Ah yes, another post that basically says "if they switched away from my particular computer bias, they must be illiterate (or at least innumerate) idiots"
Maybe, just maybe there are smart people out there who have come to the not unreasonable conclusion that initial acquisition cost isnt the whole story.
You know, it's crazy giving cops tools like Microsoft Office or StarOffice in the first place. 99.99% of people who use word processors don't get past the part where you hit keys and watch text appear on the screen. Oh yeah, and open and save documents. That's all they ever do.
So, if I understand you correctly: yesterday, when they were using Star Office (officially), they were the paragons of forward thinking. Today, they are knuckle draggers who dont even need computers, probably, as most of them are probably illiterate anyway.
To suggest that a police force needs nothing more than a simple text editor is supreme arrogance. You have ZERO CLUE what you are talking about.
Whoever modded you "insightful" should be ashamed.
Tell me again by one website managed hosted on a 29.99 / month server wouldnt be enough to host all of the project gutenberg text downloads for the whole world?
For a bunch of supposedly "honest" computer people, so different from the "corrupt" lawyers and businesspeople always being bitched about here, this sure looks like an attempt to throw up some smokescreens to give bitTorrent the appearance of legitimacy. "Honest" people wouldn't have to resort to such actions, I would have thought.
Could you be any more arrogant? Just because your underinformed guesses and back of the envelope assumptions don't allow you to see the advance in this doesn't mean everybody doesn't. Why deny the creators a little right to bask in their accomplishment? Oh well.. forget it, actually. While they will rake in the money hand over fist from something that, well, THE MARKET considers important and novel, you will still be cobbling out php scripts at 38k per year.
i think you have really good intentions, but i also think your views are very naive.
this is how it really works:
nike goes to, say, indonesia, and offers a wage, say, $1 per hour. now, your indonesian person there is not forced to work for $1/hr. Rather, he has another OPTION. either he can work for $1/hr, or he can do whatever the heck he was doing before. if $1/hr is a better option, then he will take that option. if it is a worse option, then he will not take that option.
The point is that nike MUST make an offer to the workers of something BETTER than they had before OR THE WORKERS WILL NOT TAKE THE OPTION.
Even if $1/hr seems low to you and me in absolute terms, it is clear that the worker saw $1/hr as his best alternative. therefore, Nike is bringing MORE wealth into the region (not less) and creating MORE prosperity in the region than there was before, even if it is still quite small by our standards.
This is the fundamental theory of capitalism. Unless you address this and show that it is somehow wrong, then your 'argument' is nothing more than naive and under-informed, albeit well-intentioned, whining.
I agree. You're practically Gandhi, the way you enter into an agreement when you buy a product with a one year warranty, but your moral compass extends it to five or six for you. Actually, you're more like Gandhi and the founding fathers rolled into one, with a bit of mother theresa thrown in for good measure.
Some stores shaft me, I shaft them back. It's only fair.
That's some great personal ethics you have there.. basically helping yourself to an extended warranty. You are a common thief, nothing less, and deserve the same punishment as a shoplifer, as that is EXACTLY what you are doing. Your justifications are bullshit. It's time for you to decide whether you are an honest person, or a cockroach. So far, your actions have been that of a cockroach.
Exactly why does the headline mention Linux? This project could have been done on any operating system. It makes as much sense to mention linux here as it does the model keyboard they were using to type.
/ note to zealot moderators: this is as much a COMPLIMENT to linux as anything else.
If tomorrow there is a terrorist attack that the FBI failed to prevent because they were busy arresting some copyright violator, I'm going to be mighty pissed.
This is the single best slashdot troll I have ever seen. Bravo, sir.
the only way in which you could possible be right is if you make up your own definitions of "usability", which you have.
there's lots of research, both industry and academic, as to what constitutes usability. vi and the cli are the OPPOSITE of that. function != usability. good looks != usability. it's a complex metric that involves time to learn, amount of information that it takes to use compared with payoff, and so forth. vi especially is an absolute abortion on that scale.
and neither will this.
morse code = vi = cli
deal with it. usability and learnability MATTER, a fact that is only slowly sinking into the collective hacker subconscious.
Does Sony not realize that catering to the geek crowd could actually bolster sales and help with software development for the PSP?
Do you work for Sony? Do you know the actual sales drivers? Do you know anything about brand and product integrity issues? No? Well then STFU with your wild suppositions. I am sure that the people at Sony are not dumb, and they took all the factors into account and decided that this was not something they wanted to do. Vote with your dollars - take your money to another vendor or, if you see a new market opportunity, start your own damn company.
I've also made several benches, cars, and blades of grass that sing when the sun comes out here.
Which is to say never.
Today, I put on my SKI JUMPER at 12 noon for a short trip outside because it's cold and cloudy. At least it's not raining. Yet. In theory, this is June. In practice, this might pass for february.
In other Cambridge news, there was the recent environment-saving plan: just reduce trash collection frequency (with no corresponding decrease in council tax). This is why I throw my trash into the Cam at night.
there's very little that a butterknife can't do that actually requires a chainsaw.
however, the fact of the matter is that part of the 'do' is not just 'what gets done', but also 'how (easily) it gest done.'
i'm sorry - wine doesn't come close.
I will agree with you on the exact same day that we see the gratuitous microsoft bashing and linux rah-rahing likewise modded down. until then, my point is valid.
Whoever modded the parent post as a "troll" exemplefies the worst slashdot behaviour - "mod down those I disagree with", even though the parent poster made a very legitimate, albeit contentious point.
Most cost analysis studies show that Linux is cheaper in the long run not to mention more secure. The studies that indicate Windows to be cheaper are obviously biased.
If the price is not correspondingly reduced, it's a bad deal.
That's 100% the right attitude. The wrong (aka "typical slashdot idiot") attitude is "all DRM is evil." The right attitude is "i weigh the amount of DRM vs the price, and make a buying decision based on that."
Bravo for some (un)common on slashdot common sense.
Just so I'm understanding you correctly.. the whole concept of selling software via the internet and some form of product activation is ridiculous? Or the idea that slashdot can charge for "slashdot premium" or whatever the hell they call it by use of passwords and effectively managed rights is ridiculous? according to your, apparently "insightful" view, both of those are silly and should be abolished?
I buy a movie with an expiration date every time I go into the cinema. (D)"RM" consists of the guy who will at first politely and then forcefully tell you to put your damn video camera away.
The simple fact is that you ACCEPT RM in something as simple as going to the movies because you understand the economics of the exchange. That you can not somehow translate this basic idea into an equivalent exchange involving purely physical goods (rather than an 'experience') is sad.
I am sorry. Your answer is comedy. If you have an advanced degree from anywhere but mickey mouse college, it is a discredit to that institution.
The basic error that you make is believing that there are significant "IP-related" nuances to the problem. In reality, this is not an IP issue at all.
First, admit to me the simple fact that we were talking about movies here, where the use of public airways is a non-issue. You seem to have changed this into a discussion of music and/or TV, but your arguments are nevertheless bullshit.
Yes, clear channel (for example), has access to a large number of ears. but very simple analysis will show that they in fact own a very reasonable fraction of the total number of stations. this is clearly a failure of any competition to organize itself effectively.
actually... I was going to write a long reply, but I figure now what's the point. You are completely full of shit. You have no degrees. You are a slashdot idiot. Anybody with any real training in economics would not have gone off on irrelevancies and conspiracybabbly as you have. Piss off.
A product is not "worth" exactly how much somebody is willing to pay for it. A product can be priced at that value - but any product is worth something different to any given individual.
Amazing. Self Contadiction in only. two sentences. Bravo.
The rest of your sentiments about prices moving slowly in response to demand changes is nonsense. Meanwhile, you think that DVDs are overpriced, and you base this on your notion that there is a grand conspiracy at work.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe, just maybe there are smart people out there who have come to the not unreasonable conclusion that initial acquisition cost isnt the whole story.
So, if I understand you correctly: yesterday, when they were using Star Office (officially), they were the paragons of forward thinking. Today, they are knuckle draggers who dont even need computers, probably, as most of them are probably illiterate anyway.
To suggest that a police force needs nothing more than a simple text editor is supreme arrogance. You have ZERO CLUE what you are talking about.
Whoever modded you "insightful" should be ashamed.
Tell me again by one website managed hosted on a 29.99 / month server wouldnt be enough to host all of the project gutenberg text downloads for the whole world?
For a bunch of supposedly "honest" computer people, so different from the "corrupt" lawyers and businesspeople always being bitched about here, this sure looks like an attempt to throw up some smokescreens to give bitTorrent the appearance of legitimacy. "Honest" people wouldn't have to resort to such actions, I would have thought.
Could you be any more arrogant? Just because your underinformed guesses and back of the envelope assumptions don't allow you to see the advance in this doesn't mean everybody doesn't. Why deny the creators a little right to bask in their accomplishment? Oh well.. forget it, actually. While they will rake in the money hand over fist from something that, well, THE MARKET considers important and novel, you will still be cobbling out php scripts at 38k per year.
this is how it really works:
nike goes to, say, indonesia, and offers a wage, say, $1 per hour. now, your indonesian person there is not forced to work for $1/hr. Rather, he has another OPTION. either he can work for $1/hr, or he can do whatever the heck he was doing before. if $1/hr is a better option, then he will take that option. if it is a worse option, then he will not take that option.
The point is that nike MUST make an offer to the workers of something BETTER than they had before OR THE WORKERS WILL NOT TAKE THE OPTION.
Even if $1/hr seems low to you and me in absolute terms, it is clear that the worker saw $1/hr as his best alternative. therefore, Nike is bringing MORE wealth into the region (not less) and creating MORE prosperity in the region than there was before, even if it is still quite small by our standards.
This is the fundamental theory of capitalism. Unless you address this and show that it is somehow wrong, then your 'argument' is nothing more than naive and under-informed, albeit well-intentioned, whining.
You absolute wanker.
If my PS2 breaks through no fault of my own, I'll do the old walmart switch-e-roo and get myself a new one.
is not stealing.
That's some great personal ethics you have there.. basically helping yourself to an extended warranty. You are a common thief, nothing less, and deserve the same punishment as a shoplifer, as that is EXACTLY what you are doing. Your justifications are bullshit. It's time for you to decide whether you are an honest person, or a cockroach. So far, your actions have been that of a cockroach.
/ note to zealot moderators: this is as much a COMPLIMENT to linux as anything else.
This is the single best slashdot troll I have ever seen. Bravo, sir.
there's lots of research, both industry and academic, as to what constitutes usability. vi and the cli are the OPPOSITE of that. function != usability. good looks != usability. it's a complex metric that involves time to learn, amount of information that it takes to use compared with payoff, and so forth. vi especially is an absolute abortion on that scale.
and neither will this. morse code = vi = cli deal with it. usability and learnability MATTER, a fact that is only slowly sinking into the collective hacker subconscious.
Do you work for Sony? Do you know the actual sales drivers? Do you know anything about brand and product integrity issues? No? Well then STFU with your wild suppositions. I am sure that the people at Sony are not dumb, and they took all the factors into account and decided that this was not something they wanted to do. Vote with your dollars - take your money to another vendor or, if you see a new market opportunity, start your own damn company.
Which is to say never.
Today, I put on my SKI JUMPER at 12 noon for a short trip outside because it's cold and cloudy. At least it's not raining. Yet. In theory, this is June. In practice, this might pass for february.
In other Cambridge news, there was the recent environment-saving plan: just reduce trash collection frequency (with no corresponding decrease in council tax). This is why I throw my trash into the Cam at night.
there's very little that a butterknife can't do that actually requires a chainsaw. however, the fact of the matter is that part of the 'do' is not just 'what gets done', but also 'how (easily) it gest done.' i'm sorry - wine doesn't come close.
I will agree with you on the exact same day that we see the gratuitous microsoft bashing and linux rah-rahing likewise modded down. until then, my point is valid.
Whoever modded the parent post as a "troll" exemplefies the worst slashdot behaviour - "mod down those I disagree with", even though the parent poster made a very legitimate, albeit contentious point.
Mod up, insightful. Certainly more insightful than the gratuitous MS bashing that seems to be the norm for the other "insightful" threads here.
"now there's an unbiasted statement!"
That's 100% the right attitude. The wrong (aka "typical slashdot idiot") attitude is "all DRM is evil." The right attitude is "i weigh the amount of DRM vs the price, and make a buying decision based on that."
Bravo for some (un)common on slashdot common sense.
Have you ever rented a movie before, or is that the spawn of satan, too?
Just so I'm understanding you correctly.. the whole concept of selling software via the internet and some form of product activation is ridiculous? Or the idea that slashdot can charge for "slashdot premium" or whatever the hell they call it by use of passwords and effectively managed rights is ridiculous? according to your, apparently "insightful" view, both of those are silly and should be abolished?
I buy a movie with an expiration date every time I go into the cinema. (D)"RM" consists of the guy who will at first politely and then forcefully tell you to put your damn video camera away.
The simple fact is that you ACCEPT RM in something as simple as going to the movies because you understand the economics of the exchange. That you can not somehow translate this basic idea into an equivalent exchange involving purely physical goods (rather than an 'experience') is sad.
The basic error that you make is believing that there are significant "IP-related" nuances to the problem. In reality, this is not an IP issue at all.
First, admit to me the simple fact that we were talking about movies here, where the use of public airways is a non-issue. You seem to have changed this into a discussion of music and/or TV, but your arguments are nevertheless bullshit.
Yes, clear channel (for example), has access to a large number of ears. but very simple analysis will show that they in fact own a very reasonable fraction of the total number of stations. this is clearly a failure of any competition to organize itself effectively.
actually... I was going to write a long reply, but I figure now what's the point. You are completely full of shit. You have no degrees. You are a slashdot idiot. Anybody with any real training in economics would not have gone off on irrelevancies and conspiracybabbly as you have. Piss off.
A product is not "worth" exactly how much somebody is willing to pay for it. A product can be priced at that value - but any product is worth something different to any given individual.
Amazing. Self Contadiction in only. two sentences. Bravo.
The rest of your sentiments about prices moving slowly in response to demand changes is nonsense. Meanwhile, you think that DVDs are overpriced, and you base this on your notion that there is a grand conspiracy at work.
Go back to playing video games.