This is the exact reason I've taken to biking to work as long as there is no snow. Riding a bike often takes the exact same time, or only 10% longer, than driving, and is much faster than the bus. Cycling is not for everyone I admit, but I find the rates of cycling seriously low. People would rather drive their car to get a loaf of bread when a bike ride would be just as easy. Most people could walk it, but people don't even think twice about driving their cars. Maybe the high gas prices will get more people to just stop driving their cars so much. It would really be great.
I think that's all part of the problem. Most likely, they were serving US customers. They probably made no attempt to turn away customers from other jurisdictions where the website may not have been legal. To operate within the law, they should probably do like all the media sites (like Hulu and Netflix) and assure that all payments are done on credit cards within countries that have legalized online gambling, and that traffic is coming from proper IPs. sure there are ways around this stuff but if they were making an effort to block US traffic, I'm sure they wouldn't be in this position in the first place.
This is my vehicle of choice right now. Don't even own a car. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't entertain the idea of getting a car if they offered something that was just simple A to B transportation, and was within my budget.
The main advantage for customers is that I can transfer money to somebody selling stuff without having to give them my credit card number. This is great when you want to buy something off eBay. Also great if you want to buy some rare thing off some unknown retailer on the web. The trick is to never actually have money located within PayPal. Only use your credit card. Never give them your bank account number.
Meh, I'd much rather someone sold a car without all the extras. Even if you don't have the extra, the added cost of supporting the option of many of the add-ons makes cars cost a lot. I'm sure it's possible to make a $5000 car that meets all safety and emission requirements, but I guess nobody is interested in buying a vehicle. Everyone wants to buy a lifestyle.
The deer would create a problem. But people on the other hand should not be standing by the edge of a highway at night. If you are going to be walking near the edge of a road at night, you should wear reflective clothing, or as I've seen many runners do, actually wear some lights similar to what cyclists use.
Very true. Those of us in Canada know that when there's a snow storm, you should turn off your highbeams, as the reflection of the lights off the snow actually makes it harder (if not impossible) to see.
There's also something called premium link generators. Go to some third party site (the Premium Link Generator), paste in the RapidShare URL, and it gives you another link which will link to the premium download.
I agree. For my media player uses, I just have a soft-modded Wii. You could have got one for $100 last Christmas, now the only option seems to be $150 with a game I was thinking of picking up a second one just for watching streaming TV in the bedroom. You can either play videos off your network shares, or hook up a USB hard drive to it. Small, uses little power, starts up quickly, and can also play games if you want it to. Throw some emulators on there and play some classic stuff if you don't want to buy any Wii games. Compared to the price of buying a dedicated media streaming device, there's not really much of a comparison.
It would give a better starting point though. Probably wouldn't come up with the complete diagnosis, but would probably be able to get it down to a couple suspect illnesses. Also, it would be able to consider far more options than any doctor could. You could probably save money on tests because a lot of times doctors will go down the wrong path, getting a whole bunch of tests that have nothing to do with the actual condition.
While what you say does have some truth to it, different cultures have different rules for what is acceptable conduct. From what I hear about India (From people from India who now live in Canada) is that to get anything done in India, you have to be willing to pay the bribe money. Everybody accepts bribes for everything. Whereas in Canada, Bribing is not common practice, and apart from things like bribing the door-man a club, I don't think it's really done. Most people who get stopped for a ticket don't try to bribe the officer, but in India, this is common.
Why shouldn't computers help out with diagnosis. Doctors can only have so much going on in their head. They can only read so many journal articles, their knowledge can't be infinite in all directions. I remember that they said one of the uses of Watson (The Jeopardy Playing Computer) was that it would be able to help in medical diagnosis, by using a huge database of medical knowledege. Medical costs are currently out of control in both countries with and without socialized medicine. If we can harness the power of computers to make things cheaper, we really should do it.
A real problem is that I have to send my credit card credentials to a website in order to buy something. The real fix would be for me to be able to buy something off a website without sending them my credentials. Instead, I'd only have to communicate to my credit card provider that I authorized the site to charge a certain amount to my credit card, and have the money transferred, without the site knowing the information on my card. The same could be done for recurring payments. Authorize the merchant to charge a certain amount against my card every month, without them actually having to know my credit card information. This is kind of like paypal, but without the middle man.
I very much agree with this. While there is a certain percentage of the population that does understand computers, there's a surprising number of people who just don't get it. I know 20 year olds who still get viruses all the time, even though they've been using computers their entire life. Not only that, but basic operating skills aren't even there. Switch up the UI a little bit, and they are completely lost. They know very little of how to actually operate computers.
You are aware that internet handles are not universally unique. Even things get are spelled wrong aren't unique. Because given length limitations, most people will probably drop the same letters. Also, None of those people are me. Actually, I'm pretty sure I only use this handle on Slashdot. I may have used it on other sites in the past, but don't use it anywhere now.
I very much agree with this. I've disabled 3rd party cookies, delete all cookies after I shut down the browser (which I do frequently), and I have flashblock. I haven't gone so far as to use no-script, but that's another option for people who want to be tracked even less. Sure Google and other big sites can start adhering to the do-not-track stuff, but it's the smaller guys that worry me a lot more than Google.
Problem is, is that all the discs are identical. So there's nothing to stop an unlimited number of people from using the same disk to transfer the game onto their PSPVita. I'm sure they had very good reasons for leaving out the optical drive. I'm pretty sure they knew they would be annoying quite a few people, but probably felt it was a good tradeoff given all the options.
Maybe it can't even play original PSP games because of the different processor architecture, and including extra chips to fully support backwards compatibility would make it too expensive. If you want to play your old PSP games, use your PSP. I know it kind of sucks carrying 2 devices around but there are some considerations for making a device backwards compatible more complex then ensuring the same media type is used in both platforms. Also, this will probably cut down on piracy big time, as using proprietary media means that people first have to figure out how to read and write the memory before they even start to figure out how to run unsigned software.
Nobody is forcing anybody to buy the recordings. However, what the law does say, is that if you want to watch/listen to the recordings, then you have to buy it. There's a big difference. If you don't agree with the prices they are asking, don't pay it, and don't watch/listen to it. There's plenty of other things to do with your free time. Go play some sports. Go talk with friends. Go make some of your own recordings.
Also, while some people will pay for stuff just because they like it, the vast majority of people will not pay for it. It's already happening even though it is illegal. Make it legal to make copies, and just about nobody would pay for it.
The further underground it goes, the harder it will be for the common people to find. I know people who are just now discovering the existence of bittorrent. I think as geeks we sometimes don't realize how much the non-geeks really lag behind in terms of knowing what even exists out there on the internet. Most of the people I know who pirate a lot, do so on private forums. I think it's always been this way. First it was private FTP sites or Private IRC channels. Now it's private torrent sites with private trackers. But 99.9% of people will never figure out how to use all these hidden channels. If they can keep out the common people, then they've done most of their job.
MySQL Seems like it could be interesting, but I can't get over how it requires the whole thing to be hosted in memory. I'm much more interested in Percona Cluster which is also based off MySQL.
I really don't like copyright infringers. They give the rest of the internet users a bad name. I've downloaded share of illegal content but I've since stopped doing it for the exact reasons you point out. If I don't think something is worth the price the copyright owner is asking, I just simply don't watch/listen/read it. There's enough other media on the internet for free, or with price and terms that I do agree with that I don't need to pirate stuff if I feel it isn't worth the price. Sure I may not get to see all the new movies, but I really don't feel like I'm missing much.
ePub seems to work well enough for me. Supports reflowable text, images. Basically, it's just HTML with a couple extra tags added for metadata. We don't need anything more complicated than that. eBook readers work perfectly fine with it.
Speaking of ipad/imac/macbook, they should really take a cue there. They need to seriously cut down on the number of models they offer. There are so many models out there that people get confused. Sell 3 desktop models, 3 laptop models, and maybe a small form factor machine. If people can't find what they want from that selection, they are too picky, and would probably e better served sourcing their own machine from off the shelf parts and putting it together themselves.
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This is the exact reason I've taken to biking to work as long as there is no snow. Riding a bike often takes the exact same time, or only 10% longer, than driving, and is much faster than the bus. Cycling is not for everyone I admit, but I find the rates of cycling seriously low. People would rather drive their car to get a loaf of bread when a bike ride would be just as easy. Most people could walk it, but people don't even think twice about driving their cars. Maybe the high gas prices will get more people to just stop driving their cars so much. It would really be great.
I think that's all part of the problem. Most likely, they were serving US customers. They probably made no attempt to turn away customers from other jurisdictions where the website may not have been legal. To operate within the law, they should probably do like all the media sites (like Hulu and Netflix) and assure that all payments are done on credit cards within countries that have legalized online gambling, and that traffic is coming from proper IPs. sure there are ways around this stuff but if they were making an effort to block US traffic, I'm sure they wouldn't be in this position in the first place.
This is my vehicle of choice right now. Don't even own a car. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't entertain the idea of getting a car if they offered something that was just simple A to B transportation, and was within my budget.
The main advantage for customers is that I can transfer money to somebody selling stuff without having to give them my credit card number. This is great when you want to buy something off eBay. Also great if you want to buy some rare thing off some unknown retailer on the web. The trick is to never actually have money located within PayPal. Only use your credit card. Never give them your bank account number.
Meh, I'd much rather someone sold a car without all the extras. Even if you don't have the extra, the added cost of supporting the option of many of the add-ons makes cars cost a lot. I'm sure it's possible to make a $5000 car that meets all safety and emission requirements, but I guess nobody is interested in buying a vehicle. Everyone wants to buy a lifestyle.
The deer would create a problem. But people on the other hand should not be standing by the edge of a highway at night. If you are going to be walking near the edge of a road at night, you should wear reflective clothing, or as I've seen many runners do, actually wear some lights similar to what cyclists use.
Very true. Those of us in Canada know that when there's a snow storm, you should turn off your highbeams, as the reflection of the lights off the snow actually makes it harder (if not impossible) to see.
There's also something called premium link generators. Go to some third party site (the Premium Link Generator), paste in the RapidShare URL, and it gives you another link which will link to the premium download.
I agree. For my media player uses, I just have a soft-modded Wii. You could have got one for $100 last Christmas, now the only option seems to be $150 with a game I was thinking of picking up a second one just for watching streaming TV in the bedroom. You can either play videos off your network shares, or hook up a USB hard drive to it. Small, uses little power, starts up quickly, and can also play games if you want it to. Throw some emulators on there and play some classic stuff if you don't want to buy any Wii games. Compared to the price of buying a dedicated media streaming device, there's not really much of a comparison.
It would give a better starting point though. Probably wouldn't come up with the complete diagnosis, but would probably be able to get it down to a couple suspect illnesses. Also, it would be able to consider far more options than any doctor could. You could probably save money on tests because a lot of times doctors will go down the wrong path, getting a whole bunch of tests that have nothing to do with the actual condition.
While what you say does have some truth to it, different cultures have different rules for what is acceptable conduct. From what I hear about India (From people from India who now live in Canada) is that to get anything done in India, you have to be willing to pay the bribe money. Everybody accepts bribes for everything. Whereas in Canada, Bribing is not common practice, and apart from things like bribing the door-man a club, I don't think it's really done. Most people who get stopped for a ticket don't try to bribe the officer, but in India, this is common.
Why shouldn't computers help out with diagnosis. Doctors can only have so much going on in their head. They can only read so many journal articles, their knowledge can't be infinite in all directions. I remember that they said one of the uses of Watson (The Jeopardy Playing Computer) was that it would be able to help in medical diagnosis, by using a huge database of medical knowledege. Medical costs are currently out of control in both countries with and without socialized medicine. If we can harness the power of computers to make things cheaper, we really should do it.
A real problem is that I have to send my credit card credentials to a website in order to buy something. The real fix would be for me to be able to buy something off a website without sending them my credentials. Instead, I'd only have to communicate to my credit card provider that I authorized the site to charge a certain amount to my credit card, and have the money transferred, without the site knowing the information on my card. The same could be done for recurring payments. Authorize the merchant to charge a certain amount against my card every month, without them actually having to know my credit card information. This is kind of like paypal, but without the middle man.
I very much agree with this. While there is a certain percentage of the population that does understand computers, there's a surprising number of people who just don't get it. I know 20 year olds who still get viruses all the time, even though they've been using computers their entire life. Not only that, but basic operating skills aren't even there. Switch up the UI a little bit, and they are completely lost. They know very little of how to actually operate computers.
You are aware that internet handles are not universally unique. Even things get are spelled wrong aren't unique. Because given length limitations, most people will probably drop the same letters. Also, None of those people are me. Actually, I'm pretty sure I only use this handle on Slashdot. I may have used it on other sites in the past, but don't use it anywhere now.
I very much agree with this. I've disabled 3rd party cookies, delete all cookies after I shut down the browser (which I do frequently), and I have flashblock. I haven't gone so far as to use no-script, but that's another option for people who want to be tracked even less. Sure Google and other big sites can start adhering to the do-not-track stuff, but it's the smaller guys that worry me a lot more than Google.
Problem is, is that all the discs are identical. So there's nothing to stop an unlimited number of people from using the same disk to transfer the game onto their PSPVita. I'm sure they had very good reasons for leaving out the optical drive. I'm pretty sure they knew they would be annoying quite a few people, but probably felt it was a good tradeoff given all the options.
Maybe it can't even play original PSP games because of the different processor architecture, and including extra chips to fully support backwards compatibility would make it too expensive. If you want to play your old PSP games, use your PSP. I know it kind of sucks carrying 2 devices around but there are some considerations for making a device backwards compatible more complex then ensuring the same media type is used in both platforms. Also, this will probably cut down on piracy big time, as using proprietary media means that people first have to figure out how to read and write the memory before they even start to figure out how to run unsigned software.
If you were a true anime geek you would learn Japanese. Please turn in your Anime Geek Member Card.
Nobody is forcing anybody to buy the recordings. However, what the law does say, is that if you want to watch/listen to the recordings, then you have to buy it. There's a big difference. If you don't agree with the prices they are asking, don't pay it, and don't watch/listen to it. There's plenty of other things to do with your free time. Go play some sports. Go talk with friends. Go make some of your own recordings.
Also, while some people will pay for stuff just because they like it, the vast majority of people will not pay for it. It's already happening even though it is illegal. Make it legal to make copies, and just about nobody would pay for it.
The further underground it goes, the harder it will be for the common people to find. I know people who are just now discovering the existence of bittorrent. I think as geeks we sometimes don't realize how much the non-geeks really lag behind in terms of knowing what even exists out there on the internet. Most of the people I know who pirate a lot, do so on private forums. I think it's always been this way. First it was private FTP sites or Private IRC channels. Now it's private torrent sites with private trackers. But 99.9% of people will never figure out how to use all these hidden channels. If they can keep out the common people, then they've done most of their job.
MySQL Seems like it could be interesting, but I can't get over how it requires the whole thing to be hosted in memory. I'm much more interested in Percona Cluster which is also based off MySQL.
This
I really don't like copyright infringers. They give the rest of the internet users a bad name. I've downloaded share of illegal content but I've since stopped doing it for the exact reasons you point out. If I don't think something is worth the price the copyright owner is asking, I just simply don't watch/listen/read it. There's enough other media on the internet for free, or with price and terms that I do agree with that I don't need to pirate stuff if I feel it isn't worth the price. Sure I may not get to see all the new movies, but I really don't feel like I'm missing much.
ePub seems to work well enough for me. Supports reflowable text, images. Basically, it's just HTML with a couple extra tags added for metadata. We don't need anything more complicated than that. eBook readers work perfectly fine with it.
Speaking of ipad/imac/macbook, they should really take a cue there. They need to seriously cut down on the number of models they offer. There are so many models out there that people get confused. Sell 3 desktop models, 3 laptop models, and maybe a small form factor machine. If people can't find what they want from that selection, they are too picky, and would probably e better served sourcing their own machine from off the shelf parts and putting it together themselves.