I could have swore the point was entertainment. What I can't figure out is why that article was written.
Seriously. I'm not a fan of LotR (I thought it was good enough that I'll rent each one on dvd and watch them once), but who cares how it "fails society" ? My favorite movie is Cabin Boy, obviously not because of what it's done for society.
How bout it? a REAL online auction site, with time extensions, and no girly proxy bidding. Isn't the point of bidding to balance what you're willing to pay with what you think others will pay? Makes sense. You're selling your stuffed cat and there's a guy willing to pay $100 for it, but no one else wants one so he only pays you $50. Boooo
I clicked on the link to this article hoping to find a p2p supporter's views that I could stand up and agree with. Unfortunately, all I found was an incredibly unscientific, missdirected and biased view.
Lesson 1: Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy. The article simply provides no evidence to prove this, or how it effects the actual situation. When making an argument against someone, it's important to define your target and not confuse their interests and views with others'. Everyone actively opposing peer to peer technologies has already overcome obscurity as an obsticle. Sure, my buddy loves it when people download his song -- he's more excited by the fact that people are hearing it than selling it. And, as such, his music isn't being pirated, it's being distributed the only way he can get it out. The mp3s and movies on my hard drive are, quite simply, pirated. I lost my desire to own legitimate copies when 170 of my cds were stolen, so I've had the unique "opportunity" to be on both sides of the fence -- sympathizing with artists I'd like to support, and not caring. Nearly all artists fit in to one of two categories in my mind: rich enough that they don't need my dollar, and happy enough that I'm listening to their music that they don't care about my dollar.
Lesson 2: Piracy is progressive taxation "...may shave a few percentage points off the sales of well-known artists (and I say "may" because even that point is not proven)..." I'd call this statement horribly conservative, at best. While a pirated copy of a cd or book doesn't translate directly to a lost sale (I've got around 500 cds worth of mp3s, but I can guarentee I wouldnt have had that many cds), people simply aren't going to buy things they can get for free without leaving the house. I used to go to record stores hunting for rare vinyl with my friends, but it's just no longer worth it. CDs, in my opinion, really are on their way out and a standard for massive storage on whatever media ends up working out, where we'd buy the rights and probably no media, is probably inevitable. The simple fact is that CD sales are down, and I think you're lying to yourself if you don't believe mp3s have a large part in it.
Lesson 3: Customers want to do the right thing, if they can. Some. How many? I think O'Reilly is on to something when he implies it's more than you'd think. But a quick glance at me shows it's not everyone (at least, not his definition of "right").
Lesson 4: Shoplifting is a bigger threat than piracy. First, there is absolutely no evidence provided to back this up. Second, even if it were true, it would be highly subjective. Comparing shoplifting to piracy is like comparing apples and oranges. A pirated copy doesn't rob from anyone's inventory, but possibly steals a potential sale. Likewise, a shoplifted copy doesn't affect the copyright holder, but the retailer selling it.
Lesson 5: File sharing networks don't threaten book, music, or film publishing. They threaten existing publishers.Again, who are you trying to convince? It seems the purpose of this article would only be to pursuade people that piracy isn't all that bad, and there aren't a lot of people other than these "existing publishers" and their puppet politicians who are against it, at least on a peer to peer level. The guys with the clout and money.
While O'Reilly's artile did hit on some key points, it suffered from the same thing as every other peer to peer proponnent: inability to provide proof. The large publishers aren't going to budge because they stand to (continue to) lose the most money.
Sega always had a knack for "beating competitors to the punch." Sega Master System, Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast were all the first 8-, 16-, 32- and 128-bit systems, respectively. What they all had in common was that when the competitor came out with their system a few months later, Sega's was never as good (from a technology standpoint, of course; I won't go in to what systems were best).
If I were a major retailer and someone was posting my sale prices, you can be sure I'd put every ounce of effort it required in to getting them to stop. Fortunately it seems laws and the ethics of this issue seemed to go the same way for once.
I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if the site was illegal anyway due to antitrust laws. I bought a desk at Staples once and they called BestBuy to check the price because I told them it was advertised for less and they had to match, and BestBuy gladly told them (not knowing it was a competitor) the desk retailed for $199.99. Great -- but even that's illegal. Federal antitrust laws prohibit prices being given out over the phone.
At first glance it seems totally anticompetitive, but it keeps the larger businesses from undercutting the smaller guys so easily.
I believe its called optimizing. I suppose there are alternate routes -- they could just slap more chips on and require an external powersource, a la Voodoo5. But I'm sure as we all know, without optimization, computers would have gone nowhere.
Sure Intel is using Hyper-Threading as a buzz word, but that doesn't mean its worthless. Your beloved AMD copied SSE, and made their own 3DNow! and you'd have a hard time convincing me either of those will have the impact hyperthreading does. I saw someone compared the price of a p4 with hyperthreading to that of a dual athlon, but thats not the point. Its the technology. Don't you think AMD and everyone else who makes cpus for anything would be interested in taking advantage of it? If it was AMD (and I really dont think anyone else, except maybe Motorola) who had introduced HT, slashdotters would love it.
Of course I don't like Intel (and of course I hate Bill Gates more, and Steve Jobs has everyone beat), but that doesn't mean having them around isn't healthy for the entire industry.
By the way, has anyone else noticed nvidia trying the brute force tactic like 3dfx did right before they went out?
Your points say what tell us what isn't slowing Macs down. Or at least what isn't slowing it down as much as people would think.
The Java virtual machine has a trash collector that cleans up unused memory locations and does any number of things to make it run faster than it did 5 years ago (apparantly with a lot of success) -- but open up notepad and a Java text editor. Even something at this level I find Java is totally unacceptable.
You need to give numbers and actual performance to argue the speed of a system.
When I bought my Dell Inspirion with a mobile Pentium 3 1ghz, there was no mention that it'd run at 733mhz in battery mode -- thats just what mobile Pentium 3's do. I looked around and none of the competitors did, either. Why is it that desktop cpus running at a lower clockrate is all of a sudden dishonest?
I wouldnt want to watch anything important on a wireless networked camera. Haven't you ever seen Speed? Anthony Hopkins is kicking himself for going wireless.
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I could have swore the point was entertainment. What I can't figure out is why that article was written. Seriously. I'm not a fan of LotR (I thought it was good enough that I'll rent each one on dvd and watch them once), but who cares how it "fails society" ? My favorite movie is Cabin Boy, obviously not because of what it's done for society.
How bout it? a REAL online auction site, with time extensions, and no girly proxy bidding. Isn't the point of bidding to balance what you're willing to pay with what you think others will pay? Makes sense. You're selling your stuffed cat and there's a guy willing to pay $100 for it, but no one else wants one so he only pays you $50. Boooo
Lesson 1: Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.
The article simply provides no evidence to prove this, or how it effects the actual situation. When making an argument against someone, it's important to define your target and not confuse their interests and views with others'. Everyone actively opposing peer to peer technologies has already overcome obscurity as an obsticle. Sure, my buddy loves it when people download his song -- he's more excited by the fact that people are hearing it than selling it. And, as such, his music isn't being pirated, it's being distributed the only way he can get it out. The mp3s and movies on my hard drive are, quite simply, pirated. I lost my desire to own legitimate copies when 170 of my cds were stolen, so I've had the unique "opportunity" to be on both sides of the fence -- sympathizing with artists I'd like to support, and not caring. Nearly all artists fit in to one of two categories in my mind: rich enough that they don't need my dollar, and happy enough that I'm listening to their music that they don't care about my dollar.
Lesson 2: Piracy is progressive taxation
"...may shave a few percentage points off the sales of well-known artists (and I say "may" because even that point is not proven)..." I'd call this statement horribly conservative, at best. While a pirated copy of a cd or book doesn't translate directly to a lost sale (I've got around 500 cds worth of mp3s, but I can guarentee I wouldnt have had that many cds), people simply aren't going to buy things they can get for free without leaving the house. I used to go to record stores hunting for rare vinyl with my friends, but it's just no longer worth it. CDs, in my opinion, really are on their way out and a standard for massive storage on whatever media ends up working out, where we'd buy the rights and probably no media, is probably inevitable. The simple fact is that CD sales are down, and I think you're lying to yourself if you don't believe mp3s have a large part in it.
Lesson 3: Customers want to do the right thing, if they can.
Some. How many? I think O'Reilly is on to something when he implies it's more than you'd think. But a quick glance at me shows it's not everyone (at least, not his definition of "right").
Lesson 4: Shoplifting is a bigger threat than piracy.
First, there is absolutely no evidence provided to back this up. Second, even if it were true, it would be highly subjective. Comparing shoplifting to piracy is like comparing apples and oranges. A pirated copy doesn't rob from anyone's inventory, but possibly steals a potential sale. Likewise, a shoplifted copy doesn't affect the copyright holder, but the retailer selling it.
Lesson 5: File sharing networks don't threaten book, music, or film publishing. They threaten existing publishers. Again, who are you trying to convince? It seems the purpose of this article would only be to pursuade people that piracy isn't all that bad, and there aren't a lot of people other than these "existing publishers" and their puppet politicians who are against it, at least on a peer to peer level. The guys with the clout and money.
While O'Reilly's artile did hit on some key points, it suffered from the same thing as every other peer to peer proponnent: inability to provide proof. The large publishers aren't going to budge because they stand to (continue to) lose the most money.
Wouldn't it be more fun for Gateway to run SETI@Home?
Sega always had a knack for "beating competitors to the punch." Sega Master System, Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast were all the first 8-, 16-, 32- and 128-bit systems, respectively. What they all had in common was that when the competitor came out with their system a few months later, Sega's was never as good (from a technology standpoint, of course; I won't go in to what systems were best).
I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if the site was illegal anyway due to antitrust laws. I bought a desk at Staples once and they called BestBuy to check the price because I told them it was advertised for less and they had to match, and BestBuy gladly told them (not knowing it was a competitor) the desk retailed for $199.99. Great -- but even that's illegal. Federal antitrust laws prohibit prices being given out over the phone.
At first glance it seems totally anticompetitive, but it keeps the larger businesses from undercutting the smaller guys so easily.
Sure Intel is using Hyper-Threading as a buzz word, but that doesn't mean its worthless. Your beloved AMD copied SSE, and made their own 3DNow! and you'd have a hard time convincing me either of those will have the impact hyperthreading does. I saw someone compared the price of a p4 with hyperthreading to that of a dual athlon, but thats not the point. Its the technology. Don't you think AMD and everyone else who makes cpus for anything would be interested in taking advantage of it? If it was AMD (and I really dont think anyone else, except maybe Motorola) who had introduced HT, slashdotters would love it.
Of course I don't like Intel (and of course I hate Bill Gates more, and Steve Jobs has everyone beat), but that doesn't mean having them around isn't healthy for the entire industry.
By the way, has anyone else noticed nvidia trying the brute force tactic like 3dfx did right before they went out?
Your points say what tell us what isn't slowing Macs down. Or at least what isn't slowing it down as much as people would think. The Java virtual machine has a trash collector that cleans up unused memory locations and does any number of things to make it run faster than it did 5 years ago (apparantly with a lot of success) -- but open up notepad and a Java text editor. Even something at this level I find Java is totally unacceptable. You need to give numbers and actual performance to argue the speed of a system.
When I bought my Dell Inspirion with a mobile Pentium 3 1ghz, there was no mention that it'd run at 733mhz in battery mode -- thats just what mobile Pentium 3's do. I looked around and none of the competitors did, either. Why is it that desktop cpus running at a lower clockrate is all of a sudden dishonest?
I wouldnt want to watch anything important on a wireless networked camera. Haven't you ever seen Speed? Anthony Hopkins is kicking himself for going wireless.
Of course they do. Pretty clever there, slick.
What? Why is that article saying this is the first supersonic flight? Didnt that happen in like 1960 (roughly??)?