"...even though no one can really argue that an iTunes or iTunes Plus encoding is as good as a CD..."
256kbps AAC? It's damned close. Besides, if you're walking around listening to music on an iPod or in a car ambient noise will pretty much kill any perceived differences in quality.
Net neutrality is about treating all of the bytes and protocols the same. Caps and pay-per-use are different animals entirely.
And personally, I think ISPs should be able to shape traffic so that video streaming and VIOP have priority over email and http, which in turn is handled before unanttended background crap like torrents are delivered.
To quote: "But as wind energy developers move into wilder areas along the gorge's ridge lines, near canyons and amid shrub-covered rangeland, the potential for conflict rises. If bird studies confirm the fears of Oregon and Washington state wildlife biologists, the green-minded Northwest might be forced to weigh its pursuit of pollution-free energy against the toll on raptors and other birds."
I'm not against actual environmental studies on side effects. We need to determine actual cost/benefit ratios, and rationally decide if we want to pay the price. The problem comes when ANY side effect at all is deemed unaceptable, in which case the study is simply a proxy used by the irrational to block the "undesirable" project.
Look at nuclear power. In France it provides 80% of the countries power. Here in the US every possible "study" is done to delay the project until it becomes economically unfeasible to continue and is dropped.
And the parent comment is NOT a troll. The environmentalists will say we don't understand the effects of transmitting concentrated high-power microwave beams from space down through the upper atmosphere to the earth's surface.
Will it affect migrating birds? Plants and wildlife in the area? Disrupt weather patterns? Cause unforeseen chemical reactions in the upper atmosphere?
And the sad part is that they're right. We probably don't know all of the consequences...
"Yeah, because Greenpeace wants you to burn petrol and coal so much."
Actually, they don't want us to burn oil or gas or coal. Nor do they want us to use nuclear power, dam rivers, disrupt offshore ecologies with tidal power systems, dig for geothermal, or even errect bird-slaughtering wind turbines.
I often think that Greenpeace would prefer that we humans died off and left the planet to nature...
That's lithium-polymer, not lithium-ion. That's custom sized and shaped, not OTS standard sizes as per your link. That's adaptive per-cell power control and charging. And so on...
The "greens" will never let it happen. They already go nuts when a wind turbine wacks the occasional eagle. Can you imagine the "environmental studies" needed to cover FLOCKS of birds flying through the microwave download beam?
"... you can squeeze more cells in your laptop design if you don't put them in a neat, removable package."
Most manufacturers use sets of standard round AA-sized and shaped cells all wired together within the plastic case you think of as "the battery". This means that a good portion of the internal space is simply dead air. (Picture 4 AA's side-by-side.)
Apple, on the other hand, is having the cells custom sized and formed to fit the exact dimensions available to the battery, even to the extent of having the individual cells pressed into rectangular shapes in order to maximize the amount of the space actually dedicated to batteries.
"To a certain extent true but at least with Open Source Linux/Unix you can see the source and even modify if you can program or hire someone to do it."
First, you're trusting that the source you see is what's actually been delivered in binary form on disk or via download. Should you take the source and compile it yourself, you're trusting the compiler is accurately and faithfully translating the source into a binary, that any included libraries are equally trustworthy, and so on.
As you say, it's a matter of trust. But as someone else once said, "Trust is the condition necessary for betrayal."
"That's not right; it's my machine. It does what I say, not what somebody else says."
Nice delusion, but totally false-to-fact. Maybe back in the day of the Altar or Apple II you could control the entire machine, but today you didn't write the OS, the BIOS, the device firmware, the drivers, the utilities, or the programs. You have no say in the matter.
And that applies to 99% of the Linux folk too. A single distro has millions of lines of code that no one person has ever read, thus you're placing your trust in others that all of that code is doing what you think it's doing. Maybe it is. And maybe it's not...
Because, my fine feathered friend, none of the money spent on broadband goes to the creators of the music or movies or software you're downloading. That's the fuss. But we could, I suppose, set things up that way if that's what you wish.
Only thing though... now your broadband bill is going to be $400 a month.
"Same thing can be said about RIAA and their so call artists then... they're not entitled to everything they want simply because they want it."
Good thing you posted as an Anonymous Coward, because I wouldn't want people to know I was an idiot either.
News flash. They are in fact entitled to ASK for whatever price it is that they want... just as you are equally entitled to judge if that asking price is fair and provides reasonable value for your money.
That said, not believing those terms or conditions to be "fair" isn't grounds for stealing it anyway.
"...when I can wait 6 months for it to come out on netflix..."
Fine. Wait. Oh, now you're going to tell me that you don't want to pay the asking price for a ticket AND you don't want to wait.
"I think the media companies need to figured out a happy medium..."
Theaters, cheaper theaters, PPV, DVD, NetFlix, Redbox, cable, bargin bins, broadcast television (with ads). All are efforts to "find a happy medium" and a price point people are willing to pay.
"For example I do not feel like I am getting ripped off when I pay $15 a month for netflix. Some people do feel that way."
Bingo. Name ANY price point for anything, and some will think they're getting ripped off, while others will think that the price is fair and that the value received is worth the value paid.
But not having what someone wants at the price they want to pay, and when they want to pay it, still isn't justification for stealing (insert your own propoganda term here) whatever it is their little black hearts desire.
"...then it is justifiable to use sites like Pirate Bay and other BitTorrent sites."
No, it's not. We were rather poor growing up, and yet I got a job and managed to see the movies and buy the music that was important to me. I didn't have everything my little heart desired, but that's life. You're not entitled to everything you want simply because you want it.
Besides, there's broadcast TV (now digital), there's radio, there are libraries, there's NetFlix (with a very reasonable subscription fee), there's open-source software, there's cheap shareware and $5 bins at the supermarket and... I could go on about all of the LEGITIMATE ways to see and read and hear what you want, but you're not interested. You're only interested in justifiying, no, in rationalizing why it's okay for you to do the things that you do.
People steal shit online (use your own term, I'll use mine) because they can, because they can get (they think) something for nothing, because there's little risk (today) of being caught, and yes, because it's convenient.
Well enjoy it while you can, because the free ride isn't going to last forever...
So true. It's one thing to rip off businesses and corporations. But it's another thing entirely to rip off the government. Revenue agents take a very dim view of such things.
"That music does NOT have an economic value of $30,000 to one person."
But the music which he WILL listen to again and again DOES have value.
Besides which, he now has thousands upon thousands of hours of music, most of which (in all likelyhood) he will never hear or he doesn't enjoy, and as such would never have spent the money to accumulate. As to "finding" new artists and music, he could just as easily have listened to random radio stations, or paid your fixed fee and listened to satelite radio.
And sorry, but to me the $1 song price point works just fine. If the song or artist has sufficient value to you, you pay it. If not, then why would you want the crap in the first place? Saying he could never afford to buy music he'd never want is just stupid.
"If someone can release one thing and use that as a gravy train for life, what is the economic incentive to keep creating?"
This argument is trotted out from time-to-time and is pretty much false-to-fact. Nearly every successful artist or author is also extremely prolific. Did King or Clancey or Rowling or Weber or Heinlein or Asimov write just one bestseller and then sit back and relax? No. Look at the top 25 best-sellers on Amazon. 3 are first time authors, the other 22 have written before. NYT list? Nine out of ten best selling authors have multiple books in print, and you can bet that the one first-timer is hard at work on his next magnum opus.
Even bands known as "one-hit-wonders" almost always tried to followup on their initial success, but simply didn't have anything else to say, couldn't maintain public interest, or in some cases, just blew apart due to their success.
Slashdot Mirror
"...even though no one can really argue that an iTunes or iTunes Plus encoding is as good as a CD..."
256kbps AAC? It's damned close. Besides, if you're walking around listening to music on an iPod or in a car ambient noise will pretty much kill any perceived differences in quality.
Net neutrality is about treating all of the bytes and protocols the same. Caps and pay-per-use are different animals entirely.
And personally, I think ISPs should be able to shape traffic so that video streaming and VIOP have priority over email and http, which in turn is handled before unanttended background crap like torrents are delivered.
To quote: "But as wind energy developers move into wilder areas along the gorge's ridge lines, near canyons and amid shrub-covered rangeland, the potential for conflict rises. If bird studies confirm the fears of Oregon and Washington state wildlife biologists, the green-minded Northwest might be forced to weigh its pursuit of pollution-free energy against the toll on raptors and other birds."
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1122105/wind_farms_generate_bird_worries/index.html
I'm not against actual environmental studies on side effects. We need to determine actual cost/benefit ratios, and rationally decide if we want to pay the price. The problem comes when ANY side effect at all is deemed unaceptable, in which case the study is simply a proxy used by the irrational to block the "undesirable" project.
Look at nuclear power. In France it provides 80% of the countries power. Here in the US every possible "study" is done to delay the project until it becomes economically unfeasible to continue and is dropped.
And the parent comment is NOT a troll. The environmentalists will say we don't understand the effects of transmitting concentrated high-power microwave beams from space down through the upper atmosphere to the earth's surface.
Will it affect migrating birds? Plants and wildlife in the area? Disrupt weather patterns? Cause unforeseen chemical reactions in the upper atmosphere?
And the sad part is that they're right. We probably don't know all of the consequences...
"Yeah, because Greenpeace wants you to burn petrol and coal so much."
Actually, they don't want us to burn oil or gas or coal. Nor do they want us to use nuclear power, dam rivers, disrupt offshore ecologies with tidal power systems, dig for geothermal, or even errect bird-slaughtering wind turbines.
I often think that Greenpeace would prefer that we humans died off and left the planet to nature...
That's lithium-polymer, not lithium-ion. That's custom sized and shaped, not OTS standard sizes as per your link. That's adaptive per-cell power control and charging. And so on...
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/17inch-battery/
The "greens" will never let it happen. They already go nuts when a wind turbine wacks the occasional eagle. Can you imagine the "environmental studies" needed to cover FLOCKS of birds flying through the microwave download beam?
Greenpeace: Stopping progress one idea at a time.
"... you can squeeze more cells in your laptop design if you don't put them in a neat, removable package."
Most manufacturers use sets of standard round AA-sized and shaped cells all wired together within the plastic case you think of as "the battery". This means that a good portion of the internal space is simply dead air. (Picture 4 AA's side-by-side.)
Apple, on the other hand, is having the cells custom sized and formed to fit the exact dimensions available to the battery, even to the extent of having the individual cells pressed into rectangular shapes in order to maximize the amount of the space actually dedicated to batteries.
"To a certain extent true but at least with Open Source Linux/Unix you can see the source and even modify if you can program or hire someone to do it."
First, you're trusting that the source you see is what's actually been delivered in binary form on disk or via download. Should you take the source and compile it yourself, you're trusting the compiler is accurately and faithfully translating the source into a binary, that any included libraries are equally trustworthy, and so on.
As you say, it's a matter of trust. But as someone else once said, "Trust is the condition necessary for betrayal."
"... even the act of installing a second sound card..."
Please. If Windows knows that it's sending information to a sound card, then it knows it's sending information to ANY sound card.
You'd need a second machine.
"That's not right; it's my machine. It does what I say, not what somebody else says."
Nice delusion, but totally false-to-fact. Maybe back in the day of the Altar or Apple II you could control the entire machine, but today you didn't write the OS, the BIOS, the device firmware, the drivers, the utilities, or the programs. You have no say in the matter.
And that applies to 99% of the Linux folk too. A single distro has millions of lines of code that no one person has ever read, thus you're placing your trust in others that all of that code is doing what you think it's doing. Maybe it is. And maybe it's not...
Because, my fine feathered friend, none of the money spent on broadband goes to the creators of the music or movies or software you're downloading. That's the fuss. But we could, I suppose, set things up that way if that's what you wish.
Only thing though... now your broadband bill is going to be $400 a month.
"Same thing can be said about RIAA and their so call artists then ... they're not entitled to everything they want simply because they want it."
Good thing you posted as an Anonymous Coward, because I wouldn't want people to know I was an idiot either.
News flash. They are in fact entitled to ASK for whatever price it is that they want... just as you are equally entitled to judge if that asking price is fair and provides reasonable value for your money.
That said, not believing those terms or conditions to be "fair" isn't grounds for stealing it anyway.
Yeah, mark legitimate opposing viewpoints as being Trolls...
And the penalties are usually pretty severe: garnishment of wages, forced foreclosures and seizures of assets and property, even throwing you in jail.
Hmmm. Maybe there's something to this after all.
"...when I can wait 6 months for it to come out on netflix..."
Fine. Wait. Oh, now you're going to tell me that you don't want to pay the asking price for a ticket AND you don't want to wait.
"I think the media companies need to figured out a happy medium..."
Theaters, cheaper theaters, PPV, DVD, NetFlix, Redbox, cable, bargin bins, broadcast television (with ads). All are efforts to "find a happy medium" and a price point people are willing to pay.
"For example I do not feel like I am getting ripped off when I pay $15 a month for netflix. Some people do feel that way."
Bingo. Name ANY price point for anything, and some will think they're getting ripped off, while others will think that the price is fair and that the value received is worth the value paid.
But not having what someone wants at the price they want to pay, and when they want to pay it, still isn't justification for stealing (insert your own propoganda term here) whatever it is their little black hearts desire.
"...then it is justifiable to use sites like Pirate Bay and other BitTorrent sites."
No, it's not. We were rather poor growing up, and yet I got a job and managed to see the movies and buy the music that was important to me. I didn't have everything my little heart desired, but that's life. You're not entitled to everything you want simply because you want it.
Besides, there's broadcast TV (now digital), there's radio, there are libraries, there's NetFlix (with a very reasonable subscription fee), there's open-source software, there's cheap shareware and $5 bins at the supermarket and... I could go on about all of the LEGITIMATE ways to see and read and hear what you want, but you're not interested. You're only interested in justifiying, no, in rationalizing why it's okay for you to do the things that you do.
People steal shit online (use your own term, I'll use mine) because they can, because they can get (they think) something for nothing, because there's little risk (today) of being caught, and yes, because it's convenient.
Well enjoy it while you can, because the free ride isn't going to last forever...
So true. It's one thing to rip off businesses and corporations. But it's another thing entirely to rip off the government. Revenue agents take a very dim view of such things.
Apple is running back-to-back-to-back record quarters, in spite of the economy. Yeah, Apple is definitely on its last legs...
Yeah, Windows Server failed, Exchange Server failed, SQL Server failed, Active Directory failed...
The mind boggles.
"That music does NOT have an economic value of $30,000 to one person."
But the music which he WILL listen to again and again DOES have value.
Besides which, he now has thousands upon thousands of hours of music, most of which (in all likelyhood) he will never hear or he doesn't enjoy, and as such would never have spent the money to accumulate. As to "finding" new artists and music, he could just as easily have listened to random radio stations, or paid your fixed fee and listened to satelite radio.
And sorry, but to me the $1 song price point works just fine. If the song or artist has sufficient value to you, you pay it. If not, then why would you want the crap in the first place? Saying he could never afford to buy music he'd never want is just stupid.
"Until BT came along the movie industry was dying."
I thought I'd heard everything, but I guess not. Do you have ANY facts to back up this self-serving rationalization?
"If someone can release one thing and use that as a gravy train for life, what is the economic incentive to keep creating?"
This argument is trotted out from time-to-time and is pretty much false-to-fact. Nearly every successful artist or author is also extremely prolific. Did King or Clancey or Rowling or Weber or Heinlein or Asimov write just one bestseller and then sit back and relax? No. Look at the top 25 best-sellers on Amazon. 3 are first time authors, the other 22 have written before. NYT list? Nine out of ten best selling authors have multiple books in print, and you can bet that the one first-timer is hard at work on his next magnum opus.
Even bands known as "one-hit-wonders" almost always tried to followup on their initial success, but simply didn't have anything else to say, couldn't maintain public interest, or in some cases, just blew apart due to their success.
Hope the streaming video feed includes the part where they make the pirates walk the plank....