Your Republic gave you Bush. And that, after a global embarassment of doing it the way you did it.
Yes the LAW was upheld. That a few dips decided they didnt like the outcome and did it publicly was grand fun! I direct you to the constitution of the united states sir. amendment XII But if your too lazy to read it Ill sum it up for you. X number of people per state vote (determined by population). They are elected by the majority in the state. Those people then vote for the pres. It has worked that way for awhile. It was not made up by a bunch of FOOLS. It was done so no one LARGE state can dominate the smaller states. Its a very well thought out system. Sometimes not fair to the majority. But a well thought out balance so the minority is not squashed. Take this map for instance Bush-Country. It shows that MOST people live in the blue areas. But the other half lives in the red. Interesting but secondary to the LAW. Me? I voted for him because he was consistant and at least does what he says he will. The other guy?...
And I'm sure you would keep your freedoms... eg the freedom to unbiased news (CNN), the freedom of information (DMCA), human rights (people in concentration camps in Cuba), security (twin towers) and quality entertainment (WWF):-p
Yes I do like my freedoms eg FOX news, NBC, ABC, CBS, Times, AP, Reuters, BBC, local papers, local news stations, and even CNN when I can tolerate their drival. If you sir are getting your news from one source you definatly need to look around there are MANY choices out there. You just need to watch out for a 'AP/Reuters' fluff story. These tend to be on all the stations. They also tend to be filler that means very little.
DMCA is a bad law. But the constitution puts congress IN charge of these matters. The constitution does not say congress shall not make a bad law. It will "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." To help remidy what the DMCA has done I can vote in two different ways. I can choose NOT to purchase junk from companies that pander this junk. IE RedHat in this case. They have take ownership of something they do not exactly own and said they would be breaking the law. Which is pure FUD. Whoever WROTE the bug in the first place owns it, or the person who owns the project owns it. Thats GPL. The other way I can vote is to remove people from office that pass this junk. It didnt exactly pass with a huge margin. It was then signed into law by a president that was to busy covering his ass or getting a BJ. Im not saying he was stupid or dumb. Im saying his interests were not in the best interests of America. It was more in the interest of filling his pocket book and looking good. Least the presedent we have now can talk the talk AND walk the walk.
Human rights?! HA what about 3k of people killed what about them? Do we send these LOONS back to do more? For surely they will. They probably have not exactly reformed their ways while in prison. Also assuming Afganistan wants them back. How can they insure they wont be shot or killed the second we send them back? They cant and probably will not. Also even IF they are not killed we now have to follow them around like little children and make sure they dont blow more shit up. nice.
WWF while drivel is exactly why America is cool. You can create PURE junk and not only not be killed over it. You can get RICH from it. Was there a WWF under the taliban regiem? It would not have been squashed because its stupid. It would have been squashed because it broke taliban law. But then again there is PBS, BBC, NPR, and other sources. But of course you did your research before that nice statment...
Besides, you know as well as I that the outcry to US citizens being in a concentration camp somewhere (in the depth of indonesia for example) would result in a push from the US public to do something
Yes it would. But would the other countries step up and help? Probably not. The would laugh and sneer at us. We are protecting our interests. That is the job of the presedent. To protect us from enemeys foreign and domestic.
I mean, it appears to be your (presidents' i should point out) solution to everything. It failed in Yugoslavia, it failed in the FIRST attempt at saddam and again, did you hear the news, Saddam has reconfirmed his authority in Iraq by public vote if I am not mistaken
So your saying about the bombing is we should add another 100 or so soldiers back into the ranks of bombings. Im sure Indonesia may have a few words to say about that.
And the only reason he is still in power is because is because the Saudis want a country between them and Iran. They were about to go apeshit on us. We DOMINATED that country. We made concessions not to Iraq but to Saudi Arabia. The first people to suffer under Sadams command is his OWN people. But obviously he is doing a awsome job at it. Since he has been slaughtering thousands and thousands of his own people. For someone who cries foul over a couple hundred you seem to overlook the THOUSANDS that this 1 man has killed.
First you confuse 1 president with another. Second I would hardly call that an election. Third Saddams athority was mostly given to him by America. He would not be where he is without us. He has simply chosen to spit in our face now. Well we dont take kindly to that.
You seem to have a bucket of stones but very few answers. Other than other people are doing things wrong. What are YOU doing about it?
I have to agree. I am always distrustfull of "package managment" such as installshield or RPMs. Undo one of those bad boys and they are spraying junk EVERYWHERE. Ruining that lovely handcrafted directory structure that I just spent months getting just right.
My personal favorite package managment tool has always been zip/pkzip. Undo the zip into the directory and your ready to rock. For some reason tar+gzip always ticked me off, but thats just me:). In the readme there is usually a list of things you must have to make it work. A decent.ini or.configure file goes a long way. Registry/central settings have gone the wrong way and have created a sort of settings hell, to go along with the file/dll hell.
Unfortunatly we have traded a more 'complex' way of managing computers. For a 'central repository' of configuration managment. The cental repository was very prommising. But it ended up being a large pile of files and settings that are even harder to keep up with. Which is a shame.
Also to me getting rid of something should be as simple as removing the directory. Where did this 'uninstall' metaphore come frome?!
but there is a theft of REAL PROPERTY. Its called money. Bandwidth costs money. Its not free. You may have noticed most of the free internet providers no longer provide that service for free. It cost to much. Or at least more than what they were making from you on advertising. But it DID cost them money.
Now if I walk up to a building and poof im surfing. Am I not using their bandwidth. And lets say I decide to dl the latest slackware ISOs. Would that 1.2g worth of bw not cost something? Some providers charge by the byte...
Now lets say the BW was free (HA). What if I disrupted their network during that time. Where I work without the network we pretty much go home. If the network is slow I can not get things to checkout fast enough. It slows me down. Now I have to wait a few extra minutes to get that freeking 10k file. Does that not cost the company something? Now my boss decides I took to long to fix something. He decides to wait an extra day to ship product. Did you not just cost me a days worth of possible profits? Did you not just cost my customer a days worth of use of my product? While this example is a bit out there. I have seen the 'hmm we can wait till tommorow' bit happen. Within a few minutes after that was said it was fixed. My example is not THAT far fetched (at least where I work).
No matter how you cut it, it is stealing. Stealing MONEY. Not realized money. But money that will come out of the companies productivity and out of some bill somewhere.
Maybe criminal tresspass, and criminal neglegance, would be more usefull? I still belive its theft. Plus the other 2. But thats just my opinion...
You also have a problem of users setting up their own networks. They get this cool thing at home. Order one for work and bring it in. Poof they can bring their laptop into a meeting room and still get things off the network. They look cool in front of everyone. But does the network admin know? Probably not. He does not personaly know every connection in the building. Yet now there is basicly an outside connection inside the 'secure firewall'. A network admin worth his salt will walk over unplug it and confiscate the thing. Most are overworked and fixing 'that damn printer isnt working again'. Running from desk to desk 'fixing' things. Users of the network will sometimes take matters into their own hands. Ive seen it happen.
Its all a matter of what we consider inside the network and whats outside. Wireless acess can definatly fall outside the network. You do not have FULL control of it.
Yes actually you are. Sorry... W2K networks also by default do not 'know' the dhcp server. You can configure it that way. So how do they find it?...
DHCP is a broadcast type network service. In this case usually the wirless hub feeds them out. These connection points should be treated the same way as if you are hooking up to the internet. With distrust and security by exception not by rule, and in layers. Some one else mentioned only certian MAC address's being allowed. Also another way is an actual firewall. Both sides of your equipment will need these measures. For example your machine should be configured to only talk to certain access points and ignor everything else. You should also presume everything you are broadcasting through the air is being listened to. Now if your trading emails about what the boss did to his secretary yesterday it probably doesnt matter. But if you are trading source code to your latest gizmo you probably will need encryption to help you out. It just needs to be treated as an outside connection not an internal one.
It is easy to fall into the trap that only you have total controll of the hardware in this case. Most of the time you do. But if someone walks by you may not...
Its probably just as wrong as hacking through the internet into someones network. The fact that people can come up with maps of 'open' networks, shows a fundamental problem. The tech is treated as a inside the network thing. It is not.
This usually involved Log and lookup tables/slide rule. You should learn how in trigonometry/pre calc. Those tables were made using numerical analysis. Of which they usually did not teach till college. Would I use one of those tables today? Hell no. A few button clicks and voila. Could I muddle through it and figure it out again sure. For example I was taught how to do Calculus the HARD way first. Then was shown the easy way. Before you can really learn how to do something you MUST understand why you do it. Rote learning does not always help. But it is a nice thing to have in your 'tool belt'. Unfortunatly they teach square roots backwards as well (at least to me). The taught me the crutch first the tables. Then I learned how it really works later. This made me extreemly distrustfull of the hard way. But with calculus I was extreemly gratefull to have the new way. It made the math actually mean something.
Also a reliance on calculators could get you into trouble. Did you know it is hard to represent some floating point numbers? So what does the computer do? It goes to the next biggest or smallest number it can represent. Usually most of the time it is 'good enough'. But with the right skills you could verify that it is correct. When you need 10 digets of accuracy I sure hope you use a calc to get it close. But when it comes down to it. Verify and check are the tools you need to get done right.
I have been attempting to correct my spelling and grammer deficiencies. I have not been succeeding. Its rough going because I am older and have a lot of bad habits now.
I KNOW if I had turned something like that in. Using 'like uhhhhhh valley speak' of the day. I would have had my paper handed back to me with a big old F on it. Language does change but you have to watch out for fad language changes also. L887 speak is a fad language. It has always been looked down on by people. It was clever a few years ago on bbs's to do this. But now its just silly. It usually is done by people who are trying to fit in quickly without really trying to fit in.
Instead of taking a bunch of time to learn leet speak. Try learning how to speed type. It is a MUCH more usefull skill. 60+ words per minute is a very helpfull skill when using a keyboard.
Also remember multiplication is just a short hand for addition. For example we do not say 2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2 we say 2 times 4. Its just a math short hand. Math has tons of shorthand things but that sort of thing does not carry well into english. English is not regular, it even contradicts its own rules. Its a most anoying thing. I before e except after C unless its science!:)
yes but the if the goverment hires a company to do work for them. The company is working on behalf of the goverment. Technicaly getting around illegal search and seizure. However a judge could rule against the procecution.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized"
It does not specify that it would just be the goverment doing this. So if I wanted to come on over and riffle through your house. By your logic and the logic the goverment is currently using, I could. If I just maybe thought you were doing something wrong. This is effectivly what they do if they port scan for it. Also remember it is by law wrong for ME to break into something. But somehow the goverment is above that?
Now if a person connects to a network p2p app. They are in effect advertising that it is 'ok' to come through that port and use the system for what I shared. Not to go rummaging through my HD (unless its the pourpous of the share). It is NOT ok without a propper warrent to reverse back to me and rummage through my stuff through a different port.
Now for my rant. WHY does everyone treat the internet as if it is some other world? Its the same world we live in. The laws are just as easy to break and uphold there. Yet we treat it as some sort of wild west. We do not need MORE law to tell us it is wrong to copy crap. It already is. Its on every dvd/cd/vhs copy I have. Its in my face EVERY time I start a dvd. Can not even skip by it. Maybe I am tired of by default being treated as a criminal.
Of _course_ he panders to his audience. The SW movies at one time may have been about an artsy fartsy movie. But they have outgrown that in about 1977. When there were LINES of hundreds of people waiting to see it again and again. The cash cow had parked in front of Lucas and started pumping out pure gold.
Of course the chars are the way they are. Look at what Lucas has had to do to make that franchise work. He basicly had to setup his own studio to get the last 5 made. That he can sell the tech to others is icing. He made that studio to make star wars. The only way to do that is CASH. So he sees himself as a loner. His writing will reflect that. Some writers can detach themselves from who they are. Most can not. Its easier to write what you know.
If he made the next one about the intracacies of robot making. Thousands of people would still line up to see it. But would they go back? Would they want the toys? Would they want to own a copy? Would they goto a resturant and demand the Happy meal with the obi wan with the lightsaber. He is making movies people want to see. Of course he is going to listen to what they want.
Me? Im willing to bet there will be 3 more after episode 3, but after Indy 4, 5, and 6. Course he has not done more than episode 1 and 2 since about 1989. Course now he does have quite an empire himself to run.
he probably picked something cheap. so that way if it was totaly messed up he could just junk it. That he is getting 6k (at the time I looked) for a car worth about 1k is pretty good...
Apple will never go back to letting others make the hardware. The did for a few years. For awhile the other manufactures were making BETTER boxen then apple. Apple figured out that they were hurting themselves by letting others sell their boxs. Know why motorola is not playing very nicely with apple? If you think about it is simple. Apple burned them. Not just a little. But big time. Apple stoped selling the OS to other companies. Those companies were instantly overnight put out of bussness. Motorola will not forget or forgive that lightly. They lost a large chunk of sales to that segment of the market. This instantly relegated their chips from front line in every mac that everyone makes, to cpus put into routers plus the little market share that apple had.
You will more than likely see only 1 or 2 platforms that support it. Then it will be a totaly custom bios from apple that will make it work just right.
However I still would not put it past them to switch stratages again. They have done it over and over. After the 2nd time most bussness usually figure out that its cheaper to write software for windows as you will not be rewriting it again next year. This is because apple dropped ALL support for the thing they were saying is the next greatest thing ever. While this is the holy grail of computer science the perpetual rewrite. Its not the holy grail of most companies that are just tring to break even.
Also most hardware manufactures treat drivers as the last thing done ever. like 'oh yeah we need drivers'. If it comes down to a choice between windows drivers and apple drivers. The choice will always be the bigger of the two markets. Apple will have to 'help' manufactures with bribes uh monitary donations, and probably actual people to make it work.
Also MS makes most of its money from Office sales. I would be willing to bet that office on the mac is a top seller. Windows exists in its current form to run Office. That it runs other things just helps them sell more copies of windows is gravy.
the encryption they picked for dvd is actually GOOD. Without the keys you can NOT crack it easily. The only reason its been marked as 'half ass' by people that do not think it through, is because they think because its been 'cracked' its half ass. Its not. Its of decent quality. The only reason its been cracked is because one company left the keys in the open. And like most keys of this nature if you have one you can get the rest. The next round will be 'cracked' in a similar way or by brute force.
I have found that most people that act that way usually have a 'savior' around. Someone that tells them how to fix it. Does not show them how to fix it and then make it clear 'leave me alone'. There are also another group of people that tend to not even really care about computers. They just use them because they have to. But they could tell you every baseball player for the past 20 years. Its a matter of motivation. They are not motivated to learn it because they have no need/want to learn it. They can ask someone else and that someone else will kindly stop by and make it better.
I always make clear that Im showing it to them this time. But next time it will be a condisending tone of 'like I showed you LAST time'. This also brings fear into the equation. Most people do not being ridiculed. They will figure it out sometimes to avoid 'bothering' you.
Another trick I have picked up is, do not rush right over to help them. Let them sweat it out for a half hour or so. You would be amazed at how motivated people get when they are board.
I also make sure I bite my lip and hold my hands back from the computer. One of the WORST things you can do is grab control of the computer from the user. They will just watch and learn nothing. Make them do the steps. Make them explain to you what you just showed them. Ask them whats the next step and so on...
I also make it clear that I will not always be around to save them. It took me a few years to get my parents to realize this. Now they use computers like a champ. Before they would just get me to do it for them. Course moving 1200 miles helped:)
Ive turned many awfull computer users into great computer users by using these simple steps. And every single person always thanks me and thinks I have saved the world when I do it to them. You do not have to be mean. Just make it clear that they are using your time, and they need to make it quick. You have a list of 50 things that need to be done yesterday. And you are sitting here showing them how to use the mouse...
I agree with most of that. But the thing is currently there is a market segment willing to pay 15-20 per cd. There are people actually willing to part with that amount of money for a cd. You are absolutly right though about their marginal revinue = marginal cost. Also the cost to make 1 more cd is not exactly much. The would do MUCH better making them equal. It would be interesting to graph it out... When you can get the same song thats on the cd for free it makes you wonder about all the people in between you and the artist.
Long run they are doing a disservice to themselves. But they setup the system. People are starting to REALLY dislike what they hear coming out of the radio. If you do not hear good things from the radio why would you go buy that drek? The payola scam they have cooked up is not quite payola but something fairly close. Its walking the fine line of the law. Not quite breaking it but not exactly following the intent either.
More than likely also if a artist defaults on the loan they just write it off on tax's. Plus they probley write off the unsold stock as a loss as well. Im sure they are not exactly hurting if they print up 100k of cd's and 10k sell. Maybe if they had played it around a bit and see if people liked it. Did a bit of research. Instead of the shotgun approach. With the shotgun approach youll hit it 'big' once and awhile. But more often than not you will end up with the check.
As an aside to all this why do we have to listen to 'drive time people'. Their jokes are lame they rarley have anything interesting to say above jr high jokes. Then they sit there and 'laugh' at their own jokes with laugh tracks. And the same gag played on someone in the 100th different way is getting rather thin. I do not want to hear what their wifes/gf's/whatever said/did last night. I do not care what their opinion is on the latest bad/good guy of the week is. Their contests are stupid, and the things to win I could care less about. They are always having parties at some bar of the week, that I would never step foot in. Then when they finaly do play music it is usually pick 2 random high profile groups for that particular type of music station. Then never deviate from those 2 groups ever for the life of the station during drive time. Maybe instead of having 4 hours a day devoted to these mushroom dj's they could play GOOD music? But unfortunatly all the radio stations where I live tend to this type of format. One of the stations around here even has been trying drive home time chater. Its the same goop thats in the morning. But as I said this is just an aside, maybe Im just bitter:)
How is making more laws going to HELP? It is ALREADY ILLEGAL to copy the stuff and give it away. Dont belive me its written on every cd vhs dvd I own. Laws that are not enforced do NOTHING. Digital is just a new way to store things. Why in the world do we even make a distinction? Technicaly there is but from Joe consumers point of view one just looks better than the other. He give a rip if one is digital or analog. They just want a better product!
Their WHOLE busness model was based on content distribution charging/control. They are just starting to realize it. Which is why they are lobying VERY hard for new law to 'help' them. When distrubting it costs almost nothing, and they do not control the proces of getting music, the price WILL and MUST go down. They are whining as their busnesses can no longer sustain the higher costs of their OWN system they setup. Also given we are/were in a economy downturn im surprised they are doing as well as they are. There were LOTS of companies that lost ALOT of money in the past few years. However in the past few years in the eye of competion from a new startup basicly (napster/kazaa/gnutela). Did they do what all smart busnesses do when someone else comes out with a similar product? Did they inovate, lower prices, anything? No they bitch and moan and try to pass more law.
Ill quote danny deveto from other peoples money IMDB "I'll bet the last company that made buggy whips made the best damn buggy whip ever." While it may or may not be true. His anaolgy from the movie is. And if I remember from economics the only times price of product will go up in these conditions. is Increase in production cost, higher demand, or monopolistic controls. They can control 2 of those. One we the consumer controll. If 'piracy' is such a big problem why are their prices going up? Prices tend to go down or level out during recessions. Also if your market share is going down you tend to lower prices to try to attract more people to it. If your a monopoly you can put the price wherever you want. Something else is going on and I do not think piracy is the answer.
My question is simple. Why are they raising prices and therefore pricing MORE people out of their market. As they are moving the wrong way on the demand curve. They make CD's for what 10-20 cents EACH, if that. Then sell them for 15-20 BUCKS each? Their marginal revinue probley does not equal marginal cost. When that happens you are either loosing money or you could be making more. I had that grilled into me in every econ class I took. And if there is an alternative cheaper source of the same as or close to same as copy of the product available, loosing customers to other forms of media that they do not control?! Ill use the pizza example they grilled into me also. If Bob's pizza joint one sells slices of pizza for 1 dollar. And Mikes pizza joint down the street makes very similar pizza for 2 buck a slice. The Bobs pizza will do more busness on a whole baring other cirumstances such as atmospher, help working there, freebees, etc... Both will probly make about the same amount. Now Jimmy makes a magic box that he can setup on the corrner and make pizza for 10 cents a slice. While not AS good as the compition but decent. Little jimmy will make and sell ALOT of pizza. But jimmy _could_ be making more money at it. But he is happy with what he gets. Soon the market will start to change, people will want 10 cent pizza. They will ask why cant the other two places make 10 cent pizza. Why buy from them? The other 2 busnesses will either have to come up with something pretty good or move away from Jimmy. Or try to put Jimmy out of busness with law. Do either hold the patent or copyright on pizza? They may try to ruin Jimmy with health violations etc...
We are seeing from the music/movie industry is a lack of imagination (funny considering what they do!). So if you can not inovate litigate...
Most people forget that a schedule can be changed. It is not carved in stone. The end date may be carved in stone. But what the project does... You also need to know when to chuck things overboard to get things done. It may be cool to have the splash screen popup. But do you HAVE to have one? Could you use that 3-4 days somewhere else? These sort of things should be hashed and rehashed all the way through ANY project. Refactoring can be a tool to _HELP_ you get things done on time. But sometimes we get rather miopic on what we are doing.
Also when you are redesigning/rewriting/refactoring something how can you not at least LOOK at what the other person did? That will take some time. Just to say OH I know what it should do may not be true. Maybe they ran into some problems you didnt even THINK of and they alread solved them? Also more than likely other parts of the system are dependent on the behavior of that 'broken' piece of code. How do you take that into acount? These are the sorts of things you do when you are redesigning things.
But you have it right about knowing WHEN to refactor. Just because someone does not work with you anymore. Is almost always the wrong reason. Sometimes if it works dont touch it is a good thing. You can work on OTHER things that will help you. Other times it finaly just comes down to 'NO ONE' knows how that damn thing works and we need someone here that knows it 'IN and OUT'. More than likely if no one else can even figure out what it does, and how it does it. It probably is a good candidate for getting refactored. But more than likely in order to tear something like that appart correctly you will have to understand the old code.
A stock buy back is also very risky. In theory it should raise the price of the stock. Will it? Probably. MS is probably happy with the stock price. Usually you see stock buy backs when the company feels the stock price is undervalued. You will see splits when the company feels the stock price is overvalued. With dividinds you have actual realized value, not maybes and probablies. Why did the market go down today? Because it didnt go up. Why did the market go up today? Because it didnt go down. Anyone who tells you different is lying. Fear and greed RULE the market.
Im thinking 'cash is king' If I have 50 bucks to plonk down is the guy behind the counter going to refuse my 50 bucks? Or 500 copies got 'missplaced' in some storage yard and sold for cash. OH how about we dial in and 'activate' them. Oh that didnt work with DIVX. If a copmany treats its customers as thieves they may just decide they dont like the garbage being shoveled out...
Any sort of 'protection' that is come up with will be ripped right off. For example DVD. Which btw has pretty good protection? Dont belive me? TRY to break it with out using decss or any of the 'known keys' Try to actually figure out what the keys are on your own. Guess what you wont. The only reason DeCss came up was because one of the software dvd players left the keys in such a place that the guy could figure out what thier key was and then derive whatever key he wanted from that. You can bet the next version of DVD will have a vault door for security. But someone will screw up and the keys will be out. Or there will be a flaw in it that makes it a snap to crack. try Foolish DVDs
Also anything that is encoded must be decoded so you can copy it there. Or you can just make a bit for bit copy and the decoder will not know the difference. Most copy protection is just silly and bypassable.
To legislate it to make it so you can not do it is even MORE dumb. Just because its digital does not mean its 'new'. Its just a different way of saying something. We HAVE copyright laws. Like them or hate them we HAVE them. They just need to enforce what they got. Dont belive me. go watch a vhs or dvd. Got a FBI warning right on the front that tell exactly what will happen to you. Same exact thing on the back of cd's./p
Just because 'everyone does it' does NOT make it alright. Its equivalent to me say 'hey I have this REALLLLLY cool thing want to buy it?' but I will not let you open the box that it is in to find out what it is, unless you buy it, but once you bought it its yours. I have returned software that does not work before. I gave them several outs and BOY did I bitch. I offered to let them give me my money back, store credit, but not another copy of the same buggy software. I was perfectly willing to buy something at that store, I no longer wanted a piece of software the did not work on my computer.
There used to be a sign on the wall where I worked it said 'for every dissatisfied customer they will tell 8 other potential customers'. I took offence at being treated like a thief by default, and I always will. I am NOT a thief. I can afford to buy my software/music thank you very much. I buy software now online, or at a store where I know the people selling me the stuff. With online shopping I get the EXACT same service at a lower price. BB prices have gone up lately as well (22 bucks for DVDs that I can get elsewere for 18). I probley used to plonk down 10-20k in that very store. But they felt it better to just piss me off then have me as a customer. Any store that treats me as a jerk because some lump-o-junk I bought there and I can not return it does not get my business anymore.
Taking my computer in to make the 'DUDE' behind the counter look at it and screw my computer all to hell, and then charge me for it is also not an option. Plus they would have charged me extra because I had not bought the computer there. No thank you.
Good news however was after messing around with patches for 6 hours I finaly got the software to work.
Also in my state if your selling things 'AS IS' you have to advertise that fact. Not in the fine print on the back of your receipt, which I belive is just being all sneaky about it. If I had realized they were selling AS-IS I definatly would have taken my business elsewhere in the first place. As I can get the same thing/service online cheaper...
I was really steamed and still am. What if this had been one of my family, or a friend? I do not treat people like that, and I expect people to treat me the same way. Am I surprised they do not? No. But I expect better. If it had been a toaster they probley would have given me my money back no questions asked...
They lost my business MONTHS ago. It is because of their return policy. You open it you bought it. But to know if it is any good you have to open it. I had bought a piece of software and it sucked ass. Locked my computer tight every time I would use it. So I tried to return it and was treated as a thief. Why would I copy a piece of software that breaks my computer? Why OH why would I swipe a copy of some software that does not work? I being somewhat competent with computers did not want to fart around with some POS software thats broken. It made me think what if my parents or one of my family got stuck with this software? I was and AM still pissed. They ran alot of the little guys out of business by having a much better supply, and better selection. But that selection has gotten alot worse but they still have TONS of crap stuff at higher prices. DVD went up about 2-3 bucks per a few months ago. CD's over the past 3-4 years have gone up 5-10 bucks EACH. They have simply moved themselves up the demand curve and have the balls to bitch they are not making as much on something that cost them like a couple of bucks to make and ship and produce? I have no simpathy for them. When it costs 20 bucks to buy Dark Side of the Moon I have to wonder...
oh but it WILL cost them more. Here is how. now a company has to put X amount of extra chips/software into a computer. They ship Y amount of computers per year. Each chip/software item costs Z. X times Y times Z is how much each company will have to pass along to the consumer. As the company will DEFANITLY not be eating that charge!
Now there are comanies (i know i work for one) that make comptuers that do NOTHING with mutlimedia. but potentialy they could. Will my company have to pass this drek onto our coustomers?
IT WILL be us the consummer that eats the cost of this bill. Because oh woopsie now the media i buy will not WORK without the new special hardware. Oh wooopsie i have to go buy another player because i REALLLLY want to listen/watch/use something. OH wooopsie the weak scheme was broke by some 14 year old in someother country.
merchandizing where the REAL money from the movie is made. Lucas probley at first made VERY little from that movie. But he RAKED it in from the merchiandise because it was verrrrrry popular movie. Of course he is defending his names of product he has control over! If you came up with a reallllly cool product and it sold well wouldnt you want to defend your name for your product?
Im surprised they even WANTED to have the dude arrested! Think about it. He could have just quitley cracked their stuff posted a few anonymous exe's and been about his bussness. Instead he TELLS EVERYONE how its messed up. INCLUDING Adobe! They just got a bug marked SHOWSTOPER and they decided the resolution to this bug is to hide behind a law instead of coming up with better ways to do something! They should be THANKING him for showing it to them at this time! He could have waited 4-5 more years and the stuff was in use in even MORE places.
Most security is like when i was younger and owned a bycicle. I would lock it up so the casual ding dong wouldn't walk off with it. Most people didnt walk around with bolt cutters to rip off my bike. Why? Most people are honest. Now there are some where IF the oportunity arose they would swipe my bike (ie i left it unlocked).
how does this relate. its simple. Most ding dongs (aka skript kiddies) are just snorking someone elses keys and seeing if the key fits the lock. If it does they got a bike (or data). Now the ones that scare me are the ones that take a piece of metal twist it around and pick the lock then lock it back up and walk of and wait for a better time... The lock is like the obscurity it adds one more thing MOST people dont bother doing (ie bring along a bolt cutter). Its the ones that bother you should worry about.
thats typical of differnt areas. i pay 45 for 1.5mb (160K) down 256b (30K) up. A friend in a difrent are pays nearly 150 per month for 1/3rd of what I got. Most phone companyies in most areas know they are monopolys and they price what people are willing to bear minus any regs placed on them.
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Your Republic gave you Bush. And that, after a global embarassment of doing it the way you did it.
Yes the LAW was upheld. That a few dips decided they didnt like the outcome and did it publicly was grand fun! I direct you to the constitution of the united states sir. amendment XII But if your too lazy to read it Ill sum it up for you. X number of people per state vote (determined by population). They are elected by the majority in the state. Those people then vote for the pres. It has worked that way for awhile. It was not made up by a bunch of FOOLS. It was done so no one LARGE state can dominate the smaller states. Its a very well thought out system. Sometimes not fair to the majority. But a well thought out balance so the minority is not squashed. Take this map for instance Bush-Country. It shows that MOST people live in the blue areas. But the other half lives in the red. Interesting but secondary to the LAW. Me? I voted for him because he was consistant and at least does what he says he will. The other guy?...
And I'm sure you would keep your freedoms... eg the freedom to unbiased news (CNN), the freedom of information (DMCA), human rights (people in concentration camps in Cuba), security (twin towers) and quality entertainment (WWF) :-p
Yes I do like my freedoms eg FOX news, NBC, ABC, CBS, Times, AP, Reuters, BBC, local papers, local news stations, and even CNN when I can tolerate their drival. If you sir are getting your news from one source you definatly need to look around there are MANY choices out there. You just need to watch out for a 'AP/Reuters' fluff story. These tend to be on all the stations. They also tend to be filler that means very little.
DMCA is a bad law. But the constitution puts congress IN charge of these matters. The constitution does not say congress shall not make a bad law. It will "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." To help remidy what the DMCA has done I can vote in two different ways. I can choose NOT to purchase junk from companies that pander this junk. IE RedHat in this case. They have take ownership of something they do not exactly own and said they would be breaking the law. Which is pure FUD. Whoever WROTE the bug in the first place owns it, or the person who owns the project owns it. Thats GPL. The other way I can vote is to remove people from office that pass this junk. It didnt exactly pass with a huge margin. It was then signed into law by a president that was to busy covering his ass or getting a BJ. Im not saying he was stupid or dumb. Im saying his interests were not in the best interests of America. It was more in the interest of filling his pocket book and looking good. Least the presedent we have now can talk the talk AND walk the walk.
Human rights?! HA what about 3k of people killed what about them? Do we send these LOONS back to do more? For surely they will. They probably have not exactly reformed their ways while in prison. Also assuming Afganistan wants them back. How can they insure they wont be shot or killed the second we send them back? They cant and probably will not. Also even IF they are not killed we now have to follow them around like little children and make sure they dont blow more shit up. nice.
WWF while drivel is exactly why America is cool. You can create PURE junk and not only not be killed over it. You can get RICH from it. Was there a WWF under the taliban regiem? It would not have been squashed because its stupid. It would have been squashed because it broke taliban law. But then again there is PBS, BBC, NPR, and other sources. But of course you did your research before that nice statment...
Besides, you know as well as I that the outcry to US citizens being in a concentration camp somewhere (in the depth of indonesia for example) would result in a push from the US public to do somethingYes it would. But would the other countries step up and help? Probably not. The would laugh and sneer at us. We are protecting our interests. That is the job of the presedent. To protect us from enemeys foreign and domestic.
I mean, it appears to be your (presidents' i should point out) solution to everything. It failed in Yugoslavia, it failed in the FIRST attempt at saddam and again, did you hear the news, Saddam has reconfirmed his authority in Iraq by public vote if I am not mistakenSo your saying about the bombing is we should add another 100 or so soldiers back into the ranks of bombings. Im sure Indonesia may have a few words to say about that.
And the only reason he is still in power is because is because the Saudis want a country between them and Iran. They were about to go apeshit on us. We DOMINATED that country. We made concessions not to Iraq but to Saudi Arabia. The first people to suffer under Sadams command is his OWN people. But obviously he is doing a awsome job at it. Since he has been slaughtering thousands and thousands of his own people. For someone who cries foul over a couple hundred you seem to overlook the THOUSANDS that this 1 man has killed.
First you confuse 1 president with another. Second I would hardly call that an election. Third Saddams athority was mostly given to him by America. He would not be where he is without us. He has simply chosen to spit in our face now. Well we dont take kindly to that.
You seem to have a bucket of stones but very few answers. Other than other people are doing things wrong. What are YOU doing about it?
I have to agree. I am always distrustfull of "package managment" such as installshield or RPMs. Undo one of those bad boys and they are spraying junk EVERYWHERE. Ruining that lovely handcrafted directory structure that I just spent months getting just right.
:). In the readme there is usually a list of things you must have to make it work. A decent .ini or .configure file goes a long way. Registry/central settings have gone the wrong way and have created a sort of settings hell, to go along with the file/dll hell.
My personal favorite package managment tool has always been zip/pkzip. Undo the zip into the directory and your ready to rock. For some reason tar+gzip always ticked me off, but thats just me
Unfortunatly we have traded a more 'complex' way of managing computers. For a 'central repository' of configuration managment. The cental repository was very prommising. But it ended up being a large pile of files and settings that are even harder to keep up with. Which is a shame.
Also to me getting rid of something should be as simple as removing the directory. Where did this 'uninstall' metaphore come frome?!
but there is a theft of REAL PROPERTY. Its called money. Bandwidth costs money. Its not free. You may have noticed most of the free internet providers no longer provide that service for free. It cost to much. Or at least more than what they were making from you on advertising. But it DID cost them money.
Now if I walk up to a building and poof im surfing. Am I not using their bandwidth. And lets say I decide to dl the latest slackware ISOs. Would that 1.2g worth of bw not cost something? Some providers charge by the byte...
Now lets say the BW was free (HA). What if I disrupted their network during that time. Where I work without the network we pretty much go home. If the network is slow I can not get things to checkout fast enough. It slows me down. Now I have to wait a few extra minutes to get that freeking 10k file. Does that not cost the company something? Now my boss decides I took to long to fix something. He decides to wait an extra day to ship product. Did you not just cost me a days worth of possible profits? Did you not just cost my customer a days worth of use of my product? While this example is a bit out there. I have seen the 'hmm we can wait till tommorow' bit happen. Within a few minutes after that was said it was fixed. My example is not THAT far fetched (at least where I work).
No matter how you cut it, it is stealing. Stealing MONEY. Not realized money. But money that will come out of the companies productivity and out of some bill somewhere.
Maybe criminal tresspass, and criminal neglegance, would be more usefull? I still belive its theft. Plus the other 2. But thats just my opinion...
You also have a problem of users setting up their own networks. They get this cool thing at home. Order one for work and bring it in. Poof they can bring their laptop into a meeting room and still get things off the network. They look cool in front of everyone. But does the network admin know? Probably not. He does not personaly know every connection in the building. Yet now there is basicly an outside connection inside the 'secure firewall'. A network admin worth his salt will walk over unplug it and confiscate the thing. Most are overworked and fixing 'that damn printer isnt working again'. Running from desk to desk 'fixing' things. Users of the network will sometimes take matters into their own hands. Ive seen it happen.
Its all a matter of what we consider inside the network and whats outside. Wireless acess can definatly fall outside the network. You do not have FULL control of it.
Yes actually you are. Sorry... W2K networks also by default do not 'know' the dhcp server. You can configure it that way. So how do they find it?...
DHCP is a broadcast type network service. In this case usually the wirless hub feeds them out. These connection points should be treated the same way as if you are hooking up to the internet. With distrust and security by exception not by rule, and in layers. Some one else mentioned only certian MAC address's being allowed. Also another way is an actual firewall. Both sides of your equipment will need these measures. For example your machine should be configured to only talk to certain access points and ignor everything else. You should also presume everything you are broadcasting through the air is being listened to. Now if your trading emails about what the boss did to his secretary yesterday it probably doesnt matter. But if you are trading source code to your latest gizmo you probably will need encryption to help you out. It just needs to be treated as an outside connection not an internal one.
It is easy to fall into the trap that only you have total controll of the hardware in this case. Most of the time you do. But if someone walks by you may not...
Its probably just as wrong as hacking through the internet into someones network. The fact that people can come up with maps of 'open' networks, shows a fundamental problem. The tech is treated as a inside the network thing. It is not.
This usually involved Log and lookup tables/slide rule. You should learn how in trigonometry/pre calc. Those tables were made using numerical analysis. Of which they usually did not teach till college. Would I use one of those tables today? Hell no. A few button clicks and voila. Could I muddle through it and figure it out again sure. For example I was taught how to do Calculus the HARD way first. Then was shown the easy way. Before you can really learn how to do something you MUST understand why you do it. Rote learning does not always help. But it is a nice thing to have in your 'tool belt'. Unfortunatly they teach square roots backwards as well (at least to me). The taught me the crutch first the tables. Then I learned how it really works later. This made me extreemly distrustfull of the hard way. But with calculus I was extreemly gratefull to have the new way. It made the math actually mean something.
:)
Also a reliance on calculators could get you into trouble. Did you know it is hard to represent some floating point numbers? So what does the computer do? It goes to the next biggest or smallest number it can represent. Usually most of the time it is 'good enough'. But with the right skills you could verify that it is correct. When you need 10 digets of accuracy I sure hope you use a calc to get it close. But when it comes down to it. Verify and check are the tools you need to get done right.
I have been attempting to correct my spelling and grammer deficiencies. I have not been succeeding. Its rough going because I am older and have a lot of bad habits now.
I KNOW if I had turned something like that in. Using 'like uhhhhhh valley speak' of the day. I would have had my paper handed back to me with a big old F on it. Language does change but you have to watch out for fad language changes also. L887 speak is a fad language. It has always been looked down on by people. It was clever a few years ago on bbs's to do this. But now its just silly. It usually is done by people who are trying to fit in quickly without really trying to fit in.
Instead of taking a bunch of time to learn leet speak. Try learning how to speed type. It is a MUCH more usefull skill. 60+ words per minute is a very helpfull skill when using a keyboard.
Also remember multiplication is just a short hand for addition. For example we do not say 2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2 we say 2 times 4. Its just a math short hand. Math has tons of shorthand things but that sort of thing does not carry well into english. English is not regular, it even contradicts its own rules. Its a most anoying thing. I before e except after C unless its science!
yes but the if the goverment hires a company to do work for them. The company is working on behalf of the goverment. Technicaly getting around illegal search and seizure. However a judge could rule against the procecution.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized"
It does not specify that it would just be the goverment doing this. So if I wanted to come on over and riffle through your house. By your logic and the logic the goverment is currently using, I could. If I just maybe thought you were doing something wrong. This is effectivly what they do if they port scan for it. Also remember it is by law wrong for ME to break into something. But somehow the goverment is above that?
Now if a person connects to a network p2p app. They are in effect advertising that it is 'ok' to come through that port and use the system for what I shared. Not to go rummaging through my HD (unless its the pourpous of the share). It is NOT ok without a propper warrent to reverse back to me and rummage through my stuff through a different port.
Now for my rant. WHY does everyone treat the internet as if it is some other world? Its the same world we live in. The laws are just as easy to break and uphold there. Yet we treat it as some sort of wild west. We do not need MORE law to tell us it is wrong to copy crap. It already is. Its on every dvd/cd/vhs copy I have. Its in my face EVERY time I start a dvd. Can not even skip by it. Maybe I am tired of by default being treated as a criminal.
Of _course_ he panders to his audience. The SW movies at one time may have been about an artsy fartsy movie. But they have outgrown that in about 1977. When there were LINES of hundreds of people waiting to see it again and again. The cash cow had parked in front of Lucas and started pumping out pure gold.
Of course the chars are the way they are. Look at what Lucas has had to do to make that franchise work. He basicly had to setup his own studio to get the last 5 made. That he can sell the tech to others is icing. He made that studio to make star wars. The only way to do that is CASH. So he sees himself as a loner. His writing will reflect that. Some writers can detach themselves from who they are. Most can not. Its easier to write what you know.
If he made the next one about the intracacies of robot making. Thousands of people would still line up to see it. But would they go back? Would they want the toys? Would they want to own a copy? Would they goto a resturant and demand the Happy meal with the obi wan with the lightsaber. He is making movies people want to see. Of course he is going to listen to what they want.
Me? Im willing to bet there will be 3 more after episode 3, but after Indy 4, 5, and 6. Course he has not done more than episode 1 and 2 since about 1989. Course now he does have quite an empire himself to run.
im just putting on the second coat right now
he probably picked something cheap. so that way if it was totaly messed up he could just junk it. That he is getting 6k (at the time I looked) for a car worth about 1k is pretty good...
Apple will never go back to letting others make the hardware. The did for a few years. For awhile the other manufactures were making BETTER boxen then apple. Apple figured out that they were hurting themselves by letting others sell their boxs. Know why motorola is not playing very nicely with apple? If you think about it is simple. Apple burned them. Not just a little. But big time. Apple stoped selling the OS to other companies. Those companies were instantly overnight put out of bussness. Motorola will not forget or forgive that lightly. They lost a large chunk of sales to that segment of the market. This instantly relegated their chips from front line in every mac that everyone makes, to cpus put into routers plus the little market share that apple had.
You will more than likely see only 1 or 2 platforms that support it. Then it will be a totaly custom bios from apple that will make it work just right.
However I still would not put it past them to switch stratages again. They have done it over and over. After the 2nd time most bussness usually figure out that its cheaper to write software for windows as you will not be rewriting it again next year. This is because apple dropped ALL support for the thing they were saying is the next greatest thing ever. While this is the holy grail of computer science the perpetual rewrite. Its not the holy grail of most companies that are just tring to break even.
Also most hardware manufactures treat drivers as the last thing done ever. like 'oh yeah we need drivers'. If it comes down to a choice between windows drivers and apple drivers. The choice will always be the bigger of the two markets. Apple will have to 'help' manufactures with bribes uh monitary donations, and probably actual people to make it work.
Also MS makes most of its money from Office sales. I would be willing to bet that office on the mac is a top seller. Windows exists in its current form to run Office. That it runs other things just helps them sell more copies of windows is gravy.
the encryption they picked for dvd is actually GOOD. Without the keys you can NOT crack it easily. The only reason its been marked as 'half ass' by people that do not think it through, is because they think because its been 'cracked' its half ass. Its not. Its of decent quality. The only reason its been cracked is because one company left the keys in the open. And like most keys of this nature if you have one you can get the rest. The next round will be 'cracked' in a similar way or by brute force.
I have found that most people that act that way usually have a 'savior' around. Someone that tells them how to fix it. Does not show them how to fix it and then make it clear 'leave me alone'. There are also another group of people that tend to not even really care about computers. They just use them because they have to. But they could tell you every baseball player for the past 20 years. Its a matter of motivation. They are not motivated to learn it because they have no need/want to learn it. They can ask someone else and that someone else will kindly stop by and make it better.
:)
I always make clear that Im showing it to them this time. But next time it will be a condisending tone of 'like I showed you LAST time'. This also brings fear into the equation. Most people do not being ridiculed. They will figure it out sometimes to avoid 'bothering' you.
Another trick I have picked up is, do not rush right over to help them. Let them sweat it out for a half hour or so. You would be amazed at how motivated people get when they are board.
I also make sure I bite my lip and hold my hands back from the computer. One of the WORST things you can do is grab control of the computer from the user. They will just watch and learn nothing. Make them do the steps. Make them explain to you what you just showed them. Ask them whats the next step and so on...
I also make it clear that I will not always be around to save them. It took me a few years to get my parents to realize this. Now they use computers like a champ. Before they would just get me to do it for them. Course moving 1200 miles helped
Ive turned many awfull computer users into great computer users by using these simple steps. And every single person always thanks me and thinks I have saved the world when I do it to them. You do not have to be mean. Just make it clear that they are using your time, and they need to make it quick. You have a list of 50 things that need to be done yesterday. And you are sitting here showing them how to use the mouse...
if it rings during dinner do not answer it...
I agree with most of that. But the thing is currently there is a market segment willing to pay 15-20 per cd. There are people actually willing to part with that amount of money for a cd. You are absolutly right though about their marginal revinue = marginal cost. Also the cost to make 1 more cd is not exactly much. The would do MUCH better making them equal. It would be interesting to graph it out... When you can get the same song thats on the cd for free it makes you wonder about all the people in between you and the artist. :)
Long run they are doing a disservice to themselves. But they setup the system. People are starting to REALLY dislike what they hear coming out of the radio. If you do not hear good things from the radio why would you go buy that drek? The payola scam they have cooked up is not quite payola but something fairly close. Its walking the fine line of the law. Not quite breaking it but not exactly following the intent either.
More than likely also if a artist defaults on the loan they just write it off on tax's. Plus they probley write off the unsold stock as a loss as well. Im sure they are not exactly hurting if they print up 100k of cd's and 10k sell. Maybe if they had played it around a bit and see if people liked it. Did a bit of research. Instead of the shotgun approach. With the shotgun approach youll hit it 'big' once and awhile. But more often than not you will end up with the check.
As an aside to all this why do we have to listen to 'drive time people'. Their jokes are lame they rarley have anything interesting to say above jr high jokes. Then they sit there and 'laugh' at their own jokes with laugh tracks. And the same gag played on someone in the 100th different way is getting rather thin. I do not want to hear what their wifes/gf's/whatever said/did last night. I do not care what their opinion is on the latest bad/good guy of the week is. Their contests are stupid, and the things to win I could care less about. They are always having parties at some bar of the week, that I would never step foot in. Then when they finaly do play music it is usually pick 2 random high profile groups for that particular type of music station. Then never deviate from those 2 groups ever for the life of the station during drive time. Maybe instead of having 4 hours a day devoted to these mushroom dj's they could play GOOD music? But unfortunatly all the radio stations where I live tend to this type of format. One of the stations around here even has been trying drive home time chater. Its the same goop thats in the morning. But as I said this is just an aside, maybe Im just bitter
How is making more laws going to HELP? It is ALREADY ILLEGAL to copy the stuff and give it away. Dont belive me its written on every cd vhs dvd I own. Laws that are not enforced do NOTHING. Digital is just a new way to store things. Why in the world do we even make a distinction? Technicaly there is but from Joe consumers point of view one just looks better than the other. He give a rip if one is digital or analog. They just want a better product!
Their WHOLE busness model was based on content distribution charging/control. They are just starting to realize it. Which is why they are lobying VERY hard for new law to 'help' them. When distrubting it costs almost nothing, and they do not control the proces of getting music, the price WILL and MUST go down. They are whining as their busnesses can no longer sustain the higher costs of their OWN system they setup. Also given we are/were in a economy downturn im surprised they are doing as well as they are. There were LOTS of companies that lost ALOT of money in the past few years. However in the past few years in the eye of competion from a new startup basicly (napster/kazaa/gnutela). Did they do what all smart busnesses do when someone else comes out with a similar product? Did they inovate, lower prices, anything? No they bitch and moan and try to pass more law.
Ill quote danny deveto from other peoples money IMDB "I'll bet the last company that made buggy whips made the best damn buggy whip ever." While it may or may not be true. His anaolgy from the movie is. And if I remember from economics the only times price of product will go up in these conditions. is Increase in production cost, higher demand, or monopolistic controls. They can control 2 of those. One we the consumer controll. If 'piracy' is such a big problem why are their prices going up? Prices tend to go down or level out during recessions. Also if your market share is going down you tend to lower prices to try to attract more people to it. If your a monopoly you can put the price wherever you want. Something else is going on and I do not think piracy is the answer.
My question is simple. Why are they raising prices and therefore pricing MORE people out of their market. As they are moving the wrong way on the demand curve. They make CD's for what 10-20 cents EACH, if that. Then sell them for 15-20 BUCKS each? Their marginal revinue probley does not equal marginal cost. When that happens you are either loosing money or you could be making more. I had that grilled into me in every econ class I took. And if there is an alternative cheaper source of the same as or close to same as copy of the product available, loosing customers to other forms of media that they do not control?! Ill use the pizza example they grilled into me also. If Bob's pizza joint one sells slices of pizza for 1 dollar. And Mikes pizza joint down the street makes very similar pizza for 2 buck a slice. The Bobs pizza will do more busness on a whole baring other cirumstances such as atmospher, help working there, freebees, etc... Both will probly make about the same amount. Now Jimmy makes a magic box that he can setup on the corrner and make pizza for 10 cents a slice. While not AS good as the compition but decent. Little jimmy will make and sell ALOT of pizza. But jimmy _could_ be making more money at it. But he is happy with what he gets. Soon the market will start to change, people will want 10 cent pizza. They will ask why cant the other two places make 10 cent pizza. Why buy from them? The other 2 busnesses will either have to come up with something pretty good or move away from Jimmy. Or try to put Jimmy out of busness with law. Do either hold the patent or copyright on pizza? They may try to ruin Jimmy with health violations etc...
We are seeing from the music/movie industry is a lack of imagination (funny considering what they do!). So if you can not inovate litigate...
Most people forget that a schedule can be changed. It is not carved in stone. The end date may be carved in stone. But what the project does... You also need to know when to chuck things overboard to get things done. It may be cool to have the splash screen popup. But do you HAVE to have one? Could you use that 3-4 days somewhere else? These sort of things should be hashed and rehashed all the way through ANY project. Refactoring can be a tool to _HELP_ you get things done on time. But sometimes we get rather miopic on what we are doing.
Also when you are redesigning/rewriting/refactoring something how can you not at least LOOK at what the other person did? That will take some time. Just to say OH I know what it should do may not be true. Maybe they ran into some problems you didnt even THINK of and they alread solved them? Also more than likely other parts of the system are dependent on the behavior of that 'broken' piece of code. How do you take that into acount? These are the sorts of things you do when you are redesigning things.
But you have it right about knowing WHEN to refactor. Just because someone does not work with you anymore. Is almost always the wrong reason. Sometimes if it works dont touch it is a good thing. You can work on OTHER things that will help you. Other times it finaly just comes down to 'NO ONE' knows how that damn thing works and we need someone here that knows it 'IN and OUT'. More than likely if no one else can even figure out what it does, and how it does it. It probably is a good candidate for getting refactored. But more than likely in order to tear something like that appart correctly you will have to understand the old code.
You just need to know when to pick your battles.
A stock buy back is also very risky. In theory it should raise the price of the stock. Will it? Probably. MS is probably happy with the stock price. Usually you see stock buy backs when the company feels the stock price is undervalued. You will see splits when the company feels the stock price is overvalued. With dividinds you have actual realized value, not maybes and probablies. Why did the market go down today? Because it didnt go up. Why did the market go up today? Because it didnt go down. Anyone who tells you different is lying. Fear and greed RULE the market.
Im thinking 'cash is king' If I have 50 bucks to plonk down is the guy behind the counter going to refuse my 50 bucks? Or 500 copies got 'missplaced' in some storage yard and sold for cash. OH how about we dial in and 'activate' them. Oh that didnt work with DIVX. If a copmany treats its customers as thieves they may just decide they dont like the garbage being shoveled out...
Any sort of 'protection' that is come up with will be ripped right off. For example DVD. Which btw has pretty good protection? Dont belive me? TRY to break it with out using decss or any of the 'known keys' Try to actually figure out what the keys are on your own. Guess what you wont. The only reason DeCss came up was because one of the software dvd players left the keys in such a place that the guy could figure out what thier key was and then derive whatever key he wanted from that. You can bet the next version of DVD will have a vault door for security. But someone will screw up and the keys will be out. Or there will be a flaw in it that makes it a snap to crack. try Foolish DVDs
Also anything that is encoded must be decoded so you can copy it there. Or you can just make a bit for bit copy and the decoder will not know the difference. Most copy protection is just silly and bypassable.
To legislate it to make it so you can not do it is even MORE dumb. Just because its digital does not mean its 'new'. Its just a different way of saying something. We HAVE copyright laws. Like them or hate them we HAVE them. They just need to enforce what they got. Dont belive me. go watch a vhs or dvd. Got a FBI warning right on the front that tell exactly what will happen to you. Same exact thing on the back of cd's. /p
I must dissagree.
Just because 'everyone does it' does NOT make it alright. Its equivalent to me say 'hey I have this REALLLLLY cool thing want to buy it?' but I will not let you open the box that it is in to find out what it is, unless you buy it, but once you bought it its yours. I have returned software that does not work before. I gave them several outs and BOY did I bitch. I offered to let them give me my money back, store credit, but not another copy of the same buggy software. I was perfectly willing to buy something at that store, I no longer wanted a piece of software the did not work on my computer.
There used to be a sign on the wall where I worked it said 'for every dissatisfied customer they will tell 8 other potential customers'. I took offence at being treated like a thief by default, and I always will. I am NOT a thief. I can afford to buy my software/music thank you very much. I buy software now online, or at a store where I know the people selling me the stuff. With online shopping I get the EXACT same service at a lower price. BB prices have gone up lately as well (22 bucks for DVDs that I can get elsewere for 18). I probley used to plonk down 10-20k in that very store. But they felt it better to just piss me off then have me as a customer. Any store that treats me as a jerk because some lump-o-junk I bought there and I can not return it does not get my business anymore.
Taking my computer in to make the 'DUDE' behind the counter look at it and screw my computer all to hell, and then charge me for it is also not an option. Plus they would have charged me extra because I had not bought the computer there. No thank you.
Good news however was after messing around with patches for 6 hours I finaly got the software to work.
Also in my state if your selling things 'AS IS' you have to advertise that fact. Not in the fine print on the back of your receipt, which I belive is just being all sneaky about it. If I had realized they were selling AS-IS I definatly would have taken my business elsewhere in the first place. As I can get the same thing/service online cheaper...
I was really steamed and still am. What if this had been one of my family, or a friend? I do not treat people like that, and I expect people to treat me the same way. Am I surprised they do not? No. But I expect better. If it had been a toaster they probley would have given me my money back no questions asked...
They lost my business MONTHS ago. It is because of their return policy. You open it you bought it. But to know if it is any good you have to open it. I had bought a piece of software and it sucked ass. Locked my computer tight every time I would use it. So I tried to return it and was treated as a thief. Why would I copy a piece of software that breaks my computer? Why OH why would I swipe a copy of some software that does not work? I being somewhat competent with computers did not want to fart around with some POS software thats broken. It made me think what if my parents or one of my family got stuck with this software? I was and AM still pissed. They ran alot of the little guys out of business by having a much better supply, and better selection. But that selection has gotten alot worse but they still have TONS of crap stuff at higher prices. DVD went up about 2-3 bucks per a few months ago. CD's over the past 3-4 years have gone up 5-10 bucks EACH. They have simply moved themselves up the demand curve and have the balls to bitch they are not making as much on something that cost them like a couple of bucks to make and ship and produce? I have no simpathy for them. When it costs 20 bucks to buy Dark Side of the Moon I have to wonder...
oh but it WILL cost them more. Here is how. now a company has to put X amount of extra chips/software into a computer. They ship Y amount of computers per year. Each chip/software item costs Z. X times Y times Z is how much each company will have to pass along to the consumer. As the company will DEFANITLY not be eating that charge!
Now there are comanies (i know i work for one) that make comptuers that do NOTHING with mutlimedia. but potentialy they could. Will my company have to pass this drek onto our coustomers?
IT WILL be us the consummer that eats the cost of this bill. Because oh woopsie now the media i buy will not WORK without the new special hardware. Oh wooopsie i have to go buy another player because i REALLLLY want to listen/watch/use something. OH wooopsie the weak scheme was broke by some 14 year old in someother country.
merchandizing where the REAL money from the movie is made. Lucas probley at first made VERY little from that movie. But he RAKED it in from the merchiandise because it was verrrrrry popular movie. Of course he is defending his names of product he has control over! If you came up with a reallllly cool product and it sold well wouldnt you want to defend your name for your product?
Im surprised they even WANTED to have the dude arrested! Think about it. He could have just quitley cracked their stuff posted a few anonymous exe's and been about his bussness. Instead he TELLS EVERYONE how its messed up. INCLUDING Adobe! They just got a bug marked SHOWSTOPER and they decided the resolution to this bug is to hide behind a law instead of coming up with better ways to do something! They should be THANKING him for showing it to them at this time! He could have waited 4-5 more years and the stuff was in use in even MORE places.
Most security is like when i was younger and owned a bycicle. I would lock it up so the casual ding dong wouldn't walk off with it. Most people didnt walk around with bolt cutters to rip off my bike. Why? Most people are honest. Now there are some where IF the oportunity arose they would swipe my bike (ie i left it unlocked).
how does this relate. its simple. Most ding dongs (aka skript kiddies) are just snorking someone elses keys and seeing if the key fits the lock. If it does they got a bike (or data). Now the ones that scare me are the ones that take a piece of metal twist it around and pick the lock then lock it back up and walk of and wait for a better time... The lock is like the obscurity it adds one more thing MOST people dont bother doing (ie bring along a bolt cutter). Its the ones that bother you should worry about.
thats typical of differnt areas. i pay 45 for 1.5mb (160K) down 256b (30K) up. A friend in a difrent are pays nearly 150 per month for 1/3rd of what I got. Most phone companyies in most areas know they are monopolys and they price what people are willing to bear minus any regs placed on them.