There is a fundamental difference between economic and non-economic piracy.
Yes, economic pirates go for the galleons and merchantmen as well as plundering small, poorly defended towns; whereas non-economic pirates attack frigates and other warships, however these are usually referred to as privateers.
Oh wait, what were we talking about?
Copyright infringement is not the same as "piracy". No one dies. No ships get sunk. And nothing gets STOLEN. Copyrighted works get digitally copied, though.
You Poor fuckers need to get out of your parents basement and get a job you freeloading fucktaints.
Not a good thing to say at the start of a depression, friend. people have been guillotined for less.
Firstly, the RIAA has not "given" any funds back to the "artists" it represents, they're just a high profile organization that tries to scare people away from copying music - legally or otherwise. Secondly - their outrageous claims about "lost profits" and "starving artists" are patently false. It's like the US complaining about the lost tax revenue it has to bear every year by NOT conquering the world. It makes no sense. However no doubt the same accountants and mathematicians representing the RIAA also worked in the financial industry up until recently.
Frankly, I think that digital distribution of media - especially music and film, is the way to go. It's much more environmentally friendly and economically efficient - after all, if "pirates" can do it for FREE then surely the COST can't be all that great. There may be a slight problem with expecting people to pay $15 for a CD or $1 for a song, however. But look on the bright side, if artists earn less perhaps that will force the price of their cocaine down due to demand destruction?
The original chart uses a linear scale which is very unfair.
Learn 2 logarithm. Although initially it looks like a small drop, if the current rate is maintained it will take less time to reach the bottom of a logarithmic chart because with a log chart the HARD part is actually changing the slope.
With respect, classical economics and Austrian economics are not quite the same thing
Sorry, I'm not an economist. Therefore if I said something incorrect through ignorance I apologize. I merely wished to emphasize that truly we live in interesting times. I think it's when the world (and especially the consumer intensive US) finds out we've bumped into the limits of our resources on this planet. We can't all have an SUV. We can't all waste electricity. We can't all have a worry free life, and independence, and a nice house, and a big screen tv, and eat in good restaurants, etc. The boom in commodity prices - in part fueled by massive demand from the BRICIT countries that are also expanding their middle classes and trying to adopt an "American" standard of living - has another side to it. Not only was demand increased - but supply is at or near maximum. There IS no more copper, there IS no more gold, platinum WILL run out in 20 years or so, etc.
Therefore commodities (including petroleum) priced themselves right out of the market. This triggered, and is triggering, financial default from everyone who was living "the dream" on credit. And now the cards keep tumbling. Oh, we will reach a new equilibrium some day - but our population keeps expanding, and those resources keep getting more scarce.
You didn't LOOK at the graph, did you? That's my citation.
There is a little graph I would like to show you...
Are you seriously trying to claim that the stock markets have never crashed before?
Not at all - the markets crash all the time. But had you looked at the graph, you would notice that the slope of this curve is unprecedented, and almost completely VERTICAL. Meh, I don't care. Today is a great day to short some more stock. I can buy it back in a few days for a killing.
His main thesis is that the markets are essentially random and are basically impossible to predict in any meaningful way.
If they are random then why do they predict economic change with 100% accuracy? Or do you imply that major economic changes are CAUSED by the markets, and thus our entire economies move completely randomly? Should we do away with markets, then, and solve all our economic woes?
One can argue that the Brownian motion of water molecules is almost completely random, however that doesn't stop them from flowing downstream in the river. Speaking as someone who makes his living on the stock market, if you look at individual price movements over a short period of time then it does seem as if there's absolutely no sense to them. That's why most people lose money - prices don't move the way you expect them to. However if you're able to get a "feel" for the general flow of prices across a sector of the market - not any individual price - then you can be right more often than you are wrong. This must exclude randomness, especially when it remains true over the long term.
If the markets move randomly, then today (or any day) the markets can start heading up again towards the sky. And although I am willing to bet money that today and tomorrow we will probably go up (because we fell so much yesterday - 4%), over the medium term we are more likely to continue to head down. Because it's NOT random - there is no longer a demand for stock. In fact, there are a great deal of people who still want to get RID of their stock. Now if I can predict the general direction of the market through the next weeks (the same or lower than today) - how can you say it's random?
Classical economics cannot explain what is happening right now. It's without precedent. There is a little graph I would like to show you...
It's interesting to note the near exponential shape of the graph pre dot com bust era, and how the exponential part resumes around 2005. Now, imagine the impact on everyone with money to invest, from corporations to banks to retirement and pension funds faced with a choice. You can earn 4% or less, per annum, in bonds or (LAUGH) CD's, etc. OR you can put money on the stock market. That's one hell of an "opportunity cost" if you don't - because everyone else is making out like a bandit. The stock market is unstoppable.
In fact, the only OTHER "safe" place to put your money is real estate...
Both of them went bust at roughly the same time. Co incidence? No, they were intertwined from the beginning, because they were the "safest" "surest" bets, and that's where all the wealth was going. So according to supply and demand, if too much money was chasing these "goods", the price moved up accordingly. However these two retracements have wiped out the present AND FUTURE wealth of most of the nation, because everyone was BANKING on the fact that their stocks, 401(k) or home was going to see them through retirement. Welcome to reality - the money is gone (because the demand is gone), and we're not finished yet. The graph still points STRAIGHT down. Something HUGE has to happen to change that. Most people thought it would be a new president, but now we know that's not the case.
Don't forget the following fees, coming soon to an airline near you:
Successful landing fee: $25 per passenger for every non lethal landing - payable in advance and refundable to your next of kin on receipt of your remains (parts obtained seperately).
Luggage delivery fee - $10 per article of checked luggage successfully delivered to your destination. Breakable items in checked bags that actually break in transit will occur an additional $20 per item. Spilled liquids are still free.
Window shade operation fee: $0.50 per opening/closing of the window shades ($1.75 if sitting on the sunny side of the aircraft).
Noxious fume fee: $5 for breathing a selection of digestive smells from your fellow passengers.
Remember, at INSERTYOURFAVORITEWETREATYOUWORSETHANCATTLENAMEHERE Airlines, "The Sky is the Limit"!
Here we go again. Perhaps step 1 is GET A DAMNED LAWYER AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. The worst that could have happened is they confiscate his machine, but if the encryption program/password key was any good they'd probably never crack it. At best, the customs guy would get bored and move on.
The guy is an idiot for admitting he had an encrypted drive and decrypting it in the first place. And this idiot is now going to make travel an additional hassle for all people who have password protected and encrypted computers (HINT: all fortune 500 employees on their company laptops, for a start) on the whim of any customs agent. Not to mention what a great idea this gives to the Europeans and Australians who would LOVE another reason to harass you. Well done to him./sarcasm
That's sort of the whole point - they don't HAVE a strategy. Forcing people into perpetual upgrades isn't working anymore now that the performance gains and OS stability have reached a plateau. In fact looking at the steaming piles of shit that Vista and Office 2007 (thanks for throwing away what was by now a de-facto menu/interface and oh by the way does a damned email program REALLY need all my system resources and 3 minutes of CPU time before actually downloading any mail?). Forcing people to pay the Microsoft tax at the computer sale level is the only business plan they have left, and the recession is causing a drop in new computer sales because after all, you CAN hang on to that old laptop for another year or so...
So they rush out another version of Windows years ahead of schedule, and try to sue anyone they think they have a shot of winning against. Not to mention the little fines they still owe in Europe...
Microsoft is in deep trouble, and it's about time.
How will they know a conversation like... actually means
And they will NEVER know that an email sent from 4321cba@gmail.com to 91023ofg@hotmail.com containing an attachment which was just a JPEG photograph of people on a ski slope, with three people on the left of the picture and four people on the right - means EXACTLY the same thing.
This is still the same "make believe security" bullshit that governments are so good at to cause the paranoid masses to support them, while wasting money and not actually doing anything at all. Governments don't win wars because they are competent - they win because they are less incompetent than their enemy.
Over my lifetime I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on computers - not counting my time. I'm not sure if it makes up for my "increased productivity". But I certainly had fun doing it, and am somewhat of a computer "expert" thanks to my almost 30 years of experience from playing around with hardware and knowing which part of which chip does what, to programming software in anything from assembler to perl.
However (apart from the odd Ubuntu updates which tend to break things like sound drivers) linux systems are far more stable, once they are set up. And they are FAR easier to set up than 2006, and the trend towards ease of installation (since maintenance is minimal) continues.
as Bruce Perens famously said at Linux SF Con 2006, Linux is only free if your time has no value
Three years is a long time in computing years. Too bad you're missing out on everything linux has to offer nowadays. Enjoy your vendor lock-in, and don't forget, Microsoft wants you to pay the tax again in a year or so.
If The Pirate Bay wins, the swedish laws will be changed to make sure what they've been doing would be an offence had they done it under the new law.
Unlike the United States, most countries (ie the ones that don't boast about being "free" but actually ARE) cannot apply laws to you in a retroactive manner.
Like the MagLev train that's part of the stimulus bill. Yes, yes, us geeks would LOVE to see a maglev train in North America...
I laughed the other day because some stupid congress-critter or senator or whatever - I have no idea who it was - came on CNBC all flustered because the proposed "Mag Lev" train was supposed to run between LA and Vegas. Even better - she wanted those 8BN dollars to be given to (drumroll) GM and Chrysler (this is the point where I fell off my chair laughing).
Actually it makes a lot of sense - there is a HUGE amount of traffic between LA and Vegas. Another brilliant place to put one is in the North East US, doing the Baltimore-Washington-NJ-NY-Boston thing. But noooooooo, instead lets give the money to the "big 3" so they can keep on making horrendously bad (in terms of fuel efficiency and quality) cars to sell to the "buy american" indoctrinated masses. You know, I'm glad I don't live in the US, I'm glad I have a bit of land and a bit of money (at least for now), and I'm glad that as a doctor I have skills that will always be worth something to society even if everything goes to hell. But I feel sorry for the bank clerks, or the burger flippers, or the Wal Mart cashiers of this world.
Call it a treasury note instead of dollar bills, but it's the same thing - increasing the money supply. Eventually foreigners will prefer Canadian and Australian government debt instead of US, since those countries have or are working hard to achieve a budget surplus, and have vast untapped natural resources. What will happen to the US when no one wants the dollar anymore?
Slashdot Mirror
There is a fundamental difference between economic and non-economic piracy.
Yes, economic pirates go for the galleons and merchantmen as well as plundering small, poorly defended towns; whereas non-economic pirates attack frigates and other warships, however these are usually referred to as privateers.
Oh wait, what were we talking about?
Copyright infringement is not the same as "piracy". No one dies. No ships get sunk. And nothing gets STOLEN. Copyrighted works get digitally copied, though.
You Poor fuckers need to get out of your parents basement and get a job you freeloading fucktaints.
Not a good thing to say at the start of a depression, friend. people have been guillotined for less.
Firstly, the RIAA has not "given" any funds back to the "artists" it represents, they're just a high profile organization that tries to scare people away from copying music - legally or otherwise. Secondly - their outrageous claims about "lost profits" and "starving artists" are patently false. It's like the US complaining about the lost tax revenue it has to bear every year by NOT conquering the world. It makes no sense. However no doubt the same accountants and mathematicians representing the RIAA also worked in the financial industry up until recently.
Frankly, I think that digital distribution of media - especially music and film, is the way to go. It's much more environmentally friendly and economically efficient - after all, if "pirates" can do it for FREE then surely the COST can't be all that great. There may be a slight problem with expecting people to pay $15 for a CD or $1 for a song, however. But look on the bright side, if artists earn less perhaps that will force the price of their cocaine down due to demand destruction?
Learn 2 logarithm. Although initially it looks like a small drop, if the current rate is maintained it will take less time to reach the bottom of a logarithmic chart because with a log chart the HARD part is actually changing the slope.
With respect, classical economics and Austrian economics are not quite the same thing
Sorry, I'm not an economist. Therefore if I said something incorrect through ignorance I apologize. I merely wished to emphasize that truly we live in interesting times. I think it's when the world (and especially the consumer intensive US) finds out we've bumped into the limits of our resources on this planet. We can't all have an SUV. We can't all waste electricity. We can't all have a worry free life, and independence, and a nice house, and a big screen tv, and eat in good restaurants, etc. The boom in commodity prices - in part fueled by massive demand from the BRICIT countries that are also expanding their middle classes and trying to adopt an "American" standard of living - has another side to it. Not only was demand increased - but supply is at or near maximum. There IS no more copper, there IS no more gold, platinum WILL run out in 20 years or so, etc.
Therefore commodities (including petroleum) priced themselves right out of the market. This triggered, and is triggering, financial default from everyone who was living "the dream" on credit. And now the cards keep tumbling. Oh, we will reach a new equilibrium some day - but our population keeps expanding, and those resources keep getting more scarce.
You didn't LOOK at the graph, did you? That's my citation.
Not at all - the markets crash all the time. But had you looked at the graph, you would notice that the slope of this curve is unprecedented, and almost completely VERTICAL. Meh, I don't care. Today is a great day to short some more stock. I can buy it back in a few days for a killing.
His main thesis is that the markets are essentially random and are basically impossible to predict in any meaningful way.
If they are random then why do they predict economic change with 100% accuracy? Or do you imply that major economic changes are CAUSED by the markets, and thus our entire economies move completely randomly? Should we do away with markets, then, and solve all our economic woes?
One can argue that the Brownian motion of water molecules is almost completely random, however that doesn't stop them from flowing downstream in the river. Speaking as someone who makes his living on the stock market, if you look at individual price movements over a short period of time then it does seem as if there's absolutely no sense to them. That's why most people lose money - prices don't move the way you expect them to. However if you're able to get a "feel" for the general flow of prices across a sector of the market - not any individual price - then you can be right more often than you are wrong. This must exclude randomness, especially when it remains true over the long term.
If the markets move randomly, then today (or any day) the markets can start heading up again towards the sky. And although I am willing to bet money that today and tomorrow we will probably go up (because we fell so much yesterday - 4%), over the medium term we are more likely to continue to head down. Because it's NOT random - there is no longer a demand for stock. In fact, there are a great deal of people who still want to get RID of their stock. Now if I can predict the general direction of the market through the next weeks (the same or lower than today) - how can you say it's random?
Classical economics cannot explain what is happening right now. It's without precedent. There is a little graph I would like to show you...
It's interesting to note the near exponential shape of the graph pre dot com bust era, and how the exponential part resumes around 2005. Now, imagine the impact on everyone with money to invest, from corporations to banks to retirement and pension funds faced with a choice. You can earn 4% or less, per annum, in bonds or (LAUGH) CD's, etc. OR you can put money on the stock market. That's one hell of an "opportunity cost" if you don't - because everyone else is making out like a bandit. The stock market is unstoppable.
In fact, the only OTHER "safe" place to put your money is real estate...
Both of them went bust at roughly the same time. Co incidence? No, they were intertwined from the beginning, because they were the "safest" "surest" bets, and that's where all the wealth was going. So according to supply and demand, if too much money was chasing these "goods", the price moved up accordingly. However these two retracements have wiped out the present AND FUTURE wealth of most of the nation, because everyone was BANKING on the fact that their stocks, 401(k) or home was going to see them through retirement. Welcome to reality - the money is gone (because the demand is gone), and we're not finished yet. The graph still points STRAIGHT down. Something HUGE has to happen to change that. Most people thought it would be a new president, but now we know that's not the case.
I just hope they block overseas views so our taxes don't pay for that bandwidth.
Can they block all the garbage coming out of Hollywood too, please?
All that the US is very good at exporting nowadays is debt, anyway.
But this will probably end up costing millions all over a cookie.
And it's not even chocolate chip.
and Bjorn Stronginthearm's your uncle!
I'm a troll you insensitive clod!
Uh... wait.. /Pratchett
Don't forget the following fees, coming soon to an airline near you:
Successful landing fee: $25 per passenger for every non lethal landing - payable in advance and refundable to your next of kin on receipt of your remains (parts obtained seperately).
Luggage delivery fee - $10 per article of checked luggage successfully delivered to your destination. Breakable items in checked bags that actually break in transit will occur an additional $20 per item. Spilled liquids are still free.
Window shade operation fee: $0.50 per opening/closing of the window shades ($1.75 if sitting on the sunny side of the aircraft).
Noxious fume fee: $5 for breathing a selection of digestive smells from your fellow passengers.
Remember, at INSERTYOURFAVORITEWETREATYOUWORSETHANCATTLENAMEHERE Airlines, "The Sky is the Limit"!
Tell them that you can prove your innocence
Here we go again. Perhaps step 1 is GET A DAMNED LAWYER AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. The worst that could have happened is they confiscate his machine, but if the encryption program/password key was any good they'd probably never crack it. At best, the customs guy would get bored and move on.
The guy is an idiot for admitting he had an encrypted drive and decrypting it in the first place. And this idiot is now going to make travel an additional hassle for all people who have password protected and encrypted computers (HINT: all fortune 500 employees on their company laptops, for a start) on the whim of any customs agent. Not to mention what a great idea this gives to the Europeans and Australians who would LOVE another reason to harass you. Well done to him. /sarcasm
QA doesn't do software testing.--Microsoft has a Software Test Engineering department for that.
So what the hell do they need beta testers for? Oh wait, buzz, marketing, free slashdot advertising, etc... sorry...
Can someone summarize exactly what we have achieved in this case?
We paid a judge and some court staff their salaries for a few years? Oh, and let's not forget the lawyers...
MS should stick to its software strategy
That's sort of the whole point - they don't HAVE a strategy. Forcing people into perpetual upgrades isn't working anymore now that the performance gains and OS stability have reached a plateau. In fact looking at the steaming piles of shit that Vista and Office 2007 (thanks for throwing away what was by now a de-facto menu/interface and oh by the way does a damned email program REALLY need all my system resources and 3 minutes of CPU time before actually downloading any mail?). Forcing people to pay the Microsoft tax at the computer sale level is the only business plan they have left, and the recession is causing a drop in new computer sales because after all, you CAN hang on to that old laptop for another year or so...
So they rush out another version of Windows years ahead of schedule, and try to sue anyone they think they have a shot of winning against. Not to mention the little fines they still owe in Europe...
Microsoft is in deep trouble, and it's about time.
they also recognized the intimidating effect having a lot of stuff coming your way meant.
But even after their machine gun,
Which they inexplicably failed to deploy to their troops in World War I, preferring the .303 bolt action rifle for some reason. OVER THE TOP, LADS!
This control panel is a classic fail,
This operating system is a classic fail
fix'd
How will they know a conversation like... actually means
And they will NEVER know that an email sent from 4321cba@gmail.com to 91023ofg@hotmail.com containing an attachment which was just a JPEG photograph of people on a ski slope, with three people on the left of the picture and four people on the right - means EXACTLY the same thing.
This is still the same "make believe security" bullshit that governments are so good at to cause the paranoid masses to support them, while wasting money and not actually doing anything at all. Governments don't win wars because they are competent - they win because they are less incompetent than their enemy.
Nothing is free.
Over my lifetime I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on computers - not counting my time. I'm not sure if it makes up for my "increased productivity". But I certainly had fun doing it, and am somewhat of a computer "expert" thanks to my almost 30 years of experience from playing around with hardware and knowing which part of which chip does what, to programming software in anything from assembler to perl.
However (apart from the odd Ubuntu updates which tend to break things like sound drivers) linux systems are far more stable, once they are set up. And they are FAR easier to set up than 2006, and the trend towards ease of installation (since maintenance is minimal) continues.
have you ever heard of Cartel monopolies?
What, like the US Federal Reserve? :)
as Bruce Perens famously said at Linux SF Con 2006, Linux is only free if your time has no value
Three years is a long time in computing years. Too bad you're missing out on everything linux has to offer nowadays. Enjoy your vendor lock-in, and don't forget, Microsoft wants you to pay the tax again in a year or so.
If you're going to be childish, don't display your own ignorance while you're doing it.
I will act the way I please. If you don't like it, mod me down.
If The Pirate Bay wins, the swedish laws will be changed to make sure what they've been doing would be an offence had they done it under the new law.
Unlike the United States, most countries (ie the ones that don't boast about being "free" but actually ARE) cannot apply laws to you in a retroactive manner.
Like the MagLev train that's part of the stimulus bill. Yes, yes, us geeks would LOVE to see a maglev train in North America ...
I laughed the other day because some stupid congress-critter or senator or whatever - I have no idea who it was - came on CNBC all flustered because the proposed "Mag Lev" train was supposed to run between LA and Vegas. Even better - she wanted those 8BN dollars to be given to (drumroll) GM and Chrysler (this is the point where I fell off my chair laughing).
Actually it makes a lot of sense - there is a HUGE amount of traffic between LA and Vegas. Another brilliant place to put one is in the North East US, doing the Baltimore-Washington-NJ-NY-Boston thing. But noooooooo, instead lets give the money to the "big 3" so they can keep on making horrendously bad (in terms of fuel efficiency and quality) cars to sell to the "buy american" indoctrinated masses. You know, I'm glad I don't live in the US, I'm glad I have a bit of land and a bit of money (at least for now), and I'm glad that as a doctor I have skills that will always be worth something to society even if everything goes to hell. But I feel sorry for the bank clerks, or the burger flippers, or the Wal Mart cashiers of this world.
Call it a treasury note instead of dollar bills, but it's the same thing - increasing the money supply. Eventually foreigners will prefer Canadian and Australian government debt instead of US, since those countries have or are working hard to achieve a budget surplus, and have vast untapped natural resources. What will happen to the US when no one wants the dollar anymore?