I fail to see these companies can be restricted from selling customer information, but 'renting' it out is perfectly legal. When you enter into an agreement with these companies, aren't you technically 'selling' them your information in exchange for goods or services? Thus, 'renting' aka resale should also be prevented.
Think of it like Blockbuster. They pay premium wholesale prices on movies so they can rent them out, which is why you're charged $100+ for a missing/over-late rental instead of the expected $14 or so you'd pay at Best Buy or wherever.
Wonderful. I can't wait until phrases like "Open Source engagement spectrum" become commonplace.
Maybe i'm a little naive about the needs of enterprise users (a term that seems to be more and more misused as a selling point), but this article makes things seem a lot more complex than they need to be. Engaging the open-source community? Five levels of involvement? Gimme a break.
A business that's considering moving into widespread use of open-source software has a lot to consider, that much is obvious. However, the article strikes upon the most resonant point simply by mentioning that a company has to consider what suits their business best.
Most of what this article touches upon is simply extraneous, as it's covering basically what one goes through when deciding on *any* software. Budget constraints, long-term cost, difficulty of adoption for the end-user, and so on and so forth. The community should be taken into consideration as necessary; it's a resource like any other, and your level of participation is dependent upon your needs as a company. Go with a commercial vendor, you get tech support, plus the benefit of community feedback and assistance. Go with a free one, you negate the tech support and interact with the community at large as much as necessary.
Honestly, if you're running a company and need a guidebook on how to engage with a community of developers and users, you need to step back and re-evaluate your tactics. This is mindless cruft for managers without a clue as to how to interact with people. "Deciding to engage"..pff. What are we, the friggin' Borg?
I can't help but be reminded of Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, where a so-called expert is on stage droning on about the various levels of a dope fiend. You can describe as many "levels" or "points" as you like, but in the end, software is software, a dope fiend is a dope fiend.
Regardless of how you "engage", considerations like your budget and potential risks as a result of a adoption are pretty damned universal. It's not a goddamned 5-step program.
I've encountered this same problem on at least several occasions.. in one instance, I also had issues just sending a friggin' text document, because the guy opened it in Notepad, and evidently, the concept of 'word wrap' is lost on him.
Personally, i'd like to see the.doc format thrown out entirely in favor of something like.rtf. In particular, tech companies shouldn't have any excuses for *requiring* people to use certain software just to be able to apply for a job. This is the same issue I have with job applications online provided only as pdf files.
Currently, i'm using AbiWord. So far, I haven't had any real problems opening.doc format stuff, except when there are tons and tons of tables strewn about. Beyond that, it runs great; best part is, I don't have to bother with the extra crufy junk like presentation software.
Well, if we're just talking software "artists", I can see what you mean.
If you're talking about artists, though, i'd say it's pretty well justified. One particular painter friend of mine up in Seattle uses her own blood and other..fluids..in her paintings sometimes. I suppose that's close enough to giving up your liver.
Well, she also uses various animal parts, too. Maybe she could give you the liver from one of them.
You're right about the point of ProTools..however, for less than the price of all that hardware, you could build a top-of-the-line system, hook up a few cheap-o systems in your closet or wherever, and process your plugins via VST System Link.
Hardcore ProTools systems may be useful for studios with boatloads of cash, but it's rather out of reach for most (read: normal) people. I'm not even talking about garage bands..do you honestly think that someone selling around 100,000 copies of their album can afford to shell out that kind of cash?
I'm not saying Linux is a good alternative for the time being, because I don't think it is, but let's be realistic here. You can't compare everything to ProTools, regardless of whether or not you're a "geek with a garage band" or a musician releasing niche music that has a limited mainstream appeal. It just isn't practical, and in most cases, it's overkill.
Depends on what you define as a "musician". Over the past couple years, studio-in-a-box crap like Reason has come into pretty widespread use, despite incredible programs like Reaktor being around for quite awhile.
It's probably more accurate to say that they're more likely to use "what works". Someone writing bad trance is probably going to have different needs and wants than someone interested in DSP processing and sound design, just as someone interested in surround mixing and soundtrack work will have different curiousities than the other two.
Or you could just wind up with someone writing bad trance mixed in surround sound and set as the soundtrack to yet another bad raver movie. Eh, something like that.
Slipping into fanboy mode for a moment, can I just say that Destroy FX are some of the best goddamned plugins ever created? I use them so often, I haven't even really seen the point in buying most of the commercial offerings out there.
While I agree with your points about audio work, you are a little offbase regarding Linux installations in professional studios. I can't seem to remember the title of the article, but I ran across a writeup a few months ago where a couple studios had tossed Windows aside, due to rising licensing costs, in favor of Linux running (iirc) Rosegarden, Audacity, SoX, and a couple other apps. I got the impression that they were smaller studios, but it's pretty interesting nonetheless.
That said, I don't think things are quite where i'd like them to be. In particular, Audacity is good for very simple recording and editing, but it's a far cry from any serious sound design/editing capabilities. Rosegarden and Ardour look like they could develop quite nicely in the next year or two, though. Afterall, Cubase used to be on the Atari.. quite humble beginnings, considering the position that Steinberg holds now.
Currently, there is no 411 service for cell phones. This is primarily a privacy issue; most people get cell phones for a specific purpose (or set of purposes) like business use, long-distance calls, emergency use, etc. The perception is that an open, public database like that would essentially kill the market. Would you want Jim from 10 years ago (or whoever) calling you at work to shoot the shit after he decided to suddenly look you up? Or family members who've lost your number deciding to check 411, and you end up stuck at work babbling to grandma? Given many of the calls made to 411, this would quickly become an overwhelming frustration for most users.
Basically, here's how 411 works:
It's a set of essentially three structures. On the bottom rung, there are the companies that actually keep the listings up-to-date. They in turn sell those listings, and subsequent updates, to Directory Assistance providers. Those DA providers are outsourced by companies like Verizon, Sprint, etc. Usually, these companies have multiple clients. I used to work for the largest of them, and our clients included Cingular, Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, and Cellular One. From what I understand, they've lost most of them, except for AT&T, to a company that previously focused almost entirely on phone cards.
411 services do have access to 800 numbers, but the listings are horribly disorganized. Half the time, while performing a search for someone, the number was dead/changed, the company had changed it's name, or the listing simply hadn't been added. Usually, I wound up having to think back to advertisements i'd seen if I wanted to connect someone to an 800 number, or i'd have to have dealt with the company personally.
411 cannot, just to note, handle foreign calls or lookups. At best, they can connect you to an operator in the country you're trying to reach, but generally, they don't even have that information.
* Strangely, after leaving my DA job, I wound up working for the company that later nabbed all their contracts. Go figure.
Probably not for awhile, given the prices that they're charging for it. The academic license alone runs nearly $400, the 5-client version nearly $700, and the "enterprise", 25-client version is about $2400. Methinks they'll continue to support it until they're able to sway more users from Win2k and Win98.
Then again, they stopped supporting Win98 pretty recently, so who knows? I'm inclined to believe that they'll cease support in late-2004 or mid-2005, so they can push heavier support for 'Longhorn' and Server 2003.
Then again, I don't have plans to support either of them, gaming or no gaming.
I also advocate legalized drug use.. keeping things illegal only seems to lead to the same problems encountered during Prohibition.
However, I do question how much we really regulate the other activities/substances mentioned. Take alcohol, for instance; it is taxed, true, but it's also heavily advertised on television and billboards. This strikes me as rather hypocritical behavior, and I think the bottom line is that beer companies frequently ally themselves with sporting events. God forbid we disassociate drunk morons and sporting events! As a result, one poison is somehow considered more acceptable than the other, despite rampant drunk drivers, rioting, sexual harrassment, domestic abuse, etc. Nobody gives a crap because everyone does it and the marketing is strong enough that nobody really stops to consider potential negatives. It's sheer irresponsibility and indifference.
The other things mentioned do compare, I think, but their effects are much less noticeable in the short term. We can cite statistics about deaths caused by smoking, and of course it seems very dramatic..but it's much less difficult to rate how harmful greenhouse gasses are when we don't have a chart showing a direct correlation between current health risks and our environment. Admittedly, i'm no scientist, so my perceptions are largely speculative, but it's worth noting nonetheless.
You're right, to an extent, but by your rationale, shouldn't we be taxing products that contain caffeine, over-the-counter medicines, etc? Why not tax obese people, too, as a very common view is that they lack the willpower to control their diets, hence a sign of addiction?
It sounds ridiculous to me, but the tactics you're mentioning seem more like opportunism than any kind of justified taxation. Cigarette smoke may be harmful in a public health sense, but so are emissions from cars, farm animals (in fact, New Zealand is currently proposing a tax on this), and any number of other things we're consuming or being exposed to.
I won't deny that the efforts to stop smoking have been more effective than those used to stop illegal drug use, but they're hardly the same sort of market. Unless you legalize the drugs being pumped out by the various cartels and dealers, there is no form of regulation. The two simply cannot be compared. If you like, think of how p2p is currently regulated. It currently isn't, because there is no central source to attack except the consumer.
Actually, there is a site I ran across recently that does do mods similar to the things you've suggested. I've only taken a brief browse of the site so far, but there are shots of people who've used old style radios, an Atari 800, quite a few humidor mods, a biscuit tin, etc.
Because the parent post was comparing cigarettes to the tactics that the RIAA is using, but his comments *about* cigarettes, and the effectiveness of tactics concerning their regulation, were woefully inaccurate. If you fail to see how this is a relevant correction, then perhaps you should talk to the person comparing cigarettes to file sharing?
So cigarette smokers, clearly addicted to the product, should be taxed through the roof in order to urge them to quit.
Give me a break.
The only end result is that cigarette smokers, like myself, are punished for being addicted to a *legal* product. Why throw anyone in jail when the government is quite happy to take advantage of our dependency and reap the benefits?
It'd be one thing if cigarettes were being taxed and the money given to research to learn how to get people off the habit..but that simply isn't the case. Nicorette? You can develop an addiction this, and it's just gum! The patch? I tried it for a day..only to rip it off because my arm broke out in about 100 tiny zits and it made me physically sick. Pills? The only ones I know of that have been shown to work are anti-depressants. Having taken anti-depressants throughout high school, I can safely say that I will NOT take them again, under any circumstances.
Show us that real headway is being made and that we're people in need of a helping hand if we're going to quit, and i'll agree with you. Your arguement has been made a thousand times before, but i'm afraid it simply isn't true. Taxed money for cigarettes goes directly into the state or the federal government, all at the expense of the smokers.
Which is equally nasty practice..however, who does the fault *really* lie with? Microsoft, or the friend who chose to sign up with MSN, perfectly aware of the advertisements, and sent you an email using the service?
I understand your point, but really, we *do* have choices in regards to email. Browsers, web standards, etc. are all fairly up in the air these days, but it's as I said: MSN isn't forcing anyone to use their services. I sure as hell don't. Rather than simply sign up with the most obvious and pollutant provider, I searched around for about 10 minutes for free providers that don't spam anyone. After a quick comparison between a couple that I was considering, I made my choice and have been perfectly happy with it.
I'm not denying the irony of their practice, nor am I denying that it's fucked up, but MSN is one among many options available. It's a form of decision-making we take part in with every product we buy. We do it when choosing video stores to rent from, toys to buy for kids, computer retailers to buy parts from, etc. ad nauseum. Sometimes, it may be a choice between the lesser of two (or three or however many) evils, but in *most instances*, we still have a choice.
Taking the video store example, I rent from Greencine instead of Blockbuster. I'm making a conscious choice between a small-time online rental service with an emphasis on foreign films, anime, and the like..and a money-grubbing giganto-corp that would love to financially fuck me in every way possible. They have a heavier emphasis on "hit" films and family flicks. I could go to Blockbuster because it's more convenient, but I choose to go with Greencine because I support how they do business and the services provided are more in line with my tastes.
Amusing, true..but technically, one could argue that you *are* soliciting those advertisements, simply by signing up with MSN. Regardless of whether or not you agree with the advertisements, by becoming a user of their service, you are giving your assent. Whether actively or passively, it doesn't matter; in the end, you always have the option of going elsewhere.
I'm not saying that it's fantastic that they spam you, but they aren't forcing you to use their service, either.
Hah! Sounds about like me.. they're still one of my all-time favorites, but I tend to pull their stuff out less frequently than I used to. I still say that "Too Dark Park" is one of the best industrial albums *ever* recorded.
Your shelving system sounds like a good idea, though. To be honest, I don't have a lot of woodworking experience, but it'd definitely be a worthwhile first-time try. When are you planning to build yours?
Given the changes in the marketplace since the idea of patents came into play, it sounds like the overall practice of how they're implemented and why, seems a little anachronistic. I'd say this applies to a large percentage of laws and business practices, though; virtually none of them have adapted to take differences between traditional distribution and via the 'net into account. I freely admit my naivete concerning all of this, but from a basic standpoint, it appears that this lack of adaptation and change creates a large number of near-criminal loopholes for these pricks to jump through.
I'll have to read "The Future of Ideas", though. I've heard of it at least a couple times before, and it sounds like interesting reading.
We did much the same, but we wound up picking up a rack from boltz.com. All steel! *glee* Nice thing is, each rack holds about 600 CD's, and can be expanded with special expansion racks. Very sturdy, too.
As for LP's, we're still using milk crates, too. My friend Eric custom-built some wooden shelving that seems to work out pretty well (and his collection is probably about 3 times as large as ours!), and i'm seriously considering that route. Boltz also has LP shelves, but i'm not sure i'm willing to pay that much..it might be interesting to research how much the parts would cost for me to build a wooden one, though. If it's even near the price that Boltz charges for their racks, i'd probably just buy one.
btw, why do I get the impression that your nick "cens0r" is somehow a Skinny Puppy reference?:p
I find this *really* disappointing...and rather questionable.
A quote from one of Netflix stockholders mentions:
"For the near term, this provides a way for them to defend against competition."
So now, companies like the ever-wonderful Greencine.com (which I use and love), can no longer legally continue as they have been. Netflix patent will either push them out of business entirely, or they will be dependent on Netflix as a result of the aforementioned patent.
How is this not a monopoly?
Maybe I don't understand something glaringly obvious about the nature of a business monopoly, but it seems to me that this is exactly what Netflix will become. While I think it's obvious to all of us that video rentals have been around for a long time, the 'net is an entirely new medium for distribution. Obviously, charging per-rental via the 'net isn't economical for the consumer *or* the rental company, so a subscription model seems the best route to go. It just seems beyond ridiculous to me to allow a patent like this, though. A subscription model just plays out as common sense, but is it really something that can be patented?
Utterly ridiculous, blatantly obvious, and ultimately pathetic. I'll be especially pissed if it means that Greencine goes away, since it's allowed us to stop patronizing Blockbuster and support a company we actually believe in. I'm not sure what's worse: watching Netflix try to push out the smaller online rental stores or watching Blockbuster essentially decimate mom-n-pop video stores. Looks like i'll have to start trekking out to SE Portland and renting at Movie Madness.
Actually, AGP 8x, gigabit ethernet, serial-ata connectors, firewire, and usb 2.0 are all pretty de-facto on most modern PC motherboards. Since wireless stuff is still hit or miss for a lot of people, it's generally not included (though I have seen a couple boards with dual-ethernet ports). PCI-X slots are generally de-facto on all dual-proc motherboards these days, too. I'm not sure on Xeon motherboards, since most of them came out awhile ago, but I know that at least for the Opteron boards (strangely missing from Apple's benchmark), it is standard.
Look, the vast majority of cost for modern systems comes from the CPU and motherboard; the rest is pretty much icing on the cake, and can vary wildly depending on what you as a user are looking for. That said, i'd say the prices for equivalent systems are pretty much equivalent to what Apple's charging, which i'm actually pretty happy to see. For a long time, I held back from Apple predominantly because their price didn't really justify the performance. Congrats to them for finally giving me a product that seems worth every penny (at least to me; i'm not exactly loaded with cash).
Personally, I don't see why anyone is arguing about this. Virtually everything coming from Intel, AMD, *and* Apple, collectively, simply shows that we're living in an exciting time for computer users. At this point, I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief and reap the benefits, regardless of platform choice.
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I fail to see these companies can be restricted from selling customer information, but 'renting' it out is perfectly legal. When you enter into an agreement with these companies, aren't you technically 'selling' them your information in exchange for goods or services? Thus, 'renting' aka resale should also be prevented.
Think of it like Blockbuster. They pay premium wholesale prices on movies so they can rent them out, which is why you're charged $100+ for a missing/over-late rental instead of the expected $14 or so you'd pay at Best Buy or wherever.
Wonderful. I can't wait until phrases like "Open Source engagement spectrum" become commonplace.
Maybe i'm a little naive about the needs of enterprise users (a term that seems to be more and more misused as a selling point), but this article makes things seem a lot more complex than they need to be. Engaging the open-source community? Five levels of involvement? Gimme a break.
A business that's considering moving into widespread use of open-source software has a lot to consider, that much is obvious. However, the article strikes upon the most resonant point simply by mentioning that a company has to consider what suits their business best.
Most of what this article touches upon is simply extraneous, as it's covering basically what one goes through when deciding on *any* software. Budget constraints, long-term cost, difficulty of adoption for the end-user, and so on and so forth.
The community should be taken into consideration as necessary; it's a resource like any other, and your level of participation is dependent upon your needs as a company. Go with a commercial vendor, you get tech support, plus the benefit of community feedback and assistance. Go with a free one, you negate the tech support and interact with the community at large as much as necessary.
Honestly, if you're running a company and need a guidebook on how to engage with a community of developers and users, you need to step back and re-evaluate your tactics. This is mindless cruft for managers without a clue as to how to interact with people. "Deciding to engage"..pff. What are we, the friggin' Borg?
I can't help but be reminded of Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, where a so-called expert is on stage droning on about the various levels of a dope fiend. You can describe as many "levels" or "points" as you like, but in the end, software is software, a dope fiend is a dope fiend.
Regardless of how you "engage", considerations like your budget and potential risks as a result of a adoption are pretty damned universal. It's not a goddamned 5-step program.
While I think his article is a load of crap, he doesn't say "i've been using Windows for 20 years" and simply leave it at that.
"I was a disciple from the beginning when it was called Dos, and kept the faith through the buggy, painful years of Windows 1.0 to 3.11."
However historically/technically incorrect it may be to just lump it all into one heap, he *does* factor using MS-DOS into those 20 years.
I've encountered this same problem on at least several occasions.. in one instance, I also had issues just sending a friggin' text document, because the guy opened it in Notepad, and evidently, the concept of 'word wrap' is lost on him.
.doc format thrown out entirely in favor of something like .rtf. In particular, tech companies shouldn't have any excuses for *requiring* people to use certain software just to be able to apply for a job. This is the same issue I have with job applications online provided only as pdf files.
.doc format stuff, except when there are tons and tons of tables strewn about. Beyond that, it runs great; best part is, I don't have to bother with the extra crufy junk like presentation software.
Personally, i'd like to see the
Currently, i'm using AbiWord. So far, I haven't had any real problems opening
In Soviet Russia, phones motion you!
Well, if we're just talking software "artists", I can see what you mean.
If you're talking about artists, though, i'd say it's pretty well justified. One particular painter friend of mine up in Seattle uses her own blood and other..fluids..in her paintings sometimes. I suppose that's close enough to giving up your liver.
Well, she also uses various animal parts, too. Maybe she could give you the liver from one of them.
You're right about the point of ProTools..however, for less than the price of all that hardware, you could build a top-of-the-line system, hook up a few cheap-o systems in your closet or wherever, and process your plugins via VST System Link.
Hardcore ProTools systems may be useful for studios with boatloads of cash, but it's rather out of reach for most (read: normal) people. I'm not even talking about garage bands..do you honestly think that someone selling around 100,000 copies of their album can afford to shell out that kind of cash?
I'm not saying Linux is a good alternative for the time being, because I don't think it is, but let's be realistic here. You can't compare everything to ProTools, regardless of whether or not you're a "geek with a garage band" or a musician releasing niche music that has a limited mainstream appeal. It just isn't practical, and in most cases, it's overkill.
Just a quick correction for those who've hit the Samplitude link listed. Sek'd doesn't own it anymore. It's now produced by Magix.
They have a site dedicated to Samplitude and Sequoia at samplitude.com
Depends on what you define as a "musician". Over the past couple years, studio-in-a-box crap like Reason has come into pretty widespread use, despite incredible programs like Reaktor being around for quite awhile.
It's probably more accurate to say that they're more likely to use "what works". Someone writing bad trance is probably going to have different needs and wants than someone interested in DSP processing and sound design, just as someone interested in surround mixing and soundtrack work will have different curiousities than the other two.
Or you could just wind up with someone writing bad trance mixed in surround sound and set as the soundtrack to yet another bad raver movie. Eh, something like that.
Slipping into fanboy mode for a moment, can I just say that Destroy FX are some of the best goddamned plugins ever created? I use them so often, I haven't even really seen the point in buying most of the commercial offerings out there.
:-)
Any plans for a few new plugs?
While I agree with your points about audio work, you are a little offbase regarding Linux installations in professional studios. I can't seem to remember the title of the article, but I ran across a writeup a few months ago where a couple studios had tossed Windows aside, due to rising licensing costs, in favor of Linux running (iirc) Rosegarden, Audacity, SoX, and a couple other apps. I got the impression that they were smaller studios, but it's pretty interesting nonetheless.
That said, I don't think things are quite where i'd like them to be. In particular, Audacity is good for very simple recording and editing, but it's a far cry from any serious sound design/editing capabilities. Rosegarden and Ardour look like they could develop quite nicely in the next year or two, though. Afterall, Cubase used to be on the Atari.. quite humble beginnings, considering the position that Steinberg holds now.
Eh, then again, I don't really like Cubase much.
Currently, there is no 411 service for cell phones. This is primarily a privacy issue; most people get cell phones for a specific purpose (or set of purposes) like business use, long-distance calls, emergency use, etc. The perception is that an open, public database like that would essentially kill the market. Would you want Jim from 10 years ago (or whoever) calling you at work to shoot the shit after he decided to suddenly look you up? Or family members who've lost your number deciding to check 411, and you end up stuck at work babbling to grandma? Given many of the calls made to 411, this would quickly become an overwhelming frustration for most users.
Basically, here's how 411 works:
It's a set of essentially three structures. On the bottom rung, there are the companies that actually keep the listings up-to-date. They in turn sell those listings, and subsequent updates, to Directory Assistance providers. Those DA providers are outsourced by companies like Verizon, Sprint, etc. Usually, these companies have multiple clients. I used to work for the largest of them, and our clients included Cingular, Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, and Cellular One. From what I understand, they've lost most of them, except for AT&T, to a company that previously focused almost entirely on phone cards.
411 services do have access to 800 numbers, but the listings are horribly disorganized. Half the time, while performing a search for someone, the number was dead/changed, the company had changed it's name, or the listing simply hadn't been added. Usually, I wound up having to think back to advertisements i'd seen if I wanted to connect someone to an 800 number, or i'd have to have dealt with the company personally.
411 cannot, just to note, handle foreign calls or lookups. At best, they can connect you to an operator in the country you're trying to reach, but generally, they don't even have that information.
* Strangely, after leaving my DA job, I wound up working for the company that later nabbed all their contracts. Go figure.
Probably not for awhile, given the prices that they're charging for it. The academic license alone runs nearly $400, the 5-client version nearly $700, and the "enterprise", 25-client version is about $2400. Methinks they'll continue to support it until they're able to sway more users from Win2k and Win98.
Then again, they stopped supporting Win98 pretty recently, so who knows? I'm inclined to believe that they'll cease support in late-2004 or mid-2005, so they can push heavier support for 'Longhorn' and Server 2003.
Then again, I don't have plans to support either of them, gaming or no gaming.
I also advocate legalized drug use.. keeping things illegal only seems to lead to the same problems encountered during Prohibition.
However, I do question how much we really regulate the other activities/substances mentioned. Take alcohol, for instance; it is taxed, true, but it's also heavily advertised on television and billboards. This strikes me as rather hypocritical behavior, and I think the bottom line is that beer companies frequently ally themselves with sporting events. God forbid we disassociate drunk morons and sporting events! As a result, one poison is somehow considered more acceptable than the other, despite rampant drunk drivers, rioting, sexual harrassment, domestic abuse, etc. Nobody gives a crap because everyone does it and the marketing is strong enough that nobody really stops to consider potential negatives. It's sheer irresponsibility and indifference.
The other things mentioned do compare, I think, but their effects are much less noticeable in the short term. We can cite statistics about deaths caused by smoking, and of course it seems very dramatic..but it's much less difficult to rate how harmful greenhouse gasses are when we don't have a chart showing a direct correlation between current health risks and our environment. Admittedly, i'm no scientist, so my perceptions are largely speculative, but it's worth noting nonetheless.
You're right, to an extent, but by your rationale, shouldn't we be taxing products that contain caffeine, over-the-counter medicines, etc? Why not tax obese people, too, as a very common view is that they lack the willpower to control their diets, hence a sign of addiction?
It sounds ridiculous to me, but the tactics you're mentioning seem more like opportunism than any kind of justified taxation. Cigarette smoke may be harmful in a public health sense, but so are emissions from cars, farm animals (in fact, New Zealand is currently proposing a tax on this), and any number of other things we're consuming or being exposed to.
I won't deny that the efforts to stop smoking have been more effective than those used to stop illegal drug use, but they're hardly the same sort of market. Unless you legalize the drugs being pumped out by the various cartels and dealers, there is no form of regulation. The two simply cannot be compared. If you like, think of how p2p is currently regulated. It currently isn't, because there is no central source to attack except the consumer.
Actually, there is a site I ran across recently that does do mods similar to the things you've suggested. I've only taken a brief browse of the site so far, but there are shots of people who've used old style radios, an Atari 800, quite a few humidor mods, a biscuit tin, etc.
Check it out: mini-itx.com
Because the parent post was comparing cigarettes to the tactics that the RIAA is using, but his comments *about* cigarettes, and the effectiveness of tactics concerning their regulation, were woefully inaccurate. If you fail to see how this is a relevant correction, then perhaps you should talk to the person comparing cigarettes to file sharing?
So cigarette smokers, clearly addicted to the product, should be taxed through the roof in order to urge them to quit.
Give me a break.
The only end result is that cigarette smokers, like myself, are punished for being addicted to a *legal* product. Why throw anyone in jail when the government is quite happy to take advantage of our dependency and reap the benefits?
It'd be one thing if cigarettes were being taxed and the money given to research to learn how to get people off the habit..but that simply isn't the case. Nicorette? You can develop an addiction this, and it's just gum! The patch? I tried it for a day..only to rip it off because my arm broke out in about 100 tiny zits and it made me physically sick. Pills? The only ones I know of that have been shown to work are anti-depressants. Having taken anti-depressants throughout high school, I can safely say that I will NOT take them again, under any circumstances.
Show us that real headway is being made and that we're people in need of a helping hand if we're going to quit, and i'll agree with you. Your arguement has been made a thousand times before, but i'm afraid it simply isn't true. Taxed money for cigarettes goes directly into the state or the federal government, all at the expense of the smokers.
Which is equally nasty practice..however, who does the fault *really* lie with? Microsoft, or the friend who chose to sign up with MSN, perfectly aware of the advertisements, and sent you an email using the service?
I understand your point, but really, we *do* have choices in regards to email. Browsers, web standards, etc. are all fairly up in the air these days, but it's as I said: MSN isn't forcing anyone to use their services. I sure as hell don't. Rather than simply sign up with the most obvious and pollutant provider, I searched around for about 10 minutes for free providers that don't spam anyone. After a quick comparison between a couple that I was considering, I made my choice and have been perfectly happy with it.
I'm not denying the irony of their practice, nor am I denying that it's fucked up, but MSN is one among many options available. It's a form of decision-making we take part in with every product we buy. We do it when choosing video stores to rent from, toys to buy for kids, computer retailers to buy parts from, etc. ad nauseum. Sometimes, it may be a choice between the lesser of two (or three or however many) evils, but in *most instances*, we still have a choice.
Taking the video store example, I rent from Greencine instead of Blockbuster. I'm making a conscious choice between a small-time online rental service with an emphasis on foreign films, anime, and the like..and a money-grubbing giganto-corp that would love to financially fuck me in every way possible. They have a heavier emphasis on "hit" films and family flicks. I could go to Blockbuster because it's more convenient, but I choose to go with Greencine because I support how they do business and the services provided are more in line with my tastes.
Amusing, true..but technically, one could argue that you *are* soliciting those advertisements, simply by signing up with MSN. Regardless of whether or not you agree with the advertisements, by becoming a user of their service, you are giving your assent. Whether actively or passively, it doesn't matter; in the end, you always have the option of going elsewhere.
I'm not saying that it's fantastic that they spam you, but they aren't forcing you to use their service, either.
Hah! Sounds about like me.. they're still one of my all-time favorites, but I tend to pull their stuff out less frequently than I used to. I still say that "Too Dark Park" is one of the best industrial albums *ever* recorded.
Your shelving system sounds like a good idea, though. To be honest, I don't have a lot of woodworking experience, but it'd definitely be a worthwhile first-time try. When are you planning to build yours?
Given the changes in the marketplace since the idea of patents came into play, it sounds like the overall practice of how they're implemented and why, seems a little anachronistic. I'd say this applies to a large percentage of laws and business practices, though; virtually none of them have adapted to take differences between traditional distribution and via the 'net into account. I freely admit my naivete concerning all of this, but from a basic standpoint, it appears that this lack of adaptation and change creates a large number of near-criminal loopholes for these pricks to jump through.
I'll have to read "The Future of Ideas", though. I've heard of it at least a couple times before, and it sounds like interesting reading.
We did much the same, but we wound up picking up a rack from boltz.com. All steel! *glee* Nice thing is, each rack holds about 600 CD's, and can be expanded with special expansion racks. Very sturdy, too.
:p
As for LP's, we're still using milk crates, too. My friend Eric custom-built some wooden shelving that seems to work out pretty well (and his collection is probably about 3 times as large as ours!), and i'm seriously considering that route. Boltz also has LP shelves, but i'm not sure i'm willing to pay that much..it might be interesting to research how much the parts would cost for me to build a wooden one, though. If it's even near the price that Boltz charges for their racks, i'd probably just buy one.
btw, why do I get the impression that your nick "cens0r" is somehow a Skinny Puppy reference?
I find this *really* disappointing...and rather questionable.
A quote from one of Netflix stockholders mentions:
"For the near term, this provides a way for them to defend against competition."
So now, companies like the ever-wonderful Greencine.com (which I use and love), can no longer legally continue as they have been. Netflix patent will either push them out of business entirely, or they will be dependent on Netflix as a result of the aforementioned patent.
How is this not a monopoly?
Maybe I don't understand something glaringly obvious about the nature of a business monopoly, but it seems to me that this is exactly what Netflix will become. While I think it's obvious to all of us that video rentals have been around for a long time, the 'net is an entirely new medium for distribution. Obviously, charging per-rental via the 'net isn't economical for the consumer *or* the rental company, so a subscription model seems the best route to go. It just seems beyond ridiculous to me to allow a patent like this, though. A subscription model just plays out as common sense, but is it really something that can be patented?
Utterly ridiculous, blatantly obvious, and ultimately pathetic. I'll be especially pissed if it means that Greencine goes away, since it's allowed us to stop patronizing Blockbuster and support a company we actually believe in. I'm not sure what's worse: watching Netflix try to push out the smaller online rental stores or watching Blockbuster essentially decimate mom-n-pop video stores. Looks like i'll have to start trekking out to SE Portland and renting at Movie Madness.
Actually, AGP 8x, gigabit ethernet, serial-ata connectors, firewire, and usb 2.0 are all pretty de-facto on most modern PC motherboards. Since wireless stuff is still hit or miss for a lot of people, it's generally not included (though I have seen a couple boards with dual-ethernet ports). PCI-X slots are generally de-facto on all dual-proc motherboards these days, too. I'm not sure on Xeon motherboards, since most of them came out awhile ago, but I know that at least for the Opteron boards (strangely missing from Apple's benchmark), it is standard.
Look, the vast majority of cost for modern systems comes from the CPU and motherboard; the rest is pretty much icing on the cake, and can vary wildly depending on what you as a user are looking for. That said, i'd say the prices for equivalent systems are pretty much equivalent to what Apple's charging, which i'm actually pretty happy to see. For a long time, I held back from Apple predominantly because their price didn't really justify the performance. Congrats to them for finally giving me a product that seems worth every penny (at least to me; i'm not exactly loaded with cash).
Personally, I don't see why anyone is arguing about this. Virtually everything coming from Intel, AMD, *and* Apple, collectively, simply shows that we're living in an exciting time for computer users. At this point, I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief and reap the benefits, regardless of platform choice.