Every story has been low on comments, compared to normal for similar topics, since whatever changes slashdot made to the site a few days ago. Frex, I can no longer access "yesterday's news" (so I can't read or comment on these stories at all) and there are other small issues, like pages that fail to completely load the first time. I doubt I'm the only one affected by all this.
In the past couple months I've seen folks using Ubuntu 8 and Mandrake-whatever-was-the-previous version... and Mandra^H^H^H Mandriva just seemed more finished and polished. It gave me new hope that one of these days there will be a linux I can love. Maybe this one is it... downloading now!
Yep. And as noted, it's up to the seller to meet the buyer's *expectations (perceptions) of value*. That's not the buyer's job! And if the seller prices his product above the buyer's expectation of value -- well, he won't sell much product.
I'm reminded of a store that was bought by a guy who didn't have a clue (this is a real store that I used to patronize).. he put high prices on all his merchandise, then congratulated himself on how much money he was going to make. The customers went "WTF? You want HOW MUCH for that??" and went across the street to buy the same products at a more realistic price. And then this guy screamed about how the other stores were taking all his business away. (And then he went out of business.)
An apt comparison, since as I recall, the only reason diamonds are expensive is because the supply (at least of "good" ones) is artificially restricted.
One does wonder... if the diamond supply were let freely into the marketplace, would there ever have been a big demand for cheap artificial stones, even at the industrial level?
(If the content had been marketed at realistic prices in the P2P environment in the first place, would there ever have been a big demand for illicit sources??)
But it's not up to the CUSTOMER to provide the product with a perception of value. That's the responsibility of the seller. If the seller fails at that task, the customer won't pay what the seller is asking for that product. And under some market conditions, it may not be possible to demonstrate value for the standard product; the seller might need to dress it up or do differential pricing -- STARTING at "free". (Witness the success of the recent NIN marketing experiment.)
Another factor: If I want $200k for a Ferrari, that's reasonable in the eyes of people in the market for a $200k car. (Pulling price out of my ass for the sake of demonstration.) But if I want $200k for a Chevy, the market's response will be "Are you out of your mind??!" -- *even if they'd already planned to spend $200k on a car*. The perception of value and the product are not correctly aligned for the market.
And if you stop the piracy and you're still priced out of demand range, cheaper good-enough-copies (not meaning pirated, but something else that fills the gap) will pop up and you'll be worse off than before, as the market discovers it doesn't need you anyway!
Lots of factors here... but I'd say piracy probably enhances demand more than it decreases it, being that "free samples" are the best marketing technique of all.... how much worse off would the content industry be without those "free samples"?? (Which incidentally cost it NO marketing dollars.)
I can attest that when I've had good access to "free samples", I've sure bought a lot more music and DVDs than at any other time in my whole life. Of course the flipside is that I also sample a lot more stuff that I then decide isn't worth buying... but those aren't lost sales regardless; I wouldn't buy 'em without the prior "free samples" *either*. With the "free samples", they at least got a *chance* to market those goods to me, which otherwise they'd not have at all.
[goes off, commits the indignity of RTFA]
As to the numbers the industry flings around, I'm reminded of another set of wild-assed numbers that got turned into "fact" through repetition, but in reality were inflated by a factor of between 50 and 500, depending on which of several bogus stats you were looking at. When the originator of these bogus stats was finally forced to reveal his "sources", he admitted that (exact quote) "I pulled them out of the air, because they sounded good".
That's what bugs me about the LP. I agree with about 3/4ths of its platform (boiled down, "get the fuck out of my wallet and stay outta my life"), but then I look at the candidates it coughs up (and I met its first Pres candidate), begin wondering exactly who's behind the curtain...and run away screaming!
And the other minor party candidates make the LP candidates look positively sane and mainstream!
Maybe it's not possible to be nominated as a minor party candidate for major office, without being at least a few degrees off plumb... and the more minor the party, the further off-plumb.
Sometimes it's fairly evident who says what, but a lot of the time I'm either guessing or have to backtrack the thread. And sometimes it's confused well back there and there's no untangling it.
They've been messing with the system again lately.. now I can't get at Yesterday's News anymore.:( I doubt I'm the only one here who accesses the site essentially in textmode, but as with everywhere, most people don't complain, they just go away.
Which kinda goes back to the nominal topic -- most people don't complain about surveillance either; they just hunch their shoulders and hope no one is looking their way.
Mighta been unclear on who said what... apparently there is now a quoteback system in place that is invisible in textmode (low-bandwidth, no JS, no CSS).
I didn't get that far in TFA, but Google Satview resolves down to about four inches -- at its max resolution, you can clearly see the striping on two-lane highways.
"(even driving is a privilege, not a right -- that's why you need a license)"
NO. The driver's license was originally certification that you were competent to operate a motor vehicle. It did NOT confer any right or privilege wrt your ability to or mode of travel.
I don't deny that in recent decades it's become twisted into a "license to do something that is otherwise illegal", rather than a certificate of competence. But I'm old enough to remember its original function.
That original function is why there are various classes of driver's lic. -- 18 wheeler, bus, passenger vehicle, motorcycle -- because those are different skill sets.
I think I'd file it under "layered scare tactics" -- people will often give stuff away when they *think* YOU BELIEVE you can hear them thinking, that they'd never let on to if they knew damn well that you ALSO know it's bullshit.
So... pretend to believe in it, and watch the reactions of people who know better but think *they* are leading YOU down the garden path.
Well, I don't know if that's how it's used, but that's how *I* would use it.
I see the problem. Everyone here is only familiar with peer to peer networking and therefore only with P2P security. No one does Netware anymore, so they're not aware of the top-down, compartmentalized security model. At best they can only visualize the *NIX model, which is more permissive about sideways access than Netware is.
But in a post-apocalyptic world, the people who are willing to dig ditches are going to survive a lot better than the ones who spend the same time working out a theory of ditch-digging.
So we're back to needing average folks who can do those average jobs, and not go mad from doing 'em.
He's referring to the age at which men sire children.
In the Olden Times, men would often outlive several wives (death due to childbirth complictions being a common limiting factor back then) and would continue to sire children on *some female*, even if not their own wives, until they got too old to get it up.
Now, most men have children only by their own wife, who chances are will outlive their husband. And they're usually done making new kids by the time they're in their early 30s.
So the average age at which men stop siring children has dropped, due to changes in social behaviour -- at least in "civilized" countries. No doubt the old ways still happen in the Third World.
Oh, very good, this does it nicely, thanks... I played with it a bit. Seems even a fairly large chunk of ice (100m) isn't enough to do more than make a few people go "What was that??" and it takes a similar-sized chunk of iron to make a crater like the famous one in Arizona.
I think we can all stop worrying... except for me; in the latter example, I stood too close to the impact and was ejected from the crater.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe someone should post a handy Bug Report link for those of us who excel at breaking stuff ;)
Every story has been low on comments, compared to normal for similar topics, since whatever changes slashdot made to the site a few days ago. Frex, I can no longer access "yesterday's news" (so I can't read or comment on these stories at all) and there are other small issues, like pages that fail to completely load the first time. I doubt I'm the only one affected by all this.
In the past couple months I've seen folks using Ubuntu 8 and Mandrake-whatever-was-the-previous version... and Mandra^H^H^H Mandriva just seemed more finished and polished. It gave me new hope that one of these days there will be a linux I can love. Maybe this one is it... downloading now!
Thanks, that was exactly what I needed... I was puzzling over which CD to download, and that page answered my question.
Yep. And as noted, it's up to the seller to meet the buyer's *expectations (perceptions) of value*. That's not the buyer's job! And if the seller prices his product above the buyer's expectation of value -- well, he won't sell much product.
I'm reminded of a store that was bought by a guy who didn't have a clue (this is a real store that I used to patronize) .. he put high prices on all his merchandise, then congratulated himself on how much money he was going to make. The customers went "WTF? You want HOW MUCH for that??" and went across the street to buy the same products at a more realistic price. And then this guy screamed about how the other stores were taking all his business away. (And then he went out of business.)
The media cartels are doing the same thing.
An apt comparison, since as I recall, the only reason diamonds are expensive is because the supply (at least of "good" ones) is artificially restricted.
One does wonder... if the diamond supply were let freely into the marketplace, would there ever have been a big demand for cheap artificial stones, even at the industrial level?
(If the content had been marketed at realistic prices in the P2P environment in the first place, would there ever have been a big demand for illicit sources??)
"In people's minds, it's worthless..."
But it's not up to the CUSTOMER to provide the product with a perception of value. That's the responsibility of the seller. If the seller fails at that task, the customer won't pay what the seller is asking for that product. And under some market conditions, it may not be possible to demonstrate value for the standard product; the seller might need to dress it up or do differential pricing -- STARTING at "free". (Witness the success of the recent NIN marketing experiment.)
Another factor: If I want $200k for a Ferrari, that's reasonable in the eyes of people in the market for a $200k car. (Pulling price out of my ass for the sake of demonstration.) But if I want $200k for a Chevy, the market's response will be "Are you out of your mind??!" -- *even if they'd already planned to spend $200k on a car*. The perception of value and the product are not correctly aligned for the market.
And if you stop the piracy and you're still priced out of demand range, cheaper good-enough-copies (not meaning pirated, but something else that fills the gap) will pop up and you'll be worse off than before, as the market discovers it doesn't need you anyway!
Lots of factors here... but I'd say piracy probably enhances demand more than it decreases it, being that "free samples" are the best marketing technique of all.... how much worse off would the content industry be without those "free samples"?? (Which incidentally cost it NO marketing dollars.)
I can attest that when I've had good access to "free samples", I've sure bought a lot more music and DVDs than at any other time in my whole life. Of course the flipside is that I also sample a lot more stuff that I then decide isn't worth buying ... but those aren't lost sales regardless; I wouldn't buy 'em without the prior "free samples" *either*. With the "free samples", they at least got a *chance* to market those goods to me, which otherwise they'd not have at all.
[goes off, commits the indignity of RTFA]
As to the numbers the industry flings around, I'm reminded of another set of wild-assed numbers that got turned into "fact" through repetition, but in reality were inflated by a factor of between 50 and 500, depending on which of several bogus stats you were looking at. When the originator of these bogus stats was finally forced to reveal his "sources", he admitted that (exact quote) "I pulled them out of the air, because they sounded good".
That's what bugs me about the LP. I agree with about 3/4ths of its platform (boiled down, "get the fuck out of my wallet and stay outta my life"), but then I look at the candidates it coughs up (and I met its first Pres candidate), begin wondering exactly who's behind the curtain ...and run away screaming!
And the other minor party candidates make the LP candidates look positively sane and mainstream!
Maybe it's not possible to be nominated as a minor party candidate for major office, without being at least a few degrees off plumb... and the more minor the party, the further off-plumb.
Slashdot, designed to teach us how to complain diplomatically.
(And the bridge is right over there. Really! ;)
Sometimes it's fairly evident who says what, but a lot of the time I'm either guessing or have to backtrack the thread. And sometimes it's confused well back there and there's no untangling it.
They've been messing with the system again lately.. now I can't get at Yesterday's News anymore. :( I doubt I'm the only one here who accesses the site essentially in textmode, but as with everywhere, most people don't complain, they just go away.
Which kinda goes back to the nominal topic -- most people don't complain about surveillance either; they just hunch their shoulders and hope no one is looking their way.
I *do* complain, on both counts. :)
That definitely sounds like the maximum in secrecy! DHS should look into it. ;D
Mighta been unclear on who said what... apparently there is now a quoteback system in place that is invisible in textmode (low-bandwidth, no JS, no CSS).
I didn't get that far in TFA, but Google Satview resolves down to about four inches -- at its max resolution, you can clearly see the striping on two-lane highways.
I doubt it's anywhere near the best available.
"(even driving is a privilege, not a right -- that's why you need a license)"
NO. The driver's license was originally certification that you were competent to operate a motor vehicle. It did NOT confer any right or privilege wrt your ability to or mode of travel.
I don't deny that in recent decades it's become twisted into a "license to do something that is otherwise illegal", rather than a certificate of competence. But I'm old enough to remember its original function.
That original function is why there are various classes of driver's lic. -- 18 wheeler, bus, passenger vehicle, motorcycle -- because those are different skill sets.
It's "Burn Before Reading." Everyone knows that!!
Yeah, now we'll have to wash and iron the Constitution before re-using it. Do you think bleach will get the stains out??
I think I'd file it under "layered scare tactics" -- people will often give stuff away when they *think* YOU BELIEVE you can hear them thinking, that they'd never let on to if they knew damn well that you ALSO know it's bullshit.
So... pretend to believe in it, and watch the reactions of people who know better but think *they* are leading YOU down the garden path.
Well, I don't know if that's how it's used, but that's how *I* would use it.
I see the problem. Everyone here is only familiar with peer to peer networking and therefore only with P2P security. No one does Netware anymore, so they're not aware of the top-down, compartmentalized security model. At best they can only visualize the *NIX model, which is more permissive about sideways access than Netware is.
There, that should explain it well enough. ;)
What? Do you mean there's really no such classified level as "Burn Before Reading" ??! ;)
But in a post-apocalyptic world, the people who are willing to dig ditches are going to survive a lot better than the ones who spend the same time working out a theory of ditch-digging.
So we're back to needing average folks who can do those average jobs, and not go mad from doing 'em.
He's referring to the age at which men sire children.
In the Olden Times, men would often outlive several wives (death due to childbirth complictions being a common limiting factor back then) and would continue to sire children on *some female*, even if not their own wives, until they got too old to get it up.
Now, most men have children only by their own wife, who chances are will outlive their husband. And they're usually done making new kids by the time they're in their early 30s.
So the average age at which men stop siring children has dropped, due to changes in social behaviour -- at least in "civilized" countries. No doubt the old ways still happen in the Third World.
Sometimes the old ways are actually better ;)
An AC bravely says,
"I wouldn't feel too safe. What if one of these meterors hit a place with no atmosphere, like New Jersey?"
And what would be so bad about that? ;)
Oh, very good, this does it nicely, thanks... I played with it a bit. Seems even a fairly large chunk of ice (100m) isn't enough to do more than make a few people go "What was that??" and it takes a similar-sized chunk of iron to make a crater like the famous one in Arizona.
I think we can all stop worrying ... except for me; in the latter example, I stood too close to the impact and was ejected from the crater. :)
Ohhhh... Oh dear. Silly me! I hope I didn't make the aliens fall out of their chairs when I picked it up.