3. Microsoft's prices are directly related to their costs, rather than to what they can get away with charging.
You know, I read only the blurbs on most Slashdot stories, and when I don't know any better, those blurbs become part of what I believe to be true about the world. It's disturbing to think about the effect stories like these are having on the collective consciousness. Just one more stupid, wrong thing that soon everyone will "know".
Yup, this is just like most cut-and-paste arguments about how Giant Corporation X shouldn't pay Fee Y or Tax Z because costs are passed on to consumers. It fundamentally ignores the fact that producer's cost isn't nearly the most important factor in determining price. They'll charge what the market will bear, and in a near-monopoly, that amount bears little relation to their costs.
Obviously, in highly-competitive markets, the relationship between cost and price is much closer, but even so, it takes a back seat to a company's business strategy.
1. It handles YouTube great. Doesn't handle MySpace video, or NBC.com or ABC.com (at least for me). Which sucks because I was really looking forward to catching up on old episodes of Heroes and future episodes of Andy Barker on my TV (gf won't watch with me on my computer).
Based solely on what I've read in this thread, I'm guessing it's the Flash version that's the problem, though some of these sites might also not support Opera in general; I don't know.
Some of this kind of pro-Bush spin is to be expected from the ever-reliable Pickler, but this article overdoes it a bit. If I were a cynical man, I'd suggest that the fact that the actual sponsors of the bill are not mentioned by name (it's attributed only to "Senate leaders"), while the opponents of the bill are named, says all you need to know about how much the "conservative" movement (the big business interests pulling the strings of the conservative media; contrast real conservatives) likes this bill.
It's politically impossible not to support this bill, but hell if they're going to let the people (Obama, Coburn, etc.) who put them in that position get any credit for it.
But how can it even be legal for Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T to agree to discontinue free service, or reduce output (where "output" is service to the customer, in this case)? Seriously, IANAL, how can this be legal?
The idea of competition is that, when Verizon does something stupid that punishes customers, I can go somewhere else. It's a real problem if all the gatekeepers can legally get together and decide to give us all the shaft. And not even to try to hide their cooperation against consumers?! Messed up.
Do you have any idea how much space-time continuum there is in the universe?
I refuse to believe that on Slashdot, I could arrive this late to a thread and find out I was the first person who immediately thought of Asimov's Hugo Award-Winning novel.
The parallel being that (warning: spoilers of a book that's older than I am...), just like Estwald's folks were going to be screwed by our sun's supernova prematurely stopping the Electron Pump long before the equilibrium point, the changing temperature distribution of the ocean would probably screw everything up long, long before the energy well ran dry. Or totally maybe not, but the parallel is hard to miss.
No, I don't have any calculations on this; I'm on Slashdot, where posting timeliness, not accuracy, is key.
Being a huge online gamer I can state with 100% confidence that there are some people out there with Time, Skill, and Desire to write that little program. All that's necessary after that is to have the means to propagate that little program.
To say that the average person who wants to cheat won't be able to, because he can't program, is like saying that thousands of angry graduates of madrassas aren't dangerous because they don't know how to design and manufacture automatic weapons. Or hell, it's like saying that our own President isn't dangerous because he couldn't design a GPS-guided bomb or an ICBM. The guns are out there. Techie people design and make things, and average people use them.
I can just see Roscoe P. Coltrane throwing his hat in the dirt and spitting, as the Duke boys go flying by on their faster-than-light car running on perpetual motion technology.
Beats all you never saw, never followed natural law Since the day they was born..
Do you really think you were carrying on an argument with me, Mr. AC? Har har.
At least my name isn't 'George Michael' from all the stories you like a good suck in the loo. Ooh, trenchant and acerbic. At least I don't (attempt to) insult people with remarks that begin with "at least." My daddy can beat up your daddy, you big stupid boogerhead!
Lighten up, guy. There was nothing malicious about my original post, and for the love of God, I certainly didn't do it for the karma. IMHO, it's just as valid to correct people on technical matters of written language as it is to correct them on technical matters regarding hardware, software, politics, or other nerd stuff. You don't read about "hardware fascists."
At least now I know why the AC at the top of the thread "(s/flaunting/flouting/)" posted AC.
It looks like a spelling error or misunderstanding,flaunting and flouting are pronounced differently. or at least where I come from they are. flouting being like OUTing and flaunting being like haunting.
And there was something in my post or link that implies otherwise? It's the same where I come from.
flaunting could even be the correct word if they mean 'wide-spread showing off and telling everyone that it can be done' not 'wide-spread breaking of the rules'
Yep, I'm sure everybody was going around, shaking their DVD Region Encoding System for all the world to see. If you've got it, flaunt it!
If you think about it, any law that won't let Joe Station Wagon and Josephine Soccer Mom make and distribute movies of their kids (i.e., the next-generation DRM law you imply, not this one) will never fly, because these people are the real contested demographics in the political battlefield. To whatever extent that it's still votes that matter, and not just money, that is.
Just like Microsoft stole the ideas of Macintosh (/Xerox...), IBM, Netscape(/Mosaic (yes I know some technology is licensed...)), Lotus, Corel, Sun, and every other innovative company in the world, keeping people from buying the software of the companies that first sold the ideas. If damaging another company's profits were against the law, Microsoft would not exist.
Such is capitalism, may it long prosper (in a fairly regulated fashion). I pay you for a thing, then I own that thing and can do (in my own private residence) whatever the hell I want to do with that thing.
Well, the funny thing is, the Constitution has said the right thing all along. It's just been the last 50 years or so that we've been ignoring the "no law respecting an establishment of religion" part.
It's funny, though, that the U.S. has gone from being the most liberal nation in the world (the above idea was, of course, radical at the time) to being among the most conservative/fascist in the so-called civilized world.
Lots of people have made a lot of good points, but most of them amount to being just single factors out of a whole bunch of relevant factors. For example, the idea that having proved your disloyalty will necessarily lead to your being laid off: hooey! My boss advises me to test the waters of the job market, and keep my resume updated at all times. He feels he pays fairly, and wants us to think so too. A competing offer would be proof that he was wrong, and he would have to adjust his scale accordingly. But not everyone has a boss like me. Do you have a vindictive boss? Are you an asshole? If so, don't risk it. Do you have a lot of good office-karma to spread around? If so, take that counter-offer.
My mentor at my current job has been here 15 years. Five years ago, he was offered a job at another place for 50% more. This company beat the offer by 10%, everybody knows about it, and everybody thinks it's a good thing.
And to everyone who says "f*ck that employer for not paying you more in the first place"... Oh my god, grow up! You are worth what you can get someone to pay you. It's not their responsibility to look out for your interests, it's yours! In America, capitalism != not valuing employees or assholishness; capitalism = realism.
Not every company is going to see it that way. If your is one of these commie-hippie-mommy-it's-not-fair types, he/she might be hurt by your looking out for your own interests and you may be screwed.
So the moral of the story is, figure out your boss before you decide to take a counter-offer or not. If you see resentment when you're given a counter-offer, run! Otherwise, do what seems better.
You may wonder how an enormous, impersonal, faceless conglomorpation can physically lick anus, but I will explain it to you.
I am unfortunately and temporarily an AT&T BI customer. I got a call last week, at 9 AM, from a computer, saying there was an error in my account somewhere and I should call the tech support number to get it straightened out. Never mind that the call woke me up and confused the hell out of me. I was woozy and I only caught the last 4 digits of the number. The message did not repeat, and when I asked it questions about what the hell it was talking about, the computer just kept talking.
So I went to their website, found the number I was supposed to call, called it...and was told that account-related stuff was a sales issue. So the guy gave me a number and I called it.
The guy at the sales line asked me what my problem was. I told him I didn't know. The computer voice just told me I had a problem. Doesn't your database tell you why it told me I had a non-specific problem? No... let me transfer you to someone...
After I was transferred, the person at the other end of the line told me I was an idiot for calling a Boston area number, when I live in Minnesota. I told her you have got to be kidding me, this is the PHONE company...
We're not the phone company, we're the cable company sir.
Well, I was transferred to you. If you're so smart, give me the right number, then, jackass.
She gave me another number and I talked to another person who didn't know what the hell the computer voice had called me about, and thought I was stupid.
So I gave up and bought a house in Minneapolis, where Time Warner is the cable company.
Copyright is a direct intervention into the marketplace as much as establishing legal ownership of any commodity is a direct intervention into the marketplace. Establishing ownership is something that takes place before the marketplace. A marketplace is where people who own something sell that thing.
If you twist hard enough, anything can be government intervention in the marketplace. Preventing murder for hire, stopping the slave trade, even the very existence of government is an intervention into the marketplace, because the government has to charge some taxes somewhere, and has to buy some stuff.
Libertarianism != anarchy or pure hippie-style "let's-all-share-everything" communism, which are the only two systems where the phrase "my idea" is meaningless.
Slashdot Mirror
3. Microsoft's prices are directly related to their costs, rather than to what they can get away with charging.
You know, I read only the blurbs on most Slashdot stories, and when I don't know any better, those blurbs become part of what I believe to be true about the world. It's disturbing to think about the effect stories like these are having on the collective consciousness. Just one more stupid, wrong thing that soon everyone will "know".
Yup, this is just like most cut-and-paste arguments about how Giant Corporation X shouldn't pay Fee Y or Tax Z because costs are passed on to consumers. It fundamentally ignores the fact that producer's cost isn't nearly the most important factor in determining price. They'll charge what the market will bear, and in a near-monopoly, that amount bears little relation to their costs.
Obviously, in highly-competitive markets, the relationship between cost and price is much closer, but even so, it takes a back seat to a company's business strategy.
1. It handles YouTube great. Doesn't handle MySpace video, or NBC.com or ABC.com (at least for me). Which sucks because I was really looking forward to catching up on old episodes of Heroes and future episodes of Andy Barker on my TV (gf won't watch with me on my computer).
Based solely on what I've read in this thread, I'm guessing it's the Flash version that's the problem, though some of these sites might also not support Opera in general; I don't know.
The Pickler strikes again!
Some of this kind of pro-Bush spin is to be expected from the ever-reliable Pickler, but this article overdoes it a bit. If I were a cynical man, I'd suggest that the fact that the actual sponsors of the bill are not mentioned by name (it's attributed only to "Senate leaders"), while the opponents of the bill are named, says all you need to know about how much the "conservative" movement (the big business interests pulling the strings of the conservative media; contrast real conservatives) likes this bill.
It's politically impossible not to support this bill, but hell if they're going to let the people (Obama, Coburn, etc.) who put them in that position get any credit for it.
But how can it even be legal for Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T to agree to discontinue free service, or reduce output (where "output" is service to the customer, in this case)? Seriously, IANAL, how can this be legal?
The idea of competition is that, when Verizon does something stupid that punishes customers, I can go somewhere else. It's a real problem if all the gatekeepers can legally get together and decide to give us all the shaft. And not even to try to hide their cooperation against consumers?! Messed up.
Do you have any idea how much space-time continuum there is in the universe?
I refuse to believe that on Slashdot, I could arrive this late to a thread and find out I was the first person who immediately thought of Asimov's Hugo Award-Winning novel.
The parallel being that (warning: spoilers of a book that's older than I am...), just like Estwald's folks were going to be screwed by our sun's supernova prematurely stopping the Electron Pump long before the equilibrium point, the changing temperature distribution of the ocean would probably screw everything up long, long before the energy well ran dry. Or totally maybe not, but the parallel is hard to miss.
No, I don't have any calculations on this; I'm on Slashdot, where posting timeliness, not accuracy, is key.
When somebody's dead wrong, it's generally not a good idea to mod them up "Informative"... More like "Misinformative".
I never, ever, play CDs anywhere but on a computer. I therefore will never buy a CD I cannot play on a computer. I am not alone.
Being a huge online gamer I can state with 100% confidence that there are some people out there with Time, Skill, and Desire to write that little program. All that's necessary after that is to have the means to propagate that little program.
To say that the average person who wants to cheat won't be able to, because he can't program, is like saying that thousands of angry graduates of madrassas aren't dangerous because they don't know how to design and manufacture automatic weapons. Or hell, it's like saying that our own President isn't dangerous because he couldn't design a GPS-guided bomb or an ICBM. The guns are out there. Techie people design and make things, and average people use them.
...that brought you perpetual motion last week.
I can just see Roscoe P. Coltrane throwing his hat in the dirt and spitting, as the Duke boys go flying by on their faster-than-light car running on perpetual motion technology.
Beats all you never saw,
never followed natural law
Since the day they was born..
...so it's only really, really huge, not ultra-mega huge.
;)
6.25 terabytes ought to be enough for anybody
Do you really think you were carrying on an argument with me, Mr. AC? Har har.
At least my name isn't 'George Michael' from all the stories you like a good suck in the loo.
Ooh, trenchant and acerbic. At least I don't (attempt to) insult people with remarks that begin with "at least." My daddy can beat up your daddy, you big stupid boogerhead!
Lighten up, guy. There was nothing malicious about my original post, and for the love of God, I certainly didn't do it for the karma. IMHO, it's just as valid to correct people on technical matters of written language as it is to correct them on technical matters regarding hardware, software, politics, or other nerd stuff. You don't read about "hardware fascists."
At least now I know why the AC at the top of the thread "(s/flaunting/flouting/)" posted AC.
It looks like a spelling error or misunderstanding ,flaunting and flouting are pronounced differently. or at least where I come from they are.
flouting being like OUTing
and
flaunting being like haunting.
And there was something in my post or link that implies otherwise? It's the same where I come from.
flaunting could even be the correct word if they mean 'wide-spread showing off and telling everyone that it can be done'
not
'wide-spread breaking of the rules'
Yep, I'm sure everybody was going around, shaking their DVD Region Encoding System for all the world to see. If you've got it, flaunt it!
Read the usage note
If proper English is to be saved, it must start with Slashdotters!
If you think about it, any law that won't let Joe Station Wagon and Josephine Soccer Mom make and distribute movies of their kids (i.e., the next-generation DRM law you imply, not this one) will never fly, because these people are the real contested demographics in the political battlefield. To whatever extent that it's still votes that matter, and not just money, that is.
Just like Microsoft stole the ideas of Macintosh (/Xerox...), IBM, Netscape(/Mosaic (yes I know some technology is licensed...)), Lotus, Corel, Sun, and every other innovative company in the world, keeping people from buying the software of the companies that first sold the ideas. If damaging another company's profits were against the law, Microsoft would not exist.
Such is capitalism, may it long prosper (in a fairly regulated fashion). I pay you for a thing, then I own that thing and can do (in my own private residence) whatever the hell I want to do with that thing.
Well, the funny thing is, the Constitution has said the right thing all along. It's just been the last 50 years or so that we've been ignoring the "no law respecting an establishment of religion" part.
It's funny, though, that the U.S. has gone from being the most liberal nation in the world (the above idea was, of course, radical at the time) to being among the most conservative/fascist in the so-called civilized world.
Lots of people have made a lot of good points, but most of them amount to being just single factors out of a whole bunch of relevant factors. For example, the idea that having proved your disloyalty will necessarily lead to your being laid off: hooey! My boss advises me to test the waters of the job market, and keep my resume updated at all times. He feels he pays fairly, and wants us to think so too. A competing offer would be proof that he was wrong, and he would have to adjust his scale accordingly. But not everyone has a boss like me. Do you have a vindictive boss? Are you an asshole? If so, don't risk it. Do you have a lot of good office-karma to spread around? If so, take that counter-offer.
My mentor at my current job has been here 15 years. Five years ago, he was offered a job at another place for 50% more. This company beat the offer by 10%, everybody knows about it, and everybody thinks it's a good thing.
And to everyone who says "f*ck that employer for not paying you more in the first place"... Oh my god, grow up! You are worth what you can get someone to pay you. It's not their responsibility to look out for your interests, it's yours! In America, capitalism != not valuing employees or assholishness; capitalism = realism.
Not every company is going to see it that way. If your is one of these commie-hippie-mommy-it's-not-fair types, he/she might be hurt by your looking out for your own interests and you may be screwed.
So the moral of the story is, figure out your boss before you decide to take a counter-offer or not. If you see resentment when you're given a counter-offer, run! Otherwise, do what seems better.
Ah, too true. Somebody mod this up for accurate nit-picking.
I, for one, don't believe that science can predict when such an event will occur. And certainly not hours in advance.
You may wonder how an enormous, impersonal, faceless conglomorpation can physically lick anus, but I will explain it to you.
I am unfortunately and temporarily an AT&T BI customer. I got a call last week, at 9 AM, from a computer, saying there was an error in my account somewhere and I should call the tech support number to get it straightened out. Never mind that the call woke me up and confused the hell out of me. I was woozy and I only caught the last 4 digits of the number. The message did not repeat, and when I asked it questions about what the hell it was talking about, the computer just kept talking.
So I went to their website, found the number I was supposed to call, called it...and was told that account-related stuff was a sales issue. So the guy gave me a number and I called it.
The guy at the sales line asked me what my problem was. I told him I didn't know. The computer voice just told me I had a problem. Doesn't your database tell you why it told me I had a non-specific problem? No... let me transfer you to someone...
After I was transferred, the person at the other end of the line told me I was an idiot for calling a Boston area number, when I live in Minnesota. I told her you have got to be kidding me, this is the PHONE company...
We're not the phone company, we're the cable company sir.
Well, I was transferred to you. If you're so smart, give me the right number, then, jackass.
She gave me another number and I talked to another person who didn't know what the hell the computer voice had called me about, and thought I was stupid.
So I gave up and bought a house in Minneapolis, where Time Warner is the cable company.
And that is the story of how AT&T ate my balls.
Inevitably brings to mind the words of Roger Waters, from The Bravery of Being Out of Range, off of Amused to Death:
You hit the target
And win the game
From bars 3,000 miles away
Copyright is a direct intervention into the marketplace as much as establishing legal ownership of any commodity is a direct intervention into the marketplace. Establishing ownership is something that takes place before the marketplace. A marketplace is where people who own something sell that thing.
If you twist hard enough, anything can be government intervention in the marketplace. Preventing murder for hire, stopping the slave trade, even the very existence of government is an intervention into the marketplace, because the government has to charge some taxes somewhere, and has to buy some stuff.
Libertarianism != anarchy or pure hippie-style "let's-all-share-everything" communism, which are the only two systems where the phrase "my idea" is meaningless.