To say less than a year, I'm sure the RIAA would pressure goverment to make sure that all other CDs are illegal to buy and sell.
On a serious note, if it could become with volume only 1.2x the cost, the goverment should write legislation to require the use of this type of disk. Biodegradeable is much better.
I'm guessing this has already been said, but...
Instead of focusing on just the spammers themselves, why not target the companies or individuals that from time to time benefit from the spam.
I'm assuming there must be some way to track those people receiving money for viagra, enlargements, etc.
At least OSX looks different than windows. Why bother installing different that looks similar at a loss of productivity. I've used star office and open office and they are at least 8 years behind ms office in terms of functionality.
Related to this blatant copy of microsoft's look in office, I'm surprized if there isn't some type of patent lawsuit filed against sun. After all, microsoft did spend millions in usability testing and research etc. How can it be legal for someone to come in and copy the result without paying something.
People say it's better because it's free etc. But if people don't pay money for a microsoft upgrade, well then that's free too. Plus they'd probably need to wait about 10 years before the "free office" packages have all the features they have with their current version of office.
I've used linux many times over the years and while it is great on the server end of things, I'll be extremely surprized if they ever grow beyond geek desktop penetration in north america.
If all the users of the world used linux and this bug came out, it would probably remain unpached until they installed a new version of the OS because linux isn't user friendly enough.
All of the virus/worm proliferation would be just as bad out there if the average jo computer user was using linux.
I know Japan has 100mb fiber to the home service around $60 per month. They also have some fancy disney services available for their customers as well.
"It's a big country, and it's hard to wire it all."
Ya a country as rich as the USA is having a harder time wiring it's country than Canada has with a far greater land area.
That's a bit like saying we should take the right of American's to fly, because they use aircraft to bomb and destroy more than any other country.
Also, I'll bet the people creating and benefitting from the said spam are located in the USA.
1. Price
The price of broadband in Japan is very cheap compared to the USA. You can get 26MB DSL including voice over IP for about $40 per month.
2. Marketing
You can't go into a local electronics store in Japan without being bombarded by advertising and sales agents trying to get you to sign up for DSL.
On a separate note, the words I read here often defending the USA's lack of leadership in the area of broadband, to me represent a complete ignorance of world geography and population density.
Korea:
Population: 48 million
Land area: 98,480 sq km
People/squarekm: 487
Sweden:
Population 9 million
Land area: 449,964 sq km
People/squarekm: 20
USA:
Population: 290 million
Land area: 9,629,091 sq km
People/squarekm: 30.1
Canada:
Population: 32 million
Land area: 9,976,140 sq km
People/squarekm: 3.2
The issue is not population density contrary to what some folks believe. The east coast of the USA has a high population density, but I would say their broadband isn't that great.
Also, people say the Canada's population is dense, being close to the US border etc. This is overstated. Even if the majority of the population is within 50 miles of the US border, the US Canada border is HUGE!! This doesn't even account for the fact that even in many small towns that aren't close to the border in Canada have better broadband cost and performance than in the USA. And what about sweden where you can get cheap broadband at 20mbps as well.
I don't know why some here seem to be such staunch defenders of US broadband providers.
I completely agree with you: this will not benefit the the US economy in the least bit.
I think this is typical thinking for the business minds of America to ignore the long term, while focusing only on the bottom line for the current quarter. After all, they'll get a nice big fat bonus and they get nothing for solid long term planning.
The only way they will change is through legislation and the only way legislation is written is to pad the pockets of the your representatives.
Form an association, make them non-profitable and tax deductable and funnel all the money you can into an effective political lobby. Keep in mind your lobby will face a strong uphill battle against the lobbyists of these corporations who want to maximize profits in the current quarter.
You will need to form an association of IT people in the USA and hire some great lobbyists to encourage politicians that it is in the best interest of America to institute tarriffs on companies using outsourced labour rather than US IT association labor.
Furthermore, it is my belief that these tarriffs should never be removed until the quality of living and wages in these developing countries are at the same level as the USA.
Countries like Singapore and India are dumping cheap labour on the US market.How is this any different from a country using their lack of environmental and labor regulations to dump cheap steel or anything else in America that is met with Tarriffs.
DVD's in Japan typically come out months later than in the USA and cost about 2x as much.
As for wanting to copy DVD's etc, if a DVD is really packed with content it just isn't worth the time.
It's not as easy or fast to copy DVD's as it is to copy CDs. It takes 4 hours+ to rip a DVD plus DVD costs. Why do it if you can get commercial dvd's, save time and get pretty packaging for $15 bucks.
Also XVID, DIVX are not the same as MPEG2 in quality.
We'd have even more people giving up on computers than we do already, because they are not intuitive enough.
We would have just as many worms etc spreading around the world as we do with windows, because people wouldn't be knowledgeable enough to do things like turn off unneeded services or update software.
Not to mention, the majority of users would probably do everything as a root user with a blank password all the time:)
Windows has it's problems, but the continually make efforts to make things easier for the end user, sometimes, to the detriment of security. They could have made things more secure and harder to use and lost a lot of customers in the process.
At the end of the day, would this area have new technology if Microsoft didn't step up to the plate. I don't see the open source community setting up a philanthropy fund to give network connections and new computers to any schools.
You need to make money before you're able to ever give away money.
1. At least microsoft and bill gates actually try to do things that are positive in the world. When is the last time we heard of the other Billionaires out there like Ellison giving away millions and billions to different causes. There might be alterior motives involved of course, but at least there are some positives that can come from this.
2. It takes money to give money and make a real positive contribution in your community. How many of the free software people have money to actually help out to fund hospitals and give money to those needing costly medications in africa for example.
Some of you will bitch at microsoft even when they do positive things, I just can't understand you. Get out of your parents house, make some money, and make a difference. Spending hours on the new kde enhancement isn't going to make much of a difference in the world.
They are the size of cigarette lighters I think because the original target market for them is multimedia cell phones. Not everyone in the world is happy with american brick sized, feature lacking cell phones;)
Re:DVD-RAM/HDD combo is a much better way to go
on
Rabid TiVo Fanaticism
·
· Score: 2, Informative
http://panasonic.jp/dvd/recorder/e90h/spec/01.html
or
http://www.rd-style.com/products/rdxs40/
DVD-RAM/HDD combo is a much better way to go
on
Rabid TiVo Fanaticism
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Combine a 120GB HD and a DVD recorder capable of recording DVD-RAM and DVD-R and you have all you'll ever need.
There are tons of models that combine DVD and HDD here in japan.
Lately, I've been asking myself, why does everyone expect the software industry to give everything away for free and open source all the time and other industries rarely if ever do?
Has there ever been pharmaceuticals released open source or something similar?
I know you can't really hack out new drugs when you come home from work like you could with code, but still, some companies in the software world find ways to release their work as public domain, so why can't the pharmaceutical industry?
I can't help thinking that us developers are simply suckers. We give away for free what most other sane people would make money from.
Are software developers merely like employees in the Ferrengi Rules of Aquisition? "Employees are merely rungs on the ladder of success, never hesitate to step on them to get ahead"
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To say less than a year, I'm sure the RIAA would pressure goverment to make sure that all other CDs are illegal to buy and sell. On a serious note, if it could become with volume only 1.2x the cost, the goverment should write legislation to require the use of this type of disk. Biodegradeable is much better.
I'm guessing this has already been said, but... Instead of focusing on just the spammers themselves, why not target the companies or individuals that from time to time benefit from the spam. I'm assuming there must be some way to track those people receiving money for viagra, enlargements, etc.
At least OSX looks different than windows. Why bother installing different that looks similar at a loss of productivity. I've used star office and open office and they are at least 8 years behind ms office in terms of functionality. Related to this blatant copy of microsoft's look in office, I'm surprized if there isn't some type of patent lawsuit filed against sun. After all, microsoft did spend millions in usability testing and research etc. How can it be legal for someone to come in and copy the result without paying something. People say it's better because it's free etc. But if people don't pay money for a microsoft upgrade, well then that's free too. Plus they'd probably need to wait about 10 years before the "free office" packages have all the features they have with their current version of office. I've used linux many times over the years and while it is great on the server end of things, I'll be extremely surprized if they ever grow beyond geek desktop penetration in north america.
If all the users of the world used linux and this bug came out, it would probably remain unpached until they installed a new version of the OS because linux isn't user friendly enough. All of the virus/worm proliferation would be just as bad out there if the average jo computer user was using linux.
I know Japan has 100mb fiber to the home service around $60 per month. They also have some fancy disney services available for their customers as well.
"It's a big country, and it's hard to wire it all." Ya a country as rich as the USA is having a harder time wiring it's country than Canada has with a far greater land area.
That's a bit like saying we should take the right of American's to fly, because they use aircraft to bomb and destroy more than any other country. Also, I'll bet the people creating and benefitting from the said spam are located in the USA.
1. Price The price of broadband in Japan is very cheap compared to the USA. You can get 26MB DSL including voice over IP for about $40 per month. 2. Marketing You can't go into a local electronics store in Japan without being bombarded by advertising and sales agents trying to get you to sign up for DSL. On a separate note, the words I read here often defending the USA's lack of leadership in the area of broadband, to me represent a complete ignorance of world geography and population density. Korea: Population: 48 million Land area: 98,480 sq km People/squarekm: 487 Sweden: Population 9 million Land area: 449,964 sq km People/squarekm: 20 USA: Population: 290 million Land area: 9,629,091 sq km People/squarekm: 30.1 Canada: Population: 32 million Land area: 9,976,140 sq km People/squarekm: 3.2 The issue is not population density contrary to what some folks believe. The east coast of the USA has a high population density, but I would say their broadband isn't that great. Also, people say the Canada's population is dense, being close to the US border etc. This is overstated. Even if the majority of the population is within 50 miles of the US border, the US Canada border is HUGE!! This doesn't even account for the fact that even in many small towns that aren't close to the border in Canada have better broadband cost and performance than in the USA. And what about sweden where you can get cheap broadband at 20mbps as well. I don't know why some here seem to be such staunch defenders of US broadband providers.
I completely agree with you: this will not benefit the the US economy in the least bit. I think this is typical thinking for the business minds of America to ignore the long term, while focusing only on the bottom line for the current quarter. After all, they'll get a nice big fat bonus and they get nothing for solid long term planning. The only way they will change is through legislation and the only way legislation is written is to pad the pockets of the your representatives. Form an association, make them non-profitable and tax deductable and funnel all the money you can into an effective political lobby. Keep in mind your lobby will face a strong uphill battle against the lobbyists of these corporations who want to maximize profits in the current quarter.
You will need to form an association of IT people in the USA and hire some great lobbyists to encourage politicians that it is in the best interest of America to institute tarriffs on companies using outsourced labour rather than US IT association labor. Furthermore, it is my belief that these tarriffs should never be removed until the quality of living and wages in these developing countries are at the same level as the USA. Countries like Singapore and India are dumping cheap labour on the US market.How is this any different from a country using their lack of environmental and labor regulations to dump cheap steel or anything else in America that is met with Tarriffs.
DVD's in Japan typically come out months later than in the USA and cost about 2x as much. As for wanting to copy DVD's etc, if a DVD is really packed with content it just isn't worth the time. It's not as easy or fast to copy DVD's as it is to copy CDs. It takes 4 hours+ to rip a DVD plus DVD costs. Why do it if you can get commercial dvd's, save time and get pretty packaging for $15 bucks. Also XVID, DIVX are not the same as MPEG2 in quality.
We'd have even more people giving up on computers than we do already, because they are not intuitive enough. We would have just as many worms etc spreading around the world as we do with windows, because people wouldn't be knowledgeable enough to do things like turn off unneeded services or update software. Not to mention, the majority of users would probably do everything as a root user with a blank password all the time:) Windows has it's problems, but the continually make efforts to make things easier for the end user, sometimes, to the detriment of security. They could have made things more secure and harder to use and lost a lot of customers in the process.
At the end of the day, would this area have new technology if Microsoft didn't step up to the plate. I don't see the open source community setting up a philanthropy fund to give network connections and new computers to any schools. You need to make money before you're able to ever give away money.
1. At least microsoft and bill gates actually try to do things that are positive in the world. When is the last time we heard of the other Billionaires out there like Ellison giving away millions and billions to different causes. There might be alterior motives involved of course, but at least there are some positives that can come from this. 2. It takes money to give money and make a real positive contribution in your community. How many of the free software people have money to actually help out to fund hospitals and give money to those needing costly medications in africa for example. Some of you will bitch at microsoft even when they do positive things, I just can't understand you. Get out of your parents house, make some money, and make a difference. Spending hours on the new kde enhancement isn't going to make much of a difference in the world.
They are the size of cigarette lighters I think because the original target market for them is multimedia cell phones. Not everyone in the world is happy with american brick sized, feature lacking cell phones;)
http://panasonic.jp/dvd/recorder/e90h/spec/01.html
or
http://www.rd-style.com/products/rdxs40/
Combine a 120GB HD and a DVD recorder capable of recording DVD-RAM and DVD-R and you have all you'll ever need. There are tons of models that combine DVD and HDD here in japan.
Lately, I've been asking myself, why does everyone expect the software industry to give everything away for free and open source all the time and other industries rarely if ever do? Has there ever been pharmaceuticals released open source or something similar? I know you can't really hack out new drugs when you come home from work like you could with code, but still, some companies in the software world find ways to release their work as public domain, so why can't the pharmaceutical industry? I can't help thinking that us developers are simply suckers. We give away for free what most other sane people would make money from. Are software developers merely like employees in the Ferrengi Rules of Aquisition? "Employees are merely rungs on the ladder of success, never hesitate to step on them to get ahead"
The date they arrived at has nothing to do with carbon dating. It has to do with the known times of the ice age. The ice age was about 6000 years ago.