This is generally itemized as "Goodwill and other intangiables". For Worldcom it can be seen on the most recently available quarterly/yearly report as $37.2 billion dollars. This can be seen at this link.
Well, at least the executive staff at JDS earned it, right?
Disgusting executive compensation like that is completely unfounded in metrics: CEOs can yabber on about how it's necessary to get the best, but industry studies have found that the exorbinantly paid do not do any better than the conservatively paid. Indeed, one could make a credible case that such absurd compensation quickly creates executives who simply don't care about the health of a company: When you have $40 million after two years, do you really care if the company is going in the shitter? Joe Worker, who's scraping by month to month while waiting for these executives to lay off several hundred people; a collection that together make less than the single executive.
When organizations such as JDS lose money, fines should be doled out to executives who looted the boardrooms during the good times. Wouldn't that be a fair balance?
While a lot of investors are indeed Make Money Fast gamblers, many more simply want to keep their money appreciating at least with inflation (e.g. It isn't a good idea to keep money in your mattress). To do this you find an organization with strong fundamentals and a good balance sheet, and you invest your money: The cycle of economics.
Worldcom, though, had bogus books: What was supposed to be a solid company, by all information that the public could see, was perilously in danger. Many low-risk, non-gambling investors were defrauded because of this misrepresentation. Don't clump them in with Yahoo.com investors, or other momentum type stocks.
you just need to toss every resume that has the letters MCSE on them
The corrolary of this is to insert every other superficial bigotry in there:
"You just need to toss every resume that has the OS Linux on them" "You just need to toss every resume that mentions XML" "You just need to toss every resume that isn't from a guy name `Dave'"
Check the envy at the door. There are a lot of extremely clever people who have MCSEs along with a swath of other designations and accolades. Why? Because it's a structured approach to learning things about running and administering Windows that you likely would not know otherwise. Now I know that every Linux user believes themselves experts at Windows or any other OS, but the truth is that usually that they don't have the slightest clue beyond a laughable surface knowledge (which is why they'll always come on Slashdot exclaiming about their bad experiences with Windows, or how difficult managing and running Windows enterprises is, etc).
Must be those damn geeks with the "University Degrees".
You can't be serious... Are you not aware of ClearChannel? Does anyone WANT to listen to the stuff that CC force feeds onto the radio soley on the basis of who's the highest bidder? Do you have ANY IDEA what the situation is with radio and the CC monopoly, legalized "payola", and how artists are *indeed* screwed over? Geez...
The reply was specifically in regards to a "one hit wonder" comment (namely that CDs are worth it for a "one hit wonder" song). "One hit wonder"s, by their very nature, are songs that achieve wide airplay on the radio and hence are sought out by people on P2P networks.
Should the record companies be allowed to "contract them for life" and take all their profits? No.
Contracts, by their very nature, are a gamble with both sides thinking they'll make out on the winning side. For every super-band that is bitching that they can't get out of a contrat that supported them in their nascent days, there is a dozen bands that the label has carried for years. How about the countless recent instances where labels BOUGHT OUT the multi-record deals of artists who have long since jumped the shark? Do you cry for the record companies in that case?
And what are you supposed to do if all the major labels make contracts like this? There isn't much to do except settle to keep playing the bar & grills around your neighborhood, even if your talent deserves better.
Create a website. Pursue guerilla marketing. Build a fan base. Do performance across the nation. NOTHING is stopping people from doing stuff like this right now. What you seem to be saying, though, is that artists should be able to reep all the benefits that a major label offers, without the major label getting rewarded.
No, "good music" would suddenly flourish because it won't be as easy to saturate the market with crap.
Idealistic. Firstly, it's folly to criticize "pop music": If it makes people happy and it's what they want to listen to, then it's achieved its purpose admirably and represents the ultimate goal of all music. Secondly, my point was that this internet thing allows us to share any free garage band music right now, and has for years, yet still most people; I'd wager greater than 99%; are busy sharing songs ripped off RIAA sponsored labels. Why is that, do you think?
Nonsense. What you're essentially saying is that music will disappear with the RIAA/MIAA. You may not be aware of this, but music existed thousands of years prior to the existence of the RIAA/MIAA, in countries outside of the USA, even.
Of course music has existed since the dawn of time, but the business of the music industry is one that makes a product that people want. Whether it's a combination of the best producers with the best artists, I don't know, but I do know that the signal-to-noise ratio of "amateur" acts is grotesquely low. Again I'll point out the fact that there is lots of unsigned, non-label music out there, but that strangely isn't what you see being traded on the P2P networks.
I'm totally supportive of the idea of people making music "in their basement", so to speak. There have been bands doing this for quite a few years, along with a burgeoning hobbyist music industry that sell billions of keyboards, multitrack recorders, and computer recording software yearly. Strangely, though, the second the band starts to get exposure is the second that they start petitoining to be picked up by a big label. Although they have the ability to just tour small cities and sell their CDs out of the tailgate of their truck, to most that is just a stepping stone to getting signed.
The home recording market isn't something that's going to explode "soon": It's been a fact of life for at least 7 years. When MP3.com hit the scene several years back it offered any tiny little artist the ability to use their home recordings and achieve worldwide distribution overnight. I can go there and download quite a few free MP3s of a wide variety of artists. Do people, though? Hardly. The overwhelming majority hit Limewire to find the latest Shania Twain song that they heard on the radio. Again, that refutes any idea that it's the little "Free Music" guys that are to gain: They've had the ability to gain for years, but they haven't.
Having said that, many, many artists are musical geniuses on the recording side, but their music is not suited to performances, or they themselves are not of the genre for which public performances are an option. If they could perform, there's already a totally saturated performance market.
The RIAA and the MPAA continue polices in hope of stopping per to per sharing altogether, but have made virtually no effort to incorporate internet sharing technology into their business model. Had the spent their energy here, they may have had a solution already.
But they have attempted to incorporate modern distribution into their repertoire, including, but not limited to, the upcoming Paladium architecture. Everytime the music industry attempts some new method of distribution to allow us to easily buy and download songs, the same people who are raving about them being antiquated are crying about how hopeless it all is, and encouraging the creation of cracks and exploits. Big music was attempting to use the internet in their business many years back.
What people are really saying in all of this basically seems to be "Bring on Paladium and similar systems". It seems that that wish will come true.
BTW: Defeating music piracy is brutally simple -- active enforcement of the law. If the police went on Gnutella and started kicking in doors and arresting, fining, and imprisoning large traders, I absolutely guarantee you that P2P would dissolve into the ether from which it came virtually instantly. Sure there'd still be the hardcore, but there wouldn't be mom and pop who figure that it's okay just because everyone else is doing it.
I won't pay even 11 dollars for the CD (usually 14 - 19 now a days anyway) for one song. I just won't. MP3's or not.
Listen to the radio, then. The radio is a nice format where the artists get royalties, and you don't have to shell out for the CD. BTW: I find it surprizing if CDs are really $14-$19 US as I can buy almost all new releases for $15.99 Canadian (about $10 US).
I don't have a legit copy of Photoshop though 'cause I use it to play with and stuff, not for business use (I'm a student) and I definately don't use $700 worth of it.
That is, and has always been, a very weak argument justifying piracy. Firstly as a student you have the ability to purchase Photoshop for $266, as they recognize that there is some value in getting you into Photoshop now. However if you don't think it's worth that then run GIMP, or JASC Paintshop Pro: You don't have some god given right to run Photoshop. Again, there's the irony factor: Instead of Slashdotters using "high" price to justify alternatives, it's more often used to justify piracy.
And encryption technology won't be hard for users to impliment. The programmers of next gen peer to peer software will make it seemless.
If it works for you, then it works for the record industry too. The whole P2P phenomena depends upon a very loose coupling between users, meaning that for all you know that super secure 3DES+AES connection you've made to the other user is actually right to RIAA headquarters.
They are fucking the artists up the ass (look at profit margins! the artists hate the RIAA more than we I do)
Yet strangely artists keep on signing up with them. Those big artists who start crying that they don't get enough royalties, you see, usually bled the music associations for YEARS, but then when they're really raking in the dough they want more. For every Michael Jackson, who apparently owes Sony $200 million dollars, there are countless tiny acts that are subsidized day to day by the music business. That's the whole gamble of the music industry, and it's ironic that it's criticized here given that it's the "support the little guy" mentality that is usually admired on Slashdot.
If the RIAA quit spending their money trying to shoot down file sharing networks, buying senators, and getting the attention of schools, corporate America, etc and instead channelled their resources into building a new business model, they might just come out on top
And what, pray tell, will this "new business model" be? So they spend millions cultivating an encouraging the arts at a low level, taking a loss on the vast majority of bands that they underwrite, but they should just suck it up so that you have a right to steal somes on Gnutella? Uh huh. What business are you in? I'd like to make some comments about how theft and illegal acts can deprive you of your ability to make a living, and how you should just change your business model.
It seems to me they they are betting the farm on being able to prevent the evolution of the market. If they lose this bet, they will be obsolete and bankrupt.
Let's imagine for a second that all of the major studios and music companies went out of business tomorrow. What would happen? Would the, as many dreamers imagine, "good music" suddenly flourish as the combined masses of society realize that they really want to hear Jimmy and Garage Monkeys? Will we enter a new golden age of high quality music (usually rated inversely with its popularity by attention seekers. You know: The type that stops liking a band once others start liking it, as it diminishes the "Quality" in their alternate universe)? No, the channels of the P2P networks will be DEAD, because as it is right now an OVERWHELMING majority of songs and movies being traded are the works of...tada...the RIAA/MIAA.
They are going to loose this one - everyone in the tech community knows it. It's a matter of when. Songs will be encrypted and transmitted, hey, we could even imbed songs in those jpeg's like from that previous slashdot article where encrypted data is contained in pictures.
Everyone in the tech community knows that? Funny, but there were mavens such as yourself proclaiming the end of commercial software 17 years ago, yet it's still a thriving, successful business (indeed, piracy has plummeted in recent years). Not all of us are anarchists. Not all of us disrespect the idea of intellectual property. The average guy on the street isn't going to bother with encryption just to get an $11 CD.
So many on here can be so obtuse about intellectual property and software/media. If you started robbing old people going to bank machines, should they then "change their business model"? When they complain to your parents will you express outrage because they don't cower in their homes at night while you're out on a rampage? How absurd. No, the police will move in and crack your knees a couple of times and incarcerate you for several years. That's what we as a society dictate -- You have no right over the property of others just because you have the ability to procur it.
For sure. I mean, given that there was at least a dozen dirty CEOs among tens of thousands, clearly that's enough proof for the Slashdot jury to pronounce them all immoral.
The MS Tax is when company X, that makes loafs of bread, upgrades their software every three years they incur software and equipment expenses. These expenses will be applied to the cost of bread , which will result in a more expensive loaf of bread at the supermarket.
The cost of software, in the grand scheme of most operations, is absolutely trivial. The effect of real taxes nested into every good and service that the breadmaker buys would make the cost of the software pale in comparison.
If you really think those upgrades are unnecessary, then feel free to freeze your computer system at a current state in time and stay there. What's that: Your Wordperfect 5.1 can't save your formatted documents as HTML/CSS?
The historic phrase "Microsoft Tax" generally refers to the additional cost for licensing when buying a product such as a Dell: There was no way to get around this additional cost because of bundling agreements they have with Microsoft. This was compounded by the fact that virtually every other VAR had the same policies and would not resell a computer without a Windows license. Carry this same example over the laptops.
However, trying to extrapolate this out to Microsoft Exchange is incredibly weak. Exchange is not a perfect product, however it is very highly regarded; It offers a superb feature set for many organizations. Exchange is an entirely optional product, as is upgrading, and there is not "Tax like" element of it.
Let me make some clear, cowboy: I'm readily employed (very unlike you, I'm sure), and posting on Slashdot is very close to the bottom of my priority list: I'm not proofreading this. If you have a problem with that, then eat shit asshole. Hearing you calling me illiterate just makes me laugh: I've been published. Here's you, some armchair fuckwad, likely unemployed in his parents basement, talking about how unimportant you were to Y2K (again, I laugh thinking that you tried to one-up me there).
Secondly, quit double posting as yourself and then as an AC a short time later: There is absolutely zero doubt (I've been on Slashdot for a long time) that you're doing this, as absolutely no one is following a thread that deep when the story is off the front page, especially within minutes of your replies. Doubling up with AC replies is one of the clearest signs of desperation.
Anonymous Coward: YEAH! You go girl!
Dude, seriously. Click the fucking slashdot link [wcs.org] you're talking about. Look RIGHT BELOW THE GODDAMN map you claim to be looking at. It says in plain fucking english
Are you dumb? I suspect you're not dumb, just incredibly ignorant because of arrogance blindness. THE ORIGINAL, UNEDITED SLASHDOT STORY POINTED DIRECTLY TO THE PDF OF ONLY THE MAP (as mentioned, which I'm sure in your self-righteous furious rage you overlooked: Why do you think a good portion of the early posts were asking "What does this map mean?"). When I clicked on the nice link in the Slashdot story, it linked me right to the PDF. Is this so hard to understand? In case you're new here, which it seems you are, editors take the liberty of silently modifying stories when it makes them clearer.
You're an illiterate moron, who is intentionally ignorant. I've proved you wrong countless times, and your responses have degraded into a name calling contest. I'm done with you.
Holy shit, what a perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black. The inappropriate use of the dictionary to try to refute a statement has got to be my favourite. I'll remember you: One of the most pomopous ignoramuses I've ever seen.
Sterile: Lacking the power to function; not productive or effective; fruitless: a sterile discussion
Welcome to the English language, a language full of marvelous words with countless meanings. In this case we're talking about the WWF, hence the environment, bringing up the term "sterile" clearly in regards to its natural state. There are many words like this that only the utterly inane (and dumb) are fooled into believing are single purposed. Grow up clown. I find it absolutely laughable that you would think that you're in any position to berate someone over their grammar (which is the clearest indicator that someone has no ground to stand on: Suddenly start using grammar as a foundation for your criticism). I've known quite a few assholes such as yourself in my life: Always the contrarian, "smarter than thou" moron that belittles any suggestion of anyone because it's easy to tear down than to build up. Status quo all the way baby! Thankfully most people aren't like you, and you're left in your little corner complaining about how damnit, nothing needs to change because everything is just perfect the way it is.
Gee, that's your *presumption*? Funny, I'm looking at the map too. And it nicely tells you how they came up with 83%. human population density greater than 1 person per square kilometer (wow, amazing *presumption)...
Nice revisionist history asshole. Slashdot originally linked directly to the map (you probably wouldn't know that as you were too busy rushing in to proclaim that it's all alarmists) with no definition on it what it was (you'll note that there are other posts saying "So what does this mean? What are these numbers?") with no definitions, hence my presumption. Again, you're just a loudmouthed asshole who makes not an iota of difference in the world.
Why, I couldn't have come up with a better oxymoron if I tried.
You can't think of a better oxymoron than sterile farmland? You're either grossly misinformed, or just an intentional FUDster. Farmland is previously natural land that has been deforested, had most of the topsoil eroded, and is constantly flooded with thousands of tonnes of chemicals to kill virtually anything and everything except for the desired crop. There is probably more "wildlife" in an average city than there is on farmland when comparison alike sample sizes. The only people who think farmland is "natural" are the brainwashed.
Actually, I have no idea what that means. Let's try another one.
I won't bothering explaining the relevance of the example of the love canal. Maybe a Google Search will enlighten you.
Oh really? I was directly responsable for the whole Y2K bullshit for a large government network. What did you do?
Gee, you almost had me trumped there...but no you didn't. I worked on correcting some serious flaws with a control system for two dozen power generation facilities (for a US energy company): A flaw that would have taken the facilities offline. Nice try at painting me as a, err, "pudding brained sheep" when I saw first hand how serious it was, and was responsible for correcting something that actually mattered. Just because you have a shit job doing worthless work doesn't mean that what a lot of other people did wasn't important. BTW: The only reason it got any focus at all is because the president of the firm read some "Computer Paper" article fortelling doom, and saw the need to put a team together. I suppose in your imaginary world allt hese things take care of themselves.
The point is that because of "alarmists" many people took the possibility of Y2K seriously, and there was a worldwide, massive effort to correct it. If everyone listened to the always contrarian cynics such as yourself, always willing to pooh pooh the "alarmists", the year 2000 WOULD have been a disaster, but here we are having gone through it smoothly, and morons such as yourself can now proclaim that it was all just a fabrication. Tell us how it really works genius!
Well, the WWF says we're using it. How about them apples?
As I mentioned: I suspect that CNN misquoted the WWF. Looking at the map my presumption is that for a given sample size (say 1KM^2 samples, for example), there is at least one human. However here we have completely myopic "truth tellers" such as yourself proclaiming that damnit, let's just build those landfills higher and get better yields out of our farms. THAT ISN'T THE POINT. The point is that humans have encroached so far and wide that there isn't any room left for many of the creatures that nature has given this planet. Oh, that's just alarmism, right?
I'll never belittle someone dedicating their life to trying to make the world a better place. You can call them "alarmist", but if it was for alarmists the entire Western world would be a love canal. If it wasn't for "alarmists" Y2K really would have been a disaster. It's easy to call them alarmists when you're living in a world minus the tragedies that they helped avoid.
Secondly, I don't think they're saying that humans maxed out the land, but rather that we've appropriated the land for our use, pushing out all other vegetation and wildlife. If you can't see the sadness in that, then you're a very sad man. I live in Southern Ontario, a very urbanized area, and I think of what used to be here. Now it's all sterile farmland (and farmland is about as FAR from nature as land can be. It might as well be inner city) and highways. There are virtually no wild animals in what used to be basically a rainforest. Again, it's sad. All of the contrarians in here are rambling on about how it's all okay because we've left the glacial poles alone...uh huh.
Secondly, I suspect that CNN has taken them out of context. Looking at the map (with a legend on the bottom that a reasoned man would say "Hrmmm...probably refers to the percentage of land in a given area that man has apportioned for his own use), it is clear that it's far from 90% of the Earth's land: There are vast swaths of unused land. However the land that's unused land could also be called UNUSABLE land : deserts, Northern desolation, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
This is generally itemized as "Goodwill and other intangiables". For Worldcom it can be seen on the most recently available quarterly/yearly report as $37.2 billion dollars. This can be seen at this link.
Cheers.
Well, at least the executive staff at JDS earned it, right?
Disgusting executive compensation like that is completely unfounded in metrics: CEOs can yabber on about how it's necessary to get the best, but industry studies have found that the exorbinantly paid do not do any better than the conservatively paid. Indeed, one could make a credible case that such absurd compensation quickly creates executives who simply don't care about the health of a company: When you have $40 million after two years, do you really care if the company is going in the shitter? Joe Worker, who's scraping by month to month while waiting for these executives to lay off several hundred people; a collection that together make less than the single executive.
When organizations such as JDS lose money, fines should be doled out to executives who looted the boardrooms during the good times. Wouldn't that be a fair balance?
Most investors are just gamblers.
While a lot of investors are indeed Make Money Fast gamblers, many more simply want to keep their money appreciating at least with inflation (e.g. It isn't a good idea to keep money in your mattress). To do this you find an organization with strong fundamentals and a good balance sheet, and you invest your money: The cycle of economics.
Worldcom, though, had bogus books: What was supposed to be a solid company, by all information that the public could see, was perilously in danger. Many low-risk, non-gambling investors were defrauded because of this misrepresentation. Don't clump them in with Yahoo.com investors, or other momentum type stocks.
you just need to toss every resume that has the letters MCSE on them
The corrolary of this is to insert every other superficial bigotry in there:
"You just need to toss every resume that has the OS Linux on them" "You just need to toss every resume that mentions XML" "You just need to toss every resume that isn't from a guy name `Dave'"
Check the envy at the door. There are a lot of extremely clever people who have MCSEs along with a swath of other designations and accolades. Why? Because it's a structured approach to learning things about running and administering Windows that you likely would not know otherwise. Now I know that every Linux user believes themselves experts at Windows or any other OS, but the truth is that usually that they don't have the slightest clue beyond a laughable surface knowledge (which is why they'll always come on Slashdot exclaiming about their bad experiences with Windows, or how difficult managing and running Windows enterprises is, etc).
Must be those damn geeks with the "University Degrees".
I think you meant to say "OBLIVIOUSLY".
You can't be serious... Are you not aware of ClearChannel? Does anyone WANT to listen to the stuff that CC force feeds onto the radio soley on the basis of who's the highest bidder? Do you have ANY IDEA what the situation is with radio and the CC monopoly, legalized "payola", and how artists are *indeed* screwed over? Geez...
The reply was specifically in regards to a "one hit wonder" comment (namely that CDs are worth it for a "one hit wonder" song). "One hit wonder"s, by their very nature, are songs that achieve wide airplay on the radio and hence are sought out by people on P2P networks.
Should the record companies be allowed to "contract them for life" and take all their profits? No.
Contracts, by their very nature, are a gamble with both sides thinking they'll make out on the winning side. For every super-band that is bitching that they can't get out of a contrat that supported them in their nascent days, there is a dozen bands that the label has carried for years. How about the countless recent instances where labels BOUGHT OUT the multi-record deals of artists who have long since jumped the shark? Do you cry for the record companies in that case?
And what are you supposed to do if all the major labels make contracts like this? There isn't much to do except settle to keep playing the bar & grills around your neighborhood, even if your talent deserves better.
Create a website. Pursue guerilla marketing. Build a fan base. Do performance across the nation. NOTHING is stopping people from doing stuff like this right now. What you seem to be saying, though, is that artists should be able to reep all the benefits that a major label offers, without the major label getting rewarded.
No, "good music" would suddenly flourish because it won't be as easy to saturate the market with crap.
Idealistic. Firstly, it's folly to criticize "pop music": If it makes people happy and it's what they want to listen to, then it's achieved its purpose admirably and represents the ultimate goal of all music. Secondly, my point was that this internet thing allows us to share any free garage band music right now, and has for years, yet still most people; I'd wager greater than 99%; are busy sharing songs ripped off RIAA sponsored labels. Why is that, do you think?
Nonsense. What you're essentially saying is that music will disappear with the RIAA/MIAA. You may not be aware of this, but music existed thousands of years prior to the existence of the RIAA/MIAA, in countries outside of the USA, even.
Of course music has existed since the dawn of time, but the business of the music industry is one that makes a product that people want. Whether it's a combination of the best producers with the best artists, I don't know, but I do know that the signal-to-noise ratio of "amateur" acts is grotesquely low. Again I'll point out the fact that there is lots of unsigned, non-label music out there, but that strangely isn't what you see being traded on the P2P networks.
I'm totally supportive of the idea of people making music "in their basement", so to speak. There have been bands doing this for quite a few years, along with a burgeoning hobbyist music industry that sell billions of keyboards, multitrack recorders, and computer recording software yearly. Strangely, though, the second the band starts to get exposure is the second that they start petitoining to be picked up by a big label. Although they have the ability to just tour small cities and sell their CDs out of the tailgate of their truck, to most that is just a stepping stone to getting signed.
The home recording market isn't something that's going to explode "soon": It's been a fact of life for at least 7 years. When MP3.com hit the scene several years back it offered any tiny little artist the ability to use their home recordings and achieve worldwide distribution overnight. I can go there and download quite a few free MP3s of a wide variety of artists. Do people, though? Hardly. The overwhelming majority hit Limewire to find the latest Shania Twain song that they heard on the radio. Again, that refutes any idea that it's the little "Free Music" guys that are to gain: They've had the ability to gain for years, but they haven't.
Having said that, many, many artists are musical geniuses on the recording side, but their music is not suited to performances, or they themselves are not of the genre for which public performances are an option. If they could perform, there's already a totally saturated performance market.
The RIAA and the MPAA continue polices in hope of stopping per to per sharing altogether, but have made virtually no effort to incorporate internet sharing technology into their business model. Had the spent their energy here, they may have had a solution already.
But they have attempted to incorporate modern distribution into their repertoire, including, but not limited to, the upcoming Paladium architecture. Everytime the music industry attempts some new method of distribution to allow us to easily buy and download songs, the same people who are raving about them being antiquated are crying about how hopeless it all is, and encouraging the creation of cracks and exploits. Big music was attempting to use the internet in their business many years back.
What people are really saying in all of this basically seems to be "Bring on Paladium and similar systems". It seems that that wish will come true.
BTW: Defeating music piracy is brutally simple -- active enforcement of the law. If the police went on Gnutella and started kicking in doors and arresting, fining, and imprisoning large traders, I absolutely guarantee you that P2P would dissolve into the ether from which it came virtually instantly. Sure there'd still be the hardcore, but there wouldn't be mom and pop who figure that it's okay just because everyone else is doing it.
I won't pay even 11 dollars for the CD (usually 14 - 19 now a days anyway) for one song. I just won't. MP3's or not.
Listen to the radio, then. The radio is a nice format where the artists get royalties, and you don't have to shell out for the CD. BTW: I find it surprizing if CDs are really $14-$19 US as I can buy almost all new releases for $15.99 Canadian (about $10 US).
I don't have a legit copy of Photoshop though 'cause I use it to play with and stuff, not for business use (I'm a student) and I definately don't use $700 worth of it.
That is, and has always been, a very weak argument justifying piracy. Firstly as a student you have the ability to purchase Photoshop for $266, as they recognize that there is some value in getting you into Photoshop now. However if you don't think it's worth that then run GIMP, or JASC Paintshop Pro: You don't have some god given right to run Photoshop. Again, there's the irony factor: Instead of Slashdotters using "high" price to justify alternatives, it's more often used to justify piracy.
And encryption technology won't be hard for users to impliment. The programmers of next gen peer to peer software will make it seemless.
If it works for you, then it works for the record industry too. The whole P2P phenomena depends upon a very loose coupling between users, meaning that for all you know that super secure 3DES+AES connection you've made to the other user is actually right to RIAA headquarters.
They are fucking the artists up the ass (look at profit margins! the artists hate the RIAA more than we I do)
Yet strangely artists keep on signing up with them. Those big artists who start crying that they don't get enough royalties, you see, usually bled the music associations for YEARS, but then when they're really raking in the dough they want more. For every Michael Jackson, who apparently owes Sony $200 million dollars, there are countless tiny acts that are subsidized day to day by the music business. That's the whole gamble of the music industry, and it's ironic that it's criticized here given that it's the "support the little guy" mentality that is usually admired on Slashdot.
If the RIAA quit spending their money trying to shoot down file sharing networks, buying senators, and getting the attention of schools, corporate America, etc and instead channelled their resources into building a new business model, they might just come out on top
And what, pray tell, will this "new business model" be? So they spend millions cultivating an encouraging the arts at a low level, taking a loss on the vast majority of bands that they underwrite, but they should just suck it up so that you have a right to steal somes on Gnutella? Uh huh. What business are you in? I'd like to make some comments about how theft and illegal acts can deprive you of your ability to make a living, and how you should just change your business model.
It seems to me they they are betting the farm on being able to prevent the evolution of the market. If they lose this bet, they will be obsolete and bankrupt.
Let's imagine for a second that all of the major studios and music companies went out of business tomorrow. What would happen? Would the, as many dreamers imagine, "good music" suddenly flourish as the combined masses of society realize that they really want to hear Jimmy and Garage Monkeys? Will we enter a new golden age of high quality music (usually rated inversely with its popularity by attention seekers. You know: The type that stops liking a band once others start liking it, as it diminishes the "Quality" in their alternate universe)? No, the channels of the P2P networks will be DEAD, because as it is right now an OVERWHELMING majority of songs and movies being traded are the works of...tada...the RIAA/MIAA.
They are going to loose this one - everyone in the tech community knows it. It's a matter of when. Songs will be encrypted and transmitted, hey, we could even imbed songs in those jpeg's like from that previous slashdot article where encrypted data is contained in pictures.
Everyone in the tech community knows that? Funny, but there were mavens such as yourself proclaiming the end of commercial software 17 years ago, yet it's still a thriving, successful business (indeed, piracy has plummeted in recent years). Not all of us are anarchists. Not all of us disrespect the idea of intellectual property. The average guy on the street isn't going to bother with encryption just to get an $11 CD.
So many on here can be so obtuse about intellectual property and software/media. If you started robbing old people going to bank machines, should they then "change their business model"? When they complain to your parents will you express outrage because they don't cower in their homes at night while you're out on a rampage? How absurd. No, the police will move in and crack your knees a couple of times and incarcerate you for several years. That's what we as a society dictate -- You have no right over the property of others just because you have the ability to procur it.
For sure. I mean, given that there was at least a dozen dirty CEOs among tens of thousands, clearly that's enough proof for the Slashdot jury to pronounce them all immoral.
The MS Tax is when company X, that makes loafs of bread, upgrades their software every three years they incur software and equipment expenses. These expenses will be applied to the cost of bread , which will result in a more expensive loaf of bread at the supermarket.
The cost of software, in the grand scheme of most operations, is absolutely trivial. The effect of real taxes nested into every good and service that the breadmaker buys would make the cost of the software pale in comparison.
If you really think those upgrades are unnecessary, then feel free to freeze your computer system at a current state in time and stay there. What's that: Your Wordperfect 5.1 can't save your formatted documents as HTML/CSS?
The historic phrase "Microsoft Tax" generally refers to the additional cost for licensing when buying a product such as a Dell: There was no way to get around this additional cost because of bundling agreements they have with Microsoft. This was compounded by the fact that virtually every other VAR had the same policies and would not resell a computer without a Windows license. Carry this same example over the laptops.
However, trying to extrapolate this out to Microsoft Exchange is incredibly weak. Exchange is not a perfect product, however it is very highly regarded; It offers a superb feature set for many organizations. Exchange is an entirely optional product, as is upgrading, and there is not "Tax like" element of it.
You're hardly worth the effort. Keep on truckin' Mr. Status Quo.
Let me make some clear, cowboy: I'm readily employed (very unlike you, I'm sure), and posting on Slashdot is very close to the bottom of my priority list: I'm not proofreading this. If you have a problem with that, then eat shit asshole. Hearing you calling me illiterate just makes me laugh: I've been published. Here's you, some armchair fuckwad, likely unemployed in his parents basement, talking about how unimportant you were to Y2K (again, I laugh thinking that you tried to one-up me there).
Secondly, quit double posting as yourself and then as an AC a short time later: There is absolutely zero doubt (I've been on Slashdot for a long time) that you're doing this, as absolutely no one is following a thread that deep when the story is off the front page, especially within minutes of your replies. Doubling up with AC replies is one of the clearest signs of desperation.
Anonymous Coward: YEAH! You go girl!
Dude, seriously. Click the fucking slashdot link [wcs.org] you're talking about. Look RIGHT BELOW THE GODDAMN map you claim to be looking at. It says in plain fucking english
Are you dumb? I suspect you're not dumb, just incredibly ignorant because of arrogance blindness. THE ORIGINAL, UNEDITED SLASHDOT STORY POINTED DIRECTLY TO THE PDF OF ONLY THE MAP (as mentioned, which I'm sure in your self-righteous furious rage you overlooked: Why do you think a good portion of the early posts were asking "What does this map mean?"). When I clicked on the nice link in the Slashdot story, it linked me right to the PDF. Is this so hard to understand? In case you're new here, which it seems you are, editors take the liberty of silently modifying stories when it makes them clearer.
You're an illiterate moron, who is intentionally ignorant. I've proved you wrong countless times, and your responses have degraded into a name calling contest. I'm done with you.
Holy shit, what a perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black. The inappropriate use of the dictionary to try to refute a statement has got to be my favourite. I'll remember you: One of the most pomopous ignoramuses I've ever seen.
Nice try you arrogant dickhead.
Sterile: Lacking the power to function; not productive or effective; fruitless: a sterile discussion
Welcome to the English language, a language full of marvelous words with countless meanings. In this case we're talking about the WWF, hence the environment, bringing up the term "sterile" clearly in regards to its natural state. There are many words like this that only the utterly inane (and dumb) are fooled into believing are single purposed. Grow up clown. I find it absolutely laughable that you would think that you're in any position to berate someone over their grammar (which is the clearest indicator that someone has no ground to stand on: Suddenly start using grammar as a foundation for your criticism). I've known quite a few assholes such as yourself in my life: Always the contrarian, "smarter than thou" moron that belittles any suggestion of anyone because it's easy to tear down than to build up. Status quo all the way baby! Thankfully most people aren't like you, and you're left in your little corner complaining about how damnit, nothing needs to change because everything is just perfect the way it is.
Gee, that's your *presumption*? Funny, I'm looking at the map too. And it nicely tells you how they came up with 83%. human population density greater than 1 person per square kilometer (wow, amazing *presumption)...
Nice revisionist history asshole. Slashdot originally linked directly to the map (you probably wouldn't know that as you were too busy rushing in to proclaim that it's all alarmists) with no definition on it what it was (you'll note that there are other posts saying "So what does this mean? What are these numbers?") with no definitions, hence my presumption. Again, you're just a loudmouthed asshole who makes not an iota of difference in the world.
You're an idiot. Get back in your hole.
Why, I couldn't have come up with a better oxymoron if I tried.
You can't think of a better oxymoron than sterile farmland? You're either grossly misinformed, or just an intentional FUDster. Farmland is previously natural land that has been deforested, had most of the topsoil eroded, and is constantly flooded with thousands of tonnes of chemicals to kill virtually anything and everything except for the desired crop. There is probably more "wildlife" in an average city than there is on farmland when comparison alike sample sizes. The only people who think farmland is "natural" are the brainwashed.
Actually, I have no idea what that means. Let's try another one.
I won't bothering explaining the relevance of the example of the love canal. Maybe a Google Search will enlighten you.
Oh really? I was directly responsable for the whole Y2K bullshit for a large government network. What did you do?
Gee, you almost had me trumped there...but no you didn't. I worked on correcting some serious flaws with a control system for two dozen power generation facilities (for a US energy company): A flaw that would have taken the facilities offline. Nice try at painting me as a, err, "pudding brained sheep" when I saw first hand how serious it was, and was responsible for correcting something that actually mattered. Just because you have a shit job doing worthless work doesn't mean that what a lot of other people did wasn't important. BTW: The only reason it got any focus at all is because the president of the firm read some "Computer Paper" article fortelling doom, and saw the need to put a team together. I suppose in your imaginary world allt hese things take care of themselves.
The point is that because of "alarmists" many people took the possibility of Y2K seriously, and there was a worldwide, massive effort to correct it. If everyone listened to the always contrarian cynics such as yourself, always willing to pooh pooh the "alarmists", the year 2000 WOULD have been a disaster, but here we are having gone through it smoothly, and morons such as yourself can now proclaim that it was all just a fabrication. Tell us how it really works genius!
Well, the WWF says we're using it. How about them apples?
As I mentioned: I suspect that CNN misquoted the WWF. Looking at the map my presumption is that for a given sample size (say 1KM^2 samples, for example), there is at least one human. However here we have completely myopic "truth tellers" such as yourself proclaiming that damnit, let's just build those landfills higher and get better yields out of our farms. THAT ISN'T THE POINT. The point is that humans have encroached so far and wide that there isn't any room left for many of the creatures that nature has given this planet. Oh, that's just alarmism, right?
I'll never belittle someone dedicating their life to trying to make the world a better place. You can call them "alarmist", but if it was for alarmists the entire Western world would be a love canal. If it wasn't for "alarmists" Y2K really would have been a disaster. It's easy to call them alarmists when you're living in a world minus the tragedies that they helped avoid. Secondly, I don't think they're saying that humans maxed out the land, but rather that we've appropriated the land for our use, pushing out all other vegetation and wildlife. If you can't see the sadness in that, then you're a very sad man. I live in Southern Ontario, a very urbanized area, and I think of what used to be here. Now it's all sterile farmland (and farmland is about as FAR from nature as land can be. It might as well be inner city) and highways. There are virtually no wild animals in what used to be basically a rainforest. Again, it's sad. All of the contrarians in here are rambling on about how it's all okay because we've left the glacial poles alone...uh huh. Secondly, I suspect that CNN has taken them out of context. Looking at the map (with a legend on the bottom that a reasoned man would say "Hrmmm...probably refers to the percentage of land in a given area that man has apportioned for his own use), it is clear that it's far from 90% of the Earth's land: There are vast swaths of unused land. However the land that's unused land could also be called UNUSABLE land : deserts, Northern desolation, etc.