It was just a tongue-in-cheek response, but I've never been instructed to return a set, nor have I had to pay a recurring fee to retain them, nor have I ever known anyone to get used plates from the DMV. That's a sale in my book.
Or maybe some idiot who cut the wrong wires, or it was unfinished rework, or some guy dropped his wrench and it severed a wire, or who knows. A cut wire doesn't mean intentional sabotage.
If I had to be subdued, I'd prefer it was physically, by a group of scantily clad hot chicks. Honestly, that would probably be the most effective technique ever. "We've got a runner. Release the babes!"
Lost, maybe, although it's devolved a bit lately. Alias was horrible from the start, from the Schwarzenegger-like chiseled face of Jennifer Garner to the horribly stereotyped characters to the reject-from-a-soap-opera plot lines interspersed with "action" sequences, not to mention the whole "hey, let's give this guy another chance even though he just killed someone I love and tried to take over the world. Damn, he screwed us again! Hey, let's give him another chance. Damnit! Okay, one more chance. Son of a..."
More importantly, pumpkin brain, is the fact that what may be fine for one person is goddamn insulting to another. It's impossible to legally define an insult. Also, if it was illegal to hurt someone's feelings, we'd all be in jail, especially you! *cry*
"I'm not ruling in your favor, as you're not the type of company/organization/person I think you should be, and some other things"
The word you're looking for is "credibility," and it always plays a large role in the court. If the judge or jury doesn't believe what you're saying, things could get grim. In any case, this wasn't "I don't like you and here's the loophole I've found to rule against you," rather, to obtain an injunction one must demonstrate irreparable damage. The judge basically said "Money can repair any claim of damage, motion denied." In fact, eBay would be harmed by the injunction, which would be unacceptable prior to MercExchange obtaining a verdict of infringement.
Convergence is nice, but it can be a major pain in the ass too. If I slept in my car, I'd be more than pissed if it got stolen -- I'd be sleeping in the street! Likewise, if you lose your phone-wallet, how the hell are you going to buy a new one? You can't even go to the bank, because your ID was in the phone-wallet, and you can't call anyone because you don't have a phone. Obviously you'd figure something out, but I'm just saying convergence isn't without its drawbacks.
As for cash-boy, the above scenario is exactly why cash transactions will never cease to exist, so don't get your panties in a bunch. The rest of us will use our phone-wallet-cars and laugh at you as we drive our phones away while you're still counting your change, and you'll be laughing haughtily when our nanny-concubine-minifridges decide our children should be placed in cold storage.
Why do manufacturers lock phones and reduce features? Because consumers in America want free or cheap phones with long contracts.
That sounds like a good excuse, but it's not true. Phones AND service "contracts" (which are typically month-to-month with no minimum and no "incentives" to lock-in) are both much, much cheaper in Japan. Much. I was there in 2001 for 6 months, bought a phone which rivals most on the market today for $100US, and paid $33/mo for service (with AU), 2000 minutes, basically unlimited data. I had GPS maps (showed local train stations w/schedules, traffic, restaurants, movies, etc), basically what Google Maps almost does now. And that was in 2001. Meanwhile, G3 is now prevalent in Japan, while the US is still on EDGE/GPRS, and customers in the US are still paying out the arse for old tech.
The correct answer is the established big players who have war chests to operate at a loss and stifle would-be competition. Other folks with deep pockets have no incentive to get involved in a price war because A) they already have deep pockets, and B) they'll probably just continue in whatever industry has been profitable for them so far. The only thing that could undermine the existing providers is sheer altruism on the part of someone with a LOT of money, or opening up the licensing for airwaves the way Google has suggested, and perhaps some form of municipal service.
As long as the majority of people don't know how to copy games, it will never be an overwhelming problem. And the majority will never know how, any more than they'll know how to write a game (which would also cause the downfall of the gaming industry, if it happened).
Anyway, I don't know anyone who owns 0 legitimate copies, so everyone's contributing.. some to a lesser extent than others, but that's life. And it's a good thing. It encourages diversity. Resources not spent on games don't just disappear.. they're spent on other things. Maybe you like games more than anything else ("you" in the general, not the parent poster specifically), and you think everyone who ever plays a game should contribute to the same extent you did to maintain and increase the industry, but that's an inefficient system which leads to stagnation. If the gaming industry dies, it will be because there was not enough interest to sustain it, not because of piracy per se (though rampant piracy to the exclusion of any legitimate buyers can be an indication of lack of serious interest).
It's a sound business strategy. That drug dealers employ effective strategies does not make those strategies somehow tainted. Drug dealers also reinvest their profits -- does that make it a bad policy?
Nonetheless, they aren't quite the same. Drug dealers have a pretty good idea that people will get hooked on their product. Starting out, software companies charge little/less for their products because they have to. They're competing, and trying to gain market share. Once you have the market share, you can bump up the price because the demand is there. This isn't voodoo economics, it's the ABC's of business.
In that respect, BusinessWeek is wrong. You don't ignore large scale counterfeiting of your product, and MS is right to pursue those groups. These people aren't giving away the software -- they're stocking shelves with it and making a profit. Anyone who's been to Hong Kong knows what I'm talking about. What MS needs to do is price their product competitively with the counterfeit versions in the overseas markets. Get people in the habit of paying for legitimate copies they need at prices they can afford. Will some of those copies wind up on eBay? Absolutely. But their core business in the first world is pre-installation on new machines, not upgrades, and that core market won't really be affected. Mom & Pop shops might buy the overseas keys, but MS could further stifle the practice by tying the keys to non-English versions and offering the old "tell us where you got this and we'll give you a free legitimate US key, and maybe we'll throw in Office" incentives.
And I do too. That's why I have The Clapper, I "type" with an onscreen keyboard which senses which letter I'm looking at, and all my clothing has zippers. I'm also developing a mind-reading interface, which is working well, except that it's difficult to distinguish actual instructions from random thoughts, so occasionally the computer does something unexpeSteve Jobs is an idiot. Well, maybe not an idiot.. after all, he manages to convince people that his ridiculous ideas are revolutionary instead of discarded ideas from the trashbins of real product designers. Aww, see? Goddamn it. Anyway, I've got to get back to using my iPhone in public.
Just because the inverse of a statement (most muslims are terrorists) is false doesn't make the original statement (most terrorists are muslim) either false or irrelevant. Most people with breast cancer are women, but most women don't have breast cancer. Nobody's saying non-muslims are incapable of being terrorists (or worse), but terrorism is clearly a stain on the muslim faith. I'm not anti-muslim, although I do find adherence to belief over reason to be irritating, and I prefer not to associate with people who attempt to preach their belief, regardless of what it may be.
Microsoft didn't kill Netscape. Netscape killed Netscape. The browser was so bloated and slow that it made IE seem fast. The bundling came long after Netscape killed itself.
diesel is widespread for emergency use everywhere from hospitals to emergency-services to hospitals.
What about hospitals?
But seriously, I can count the number of restaurants/stores here that don't have generators on one hand. Loss of power can mean loss of cold storage inventory, which can easily add up to more than the cost of a generator. Aside from that, when the power's out you stand to do a whole lot of business if you're open.. from batteries to food to batteries.;)
They shouldn't have even needed site replication for this particular problem. Earthquakes, fire, or flood, sure. But power outages are a relatively common occurrence, depending on where exactly you live, especially when demand continues to increase while production remains constant. There's no excuse for not having on-site power generation. None. A 250KW diesel generator can be had for around $50k -- less if you buy used -- plus another $5-10k or so for a battery bank to keep the power flowing during generator startup. And it's worth many times more than that, particularly when it prevents an exodus of your customer base. That's less than the cost of an average full time employee, especially in a high COL area such as San Fran, and the cost can be amortized. Additionally, it protects hardware assets and eliminates recovery time. If I was a customer, they'd have already lost me.
No, but I'll sell you some carbon credits if that makes you feel better.
Also, by coincidence, your user number was chosen as a winner of a valuable prize in our no-fee lottery! Please remit payment of $5,000 to cover shipping and import duties to receive your prize valued in excess of $100,000.
I'm sure there are millions of players who are perfectly functional, social, and productive members of society.
That said, I'm also sure there is a much higher portion of people who play compulsively, to the detriment of all else, in WoW and other MMO*s than in any other form of entertainment past or present. Anyone who's known someone who's played, and anyone who themselves has played, can name at least one person either in person or in game, who is online nearly every waking minute, habitually stays up well into the early morning, and/or neglects real world responsibilities for "play" time. Anyone who says otherwise is either a newbie, woefully naive, or willfully ignorant.
The parent is not a troll for pointing this out, and I can't help but wonder about the state of mind of people who dismiss the addictive nature of MMOGs out of hand. The problem, as I see it, is that much of the population has no experience with WoW, and is rightfully skeptical. The number of active players who will actually admit the addictive nature of the games is small. But eventually the collective knowledge of society will better match reality, once enough people have been affected. 9M may sound large, but it's probably the number of accounts rather than unique individuals, and it's a worldwide number. Even if they're counting unique individuals, 0.05% of the population is orders of magnitude smaller than the margins of error for most polls.
Those charges would result in the gambler getting hauled before a judge and made to prove that he thought that he was just "lucky" when the machine gave him a $10 credit for every $1 he put in.
So, you are basically saying that these people are guilty and have to prove they are innocent?
Presumption of innocence is just a starting point. There's a difference between proving yourself innocent and countering evidence which implies guilt. If there's a mountain of evidence showing you did something, it's your burden to show that the evidence is wrong, not credible, or to propose an alternate explanation. "Saying nothing," will not preserve your innocent status.
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It was just a tongue-in-cheek response, but I've never been instructed to return a set, nor have I had to pay a recurring fee to retain them, nor have I ever known anyone to get used plates from the DMV. That's a sale in my book.
Last time I checked, I had to purchase my license plates.
Exactly.. that's not poetic justice, it's vigilantism and a wrong+wrong=right morality.
No, the face-to-face equivalent would be if a cashier gave you extra change, but there was no way to communicate with her because she was an ATM!
Or maybe some idiot who cut the wrong wires, or it was unfinished rework, or some guy dropped his wrench and it severed a wire, or who knows. A cut wire doesn't mean intentional sabotage.
*cough* Soyuz 1, Soyuz 11, Nedelin, Challenger, Columbia, Alcantara, Intelsat 708 *cough*
If I had to be subdued, I'd prefer it was physically, by a group of scantily clad hot chicks. Honestly, that would probably be the most effective technique ever. "We've got a runner. Release the babes!"
Lost, maybe, although it's devolved a bit lately. Alias was horrible from the start, from the Schwarzenegger-like chiseled face of Jennifer Garner to the horribly stereotyped characters to the reject-from-a-soap-opera plot lines interspersed with "action" sequences, not to mention the whole "hey, let's give this guy another chance even though he just killed someone I love and tried to take over the world. Damn, he screwed us again! Hey, let's give him another chance. Damnit! Okay, one more chance. Son of a..."
That should be a nice introduction to my piece, The Orbital Decay of Fat Bottomed Girls: Another One Bites The Dust.
More importantly, pumpkin brain, is the fact that what may be fine for one person is goddamn insulting to another. It's impossible to legally define an insult. Also, if it was illegal to hurt someone's feelings, we'd all be in jail, especially you! *cry*
"I'm not ruling in your favor, as you're not the type of company/organization/person I think you should be, and some other things"
The word you're looking for is "credibility," and it always plays a large role in the court. If the judge or jury doesn't believe what you're saying, things could get grim. In any case, this wasn't "I don't like you and here's the loophole I've found to rule against you," rather, to obtain an injunction one must demonstrate irreparable damage. The judge basically said "Money can repair any claim of damage, motion denied." In fact, eBay would be harmed by the injunction, which would be unacceptable prior to MercExchange obtaining a verdict of infringement.
Convergence is nice, but it can be a major pain in the ass too. If I slept in my car, I'd be more than pissed if it got stolen -- I'd be sleeping in the street! Likewise, if you lose your phone-wallet, how the hell are you going to buy a new one? You can't even go to the bank, because your ID was in the phone-wallet, and you can't call anyone because you don't have a phone. Obviously you'd figure something out, but I'm just saying convergence isn't without its drawbacks.
As for cash-boy, the above scenario is exactly why cash transactions will never cease to exist, so don't get your panties in a bunch. The rest of us will use our phone-wallet-cars and laugh at you as we drive our phones away while you're still counting your change, and you'll be laughing haughtily when our nanny-concubine-minifridges decide our children should be placed in cold storage.
Why do manufacturers lock phones and reduce features? Because consumers in America want free or cheap phones with long contracts.
That sounds like a good excuse, but it's not true. Phones AND service "contracts" (which are typically month-to-month with no minimum and no "incentives" to lock-in) are both much, much cheaper in Japan. Much. I was there in 2001 for 6 months, bought a phone which rivals most on the market today for $100US, and paid $33/mo for service (with AU), 2000 minutes, basically unlimited data. I had GPS maps (showed local train stations w/schedules, traffic, restaurants, movies, etc), basically what Google Maps almost does now. And that was in 2001. Meanwhile, G3 is now prevalent in Japan, while the US is still on EDGE/GPRS, and customers in the US are still paying out the arse for old tech.
The correct answer is the established big players who have war chests to operate at a loss and stifle would-be competition. Other folks with deep pockets have no incentive to get involved in a price war because A) they already have deep pockets, and B) they'll probably just continue in whatever industry has been profitable for them so far. The only thing that could undermine the existing providers is sheer altruism on the part of someone with a LOT of money, or opening up the licensing for airwaves the way Google has suggested, and perhaps some form of municipal service.
I don't know what they mean by "activate," but if it's GSM, just "activate" a cell phone, then stick the SIM in your PDA/whatever.
As long as the majority of people don't know how to copy games, it will never be an overwhelming problem. And the majority will never know how, any more than they'll know how to write a game (which would also cause the downfall of the gaming industry, if it happened).
Anyway, I don't know anyone who owns 0 legitimate copies, so everyone's contributing.. some to a lesser extent than others, but that's life. And it's a good thing. It encourages diversity. Resources not spent on games don't just disappear.. they're spent on other things. Maybe you like games more than anything else ("you" in the general, not the parent poster specifically), and you think everyone who ever plays a game should contribute to the same extent you did to maintain and increase the industry, but that's an inefficient system which leads to stagnation. If the gaming industry dies, it will be because there was not enough interest to sustain it, not because of piracy per se (though rampant piracy to the exclusion of any legitimate buyers can be an indication of lack of serious interest).
Sounds like an incentive to make games worth paying $60 for.
It's a sound business strategy. That drug dealers employ effective strategies does not make those strategies somehow tainted. Drug dealers also reinvest their profits -- does that make it a bad policy?
Nonetheless, they aren't quite the same. Drug dealers have a pretty good idea that people will get hooked on their product. Starting out, software companies charge little/less for their products because they have to. They're competing, and trying to gain market share. Once you have the market share, you can bump up the price because the demand is there. This isn't voodoo economics, it's the ABC's of business.
In that respect, BusinessWeek is wrong. You don't ignore large scale counterfeiting of your product, and MS is right to pursue those groups. These people aren't giving away the software -- they're stocking shelves with it and making a profit. Anyone who's been to Hong Kong knows what I'm talking about. What MS needs to do is price their product competitively with the counterfeit versions in the overseas markets. Get people in the habit of paying for legitimate copies they need at prices they can afford. Will some of those copies wind up on eBay? Absolutely. But their core business in the first world is pre-installation on new machines, not upgrades, and that core market won't really be affected. Mom & Pop shops might buy the overseas keys, but MS could further stifle the practice by tying the keys to non-English versions and offering the old "tell us where you got this and we'll give you a free legitimate US key, and maybe we'll throw in Office" incentives.
And I do too. That's why I have The Clapper, I "type" with an onscreen keyboard which senses which letter I'm looking at, and all my clothing has zippers. I'm also developing a mind-reading interface, which is working well, except that it's difficult to distinguish actual instructions from random thoughts, so occasionally the computer does something unexpeSteve Jobs is an idiot. Well, maybe not an idiot.. after all, he manages to convince people that his ridiculous ideas are revolutionary instead of discarded ideas from the trashbins of real product designers. Aww, see? Goddamn it. Anyway, I've got to get back to using my iPhone in public.
Just because the inverse of a statement (most muslims are terrorists) is false doesn't make the original statement (most terrorists are muslim) either false or irrelevant. Most people with breast cancer are women, but most women don't have breast cancer. Nobody's saying non-muslims are incapable of being terrorists (or worse), but terrorism is clearly a stain on the muslim faith. I'm not anti-muslim, although I do find adherence to belief over reason to be irritating, and I prefer not to associate with people who attempt to preach their belief, regardless of what it may be.
Microsoft didn't kill Netscape. Netscape killed Netscape. The browser was so bloated and slow that it made IE seem fast. The bundling came long after Netscape killed itself.
diesel is widespread for emergency use everywhere from hospitals to emergency-services to hospitals.
;)
What about hospitals?
But seriously, I can count the number of restaurants/stores here that don't have generators on one hand. Loss of power can mean loss of cold storage inventory, which can easily add up to more than the cost of a generator. Aside from that, when the power's out you stand to do a whole lot of business if you're open.. from batteries to food to batteries.
They shouldn't have even needed site replication for this particular problem. Earthquakes, fire, or flood, sure. But power outages are a relatively common occurrence, depending on where exactly you live, especially when demand continues to increase while production remains constant. There's no excuse for not having on-site power generation. None. A 250KW diesel generator can be had for around $50k -- less if you buy used -- plus another $5-10k or so for a battery bank to keep the power flowing during generator startup. And it's worth many times more than that, particularly when it prevents an exodus of your customer base. That's less than the cost of an average full time employee, especially in a high COL area such as San Fran, and the cost can be amortized. Additionally, it protects hardware assets and eliminates recovery time. If I was a customer, they'd have already lost me.
No, but I'll sell you some carbon credits if that makes you feel better.
Also, by coincidence, your user number was chosen as a winner of a valuable prize in our no-fee lottery! Please remit payment of $5,000 to cover shipping and import duties to receive your prize valued in excess of $100,000.
I'm sure there are millions of players who are perfectly functional, social, and productive members of society.
That said, I'm also sure there is a much higher portion of people who play compulsively, to the detriment of all else, in WoW and other MMO*s than in any other form of entertainment past or present. Anyone who's known someone who's played, and anyone who themselves has played, can name at least one person either in person or in game, who is online nearly every waking minute, habitually stays up well into the early morning, and/or neglects real world responsibilities for "play" time. Anyone who says otherwise is either a newbie, woefully naive, or willfully ignorant.
The parent is not a troll for pointing this out, and I can't help but wonder about the state of mind of people who dismiss the addictive nature of MMOGs out of hand. The problem, as I see it, is that much of the population has no experience with WoW, and is rightfully skeptical. The number of active players who will actually admit the addictive nature of the games is small. But eventually the collective knowledge of society will better match reality, once enough people have been affected. 9M may sound large, but it's probably the number of accounts rather than unique individuals, and it's a worldwide number. Even if they're counting unique individuals, 0.05% of the population is orders of magnitude smaller than the margins of error for most polls.
Those charges would result in the gambler getting hauled before a judge and made to prove that he thought that he was just "lucky" when the machine gave him a $10 credit for every $1 he put in.
So, you are basically saying that these people are guilty and have to prove they are innocent?
Presumption of innocence is just a starting point. There's a difference between proving yourself innocent and countering evidence which implies guilt. If there's a mountain of evidence showing you did something, it's your burden to show that the evidence is wrong, not credible, or to propose an alternate explanation. "Saying nothing," will not preserve your innocent status.