it's a similar statistical argument for lowering taxes. there is a curve, and somewhere on that curve, is the 'maximum' income (for record companies in this case, for the government in the other case). if the labels charged $100 for CDs, they would sell hardly any. if the government taxed 100%, hardly anyone would file a second time (everyone would have 0 dollars). if the labels charged $0, they would obviously be out of business. if the government taxed 0% it might find itself with millions of starving, diseased citizens.
but somewhere on the curve is a bump - probably around $9.99 or so, but that is just a guess of course - where the labels would be selling so MANY damn CDs the money would be pouring in. likewise somewhere on the tax curve - probably around 19% or so, but that's just listening to economists - where income is maximized to the government.
why doesn't anyone pay any attention to economical fact, statistical fact?
there was a poll not too long ago which asked high school football players what they believed they would be doing. ALMOST ALL of them said they believed they would be playing in the NFL. even though, statistically speaking, ALMOST NONE of them would be.
"statistics are for somebody else. not me. i can't be a statistic."
it's not about having a monopoly on a PLATFORM, it's about having a monopoly in an INDUSTRY, such as the desktop OS industry, and abusing that position to harm competition in OTHER industries.
The bombs worked to end a war that had killed millions, with only a couple hundred thousand casualities.
it also was the single worst attack by the United States against a civilian target. in terms of numbers, i don't know how it stacks up with the genocide and displacement of Native American populations, and not meaning to diminish the evil of those and other acts, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki rank up there with the worst single acts of human history.
the bombs should have been more militarily targeted, that is a fact which almost no sane person nowadays argues with. yes, the bombs ended the war, pretty definitively. but also, yes, thousands of civilians were killed in a very, very short amount of time to accomplish that goal.
No matter how you frame it, the consumer has the ultimate choice in the matter...to buy or not to buy. If the majority of consumers cared about this, they'd change their buying habits.
at the danger of being accused of being 'dismissive', and of feeding a troll..
have you even looked up the definition of a monopoly? exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action. basically that means the monopolist has such leverage in the market, individuals no longer CAN choose an alternative. that is the point.
Antitrust laws are unobjective and arbitrary, punishing successful companies for the "crime" of being better than their competitors.
Far from it. It is fine if Microsoft is so much better than their competitors that they control most of the desktop operating system market. That is fine and good, a monopoly is not in and of itself an evil thing. But, if a monopoly uses that monopoly position to: (1) artificially inflate prices of a necessity (such as a desktop OS); (2) tie their products in other markets to their monopoly position in the desktop OS market (such as a web browser); or (3) use illegal 'blocking' means to prevent and/or stifle competition (such as agreements with computer vendors to bundle Windows and only Windows or pay the consequences).
note that i'm not trying to 'dismiss' you, just point out that maybe you don't realise that people do NOT have the choices you claim they do.
because students use the service themselves FIRST and then change their paper until it passes. that way when it gets to the professor it won't bring up all the hits it should.
the difference between "Rip, Mix, Burn" and "Download, Burn."
well, that would be no difference. where it would get interesting would be if Apple's Ad campaign were "Steal, Burn", or "Pirate, Burn", or some such thing. i can go to MP3.com or any number of sites and either download free music or buy and download music.
micropayment could be okay, i would rather it be like any other subscription, you pay a monthly fee, get the information, you can read the same page over and over again if you want. limiting how many times i can hit reload? try limiting how many times i can read the newspaper, after i buy it.
i wrote my ISP about this, and got the following reply to my concerns:
This bill, if passed, would only apply to new ISPs, not existing ISPs. ISPName would not be affected.
Even so, it it our opinion that the bill will never pass both houses anyway.
So it seems that they at least interpret the bill as applying to new ISPs, not existing ones such as Covad, and ISPName (my ISP). What do you guys think about that interpretation?
Also, what about the optimism that 'the bill will never pass both houses anyway'? Should I be more worried than my ISP suggests?
i would want to know if my water company was going to upgrade some pipes, and charge me for it. oh wait, i think i agreed with you, microsoft IS more like a utility company.
how many people have choices in water companies?
how many people have choices in electric companies?
how many people have choices for local phone service?
how many people have choices for the OS on their new computer?
how is this different from, say, demanding the plans to the Ford Explorer to verify Ford's claims that it was the fault of the Firestone tires for all the rollovers?
Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 11.7).Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 11.7).Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 11.7).
-rp
how about windows! here i sit, this monster 128 MB professional graphics card in front of me, with no Direct3D drivers, and i am running windows (product support has no plans of writing one either). killer opengl support, though. i've been dying to be able to play games at work. this wrapper should allow that.
a nice Linux book which covers administering OpenLDAP would be great. and please, dead tree, dead tree. when the server is down, you need a dead tree to read. when the server is up, you don't need a book.
um... if it is an open source program, why are you that concerned about who is seeing the data flow? or are you talking about 'someone breaking into my system' level security concerns? and obviously it is faster, and much more scalable, if the server doesn't have to encrypt every file as it sends it.
-rp
and the best thing about a robot bartender...
on
Berlin's Robotic Pub
·
· Score: 1, Funny
wow. you mean Windows NT never ran on PowerPC? are you sure?
i guess all those people with the IBM Carolina PowerPC systems bought them so they could run Linux...
or check out this page which details what architectures windows NT versions have supported. quick surprise, PowerPC is among them, both for NT 3.51 and NT 4.0.
Slashdot Mirror
it's a similar statistical argument for lowering taxes. there is a curve, and somewhere on that curve, is the 'maximum' income (for record companies in this case, for the government in the other case). if the labels charged $100 for CDs, they would sell hardly any. if the government taxed 100%, hardly anyone would file a second time (everyone would have 0 dollars). if the labels charged $0, they would obviously be out of business. if the government taxed 0% it might find itself with millions of starving, diseased citizens.
but somewhere on the curve is a bump - probably around $9.99 or so, but that is just a guess of course - where the labels would be selling so MANY damn CDs the money would be pouring in. likewise somewhere on the tax curve - probably around 19% or so, but that's just listening to economists - where income is maximized to the government.
why doesn't anyone pay any attention to economical fact, statistical fact?
-rp
ps - there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
there was a poll not too long ago which asked high school football players what they believed they would be doing. ALMOST ALL of them said they believed they would be playing in the NFL. even though, statistically speaking, ALMOST NONE of them would be.
"statistics are for somebody else. not me. i can't be a statistic."
-rp
you bastard, please put a SPOILER tag in your post so you don't RUIN the movies for everybody.
-rp
at my place of employment we have a large P2P network to share documents, search for drivers, tips, etc. it is based on gnutella.
non-infringing enough for you?
there are over 50,000 people using it.
substantial enough for you?
-rp
it's not about having a monopoly on a PLATFORM, it's about having a monopoly in an INDUSTRY, such as the desktop OS industry, and abusing that position to harm competition in OTHER industries.
-rp
The bombs worked to end a war that had killed millions, with only a couple hundred thousand casualities.
it also was the single worst attack by the United States against a civilian target. in terms of numbers, i don't know how it stacks up with the genocide and displacement of Native American populations, and not meaning to diminish the evil of those and other acts, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki rank up there with the worst single acts of human history.
the bombs should have been more militarily targeted, that is a fact which almost no sane person nowadays argues with. yes, the bombs ended the war, pretty definitively. but also, yes, thousands of civilians were killed in a very, very short amount of time to accomplish that goal.
-rp
No matter how you frame it, the consumer has the ultimate choice in the matter...to buy or not to buy. If the majority of consumers cared about this, they'd change their buying habits.
at the danger of being accused of being 'dismissive', and of feeding a troll..
have you even looked up the definition of a monopoly? exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action. basically that means the monopolist has such leverage in the market, individuals no longer CAN choose an alternative. that is the point.
Antitrust laws are unobjective and arbitrary, punishing successful companies for the "crime" of being better than their competitors.
Far from it. It is fine if Microsoft is so much better than their competitors that they control most of the desktop operating system market. That is fine and good, a monopoly is not in and of itself an evil thing. But, if a monopoly uses that monopoly position to: (1) artificially inflate prices of a necessity (such as a desktop OS); (2) tie their products in other markets to their monopoly position in the desktop OS market (such as a web browser); or (3) use illegal 'blocking' means to prevent and/or stifle competition (such as agreements with computer vendors to bundle Windows and only Windows or pay the consequences).
note that i'm not trying to 'dismiss' you, just point out that maybe you don't realise that people do NOT have the choices you claim they do.
-rp
Spider Sun and never find a single page in common with their close competitors like IBM.
i guess this page doesn't list a bunch of Sun competitors, like IBM, BEA, and CA, then. even competitors thrive off of partering with each other.
-rp
because students use the service themselves FIRST and then change their paper until it passes. that way when it gets to the professor it won't bring up all the hits it should.
-rp
well, that would be no difference. where it would get interesting would be if Apple's Ad campaign were "Steal, Burn", or "Pirate, Burn", or some such thing. i can go to MP3.com or any number of sites and either download free music or buy and download music.
-rp
micropayment could be okay, i would rather it be like any other subscription, you pay a monthly fee, get the information, you can read the same page over and over again if you want. limiting how many times i can hit reload? try limiting how many times i can read the newspaper, after i buy it.
-rp
So it seems that they at least interpret the bill as applying to new ISPs, not existing ones such as Covad, and ISPName (my ISP). What do you guys think about that interpretation?
Also, what about the optimism that 'the bill will never pass both houses anyway'? Should I be more worried than my ISP suggests?
-rp
apple provides a distribution of Darwin which you can install and boot.
-rp
ps - lucky you, water for free and choices in power and phone companies. no such luck for most americans, at least.
i would want to know if my water company was going to upgrade some pipes, and charge me for it. oh wait, i think i agreed with you, microsoft IS more like a utility company.
how many people have choices in water companies?
how many people have choices in electric companies?
how many people have choices for local phone service?
how many people have choices for the OS on their new computer?
-rp
because the corporate headquarters for apple is located at the street address '1 infinite loop' ?
-rp
Wildcat, same here. too bad they won't either write a Direct3D driver or release detailed specs. and yes, anything openGL looks GREAT on the card.
-rp
how is this different from, say, demanding the plans to the Ford Explorer to verify Ford's claims that it was the fault of the Firestone tires for all the rollovers?
-rp
check it out:
I think you're right
Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 11.7).Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 11.7).Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 11.7).
-rp
duhh....
MS-NBC
-rp
how about windows! here i sit, this monster 128 MB professional graphics card in front of me, with no Direct3D drivers, and i am running windows (product support has no plans of writing one either). killer opengl support, though. i've been dying to be able to play games at work. this wrapper should allow that.
-rp
I would like to see a book on some of the Jakarta projects, specifically: Ant, Velocity, and Turbine.
also a book about JUnit, especially if you can tie it in with Ant, etc, using real examples of setting it all up.
and again, dead tree, please, until that whole 'digital paper' thing pans out.
-rp
a nice Linux book which covers administering OpenLDAP would be great. and please, dead tree, dead tree. when the server is down, you need a dead tree to read. when the server is up, you don't need a book.
-rp
um... if it is an open source program, why are you that concerned about who is seeing the data flow? or are you talking about 'someone breaking into my system' level security concerns? and obviously it is faster, and much more scalable, if the server doesn't have to encrypt every file as it sends it.
-rp
... you don't have to leave a tip.
-rp
wow. you mean Windows NT never ran on PowerPC? are you sure?
i guess all those people with the IBM Carolina PowerPC systems bought them so they could run Linux...
or check out this page which details what architectures windows NT versions have supported. quick surprise, PowerPC is among them, both for NT 3.51 and NT 4.0.
who is full of what?
-rp