That's kind of what I'm saying. They spend money based on the assumtion that copyright will be enforced, money that isn't necessary for the creation of music, it's money being spent to make you like a certain thing. Without copyright, there'd be little money at stake, so they wouldn't spend so much money to convince you to like something.
So sure, they spend a lot of money, but he had it backwards, he's saying they spend so much money, therefore we need copyright, otherwise who would invest in music. The fact is, they only spend so much money because monopolies are so valuable.
They control the radio stations. They control the hype machine. They spend tons of money on marketing and deciding who you should like instead of letting people decide themselves. Get with it.
They only invest that much money, because they expect copyright laws to be enforced. Just like I might've paid 30,000 dollars for a slave if slavery were still legal. The amount of money the invest in advertising is no excuse.
Frankly, you can call it whatever you like, but I gain nothing from the sale of this book, so I'd hardly call it advertising.
You're right on a few points, I still believe the majority of intellectual property should be made with copyright; I just think 5 - 10 years is long enough.
You're right, roads aren't even an adequate comparison. But maybe there is not proper comparison to information products. That doesn't make what I'm saying any less true.
This is why we pay for *bandwidth* to those who properly distribute a product. But when the distribution can be done from someone separate from who creates the product, why don't we pay just for distribution, as we do. You don't actually believe that when you pay 200 dollars for windows xp pro you're paying for distribution, do you?
I've posted the link many other times in many other threads. In other threads I logged out of amazon.com before posting the thread so the "referrer" link wouldn't show up, but it was the same link whether I was logged in or out anyway. Is it possible I posted the link because I just don't know how to adequately explain it, and I found the book to really change my way of thinking?
No, what I'm saying is, let's go out and find the biggest contributors to open source software, and also some big programmers at Microsoft. Then we hire them to continue writing open source software full time. I think we'd have just as good, or better results, then any corporate software out there.
People are willing to invest time in something they care about but they still need to make money. If you pay people who currently program open-source just as a hobby, to do it full time, you'd have excellent results.
When you charge for something that has zero marginal cost, you are limiting the number of people who can use it artificially, since there is no actual limit on how many people should be able to use it. It is an economic fact: when something has a zero marginal cost, it should not be charged for to be used, otherwise you are creating economic inefficiencies.
It's wasteful and inefficient when talking about things that do not have zero marginal cost. The cost for distributing software, once it is developed, is zero. So, take roads, for example. Roads have a high fixed cost, but it doesn't cost anything extra to use it.
Capitalism works. But it doesn't work when things like intellectual property are tacked on in order to make an old model fit into to businesses. The fact is, "capitalism" doesn't work when you give people artificial monopolies. When you charge for something that has a zero marginal cost, that is inefficient.
If you are sincere in wanting to learn the truth, then read this book Steal this idea, amazon. I used to be a very strong market defender, and I still am, but in instances, like writing software, where there is a high fixed cost, but a zero marginal cost, traditional capitalism just doesn't work. I can't really explain it better than that, without writing a book, and this book does a better job than I can. Try to consider the possibility that there are certain instance when your model just doesn't work properly.
I think he's right that open source is flawed in a way.
This is my position. You don't need profit incentive to make good software. You just need money. If there was a public organization that was investing just as much money into open source software as Microsoft invested into Microsoft software, you'd find open source would be just as good (just as easy to use for average joe).
If we had public investment in free software, the software would be just as good as anything you can buy, plus it would be free.
'A lot' is kind of a metaphorical way of saying plenty. But if you think of it literally, it's kind of a silly metaphor. But since it's such a common usage, we're going to stick with 'a lot' to mean plenty. I am usually not too aware of the way I spell or write certain things, since it's a pretty unconscious process for me. I'm not even sure if I usually say 'a lot' or 'alot'. But, now more than ever, I believe 'a lot' should be one word, because when people use it the don't, not even in the remotest sense, think of it as the same words in "I parked my car in a lot". When people say 'your' instead of 'you're' I'm usually pretty tolerant about that too, but I would understand why people might disagree with me. But saying 'a lot' doesn't reflect the semantical meaning when people say it. That is why I think 'a ton' should still be two words, just because people still mean it as a metaphor. But 'a ton' today is sort of like what 'a lot' was 50 or 100 years ago, when people probably starting saying 'a lot' and people objected. Just like people would object now if you said 'aton'. But even though people place a layer between their thoughts and their writing, and correct themselves to write 'a lot' as two words, the fact is, no one actually uses that expression that way; *everyone* no matter how they spell it, means 'alot'.
No, change in the English language shouldn't just run you over, in fact, I'm usually pretty slow to adopt new language usages. But I do recognize the tendency for language to change, and I cherish it, I don't resist it.
That's a separate question. You asked if he thought gamecube should come with a CD changer.
Most PC games keep stuff on the HDD and use the CD to prevent multiple installs with one CD (you have to have the CD to play just as a security measure).
I know of no games that use a full 8 GB, anyway. But even if all games did have 8GB, I have 150 GB of space, not 40, so doing a full install should at least be a custom option.
Yes, like the overrated/underrated moderation options, which don't show up in metamod.
Annular Eclipse
on
Crescent Sunset
·
· Score: 3, Informative
The story says that in the middle of the pacific, the sun is a ring of fire. I just wanted to point out that such eclipses are about as common as total solar eclipses, and they are called annular eclipses. Since the angular size of the sun varies over a period of a year, it causes about half of 'dead on' eclipses to be annular eclipses instead of total eclipses.
I think he makes a valid point, but I don't think we'll every actually see the effect he's talking about. There is potential for abuse here, but I think that any abuse that might happen will be outpaced by technology, and I'm sure eventually, that is, by the time this stuff goes mainstream, the equipment will be much much cheaper. In fact, I believe there is potential, over a long enough period of time, to be cheaper than 35mm.
Sorry for posting the third time to the same post. If there's any book you should spend money on it's this one. You don't like paying for books and I understand it. But if there's any single book you should ignore your feelings and actually pay for, it's this one, because you'd be funding a supporter of your cause. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
But my real question is, why not call it "free," I don't see what we gain by calling it "libre". By doing that we are usually ignoring the fact that the software is "gratis" as well as "libre". My question is, why not combine the two, and call it "free"?
I think my original post was just misdirected frustration.
Please excuse the post, I wrote it really late at night, and the night before I only got two hours of sleep. It was pretty off-topic, and the post wasn't developed, and it didn't bother to explain anything, so that's what this post is for.
The fact is, I also would like pure capitalism, but what passes for capitalism these days just isn't. Monopolies do not represent capitalism. Extremely powerful IP priveleges do not reflect capitalism. I think we just need to put things in perspective.
I've always been a strong market defender, but that side of me has withered in response to the extreme and irrational views some people have, totally beyond what I used to defend.
People seem to mix up the side effects of capitalism, and the benefits of capitalism, and after a while their point of view is so warped, that when they see only the side effects, they still believe that means capitalism is working.
There are certain things that are paid for by the public, and are available free of charge. Like roads. This isn't socialism, it's based purely on market principles. The market principles are those that say it is inefficient to charge for something with no scarcity, no matter how high the fixed cost (initial investment) is. If you charge for something that has no scarcity, you are limiting how many people can use it, and are therefore raising the cost/usage ratio.
So I just think we, as a country, need to embrace the idea of having more things be publicly funded, like art and science. I don't think we should get rid of IP priveleges, because I don't want public funding and the organizations that allocate that money to have the final word on art and science, but I do think we'd all benefit from more publicly funded projects which generate "intellectual property" except if it were publicly funded, no one could own it exclusively.
As I said in an earlier post, check my history, it's been shown that scientific research is always more effective when it's publicly funded AND open to the public. Scientists who work at corporations get a set salary, just like they'd get a set salary under a public project. So clearly IP priveleges aren't incentive to innovate, but incentive to sponsor. And we don't need corporate sponsorship when they end up charging us ten times what it would cost to develop what they've developed with public dollars. And yes, it has been show, pretty much irrefutably, that this is the case. Check out Steal this idea, Michael Perelman (link to everyones favorite patent abuser!) to learn more.
And not only do they charge us ten times what it would cost if it were discovered through public research, they also keep their science secret, cutting it's utility by literally ten fold.
So, capitalism is great, and I was pretty much drunk on sleep deprivation when I wrote otherwise. But what we have here isn't capitalism. And having the public put money towards science and art doesn't make our economy any less capitalist, except in the sense that there will be less maldistribution of wealth. And no, I don't advocate redistribution of wealth. But I don't think we should faciliate the process of putting most of the money in the hands of the few.
Is it a coincidence that the jobs that some people complain make too much money are the ones that are very strongly protected by IP laws? I used to defend athletes and actors for making what they make, since "they bring in their employers that much money, so that's what their worth". And that's true, so I don't blame athletes and actors. I do however blame the laws that make the problem worse.
The ironic thing is, movie studios and sports franchises would probably not make any less money if there were less IP priveleges. Since having good and famous athletes and actors are so critical to making money in these industries, they manage to suck out all the extra profit from them, leaving them exactly where they would've been without IP priveleges.
I was watching 60 minutes on sunday, and during the andy rooney segment he was just discussing some of the random letters he's received. One of them said that he was quoted in some book that the NFL is putting out, and so they sent him a check for 300$. He said "that's it, 300$? but how come every time our news network wants to show an NFL clip, we have to pay 4500$?"
I think I made my point pretty clear. Reply if you want me to explain anything. I know that there are certain points that might seem flawed, but I'm not about to write a book on the subject, and you are not about to read one, so I can't cover every angle. I assure you I'm not shortsighted in this matter. So if you do have an objection, just reply and I'll try to explain my position.
Sorry for the idiotic post. Like I said I was tired, and I was feeling particularly frustrated. Well, at least it motivated me to write this here, now.
I think it's really amazing that only 1% of people there are below the poverty line, and 12.7% of people here are below the poverty line.
I'm in no way doubting that there are way too many people in the US that are below the poverty line, but how accurate is that data about taiwan? 1%. I wish people would stop embracing cutthroat capitalism here. I doesn't always work, and it isn't always efficient.
Well libre, while more precise than "free," doesn't have the same implications that "free" has. Like "free"dom of speech. Or "hey, this is a free country". And the fact that most "libre" software is also "free" (gratis) doesn't hurt.
And not only that, libre is awkward to look at, and to pronounce, at least to pronounce following conventional american english pronunciations. It wouldn't have to follow convention if it were a common word, but it's not, so you lose, on all counts.
You got a nicer setup than I do, so I'm not trying to give you a hard time or anything, but I just think it's funny that you think your rig would r0x0r anyones b0x0rz at a hardcore LAN party.
Slashdot Mirror
That's kind of what I'm saying. They spend money based on the assumtion that copyright will be enforced, money that isn't necessary for the creation of music, it's money being spent to make you like a certain thing. Without copyright, there'd be little money at stake, so they wouldn't spend so much money to convince you to like something.
So sure, they spend a lot of money, but he had it backwards, he's saying they spend so much money, therefore we need copyright, otherwise who would invest in music. The fact is, they only spend so much money because monopolies are so valuable.
Well, nature *is* parsimonious. I guess that proves it then.
They control the radio stations. They control the hype machine. They spend tons of money on marketing and deciding who you should like instead of letting people decide themselves. Get with it.
They only invest that much money, because they expect copyright laws to be enforced. Just like I might've paid 30,000 dollars for a slave if slavery were still legal. The amount of money the invest in advertising is no excuse.
Frankly, you can call it whatever you like, but I gain nothing from the sale of this book, so I'd hardly call it advertising.
You're right on a few points, I still believe the majority of intellectual property should be made with copyright; I just think 5 - 10 years is long enough.
You're right, roads aren't even an adequate comparison. But maybe there is not proper comparison to information products. That doesn't make what I'm saying any less true.
This is why we pay for *bandwidth* to those who properly distribute a product. But when the distribution can be done from someone separate from who creates the product, why don't we pay just for distribution, as we do. You don't actually believe that when you pay 200 dollars for windows xp pro you're paying for distribution, do you?
I've posted the link many other times in many other threads. In other threads I logged out of amazon.com before posting the thread so the "referrer" link wouldn't show up, but it was the same link whether I was logged in or out anyway. Is it possible I posted the link because I just don't know how to adequately explain it, and I found the book to really change my way of thinking?
It would be free as roads are.
steal this idea, amazon.
I'm not good at explaining stuff. Read this book with an open mind, and you might understand.
No, what I'm saying is, let's go out and find the biggest contributors to open source software, and also some big programmers at Microsoft. Then we hire them to continue writing open source software full time. I think we'd have just as good, or better results, then any corporate software out there.
People are willing to invest time in something they care about but they still need to make money. If you pay people who currently program open-source just as a hobby, to do it full time, you'd have excellent results.
When you charge for something that has zero marginal cost, you are limiting the number of people who can use it artificially, since there is no actual limit on how many people should be able to use it. It is an economic fact: when something has a zero marginal cost, it should not be charged for to be used, otherwise you are creating economic inefficiencies.
Steal this idea, amazon
This book explains it all.
It's wasteful and inefficient when talking about things that do not have zero marginal cost. The cost for distributing software, once it is developed, is zero. So, take roads, for example. Roads have a high fixed cost, but it doesn't cost anything extra to use it.
Capitalism works. But it doesn't work when things like intellectual property are tacked on in order to make an old model fit into to businesses. The fact is, "capitalism" doesn't work when you give people artificial monopolies. When you charge for something that has a zero marginal cost, that is inefficient.
If you are sincere in wanting to learn the truth, then read this book Steal this idea, amazon. I used to be a very strong market defender, and I still am, but in instances, like writing software, where there is a high fixed cost, but a zero marginal cost, traditional capitalism just doesn't work. I can't really explain it better than that, without writing a book, and this book does a better job than I can. Try to consider the possibility that there are certain instance when your model just doesn't work properly.
I think he's right that open source is flawed in a way.
This is my position. You don't need profit incentive to make good software. You just need money. If there was a public organization that was investing just as much money into open source software as Microsoft invested into Microsoft software, you'd find open source would be just as good (just as easy to use for average joe).
If we had public investment in free software, the software would be just as good as anything you can buy, plus it would be free.
'A lot' is kind of a metaphorical way of saying plenty. But if you think of it literally, it's kind of a silly metaphor. But since it's such a common usage, we're going to stick with 'a lot' to mean plenty. I am usually not too aware of the way I spell or write certain things, since it's a pretty unconscious process for me. I'm not even sure if I usually say 'a lot' or 'alot'. But, now more than ever, I believe 'a lot' should be one word, because when people use it the don't, not even in the remotest sense, think of it as the same words in "I parked my car in a lot". When people say 'your' instead of 'you're' I'm usually pretty tolerant about that too, but I would understand why people might disagree with me. But saying 'a lot' doesn't reflect the semantical meaning when people say it. That is why I think 'a ton' should still be two words, just because people still mean it as a metaphor. But 'a ton' today is sort of like what 'a lot' was 50 or 100 years ago, when people probably starting saying 'a lot' and people objected. Just like people would object now if you said 'aton'. But even though people place a layer between their thoughts and their writing, and correct themselves to write 'a lot' as two words, the fact is, no one actually uses that expression that way; *everyone* no matter how they spell it, means 'alot'.
No, change in the English language shouldn't just run you over, in fact, I'm usually pretty slow to adopt new language usages. But I do recognize the tendency for language to change, and I cherish it, I don't resist it.
That's a separate question. You asked if he thought gamecube should come with a CD changer.
Most PC games keep stuff on the HDD and use the CD to prevent multiple installs with one CD (you have to have the CD to play just as a security measure).
I know of no games that use a full 8 GB, anyway. But even if all games did have 8GB, I have 150 GB of space, not 40, so doing a full install should at least be a custom option.
I think he's talking about PC games.
"Another" used to be two words too. Like "I read an other book, but it wasn't as good." Now "another" is one word. Things change. Get used to it.
Yes, like the overrated/underrated moderation options, which don't show up in metamod.
The story says that in the middle of the pacific, the sun is a ring of fire. I just wanted to point out that such eclipses are about as common as total solar eclipses, and they are called annular eclipses. Since the angular size of the sun varies over a period of a year, it causes about half of 'dead on' eclipses to be annular eclipses instead of total eclipses.
I think he makes a valid point, but I don't think we'll every actually see the effect he's talking about. There is potential for abuse here, but I think that any abuse that might happen will be outpaced by technology, and I'm sure eventually, that is, by the time this stuff goes mainstream, the equipment will be much much cheaper. In fact, I believe there is potential, over a long enough period of time, to be cheaper than 35mm.
Sorry for posting the third time to the same post. If there's any book you should spend money on it's this one. You don't like paying for books and I understand it. But if there's any single book you should ignore your feelings and actually pay for, it's this one, because you'd be funding a supporter of your cause. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
But my real question is, why not call it "free," I don't see what we gain by calling it "libre". By doing that we are usually ignoring the fact that the software is "gratis" as well as "libre". My question is, why not combine the two, and call it "free"?
Ok this reply is for the other reply too.
I think my original post was just misdirected frustration.
Please excuse the post, I wrote it really late at night, and the night before I only got two hours of sleep. It was pretty off-topic, and the post wasn't developed, and it didn't bother to explain anything, so that's what this post is for.
The fact is, I also would like pure capitalism, but what passes for capitalism these days just isn't. Monopolies do not represent capitalism. Extremely powerful IP priveleges do not reflect capitalism. I think we just need to put things in perspective.
I've always been a strong market defender, but that side of me has withered in response to the extreme and irrational views some people have, totally beyond what I used to defend.
People seem to mix up the side effects of capitalism, and the benefits of capitalism, and after a while their point of view is so warped, that when they see only the side effects, they still believe that means capitalism is working.
There are certain things that are paid for by the public, and are available free of charge. Like roads. This isn't socialism, it's based purely on market principles. The market principles are those that say it is inefficient to charge for something with no scarcity, no matter how high the fixed cost (initial investment) is. If you charge for something that has no scarcity, you are limiting how many people can use it, and are therefore raising the cost/usage ratio.
So I just think we, as a country, need to embrace the idea of having more things be publicly funded, like art and science. I don't think we should get rid of IP priveleges, because I don't want public funding and the organizations that allocate that money to have the final word on art and science, but I do think we'd all benefit from more publicly funded projects which generate "intellectual property" except if it were publicly funded, no one could own it exclusively.
As I said in an earlier post, check my history, it's been shown that scientific research is always more effective when it's publicly funded AND open to the public. Scientists who work at corporations get a set salary, just like they'd get a set salary under a public project. So clearly IP priveleges aren't incentive to innovate, but incentive to sponsor. And we don't need corporate sponsorship when they end up charging us ten times what it would cost to develop what they've developed with public dollars. And yes, it has been show, pretty much irrefutably, that this is the case. Check out Steal this idea, Michael Perelman (link to everyones favorite patent abuser!) to learn more.
And not only do they charge us ten times what it would cost if it were discovered through public research, they also keep their science secret, cutting it's utility by literally ten fold.
So, capitalism is great, and I was pretty much drunk on sleep deprivation when I wrote otherwise. But what we have here isn't capitalism. And having the public put money towards science and art doesn't make our economy any less capitalist, except in the sense that there will be less maldistribution of wealth. And no, I don't advocate redistribution of wealth. But I don't think we should faciliate the process of putting most of the money in the hands of the few.
Is it a coincidence that the jobs that some people complain make too much money are the ones that are very strongly protected by IP laws? I used to defend athletes and actors for making what they make, since "they bring in their employers that much money, so that's what their worth". And that's true, so I don't blame athletes and actors. I do however blame the laws that make the problem worse.
The ironic thing is, movie studios and sports franchises would probably not make any less money if there were less IP priveleges. Since having good and famous athletes and actors are so critical to making money in these industries, they manage to suck out all the extra profit from them, leaving them exactly where they would've been without IP priveleges.
I was watching 60 minutes on sunday, and during the andy rooney segment he was just discussing some of the random letters he's received. One of them said that he was quoted in some book that the NFL is putting out, and so they sent him a check for 300$. He said "that's it, 300$? but how come every time our news network wants to show an NFL clip, we have to pay 4500$?"
I think I made my point pretty clear. Reply if you want me to explain anything. I know that there are certain points that might seem flawed, but I'm not about to write a book on the subject, and you are not about to read one, so I can't cover every angle. I assure you I'm not shortsighted in this matter. So if you do have an objection, just reply and I'll try to explain my position.
Sorry for the idiotic post. Like I said I was tired, and I was feeling particularly frustrated. Well, at least it motivated me to write this here, now.
I think it's really amazing that only 1% of people there are below the poverty line, and 12.7% of people here are below the poverty line.
I'm in no way doubting that there are way too many people in the US that are below the poverty line, but how accurate is that data about taiwan? 1%. I wish people would stop embracing cutthroat capitalism here. I doesn't always work, and it isn't always efficient.
Well libre, while more precise than "free," doesn't have the same implications that "free" has. Like "free"dom of speech. Or "hey, this is a free country". And the fact that most "libre" software is also "free" (gratis) doesn't hurt.
And not only that, libre is awkward to look at, and to pronounce, at least to pronounce following conventional american english pronunciations. It wouldn't have to follow convention if it were a common word, but it's not, so you lose, on all counts.
You got a nicer setup than I do, so I'm not trying to give you a hard time or anything, but I just think it's funny that you think your rig would r0x0r anyones b0x0rz at a hardcore LAN party.