They quickly have become irrelevant at home, where most needs are covered by old PCs plus consoles plus tablets.
They also have become irrelevant at the office, where their enemy is their older products, which are good enough for most needs.
They also lost the.net bet, since it failed to penetrate the developer market in high numbers.
They lost the multimedia streaming value. Silverlight is already obsolete.
They are totally irrelevant in the smartphone and tablet market.
They lost the web browser war.
They lost the web search and advertising war.
Microsoft's only recent success is the XBox.
They have almost nothing to brag about in the last few years, and so, in their desperation, they introduce changes for the sake of change, hoping they will make something nice and cool that will capture people's imagination, so as that they will become relevant again.
Why did you choose a one-way trip to Mars, instead of a starship that can make the trip from Earth to Mars and back a commodity?
A staship could be assembled in space, have artificial gravity via rotating sections, use nuclear power, have small craft that can land on planets, and be reused for travels in many solar system bodies.
With such a ship, many trips to Mars can be done, and there would be no need to sacrifice anyone.
"music is not property, because it is not tangible". No, music is tangible, it is written on paper, like a novel, with symbols being the musical notes instead of letters. When played, music is vibrations of molecules, so it is very tangible.
"piracy does not hurt profit". If one produced a song that was 100% pirated, profit would be 0. So, piracy does hurt profit.
"a pirated song is not a lost sale". It is a lost sale, because it denies profit to the owner of the song.
"copyright exists for the promotion of arts and culture". No, no matter how it is being said, copyright exists to protect profit. Encouraging an artist to create more works is only meaningful if the artist can make a profit from its works in order to sustain him/herself.
"piracy is not immoral because corporations are evil". But you could fight the evil corporations by not using/buying their products, which you obviously do not do. So, that is just and excuse for not paying.
"I may pirate things, but I always buy them later, and most other people do so". Pirates who do not buy the products later will not say so in any poll, or on the internet.
"copyright should not exist because it hinders the promotion of culture". No, it does not, because, by your own admission, you are willing to pay for culture.
"before recording was possible, musicians earned a living only by live performances". No, they did not, being musicians was their hobby, they all had jobs. Those that did not have jobs were protected by the weathy, mostly royalty or church.
"copyright should only be for 15 years, anything beyond that is stupid". No, it is not. You would pay money for a 30 year old car, why not for a 30 old song?
"artificial scarcity should not be allowed". The ability to copy a song does not mean that scarcity is artificial, because before the copy, the song did not exist. Artficial scarcity is when a product does exist but it is not being sold in order to keep its price high. In the case of a song, an instance of it does not exist before being created.
"piracy is out there, the internet cannot be stopped". Nuclear weapons are also out there, shouldn't we make an attempt to stop them? the availability of something does not make that something legal or good, just because it exists.
"why should we pay X dollars for a song, when the cost of reproducing it is almost zero?" because that is what the song's creator wants, and the right to sell one's product at the price he/she wants is a fundamental principle of our economic system. If you find the price too high, you can ignore the product or negotiate a lower price.
We are at least 10 years behind what we could have right now, because Microsoft had chosen the shitty 8086 over the Motorola 68000, back in the 80s.
And it was not a matter of price, because 8086 systems were not that cheaper from 68000 systems. A high end 8086 Compaq Desk Pro with a SCSI hard disk and a mouse cost nearly $3k, almost as the Apple Mac Plus.
What has your father to say about Physics? more specifically, the unification of general relativity and quantum mechanics? has he ever looked into that?
Faith is not a mental disorder, it is an emotional disorder. There is nothing chemically wrong in the brain of a religious person, it is just a set of erroneous beliefs triggered by the emotions of fear and anxiety.
You see, creation and infinity are two incompatible concepts. Either something is infinite, and nothing more can be added to it, or it is not, and something can be added to it.
You ignore almost 2000 years of Christian bloodshed, first by the Roman empire, then by the Byzantine empire and what was left of the Roman empire, then ny the Normans, the Saxons and the other Northern tribes, and later by 'civilized' countries like England, France, Spain and Portugal that slaughtered millions of American Indians, black people slavery, India occupation etc.
Although the recording industry does not claim it cannot survive due to piracy, there have been cases in the past that whole sectors were eradicated by piracy: Amiga and Atari, for example.
The amount of illegal traffic does not change the nature of the medium: bittorrent is there to share data. That does not make it illegal, and even if 99% of the transferred data are illegally transferred, it still does not make bittorrent illegal.
A human can easily learn the notes of a song. The person can then be used to 'transfer' the notes to another destination. Is the human's abilitity to transfer information illegal? it is not.
Your computer's motherboard is also a network of electrical signals, where pirated material flows through. Does that make electronics illegal?
Saying that a transfer medium or protocol is illegal because the data moved through it are illegal is extremely stupid, and that is what Wheaton is saying.
The actual programming language matters very little to an experienced developer, who sees the code not in terms of the programming language it is programmed in but as a set of abstract algorithms and syntax trees.
It can be an easy-to-use system that is not obligatory for everything, just for government-related tasks, or it could be obligatory just to browse. In the latter case, it is certainly about surveillance and big brother, rather than anything else.
Slashdot Mirror
The first joke that came to my mind...
Microsoft is desperate. They are in panic mode.
They quickly have become irrelevant at home, where most needs are covered by old PCs plus consoles plus tablets.
They also have become irrelevant at the office, where their enemy is their older products, which are good enough for most needs.
They also lost the .net bet, since it failed to penetrate the developer market in high numbers.
They lost the multimedia streaming value. Silverlight is already obsolete.
They are totally irrelevant in the smartphone and tablet market.
They lost the web browser war.
They lost the web search and advertising war.
Microsoft's only recent success is the XBox.
They have almost nothing to brag about in the last few years, and so, in their desperation, they introduce changes for the sake of change, hoping they will make something nice and cool that will capture people's imagination, so as that they will become relevant again.
Why did you choose a one-way trip to Mars, instead of a starship that can make the trip from Earth to Mars and back a commodity?
A staship could be assembled in space, have artificial gravity via rotating sections, use nuclear power, have small craft that can land on planets, and be reused for travels in many solar system bodies.
With such a ship, many trips to Mars can be done, and there would be no need to sacrifice anyone.
"music is not property, because it is not tangible". No, music is tangible, it is written on paper, like a novel, with symbols being the musical notes instead of letters. When played, music is vibrations of molecules, so it is very tangible.
"piracy does not hurt profit". If one produced a song that was 100% pirated, profit would be 0. So, piracy does hurt profit.
"a pirated song is not a lost sale". It is a lost sale, because it denies profit to the owner of the song.
"copyright exists for the promotion of arts and culture". No, no matter how it is being said, copyright exists to protect profit. Encouraging an artist to create more works is only meaningful if the artist can make a profit from its works in order to sustain him/herself.
"piracy is not immoral because corporations are evil". But you could fight the evil corporations by not using/buying their products, which you obviously do not do. So, that is just and excuse for not paying.
"I may pirate things, but I always buy them later, and most other people do so". Pirates who do not buy the products later will not say so in any poll, or on the internet.
"copyright should not exist because it hinders the promotion of culture". No, it does not, because, by your own admission, you are willing to pay for culture.
"before recording was possible, musicians earned a living only by live performances". No, they did not, being musicians was their hobby, they all had jobs. Those that did not have jobs were protected by the weathy, mostly royalty or church.
"copyright should only be for 15 years, anything beyond that is stupid". No, it is not. You would pay money for a 30 year old car, why not for a 30 old song?
"artificial scarcity should not be allowed". The ability to copy a song does not mean that scarcity is artificial, because before the copy, the song did not exist. Artficial scarcity is when a product does exist but it is not being sold in order to keep its price high. In the case of a song, an instance of it does not exist before being created.
"piracy is out there, the internet cannot be stopped". Nuclear weapons are also out there, shouldn't we make an attempt to stop them? the availability of something does not make that something legal or good, just because it exists.
"why should we pay X dollars for a song, when the cost of reproducing it is almost zero?" because that is what the song's creator wants, and the right to sell one's product at the price he/she wants is a fundamental principle of our economic system. If you find the price too high, you can ignore the product or negotiate a lower price.
We are at least 10 years behind what we could have right now, because Microsoft had chosen the shitty 8086 over the Motorola 68000, back in the 80s.
And it was not a matter of price, because 8086 systems were not that cheaper from 68000 systems. A high end 8086 Compaq Desk Pro with a SCSI hard disk and a mouse cost nearly $3k, almost as the Apple Mac Plus.
Why do you write 'G-d' instead of 'God'? do you fear God? from your post, it seems you are atheist.
1) the grand unified theory of physics.
2) an economic system that is fair, allows for balanced development and does not cause crises.
3) a programming language that allows a compiler the sophistication of human reasoning in order to catch as many bugs as possible.
Now, if these geniouses can make progress in any of the above, they would offer a real good service to humanity.
What has your father to say about Physics? more specifically, the unification of general relativity and quantum mechanics? has he ever looked into that?
Jesus came to rid us of all of our sins, not only the primary sin.
Faith is not a mental disorder, it is an emotional disorder. There is nothing chemically wrong in the brain of a religious person, it is just a set of erroneous beliefs triggered by the emotions of fear and anxiety.
No, science can easily disprove God. Here is the proof:
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/sgs8t/can_this_work_as_a_math_proof_that_god_does_not/
You see, creation and infinity are two incompatible concepts. Either something is infinite, and nothing more can be added to it, or it is not, and something can be added to it.
I disagree. Islam is behind a few decades, but it quickly catches up. Give it a few decades, and I am sure it will catch up.
You ignore almost 2000 years of Christian bloodshed, first by the Roman empire, then by the Byzantine empire and what was left of the Roman empire, then ny the Normans, the Saxons and the other Northern tribes, and later by 'civilized' countries like England, France, Spain and Portugal that slaughtered millions of American Indians, black people slavery, India occupation etc.
Please read some history. The atrocities done by Christians in the last 2000 years are untouchable by any other religion.
If you had drawn a crucifx in urine 500 years ago, you would have been burned alive.
Although the recording industry does not claim it cannot survive due to piracy, there have been cases in the past that whole sectors were eradicated by piracy: Amiga and Atari, for example.
The issue here is that the majority believes it is harmless. It is not.
Profiting from one work's is not bad business practice, first of all.
Secondly, reality doesn't make laws, laws make reality. Otherwise, it would be ok to persecute Jews in Germany in the 30s.
Thirdly, the gay and oral sex laws is exactly what reality did: people passed their prejudices to laws. It should be the other way around.
You forget one important factor in your analysis, and that is the profit of the business owner.
If the business owner was willing to lower his profits, then the products could be produced in USA and still be cheap.
And the American workers that worked on those products would get descent salaries too.
Once upon a time, the majority of the population believed the Earth was flat.
What the majority believes may be wrong some times.
The amount of illegal traffic does not change the nature of the medium: bittorrent is there to share data. That does not make it illegal, and even if 99% of the transferred data are illegally transferred, it still does not make bittorrent illegal.
A human can easily learn the notes of a song. The person can then be used to 'transfer' the notes to another destination. Is the human's abilitity to transfer information illegal? it is not.
Your computer's motherboard is also a network of electrical signals, where pirated material flows through. Does that make electronics illegal?
Saying that a transfer medium or protocol is illegal because the data moved through it are illegal is extremely stupid, and that is what Wheaton is saying.
The actual programming language matters very little to an experienced developer, who sees the code not in terms of the programming language it is programmed in but as a set of abstract algorithms and syntax trees.
Then piracy would be a problem, wouldn't it?
The number 95% is valid in software, of course, for some types of applications.
As an old Amiga user, I remember reports from companies that estimated that 95% of their games' users were pirates.
Initially, the expansion of the universe was a lot faster than the speed of light: the universe got really large very shortly after the bang.
It can be an easy-to-use system that is not obligatory for everything, just for government-related tasks, or it could be obligatory just to browse. In the latter case, it is certainly about surveillance and big brother, rather than anything else.
Doesn't Lumia have an Enter key?