Do you really believe that nothing is more important than money?
No, but as a pragmatist I believe that idealism without basis in the real world of money, power, realpolitik, and competing self interest is ultimately futile. If idealism describes the world as we would like it to be then the harsh truths of economics describe the world as it actually is. I would rather get some of what I want now than be idealistic and get nothing except perhaps in the long run and in the long run we are all dead anyway.
That's not really a choice for the people in China who're most affected by this decision is it?
Why not? There are plenty of very wealthy Chinese who could easily buy such a stake. Everything is for sale in China if you have enough money and know who to talk to. The average chinese doesn't give a damn either, they have been experiencing 9%+ GDP growth per year with massive, relatively speaking to what they had before the reforms, improvements in their standard of living.
Oh right, its none of my business how other people make money, how dare I put anything before the allmighty dollar!
Damn Straight. Unless you are willing to declare war (and most disputes are not that important), countries like China, Iran, North Korea don't care what you think. As for Google, they are relatively benign by comparison.
Errr right. Thats the most sensible thing to do - rather than criticise corporate governance, I should instead save up billions and billions of dollars and gain a controlling stake in all companies.
On the other hand you could make billions of dollars investing in these companies and building up those stakes. Then you would not only have your say in their corporate policies but bags of money to boot.
Sad, sad, sad state of affairs, where a company is required by law to do what many consider to be immoral.
If you want to have a say then buy some shares and vote them at the annual meetings, otherwise take your nose out the shareholders' business and stick it somewhere else. Why not put your money where you mouth is?
Mod the parent up, because this is EXACTLY right. The insured patients don't care whether their insurance company pays the provider on time or not after they have paid their co-payment and by the same token the insurance company doesn't care whether the providers raise their rates because they simply pass those costs on to the insured patients in higher premiums. The third party payer system, i.e. the insurance companies, are largely responsible for the massive escalation of health care costs in this country, there are other factors but this is really the crux of the matter, and both patients and health care providers are paying the price. The end result is a massively inefficient system where the only winners are the insurance companies and, to a lesser extent, the trial lawyers. The technology to mitigate these problems has been available for decades, but there has been a disincentive to use these technologies to lower costs because it is not in the best interests of the insurance companies which stand to lose their profitable middleman position as money flows more quickly and efficiently through the system.
but if it is worth the billions of dollars it would take to build such a system and the souring of relations that it would produce for a few extra years of safety before improved defenses were developed?
On the bright side the increased defense spending and the resulting arms race would create many science and engineering related jobs which can only be filled by Americans. That could be just the sort of thing that we need to get our butts out of the math and science slump in this country.
You have relatively speaking less disposable income to spend on cell phones, fast cars, restaurant meals, real estate, and countless other things which people like to have while the Chinese elites buy all of these things AND benefit from your tax funded drug research to boot. Are you saying that you don't care that other people are free riding off of your money?
If the government collects taxes and then redistributes the money back to the taxed entities in the form of government programs then wouldn't you agree that this process is not 100% efficient? If the government taxes the drug company one dollar and then gives that dollar right back to fund research can we honestly say that it didn't really cost $1+ for that dollar to wind its way through the bureaucracy and back to the company? Wouldn't it have been better just to leave that dollar where it was in the first place instead of cycling it through the system and running up administrative costs?
They'd be getting money directly from the government (which, in any case, they do now anyway - find me a drug that didn't have its origins in a university hospital and I'll find a thousand others that did) for the research whether they sell the drug or not.
What about oversight costs to ensure compliance with the spending rules? If you leave it up to the company and there is no checking then how would you know that they didn't divert the funds for other things? How does the government decide which companies get how much funds from the available pool? This sounds like an excellent opportunity for more big government with over-burdensome regulations and inefficient bureaucracy.
Drugs should be cheap if they're cheap to make. Morally, it's just wrong to keep them expensive to pay for new, future drugs.
There will be no new drugs without research and research isn't cheap. You can tax to fund the research, but if there is no protection of discoveries then who will want to fund the research?
And believe it or not, financially, it's probably wrong, as well. In the long run, it's easy to believe that an economy could be healthier with universal, cheap health care due to the increased productivity and lifespans of the population.
Perhaps, but drug companies pay their employees, taxes, rents and other expenses in the short run and they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders that cannot be breached simply because it would be altruistic or idealistic to do so.
If they can actually make the drugs cheaper, then the European economy saves money, especially if the proper duties are assessed, because the European people end up paying less for the drugs.
The duties would have to be quite high to make up for the research costs and thus the incentive to dodge the customs inspectors and sell into the Black Market would rise along with the duties. High enough taxes and tarifs turn even honest people into cheats.
Sweden doesn't lose anything if other countries use the results of their pharmaceutical research
They lose in the sense that the Swedish tax money that paid for the medical research could have been spent on other things, what economists call the Opportunity Cost. Suppose that we Americans "free ride" on this Swedish research so now we can enjoy the benefits of the research that you paid for AND spend our surplus tax money on other things. Remember also that by taxing the citizens you are forcing people to spend a portion of their incomes, and in Sweden that non-discretionary portion is quite large, on goods and services that, if left to their own devices, people might otherwise chose not to purchase or purchase in less quanity. Some taxes are necessary, of course, to fund those few things which the public needs, but which suffer from the aforementioned free rider problem. However, I am not convinced that medical research falls under that category.
Hmmmm...so if the Indian and Chinese pharma companies take the medical research that Europeans have paid for, create knock-off drugs, and sell them cheap in Europe to undercut the European pharma companies then you would be fine with that? The United States is not "out to get you" with our patent system, but it is surprising to that so many Europeans would be willing to simply pay more than the rest of the world for the same products (through higher taxes to support the research that everyone else is free riding and benefiting from). I am sure that the Chinese and Indians would be happy to have you pay for all the research so that they can knock-off your products for pennies on the dollar when the research actually turns up a useful new drug. Please forgive me for saying this, but your assertion that Europeans are willing to endure such obvious unfairness strains credibility.
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on
Online Revenge
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· Score: 4, Informative
The Eraser program is an excellent and free way to securely wipe your hardrives prior to sale of your computer in addition to providing everyday secure wiping services including secure file deletion, free space, and swap file wiping w/multiple overwrite pattern options. I have no financial interest in this company whatsoever, but I have found this program to be a useful addition to my toolbox so you may want to check it out.
So there would be no need to threaten third world countries with economic sanctions just because they try to do what they can to provide AIDS medicine to their own population.
How do you propose to solve the Free Rider Problem or do you mean to suggest that Swedish taxpayers should fund a disproportionate share of the worlds' medical research costs while giving away the fruits of that labor?
Using your fists on someone... that I can see. The damage level is low
That depends upon your class and level. I have five levels in the monk class with the shadow warrior prestige class, +3 brass knuckles of the whale, and 18/00 strength, so technically I would deal 3d6 + 3 hit points of damage and with my improved dodge feat you would not be fast enough to parry my attacks of opportunity.
The US Government should tell the Chinese that we will start giving a damn about whether an Intel monopoly hurts their homegrown wireless industry when they start giving a damn about all the software piracy and intellectual property theft going on in their country.
I don't think that population size or density are particularly compelling arguments as to why the US is so far behind in phones.
What about the regulation angle? The archaic FCC rules and other state and local taxes on phone service surely must contribute, at least somewhat, to slower and less efficient outcomes in the cell service markets. The regulations and infrastructures in some of the better connected countries are less developed or non existant. It is easy to build a new system from stratch when you can start with a clean slate and unfettered by existing networks, technologies, and excess legal obligations. On the other hand, this can also lead to a wild west scenario where frequency interference and corruption rule the day. It is an interesting problem.
There is an idea (in the tech world at least) that there is the "right" way to do things, and all companies chase after that.
It is my opinion that there are three main factors driving this type of forced integration:
1. The engineers working for these companies enjoy finding the optimal solution for any problem, particularly one of a technical nature, and they assume that everyone else will either agree with them or at least appreciate the unseen hand that provides the "right" solution even if the general consuming public does not understand the details.
2. The marketing people love to hype new features so that they can generate "buzz" and gain exposure for the new phones because no marketer or salesperson wants to sell a low margin, boring, and unexciting (at least in their minds) product. It may also be a form of job protection since the marketer must generate more and higher margin sales in excess of his cost in salary in benefits or the company in question will eliminate his position. Thus, they want to convince you that you need features that you really don't want or that you want features that you really don't need.
3. If the cell phone companies can get as many people as possible to pay higher rates for the gadget phone then they can maximize their profits by selling higher margin features and services while at the same time driving down the manufacturing costs on the fancy phones through economies of scale. It is less profitable for them to offer more choices to the consumer so they prefer not to do it. Remember what Henry Ford said, "you can have any color you like as long as it is black."
You'd think that someone would try a different tack, offering something actually different that appeals to a different type of consumer, but in fact most companies merely copycat each other.
It is difficult for someone to try a different tack because the industry is structured as an oligopoly with significant financial barriers to entry for new firms. There is also the issue of almost perfect competition between the existing providers. There are few features that one firm can maintain, for long, as a comparative advantage over their competitors without pricing themselves out of the market so the winning strategy for each firm is to be as close to the competition as possible.
There's no reason for complex cell phones to go away, but there's no reason for simple ones to have gone away either.
They haven't gone away per se, but rather they have not kept pace in the style department with the gadget phones so if you want the candy bar/brick you can still get that, but if you want the sleek titanium GQ style phone then you have to pay for all the bells and whistles.
When I look at cars, there's a much wider margin of option. It's well understood that some people want a Lexus, some want a Ford Pickup, some a Prius, and some a Taurus. But even there people (not the companies) still argue about what is "best", which is a ridiculous concept.
Cars are major durable goods purchases wheras cell phones are mostly considered to be disposable or perhaps semi-durable at the high end. However, the point is well taken.
People just have too much an idea of "ultimate", and they feel they need to guard their preference by putting down and calling for the death of the other options. The way Mac, Windows, and Linux people bash each other. Who cares? Use what you like! And let there be more variety of companies and products out there!
There is a perception among consumers and businesses too that unless their preference is the majority or preferably the only format then their investment in a technology product is threatned. This goes back to the whole Betamax vs VHS format wars. Nobody wants to be stuck holding the bag with next Betamax when it comes to tech gadgets.
It can only be a loss if the person who copied the software would be a potential buyer. On the other hand, if a person gets used to a certain piece of software and finds out that the software is actually useful, then it is also likely the person would buy it.
It is a loss in the sense that they are using the product without permission from the owner/creator in violation of their property rights. Even if the person does end up buying the software, what about the time that they spent enjoying the software while the company had to wait for their money? An amount of money now is always worth more than an equal amount of money in the future and it is wrong to take what is in effect an interest free loan on the money while you make up your mind.
What is really annoying though, is when I have to pay for software I don't even want, like MS-windows.
Then don't use MS-Windows...its that simple. It is their property and their rules. If you don't like those rules then use something else...Linux comes to mind. You cannot disregard their property rights just because you dont like the terms under which they are licensed. Their creation, their rules.
So, in this case, Microsoft and the hardware manufacturers are stealing from me, as they do not allow me to buy computers without hard drives
They are not preventing you from ordering whatever parts you want and putting the machine together yourself or going to one of the many smaller third party businesses that will do this for you exactly to your specification. The question is price. If you want the savings of their package deal then you have to take it or leave it. If you want freedom of choice then you must be willing to pay for it. They are not stealing anything from you since nobody is forcing you to use Windows or buy their name brand computer. If you dont like what they offer then take your business elsewhere.
This has to be changed. The customer should have the choice!
If there is sufficient demand and you are willing to pay then the market will supply you with the change that you want. You may want choice but how much are you willing to pay for it? The manufacturers are not obligated to provide you with more choices just because you think you deserve them.
It is possible that I have misjudged the intentions of your post, but I hope that you will excuse me in this instance since the pirated copy != lost sale argument is frequently used here on Slashdot as a justification for the act of piracy and being a content creator myself, I have some rather strong feelings on this subject. I did not mean to suggest that you personally do these things and I apologize if it came out in that way, but please allow me to respond to some of your other points, if I may...
These companies are some of the wealthiest in the world, I have not seen a single case of any of these companies, not a single case where a software engineer was let go because of poor sales and lack of profitablity.
The amount of the loss is debatable, but is it reasonable to suppose that piracy has no impact on the software engineer? It is difficult to quantify unrealized gains, but neither can we say with certainty that there are none. As for companies being wealthy, does that mean that their property rights are any less valid?
One company has even had a judgement or two against it for how onerous its "terms" are
This is probably true, but as both you and I have said we chose not to use their product because we don't like their terms. It is unfortunate that the terms suck sometimes, the old "I am taking my ball and going home if you don't like those rules" reaction by some companies, but I cannot expect others to respect my rights if I don't respect theirs.
I'd consider (my opinion) this guilt money, considering how Gates has amassed his wealth.
The poor people who benefit are happy whether he gave the money out of goodness or guilt; it is all the same to them. As for Gates using it to promote Microsoft products with freebies...well he has a ways to go with meeting the basics before he can begin to do that. If he does eventually give them free computers with Microsoft software in order to "get them early" then you can chalk it up to his reward for helping them get that far with the basics.
The BSA is making claims about lost sales that really aren't, and getting leverage with this bogus saber rattling
The BSA is playing up their side and others are downplaying their arguments because that is how politics works. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. The BSA is not completely right but neither can it be proven that they are completely wrong.
But if every single piece of "pirated" software were somehow magically able to be taken from users today, the net result would not be additional revenue and sales, quite the opposite in fact could and would likely (in my opinion) occur.
Fair enough, you are entitled to your opinion, but people should consider the consequences of not paying for their software if the license does not make it freely available. The world is interconnected and my ability to pay my bills is contingent on my employer being able to pay me and their revenues are contingent upon people paying for the products and so on. I am not convinced that a reduction in piracy would NOT result in some more sales, but I suppose that on that point will we simply have to agree to disagree.
Parents pushing their kids into classes they ought not to be in, and the school being unable to stop them is the root of the problem
The solution to this dilemma is to introduce testing whereby students compete for a limited number of spots and are accepted by merit according to their abilities. No amount of parental whining or complaining can undo the effects of a poor examination score, but the schools lack the resources and the spine to fight off the lawyers of those parents with money to spend and an unwillingness to face the facts. You are quite correct in your other assessment concerning the unwillingness of the school system to spend resources, despite mandates, to promote bright students so long as there students struggling to meet the basic requirements. The less capable students end up sucking away resources that were marked for the further advancement of the most capable students, but just try and tell those parents that their kids are not as bright...they don't want to hear it and neither do the schools. My best advice to you, looking back on my own education through university and continuing into the real world, is to do your own enrichment work outside of the classroom to promote your own abilities. Remember that nobody, with the possible exception of your parents, cares as much or more about your own ultimate success as you do. You are wise to recognize that your school is not providing you with the best education that it possibly can, but you can respond by further educating yourself on your own time. You could do your own research and studies or take community college courses during the summer months. They will not fix the system in time to make any difference to you before you graduate from high school, but if you prepare yourself diligently and strive to achieve your full potential, in spite of your schools misguided policies, then you will succeed.
Only when teachers are accorded the same salary and respect -- and subject to the same rigorous standards -- as lawyers, doctors, and other trained professonals, will your hope be realized.
Ironically, the teachers are partly to blame for this with their aggressive unionization and staunch opposition to merit or skill based pay in favor of seniority and tenure. The problem is further aggravated by the unions making it nearly impossible to fire any teacher, however incompetent, short of criminal conviction for especially egregious conduct.
Actually those in the lower levels tended to fail over and over again. That created a major problem of over-population. So the lower levels received less teaching one-on-one (who also happened to need it the most) because of the immensive class sizes. Eventually the school would either expel these students or just give them a diploma. Making it possible for someone who can not even read to graduate high school.
This is why a high school diploma without further education has eroded in value over the past few decades and will continue doing so until we fix our educational system. The rest of the world spends MORE resources on the brightest and most promising students while sending the rest to trade school where they can learn to do something useful commensurate with their level of ability. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, not everyone is cut out to be an engineer, scientist, or business executive, but such things are anathema in this country. Instead we give useless diplomas to our children and lower the bar so that everyone can pass with such a low standard as to be utterly meaningless. The smart kids are not reaching their full potential and the less intelligent kids have no useful trade skills to go with their devalued high school diplomas. The rest of the world is laughing at us and smart students in Asian countries our kicking our butts in educational achievement and ultimately in the job market. There are too many people with too much invested both emotionally and ideologically in the current system to admit that our system is failing and more importantly WHY it is failing.
It absolutely is a loss. Real assets including time, money, and capital equipment went into producing the pirated software that you are now enjoying. If you steal the software and the company gets no money then those real assets that were invested in the creation of the product are lost. The failure to realize revenue is still a loss, albeit not a complete one, because there is an opportunity cost to producing anything (i.e. we could have used the same money, plant, equipment to produce something else that would have generated more revenue). Stealing is stealing and no amount of hand wringing, rationalization, whining, or complaining justifies the act in the case of software piracy (you don't need software to survive).
The argument that, "each pirated copy is not a lost sale because they would not have bought it anyway" does nothing to refute the fact that the software, music, or other intellectual property was stolen. It may be true that each pirated copy does not represent a lost sale, but that is meaningless when the fact remains that for whatever reason people choose to use the product anyway against the wishes of the creator/owner of the intellectual property. I have spent many years in school and hard at work studying to learn my profession (i.e. software engineering) investing both time and money (i.e. real hard assets) to create something that others might find useful. When you steal intellectual property your are basically saying to the artist, engineer, or creator, "I don't like the terms that you have given to me to use your creation and I don't have any respect for your time and effort so I am going to use it anyway because I would rather have a few more dollars to spend on beer, gasoline, and food and I don't really care if you have money to spend on these things or not as a result of my stealing your work." You might counter, "But we aren't stealing from you, but the big evil corporation," but who do you think signs all of the paychecks in this world? There are many software engineers who are unemployed or underemployed because of this and it is not right. As for the people in the poor countries I can sympathize, but why not let the owners/creators of the intellectual property decide what and how much to give to the truly needy people in this world? Anyway, the majority of the poor people in this world have much more basic needs than a computer loaded with fancy software including getting enough to eat, clean water, electricity, vaccinations, education, and waste treatment. Why do you suppose that Bill Gates, arguably the most generous philanthropist of our time, is focusing on these types of basic needs instead of giving away PCs loaded with Microsoft software to people that have no power to run them anyway and whose family needs vaccinations, food, and clean water first?
With all of the information that most students blithely post on their blogs, including such things as their whereabouts at certain times and places, their friends, where they go to school, etc. It shouldn't be too difficult to trace any threatening remarks back to the people responsible given a few e-mails or phone calls from the right people (i.e. the authorities or the school administrators to the ISP or blog hosting site). It is difficult for me to understand why anyone would want to make themselves easier to track and impersonate in this world of terrorism, identity theft, and other assorted wierdos by making public the minutiae of their daily lives, but that is an entirely different discussion.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you really believe that nothing is more important than money?
No, but as a pragmatist I believe that idealism without basis in the real world of money, power, realpolitik, and competing self interest is ultimately futile. If idealism describes the world as we would like it to be then the harsh truths of economics describe the world as it actually is. I would rather get some of what I want now than be idealistic and get nothing except perhaps in the long run and in the long run we are all dead anyway.
That's not really a choice for the people in China who're most affected by this decision is it?
Why not? There are plenty of very wealthy Chinese who could easily buy such a stake. Everything is for sale in China if you have enough money and know who to talk to. The average chinese doesn't give a damn either, they have been experiencing 9%+ GDP growth per year with massive, relatively speaking to what they had before the reforms, improvements in their standard of living.
Oh right, its none of my business how other people make money, how dare I put anything before the allmighty dollar!
Damn Straight. Unless you are willing to declare war (and most disputes are not that important), countries like China, Iran, North Korea don't care what you think. As for Google, they are relatively benign by comparison.
Errr right. Thats the most sensible thing to do - rather than criticise corporate governance, I should instead save up billions and billions of dollars and gain a controlling stake in all companies.
On the other hand you could make billions of dollars investing in these companies and building up those stakes. Then you would not only have your say in their corporate policies but bags of money to boot.
That's a great suggestion! Thanks for that!
No problem, it was my pleasure, I assure you.
Sad, sad, sad state of affairs, where a company is required by law to do what many consider to be immoral.
If you want to have a say then buy some shares and vote them at the annual meetings, otherwise take your nose out the shareholders' business and stick it somewhere else. Why not put your money where you mouth is?
Mod the parent up, because this is EXACTLY right. The insured patients don't care whether their insurance company pays the provider on time or not after they have paid their co-payment and by the same token the insurance company doesn't care whether the providers raise their rates because they simply pass those costs on to the insured patients in higher premiums. The third party payer system, i.e. the insurance companies, are largely responsible for the massive escalation of health care costs in this country, there are other factors but this is really the crux of the matter, and both patients and health care providers are paying the price. The end result is a massively inefficient system where the only winners are the insurance companies and, to a lesser extent, the trial lawyers. The technology to mitigate these problems has been available for decades, but there has been a disincentive to use these technologies to lower costs because it is not in the best interests of the insurance companies which stand to lose their profitable middleman position as money flows more quickly and efficiently through the system.
but if it is worth the billions of dollars it would take to build such a system and the souring of relations that it would produce for a few extra years of safety before improved defenses were developed?
On the bright side the increased defense spending and the resulting arms race would create many science and engineering related jobs which can only be filled by Americans. That could be just the sort of thing that we need to get our butts out of the math and science slump in this country.
I don't see the downside.
You have relatively speaking less disposable income to spend on cell phones, fast cars, restaurant meals, real estate, and countless other things which people like to have while the Chinese elites buy all of these things AND benefit from your tax funded drug research to boot. Are you saying that you don't care that other people are free riding off of your money?
Why does this hurt the pharmaceutical companies?
If the government collects taxes and then redistributes the money back to the taxed entities in the form of government programs then wouldn't you agree that this process is not 100% efficient? If the government taxes the drug company one dollar and then gives that dollar right back to fund research can we honestly say that it didn't really cost $1+ for that dollar to wind its way through the bureaucracy and back to the company? Wouldn't it have been better just to leave that dollar where it was in the first place instead of cycling it through the system and running up administrative costs?
They'd be getting money directly from the government (which, in any case, they do now anyway - find me a drug that didn't have its origins in a university hospital and I'll find a thousand others that did) for the research whether they sell the drug or not.
What about oversight costs to ensure compliance with the spending rules? If you leave it up to the company and there is no checking then how would you know that they didn't divert the funds for other things? How does the government decide which companies get how much funds from the available pool? This sounds like an excellent opportunity for more big government with over-burdensome regulations and inefficient bureaucracy.
Drugs should be cheap if they're cheap to make. Morally, it's just wrong to keep them expensive to pay for new, future drugs.
There will be no new drugs without research and research isn't cheap. You can tax to fund the research, but if there is no protection of discoveries then who will want to fund the research?
And believe it or not, financially, it's probably wrong, as well. In the long run, it's easy to believe that an economy could be healthier with universal, cheap health care due to the increased productivity and lifespans of the population.
Perhaps, but drug companies pay their employees, taxes, rents and other expenses in the short run and they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders that cannot be breached simply because it would be altruistic or idealistic to do so.
If they can actually make the drugs cheaper, then the European economy saves money, especially if the proper duties are assessed, because the European people end up paying less for the drugs.
The duties would have to be quite high to make up for the research costs and thus the incentive to dodge the customs inspectors and sell into the Black Market would rise along with the duties. High enough taxes and tarifs turn even honest people into cheats.
Sweden doesn't lose anything if other countries use the results of their pharmaceutical research
They lose in the sense that the Swedish tax money that paid for the medical research could have been spent on other things, what economists call the Opportunity Cost. Suppose that we Americans "free ride" on this Swedish research so now we can enjoy the benefits of the research that you paid for AND spend our surplus tax money on other things. Remember also that by taxing the citizens you are forcing people to spend a portion of their incomes, and in Sweden that non-discretionary portion is quite large, on goods and services that, if left to their own devices, people might otherwise chose not to purchase or purchase in less quanity. Some taxes are necessary, of course, to fund those few things which the public needs, but which suffer from the aforementioned free rider problem. However, I am not convinced that medical research falls under that category.
Hmmmm...so if the Indian and Chinese pharma companies take the medical research that Europeans have paid for, create knock-off drugs, and sell them cheap in Europe to undercut the European pharma companies then you would be fine with that? The United States is not "out to get you" with our patent system, but it is surprising to that so many Europeans would be willing to simply pay more than the rest of the world for the same products (through higher taxes to support the research that everyone else is free riding and benefiting from). I am sure that the Chinese and Indians would be happy to have you pay for all the research so that they can knock-off your products for pennies on the dollar when the research actually turns up a useful new drug. Please forgive me for saying this, but your assertion that Europeans are willing to endure such obvious unfairness strains credibility.
The Eraser program is an excellent and free way to securely wipe your hardrives prior to sale of your computer in addition to providing everyday secure wiping services including secure file deletion, free space, and swap file wiping w/multiple overwrite pattern options. I have no financial interest in this company whatsoever, but I have found this program to be a useful addition to my toolbox so you may want to check it out.
So there would be no need to threaten third world countries with economic sanctions just because they try to do what they can to provide AIDS medicine to their own population.
How do you propose to solve the Free Rider Problem or do you mean to suggest that Swedish taxpayers should fund a disproportionate share of the worlds' medical research costs while giving away the fruits of that labor?
Classes in Java are just too static to entirely accomodate the more fluid Javascript object builder functions.
How about the Abstract Factory design pattern?
Using your fists on someone ... that I can see. The damage level is low
That depends upon your class and level. I have five levels in the monk class with the shadow warrior prestige class, +3 brass knuckles of the whale, and 18/00 strength, so technically I would deal 3d6 + 3 hit points of damage and with my improved dodge feat you would not be fast enough to parry my attacks of opportunity.
but if our words are to mean anything, we've got to appeal to higher standards
What? Slashdot appeal to a higher standard? What do you think this is Fox News? Surely you jest.
The US Government should tell the Chinese that we will start giving a damn about whether an Intel monopoly hurts their homegrown wireless industry when they start giving a damn about all the software piracy and intellectual property theft going on in their country.
I don't think that population size or density are particularly compelling arguments as to why the US is so far behind in phones.
What about the regulation angle? The archaic FCC rules and other state and local taxes on phone service surely must contribute, at least somewhat, to slower and less efficient outcomes in the cell service markets. The regulations and infrastructures in some of the better connected countries are less developed or non existant. It is easy to build a new system from stratch when you can start with a clean slate and unfettered by existing networks, technologies, and excess legal obligations. On the other hand, this can also lead to a wild west scenario where frequency interference and corruption rule the day. It is an interesting problem.
There is an idea (in the tech world at least) that there is the "right" way to do things, and all companies chase after that.
It is my opinion that there are three main factors driving this type of forced integration:
1. The engineers working for these companies enjoy finding the optimal solution for any problem, particularly one of a technical nature, and they assume that everyone else will either agree with them or at least appreciate the unseen hand that provides the "right" solution even if the general consuming public does not understand the details.
2. The marketing people love to hype new features so that they can generate "buzz" and gain exposure for the new phones because no marketer or salesperson wants to sell a low margin, boring, and unexciting (at least in their minds) product. It may also be a form of job protection since the marketer must generate more and higher margin sales in excess of his cost in salary in benefits or the company in question will eliminate his position. Thus, they want to convince you that you need features that you really don't want or that you want features that you really don't need.
3. If the cell phone companies can get as many people as possible to pay higher rates for the gadget phone then they can maximize their profits by selling higher margin features and services while at the same time driving down the manufacturing costs on the fancy phones through economies of scale. It is less profitable for them to offer more choices to the consumer so they prefer not to do it. Remember what Henry Ford said, "you can have any color you like as long as it is black."
You'd think that someone would try a different tack, offering something actually different that appeals to a different type of consumer, but in fact most companies merely copycat each other.
It is difficult for someone to try a different tack because the industry is structured as an oligopoly with significant financial barriers to entry for new firms. There is also the issue of almost perfect competition between the existing providers. There are few features that one firm can maintain, for long, as a comparative advantage over their competitors without pricing themselves out of the market so the winning strategy for each firm is to be as close to the competition as possible.
There's no reason for complex cell phones to go away, but there's no reason for simple ones to have gone away either.
They haven't gone away per se, but rather they have not kept pace in the style department with the gadget phones so if you want the candy bar/brick you can still get that, but if you want the sleek titanium GQ style phone then you have to pay for all the bells and whistles.
When I look at cars, there's a much wider margin of option. It's well understood that some people want a Lexus, some want a Ford Pickup, some a Prius, and some a Taurus. But even there people (not the companies) still argue about what is "best", which is a ridiculous concept.
Cars are major durable goods purchases wheras cell phones are mostly considered to be disposable or perhaps semi-durable at the high end. However, the point is well taken.
People just have too much an idea of "ultimate", and they feel they need to guard their preference by putting down and calling for the death of the other options. The way Mac, Windows, and Linux people bash each other. Who cares? Use what you like! And let there be more variety of companies and products out there!
There is a perception among consumers and businesses too that unless their preference is the majority or preferably the only format then their investment in a technology product is threatned. This goes back to the whole Betamax vs VHS format wars. Nobody wants to be stuck holding the bag with next Betamax when it comes to tech gadgets.
It can only be a loss if the person who copied the software would be a potential buyer. On the other hand, if a person gets used to a certain piece of software and finds out that the software is actually useful, then it is also likely the person would buy it.
It is a loss in the sense that they are using the product without permission from the owner/creator in violation of their property rights. Even if the person does end up buying the software, what about the time that they spent enjoying the software while the company had to wait for their money? An amount of money now is always worth more than an equal amount of money in the future and it is wrong to take what is in effect an interest free loan on the money while you make up your mind.
What is really annoying though, is when I have to pay for software I don't even want, like MS-windows.
Then don't use MS-Windows...its that simple. It is their property and their rules. If you don't like those rules then use something else...Linux comes to mind. You cannot disregard their property rights just because you dont like the terms under which they are licensed. Their creation, their rules.
So, in this case, Microsoft and the hardware manufacturers are stealing from me, as they do not allow me to buy computers without hard drives
They are not preventing you from ordering whatever parts you want and putting the machine together yourself or going to one of the many smaller third party businesses that will do this for you exactly to your specification. The question is price. If you want the savings of their package deal then you have to take it or leave it. If you want freedom of choice then you must be willing to pay for it. They are not stealing anything from you since nobody is forcing you to use Windows or buy their name brand computer. If you dont like what they offer then take your business elsewhere.
This has to be changed. The customer should have the choice!
If there is sufficient demand and you are willing to pay then the market will supply you with the change that you want. You may want choice but how much are you willing to pay for it? The manufacturers are not obligated to provide you with more choices just because you think you deserve them.
It is possible that I have misjudged the intentions of your post, but I hope that you will excuse me in this instance since the pirated copy != lost sale argument is frequently used here on Slashdot as a justification for the act of piracy and being a content creator myself, I have some rather strong feelings on this subject. I did not mean to suggest that you personally do these things and I apologize if it came out in that way, but please allow me to respond to some of your other points, if I may...
These companies are some of the wealthiest in the world, I have not seen a single case of any of these companies, not a single case where a software engineer was let go because of poor sales and lack of profitablity.
The amount of the loss is debatable, but is it reasonable to suppose that piracy has no impact on the software engineer? It is difficult to quantify unrealized gains, but neither can we say with certainty that there are none. As for companies being wealthy, does that mean that their property rights are any less valid?
One company has even had a judgement or two against it for how onerous its "terms" are
This is probably true, but as both you and I have said we chose not to use their product because we don't like their terms. It is unfortunate that the terms suck sometimes, the old "I am taking my ball and going home if you don't like those rules" reaction by some companies, but I cannot expect others to respect my rights if I don't respect theirs.
I'd consider (my opinion) this guilt money, considering how Gates has amassed his wealth.
The poor people who benefit are happy whether he gave the money out of goodness or guilt; it is all the same to them. As for Gates using it to promote Microsoft products with freebies...well he has a ways to go with meeting the basics before he can begin to do that. If he does eventually give them free computers with Microsoft software in order to "get them early" then you can chalk it up to his reward for helping them get that far with the basics.
The BSA is making claims about lost sales that really aren't, and getting leverage with this bogus saber rattling
The BSA is playing up their side and others are downplaying their arguments because that is how politics works. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. The BSA is not completely right but neither can it be proven that they are completely wrong.
But if every single piece of "pirated" software were somehow magically able to be taken from users today, the net result would not be additional revenue and sales, quite the opposite in fact could and would likely (in my opinion) occur.
Fair enough, you are entitled to your opinion, but people should consider the consequences of not paying for their software if the license does not make it freely available. The world is interconnected and my ability to pay my bills is contingent on my employer being able to pay me and their revenues are contingent upon people paying for the products and so on. I am not convinced that a reduction in piracy would NOT result in some more sales, but I suppose that on that point will we simply have to agree to disagree.
Parents pushing their kids into classes they ought not to be in, and the school being unable to stop them is the root of the problem
The solution to this dilemma is to introduce testing whereby students compete for a limited number of spots and are accepted by merit according to their abilities. No amount of parental whining or complaining can undo the effects of a poor examination score, but the schools lack the resources and the spine to fight off the lawyers of those parents with money to spend and an unwillingness to face the facts. You are quite correct in your other assessment concerning the unwillingness of the school system to spend resources, despite mandates, to promote bright students so long as there students struggling to meet the basic requirements. The less capable students end up sucking away resources that were marked for the further advancement of the most capable students, but just try and tell those parents that their kids are not as bright...they don't want to hear it and neither do the schools. My best advice to you, looking back on my own education through university and continuing into the real world, is to do your own enrichment work outside of the classroom to promote your own abilities. Remember that nobody, with the possible exception of your parents, cares as much or more about your own ultimate success as you do. You are wise to recognize that your school is not providing you with the best education that it possibly can, but you can respond by further educating yourself on your own time. You could do your own research and studies or take community college courses during the summer months. They will not fix the system in time to make any difference to you before you graduate from high school, but if you prepare yourself diligently and strive to achieve your full potential, in spite of your schools misguided policies, then you will succeed.
Only when teachers are accorded the same salary and respect -- and subject to the same rigorous standards -- as lawyers, doctors, and other trained professonals, will your hope be realized.
Ironically, the teachers are partly to blame for this with their aggressive unionization and staunch opposition to merit or skill based pay in favor of seniority and tenure. The problem is further aggravated by the unions making it nearly impossible to fire any teacher, however incompetent, short of criminal conviction for especially egregious conduct.
Actually those in the lower levels tended to fail over and over again. That created a major problem of over-population. So the lower levels received less teaching one-on-one (who also happened to need it the most) because of the immensive class sizes. Eventually the school would either expel these students or just give them a diploma. Making it possible for someone who can not even read to graduate high school.
This is why a high school diploma without further education has eroded in value over the past few decades and will continue doing so until we fix our educational system. The rest of the world spends MORE resources on the brightest and most promising students while sending the rest to trade school where they can learn to do something useful commensurate with their level of ability. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, not everyone is cut out to be an engineer, scientist, or business executive, but such things are anathema in this country. Instead we give useless diplomas to our children and lower the bar so that everyone can pass with such a low standard as to be utterly meaningless. The smart kids are not reaching their full potential and the less intelligent kids have no useful trade skills to go with their devalued high school diplomas. The rest of the world is laughing at us and smart students in Asian countries our kicking our butts in educational achievement and ultimately in the job market. There are too many people with too much invested both emotionally and ideologically in the current system to admit that our system is failing and more importantly WHY it is failing.
Failure to gain is not a loss.
It absolutely is a loss. Real assets including time, money, and capital equipment went into producing the pirated software that you are now enjoying. If you steal the software and the company gets no money then those real assets that were invested in the creation of the product are lost. The failure to realize revenue is still a loss, albeit not a complete one, because there is an opportunity cost to producing anything (i.e. we could have used the same money, plant, equipment to produce something else that would have generated more revenue). Stealing is stealing and no amount of hand wringing, rationalization, whining, or complaining justifies the act in the case of software piracy (you don't need software to survive).
The argument that, "each pirated copy is not a lost sale because they would not have bought it anyway" does nothing to refute the fact that the software, music, or other intellectual property was stolen. It may be true that each pirated copy does not represent a lost sale, but that is meaningless when the fact remains that for whatever reason people choose to use the product anyway against the wishes of the creator/owner of the intellectual property. I have spent many years in school and hard at work studying to learn my profession (i.e. software engineering) investing both time and money (i.e. real hard assets) to create something that others might find useful. When you steal intellectual property your are basically saying to the artist, engineer, or creator, "I don't like the terms that you have given to me to use your creation and I don't have any respect for your time and effort so I am going to use it anyway because I would rather have a few more dollars to spend on beer, gasoline, and food and I don't really care if you have money to spend on these things or not as a result of my stealing your work." You might counter, "But we aren't stealing from you, but the big evil corporation," but who do you think signs all of the paychecks in this world? There are many software engineers who are unemployed or underemployed because of this and it is not right. As for the people in the poor countries I can sympathize, but why not let the owners/creators of the intellectual property decide what and how much to give to the truly needy people in this world? Anyway, the majority of the poor people in this world have much more basic needs than a computer loaded with fancy software including getting enough to eat, clean water, electricity, vaccinations, education, and waste treatment. Why do you suppose that Bill Gates, arguably the most generous philanthropist of our time, is focusing on these types of basic needs instead of giving away PCs loaded with Microsoft software to people that have no power to run them anyway and whose family needs vaccinations, food, and clean water first?
With all of the information that most students blithely post on their blogs, including such things as their whereabouts at certain times and places, their friends, where they go to school, etc. It shouldn't be too difficult to trace any threatening remarks back to the people responsible given a few e-mails or phone calls from the right people (i.e. the authorities or the school administrators to the ISP or blog hosting site). It is difficult for me to understand why anyone would want to make themselves easier to track and impersonate in this world of terrorism, identity theft, and other assorted wierdos by making public the minutiae of their daily lives, but that is an entirely different discussion.