They really like things that come with support, even if it's redundant and they have their own in-house team of developers.
I would say that long-term availability is even more important to corporations than support. Your in-house support staff is useless if the product itself vanishes from the marketplace. That's really Windows sole perceived advantage from the beancounter perspective: yes it costs a lot for what you get but at least the vendor will still be selling it for the foreseeable future. Now, that doesn't account for the fact that Microsoft has no problem obsoleting entire classes of third-party applications with new releases of Windows, or in the case of Vista basically shipping an entirely new OS (what is it? 70% rewrite?). It also doesn't account for the fact that, with GPLed software at least, the software will always be available even if the original vendor folds. I think that awareness of those two facts would do much to promote the cause of open source software in the commercial world.
The system hasn't yet proclaimed Hans guilty: he's still innocent until that time. However, if the cops arrest you, presumably it's because they think you're guilty. And if the cops think you're guilty, that pretty much means you are (so far as they're concerned) until a jury of your peers says otherwise. In other words, don't expect them to be nice to alleged killers.
Honestly, no ordinary law-abiding citizen wants to take a trip through the Justice System. You may or may not make it out the other side... but either way, you'll never be the same again, and if you're not rich you'll probably be bankrupt before it's all over.
- Reiser bought books on how to stymie forensic homicide techniques
Of course, one of the first techniques such a book should tell you is, don't let anyone know you're buying books on how to stymie forensic homicide techniques.
I tend to agree with you. The article sounds a lot like the RIAA claiming that every illegally downloaded song directly equates to lost revenue, and it is just as flawed a perspective.
Life isn't black and white, and they aren't getting a penny out of my pocket. Matter of fact, if you really don't want to contribute to the studios, don't purchase blank media. Those bloodsuckers are getting a hell of a lot more money out of each stack of blank discs that we buy than they get from used disc sales, and it's a direct transfer from the disc manufacturers to the media companies. But you probably won't do that, so where's your purity of purpose?
I don't quite know how you consider my buying a used disc as support for the studios anyway. You can go on this theory of indirect contribution if you like, but so far as I'm concerned a used product is a used product. Besides, if they only get a penny or two from my purchase, that's a Hell of a lot better than twenty bucks. And you know what? If you want to compare relative degrees of principle, I'm taking more of a stand than 99.9999% of music buyers out there. My conscience is clear.
Seriously, that would be, well... cool. Waaay cool. And if all those vehicles operated on a mesh network, communicating with themselves and with remote data sources (weather services, etc.) traffic jams could be a thing of the past, and we'd all get where we're going more safely, a lot faster, and on less fuel. If some blockage occurred that would otherwise cause traffic to pile up, cars could automagically route themselves around the problem. "Sir, we are talking an alternate route to the airport because a bridge collapsed five miles ahead." Sounds idyllic... I just hope that America is enough of an industrial nation in ten years to be able to afford the technology (or even to have need of it.)
Oh sure... but I guess I'm saying that when you mix technology with politics it's the technology that suffers (and, of course, those who are dependent upon it.) The FCC is a different story not so much because the stakes have risen (although that is certainly true) but because the FCC's overall relevance was diminishing, and they (like good little bureaucrats) had to find some way to make themselves look important. To keep their jobs, in fact. So they've arrogated authority to themselves that frequently gets them in trouble with Congress and the courts, not to mention everyone else. The FCC's power needs to be severely curtailed in some areas, I think.
Besides, circumstantial evidence has always been used to convict. It's more difficult from a prosecutorial perspective, of course, but it's still a viable way to get a conviction. "Reasonable doubt" doesn't mean they have to find you standing over a dead body with a smoking gun in your hands (hey, I watch CSI.)
I dunno. Honestly, if I could find an intelligent, highly educated doctor who would take care of her practice and leave me home to cruise Slashdot (ahem!) raise the kids... I'd marry her in a split femtosecond.
But, yeah. If a woman decides that her career choice is one of raising a family, that's one thing. If she already has a career, one which took her many years of schooling to achieve and which her husband wants her to just forget about... well. I can see where the conflict came in.
Reiser always did seem to think very highly of himself, though, even before the murder charges.
Wake me when a robot can drive me to work down I294 in rush hour during construction season. I'd buy one, because then I could take a nap while the robot drove me to work.
I'm not going to pay $2000 for a styled pc which you can't use and breaks a month out of warranty.
Yeah, and which has weird drivers that you can't get off their Web site and forces you to use their branded OS. I don't know if that's the case with the newer desktop machines, but I ran into that problem with a VAIO laptop a year or so ago. It's a Windows box, stupid, so stop playing games with me. Pain in the ass. I wish Sony were more like Toshiba in that regard.
Besides, if you really want a styled computer, just give it up and buy a Mac. You'll get more bang for your buck, and it'll last well past the warranty period. Now, I'm no particular fan of Apple Computer and I haven't owned a Mac since 1986 but let's face it... for what it is, the Mac is pretty impressive. Sony, on the other hand, seems to be trying to compete at some level with Apple using style over substance, and honestly that's just goofy. A Windows box in a fancy molded plastic case is still a Windows box! It's akin to that other recent/. article about the toy video game that was made to look like a Wii remote. Tacky.
Re:Diminishing sales equals diminishing use?
on
The Dying PC Market
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· Score: 1
I think you're right. The trend towards buying and upgrading peripherals rather than a new computer has been going on for some time. People invest their money in a new scanner, digital camera, maybe a better printer... or for that matter a game console. The point is that it'll be a while before that 3.4 Ghz Athlon with 2 Gb. of memory and a 320 Gb. hard drive becomes a problem. That's pretty much what has driven Intel and AMD into other markets: they did their jobs too well and the need for speed just isn't there anymore. Like you say, gamers and other power users are still there, but the vast majority of users have no compelling reason to buy a new computer. And no, I don't consider Vista to be a compelling reason. Hell, if anything Vista is a good reason to maintain the status quo.
Sure they've been paid for it, but somebody else paid the RIAA tax, and if I go buy another copy at full price they get paid for it again! Screw that. So I'm not fooling myself about anything, I just do what I can to minimize the flow of my cash to a group of well-known bastards while still getting what I want. That's more than most people do, and if I want to feel a little virtuous about that I'm bloody well entitled to do just that. You can talk all you want about how "they still get money" but the fact is that if I buy a used disc for a buck, when I could have bought a new one for twenty bucks, very little money went to the studios and that's the way I want it. I have the bank statements to prove it.
So far as the artists go, sure I buy stuff from independents, and I'm happy to support them: if they offer their music at a price I'm willing to pay I pull out my plastic on the spot. On the other hand, any artist signed with a major label can go get stuffed. I'm not responsible for their having made a pact with the Devil, and I'm not willing to feed dollar bills to the open maw of big media in the hope that some undisclosed amount may (I say, may) trickle down to the actual performer.
Face it, if you buy a new CD, the odds are you just helped pay for some exec's shiny new personal jet. The artist is screwed either way.
but reforming the copyright laws in the public interest could do wonders.
Given the current state of affairs in Washington, that would require one powerful lobbying force... or a suddenly self-aware and educated voting public. I don't see either of those happening soon.
More like, you underestimeate the American public's willingness to side with thieves. There's a reason file sharing is accepted in polite society. Nothing Joe Public likes more than a good heist, not to mention a monkey driving the van.
It's not so much siding with thieves as it is not caring when somebody else gets ripped off, but let me tell you, that indifference disappears fast when Joe's bank account is flattened. The problem nowadays is that so many different data aggregators are keeping information on so many of us that when such thefts occur, everyone has to worry. This particular case just reinforces the fact that you can't trust the companies themselves to either a. take care of the data they've accumulated or b. admit it when that lose it! Databases like this one, and the one maintained by Choicepoint (that was breached not by saw-wielding perps but by crooks that literally bought the data on the open market) simply should not be allowed to exist. Period. They're a public menace, and provide little benefit to society.
The verdict may very well have been correct, but even in that case, there was no reason why the RIAA had to trash her life and drag out the proceedings to ruin her life.
Sure there is, if you're not looking for redress of grievance but deterrent effect.
True enough, but on the other hand it's entirely possible that Google did insist on an independent code review and didn't like what they saw. They're smart enough, technically, to realize how important that is.
Slashdot Mirror
They really like things that come with support, even if it's redundant and they have their own in-house team of developers.
I would say that long-term availability is even more important to corporations than support. Your in-house support staff is useless if the product itself vanishes from the marketplace. That's really Windows sole perceived advantage from the beancounter perspective: yes it costs a lot for what you get but at least the vendor will still be selling it for the foreseeable future. Now, that doesn't account for the fact that Microsoft has no problem obsoleting entire classes of third-party applications with new releases of Windows, or in the case of Vista basically shipping an entirely new OS (what is it? 70% rewrite?). It also doesn't account for the fact that, with GPLed software at least, the software will always be available even if the original vendor folds. I think that awareness of those two facts would do much to promote the cause of open source software in the commercial world.
"What does not kill you makes you stronger". Well, that's not always true ... but if you're smart, it makes you wiser..
Well, I wouldn't expect so ... after all, Sony is the leading manufacturer of weapons-grade lithium bombs.
If he were a typical Slashdotter, I'd agree ... but he apparently has a wife and a couple of kids.
Hey, at least I'm consistent! As it happens, that line is from The Great Time Machine Hoax by Keith Laumer.
The system hasn't yet proclaimed Hans guilty: he's still innocent until that time. However, if the cops arrest you, presumably it's because they think you're guilty. And if the cops think you're guilty, that pretty much means you are (so far as they're concerned) until a jury of your peers says otherwise. In other words, don't expect them to be nice to alleged killers.
... but either way, you'll never be the same again, and if you're not rich you'll probably be bankrupt before it's all over.
Honestly, no ordinary law-abiding citizen wants to take a trip through the Justice System. You may or may not make it out the other side
- Reiser bought books on how to stymie forensic homicide techniques
Of course, one of the first techniques such a book should tell you is, don't let anyone know you're buying books on how to stymie forensic homicide techniques.
As Captain Kirk said to Commissioner Baris in the Trouble with Tribbles episode: "Well, there's no accounting for taste."
I tend to agree with you. The article sounds a lot like the RIAA claiming that every illegally downloaded song directly equates to lost revenue, and it is just as flawed a perspective.
Life isn't black and white, and they aren't getting a penny out of my pocket. Matter of fact, if you really don't want to contribute to the studios, don't purchase blank media. Those bloodsuckers are getting a hell of a lot more money out of each stack of blank discs that we buy than they get from used disc sales, and it's a direct transfer from the disc manufacturers to the media companies. But you probably won't do that, so where's your purity of purpose?
I don't quite know how you consider my buying a used disc as support for the studios anyway. You can go on this theory of indirect contribution if you like, but so far as I'm concerned a used product is a used product. Besides, if they only get a penny or two from my purchase, that's a Hell of a lot better than twenty bucks. And you know what? If you want to compare relative degrees of principle, I'm taking more of a stand than 99.9999% of music buyers out there. My conscience is clear.
Seriously, that would be, well ... cool. Waaay cool. And if all those vehicles operated on a mesh network, communicating with themselves and with remote data sources (weather services, etc.) traffic jams could be a thing of the past, and we'd all get where we're going more safely, a lot faster, and on less fuel. If some blockage occurred that would otherwise cause traffic to pile up, cars could automagically route themselves around the problem. "Sir, we are talking an alternate route to the airport because a bridge collapsed five miles ahead." Sounds idyllic ... I just hope that America is enough of an industrial nation in ten years to be able to afford the technology (or even to have need of it.)
Oh sure ... but I guess I'm saying that when you mix technology with politics it's the technology that suffers (and, of course, those who are dependent upon it.) The FCC is a different story not so much because the stakes have risen (although that is certainly true) but because the FCC's overall relevance was diminishing, and they (like good little bureaucrats) had to find some way to make themselves look important. To keep their jobs, in fact. So they've arrogated authority to themselves that frequently gets them in trouble with Congress and the courts, not to mention everyone else. The FCC's power needs to be severely curtailed in some areas, I think.
Besides, circumstantial evidence has always been used to convict. It's more difficult from a prosecutorial perspective, of course, but it's still a viable way to get a conviction. "Reasonable doubt" doesn't mean they have to find you standing over a dead body with a smoking gun in your hands (hey, I watch CSI.)
I dunno. Honestly, if I could find an intelligent, highly educated doctor who would take care of her practice and leave me home to cruise Slashdot (ahem!) raise the kids ... I'd marry her in a split femtosecond.
... well. I can see where the conflict came in.
But, yeah. If a woman decides that her career choice is one of raising a family, that's one thing. If she already has a career, one which took her many years of schooling to achieve and which her husband wants her to just forget about
Reiser always did seem to think very highly of himself, though, even before the murder charges.
Wake me when a robot can drive me to work down I294 in rush hour during construction season. I'd buy one, because then I could take a nap while the robot drove me to work.
I'm not going to pay $2000 for a styled pc which you can't use and breaks a month out of warranty.
... for what it is, the Mac is pretty impressive. Sony, on the other hand, seems to be trying to compete at some level with Apple using style over substance, and honestly that's just goofy. A Windows box in a fancy molded plastic case is still a Windows box! It's akin to that other recent /. article about the toy video game that was made to look like a Wii remote. Tacky.
Yeah, and which has weird drivers that you can't get off their Web site and forces you to use their branded OS. I don't know if that's the case with the newer desktop machines, but I ran into that problem with a VAIO laptop a year or so ago. It's a Windows box, stupid, so stop playing games with me. Pain in the ass. I wish Sony were more like Toshiba in that regard.
Besides, if you really want a styled computer, just give it up and buy a Mac. You'll get more bang for your buck, and it'll last well past the warranty period. Now, I'm no particular fan of Apple Computer and I haven't owned a Mac since 1986 but let's face it
I think you're right. The trend towards buying and upgrading peripherals rather than a new computer has been going on for some time. People invest their money in a new scanner, digital camera, maybe a better printer ... or for that matter a game console. The point is that it'll be a while before that 3.4 Ghz Athlon with 2 Gb. of memory and a 320 Gb. hard drive becomes a problem. That's pretty much what has driven Intel and AMD into other markets: they did their jobs too well and the need for speed just isn't there anymore. Like you say, gamers and other power users are still there, but the vast majority of users have no compelling reason to buy a new computer. And no, I don't consider Vista to be a compelling reason. Hell, if anything Vista is a good reason to maintain the status quo.
Yeah well, I didn't actually read the article anyway.
Sure they've been paid for it, but somebody else paid the RIAA tax, and if I go buy another copy at full price they get paid for it again! Screw that. So I'm not fooling myself about anything, I just do what I can to minimize the flow of my cash to a group of well-known bastards while still getting what I want. That's more than most people do, and if I want to feel a little virtuous about that I'm bloody well entitled to do just that. You can talk all you want about how "they still get money" but the fact is that if I buy a used disc for a buck, when I could have bought a new one for twenty bucks, very little money went to the studios and that's the way I want it. I have the bank statements to prove it.
So far as the artists go, sure I buy stuff from independents, and I'm happy to support them: if they offer their music at a price I'm willing to pay I pull out my plastic on the spot. On the other hand, any artist signed with a major label can go get stuffed. I'm not responsible for their having made a pact with the Devil, and I'm not willing to feed dollar bills to the open maw of big media in the hope that some undisclosed amount may (I say, may) trickle down to the actual performer.
Face it, if you buy a new CD, the odds are you just helped pay for some exec's shiny new personal jet. The artist is screwed either way.
but reforming the copyright laws in the public interest could do wonders.
... or a suddenly self-aware and educated voting public. I don't see either of those happening soon.
Given the current state of affairs in Washington, that would require one powerful lobbying force
elieve me, they will notice your letter and do something about it.
Hopefully, they wiill notice your letter.
More like, you underestimeate the American public's willingness to side with thieves. There's a reason file sharing is accepted in polite society. Nothing Joe Public likes more than a good heist, not to mention a monkey driving the van.
It's not so much siding with thieves as it is not caring when somebody else gets ripped off, but let me tell you, that indifference disappears fast when Joe's bank account is flattened. The problem nowadays is that so many different data aggregators are keeping information on so many of us that when such thefts occur, everyone has to worry. This particular case just reinforces the fact that you can't trust the companies themselves to either a. take care of the data they've accumulated or b. admit it when that lose it! Databases like this one, and the one maintained by Choicepoint (that was breached not by saw-wielding perps but by crooks that literally bought the data on the open market) simply should not be allowed to exist. Period. They're a public menace, and provide little benefit to society.
The verdict may very well have been correct, but even in that case, there was no reason why the RIAA had to trash her life and drag out the proceedings to ruin her life.
Sure there is, if you're not looking for redress of grievance but deterrent effect.
Well, Kurzweilfreak, frankly that makes as much sense as having the word Justice in it.
... it's an older model but I like the sound.
What makes you a Kurzweil freak, anyway? As it happens, I have a Kurzweil K1200 Pro
True enough, but on the other hand it's entirely possible that Google did insist on an independent code review and didn't like what they saw. They're smart enough, technically, to realize how important that is.