I actually think that this survey might be inaccurate.
I would bet that there a an awful lot of iPod users that have rock solid brand loyalty of sorts and don't know it. The users I refer to are all the people that buy music from itunes. They will find out how loyal they have to be when they buy a zune and find out none of their music collection will play.
I think it is amusing that people seem to think that they have to watch TV for some reason. Movies, popular music, and TV are so ingrained in our culture that it doesn't seem to occur to people that you can in fact entertain yourself without them.
Learn to play an instrument- that will keep you happily entertained for the rest of your life.
I understand that this doesn't answer your rhetorical question. I wanted to rant and this seemed like a good place to do it.
While I can appreciate your cynicism I don't think it is only out of concern for the vehicle that they delay.
Even if you suspect that no one values the lives of the pilots just for the humanity of it there are practical reasons to be worried about killing astronauts:
It would create significant negative press for NASA which could jeopardize future funding.
It is more expensive than you might expect to train astronauts. I don't know actual figures but this article suggests millions of dollars of training each which is what I would expect considering similarly high costs of training fighter pilots.
You see, the thing about anecdotal evidince is that it's not reliabile.
In my many years of experience with large scale conversations I have never heard unreliable anecdotal evidence! Anecdotal evidence is therefore completely reliable!
I suppose I wasn't arguing with you so much as betraying my own biases. Usually I consider legality and morality to overlap a lot. When it comes to the DMCA I don't. I just don't feel like circumventing copyright protection for fair-use is dishonest or immoral.
I suppose the key phrase from my quote would be "the musice I want"
Based on your reply to my comment I signed up for the free trial of eMusic and searched for some of the music that I would be interested in buying. I tried a variety of genres that I like:
Simon and Garfunkel- Only covers by violin players I've never heard of.
Coldplay- Nothing.
Winton Marsalis- Nothing.
I gave up at that point and cancelled the free trial. The point is not just to download some random music and get to pay for it.
I disagree. I personally feel that copyright infringement is dishonest. I don't feel that breaking the DMCA and circumventing DRM for fair use reasons is dishonest. I want to be able to honestly pay for the music that I want for a reasonable price. iTunes is one way of doing that. I also want to be able to play that music on whatever player I want. This requires the DRM to go away.
the whole point of the ITMS is convenience.
I agree that convenience is a big selling point but for a lot of people it is not more convenient than finding the torrent file. It is much more honest. The best solution would be a convenient service through which I could buy the music I want unencumbered by DRM. I don't know of one.
it's a question of DRM-restricted content or NO CONTENT AT ALL.
Come on. If microsoft decided it wasn't going to do DRM at all and stuck to its guns do you think the content producing companies would be able to just not offer the content at all?
Don't defend microsoft at all on this one. They have the market presence to dictate to the media companies the terms of making video work on PCs everywhere. They could have done what Apple did with their iTunes monopoly charging only $1 for songs. As a disclaimer- I hate iTunes. I use Amorok exclusively but I really like how Apple stood up for its position.
Microsoft demonstrated to me again that they are not in the business of making software that I want to use.
I can't figure out what RSS feed I can use that will exclude the backslashes. I never use the index page so the option to turn them off doesn't help.
I read all the discussions and the backslashes are redundant and annoying. Since I can't turn them off I think there's still valid reason to complain until they go away.
The way I see it- the only way iTunes has been able to charge $1 a song is because they offered the only service that could sell DRM'd files that play on the iPod.
If other online services start selling DRM's tracks that can play on the iPod then the recording industry can cease to license the music to Apple and we have to pay 5-10 times more.
I have a binder full of old educational games for my kids that were made for win95 and win98. I have yet to get a single one of them to run under XP (or wine for that matter)
I visited your website and it rendered fine in Firefox. Of course I can't read it but the characters rendered correctly.
What kind of rendering do you think is missing?
As for: "multilingual browsers are also something Mozilla never had and never will have."
Who uses Mozilla anymore? However, as to mozilla descendents- Firefox can be downloaded in 42 languages. http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all.html
The cost of your time is only relevant if you are paid by the hour and have the ability to go to work whenever you want and work overtime.
If I evaluated all of my activities at home (except familial obligations) and only did those that cost less than the $/hr equivalent of my salary- I'd never do anything. I'd pay someone else to do any work that needed to be done at home and I'd go broke fast.
If you have the ability to build your own computer and you don't need MS Windows(tm) you can get a much better machine and save a lot of money.
Now, of course, if you hate doing it it may not be worth the hassle to you but I don't think that can be taken into account when calculating the price.
I hope I didn't inadvertently imply that I think the current system is completely fair.
I do think that an effort to violently overthrow the current system (as Karl Marx predicted) is misguided and ultimately would fail to improve conditions.
My original post was a knee-jerk response to Marxist theories I disagree with and I regret not thinking through better in advance.
there's a perfectly reasonable solution to THAT problem- eliminate the genes that cause laziness and greed.
Ah- as long as the ends justify the means eh?
Except for this statement I agree with much of your response to my post- no need to be antagonistic.
I am afraid that I misrepresented my own opinions in my previous post. I think that, unfortunate as it may be, laziness and greed are natural tendencies that should be opposed in oneself and they, not free trade, are the cause of misery and inequality. I could easily imagine a system with no money but don't think it would be inherently better than what we have now.
I think I probably disagree with you about the necessary steps to acheive the utopian society that you describe. It is my opinion that the perfect state of equality comes about when there is respect and kindness between people. The equality would be successful only if those who have more, motivated by compassion, gave to those that have less. This would require people to develop integrity within themselves.
History would seem to demonstrate that when those who have less get frustrated and simply take violently what they feel they deserve- all you get is a reversal of who is on top and who is on the bottom. Nothing is accomplished.
My personal strategy for changing the world is to try to be more honest, give more of what I have, and not be annoyed during rush-hour traffic at the guy that cuts me off, etc. Changing myself isn't as dramatic as a proletariat revolution but I think in the long term its more effective.
How about this division then- stupid vs. smart or lazy vs. hard-working. Do you think these are artificial as well?
Some people work harder than others and should reasonably expect to be compensated to a greater degree. No matter how you do it the compensation is going to create a division. This is not absurd- it is the primary motivation towards good performance.
I think in a perfect society everyone would work as hard as they were able and everyone would receive equally. In reality there are a lot of lazy and greedy people who would quickly spoil such a perfect society.
Slashdot Mirror
I actually think that this survey might be inaccurate.
I would bet that there a an awful lot of iPod users that have rock solid brand loyalty of sorts and don't know it. The users I refer to are all the people that buy music from itunes. They will find out how loyal they have to be when they buy a zune and find out none of their music collection will play.
Murder for hire is illegal.
Or were you being sarcastic?
Actually I'm sure this statement is true. They probably can't.
It would be false if they said it was impossible. What I like about Linux is how much more control and "precision" it gives me.
Hmmm. Go read a book?
I think it is amusing that people seem to think that they have to watch TV for some reason. Movies, popular music, and TV are so ingrained in our culture that it doesn't seem to occur to people that you can in fact entertain yourself without them.
Learn to play an instrument- that will keep you happily entertained for the rest of your life.
I understand that this doesn't answer your rhetorical question. I wanted to rant and this seemed like a good place to do it.
I think you got that backward.
As I understood the equation was:
(Number_of_Songs * $750) + Court_costs
Not:
Number_of_Songs + ($750 * Court_Costs)
Still, you're right that the court costs will probably be dwarfed by the fine.
I have a CS degree and couple years experience and I wouldn't even know where to start to code myself out of a paper bag! :)
Even if you suspect that no one values the lives of the pilots just for the humanity of it there are practical reasons to be worried about killing astronauts:
Come on- I didn't think anything of the sort. I simply found your closing statement amusing because of its wording.
Its hard to communicate mood in a written forum post but you'll have to take my word that I was smiling when I wrote it.
No need to be hostile or defensive.
Actually you only need two unequally talented employees to find one that is below average.
In my many years of experience with large scale conversations I have never heard unreliable anecdotal evidence! Anecdotal evidence is therefore completely reliable!
I suppose I wasn't arguing with you so much as betraying my own biases. Usually I consider legality and morality to overlap a lot. When it comes to the DMCA I don't. I just don't feel like circumventing copyright protection for fair-use is dishonest or immoral.
Thanks for clarifying the discussion.
Based on your reply to my comment I signed up for the free trial of eMusic and searched for some of the music that I would be interested in buying. I tried a variety of genres that I like:
Simon and Garfunkel- Only covers by violin players I've never heard of.
Coldplay- Nothing.
Winton Marsalis- Nothing.
I gave up at that point and cancelled the free trial. The point is not just to download some random music and get to pay for it.
I disagree. I personally feel that copyright infringement is dishonest. I don't feel that breaking the DMCA and circumventing DRM for fair use reasons is dishonest. I want to be able to honestly pay for the music that I want for a reasonable price. iTunes is one way of doing that. I also want to be able to play that music on whatever player I want. This requires the DRM to go away.
the whole point of the ITMS is convenience.
I agree that convenience is a big selling point but for a lot of people it is not more convenient than finding the torrent file. It is much more honest. The best solution would be a convenient service through which I could buy the music I want unencumbered by DRM. I don't know of one.
Come on. If microsoft decided it wasn't going to do DRM at all and stuck to its guns do you think the content producing companies would be able to just not offer the content at all?
Don't defend microsoft at all on this one. They have the market presence to dictate to the media companies the terms of making video work on PCs everywhere. They could have done what Apple did with their iTunes monopoly charging only $1 for songs. As a disclaimer- I hate iTunes. I use Amorok exclusively but I really like how Apple stood up for its position.
Microsoft demonstrated to me again that they are not in the business of making software that I want to use.
You'd get mod points from me if I had them today.
I read all the discussions and the backslashes are redundant and annoying. Since I can't turn them off I think there's still valid reason to complain until they go away.
I worry about the recording industry.
The way I see it- the only way iTunes has been able to charge $1 a song is because they offered the only service that could sell DRM'd files that play on the iPod.
If other online services start selling DRM's tracks that can play on the iPod then the recording industry can cease to license the music to Apple and we have to pay 5-10 times more.
Its general enough to handle the massive load but exclusive enough to filter out most of the garbage.
Does it really?
I have a binder full of old educational games for my kids that were made for win95 and win98. I have yet to get a single one of them to run under XP (or wine for that matter)
What kind of rendering do you think is missing?
As for: "multilingual browsers are also something Mozilla never had and never will have."
Who uses Mozilla anymore? However, as to mozilla descendents- Firefox can be downloaded in 42 languages.
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all.html
The safari update download I found supported 15 languages.t e132.html
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/safariupda
I don't understand what advantage you see Safari has in this regard.
The cost of your time is only relevant if you are paid by the hour and have the ability to go to work whenever you want and work overtime.
If I evaluated all of my activities at home (except familial obligations) and only did those that cost less than the $/hr equivalent of my salary- I'd never do anything. I'd pay someone else to do any work that needed to be done at home and I'd go broke fast.
If you have the ability to build your own computer and you don't need MS Windows(tm) you can get a much better machine and save a lot of money.
Now, of course, if you hate doing it it may not be worth the hassle to you but I don't think that can be taken into account when calculating the price.
I do think that an effort to violently overthrow the current system (as Karl Marx predicted) is misguided and ultimately would fail to improve conditions.
My original post was a knee-jerk response to Marxist theories I disagree with and I regret not thinking through better in advance.
Ah- as long as the ends justify the means eh?
Except for this statement I agree with much of your response to my post- no need to be antagonistic.
I am afraid that I misrepresented my own opinions in my previous post. I think that, unfortunate as it may be, laziness and greed are natural tendencies that should be opposed in oneself and they, not free trade, are the cause of misery and inequality. I could easily imagine a system with no money but don't think it would be inherently better than what we have now.
I think I probably disagree with you about the necessary steps to acheive the utopian society that you describe. It is my opinion that the perfect state of equality comes about when there is respect and kindness between people. The equality would be successful only if those who have more, motivated by compassion, gave to those that have less. This would require people to develop integrity within themselves.
History would seem to demonstrate that when those who have less get frustrated and simply take violently what they feel they deserve- all you get is a reversal of who is on top and who is on the bottom. Nothing is accomplished.
My personal strategy for changing the world is to try to be more honest, give more of what I have, and not be annoyed during rush-hour traffic at the guy that cuts me off, etc. Changing myself isn't as dramatic as a proletariat revolution but I think in the long term its more effective.
How about this division then- stupid vs. smart or lazy vs. hard-working. Do you think these are artificial as well?
Some people work harder than others and should reasonably expect to be compensated to a greater degree. No matter how you do it the compensation is going to create a division. This is not absurd- it is the primary motivation towards good performance.
I think in a perfect society everyone would work as hard as they were able and everyone would receive equally. In reality there are a lot of lazy and greedy people who would quickly spoil such a perfect society.
Being killed, plucked, breaded, deep fried, and eaten? I agree it would be inhumane to do to an enemy but to a chicken it isn't that bad.