The real name policy has nothing to do with it. There's an enormous mass of potential users who don't care at all about the policy because they don't know Google+ exists. That's the reason critical mass hasn't been achieved.
For an advertising company, Google really drops it on promoting most of their products. One or two of them seem to get some push, but otherwise there's apparently zilch marketing.
Besides that, what's the differentiator? Why switch? What's that, I can have more control over the privacy of my posts in some vague and hard-to-convey fashion? But who cares? That's why I'm on Facebook, to share stuff with people. Don't think of this like a tech or a geek; that's what Google is doing and why they're failing.
Zuckerberg e could do whatever he wants with Facebook after the IPO and never have to work another day in his life....How do facts jive with your "reduce privacy to maximise profits" ideology?
Okay, as you asked, here's a fact: The IPO will not make Mark Zuckerberg immediately fabulously wealthy. More accurately, on paper, yes. But he can't immediately convert that book value to real world cash. There are rules that state he must hold on to those shares for a certain period of time before he can trade them; these rules are put in place expressly to prevent such shenanigans. Zuckerberg sits back and lets Facebook go all burnt toast, and by the time he can sell his shares they're pretty well worthless. Not smart.
Not a fact, but question/opinion which I think is pretty logical: why would he want to go through an IPO if he was just going to let it spiral downwards, in light of my above comment? It's a hassle. You have to expose all kinds of information about your company that is so far as private as you want it to be (that's one of the reasons they call it "going public"). Zuckerberg may well have control, but that surely won't stop investors from playing hard ball. Look at how much control Third Point holds over Yahoo in the recent CEO scandal, and they "only" control six percent of the company.
Going public is such a hassle, in fact, with so many restrictions (like someone else said, they're very tied to their SEC filings, and those have to withstand close scrutiny - investors want to know what you're going to do with their money), that there's only one reason you do it. You want to raise significant funds so you can pour it back into the company and grow, grow, grow.
? Err... 1. It's only a tech scandal in that it involves someone at a tech company (okay, and a problem around his credentials in computer science). That is, not at all. It's a scandal about lying about credentials and not getting caught when you really should have been scrutinized closely.
2. Does that mean anything with a historical reference point is no longer valid? Like Einstein, Hitler, Caesar?
Look at the post this guy was replying to. dhavleak said:
You guys are simply discussing the wrong thing. The profitability of Avengers is 100% immaterial. The producer could choose to sell at 10x the price, or 1/100th (and take a loss). Their media, their choice. You choose to buy or not to buy (which is how you regulate their choice). Piracy is theft no matter how you dress it up.
Not incidentally, when I posted, this was at +5 insightful. Several replies commented that dhavleak made some very salient points, although they took issue with equating piracy with theft. Today that comment is at +1.
AC responded to this on a rather raging tear saying no, you're wrong, you're discussing the wrong thing, and the public won't get this into their heads until we shout long enough and loud enough!!
I don't think my interpretation is faulty. How would you interpret this? I would suggest there are a few different themes you could read into this sequence; it is important, however, to keep things in context, hence my quoting dhavleak's comments.
And kindly refrain from more name calling. If you want to debate your case rationally, fine. If you are going to call me a liar and a coward and a shill, then I have better things to do with my time.
Agree about the MBA. If you are interested in moving into project management, you'd also do well to get the PMP as well as the MBA. PMP is universally recognized as *the* project management qualification, and you can get it in a reasonably quick time period.
They were judged to have done a bad thing, they were convicted, and they paid the price. Agreed, not a stellar part of Microsoft's corporate history. Okay. Why does that mean that if they did the same thing today as Apple is doing, with the purpose of enhancing security, and with the full approval of the involved third party, you should have a different response based on whether it's Apple or Microsoft?
Your attempt to reduce the the verdict and punishment to browsers is cute.
"Cute"? Anyway...
I recognize things are almost always more complex than they appear on the surface. But fundamentally, that's what it was. Your next comments are just getting emotional, and I don't think they're helpful or, frankly, relevant.
Can we stick to the point? If Microsoft were to do the exact same thing as Apple are doing in this case, would you approve or complain?
Thankfully they are mostly incompetent with Ballmer and watching them flail about as their competitors eat their lunch is amusing.
Well, maybe we won't be able to stick to the point, unless you grow up a bit.
Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, because they bundled their web browser with their operating system. Therefore, if they distribute a patch or an upgrade which as part of its functionality disables a product which:
is from a third party vendor; and
is out dated and superceded; and
is known to be particularly vulnerable
and the third party vendor expresses their support for that action;
then they are scum and you disapprove. But only because they were convicted of bundling IE with Windows 13 years ago to the detriment of third party vendors.
If they hadn't been convicted in 1999 of monopoly leverage of their own products, then you'd applaud them taking this action, of which the third party vendor approves, to enhance security.
I think you nicely illustrate the poing of the post to which you're responding. Your post gives far more insight and interesting discussion about the reasons why immigrants make better entrepreneurs than does the Forbes article. The Forbes article says nothing of substance.
There's another post just below here, which also has way more salient commentary than is contained within the Forbes article:
People who are forced to learn a new language and culture are rewarded with a huge advantage in people skills. As most of us know, financial success is 90% people skills. (I recently saw a study reported by Forbes that concluded exactly that, even though I had assumed it for years.)
Some career executives are smart, and some not so smart, but they all have one thing in common: top-notch, world-class people skills. It is people skills that gets you to the top.
Introductory paragraph that states immigrants are twice as likely to launch a high-tech startup as their native born peers, and introduces us to Christian Gheorghe.
Eight paragraphs on Gheorghe's story (which is interesting, to be fair, talking about his first job in the U.S. in 1989 which was carrying plywood for $100 a week and a free bologna sandwich at lunchtime).
Last two paragraphs are a comment on the number of immigrants earning engineering Ph.D.s in recent years and finally some boring generic drivel about "they keep pushing ahead".
Gheorghe's story is interesting and he's obviously worked really hard. But this is a useless and silly story. There's no insight or discussion or, well, anything of any substance.
P.S. - pedant mode on. The/. headline is badly written. "Why Forbes Says Immigrants Make Better Entrepreneurs" - because it gets page views, just like Slashdot. What you actually mean is "Forbes Discusses Why Immigrants Make Better Entrepreneurs". Which the Forbes article doesn't do; it just gives eight paragraphs of a case study surrounded by meaningless drivel. Pedant mode off.
Googleâ(TM)s abysmal record with privacy...How often do people trot out this line as if it's facts?
For Google, actually, it is. There was a study (proper study, using scientific methods and actual real statistics, not magazine type stats) which ranked Google dead last for privacy concerns. Need to dig it up and post the link...
However the pure cost-driven analyses often miss important factors.
Agreed. I've never seen a scenario where things are done purely on the basis of cost. That's why I closed my post with the phrase "Expenses, risks, benefits".
I know it's fashionable to pan MBAs and other business exec types, especially with the Wall Street failures over the last few years, but I've yet to meet an executive who doesn't consider risks and other non-cost-based factors. The mortgage crisis wasn't due solely to people being greedy; it was due to people being greedy and using the wrong risk models. They got the figures wrong, but they did consider the risks.
I don't have an engineering degree, but I do have a degree in computer science, which I obtained 20 years before I did my MBA. My job is actually as a computer scientist.
The order in which you place the options is (at best) a matter of personal preference; I'd in fact consider it darned near close to meaningless. I don't know about the best practices in engineering, but in science - and in business, actually - you're supposed to treat all options equally and assess them on their relative merits.
1. Don't skip meals. If you skip tea, you won't sleep as well. Bad for your health. If you skip breakfast or lunch, you'll have insufficient energy to do your daily tasks. It's not good for you. Eat smaller meals. And exercise - it'll burn more calories.
2. If you are overweight, then you really should exercise. Extra weight will put more stress on your joints. Losing weight helps, but you also need to strengthen your muscles.Skipping meals won't do that. Exercise will. You'll be really glad you took this advice when you're 45 or 50.
3. Also will help your blood pressure and cholesterol. You'll be really glad you took this advice when you're 40 and go to the doctor for a check-up.
I have a great metabolism, never been overweight, always looked in good shape, even though I didn't exercise. Felt fine. Went to a doctor when I turned 40 because that's what you're supposed to do when you turn 40. I felt fantastic going in, spring in my step, nothing wrong with me. My blood pressure was through the roof and I ended up in hospital. It took two years to get my b.p. under control with medicine to the point where it was even safe for me to work out, and then I started exercising. Three months later they cut my b.p. medication in half, and congratulated me on how dramatically my cholesterol had dropped.
You don't have to go rabid - you only need a relatively minor amount of exercise to keep your body healthy. It's not just about losing weight, it's about your muscular fitness, mitigating joint and bone degeneration that happen with age, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.
Find something you like. Go swimming. Get a friend to go on a bike ride with you. 30 minutes, three times a week. Make yourself do it. Otherwise you might die before you turn 50. I'm not kidding. Please don't do that to your family.
Exactly. In fact, in some courses (sigh...flame suit on...MBA classes, specifically), you are taught to always consider not only a few viable and different options, but also the "do-nothing" option. Evaluate what happens if questioner does nothing, i.e. stays with the status quo.
Sometimes people come up with all kinds of extravagant and ridiculous schemes and never stop to consider "well, I know my boss said 'do something', but what would be the consequences if we left things as they are?". The answer may not be palatable to the person with the bucks, but then again the do-nothing approach could turn out to be the best option.
I know MBA courses are not the sole preserve of such wisdom, but that's where I had it drummed into me (possibly in an effort to try and avoid the kinds of expensive mistakes that make people sneer at MBAs). First option in your list - do nothing, stay with what you have now. Expenses, risks, benefits.
It's still stealing, and using a less stark name for it doesn't make it any less theft in absolute terms any more than the difference between lifting a pack of gum is less "theft" than boosting a Porsche.
In both those cases, there was a real, non-hypothetical loss. You don't have to guess whether a car thief would have bought a Porsche if car theft was impossible (probably not) -- the dealer is still out one Porsche. Whereas with piracy the loss is hypothetical and you do need to guess what the pirate would have done to even claim there was a loss.
Well then, I'll posit the same argument I put forwards in a similar thread a few months ago. Say you have a nice shiny Porsche and you go into a restaurant for dinner. I take your Porsche out for a joy ride. I return it after an hour or two, while you're enjoying your after-dinner drinks.
No problem, right? You still have your Porsche. I didn't deprive you of any use of it; you were in the restaurant. I've returned it undamaged. You have full use of it. Okay, I used some petrol. You got me. Fine, I'll top it up, so as to make the argument fair here, and make sure there's no financial impact to you.
Heck, even if I got into a minor crash, who cares? You still have your car. It's not quite as attractive (assuming you find Porsches attractive), but it still works. You don't have to get that gouge on the side fixed; it's not stopping it from functioning.
For f***'s sake, as you said, we've had a thread of this exact nature pop up every 2 months for the last 10 years, so how the hell can you not know that.
Nice rant...
Stop injecting emotion into your arguments.
Heh. The parent was rational, calm, and logical. You're raving like a lunatic. Who's getting emotional here?
Putting aside the endless debate about theft/stealing/copyright infringement (and no matter what you call it, it's illegal), would you care to address the main theme that states the movie industry has the right to choose their business model and then succeed or fail by that choice, rather than have it ripped away from them?
But what they DON'T want is people turning to the internet for independent content that they don't have their greedy, propagandizing hands on. It's a thinly veiled excuse to make sure no one else can encroach on their territory.
Ahem, what were you saying about injecting emotion into the argument?
This is silly. They don't want people turning to the internet for THEIR content in violation of their chosen business model. As stated, that's their right. Don't like it? Don't buy their stuff. Write a letter telling them you don't like it. (But do try and edit a bit better; you come off as a pissed 12 year old in this post.)
There are plenty of independent movie producers, people uploading documentaries for free on YouTube, etc. Who's stopping them? I see the argument time and time again on Slashdot that there's no value in Facebook because "anyone can put up their own website". Clearly this is not quite as simple an argument as one might suppose, or Facebook wouldn't have 900 million active monthly users. But using this same argument, why can't an independent film producer upload their works to a web site and let people download it from there? Cameras are free, production is free, actors are free, web sites are free, and bandwidth is free.
Well, it must be, mustn't it, or you wouldn't keep insisting that taking stuff for free doesn't matter...
So you disagree with the parent's comment that "media owners have every right to choose their business model". That's perfectly fair, reasonable, and the basis of economic systems. Let them choose the business model and succeed, if they can convince people it is worthwhile, or fail and go bankrupt, if it is a poor model, or a changing world no longer sees value in the provided goods and services.
Agreed. The argument is always "these rich studio producers have enough money already, they don't need any more". As you say, it's still deservedly owed to those who take the risk and make the investment.
The thing about Piracy is, the people who pirate are not people who would have paid for it in the first place.... People pirate because it is convenient...
As you say - some people may not pay for something that they'd pirate (but that always strikes me as a disingenuous argument - if it's really not very good, why waste your time downloading it and then watching it?). But there are plenty of people who would have paid for it but will pirate it because it's convenient. There's low risk of getting caught, and they simply don't want to pay.
If you're downloading something, it has value. Maybe you don't ascribe as much value to it as the movie theater does, but the fact you are downloading it and taking up time (both to retrieve it and to watch it) and money (allocated space on your hard drive, bandwidth that you purchased from your ISP, electricity) means it has value to you. You can refuse to call it stealing because it's not "real" and you haven't deprived anyone of anything, but that is mere sophistry.
If it truly has little to no value - stop downloading it. For you, who cannot afford to go to the theaters, do what other people do and go without until you can afford it, or it becomes a higher priority of what to do with your disposable income. Sometimes, in the grown up world, people can't have everything they want; they have to make choices.
To finally wrench this rant back on topic, much of the figures being discussed in this article are the "leaders" - people who are willing to see a low fidelity copy or who will put up with the crush of the opening weekend crowd because they want to be first and that's their priority. It's not the shoddy webcam dreck that most worries studios; it's the pirated high quality rips once the DVD has been released.
Well, according to the article, and the summary too, actually, about 0.5%, maximum. But the article goes on to say this is in the U.S.
But does this mean that piracy is not an issue for the movie industry at all? Well not so fast.
A recent study showed that the US box office is not suffering from movie piracy, but that there is a detrimental effect on international box office figures. The researchers attribute this impact to the wide release gaps, which sometimes result in a high quality DVD copy being available on pirate sites while a movie is still showing in theaters.
That may be what the founders are looking at, but have a look at those 146 companies (23% of which are American) and what they say is important when considering a move to Blueseed.
The work visa question is "not important for myself or other company founders" for nearly 22% (but "critical" or "very important" for 44%). For "US work visas for my employees", it's not important for over a quarter of them.
What's more important? "Proximity to Silicon Valley's investors" - very important/critical for a whopping 70% of them. How's that going to work with the transfer of large sums of money, if they're playing loose with the legal bits? (Answer: badly, I should imagine.)
Finally, the real reason they want to do this. "Living and working in an awesome startup- and technology-oriented space" - very important or critical to 87% of them. Those who said this factor was not important? Zero point zero percent.
With figures and priorities like that, I'm not sure who's sillier; the Blueseed founders, or the people who think they're going to move there and make a fortune while doing whatever it is one does in an awesome startup- and technology-oriented space (methinks they have visions of Star Trek holodecks).
I'll start by commending you for actually finding something that has figures and apparently was done in a scientific manner.
But the page you link has almost the exact opposite figures from those in your post (and would therefore seem to not support the AC to whom I replied).
The main findings, according to that first page, include that people want Evolution emphasized in science.
The overwhelming majority of Americans (83%) want Evolution taught in public schools.
The site goes on to say that while many Americans support Creationist discussions in schools, they want them taught as beliefs, and outside of the science room.
fewer than 3 in 10...wants Creationism taught as science
Another key finding? 60% of Americans reject the Kansas decision to delete Evolution from its state science standards. Only 28% supported the move.
So, basically, all you can take from this reference is it contradicts the AC poster's assertion. And, in the nicest possible way, it seems you've failed at reading comprehension. Have you considered further education, such as getting a degree?
Facebook allows you to download your data. I posted somewhere else on this story that I can't comment as to how comprehensive that export might be (I tried it once out of interest, some months ago), but there is something there.
Likewise on Alta Vista - it was my homepage in the mid to late 90s.
By the way, FB already provides a feature to download your information. I must admit I don't know just how comprehensive the end result is - my impression was that it was more designed to facilitate self-checking ("what have I published?") - but it's something.
Slashdot Mirror
The real name policy has nothing to do with it. There's an enormous mass of potential users who don't care at all about the policy because they don't know Google+ exists. That's the reason critical mass hasn't been achieved.
For an advertising company, Google really drops it on promoting most of their products. One or two of them seem to get some push, but otherwise there's apparently zilch marketing.
Besides that, what's the differentiator? Why switch? What's that, I can have more control over the privacy of my posts in some vague and hard-to-convey fashion? But who cares? That's why I'm on Facebook, to share stuff with people. Don't think of this like a tech or a geek; that's what Google is doing and why they're failing.
Zuckerberg e could do whatever he wants with Facebook after the IPO and never have to work another day in his life. ...How do facts jive with your "reduce privacy to maximise profits" ideology?
Okay, as you asked, here's a fact: The IPO will not make Mark Zuckerberg immediately fabulously wealthy. More accurately, on paper, yes. But he can't immediately convert that book value to real world cash. There are rules that state he must hold on to those shares for a certain period of time before he can trade them; these rules are put in place expressly to prevent such shenanigans. Zuckerberg sits back and lets Facebook go all burnt toast, and by the time he can sell his shares they're pretty well worthless. Not smart.
Not a fact, but question/opinion which I think is pretty logical: why would he want to go through an IPO if he was just going to let it spiral downwards, in light of my above comment? It's a hassle. You have to expose all kinds of information about your company that is so far as private as you want it to be (that's one of the reasons they call it "going public"). Zuckerberg may well have control, but that surely won't stop investors from playing hard ball. Look at how much control Third Point holds over Yahoo in the recent CEO scandal, and they "only" control six percent of the company.
Going public is such a hassle, in fact, with so many restrictions (like someone else said, they're very tied to their SEC filings, and those have to withstand close scrutiny - investors want to know what you're going to do with their money), that there's only one reason you do it. You want to raise significant funds so you can pour it back into the company and grow, grow, grow.
? Err... 1. It's only a tech scandal in that it involves someone at a tech company (okay, and a problem around his credentials in computer science). That is, not at all. It's a scandal about lying about credentials and not getting caught when you really should have been scrutinized closely.
2. Does that mean anything with a historical reference point is no longer valid? Like Einstein, Hitler, Caesar?
Look at the post this guy was replying to. dhavleak said:
You guys are simply discussing the wrong thing. The profitability of Avengers is 100% immaterial. The producer could choose to sell at 10x the price, or 1/100th (and take a loss). Their media, their choice. You choose to buy or not to buy (which is how you regulate their choice). Piracy is theft no matter how you dress it up.
Not incidentally, when I posted, this was at +5 insightful. Several replies commented that dhavleak made some very salient points, although they took issue with equating piracy with theft. Today that comment is at +1.
AC responded to this on a rather raging tear saying no, you're wrong, you're discussing the wrong thing, and the public won't get this into their heads until we shout long enough and loud enough!!
I don't think my interpretation is faulty. How would you interpret this? I would suggest there are a few different themes you could read into this sequence; it is important, however, to keep things in context, hence my quoting dhavleak's comments.
And kindly refrain from more name calling. If you want to debate your case rationally, fine. If you are going to call me a liar and a coward and a shill, then I have better things to do with my time.
Agree about the MBA. If you are interested in moving into project management, you'd also do well to get the PMP as well as the MBA. PMP is universally recognized as *the* project management qualification, and you can get it in a reasonably quick time period.
we treat Microsoft history with a different lens
They were judged to have done a bad thing, they were convicted, and they paid the price. Agreed, not a stellar part of Microsoft's corporate history. Okay. Why does that mean that if they did the same thing today as Apple is doing, with the purpose of enhancing security, and with the full approval of the involved third party, you should have a different response based on whether it's Apple or Microsoft?
Your attempt to reduce the the verdict and punishment to browsers is cute.
"Cute"? Anyway...
I recognize things are almost always more complex than they appear on the surface. But fundamentally, that's what it was. Your next comments are just getting emotional, and I don't think they're helpful or, frankly, relevant.
Can we stick to the point? If Microsoft were to do the exact same thing as Apple are doing in this case, would you approve or complain?
Thankfully they are mostly incompetent with Ballmer and watching them flail about as their competitors eat their lunch is amusing.
Well, maybe we won't be able to stick to the point, unless you grow up a bit.
So this is your argument.
Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, because they bundled their web browser with their operating system. Therefore, if they distribute a patch or an upgrade which as part of its functionality disables a product which:
and the third party vendor expresses their support for that action;
then they are scum and you disapprove. But only because they were convicted of bundling IE with Windows 13 years ago to the detriment of third party vendors.
If they hadn't been convicted in 1999 of monopoly leverage of their own products, then you'd applaud them taking this action, of which the third party vendor approves, to enhance security.
I think you nicely illustrate the poing of the post to which you're responding. Your post gives far more insight and interesting discussion about the reasons why immigrants make better entrepreneurs than does the Forbes article. The Forbes article says nothing of substance.
There's another post just below here, which also has way more salient commentary than is contained within the Forbes article:
People who are forced to learn a new language and culture are rewarded with a huge advantage in people skills. As most of us know, financial success is 90% people skills. (I recently saw a study reported by Forbes that concluded exactly that, even though I had assumed it for years.)
Some career executives are smart, and some not so smart, but they all have one thing in common: top-notch, world-class people skills. It is people skills that gets you to the top.
Introductory paragraph that states immigrants are twice as likely to launch a high-tech startup as their native born peers, and introduces us to Christian Gheorghe.
Eight paragraphs on Gheorghe's story (which is interesting, to be fair, talking about his first job in the U.S. in 1989 which was carrying plywood for $100 a week and a free bologna sandwich at lunchtime).
Last two paragraphs are a comment on the number of immigrants earning engineering Ph.D.s in recent years and finally some boring generic drivel about "they keep pushing ahead".
Gheorghe's story is interesting and he's obviously worked really hard. But this is a useless and silly story. There's no insight or discussion or, well, anything of any substance.
P.S. - pedant mode on. The /. headline is badly written. "Why Forbes Says Immigrants Make Better Entrepreneurs" - because it gets page views, just like Slashdot. What you actually mean is "Forbes Discusses Why Immigrants Make Better Entrepreneurs". Which the Forbes article doesn't do; it just gives eight paragraphs of a case study surrounded by meaningless drivel. Pedant mode off.
Googleâ(TM)s abysmal record with privacy...How often do people trot out this line as if it's facts?
For Google, actually, it is. There was a study (proper study, using scientific methods and actual real statistics, not magazine type stats) which ranked Google dead last for privacy concerns. Need to dig it up and post the link...
However the pure cost-driven analyses often miss important factors.
Agreed. I've never seen a scenario where things are done purely on the basis of cost. That's why I closed my post with the phrase "Expenses, risks, benefits".
I know it's fashionable to pan MBAs and other business exec types, especially with the Wall Street failures over the last few years, but I've yet to meet an executive who doesn't consider risks and other non-cost-based factors. The mortgage crisis wasn't due solely to people being greedy; it was due to people being greedy and using the wrong risk models. They got the figures wrong, but they did consider the risks.
I don't have an engineering degree, but I do have a degree in computer science, which I obtained 20 years before I did my MBA. My job is actually as a computer scientist.
The order in which you place the options is (at best) a matter of personal preference; I'd in fact consider it darned near close to meaningless. I don't know about the best practices in engineering, but in science - and in business, actually - you're supposed to treat all options equally and assess them on their relative merits.
1. Don't skip meals. If you skip tea, you won't sleep as well. Bad for your health. If you skip breakfast or lunch, you'll have insufficient energy to do your daily tasks. It's not good for you. Eat smaller meals. And exercise - it'll burn more calories.
2. If you are overweight, then you really should exercise. Extra weight will put more stress on your joints. Losing weight helps, but you also need to strengthen your muscles.Skipping meals won't do that. Exercise will. You'll be really glad you took this advice when you're 45 or 50.
3. Also will help your blood pressure and cholesterol. You'll be really glad you took this advice when you're 40 and go to the doctor for a check-up.
I have a great metabolism, never been overweight, always looked in good shape, even though I didn't exercise. Felt fine. Went to a doctor when I turned 40 because that's what you're supposed to do when you turn 40. I felt fantastic going in, spring in my step, nothing wrong with me. My blood pressure was through the roof and I ended up in hospital. It took two years to get my b.p. under control with medicine to the point where it was even safe for me to work out, and then I started exercising. Three months later they cut my b.p. medication in half, and congratulated me on how dramatically my cholesterol had dropped.
You don't have to go rabid - you only need a relatively minor amount of exercise to keep your body healthy. It's not just about losing weight, it's about your muscular fitness, mitigating joint and bone degeneration that happen with age, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.
Find something you like. Go swimming. Get a friend to go on a bike ride with you. 30 minutes, three times a week. Make yourself do it. Otherwise you might die before you turn 50. I'm not kidding. Please don't do that to your family.
Exactly. In fact, in some courses (sigh...flame suit on...MBA classes, specifically), you are taught to always consider not only a few viable and different options, but also the "do-nothing" option. Evaluate what happens if questioner does nothing, i.e. stays with the status quo.
Sometimes people come up with all kinds of extravagant and ridiculous schemes and never stop to consider "well, I know my boss said 'do something', but what would be the consequences if we left things as they are?". The answer may not be palatable to the person with the bucks, but then again the do-nothing approach could turn out to be the best option.
I know MBA courses are not the sole preserve of such wisdom, but that's where I had it drummed into me (possibly in an effort to try and avoid the kinds of expensive mistakes that make people sneer at MBAs). First option in your list - do nothing, stay with what you have now. Expenses, risks, benefits.
It's still stealing, and using a less stark name for it doesn't make it any less theft in absolute terms any more than the difference between lifting a pack of gum is less "theft" than boosting a Porsche.
In both those cases, there was a real, non-hypothetical loss. You don't have to guess whether a car thief would have bought a Porsche if car theft was impossible (probably not) -- the dealer is still out one Porsche. Whereas with piracy the loss is hypothetical and you do need to guess what the pirate would have done to even claim there was a loss.
Well then, I'll posit the same argument I put forwards in a similar thread a few months ago. Say you have a nice shiny Porsche and you go into a restaurant for dinner. I take your Porsche out for a joy ride. I return it after an hour or two, while you're enjoying your after-dinner drinks.
No problem, right? You still have your Porsche. I didn't deprive you of any use of it; you were in the restaurant. I've returned it undamaged. You have full use of it. Okay, I used some petrol. You got me. Fine, I'll top it up, so as to make the argument fair here, and make sure there's no financial impact to you.
Heck, even if I got into a minor crash, who cares? You still have your car. It's not quite as attractive (assuming you find Porsches attractive), but it still works. You don't have to get that gouge on the side fixed; it's not stopping it from functioning.
Where's the flaw in that argument?
For f***'s sake, as you said, we've had a thread of this exact nature pop up every 2 months for the last 10 years, so how the hell can you not know that.
Nice rant...
Stop injecting emotion into your arguments.
Heh. The parent was rational, calm, and logical. You're raving like a lunatic. Who's getting emotional here?
Putting aside the endless debate about theft/stealing/copyright infringement (and no matter what you call it, it's illegal), would you care to address the main theme that states the movie industry has the right to choose their business model and then succeed or fail by that choice, rather than have it ripped away from them?
But what they DON'T want is people turning to the internet for independent content that they don't have their greedy, propagandizing hands on. It's a thinly veiled excuse to make sure no one else can encroach on their territory.
Ahem, what were you saying about injecting emotion into the argument?
This is silly. They don't want people turning to the internet for THEIR content in violation of their chosen business model. As stated, that's their right. Don't like it? Don't buy their stuff. Write a letter telling them you don't like it. (But do try and edit a bit better; you come off as a pissed 12 year old in this post.)
There are plenty of independent movie producers, people uploading documentaries for free on YouTube, etc. Who's stopping them? I see the argument time and time again on Slashdot that there's no value in Facebook because "anyone can put up their own website". Clearly this is not quite as simple an argument as one might suppose, or Facebook wouldn't have 900 million active monthly users. But using this same argument, why can't an independent film producer upload their works to a web site and let people download it from there? Cameras are free, production is free, actors are free, web sites are free, and bandwidth is free.
Well, it must be, mustn't it, or you wouldn't keep insisting that taking stuff for free doesn't matter...
So you disagree with the parent's comment that "media owners have every right to choose their business model". That's perfectly fair, reasonable, and the basis of economic systems. Let them choose the business model and succeed, if they can convince people it is worthwhile, or fail and go bankrupt, if it is a poor model, or a changing world no longer sees value in the provided goods and services.
Why do you claim they don't have this right?
Nicely said! Very glad you are modded up at +5.
Agreed. The argument is always "these rich studio producers have enough money already, they don't need any more". As you say, it's still deservedly owed to those who take the risk and make the investment.
The thing about Piracy is, the people who pirate are not people who would have paid for it in the first place. ...
People pirate because it is convenient...
As you say - some people may not pay for something that they'd pirate (but that always strikes me as a disingenuous argument - if it's really not very good, why waste your time downloading it and then watching it?). But there are plenty of people who would have paid for it but will pirate it because it's convenient. There's low risk of getting caught, and they simply don't want to pay.
If you're downloading something, it has value. Maybe you don't ascribe as much value to it as the movie theater does, but the fact you are downloading it and taking up time (both to retrieve it and to watch it) and money (allocated space on your hard drive, bandwidth that you purchased from your ISP, electricity) means it has value to you. You can refuse to call it stealing because it's not "real" and you haven't deprived anyone of anything, but that is mere sophistry.
If it truly has little to no value - stop downloading it. For you, who cannot afford to go to the theaters, do what other people do and go without until you can afford it, or it becomes a higher priority of what to do with your disposable income. Sometimes, in the grown up world, people can't have everything they want; they have to make choices.
To finally wrench this rant back on topic, much of the figures being discussed in this article are the "leaders" - people who are willing to see a low fidelity copy or who will put up with the crush of the opening weekend crowd because they want to be first and that's their priority. It's not the shoddy webcam dreck that most worries studios; it's the pirated high quality rips once the DVD has been released.
Well, according to the article, and the summary too, actually, about 0.5%, maximum. But the article goes on to say this is in the U.S.
But does this mean that piracy is not an issue for the movie industry at all? Well not so fast.
A recent study showed that the US box office is not suffering from movie piracy, but that there is a detrimental effect on international box office figures. The researchers attribute this impact to the wide release gaps, which sometimes result in a high quality DVD copy being available on pirate sites while a movie is still showing in theaters.
That may be what the founders are looking at, but have a look at those 146 companies (23% of which are American) and what they say is important when considering a move to Blueseed.
The work visa question is "not important for myself or other company founders" for nearly 22% (but "critical" or "very important" for 44%). For "US work visas for my employees", it's not important for over a quarter of them.
What's more important? "Proximity to Silicon Valley's investors" - very important/critical for a whopping 70% of them. How's that going to work with the transfer of large sums of money, if they're playing loose with the legal bits? (Answer: badly, I should imagine.)
Finally, the real reason they want to do this. "Living and working in an awesome startup- and technology-oriented space" - very important or critical to 87% of them. Those who said this factor was not important? Zero point zero percent.
With figures and priorities like that, I'm not sure who's sillier; the Blueseed founders, or the people who think they're going to move there and make a fortune while doing whatever it is one does in an awesome startup- and technology-oriented space (methinks they have visions of Star Trek holodecks).
I'll start by commending you for actually finding something that has figures and apparently was done in a scientific manner.
But the page you link has almost the exact opposite figures from those in your post (and would therefore seem to not support the AC to whom I replied).
The main findings, according to that first page, include that people want Evolution emphasized in science.
The overwhelming majority of Americans (83%) want Evolution taught in public schools.
The site goes on to say that while many Americans support Creationist discussions in schools, they want them taught as beliefs, and outside of the science room.
fewer than 3 in 10...wants Creationism taught as science
Another key finding? 60% of Americans reject the Kansas decision to delete Evolution from its state science standards. Only 28% supported the move.
So, basically, all you can take from this reference is it contradicts the AC poster's assertion. And, in the nicest possible way, it seems you've failed at reading comprehension. Have you considered further education, such as getting a degree?
Facebook allows you to download your data. I posted somewhere else on this story that I can't comment as to how comprehensive that export might be (I tried it once out of interest, some months ago), but there is something there.
Likewise on Alta Vista - it was my homepage in the mid to late 90s.
By the way, FB already provides a feature to download your information. I must admit I don't know just how comprehensive the end result is - my impression was that it was more designed to facilitate self-checking ("what have I published?") - but it's something.