Blank media taxes have not lessened the efforts of media companies to make their physical media harder to copy. An Internet tax to nominally defray the purported lost revenue of media copyright violations would likewise not lessen the efforts to make media harder to copy online. It would just help FUND those efforts.
He didn't say they can't make a mechanism to sync files, he said they don't have a mechanism to sync files. Translation: they know very well that the files are obsoleted with the hardware, and that's a business strategy.
Likewise "weren't aware... churning..." is more of a statement that they think the reporter is only looking at one segment of the marketplace. And it's true, most of the people in my social circles hang onto their phone until the battery life is briefer than... the time I'm willing to spend thinking up a simile for that.
If the gene arose 30k years ago, it did most of its spreading during the Upper Paleolithic era (up to ~10k BC, or 12k years ago). The life expectancy of a human (from birth) during the Upper Paleolithic was 33 years -- young enough that heart disease was probably not a leading cause of death. The advent of agriculture is associated with a sharp drop in life expectancy; the Neolithic era had an average of 20 years, and the Bronze Age only 18.
Average life expectancy has remained below 40 right up until the 20th century. Current global life expectancies vary widely in accordance with regional health care, diet, and infrastructure -- most of the African continent still has an expectancy below 50, for example, and the US has an expectancy of around 80 years. Australia, Canada, and some parts of Europe have an expectancy of over 80 years, likely due to excellent public health care systems.
Heart disease is a modern condition, exposed by an increased life expectancy. It would have had very little bearing on life even 3,000 years ago, let alone 30,000 years ago.
Software piracy is not theft, it is copyright infringement. If you want to take such a broadly liberal view of "theft" to include piracy, you should include EA/Maxis, since the enforced limitations on the number of installs on Spore, not made known on the packaging of a product at time of sale, is "stealing" the right to play in the future, and "stealing" the right to re-sale.
If you don't want to take such a broadly liberal view, that's fine too, but malware written by a saint is still malware.
Insurance is not like gambling, I'm afraid. Gambling is contained: when you gamble, you wager something (typically money) for a large increase against a greater than even odds risk of a total loss. If you don't wager, you don't lose anything.
Insurance, on the other hand, is where you already stand to lose something. In the case of medical insurance, you already stand to lose your income, your house, and your life. The real gamble is if you fail to mitigate that risk in any meaningful way.
Git's HTTP repository module corrupted things for me, silently. So I went to Mercurial, which is less obtuse in any case. Git seems to be good if you like to be on the bleeding edge, walking the line between instability and configurability. Mercurial is better if you like your tools to stay out of your way until needed, without needing to go through a hefty configuration process.
Do you use pre-built kernels, or do you religiously build your own every new release?;)
One is an entity that relies on reputation to stay afloat. The other is an entity that relies on a monopoly to stay afloat.
One can be, and is, ostracised from its community when it acts against the community's interests. The other can be brought to court if they harm the end users, but cannot be held to court orders, and has so far demonstrated a willingness and capacity to buy entire governments to swing legal and technical decisions where necessary.
Neither is under an obligation to the user.
One seeks fame, and thus has an online name to protect. The other is named, but faceless and legally exempt from responsibilities.
One is performing a civil infractions that is committed nearly every day by nearly every citizen, ie, a law that should have been struck from the legislation long ago for no longer being in society's interests. The other has a criminal record in several countries, and has a laundry list of shady acts as long as their history.
One has a primary currency of fame, and a motivation of challenge. The other has a history of making money by forcing upgrades containing no useful changes, merely to keep up with others' forced upgrades.
I'm not saying all commercial software you find in shrink wrap includes anti-consumer code, but about half the problems my friends have with their computers can be traced back to StarForce, WGA mistakes, DRM authority server shutdowns, or rootkits designed to prevent you from using your CD burner.
The blocking is a political piece, not designed to win the hearts and minds of the majority of voters (an election fairly recently passed, and the public has a very short memory) but to win the favour and votes of the Family First member of parliament. The Labor government needs the support of the independents in parliament to get majority votes.
It may wind up being used for copyright infringement control, and the possibility and enormity of the available abuses of that nature are one of the biggest problems with the whole thing, but it's not starting out that way.
Let's be generous and assume that, yes, Windows only gets targeted because of its massive market share. That still seems like a pretty good reason to ditch Windows and use something else. The effect is the same: move away from Windows, get a more secure environment.
Why invent a conspiracy? The Australian government, like most other governments around the world, can't find their arse with their hands, let alone run a conspiracy.
Australian politics is not as black and white as American politics. We have two major parties, but our independents frequently get representation in parliament. Currently the Labor party (not related to labouring) is in power, but the Liberal party (conservatives, not liberal at all, remember we're upside down here) will generally work to block their motions to make the Labor party look bad. This means Labor depends on the independents to vote their way, which in turn means...
This legislation is being pushed to buy future votes from the Family First (rabid "for the children" Christian nutjobs) independent who got into parliament in the last elections. That is the sum of it. No-one cares whether it works, not even the nutjob Family First independent, so long as it's seen to be attempted by the people who will vote for Family First so they don't have to make sure their son isn't jacking off in his room to Internet porn.
Remember: the job of a politician is to get re-elected. Everything they do can be explained by that goal, without turning to conspiracy theories, the second resort of the ignorant.
No-one will force anything. But when IPv4 has run out, that means there's no more addresses. It's up to the people trying to start or expand their businesses at the time whether they deploy IPv6, use NAT or 6-to-4 bridging (if they already have some v4 addresses), or try to find a competitor who's got more addresses than they can use and thinks they'll make more money selling the right to control those addresses than they'd make using them.
Using NAT is incredibly short-sighted. NAT only works to grow existing client networks by a factor of maybe 100. It can't be used for new services, because those services must be directly addressable; I don't see anyone wanting their URL to be http://my.stupid.business:3431/. It can't be used for new networks, because you can't use NAT if you don't already have some routable addresses. It won't support new ways to exploit connectivity, or developing regions and economies.
But of course, it will happen, because NAT is cheap and quick and easy and there's plenty of people who are happy to use a solution that will give them enough to get by another year.
I'm having trouble understanding why Adobe, who have bet the farm on Flash/Flex at this point, would want to reduce the number of reasons why Flash is a superior web application platform to HTML/JS3.1.
I'm not a lawyer, but speaking as a non-lawyer, I'd say it really doesn't matter -- the license agreement likely contains a bunch of unenforceable crap, and you're unlikely to do anything that would draw EA's attention.
Business establishments are required to have clearly marked exits and fire escapes. Private dwellings are not. Restaurants, pubs, shops and the like are not private dwellings. They are open to the public, and by that are subject to a number of rules that mostly deal with health and safety. They are places of employment, and again, by that are subject to more rules that have a large section dealing with health and safety. When obtaining a license to run such a venue, the owner/operator agrees to abide by those rules. That is why the government has a place dictating what can and can't be done in those facilities. Hygiene requirements are in much the same vein as smoking bans, albeit without a large proportion of the populace demanding the right to be served food with rat shit in it.
The gun-to-the-head argument is remarkably specious. Technically, yes, people could choose to give up their jobs, or not take advantage of the large services employment sector, to avoid cigarettes. But for many people, this means the choice is between a job with heavy exposure to cigarette smoke, and a probable health problem in the future, or no job at all. That's not a real choice. For customers, the choice is slightly better: it's the choice between going out, or not, but that's still hardly a real choice.
So apparently, places COULD have made more money by being smoke free, and public opinion largely supported that decision, but they didn't. The government stepped in to regulate a market which clearly demonstrated itself to be incapable of self-regulation. That is part of the government's function, and in this case, they have surprisingly done so even despite very heavy lobbying against these bans.
I don't agree with the ban of cigarette sales, but I do support taxing the sales of them to the point where the burden on the national health services caused by smoking related illness is offset entirely by the people creating that burden. In time, perhaps, as social acceptance of smoking dwindles further and further.
I'm not the OP, but yes, it's a serious problem. Ever since the days of looking up a word in a manual to start the game, copy protection has been a major hindrance... to legitimate owners only There's 1.27 million hits for "Mass Effect torrent" on Google, and 1.25 million for "Mass Effect crack."
The solution, then, is obvious. EA needs to protect its initial sales, OK, apply your copy protection. Don't invest too heavily in it, it will be broken inside of a week in any case. A month after launch, release your own patch to remove the copy protection. Problem solved. You save money by having a simple solution to the most common support problem, and by not wasting millions of dollars developing new forms of copy protection that can never be effective for long.
Slashdot Mirror
More encryption? Better cracking techniques!
Better encryption? Tyranny!
Revolution? Martial law!
Ahh, the gubbiment, always one step ahead, except when it comes to economic crises.
disclaimer: I do not believe the gubbiment is organised enough to blow a gay hooker in a bathroom safely, let alone run a conspiracy
Blank media taxes have not lessened the efforts of media companies to make their physical media harder to copy. An Internet tax to nominally defray the purported lost revenue of media copyright violations would likewise not lessen the efforts to make media harder to copy online. It would just help FUND those efforts.
Likewise "weren't aware... churning ..." is more of a statement that they think the reporter is only looking at one segment of the marketplace. And it's true, most of the people in my social circles hang onto their phone until the battery life is briefer than ... the time I'm willing to spend thinking up a simile for that.
The legal industry called, they're suing you for slander.
You're mistaking capitalism with corporatism.
If the gene arose 30k years ago, it did most of its spreading during the Upper Paleolithic era (up to ~10k BC, or 12k years ago). The life expectancy of a human (from birth) during the Upper Paleolithic was 33 years -- young enough that heart disease was probably not a leading cause of death. The advent of agriculture is associated with a sharp drop in life expectancy; the Neolithic era had an average of 20 years, and the Bronze Age only 18.
Average life expectancy has remained below 40 right up until the 20th century. Current global life expectancies vary widely in accordance with regional health care, diet, and infrastructure -- most of the African continent still has an expectancy below 50, for example, and the US has an expectancy of around 80 years. Australia, Canada, and some parts of Europe have an expectancy of over 80 years, likely due to excellent public health care systems.
Heart disease is a modern condition, exposed by an increased life expectancy. It would have had very little bearing on life even 3,000 years ago, let alone 30,000 years ago.
If you don't want to take such a broadly liberal view, that's fine too, but malware written by a saint is still malware.
I paid for Spore, and it still installed a trojan rootkit. Where's the downside to pirated software, again?
Insurance, on the other hand, is where you already stand to lose something. In the case of medical insurance, you already stand to lose your income, your house, and your life. The real gamble is if you fail to mitigate that risk in any meaningful way.
Do you use pre-built kernels, or do you religiously build your own every new release? ;)
Wait, the viewable with any browser site uses XHTML markup with an HTML content-type? Fail.
One can be, and is, ostracised from its community when it acts against the community's interests. The other can be brought to court if they harm the end users, but cannot be held to court orders, and has so far demonstrated a willingness and capacity to buy entire governments to swing legal and technical decisions where necessary.
Neither is under an obligation to the user.
One seeks fame, and thus has an online name to protect. The other is named, but faceless and legally exempt from responsibilities.
One is performing a civil infractions that is committed nearly every day by nearly every citizen, ie, a law that should have been struck from the legislation long ago for no longer being in society's interests. The other has a criminal record in several countries, and has a laundry list of shady acts as long as their history.
One has a primary currency of fame, and a motivation of challenge. The other has a history of making money by forcing upgrades containing no useful changes, merely to keep up with others' forced upgrades.
I'm not saying all commercial software you find in shrink wrap includes anti-consumer code, but about half the problems my friends have with their computers can be traced back to StarForce, WGA mistakes, DRM authority server shutdowns, or rootkits designed to prevent you from using your CD burner.
The blocking is a political piece, not designed to win the hearts and minds of the majority of voters (an election fairly recently passed, and the public has a very short memory) but to win the favour and votes of the Family First member of parliament. The Labor government needs the support of the independents in parliament to get majority votes.
It may wind up being used for copyright infringement control, and the possibility and enormity of the available abuses of that nature are one of the biggest problems with the whole thing, but it's not starting out that way.
Let's be generous and assume that, yes, Windows only gets targeted because of its massive market share. That still seems like a pretty good reason to ditch Windows and use something else. The effect is the same: move away from Windows, get a more secure environment.
Because we want them to keep growing the food we eat, mostly.
...
Good luck.
Australian politics is not as black and white as American politics. We have two major parties, but our independents frequently get representation in parliament. Currently the Labor party (not related to labouring) is in power, but the Liberal party (conservatives, not liberal at all, remember we're upside down here) will generally work to block their motions to make the Labor party look bad. This means Labor depends on the independents to vote their way, which in turn means...
This legislation is being pushed to buy future votes from the Family First (rabid "for the children" Christian nutjobs) independent who got into parliament in the last elections. That is the sum of it. No-one cares whether it works, not even the nutjob Family First independent, so long as it's seen to be attempted by the people who will vote for Family First so they don't have to make sure their son isn't jacking off in his room to Internet porn.
Remember: the job of a politician is to get re-elected. Everything they do can be explained by that goal, without turning to conspiracy theories, the second resort of the ignorant.
Using NAT is incredibly short-sighted. NAT only works to grow existing client networks by a factor of maybe 100. It can't be used for new services, because those services must be directly addressable; I don't see anyone wanting their URL to be http://my.stupid.business:3431/. It can't be used for new networks, because you can't use NAT if you don't already have some routable addresses. It won't support new ways to exploit connectivity, or developing regions and economies.
But of course, it will happen, because NAT is cheap and quick and easy and there's plenty of people who are happy to use a solution that will give them enough to get by another year.
... we're still waiting on WALL-E.
I'm having trouble understanding why Adobe, who have bet the farm on Flash/Flex at this point, would want to reduce the number of reasons why Flash is a superior web application platform to HTML/JS3.1.
If you oppose Steve Jobs... doesn't that already make you a terrorist?
All current Microsoft operating systems run application code direct from websites already... often without the user even knowing!
I'm not a lawyer, but speaking as a non-lawyer, I'd say it really doesn't matter -- the license agreement likely contains a bunch of unenforceable crap, and you're unlikely to do anything that would draw EA's attention.
Business establishments are required to have clearly marked exits and fire escapes. Private dwellings are not. Restaurants, pubs, shops and the like are not private dwellings. They are open to the public, and by that are subject to a number of rules that mostly deal with health and safety. They are places of employment, and again, by that are subject to more rules that have a large section dealing with health and safety. When obtaining a license to run such a venue, the owner/operator agrees to abide by those rules. That is why the government has a place dictating what can and can't be done in those facilities. Hygiene requirements are in much the same vein as smoking bans, albeit without a large proportion of the populace demanding the right to be served food with rat shit in it.
The gun-to-the-head argument is remarkably specious. Technically, yes, people could choose to give up their jobs, or not take advantage of the large services employment sector, to avoid cigarettes. But for many people, this means the choice is between a job with heavy exposure to cigarette smoke, and a probable health problem in the future, or no job at all. That's not a real choice. For customers, the choice is slightly better: it's the choice between going out, or not, but that's still hardly a real choice.
For what it's worth, people apparently did make those choices. Here: http://tobacco.health.usyd.edu.au/site/supersite/resources/pdfs/SmokeFreeCityReportFinal328.pdf. In the year after smoking was banned in New York restaurants and bars, tax receipts went up by 8.7%, and employment by 10,600 jobs.
So apparently, places COULD have made more money by being smoke free, and public opinion largely supported that decision, but they didn't. The government stepped in to regulate a market which clearly demonstrated itself to be incapable of self-regulation. That is part of the government's function, and in this case, they have surprisingly done so even despite very heavy lobbying against these bans.
I don't agree with the ban of cigarette sales, but I do support taxing the sales of them to the point where the burden on the national health services caused by smoking related illness is offset entirely by the people creating that burden. In time, perhaps, as social acceptance of smoking dwindles further and further.
I'm not the OP, but yes, it's a serious problem. Ever since the days of looking up a word in a manual to start the game, copy protection has been a major hindrance... to legitimate owners only There's 1.27 million hits for "Mass Effect torrent" on Google, and 1.25 million for "Mass Effect crack."
The solution, then, is obvious. EA needs to protect its initial sales, OK, apply your copy protection. Don't invest too heavily in it, it will be broken inside of a week in any case. A month after launch, release your own patch to remove the copy protection. Problem solved. You save money by having a simple solution to the most common support problem, and by not wasting millions of dollars developing new forms of copy protection that can never be effective for long.