Very good example. It's usually cheaper to have the car personally imported than to buy it direct from the factory. That same car has had additional costs imposed by the manufacturers own shipping, followed by your own return shipping arrangements and relevant documentation etc.
I remember hearing a lot about the car companies being in trouble over this practice, and they were told to stop it. Little has changed by the look of it.
But like you stated, because there are too many factors that can go into the pricing of a Big Mac (e.g., cost of cattle, cost of shipping, cost of lettuce,...) this model will never be taken seriously.
It could be taken seriously; the price of a Big Mac has nothing to do with the cost to produce it. Like any business, it is priced at the highest point that consumers would generally be happy to pay. The markups in the fast food industry are huge, for instance the container holding your drink costs more than the liquid inside. The price you pay has little to do with the price of the raw materials.
On the otherhand, the location and advertising might make a dent in the price, but I'm not sure if they even do, especially in the case of McD's, where global brand recognition is important.
They will fine the DVD consortium for region coding. I'm sure that it's cheaper to buy american DVDs than the the euro ones that are likely released much later.
Yes, for years I have been buying Region 1 disks from the US/Canada at half the price, months before local release (often before cinema). Often the special features are better as well, due to licensing restrictions etc.
That is price fixing, and is a major factor in why they wanted region coding in the first place.
True, but how long will it be before viruses and spyware start to appear on linux? There is no technical reason why either can't happen (especially amoungst non-techy users). The open source aspect is important, true, but once pre-compiled binaries become popular, then the problem returns.
We need laws to regulate privacy, not just from the authorities, but also from these third-parties.
For what? They didn't break any existing laws and you agreed to it (in the small print) in your contract. Technically they haven't done anything wrong...
But for most people, is there really any harm from all that spyware?
Of course there is harm...everything they do is logged and sent to the owner of the spyware. How would you feel if your TV watching habits were being tracked? Or every book, magazine and newspaper, with records down to the detail about what articles you read and for how long? Or, by looking at your e-mail, they find the e-mail addresses of your friends and family and start to bother them?
Then all this information is sold to anyone with a wallet and used to target you for mass marketing schemes. That's bad. I like my privacy, thank you very much.
Give people some credit: many of these problems lose their appeal because they either get solved or more important problems arise
So, the rainforests are doing just fine now? Third-world countries are no longer in huge debt to the west, with their population starving and fighting over the last scraps, meanwhile enduring an aids epidemic, while the pharmacutical companies lap up the profits...?
These things were public scares, just off the top of my head. Nothing changed and we just forgot about them. Yet we have some sort of delusional satisfaction that we learned about the problem and are somehow a better people for it?
Other cultures get pissed off when the USA doesn't give them money.
A troll moderated to 4, who'd have thought it?
Which cultures have you been "giving" money to then? Go on, name them...
If we were to tax imports
You already are. Just because you aren't aware of it, that doesn't mean you aren't doing it already. These kind of taxes, levies, restrictions or whatever they get called this week are a large part of international trade and diplomacy. Bought any Cuban cigars lately?
America is not alone in this, a lot of countries have done it many times over the years. And wars have been fought over it, e.g. the US civil war.
Hmm, burn digital quality at 8 speed, or do it with a one-speed fudge of a copy using your crapper-than-crap analogue-to-digital converter in your cheap on-the-motherboard sound hardware. Tough choice, not to mention the inconvience of correctly setting the record-levels, if you are even aware of the fact that it's neccessary for a good copy without clipping.
99% of people will NOT be able to tell the difference when listening to the "unmakable" CD in their car.
Bull. Most will be able to tell the difference, but some might not care too much or have even worse gear in the car that makes it sound crap anyway.
Why should I be limited in what I can do, just because some folk might not be as passionate about it...? What kind of an argument is that? OK, most folk don't go skateboarding. Ban it I say. Or ski-ing. Or motorcycling. Or insert just about every passtime [here]
But that's not the problem! I have no issue with them installing support clients, configuration managers, service helpers, whatever. I apreciate that these things keep costs down, and I get to take advantage of some of those savings with smaller bills.
The problem is the "other" stuff that is bundled along with it. When spyware started to become bundled along with free downloads, roughly the same time that download.com got crap, it was accepted that they needed to generate revenue somehow. Basically the same reasons we tolerate ads on the net, TV and radio.
However, spyware has become endemic. Everything seems to have it. What I object to is the inclusion of spyware not for monetry reasons, like we are discussing here. What's more, putting aside the morality of hiding the spyware in the EULA (which is basically lying, your are trying to deceive someone), here we are talking about forced installations.
Sure, you don't have to accept the deal, but you've waited weeks for the taxi to come and take you away from 56k land, and the last thing you are going to do is say, "sorry, I'll get the next one". That's even if you are one of the enlightened few who realise what's going on.
If I download a free tool to do a specific task, I might get spywared. That's a part of the game. However, when an ISP starts using it, then it becomes worrying.
I'm sure many companies don't understand the meaning of what they are doing. They see it as an opertunity to understand their customers better. They just can't seem to see through the end-users eyes and realise that what they are doing is wrong.
you get lots of angry customers to write to the regulatory authorities
That's half the problem here; most people don't know there is a problem.
My take on it is this; right now the internet is a novelty for most people. Once you get past the filth stage, you begin to use it more and more. I would now say I'm dependant on it, for example I haven't picked up a phone book in years. It's a change in behaviour for most people, I guess for a lot of us (especially those from an scientific/engineering background) the logic of looking up an answer is second-nature. As time goes by, Joe Sixpack will become more at ease with looking up information on the net, and it will become essentially an utility, like gas, the telephone and electricity.
Contrast that with the modern media; all they care about is ratings. They don't report "the news" as such, what they really do is report on the topics that people are interested in. Guns, war, car crashes, death, sport, that sort of thing.
My hope is that once the internet becomes more and more prevailent in our society (3G mobiles may be the catalyst), then the media will start to pick up on this sort of thing. Right now, stories about e-cards raping your address book and the every growing trend of spyware won't buy them ratings, so they don't care about it. When the internet hits a critical mass, then people will begin to care and the media will start to cover it.
Right now, it's a very interesting time. The future of the internet is being determined today. The lawsuits are setting precidents that will shape the internet for years to come. Yet, with all this communication power, we still haven't found a way to organise the like-minded people.
Slashdot comes close; it's a good way to see and debate differing opinions. However, it's like the rainforest scares of the last decade; people became aware of a problem, discussed it, decided something must be done. Then they lost interest, it became no longer a "sexy" subject to the media and was forgotten. But did anything change? The problem is still there. Focus shifted elsewhere while we got the heart-warming illusion of making the world a better place.
We need to organise. It's been done before, for example here in the UK there was a bill proposed to allow everyman and his dog to have access to your phone/bank/net records. Overnight a grassroots organisate grew, started talking to their government representatives and essentially told them where to shove it.
But, how? The above was a fluke really, it won't likely happen again, as least not as regularly as it should. We need a proper way to do this. We need to remind the governments of the so-called "free world" newspeak that we are supposed to be in a democracy, where the will of the people is supposed to shape the countries. The internet could be the best thing ever to happen to the idea of a democracy, but unless people take action instead of just passing motions to go and rescure Brian from the Romans, then we're not going anywhere.
So if they gave you a 100 Mbit NIC, I guess you'd complain that the 38 Mbit cable modem was "not very forward thinking.
Not really. The 38 Mbit limit is based on the laws of physics and the last-mile wiring, and will cost a fortune to break that barrier. Chosing a 10 Mbit card over a 100 Mbit card will save a few dollars.
unless your cable Internet connection is saturating them. And it isn't.
Well, my cable modem says on the box that it has a max speed of 38 Mbit, well over the 10 Mbit NICs capability. Not very forward thinking...but hey, 640K ought be be enough for anybody!;-)
Nah, they still are integrated in all the franchises. Both run off the same cable into your house and go into a y-piece splitter. The cable TV box itself runs on IP (you can find it's address in the service menu). If the problem lies beyond your front door, chances are that both TV and internet will have problems.
I think most folk are missing the point here. No disrespect to those who posted their ways around the problem. Kudos to you for knowing how to set up IP.
The point is that most internet users don't even know what an IP is. They don't care about linux, and they probably aren't even aware that there could be software doing "bad things" on their PC. These users are having spyware forced upon them in two ways:
The tech did the EULA for them without consulting them
The contract demands the software to be installed
This is a serious problem. Let's actually discuss ways to resolve it for everyone, rather than trying to make ourselves look clever.
Same here. The guy that did mine even let me borrow his drill to make some holes for routing cat-5. Damn those 100 year old tenament buildings, the walls are over a foot and a half thick! Much easier when you have the correct tools...
I dont think that the NSA permitted 128 bit encryption to be exported outside the states if they didnt have some backdoor to decrypt without brute-forcing.
Believe me, the rest of the world doesn't care what the NSA does. Encryption technology doesn't always originate in the USA you know!
Besides, society has enough problems trying to regulate international trade in drugs, weapons and even people. No one is going to care about breaking these stupid, internet-ignorant anti-export laws.
show me a 12 year old boy who can't trun a stick into a machine gun
That's the point. Our violent society gets children "into" violence from an early age.
It would be interesting to see a culture that doesn't embrace guns and explosions, to see if their children behave the same way while playing. If they do, it's a reflection of human nature, if not our own society is to blame.
Full agreed on both posts, but have you ever seen a parent buying these games for their kids? They either don't have a clue, or the kid moans until they get their way. Very rarely do you see a "no, you're not getting it, and that's final"...
Movies don't get nearly as much flack as video games, even though they're watched by a much broader audience.
What about GI Joe and Action Man and most of the 12-16 year old boys toys? You can act out violence with toys from an early age, then watch more on TV and movies, but playing a game is wrong? That makes sense...
The problem is the hardware coming down the pipe -- DRM is fast making inroads, and soon there'll be too much momentum to stop it.
For that to happen, every single manufacturer in the whole world would need to adopt DRM. That's never going to happen. I don't care what laws they try to pass. Modern govenments are too corrupt, accepting legal bribes (campaign contributions), perhaps implementing these laws could lead to a big shakeup of the system. DRM is going to fail. It's an all or nothing, if there are non-DRM products out there, the market will lap them up.
Other countries are already bowing to US pressure to adopt international cyberterrorism laws
Proper cyberterrorism laws do make sense. For instance, if a hacker were to bring down VISA for even a few minutes, it would cost millions in lost sales. The internet is global and laws to keep it from becoming a battle ground must also be internationally accepted.
However, there are a couple of European countries in the world who don't even have piracy laws. They are not going to implement DRM, despite anything the US can do. Trade embargos would only serve against the US's interests, as it would create a lot of Euro-USA tension. The US government isn't an ominipent as it thinks. I'm not sure how the US media reported it, but they got bitch-slapped in the UN over Iraq, hence Bush backing down. It's almost as if Bush is trying to piss the whole world off...
buh-bye, Linux
Not a chance. As I said, there will always be non-DRM hardware available. You can't ban something globally.
that eliminates our right to use encryption at all.
Again, no chance. Big Business would never allow that, they need encryption to operate, especially with the increase in teleworking. That wouldn't be possible without technolgies such as SSH and VPN. Encryption is here to stay, the question is; will the general public be using it in 10 years. I'd like to think so, but I wonder why we haven't seen a rollout of a SSL based SMTP system yet.
What happens when ISPs switch those connections to the firewall model -- one where only "approved" uses are permitted and only known "safe" ports are open
The public wouldn't stand for this. We are supposed to be living in a democracy. The internet is bringing people together politically, but it's a slow process. Recently in the UK there was a legal proposal to increase the number of groups that could access personal data, such as phone records. A completely new grassroots organisation grew in under a week and the overwhelming response to MPs forced them to back down. With a bit of luck, the internet will continue to give the power back to the people. Provided they can draw themselves away from the titties.
The problem is the RIAA and MPAA lobbyists are working long and hard to change our country's laws.
They aren't in my country! And that's the crux of the problem. The American phyche doesn't generally realise how insignificant you are in the world. You automatically assumed that everyone reading your mail was from the USA. It's not your fault, you grew up on TV shows where the invading aliens always went to the US president first. Sure you might have the best military in the world, but that only makes bullying small countries easier. It doesn't sway the big ones, we aren't going to go to war and we both know it. You can't invade someone over DRM. I don't mean to flame or annoy anyone, but that's the way it is. You can do what you want in your own borders, but the rest of the civilised world (ignoring the mess that is the middle east) will also do what they want.
Re:Status Blog now has info
on
Blogger Hacked
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Also, if you store your FTP login information in Blogger, it wouldn't hurt to change that on your server--though it is unlikely that information was accessed. (quoted from web site)
It is "unlikely" that people got access to an account on your local machine. I think people might want to know either way. Quickly.
Re:Good for them
on
Blogger Hacked
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
And how many people still use the term "electronic mail"?
Slashdot Mirror
I remember hearing a lot about the car companies being in trouble over this practice, and they were told to stop it. Little has changed by the look of it.
It could be taken seriously; the price of a Big Mac has nothing to do with the cost to produce it. Like any business, it is priced at the highest point that consumers would generally be happy to pay. The markups in the fast food industry are huge, for instance the container holding your drink costs more than the liquid inside. The price you pay has little to do with the price of the raw materials.
On the otherhand, the location and advertising might make a dent in the price, but I'm not sure if they even do, especially in the case of McD's, where global brand recognition is important.
Yes, for years I have been buying Region 1 disks from the US/Canada at half the price, months before local release (often before cinema). Often the special features are better as well, due to licensing restrictions etc.
That is price fixing, and is a major factor in why they wanted region coding in the first place.
Provided you aren't relying on them to down a real inbound threat!
Stealth material generally works by absorbing the energy. The two defences won't be able to co-exist.
We need laws to regulate privacy, not just from the authorities, but also from these third-parties.
Personally, no...
can't you sue for a load of money for this?
For what? They didn't break any existing laws and you agreed to it (in the small print) in your contract. Technically they haven't done anything wrong...
That's not what they are tracking though, some are also recording your web usage and that is a major no-no in my book...
Of course there is harm...everything they do is logged and sent to the owner of the spyware. How would you feel if your TV watching habits were being tracked? Or every book, magazine and newspaper, with records down to the detail about what articles you read and for how long? Or, by looking at your e-mail, they find the e-mail addresses of your friends and family and start to bother them?
Then all this information is sold to anyone with a wallet and used to target you for mass marketing schemes. That's bad. I like my privacy, thank you very much.
Give people some credit: many of these problems lose their appeal because they either get solved or more important problems arise
So, the rainforests are doing just fine now? Third-world countries are no longer in huge debt to the west, with their population starving and fighting over the last scraps, meanwhile enduring an aids epidemic, while the pharmacutical companies lap up the profits...?
These things were public scares, just off the top of my head. Nothing changed and we just forgot about them. Yet we have some sort of delusional satisfaction that we learned about the problem and are somehow a better people for it?
A troll moderated to 4, who'd have thought it?
Which cultures have you been "giving" money to then? Go on, name them...
If we were to tax imports
You already are. Just because you aren't aware of it, that doesn't mean you aren't doing it already. These kind of taxes, levies, restrictions or whatever they get called this week are a large part of international trade and diplomacy. Bought any Cuban cigars lately?
America is not alone in this, a lot of countries have done it many times over the years. And wars have been fought over it, e.g. the US civil war.
Hmm, burn digital quality at 8 speed, or do it with a one-speed fudge of a copy using your crapper-than-crap analogue-to-digital converter in your cheap on-the-motherboard sound hardware. Tough choice, not to mention the inconvience of correctly setting the record-levels, if you are even aware of the fact that it's neccessary for a good copy without clipping.
99% of people will NOT be able to tell the difference when listening to the "unmakable" CD in their car.
Bull. Most will be able to tell the difference, but some might not care too much or have even worse gear in the car that makes it sound crap anyway.
Why should I be limited in what I can do, just because some folk might not be as passionate about it...? What kind of an argument is that? OK, most folk don't go skateboarding. Ban it I say. Or ski-ing. Or motorcycling. Or insert just about every passtime [here]
The problem is the "other" stuff that is bundled along with it. When spyware started to become bundled along with free downloads, roughly the same time that download.com got crap, it was accepted that they needed to generate revenue somehow. Basically the same reasons we tolerate ads on the net, TV and radio.
However, spyware has become endemic. Everything seems to have it. What I object to is the inclusion of spyware not for monetry reasons, like we are discussing here. What's more, putting aside the morality of hiding the spyware in the EULA (which is basically lying, your are trying to deceive someone), here we are talking about forced installations.
Sure, you don't have to accept the deal, but you've waited weeks for the taxi to come and take you away from 56k land, and the last thing you are going to do is say, "sorry, I'll get the next one". That's even if you are one of the enlightened few who realise what's going on.
If I download a free tool to do a specific task, I might get spywared. That's a part of the game. However, when an ISP starts using it, then it becomes worrying.
I'm sure many companies don't understand the meaning of what they are doing. They see it as an opertunity to understand their customers better. They just can't seem to see through the end-users eyes and realise that what they are doing is wrong.
That's half the problem here; most people don't know there is a problem.
My take on it is this; right now the internet is a novelty for most people. Once you get past the filth stage, you begin to use it more and more. I would now say I'm dependant on it, for example I haven't picked up a phone book in years. It's a change in behaviour for most people, I guess for a lot of us (especially those from an scientific/engineering background) the logic of looking up an answer is second-nature. As time goes by, Joe Sixpack will become more at ease with looking up information on the net, and it will become essentially an utility, like gas, the telephone and electricity.
Contrast that with the modern media; all they care about is ratings. They don't report "the news" as such, what they really do is report on the topics that people are interested in. Guns, war, car crashes, death, sport, that sort of thing.
My hope is that once the internet becomes more and more prevailent in our society (3G mobiles may be the catalyst), then the media will start to pick up on this sort of thing. Right now, stories about e-cards raping your address book and the every growing trend of spyware won't buy them ratings, so they don't care about it. When the internet hits a critical mass, then people will begin to care and the media will start to cover it.
Right now, it's a very interesting time. The future of the internet is being determined today. The lawsuits are setting precidents that will shape the internet for years to come. Yet, with all this communication power, we still haven't found a way to organise the like-minded people.
Slashdot comes close; it's a good way to see and debate differing opinions. However, it's like the rainforest scares of the last decade; people became aware of a problem, discussed it, decided something must be done. Then they lost interest, it became no longer a "sexy" subject to the media and was forgotten. But did anything change? The problem is still there. Focus shifted elsewhere while we got the heart-warming illusion of making the world a better place.
We need to organise. It's been done before, for example here in the UK there was a bill proposed to allow everyman and his dog to have access to your phone/bank/net records. Overnight a grassroots organisate grew, started talking to their government representatives and essentially told them where to shove it.
But, how? The above was a fluke really, it won't likely happen again, as least not as regularly as it should. We need a proper way to do this. We need to remind the governments of the so-called "free world" newspeak that we are supposed to be in a democracy, where the will of the people is supposed to shape the countries. The internet could be the best thing ever to happen to the idea of a democracy, but unless people take action instead of just passing motions to go and rescure Brian from the Romans, then we're not going anywhere.
Not really. The 38 Mbit limit is based on the laws of physics and the last-mile wiring, and will cost a fortune to break that barrier. Chosing a 10 Mbit card over a 100 Mbit card will save a few dollars.
unless your cable Internet connection is saturating them. And it isn't.
True, it isn't. Not yet.
Well, my cable modem says on the box that it has a max speed of 38 Mbit, well over the 10 Mbit NICs capability. Not very forward thinking...but hey, 640K ought be be enough for anybody! ;-)
Nah, they still are integrated in all the franchises. Both run off the same cable into your house and go into a y-piece splitter. The cable TV box itself runs on IP (you can find it's address in the service menu). If the problem lies beyond your front door, chances are that both TV and internet will have problems.
The point is that most internet users don't even know what an IP is. They don't care about linux, and they probably aren't even aware that there could be software doing "bad things" on their PC. These users are having spyware forced upon them in two ways:
This is a serious problem. Let's actually discuss ways to resolve it for everyone, rather than trying to make ourselves look clever.
Same here. The guy that did mine even let me borrow his drill to make some holes for routing cat-5. Damn those 100 year old tenament buildings, the walls are over a foot and a half thick! Much easier when you have the correct tools...
Believe me, the rest of the world doesn't care what the NSA does. Encryption technology doesn't always originate in the USA you know!
Besides, society has enough problems trying to regulate international trade in drugs, weapons and even people. No one is going to care about breaking these stupid, internet-ignorant anti-export laws.
That's the point. Our violent society gets children "into" violence from an early age.
It would be interesting to see a culture that doesn't embrace guns and explosions, to see if their children behave the same way while playing. If they do, it's a reflection of human nature, if not our own society is to blame.
Full agreed on both posts, but have you ever seen a parent buying these games for their kids? They either don't have a clue, or the kid moans until they get their way. Very rarely do you see a "no, you're not getting it, and that's final"...
What about GI Joe and Action Man and most of the 12-16 year old boys toys? You can act out violence with toys from an early age, then watch more on TV and movies, but playing a game is wrong? That makes sense...
For that to happen, every single manufacturer in the whole world would need to adopt DRM. That's never going to happen. I don't care what laws they try to pass. Modern govenments are too corrupt, accepting legal bribes (campaign contributions), perhaps implementing these laws could lead to a big shakeup of the system. DRM is going to fail. It's an all or nothing, if there are non-DRM products out there, the market will lap them up.
Other countries are already bowing to US pressure to adopt international cyberterrorism laws
Proper cyberterrorism laws do make sense. For instance, if a hacker were to bring down VISA for even a few minutes, it would cost millions in lost sales. The internet is global and laws to keep it from becoming a battle ground must also be internationally accepted.
However, there are a couple of European countries in the world who don't even have piracy laws. They are not going to implement DRM, despite anything the US can do. Trade embargos would only serve against the US's interests, as it would create a lot of Euro-USA tension. The US government isn't an ominipent as it thinks. I'm not sure how the US media reported it, but they got bitch-slapped in the UN over Iraq, hence Bush backing down. It's almost as if Bush is trying to piss the whole world off...
buh-bye, Linux
Not a chance. As I said, there will always be non-DRM hardware available. You can't ban something globally.
that eliminates our right to use encryption at all.
Again, no chance. Big Business would never allow that, they need encryption to operate, especially with the increase in teleworking. That wouldn't be possible without technolgies such as SSH and VPN. Encryption is here to stay, the question is; will the general public be using it in 10 years. I'd like to think so, but I wonder why we haven't seen a rollout of a SSL based SMTP system yet.
What happens when ISPs switch those connections to the firewall model -- one where only "approved" uses are permitted and only known "safe" ports are open
The public wouldn't stand for this. We are supposed to be living in a democracy. The internet is bringing people together politically, but it's a slow process. Recently in the UK there was a legal proposal to increase the number of groups that could access personal data, such as phone records. A completely new grassroots organisation grew in under a week and the overwhelming response to MPs forced them to back down. With a bit of luck, the internet will continue to give the power back to the people. Provided they can draw themselves away from the titties.
The problem is the RIAA and MPAA lobbyists are working long and hard to change our country's laws.
They aren't in my country! And that's the crux of the problem. The American phyche doesn't generally realise how insignificant you are in the world. You automatically assumed that everyone reading your mail was from the USA. It's not your fault, you grew up on TV shows where the invading aliens always went to the US president first. Sure you might have the best military in the world, but that only makes bullying small countries easier. It doesn't sway the big ones, we aren't going to go to war and we both know it. You can't invade someone over DRM. I don't mean to flame or annoy anyone, but that's the way it is. You can do what you want in your own borders, but the rest of the civilised world (ignoring the mess that is the middle east) will also do what they want.
It is "unlikely" that people got access to an account on your local machine. I think people might want to know either way. Quickly.
And how many people still use the term "electronic mail"?