Amazon does not really have to compete on price. While at worst people might be agnostic towards Amazon, they hate Walmart.
Very few people are going to dump Amazon merely because the Evil Empire's a little cheaper. Buying is more than merely getting a product. The actual buying is but a small part of a larger service.
It's similar to Newegg. Newegg does not always have the lowest prices. But I know they ship the same day so I'll get it quickly and they'll fix any problems if something goes wrong. So if it's tech related, I almost always buy from Newegg. For nearly everything else, I use Amazon.
Which is another way of saying that IE9 will be such a resource hog that even the highly advanced eight core systems we'll be using in a few years will not be powerful enough to run it.
When you buy something online or via a catalog, you should pay the taxes from the place it was shipped.
If I go to California to buy something, I have to pay California's taxes and not my own. If I pay someone to go to California to buy something for me, I'd have to pay California's taxes and no my own. But for some bizarre reason, when I pay FedEx to ship it to me, suddenly I do not have to pay California's tax but I have to pay my state's use tax.
So to give an example, if I buy something from Amazon and it ships from California, Amazon should bill me California's tax.
Here's why states hate this idea. Because it would allow the states to compete with each other to bring more shipping business into its state. For example, merely to get a bunch of shipping centers built in Oregon, that state could have no such tax. Amazon would then build their shipping centers there and the other states would get nothing.
There's nothing the government hates more than competing.
It is about MySpace. Sure the label started the problem by claiming a copyright on a song it did not hold. However, it is now a MySpace problem because the site apparently has no mechanism or system to fix the problem the label created.
Now that the label has admitted it has no copyright claim, it's MySpace's job to fix it and allow the song to be streamed. The label certainly cannot fix that problem. The fact that MySpace has not done so in three months makes it pretty clear that this story is about MySpace.
So the copyright industry wants you kicked off the net for three mere accusations of copyright infringement. That could be as little as three songs. The songs sell for a buck on Amazon and iTunes. So for a mere three bucks the copyright industry wants you banned from the net for eternity.
Let's imagine a different law. Let's imagine that the banking industry gets fed up with people stealing pens out of their lobbies. These pens are expensive, a buck each. Imagine that a law is enacted stating that any person merely accused by a bank of stealing three pens is banned from the entire banking industry for the rest of his or her life.
Does anyone think such a law has any chance to be passed? Does anyone seriously think that such a law makes sense? Of course it would not and of course it does not. But in the crazy world of copyrights, people actually take the proposed three strikes law seriously.
I agree with everything you wrote. TiVo did innovate. Cable and satellite companies made it impossible to keep up. And the government/FCC should have stepped in and did something.
However, that doesn't change the fact that TiVo is now basically a patent troll. Sure they sell products, but their future income will come from patent settlements, not customers.
.... you can sit on your ass, hire some lawyers, and soak up millions via your government granted monopoly. Or you can roll up your sleeves and work your ass off innovating, servicing customers, and building up a customer base. What the frick would you choose?!
.... of the United States Supreme Court decision which specifically held that copyright infringement is not stealing. Dowling V. United States, 473 U.S. 207 (1985)
"your crazed frothy-mouthed rant is actually a whole lot more humorous (albeit unintentionally) than your original "attempt at humour"!"
Hey, I aim to please!
"There's something quite sweet about a humourless person going nuts because nobody applauded their attempted joke"
If I did go nuts, it wasn't because no one laughed, it was the guy was a complete prick about the fact I didn't read the article. I read the blurb, was reminded of an old song, and pointed it out. I don't think an attack against me was deserved. Like I said, I feel sorry for that guy if my small mistake gets him that riled up.
I don't have to read the article to know that. If the charges were dropped, the prosecutor would not be vowing to appeal. When a judge gets rid of charges, they're dismissed. When a prosecutor voluntarily gets rid of charges, then they're dropped.
God, does the rod up your butt have its own rod up its butt? My comment was merely an attempt at humor. I didn't read the article. Now take your Valium and go to bed. You definitely need the rest.
If my sorry attempt at humor gets you this upset, I'd hate to imagine how you'd face any real tragedy in your sorry little life.
Well, I left Kentucky back in '49 An' went to Detroit workin' on a 'sembly line The first year they had me puttin' wheels on cadillacs
Every day I'd watch them beauties roll by And sometimes I'd hang my head and cry 'Cause I always wanted me one that was long and black.
One day I devised myself a plan That should be the envy of most any man I'd sneak it out of there in a lunchbox in my hand Now gettin' caught meant gettin' fired But I figured I'd have it all by the time I retired I'd have me a car worth at least a hundred grand.
[CHORUS] I'd get it one piece at a time And it wouldn't cost me a dime You'll know it's me when I come through your town I'm gonna ride around in style I'm gonna drive everybody wild 'Cause I'll have the only one there is a round.
So the very next day when I punched in With my big lunchbox and with help from my friends I left that day with a lunch box full of gears Now, I never considered myself a thief GM wouldn't miss just one little piece Especially if I strung it out over several years.
The first day I got me a fuel pump And the next day I got me an engine and a trunk Then I got me a transmission and all of the chrome The little things I could get in my big lunchbox Like nuts, an' bolts, and all four shocks But the big stuff we snuck out in my buddy's mobile home.
Now, up to now my plan went all right 'Til we tried to put it all together one night And that's when we noticed that something was definitely wrong.
The transmission was a '53 And the motor turned out to be a '73 And when we tried to put in the bolts all the holes were gone.
So we drilled it out so that it would fit And with a little bit of help with an A-daptor kit We had that engine runnin' just like a song Now the headlight' was another sight We had two on the left and one on the right But when we pulled out the switch all three of 'em come on.
The back end looked kinda funny too But we put it together and when we got thru Well, that's when we noticed that we only had one tail-fin About that time my wife walked out And I could see in her eyes that she had her doubts But she opened the door and said "Honey, take me for a spin."
So we drove up town just to get the tags And I headed her right on down main drag I could hear everybody laughin' for blocks around But up there at the court house they didn't laugh 'Cause to type it up it took the whole staff And when they got through the title weighed sixty pounds.
[CHORUS] I got it one piece at a time And it didn't cost me a dime You'll know it's me when I come through your town I'm gonna ride around in style I'm gonna drive everybody wild 'Cause I'll have the only one there is around.
[Spoken] Ugh! Yow, RED RYDER This is the COTTON MOUTH In the PSYCHO-BILLY CADILLAC Come on
Huh, This is the COTTON MOUTH And negatory on the cost of this mow-chine there RED RYDER You might say I went right up to the factory And picked it up, it's cheaper that way Ugh!, what model is it?
"So all those Staples ads about toner and ink are meant for that small niche of people who still own a printer?"
Please indeed. First, you base your entire argument on one retailer's advertisements. That's so fricken absurd that a part of me thinks your comment was satire. (I certainly hope so!)
Second, your argument is nothing more than a straw horse. At no point did Jeremy Reimer ever argue that only a "small niche of people... still own..." printers. His argument, more of an observation, really, is that "we stopped printing things out so much." And I find that observation to be completely true.
Take the legal profession, which historically loves to kill trees. In US Federal Courts you have to file everything electronically. In other words, lawyers "stopped printing things out so much."
We no longer print out funny things to post in the office breakroom, we just forward them.
I never print out directions anymore, I just use my GPS.
"This is nothing more than a misled anti-Microsoft troll."
How was Reimer misled? And how does pointing out the simple fact that we print less make anyone an anti-Microsoft troll? But why bother to actually make arguments to support your conclusions when making bare conclusions is so much simpler?
"So, if the "thought" is the address of someone in witness protection..." "Or, if I run over someone with my car, it doesn't matter..."
Those thoughts are being combined with acts. Expressing the whereabouts of a person hiding to someone looking to hurt him is ratting him out. Expressing an intent to run someone over and then running him over is an assault and battery. Those added acts create the crime. The fact that they were done intentionally adds to the punishment because we as a society recognize that crimes committed accidentally deserves less punishment from those done intentionally. But should me expressing hate, in and of itself, really be worthy of being a crime?!
Think of it this way. I hate all mammals including humans. Mammals have no choice to be mammals, so apparently, that makes my hatred worse. I'm not entirely sure why. Should my expression of hatred for mammals, without any act, be a crime? Are you calling the cops right now due to my expression of hate?
"unavoidably hurting someone who should not be hurt then it's OK to punish that action regardless of what that action happens to be"
Does that include hurt feelings? I'm not talking about an assault. "I hate you and I'm going to hurt you." Assault is already against the law. I'm talking about an expression of hate in and of itself.
Slashdot Mirror
So it's entirely based on someone's feelings? Oh poor baby, someone liked your "idea" which you do not own. I feel so sorry for you.
What is this fricken the Oprah?!
First, it's copyright infringement, not theft. And no one can "steal" your idea because ideas cannot be owned.
Second, it's infringement if he infringed on your code, art work, or music. If not, it's not infringement.
... but unfortunately for him his brain was sitting in a jar on a shelf somewhere.
Amazon does not really have to compete on price. While at worst people might be agnostic towards Amazon, they hate Walmart.
Very few people are going to dump Amazon merely because the Evil Empire's a little cheaper. Buying is more than merely getting a product. The actual buying is but a small part of a larger service.
It's similar to Newegg. Newegg does not always have the lowest prices. But I know they ship the same day so I'll get it quickly and they'll fix any problems if something goes wrong. So if it's tech related, I almost always buy from Newegg. For nearly everything else, I use Amazon.
Which is another way of saying that IE9 will be such a resource hog that even the highly advanced eight core systems we'll be using in a few years will not be powerful enough to run it.
When you buy something online or via a catalog, you should pay the taxes from the place it was shipped.
If I go to California to buy something, I have to pay California's taxes and not my own. If I pay someone to go to California to buy something for me, I'd have to pay California's taxes and no my own. But for some bizarre reason, when I pay FedEx to ship it to me, suddenly I do not have to pay California's tax but I have to pay my state's use tax.
So to give an example, if I buy something from Amazon and it ships from California, Amazon should bill me California's tax.
Here's why states hate this idea. Because it would allow the states to compete with each other to bring more shipping business into its state. For example, merely to get a bunch of shipping centers built in Oregon, that state could have no such tax. Amazon would then build their shipping centers there and the other states would get nothing.
There's nothing the government hates more than competing.
"People who make a lot of calls aren't going to come in at $9 per month - pre-paids are only good for people with very low usage."
And the award for the best stating of the obvious goes to MBGMorden. Take a bow.
And yet people make fun of me for using a TracFone, for about only $9 per month.
Rude linuxheads?! I find that hard to believe.
Btw, modding me down, as you most certainly will, only proves my sarcasm was justified.
John Dvorak is...
Old, real old.
Out of touch.
An old fogey.
Stupid.
Really stupid.
A troll.
Illogical.
Ignorant of what he writes and says.
Now feel free to actually comment about the topic at hand: Windows 7, worth it or not?
.... which IBM wouldn't even sell in its own computers. I wish 'em luck in their new endeavor. They'll need it.
"So this isn't a story about MySpace."
It is about MySpace. Sure the label started the problem by claiming a copyright on a song it did not hold. However, it is now a MySpace problem because the site apparently has no mechanism or system to fix the problem the label created.
Now that the label has admitted it has no copyright claim, it's MySpace's job to fix it and allow the song to be streamed. The label certainly cannot fix that problem. The fact that MySpace has not done so in three months makes it pretty clear that this story is about MySpace.
So the copyright industry wants you kicked off the net for three mere accusations of copyright infringement. That could be as little as three songs. The songs sell for a buck on Amazon and iTunes. So for a mere three bucks the copyright industry wants you banned from the net for eternity.
Let's imagine a different law. Let's imagine that the banking industry gets fed up with people stealing pens out of their lobbies. These pens are expensive, a buck each. Imagine that a law is enacted stating that any person merely accused by a bank of stealing three pens is banned from the entire banking industry for the rest of his or her life.
Does anyone think such a law has any chance to be passed? Does anyone seriously think that such a law makes sense? Of course it would not and of course it does not. But in the crazy world of copyrights, people actually take the proposed three strikes law seriously.
I agree with everything you wrote. TiVo did innovate. Cable and satellite companies made it impossible to keep up. And the government/FCC should have stepped in and did something.
However, that doesn't change the fact that TiVo is now basically a patent troll. Sure they sell products, but their future income will come from patent settlements, not customers.
.... you can sit on your ass, hire some lawyers, and soak up millions via your government granted monopoly. Or you can roll up your sleeves and work your ass off innovating, servicing customers, and building up a customer base. What the frick would you choose?!
.... of the United States Supreme Court decision which specifically held that copyright infringement is not stealing. Dowling V. United States, 473 U.S. 207 (1985)
"Actually it was in the article summary."
Well duh! The fact that it was in the blurb is what reminded me of it! (Damn, I'm not doing so well this week!)
"your crazed frothy-mouthed rant is actually a whole lot more humorous (albeit unintentionally) than your original "attempt at humour"!"
Hey, I aim to please!
"There's something quite sweet about a humourless person going nuts because nobody applauded their attempted joke"
If I did go nuts, it wasn't because no one laughed, it was the guy was a complete prick about the fact I didn't read the article. I read the blurb, was reminded of an old song, and pointed it out. I don't think an attack against me was deserved. Like I said, I feel sorry for that guy if my small mistake gets him that riled up.
I don't have to read the article to know that. If the charges were dropped, the prosecutor would not be vowing to appeal. When a judge gets rid of charges, they're dismissed. When a prosecutor voluntarily gets rid of charges, then they're dropped.
God, does the rod up your butt have its own rod up its butt? My comment was merely an attempt at humor. I didn't read the article. Now take your Valium and go to bed. You definitely need the rest.
If my sorry attempt at humor gets you this upset, I'd hate to imagine how you'd face any real tragedy in your sorry little life.
This reminds me of the old Johnny Cash song!
"One Piece At A Time"
Well, I left Kentucky back in '49
An' went to Detroit workin' on a 'sembly line
The first year they had me puttin' wheels on cadillacs
Every day I'd watch them beauties roll by
And sometimes I'd hang my head and cry
'Cause I always wanted me one that was long and black.
One day I devised myself a plan
That should be the envy of most any man
I'd sneak it out of there in a lunchbox in my hand
Now gettin' caught meant gettin' fired
But I figured I'd have it all by the time I retired
I'd have me a car worth at least a hundred grand.
[CHORUS]
I'd get it one piece at a time
And it wouldn't cost me a dime
You'll know it's me when I come through your town
I'm gonna ride around in style
I'm gonna drive everybody wild
'Cause I'll have the only one there is a round.
So the very next day when I punched in
With my big lunchbox and with help from my friends
I left that day with a lunch box full of gears
Now, I never considered myself a thief
GM wouldn't miss just one little piece
Especially if I strung it out over several years.
The first day I got me a fuel pump
And the next day I got me an engine and a trunk
Then I got me a transmission and all of the chrome
The little things I could get in my big lunchbox
Like nuts, an' bolts, and all four shocks
But the big stuff we snuck out in my buddy's mobile home.
Now, up to now my plan went all right
'Til we tried to put it all together one night
And that's when we noticed that something was definitely wrong.
The transmission was a '53
And the motor turned out to be a '73
And when we tried to put in the bolts all the holes were gone.
So we drilled it out so that it would fit
And with a little bit of help with an A-daptor kit
We had that engine runnin' just like a song
Now the headlight' was another sight
We had two on the left and one on the right
But when we pulled out the switch all three of 'em come on.
The back end looked kinda funny too
But we put it together and when we got thru
Well, that's when we noticed that we only had one tail-fin
About that time my wife walked out
And I could see in her eyes that she had her doubts
But she opened the door and said "Honey, take me for a spin."
So we drove up town just to get the tags
And I headed her right on down main drag
I could hear everybody laughin' for blocks around
But up there at the court house they didn't laugh
'Cause to type it up it took the whole staff
And when they got through the title weighed sixty pounds.
[CHORUS]
I got it one piece at a time
And it didn't cost me a dime
You'll know it's me when I come through your town
I'm gonna ride around in style
I'm gonna drive everybody wild
'Cause I'll have the only one there is around.
[Spoken] Ugh! Yow, RED RYDER
This is the COTTON MOUTH
In the PSYCHO-BILLY CADILLAC Come on
Huh, This is the COTTON MOUTH
And negatory on the cost of this mow-chine there RED RYDER
You might say I went right up to the factory
And picked it up, it's cheaper that way
Ugh!, what model is it?
"How did this make it to the front page? It's clearly flamebait."
It appears you answered your own question.
In the US the government can force a suspect/defendant to turn over a key to the safe, but not to turn over the combination to the safe.
Doe v. United States, 487 U.S. 201 (1988)
"So all those Staples ads about toner and ink are meant for that small niche of people who still own a printer?"
Please indeed. First, you base your entire argument on one retailer's advertisements. That's so fricken absurd that a part of me thinks your comment was satire. (I certainly hope so!)
Second, your argument is nothing more than a straw horse. At no point did Jeremy Reimer ever argue that only a "small niche of people... still own..." printers. His argument, more of an observation, really, is that "we stopped printing things out so much." And I find that observation to be completely true.
Take the legal profession, which historically loves to kill trees. In US Federal Courts you have to file everything electronically. In other words, lawyers "stopped printing things out so much."
We no longer print out funny things to post in the office breakroom, we just forward them.
I never print out directions anymore, I just use my GPS.
"This is nothing more than a misled anti-Microsoft troll."
How was Reimer misled? And how does pointing out the simple fact that we print less make anyone an anti-Microsoft troll? But why bother to actually make arguments to support your conclusions when making bare conclusions is so much simpler?
"So, if the "thought" is the address of someone in witness protection..."
"Or, if I run over someone with my car, it doesn't matter..."
Those thoughts are being combined with acts. Expressing the whereabouts of a person hiding to someone looking to hurt him is ratting him out. Expressing an intent to run someone over and then running him over is an assault and battery. Those added acts create the crime. The fact that they were done intentionally adds to the punishment because we as a society recognize that crimes committed accidentally deserves less punishment from those done intentionally. But should me expressing hate, in and of itself, really be worthy of being a crime?!
Think of it this way. I hate all mammals including humans. Mammals have no choice to be mammals, so apparently, that makes my hatred worse. I'm not entirely sure why. Should my expression of hatred for mammals, without any act, be a crime? Are you calling the cops right now due to my expression of hate?
"unavoidably hurting someone who should not be hurt then it's OK to punish that action regardless of what that action happens to be"
Does that include hurt feelings? I'm not talking about an assault. "I hate you and I'm going to hurt you." Assault is already against the law. I'm talking about an expression of hate in and of itself.