DNS server, but for true geeks (the main audience of this site) it's lacking on many levels.
There's a reason we don't all just have hosts files for the whole internet, there's a reason DNS was invented, those same reasons are what makes it superior to a hosts file for this application as well.
Of course the normal way of writing web pages these days includes at least 10 different servers (mostly ads and tracking), so it's easy to only open 2 connections to any one server while still having your browser opening 20 or more connections at a time.
As much as I'm not a fan of APK and his hosts file spam, this is somewhere he's right. The only way to really use the internet these days is with either a hosts file blocking thousands upon thousands of entries, or better yet, a DNS server that does the same for all your devices at once (I use the latter). Without that, many ads still waste your time and bandwidth, even if you don't have to see them at the end.
Of course the downside is that it makes it even easier for sites to detect when you're blocking ads, but there are ways around that too on a case by case basis.
The art of optimization seems to have disappeared, it made a small resurgence when web developers tried to optimize for the mobile web, but it doesn't look like most developers ever tried that hard.
They never tried to "optimize" for the mobile web, they just removed half the content while leaving all the ads and tracking in place. It means that the mobile version ALWAYS sucks in comparison to the full version, even when viewed on a mobile device.
I have NEVER seen a single "mobile" web page that was better on my phone than the full version of the same site. I never, under any circumstances, ever want to see the mobile version of any web page.
You act like this is a new phenomenon, there hasn't been a reason to buy an Apple product in 2 decades. They've consistently been behind their competition in product features and ease of use, and their prices have been significantly higher just to add insult to injury.
Apple does one thing well, and only one thing. Marketing. They are amazing at marketing, they can take a second or third rate product, and attract a rabidly loyal fan base to it. Any other company would kill for that ability.
You're omitting the fact that Canada is already subject to such regional pricing on many products making it far more than the 50% you quote. Everything from books to music to cars to other items all priced far higher than the exchange rate would justify. And to add insult to injury, we spend a fortune to enforce trade barriers with the sole purpose of keeping it this way.
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The TV industry is hurting, they long for the glory days when everyone wanted to trade their old 20" SD CRT TV for a fancy new 43" HD LCD. Those were great times for the TV industry. Unfortunately for them, HD TVs have hit saturation, and there just isn't the desire for everyone to go out and replace their perfectly good HD TV with whatever today's gimmick is. We've seen 3D TVs, 4 colour pixels, Curved screens, apps, apps, and more apps, and now 4K. Nobody is rushing out to replace their TV for any of these. Sure 4K will eventually catch on, but much slower than HD did because for most people they can't tell the difference unless they can see it side by side with HD at the same time, and even then, it's only marginally better (if at all) at normal viewing distances and screen sizes.
There will likely be a new fad next year too as TV manufacturers try, yet again, to re-capture the glory days of the SD-HD shift. But those days are gone, and I don't anticipate them returning for another generation.
That's easy. Synthetics are ALWAYS BETTER IN EVERY SINGLE WAY. So it would be the synthetics.
There is never a case where you'd want to risk a natural diamond for this sort of process. The risk is far too high.
or they feel like using the word "terrorist"
or they just don't feel like following the constitution today
or....
There's a reason I have no desire to visit your backwards country. I'll stick to countries with a somewhat reasonable human rights record thanks.
Sounds to me like we actually DO know the answer now. It's not, otherwise this sample wouldn't have been destroyed when the diamond applying pressure to it broke.
You're wrong.
You know how you can tell the difference between a natural and a synthetic diamond? There's only one way. You look for the imperfections that occur in natural ones. Synthetic ones are "too perfect" and therefore worth less money (DeBeers logic)
The last thing you'd want here is a natural diamond as it wouldn't be as good for the application as a synthetic one where you can be sure there are no impurities.
If the lost sales are minimal, then you already don't have much left, so there's no point in doing this.
If there's an actual percentage left when you're done, then you are buying more bottles to get the same amount of product.
You can't really have it both ways. Either this is a real problem to be solved, in which case it will cut sales if it's solved. Or it's not a real problem, in which case there's no point spending the money on it. Either way the manufacturer has no incentive to implement it.
You grossly overestimate the cost per notice. To the rights holder the cost is basically zero. the automated system that google set up gets automated complaints generated by an automated system at the company submitting the complaints. There was a one time setup fee for developing the system, and it can run indefinitely in a closet somewhere unmonitored for decades.
Do you really think there'd be this many takedown requests if if cost actual money to process them?
When submitting that many million requests, the odds that that high a percentage are legitimate but not in the index is pretty low.
My bet is that the submitter just used an algorithm to generate possible names just in case, rather than actually find real infringers. For example, you know that www.questionablesite.com tends to host some content you don't like, so you do this:
- www.knownquestionablesite.com/bignamemovie.html
- www.knownquestionablesite.com/b1gnam3m0v13.html
- www.knownquestionablesite.com/big_name_movie.html
- www.knownquestionablesite.com/big-name-movie.html
- www.knownquestionablesite.com/big.name.movie.html
- etc
Now you don't know if they were even going to host your movie, but instead of checking, you just spam DMCA takedown requests because they're free and there's no downside if the site doesn't exist.
I'm honestly not coming up with any use that would make sense.
Consumer goods, it would be amazing, but as you point out, nobody would ever increase their manufacturing costs to decrease their sales.
Industrial processes, first of all, large vats, pipelines, etc have far less loss (as a percentage) than small bottles and tubes that consumers use, but beyond that, the odds are it would need to be re-applied after each cleaning, which would more than negate the cost savings of less product waste.
This is unfortunately a pretty niche product, and although it would benefit society as a whole, it will likely never see the light of day.
As a percentage, the losses on those large vats are tiny compared to the customer end. It also seems unlikely that this coating would survive a proper cleaning, and re-applying it for each batch would likely cost far more than the product loss in the cleaning process.
And this is exactly the point.
Where's the incentive to the manufacturer?
- Adds cost to the manufacturing process
- Decreases sales (due to less waste)
So why would any manufacturer actually use this product?
And don't say that people will pay more for it, they won't. Especially not by enough to compensate for the decreased waste and increased cost.
It would take an absolute marketing genius to find a way to get customers to pay enough extra for this to make it worth it. I just don't see it ever making it to market in pre-packaged products.
You're implying that the Microsoft engineer didn't put it there on purpose in the first place. Seems somewhat unlikely that they "Accidentally" created a specific authentication system designed to prevent this from being used outside of India.
MS doesn't want anyone else to use this app. It probably has less spyware and tracking built in to make it lighter weight. They've decided they'd rather these people use it than use nothing (or worse, a competitor), but they don't want to risk anyone using this instead of the full garbage laden app.
It's the same mindset that makes software piracy ok in those countries, they'd rather people use their software without paying in those countries where the average person can't afford the ridiculous price of the software, rather than use a competitor and get used to working on a different platform.
Does your property REALLY include the things under the surface? In most of the world it does not. Read the fine print on your title.
I hate to break it to you, the US has never been an "example to the world". But I will admit that it didn't used to be the laughing stock it became just over 15 years ago.
That would likely be the case, if there even were legitimate ways to pay for such content.
Now many people may chose "don't watch the content at all", but many more will still try to watch things that the studios have worked hard to avoid allowing people to pay them for.
I'd prefer if they hadn't wasted money neutering the site in an attempt to pretend it's "mobile friendly"
Leaving the full site for use on all devices would have saved money on development (fewer ads needed to "keep the lights on") all while having a substantially better experience for the people visiting the site. Alternatively, they could have spent time actually optimizing the pages to be smaller and more efficient, saving money on bandwidth, and server processing and memory requirements, also then requiring fewer ads to "keep the lights on".
Bloat is bad for website owners, as well as users, "mobile" sites did nothing to help that in any way, but lots to make it harder to use, which frustrates your users, and decreases the number that visit your site (decreasing your revenue)
"mobile" websites need to die a horrible horrible death.
oh boy....
Your DNS can easily be local, on your network, and it means that everyone connecting to your network, regardless of device, has the advantage of ad blocking.
I don't need to jailbreak my mother in law's iPad for her to get the advantage of the DNS blocking, I don't have to root my wife's android, every device that comes in to the house and connects to the network automatically gets the advantage of ad blocking just by virtue of connecting. And best of all, I can make updates to one device instead of dozens as new ad domains appear.
Hosts is great for people who only use a PC, never use a mobile device, have few devices, and don't know how to configure a DNS server, but for true geeks (the main audience of this site) it's lacking on many levels.
There's a reason we don't all just have hosts files for the whole internet, there's a reason DNS was invented, those same reasons are what makes it superior to a hosts file for this application as well.
Of course the normal way of writing web pages these days includes at least 10 different servers (mostly ads and tracking), so it's easy to only open 2 connections to any one server while still having your browser opening 20 or more connections at a time.
As much as I'm not a fan of APK and his hosts file spam, this is somewhere he's right.
The only way to really use the internet these days is with either a hosts file blocking thousands upon thousands of entries, or better yet, a DNS server that does the same for all your devices at once (I use the latter).
Without that, many ads still waste your time and bandwidth, even if you don't have to see them at the end.
Of course the downside is that it makes it even easier for sites to detect when you're blocking ads, but there are ways around that too on a case by case basis.
The art of optimization seems to have disappeared, it made a small resurgence when web developers tried to optimize for the mobile web, but it doesn't look like most developers ever tried that hard.
They never tried to "optimize" for the mobile web, they just removed half the content while leaving all the ads and tracking in place. It means that the mobile version ALWAYS sucks in comparison to the full version, even when viewed on a mobile device.
I have NEVER seen a single "mobile" web page that was better on my phone than the full version of the same site. I never, under any circumstances, ever want to see the mobile version of any web page.
A website can figure out the speed of your connection, it doesn't know if you own your home.
There's simply no reason to buy an Apple product.
You act like this is a new phenomenon, there hasn't been a reason to buy an Apple product in 2 decades. They've consistently been behind their competition in product features and ease of use, and their prices have been significantly higher just to add insult to injury.
Apple does one thing well, and only one thing. Marketing. They are amazing at marketing, they can take a second or third rate product, and attract a rabidly loyal fan base to it. Any other company would kill for that ability.
Which is why the DOJ will be given access, but the IRS will not.
Politics is a game where the top 1% write the rules, you know who's favour they will be in.
There's also the Canadian edition at 200% of the US price, so don't feel too ripped off.
You're omitting the fact that Canada is already subject to such regional pricing on many products making it far more than the 50% you quote.
Everything from books to music to cars to other items all priced far higher than the exchange rate would justify.
And to add insult to injury, we spend a fortune to enforce trade barriers with the sole purpose of keeping it this way.