i share your sentiments, but i'm sure you've already come to the same conclusion we all have. We pay the extra for the distribution, marketing and all the rigamarole that although might we label as "bullshit" is actually effective in generating mass appeal and attention to make it successfull enough to scale and plan the movie in the first place. What the executives pocket is an entirely different issue.
What the brothers get paid is what they negotiated. It has nothing to do with what's fair value or what's fair share. While we get some amazing things due to the thanks of many greedy little men in the middle, I'd give it all away for fair economics, personal style. Did anyone say "barter" and "remote island"?
I'd have to remind you that statistically, 36 is a very small number for a strategist. Any military leader would consider it minimal acceptable losses.
That comes from the cold side of me. The half that occupies my heart says that while I agree with you that it is a tragedy, your trolling is amatuer and smallish. Reminding people of the circumstances and results of war does nothing to make anyone's grief easier and places no strain on the leaders that make such horrible decisions. Your words are better spent lobbying and writing for your congressman. Not on Slashdot with offtopic agendas.
It's rather disconcerting to see someone with good intent waste it on such obviously poor application and execution. Atleast when I'm off-topic, I try to elicit a discussion. But I do so love flamebaite. It taste so good in the morning.
I remember reading a trade article about pricing. A majority of pricing strategies are kept very hush hush because they do less with the cost of providing products or services and more to do with negotiated limits on what consumers are willing to pay and what extra profit corps can squeeze. It makes perfect sense. If you can make $20 a month on something you sell, and you think you might be able to make $21 would you try to sell it at the higher price to make $21/month? how about $22/month? how about $25? $30? maybe $40? $50 it is then! It's all a matter of where this bar is set.
"You'll not tell me what to do" is usually used as an idiom of sorts to really mean "I'll not do as you tell me". My apologies for using this term since it confuses some people.
He does have a right to express his opinion. I choose to express that I feel it is wrong. Whether you feel it is or not is entirely up to you. Isn't that the point of a discussion? To express different points of opinions? If we chose to ignore everyone and keep our opinions to ourselves it would make a very boring world in my opinion.
Off-topic schmopic. your defense seems to be, "yeah I steal the content, but only because I want it and I want to hurt their sales figures."
Firstly, I'd like to know why you consider it a "defense". I didn't feel there was any offense to me. I certainly don't feel anything I've said in the previous post was a defense.
Secondly, if it seems to you this way, I can not argue with you about your perceptions being different from what I intended. My intention was to convey that since we have technology that enables us to enjoy entertainment without the media, I choose not to accumulate these things. My suggestions to the media businesses is only that. If the executives at the media businesses choose ignore it then... OK.
If the end impact is that it hurt their sales figures, that was not my original intent.
Nice ethics system you have going on.
Please correct me if I've mistaken your intent with this comment but I believe you are being sarcastic and really implying that I have a not-nice ethics system. If this is not the case then I suggest you skip the next paracgraph.
In the case that you are implying such, nice and not-nice ethics systems denotes intent. By associating the previous comment with "I want to hurt their sales figures", implies that I have malicious intent. Malicious intent requires the subject to have an emotional motivation to harm a target. I have no desire to inflict malicious intent on sales figures or the people responsible for them in the media business. Just as I can not be credited with saintly behavior for purchasing shoes from a shoe salesman and supporting his/her children. I just wanted shoes. Perhaps if I became personally involved with these people I may feel different. I wish them all the best luck in life.
Never used kazaa, or any downloading software. There's an entire underground of activity that doesn't use any of that. But in effect you are right, I am hurting the entertainment industries sales.
As for "should"? What's all this "should" nonesense. Should is a derivitive of the word "shall" which is a from the same meaning as "will". We started using this word to denote what is expected of us, by means of courtesy or obligation as an extension of what we promise to deliver in the future. You'll not tell me what I "should" or "shouldn't" do. What I want to do is send a message that I want media-less entertainment. The executives who make decisions will want to fulfill that need, there's obviously a demand for it. The entertainment businesses "should" get with the times and eliminate their outdated cash cow businesses based on physical media and develop a model to make their money by distributing on net. But they don't cause they like their old system. It's safe, they know the old business, the old model is fat in profits, not riddled with risk, but more importantly, many of the executives who operate the current business model may be ousted of their position if they don't adapt and learn the new model.
It's difficult to tell what the cause of an action is based on the resulting effect. Just because you have a link that says "Do Not Click On Me" can lead to many reasons why people click on it. I can think of the following reasons as being plausible cause.
Rebellion. A person like the feeling of being "bad"
Curiousity.
Humour. I know this link was purposely put there as reverse psychology. I'll humour myself and the creator.
Fulfillment. It's there. I can click on it. It's meant to be clicked. Alot of video games are built around this philosophy. Its there, I can kill it, blow it up, blast it, open it, therefore I will.
As for Napster, my guess is its two things
Get it while its there
Advertising. RIAA has actually increased Napsters visibility by going after it, in effect doing exactly the reverse of its intended effect. Just like celebrity rap artists get in trouble with the law, its "bad" press but its very good for publicity and gets the name known.
I do not think people are downloading as a means to hurt the RIAA. It really doesn't hurt them anymore if you intended on not purchasing the album nor downloading it in the first place , to go and download it, if only out of spite to download it. I haven't purchased an album in years. For me to go download now doesn't really take away from their sales. It may give the appearance that it does, but all I see is some manager at RIAA gaining the excuse to hire more staff and beef up his own compensation. Remember, not all managers make decisions in the best interest of the company. They will always do what's in the best interest for themselves, whether it serves the company or not is a different matter.
Example: if source has Plan9-FS with directory metadata and target has your "normal" FS with metadata attached.
SSH the tarball and unload on target system and it will produce a file plus additional directories containing metadata. If this was my mp3, winamp on my target system would not be able to read this music file correctly since it is expecting one file containing the music and the metadata, not one music-files plus directories containing metadata.
I was wondering when they'd figure this one out. I mean really, is it that much a brain surgery to guess that releasing the DVD just as the movie ticket sales drop would be a good idea? Wait the normal length of time between release and media and people say "Oh I gotta get this on DVD!" and then forget. Put the video out after the theatre experience is still somewhat fresh in their memory and maybe you get more sales? I'd be surprised if more movies don't do this. Am I missing something here?
BTW, I'm not purchasing this DVD. Why collect media at all anymore? I have only one answer to this. Transport of large amounts is still cheaper and faster by foot. Other than that, Net becoming fast ubiquitous, I think I'll make the leap and commit to media-less entertainment.
Firstly to those that would rate the above as flamebait, please note the:P in the subject which is meant to be a face sticking a tongue out. In other words the comment is tongue in cheek and meant as light commentary.
Secondly, if you're "interested" (not interesting) in linguistics, then I'd expect you to understand that if someone writes a word mispelled or conjured one up, it doesn't mean they are "stupid". "Virii makes no sense"? What's your point? You don't need to establish a religious order to gratify your superiority. All you need to do is put someone else down to do that. The guy who wrote "virii" might have been silly to attempt a latin plural, but damn, cut the guy a break. LOL (This means Laughing Out Loud, meant also to be light hearted). I might laugh at the guy, but "it's all good, baby!"
Original post by Ilvatar... The first thing that popped out on the Cyberangels site is the word "virii". Looks like there is no end to the number of stupid people in the world. First of: the Latin word "virus" means "mucus" or "slime". Which means the words do not relate. The plural of this particular Latin word is "viri". Not "virii". "Virii" simply does not exist. Since the word "virus" in its present form is not at all related to our Roman friends it is pointless to make up your own little Latin plural form. Get a clue people.
My point? "stupid people in the world" is a bit harsh for someone who used the "incorrect" word "virii". "Get a clue people"? You don't feel at all like you've slighted someone?
This is the serious meat of the matter. Attitudes. What I've learned is that it doesn't matter anymore who's right and who's wrong. Only how we treat each other. Please, I beg of you to reconsider next time you feel the urge to berate someone this way. It only encourages others to follow the example and make elitist comments. Beg I will, for pride is only an inhibitor of better understanding among us.
However, it is not clear to me that we the public instead of they, the copyright holders, should be paying for the investigation and punishment of violators, especially given the much greater scope of the problem and consequent cost versus the protection of natural property.
Oh. So we want corporations to pay the DOJ to enforce these copyrights? Think twice about this.
Each state requires the driver some working knowledge of the car, the rules, general courtesy and judgement concerning its use. Whether drivers are or whether they adhere to them is a different story. I pondered this idea at length in the past to discern the problem with drivers on the road today (you know what I'm talking about).
What I concluded was based upon evidence of existing processes I see today. Gov and industry work together to provide products to the MASSES, hence improving economy. This produces recursive benefits for everyone. However, we can not promote this industry without limiting the number of incidents, including accidents and malicious actions since incidents work against the confidence of purchasing and using cars. Hence gov (and insurance companies get a piece of this) institute laws that improve confidence in products, services and practices. However, measures to ensure safety work also against industry.
Consider this: If we were to raise the bar on driver's exams to permit only the most capable of drivers (in my dreams), the industry would suffer to lost sales from incompetent drivers. So there's a fine balance in what govs and industry will consider is "acceptable losses" to maximize the sale and use. I don't think I would be far off the mark to suggest that the regulations are set with the economy in mind, and more importantly the pockets of politicians. This is what I surmise as the reason why [1] the driver's license exams are a joke [2] there's an abundance of idiot drivers risking people's lives everyday.
Unfortunately, the same can not be concluded with computers, since the confidence to buy and use a computer is impacted at a smaller rate than a requirement for a license would be. The consequences to poor use of a computer is less than lethal. If no license were required to drive a car, and (reasonable assumption) this leads to a vast increase in accidents I may stop driving, and never purchase another car. No license exists today for computers (and idiots abound) but it will not deter my purchase and use of computer equipment.
Fitness vs Gaming My opinion is quite contrary. I believe gaming precludes exercise by statistics, perhaps not by cause-effect. Knowing several fit gamers is may not be uncommon, but knowing unfit gamers is far more common.
Watching TV vs Gaming TV Exercise the mind? I hope you've been watching discovery channel or National Geographic. I think almost everyone here would agree that most TV programs do nothing to stimulate the mind. Perhaps stimulate the wallet.
Outside vs Inside As a society both online and offline there are predators. Responsible parents may want to ensure they are doing their duty to keep an eye on them in both environments. The danger is as a society we are moving more towards children being unattended because we are so busy. However, attended parenting IMHO is the most important time consuming activity for parents, wouldn't you agree?
Good point. There's always those that will be this way.
However, my guess is that the percentage is growing just as they are for sedentary jobs, not because people like to sit around all the time but probably the overall outcome of this progress is that it promotes certain activities. It concerns me. There are all these neat new things coming out and we're so ill equipped to deal with the consequences on future generations, but more importantly, we're too busy to notice.
If we dig a little deeper, why do we crave anonymity? I certainly enjoy it. To speak freely without retaliation and consequence. But from who? The gov? The corps? My next door neighboor? Or maybe I missed the reason altogether. Maybe we need a poll. What questions could we ask to get to the heart of it and what answers are most probable from our readers?
"Why do you like anonymity on the net?" "Why do you prefer not meet people online rather than in bars, restaurants, and clubs?"
Anyone have books they've read they could recommend?
What have you seen happen with a majority these rogue business selling enlargement and viagra? My presumption that most of these business do well? They deliver on their products and produce nothing more extraordinary in numbers of chargebacks?
But serously, I make that point. I don't think it leads to that. That alarmist thought is complete garbage. But to think there's absolutely no effect on your attitude or behavior is just as much garbage.
We think advertsiements are annoying yet big money is made on them. Why? because they work. We sit in front of them and after constant bombardment we recognize their brands and purchase their products.
This is especially a problem with you impressionable minds.
How about chats, how about culteral diversity? I've met tons of people in "real life" from online. Some gamers, some chatters, etc etc.
How about them? It's nice that we have this diversity and tools to access them.
Now, some people may use the 'net to hide because a veil on anonymity, but many of us use it to find - besides fresh meaty noobs for the slaughter - people with similar interests.
Certainly, not everybody hides in the net, and not everyone is a predator. I hope not. But I think it's not a far fetched guess that most people use psuedonames. I may give out where I live to someone I meet in real life depending on how I "perceive" the person, but rarely on the net. The point? Trust. It's a different model and approach. We wouldn't have messages to warn people (especially kids) about giving out information unless we had a problem now would we?
Meeting people online gives me a little social interaction - and lets me meet a diverse range of people.
For some meeting people online is fine. Meeting them in life is great. You've used the internet as a tool to "broaden your horizons" and "meet new people". I'm quite happy for you.
Had I made this post to make you think my idea was to somehow eliminate the Internet (cause you know I have such power), or to express my doubt in humanity (since slashdot is such a good replacement for psychiatric help), it isn't. It's only to bring up the major issues that are outstanding, and in my experience are the predominant behaviors that will "grow up" later to become problems.
Why bring it up? Maybe I want to "bring you down" with all this "doom and gloom". Maybe I want to find out if anyone has any sources, information, insight about organizations, projects, research being done to address it. Atleast find out if I'm the only one seeing this, or if others concur.
Where would you rather meet somebody... in a bar pissed out of his/her mind, or in a chatroom or online game session?
People I meet in a bar pissed drunk I may be inclined to meet more often in a bar pissed drunk. Theres a good chance I may want to talk to them online for convenience sake too. People I meet in chat/games I may be more inclined to meet more often in chat/game. It may be a rare occurence that I may want to meet them in real. Call me cautious or paranoid or snub. Call it whatever you will but I don't think its uncommon.
BTW, I like the fact that your email address isn't shown and your website has no information about you, yet.
IMHO I believe everyone is attacking the wrong side of the problem. Social issues are just budding only recently. Why is this? Gamings been around for a while. It hasn't been common widespread until the last 5 years. And now its about to explode. What is going on here? Much of it has to do with the fact that these games are now Internet Multiplayer.
[1] Internet has made the gaming activity less non-social over conventional games from past. I guess this is good atleast people are interacting with others instead of just "the machine" [2] It has also made gaming more anti-social by reducing accountability through anonymous screen names and providing a means to act out fantasy irresponsibilities. ie. killing, stealing, maiming, torturing among other players. This is bad. Even if we understand this is fantasy, are we letting the dark side enjoy too much time out of its box? Nobody would call you deranged if you pulled the wings off a fly. Do it all day and I'd say its getting to you. [2] It has made the activity more addicting due to the unpredictable nature of other player interactions, almost replacing social real life interaction.
So now they are spending the time socializing in virtual environments, when they could be with their next door neighboor in the vacinity of moms, dads, other kids, older, younger, shop owners, policemen, firefighters, accounts, doctors, garbage collectors, and any other people that might be wandering as they ride on their bike down their street.
My point being our children are growing up spending a good chunk of time in an environment where consequences are not real. And please nothing about "They know the difference between real and games". Judgement be what it is, behavior is learned. Especially when its repetitive. Everyday. For 3-5 hours a day.
And do tell, as an acquirer, what occurs in these businesses? Enlighten the dark spot on the presumtion that these penis enlargement, viagra sellers, fast-cash makers, go about their business without any issues with their acquirers?
I had a discussion about world problems with a fairly intelligent person last month. He feels that education, is the key to solving all our planet's problems. I would have to agree if it includes all manner of education. This includes home, school, media, etc. Basically anything that a person interacts with in the first 10 years of life is education. Ofcourse it continues beyond that point and there is no cutoff but a gradual phasing and a larger emphasis in learning behavior/attitude as opposed to just learning.
I had originally thought that humans were absolutely doomed due to what boiled down to attitudes that suck. After this discussion, I am ambivalent now on whether humanity can be salvaged, since sucky attitude is largely dependant on key factors in your environment, especially when growing up, and especially behavior you acquire through mimicry. However, there are 2 large conditions in current state of affairs that work against us to promote the resolution.
[1] The Chicken and The Egg. The current environment sucks. How do we bring up the next generation if children are exposed to and influenced by current suckage? Live on a remote island?
[2] The Yin and The Yang. Inherently in the design of success is the design of failure. Greed provides the carrot by which success is promoted. Through greed comes jelousy. Through jealosy comes suck attitudes.
To your point, I don't think they've given up. I think they've learned that its easier to get what they want through cheating, bypassing, or by force. How can we expect them to live up to higher standards when all around them are messages of how to get rich quick, lose pounds quick, scandals, payoffs, misjudgements, and crooks that walk away with a slap on the wrist?
Ever heard of cliff-notes? Think they'd get away with it if their advertising slogan was "When you don't want to do all the reading and work but want to pass the exam"?
Regardless of the payment type, I would expect any institution responsible for the brokering of money to have information about the buyers and sellers of said services or products.
Stocks have their regulations and their governing bodies. Banks for Direct Debit are ultimately responsible for who is making wildrawals from our checking accounts. Paypal must eventually disburse payments through something similar.
My point: I'm ready to start pulling all my money out of banks. I've already canceled 2 out of 3 CCs due to unscrupulous behavior of merchants. One was charging me a monthly. When I tried to track it down I got nowhere. I called them up and they couldn't even tell me what products or services they sold! How the hell did my CC validate a purchase without knowing what business these pogos were in? There is no way to block a merchant from issueing a purchase. You can only declare purchases as fraud. Who wants to do that every month? The other CC I canceled, I did so because I started receiving alot of those class-action notifications against them. Hopefully if enough people react similarly, some money hungry executive will start asking why he's seeing a decline in membership. If consumers sit on their fat ass and take it as business as usual, we will continue to see ripoffs.
Some may say the CC are not at fault, but I say they are at fault for not knowing who these merchants are and allowing them to bill consumers. I can no longer trust banks to act in ANY small interest of the consumer.
My conclusion is these spammers are being protected by the prince of dakness. MS and gov chasing phantoms at the misdirection of those that know better, may prolong this war for the profit of all involved. Not for any silly naive principle any of us are hoping for. Shed them.
Thank you for the information. Quite educational. Honestly. However you're attitude sucks.
Get a clue lexicon nazi. Language is ever changing and most of the "correct" forms in english are derived from "incorrect" transmutations and "misapplied" rules of German, Old English, and a host of other languages. Besides the point that this is a site run out of Netherlands.
Calling people "stupid" to gratify your own "superiority" of knowledge is the best form of stupidity humans practice. Try being nice. People might like you.
Stagnation is the bane of variety. Conformance the stifle of ingenuity.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually mods mod whats interesting/important. Metamods agree or disagree. Isn't that how it works?
i share your sentiments, but i'm sure you've already come to the same conclusion we all have. We pay the extra for the distribution, marketing and all the rigamarole that although might we label as "bullshit" is actually effective in generating mass appeal and attention to make it successfull enough to scale and plan the movie in the first place. What the executives pocket is an entirely different issue.
What the brothers get paid is what they negotiated. It has nothing to do with what's fair value or what's fair share. While we get some amazing things due to the thanks of many greedy little men in the middle, I'd give it all away for fair economics, personal style. Did anyone say "barter" and "remote island"?
I'd have to remind you that statistically, 36 is a very small number for a strategist. Any military leader would consider it minimal acceptable losses.
That comes from the cold side of me. The half that occupies my heart says that while I agree with you that it is a tragedy, your trolling is amatuer and smallish. Reminding people of the circumstances and results of war does nothing to make anyone's grief easier and places no strain on the leaders that make such horrible decisions. Your words are better spent lobbying and writing for your congressman. Not on Slashdot with offtopic agendas.
It's rather disconcerting to see someone with good intent waste it on such obviously poor application and execution. Atleast when I'm off-topic, I try to elicit a discussion. But I do so love flamebaite. It taste so good in the morning.
I remember reading a trade article about pricing. A majority of pricing strategies are kept very hush hush because they do less with the cost of providing products or services and more to do with negotiated limits on what consumers are willing to pay and what extra profit corps can squeeze. It makes perfect sense. If you can make $20 a month on something you sell, and you think you might be able to make $21 would you try to sell it at the higher price to make $21/month? how about $22/month? how about $25? $30? maybe $40? $50 it is then! It's all a matter of where this bar is set.
That's absolutely correct :)
"You'll not tell me what to do" is usually used as an idiom of sorts to really mean "I'll not do as you tell me". My apologies for using this term since it confuses some people.
He does have a right to express his opinion. I choose to express that I feel it is wrong. Whether you feel it is or not is entirely up to you. Isn't that the point of a discussion? To express different points of opinions? If we chose to ignore everyone and keep our opinions to ourselves it would make a very boring world in my opinion.
Off-topic schmopic.
your defense seems to be, "yeah I steal the content, but only because I want it and I want to hurt their sales figures."
Firstly, I'd like to know why you consider it a "defense". I didn't feel there was any offense to me. I certainly don't feel anything I've said in the previous post was a defense.
Secondly, if it seems to you this way, I can not argue with you about your perceptions being different from what I intended. My intention was to convey that since we have technology that enables us to enjoy entertainment without the media, I choose not to accumulate these things. My suggestions to the media businesses is only that. If the executives at the media businesses choose ignore it then... OK.
If the end impact is that it hurt their sales figures, that was not my original intent.
Nice ethics system you have going on.
Please correct me if I've mistaken your intent with this comment but I believe you are being sarcastic and really implying that I have a not-nice ethics system. If this is not the case then I suggest you skip the next paracgraph.
In the case that you are implying such, nice and not-nice ethics systems denotes intent. By associating the previous comment with "I want to hurt their sales figures", implies that I have malicious intent. Malicious intent requires the subject to have an emotional motivation to harm a target. I have no desire to inflict malicious intent on sales figures or the people responsible for them in the media business. Just as I can not be credited with saintly behavior for purchasing shoes from a shoe salesman and supporting his/her children. I just wanted shoes. Perhaps if I became personally involved with these people I may feel different. I wish them all the best luck in life.
Never used kazaa, or any downloading software. There's an entire underground of activity that doesn't use any of that. But in effect you are right, I am hurting the entertainment industries sales.
As for "should"? What's all this "should" nonesense. Should is a derivitive of the word "shall" which is a from the same meaning as "will". We started using this word to denote what is expected of us, by means of courtesy or obligation as an extension of what we promise to deliver in the future. You'll not tell me what I "should" or "shouldn't" do. What I want to do is send a message that I want media-less entertainment. The executives who make decisions will want to fulfill that need, there's obviously a demand for it. The entertainment businesses "should" get with the times and eliminate their outdated cash cow businesses based on physical media and develop a model to make their money by distributing on net. But they don't cause they like their old system. It's safe, they know the old business, the old model is fat in profits, not riddled with risk, but more importantly, many of the executives who operate the current business model may be ousted of their position if they don't adapt and learn the new model.
As for Napster, my guess is its two things
I do not think people are downloading as a means to hurt the RIAA. It really doesn't hurt them anymore if you intended on not purchasing the album nor downloading it in the first place , to go and download it, if only out of spite to download it. I haven't purchased an album in years. For me to go download now doesn't really take away from their sales. It may give the appearance that it does, but all I see is some manager at RIAA gaining the excuse to hire more staff and beef up his own compensation. Remember, not all managers make decisions in the best interest of the company. They will always do what's in the best interest for themselves, whether it serves the company or not is a different matter.
Correct me if I got this all wrong, pardon.
Example: if source has Plan9-FS with directory metadata and target has your "normal" FS with metadata attached.
SSH the tarball and unload on target system and it will produce a file plus additional directories containing metadata. If this was my mp3, winamp on my target system would not be able to read this music file correctly since it is expecting one file containing the music and the metadata, not one music-files plus directories containing metadata.
Yes? No?
I was wondering when they'd figure this one out. I mean really, is it that much a brain surgery to guess that releasing the DVD just as the movie ticket sales drop would be a good idea? Wait the normal length of time between release and media and people say "Oh I gotta get this on DVD!" and then forget. Put the video out after the theatre experience is still somewhat fresh in their memory and maybe you get more sales? I'd be surprised if more movies don't do this. Am I missing something here?
BTW, I'm not purchasing this DVD. Why collect media at all anymore? I have only one answer to this. Transport of large amounts is still cheaper and faster by foot. Other than that, Net becoming fast ubiquitous, I think I'll make the leap and commit to media-less entertainment.
Firstly to those that would rate the above as flamebait, please note the :P in the subject which is meant to be a face sticking a tongue out. In other words the comment is tongue in cheek and meant as light commentary.
Secondly, if you're "interested" (not interesting) in linguistics, then I'd expect you to understand that if someone writes a word mispelled or conjured one up, it doesn't mean they are "stupid". "Virii makes no sense"? What's your point? You don't need to establish a religious order to gratify your superiority. All you need to do is put someone else down to do that. The guy who wrote "virii" might have been silly to attempt a latin plural, but damn, cut the guy a break. LOL (This means Laughing Out Loud, meant also to be light hearted). I might laugh at the guy, but "it's all good, baby!"
Original post by Ilvatar...
The first thing that popped out on the Cyberangels site is the word "virii". Looks like there is no end to the number of stupid people in the world. First of: the Latin word "virus" means "mucus" or "slime". Which means the words do not relate. The plural of this particular Latin word is "viri". Not "virii". "Virii" simply does not exist. Since the word "virus" in its present form is not at all related to our Roman friends it is pointless to make up your own little Latin plural form. Get a clue people.
My point? "stupid people in the world" is a bit harsh for someone who used the "incorrect" word "virii". "Get a clue people"? You don't feel at all like you've slighted someone?
This is the serious meat of the matter. Attitudes. What I've learned is that it doesn't matter anymore who's right and who's wrong. Only how we treat each other. Please, I beg of you to reconsider next time you feel the urge to berate someone this way. It only encourages others to follow the example and make elitist comments. Beg I will, for pride is only an inhibitor of better understanding among us.
Hehe. Ya caught me. I do make mistakes. Yes the correct word is "your".
Much better said. Thank you :)
We don't want tax money we pay to finance the DOJ to do what corporations would otherwise have to pay for legal fees.
The root of the matter is why is copyright infringement a matter of national state.
Actually, I believe they were in i386. It wasn't very popular, however I think that's when they were introduced.
However, it is not clear to me that we the public instead of they, the copyright holders, should be paying for the investigation and punishment of violators, especially given the much greater scope of the problem and consequent cost versus the protection of natural property.
Oh. So we want corporations to pay the DOJ to enforce these copyrights? Think twice about this.
Each state requires the driver some working knowledge of the car, the rules, general courtesy and judgement concerning its use. Whether drivers are or whether they adhere to them is a different story. I pondered this idea at length in the past to discern the problem with drivers on the road today (you know what I'm talking about).
What I concluded was based upon evidence of existing processes I see today. Gov and industry work together to provide products to the MASSES, hence improving economy. This produces recursive benefits for everyone. However, we can not promote this industry without limiting the number of incidents, including accidents and malicious actions since incidents work against the confidence of purchasing and using cars. Hence gov (and insurance companies get a piece of this) institute laws that improve confidence in products, services and practices. However, measures to ensure safety work also against industry.
Consider this: If we were to raise the bar on driver's exams to permit only the most capable of drivers (in my dreams), the industry would suffer to lost sales from incompetent drivers. So there's a fine balance in what govs and industry will consider is "acceptable losses" to maximize the sale and use. I don't think I would be far off the mark to suggest that the regulations are set with the economy in mind, and more importantly the pockets of politicians. This is what I surmise as the reason why [1] the driver's license exams are a joke [2] there's an abundance of idiot drivers risking people's lives everyday.
Unfortunately, the same can not be concluded with computers, since the confidence to buy and use a computer is impacted at a smaller rate than a requirement for a license would be. The consequences to poor use of a computer is less than lethal. If no license were required to drive a car, and (reasonable assumption) this leads to a vast increase in accidents I may stop driving, and never purchase another car. No license exists today for computers (and idiots abound) but it will not deter my purchase and use of computer equipment.
Hope this gives you food for thought.
Fitness vs Gaming
My opinion is quite contrary. I believe gaming precludes exercise by statistics, perhaps not by cause-effect. Knowing several fit gamers is may not be uncommon, but knowing unfit gamers is far more common.
Watching TV vs Gaming
TV Exercise the mind? I hope you've been watching discovery channel or National Geographic. I think almost everyone here would agree that most TV programs do nothing to stimulate the mind. Perhaps stimulate the wallet.
Outside vs Inside
As a society both online and offline there are predators. Responsible parents may want to ensure they are doing their duty to keep an eye on them in both environments. The danger is as a society we are moving more towards children being unattended because we are so busy. However, attended parenting IMHO is the most important time consuming activity for parents, wouldn't you agree?
Good point. There's always those that will be this way.
However, my guess is that the percentage is growing just as they are for sedentary jobs, not because people like to sit around all the time but probably the overall outcome of this progress is that it promotes certain activities. It concerns me. There are all these neat new things coming out and we're so ill equipped to deal with the consequences on future generations, but more importantly, we're too busy to notice.
If we dig a little deeper, why do we crave anonymity? I certainly enjoy it. To speak freely without retaliation and consequence. But from who? The gov? The corps? My next door neighboor? Or maybe I missed the reason altogether. Maybe we need a poll. What questions could we ask to get to the heart of it and what answers are most probable from our readers?
"Why do you like anonymity on the net?"
"Why do you prefer not meet people online rather than in bars, restaurants, and clubs?"
Anyone have books they've read they could recommend?
My question was specifically...
What have you seen happen with a majority these rogue business selling enlargement and viagra? My presumption that most of these business do well? They deliver on their products and produce nothing more extraordinary in numbers of chargebacks?
You too? :)
But serously, I make that point. I don't think it leads to that. That alarmist thought is complete garbage. But to think there's absolutely no effect on your attitude or behavior is just as much garbage.
We think advertsiements are annoying yet big money is made on them. Why? because they work. We sit in front of them and after constant bombardment we recognize their brands and purchase their products.
This is especially a problem with you impressionable minds.
How about chats, how about culteral diversity? I've met tons of people in "real life" from online. Some gamers, some chatters, etc etc.
How about them? It's nice that we have this diversity and tools to access them.
Now, some people may use the 'net to hide because a veil on anonymity, but many of us use it to find - besides fresh meaty noobs for the slaughter - people with similar interests.
Certainly, not everybody hides in the net, and not everyone is a predator. I hope not. But I think it's not a far fetched guess that most people use psuedonames. I may give out where I live to someone I meet in real life depending on how I "perceive" the person, but rarely on the net. The point? Trust. It's a different model and approach. We wouldn't have messages to warn people (especially kids) about giving out information unless we had a problem now would we?
Meeting people online gives me a little social interaction - and lets me meet a diverse range of people.
For some meeting people online is fine. Meeting them in life is great. You've used the internet as a tool to "broaden your horizons" and "meet new people". I'm quite happy for you.
Had I made this post to make you think my idea was to somehow eliminate the Internet (cause you know I have such power), or to express my doubt in humanity (since slashdot is such a good replacement for psychiatric help), it isn't. It's only to bring up the major issues that are outstanding, and in my experience are the predominant behaviors that will "grow up" later to become problems.
Why bring it up? Maybe I want to "bring you down" with all this "doom and gloom". Maybe I want to find out if anyone has any sources, information, insight about organizations, projects, research being done to address it. Atleast find out if I'm the only one seeing this, or if others concur.
Where would you rather meet somebody... in a bar pissed out of his/her mind, or in a chatroom or online game session?
People I meet in a bar pissed drunk I may be inclined to meet more often in a bar pissed drunk. Theres a good chance I may want to talk to them online for convenience sake too. People I meet in chat/games I may be more inclined to meet more often in chat/game. It may be a rare occurence that I may want to meet them in real.
Call me cautious or paranoid or snub. Call it whatever you will but I don't think its uncommon.
BTW, I like the fact that your email address isn't shown and your website has no information about you, yet.
IMHO I believe everyone is attacking the wrong side of the problem. Social issues are just budding only recently. Why is this? Gamings been around for a while. It hasn't been common widespread until the last 5 years. And now its about to explode. What is going on here? Much of it has to do with the fact that these games are now Internet Multiplayer.
[1] Internet has made the gaming activity less non-social over conventional games from past. I guess this is good atleast people are interacting with others instead of just "the machine"
[2] It has also made gaming more anti-social by reducing accountability through anonymous screen names and providing a means to act out fantasy irresponsibilities. ie. killing, stealing, maiming, torturing among other players. This is bad. Even if we understand this is fantasy, are we letting the dark side enjoy too much time out of its box? Nobody would call you deranged if you pulled the wings off a fly. Do it all day and I'd say its getting to you.
[2] It has made the activity more addicting due to the unpredictable nature of other player interactions, almost replacing social real life interaction.
So now they are spending the time socializing in virtual environments, when they could be with their next door neighboor in the vacinity of moms, dads, other kids, older, younger, shop owners, policemen, firefighters, accounts, doctors, garbage collectors, and any other people that might be wandering as they ride on their bike down their street.
My point being our children are growing up spending a good chunk of time in an environment where consequences are not real. And please nothing about "They know the difference between real and games". Judgement be what it is, behavior is learned. Especially when its repetitive. Everyday. For 3-5 hours a day.
And do tell, as an acquirer, what occurs in these businesses? Enlighten the dark spot on the presumtion that these penis enlargement, viagra sellers, fast-cash makers, go about their business without any issues with their acquirers?
A mind is a terrible thing to waste?
I had a discussion about world problems with a fairly intelligent person last month. He feels that education, is the key to solving all our planet's problems. I would have to agree if it includes all manner of education. This includes home, school, media, etc. Basically anything that a person interacts with in the first 10 years of life is education. Ofcourse it continues beyond that point and there is no cutoff but a gradual phasing and a larger emphasis in learning behavior/attitude as opposed to just learning.
I had originally thought that humans were absolutely doomed due to what boiled down to attitudes that suck. After this discussion, I am ambivalent now on whether humanity can be salvaged, since sucky attitude is largely dependant on key factors in your environment, especially when growing up, and especially behavior you acquire through mimicry. However, there are 2 large conditions in current state of affairs that work against us to promote the resolution.
[1] The Chicken and The Egg. The current environment sucks. How do we bring up the next generation if children are exposed to and influenced by current suckage? Live on a remote island?
[2] The Yin and The Yang. Inherently in the design of success is the design of failure. Greed provides the carrot by which success is promoted. Through greed comes jelousy. Through jealosy comes suck attitudes.
To your point, I don't think they've given up. I think they've learned that its easier to get what they want through cheating, bypassing, or by force. How can we expect them to live up to higher standards when all around them are messages of how to get rich quick, lose pounds quick, scandals, payoffs, misjudgements, and crooks that walk away with a slap on the wrist?
Ever heard of cliff-notes? Think they'd get away with it if their advertising slogan was "When you don't want to do all the reading and work but want to pass the exam"?
Regardless of the payment type, I would expect any institution responsible for the brokering of money to have information about the buyers and sellers of said services or products.
Stocks have their regulations and their governing bodies. Banks for Direct Debit are ultimately responsible for who is making wildrawals from our checking accounts. Paypal must eventually disburse payments through something similar.
My point: I'm ready to start pulling all my money out of banks. I've already canceled 2 out of 3 CCs due to unscrupulous behavior of merchants. One was charging me a monthly. When I tried to track it down I got nowhere. I called them up and they couldn't even tell me what products or services they sold! How the hell did my CC validate a purchase without knowing what business these pogos were in? There is no way to block a merchant from issueing a purchase. You can only declare purchases as fraud. Who wants to do that every month? The other CC I canceled, I did so because I started receiving alot of those class-action notifications against them. Hopefully if enough people react similarly, some money hungry executive will start asking why he's seeing a decline in membership. If consumers sit on their fat ass and take it as business as usual, we will continue to see ripoffs.
Some may say the CC are not at fault, but I say they are at fault for not knowing who these merchants are and allowing them to bill consumers. I can no longer trust banks to act in ANY small interest of the consumer.
My conclusion is these spammers are being protected by the prince of dakness. MS and gov chasing phantoms at the misdirection of those that know better, may prolong this war for the profit of all involved. Not for any silly naive principle any of us are hoping for. Shed them.
Thank you for the information. Quite educational. Honestly. However you're attitude sucks.
Get a clue lexicon nazi. Language is ever changing and most of the "correct" forms in english are derived from "incorrect" transmutations and "misapplied" rules of German, Old English, and a host of other languages. Besides the point that this is a site run out of Netherlands.
Calling people "stupid" to gratify your own "superiority" of knowledge is the best form of stupidity humans practice. Try being nice. People might like you.
Stagnation is the bane of variety. Conformance the stifle of ingenuity.