And may I ask what an american operative is doing in a european town anyway? Is he maybe working for America's Army, hunting down cheaters on the other side of the pond (which I much favor over large scale invasions or nuke lobbing, but still...)?
We've got to put a stop to this sort of thing before it gets entirely out of hand....
There are just 600,000 people in Amsterdam, which is pretty low compared to the total population of 16,000,000 in the Netherlands. That's only 3.75% - and Amsterdam is our biggest city...
Tell me about their delivery system. How's that working out for them?
Same as car bombs. You hide them under the sand, wait until a large group of american soldiers is nearby, and detonate them. Any innocents also killed in the blast will get their place in paradise, so that isn't an issue.
Do you not understand this, or are you simply being a devil's advocate?
I understand what you mean, and I agree that inventors/artists may lose money in specific individual cases. What I doubt is whether that is really the case here, though. Just look at the number of people who have access to broadband now. They can all go and download all the CD's they want for free - it is so easy anyone can do it. And yet those people still buy CD's, and sales are up. That makes me think the situation may not be as grim as is claimed: the "lessening of value" that is claimed is not so severe that it stops artists from producing music, or stops inventors from inventing. Perhaps we would have more or better music/inventions if all IP was held sacred by everyone (i.e. there was no piracy whatsoever), but it is equally possible that this would lead to stagnation and cultural decay.
To see why that could happen, consider this: suppose Microsoft had a patent on multitasking or graphical desktops. Do you think we would have seen any version of Windows after, say, 1.0? What reason could they have had to innovate, given this unbreakable grip on the market? So the expiration of IP is itself a reason for innovation.
Coming back to music, I also think the advertising effect is real. Advertising vectors like radio and TV are fine and dandy, but they tend to have the same set of songs throughout the day. By comparison, downloads allows people to get acquainted with a wide variety of unknown artists. Downloading acts as a significant equilizer in this respect, in that it gives unknown artists a platform to show themselves off. Of course, that also decreases the value of any mainstream (radio-advertised) artists, since the amount of money available for entertainment is typically limited in any household. I half suspect that this is the main reason the big CD labels are complaining: not because the total number of CD's sold is shrinking, but rather because their share of the pie is.
I have a hard time believing that someone who functions in society can really think there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of the creators out there.
That's rich, considering that this discussion originally debated mainstream music. If there is one bunch of thieving bastards that "take advantage of creators" it's the big record publishers.
Finally, what you're still not understanding is that piracy is wrong even if it hurts nobody.
On the contrary, I'd argue that "intellectual piracy" offers unique benefits to all of society, because it allows everyone to benefit from new ideas, instead of just the lucky guy who made it to the patent office first. Locking up ideas for twenty years stifles innovation, since once an idea is locked up noone can improve on it either (at least, not without paying someone who had no part in the improvement, and that is assuming he is even interested in that). Some have argued that the industrial revolution was held back twenty years because of a patent on steam engines - imagine where we would be today if that hadn't happened.
Sharing is not wrong, and sharing of ideas enriches both parties involved. Admittedly, this does lessen the chances of any artist or inventor to have one good idea and spend the rest of his life collecting rent and sitting on his butt, but maybe society does not owe him that anyway. Indeed, society appears to have evolved a number of ways to compensate these people for their effort that do not involve long-term taxation, both in commercial form (companies employing inventors who get nothing out of it but their salary) and through universities and other government-sponsored research institutions.
Also, the whole notion of intellectual property is comparatively new. Some of the worlds' most beautiful artworks and music stem from a period where there was no protection whatsoever. And even today, when one can digitally reproduce a Rembrandt or van Gogh to a level that is hard to distinguish from the real thing (at least, fr
Referring to a "you" is the same as referring to "a given person" or whatever. You're way off-base by claiming my argument is name-calling.
Is that also why you are saying this:
If I spend time, money, and talent to create a song, you have absolutely no right to take that from me without my permission.
Because it sure makes it sound like you and I are having a personal fight here. Apparently "you" produced some song, and "I" stole it from you. Loading the debate like this is just not a very nice way to have a discussion. Admittedly that may be too much to expect from slashdot.
Free advertisement doesn't mean anything if it doesn't improve sales
And what was the article saying again...? Yes, it said sales were up!
Do you download the entire CD before you buy it? Do you buy every CD you download?
***I*** don't listen to any of the crap the RIAA puts out. What your unnamed third-person CD thief does, I have no idea - all my friends have large CD collections so it appears I don't know any thieving scum.
Radio is free advertising (free to consumers). Videos are free advertising (again, to consumers). They produce quantifiable sales. Downloading doesn't.
Care to prove that? Is there some way that any single sale can be tracked towards whatever form of advertisement induced it?
So what if ales are growing? That doesn't have anything to do with piracy being right or wrong.
That's odd, since "potential economic damage" is being claimed as the reason that piracy is wrong. If there is no "potential economic damage", how exactly does piracy hurt anyone? Is there an artist being crushed to death by piles of money, somewhere?
Did you pay for it? No.
Do you now have it? Yes.
Did you take it without permission? Yes....
You can justify your crime all you want, but it still boils down to your decision to deprive someone of potential earnings.
It is somewhat unfortunate that we cannot have this debate without these ad hominem attacks. Try to keep it civil: someone who opposes the induce act is not automatically downloading things and therefore a thief, and someone who uses a P2P application is not automatically violating copyright.
"Potential earnings" is an incredibly nebulous concept anyway. Suppose a town has a single CD shop, and a second one is about to open. That second shop is about the deprive the first one of a lot of potential earnings, yet their actions are completely legal.
It is also utterly unclear to me why downloads should be counted towards "lost potential earnings" instead of "free advertisement". Despite the ever-growing use of broadband, the sales of CD's are growing! Doesn't that mean that despite having the opportunity of getting all their music for free, most people are still essentially inclined to do the right thing and pay for their music?
Why is Chernobyl, the benchmark for Really Bad Engineering, always trotted out any time people start talking about nuclear stuff?
Because the article I was responding to specifically uses it to demonstrate the safety of nuclear rockets. It says, "only 40 people were killed by Chernobyl so how bad can a nuclear rocket possibly be?".
You say you're not one of those people who freak out when they hear the word nucular, but isn't that just what you're doing?
No, that is not what I am doing. I think the risk of such rockets exploding in the atmosphere and releasing their nuclear fuel is too high to be acceptable. That's not freaking out, that's looking at the history of rocket science.
But a safed nuclear rocket being launched into LEO, and then lit up there? No problem.
The fuel does not teleport into orbit, it is carried from the ground. Accidents with conventional rockets show that this stage of the flight is not without risk - just think of the Challenger accident, for example.
I suspect the small levels happened because they wanted to support the X-Box (with its limited memory capabilities), and I furthermore suspect that this was not something he had control over. But other than that, I agree that Deus Ex: Invisible War represents something of a missed opportunity.
One thing I find in games of this type that as soon as "you can go anywhere and do anything", it also means that it no longer really matters where you go or what you do. In that sense I prefer a strong story-driven approach, with real consequences to your actions. DX:IW failed spectacularly in this regard - no matter what you did, either party would take you back after minimal punishment, thus making the entire notion of choice irrelevant.
Something that probably also turned a lot of people off, although I may be wrong about this, is the evolution of the game world. The original DX world was recognizable ours in the near future (and the missing WTC in the New York levels dramatically underscored this point). The DX:IW world is much further in the future, and too alien and unrecognizable to many players. It just doesn't click the way DX did.
The small levels, the pathetic graphic performance, the dumbing down of the interface, and the somewhat uninspired architecture could have been forgiven if the previous two points had been fixed, but as it is it adds up to an underwhelming experience.
However, I still have hope for future Deus Ex stories. One possible direction would be to return to J.C. Denton's time and play alternative storylines, i.e. look at the world from other viewpoints. One obvious candidate for a hero would be Paul.
Alternatively, just declare DX:IW a bad dream induced by J.C. being hit on the head once too often, and make a _true_ sequel...
An abitious project to bring back some of the most amazing and majestic technology humanity has ever concieved... turned... into... a... theme park...
What happened at Kalkar was FAR worse - far more money was invested (i.e. wasted) by various governments. Read all about it here. My parents paid the extra "Kalkar tax" (to pay for the reactor) for years and years, and now it, too, is a theme park. And not even a nuclear theme park, it is simply a health spa. I know, I visited while you could still see most of the reactor and equipment...
Oddly enough, this is in Germany as well. Makes you wonder...
Can you imagine how much more that baby behind you is going to cry when it starts floating around?
Hey, if it is over in 20 minutes I wouldn't mind! Long flights with annoying people are so bad because you cannot get away from them for long periods of time.
During long flights I have pondered the possibility of transporting people in stacked coffin-like caskets (i.e. lying down). Yes, it would be awkward to get in and out, but climbing over people is awkward too and at least these things you can close off... And who knows, the two-person version may actually become quite popular.
Or perhaps using a mild sedative to make everyone sleep through the flight? At least if the plane goes down you won't know about it until you wake up dead...
In case you hadn't realized, I don't really like flying;-)
That paper, while interesting, badly understates the dangers of nuclear rockets. For reference they mention Chernobyl as "40 people killed". Well, it turns out this is a little on the low side, with the real number closer to 15,000, with an additional 50,000 ill. But I guess that number would make it a bit too hard to sell nuclear rockets...
And no, I'm not one of those people who freak out when they hear the word "nucular", in case you were wondering.
We are considering using tablet PC's for data entry in the cleanroom (marking locations of thermocouples and heaters and other equipment on our test specimens). Ideally this requires us to display 3D images on the screen. Would you happen to know if this is in any way realistic using a tablet PC (i.e. are there any that have decent 3D capabilities)?
In fact my last name, happily obscured in this forum, also has the same "uy" and the hard "g" sounds, and I know from experience that there is absolutely no way for english speakers to pronounce it correctly. Usually I let people stumble a few times and then tell them to call me by my first name.
I cannot begin to spell "Huijgens" phonetically, but I can tell you this: the common english pronunciation, "Joogens", is wrong. The "H" is the same sound as in the word "help", the "uij" doesn't exist in any English word as far as I can tell but it isn't "oo" or "oi", and the "g" is proncounced more like a short, rolling "r".
I'm not sure if "Reuters" was originally a Dutch name, but if it was the "eu" sound is mispronounced as well - it shouldn't sound like "oi".
No doubt some slashdotter who knows how to spell phonetically will come to my rescue and tell you how to pronounce both;-)
I can see how a "Amiga on a Chip" might have made sense down the road, but in the era when the Amiga was at it's peak it probably would have been too complex/expensive. Even so, they probably would have had to do an entirely NEW set of custom hardware in an era when it was clear that non-PC systems seemed to be going the way of the dodo.
That's what I meant with my "NVidia can do it" argument. At the time of C='s demise, the prevalent argument was that a single company couldn't make all the parts needed for a computer; that specialized companies would be making each component (audio, video, network, whatever) to unbeatable standards. NVidia proves that this is simply not true: they _do_ make boards that have all the equivalents to the Amiga custom chips by themselves, and are apparently doing fine. C= could have done so too, had they invested in R&D.
The "corrupt executives" argument has appeal to the screwed users, but I kinda doubt it really made a significant difference one way or another. The main problem was that they were idiots, not that they were overpaid.
Idiocy is as bad as corruption, especially when you are being paid such an enormeous salary...
Anyway, happy new year, and may this be the year of the new AmigaOS / Linux on the desktop / when a meteor strikes Redmond!;-)
Your point made me think of something else: if one of those tracked trucks gets into accident, and the company does not respond _immediately_ by sending out aid (and they are capable of that, since they have all the necessary information), does that mean they are liable?
I can see it now: "So here the log shows how the truck went from 60MPh to 0MPh in less than a second, which can only be caused by hitting a solid, non-yielding object, yet it took the company three hours before they called an ambulance for the driver."
Plus, others have made the argument that it wasn't possible to siginificantly upgrade the Amiga hardware without breaking all the software. They may have realized this and just decided to let the Amiga wither while they moved into PC clones.
I heard that, yes, but I'm not buying it. The Amiga had already lived through a number of compatibility-destroying events (1.x -> 2.x; RAM expansion above 512KB; 68000 -> 680x0), and in each case, survived. By the time of the A4000 there were machines on the market with a variety of OS versions, RAM configurations, and CPU speeds, and the worst compatibility problems were over. Hell, mine (still standing here besides me) has a non-native graphics card (Picasso IV), audio board (Concierto) and CPU board (PowerPC + 68060) - and the whole configuration works just fine with any software I care to throw at it.
Long after C= was gone there were some mutterings by the people porting AmigaOS to new hardware that actually the OS wasn't so bad after all - it wasn't "completely tied to the custom hardware" as so many had claimed for so long. Not that it came as any surprise to anyone already using non-native hardware, like myself, but still...
So a playstation-style solution would have been possible: shrink the old hardware into a corner of a single chip and make sure any new hardware isn't hit as badly as the old was, so the problem wouldn't repeat in the next generation. But that would have required R&D to take place, and that is difficult to afford when your $10M director wants to fly his company plane...
I hate that "employers are God" attitude that a lot of people here seem to have. An employment contract is an agreement between two people - work for money, nothing more. It doesn't turn the employer into a robot or a slave for the duration of the hours worked, he remains a human being with the needs and rights such an entity possesses.
Would you agree to being tracked from second to second in YOUR job? If not, what makes you think you are so much more deserving of human dignity than the people affected by this? Would you like to answer questions regarding the duration or frequency of bathroom breaks? Length of time spent in front of a traffic light ("were you out for a sandwich by any chance?")? Time spent at a customer ("longer than 5 minutes? Do you have a girlfriend there or something?")?
Your remark wrt. programmer creativity is interesting as well. I have no idea if you have any clue how programmers are perceived by much of management, but think "interchangeable warm body that we can outsource to India at a whim" and you'll be close. Creativity? Variation? Get real, he is there to type in a pre-defined specification. Anyone can do that, and it is the exact same job every single day.
Slashdot Mirror
We've got to put a stop to this sort of thing before it gets entirely out of hand....
Earth and that comet are both places where humanity is invading, waging war, and making a total nuisance of itself...
There are just 600,000 people in Amsterdam, which is pretty low compared to the total population of 16,000,000 in the Netherlands. That's only 3.75% - and Amsterdam is our biggest city...
I was making a joke. Gee, learn about sarcasm people...
Surely you mean "pirated my intellectual property"?
Same as car bombs. You hide them under the sand, wait until a large group of american soldiers is nearby, and detonate them. Any innocents also killed in the blast will get their place in paradise, so that isn't an issue.
I understand what you mean, and I agree that inventors/artists may lose money in specific individual cases. What I doubt is whether that is really the case here, though. Just look at the number of people who have access to broadband now. They can all go and download all the CD's they want for free - it is so easy anyone can do it. And yet those people still buy CD's, and sales are up. That makes me think the situation may not be as grim as is claimed: the "lessening of value" that is claimed is not so severe that it stops artists from producing music, or stops inventors from inventing. Perhaps we would have more or better music/inventions if all IP was held sacred by everyone (i.e. there was no piracy whatsoever), but it is equally possible that this would lead to stagnation and cultural decay.
To see why that could happen, consider this: suppose Microsoft had a patent on multitasking or graphical desktops. Do you think we would have seen any version of Windows after, say, 1.0? What reason could they have had to innovate, given this unbreakable grip on the market? So the expiration of IP is itself a reason for innovation.
Coming back to music, I also think the advertising effect is real. Advertising vectors like radio and TV are fine and dandy, but they tend to have the same set of songs throughout the day. By comparison, downloads allows people to get acquainted with a wide variety of unknown artists. Downloading acts as a significant equilizer in this respect, in that it gives unknown artists a platform to show themselves off. Of course, that also decreases the value of any mainstream (radio-advertised) artists, since the amount of money available for entertainment is typically limited in any household. I half suspect that this is the main reason the big CD labels are complaining: not because the total number of CD's sold is shrinking, but rather because their share of the pie is.
I have a hard time believing that someone who functions in society can really think there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of the creators out there.
That's rich, considering that this discussion originally debated mainstream music. If there is one bunch of thieving bastards that "take advantage of creators" it's the big record publishers.
Finally, what you're still not understanding is that piracy is wrong even if it hurts nobody.
On the contrary, I'd argue that "intellectual piracy" offers unique benefits to all of society, because it allows everyone to benefit from new ideas, instead of just the lucky guy who made it to the patent office first. Locking up ideas for twenty years stifles innovation, since once an idea is locked up noone can improve on it either (at least, not without paying someone who had no part in the improvement, and that is assuming he is even interested in that). Some have argued that the industrial revolution was held back twenty years because of a patent on steam engines - imagine where we would be today if that hadn't happened.
Sharing is not wrong, and sharing of ideas enriches both parties involved. Admittedly, this does lessen the chances of any artist or inventor to have one good idea and spend the rest of his life collecting rent and sitting on his butt, but maybe society does not owe him that anyway. Indeed, society appears to have evolved a number of ways to compensate these people for their effort that do not involve long-term taxation, both in commercial form (companies employing inventors who get nothing out of it but their salary) and through universities and other government-sponsored research institutions.
Also, the whole notion of intellectual property is comparatively new. Some of the worlds' most beautiful artworks and music stem from a period where there was no protection whatsoever. And even today, when one can digitally reproduce a Rembrandt or van Gogh to a level that is hard to distinguish from the real thing (at least, fr
Is that also why you are saying this:
If I spend time, money, and talent to create a song, you have absolutely no right to take that from me without my permission.
Because it sure makes it sound like you and I are having a personal fight here. Apparently "you" produced some song, and "I" stole it from you. Loading the debate like this is just not a very nice way to have a discussion. Admittedly that may be too much to expect from slashdot.
Free advertisement doesn't mean anything if it doesn't improve sales
And what was the article saying again...? Yes, it said sales were up!
Do you download the entire CD before you buy it? Do you buy every CD you download?
***I*** don't listen to any of the crap the RIAA puts out. What your unnamed third-person CD thief does, I have no idea - all my friends have large CD collections so it appears I don't know any thieving scum.
Radio is free advertising (free to consumers). Videos are free advertising (again, to consumers). They produce quantifiable sales. Downloading doesn't.
Care to prove that? Is there some way that any single sale can be tracked towards whatever form of advertisement induced it?
So what if ales are growing? That doesn't have anything to do with piracy being right or wrong.
That's odd, since "potential economic damage" is being claimed as the reason that piracy is wrong. If there is no "potential economic damage", how exactly does piracy hurt anyone? Is there an artist being crushed to death by piles of money, somewhere?
Actually a centurion was a low ranking officer who was in charge of a hundred men.
Yes, you can actually learn something on slashdot! ;-)
Sounds good. Now maybe they have the excuse they need to stop producing their crummy OS.
It is somewhat unfortunate that we cannot have this debate without these ad hominem attacks. Try to keep it civil: someone who opposes the induce act is not automatically downloading things and therefore a thief, and someone who uses a P2P application is not automatically violating copyright.
"Potential earnings" is an incredibly nebulous concept anyway. Suppose a town has a single CD shop, and a second one is about to open. That second shop is about the deprive the first one of a lot of potential earnings, yet their actions are completely legal.
It is also utterly unclear to me why downloads should be counted towards "lost potential earnings" instead of "free advertisement". Despite the ever-growing use of broadband, the sales of CD's are growing! Doesn't that mean that despite having the opportunity of getting all their music for free, most people are still essentially inclined to do the right thing and pay for their music?
Because the article I was responding to specifically uses it to demonstrate the safety of nuclear rockets. It says, "only 40 people were killed by Chernobyl so how bad can a nuclear rocket possibly be?".
You say you're not one of those people who freak out when they hear the word nucular, but isn't that just what you're doing?
No, that is not what I am doing. I think the risk of such rockets exploding in the atmosphere and releasing their nuclear fuel is too high to be acceptable. That's not freaking out, that's looking at the history of rocket science.
But a safed nuclear rocket being launched into LEO, and then lit up there? No problem.
The fuel does not teleport into orbit, it is carried from the ground. Accidents with conventional rockets show that this stage of the flight is not without risk - just think of the Challenger accident, for example.
Can you still visit the reactor? Or is it completely demolished on the inside now?
One thing I find in games of this type that as soon as "you can go anywhere and do anything", it also means that it no longer really matters where you go or what you do. In that sense I prefer a strong story-driven approach, with real consequences to your actions. DX:IW failed spectacularly in this regard - no matter what you did, either party would take you back after minimal punishment, thus making the entire notion of choice irrelevant.
Something that probably also turned a lot of people off, although I may be wrong about this, is the evolution of the game world. The original DX world was recognizable ours in the near future (and the missing WTC in the New York levels dramatically underscored this point). The DX:IW world is much further in the future, and too alien and unrecognizable to many players. It just doesn't click the way DX did.
The small levels, the pathetic graphic performance, the dumbing down of the interface, and the somewhat uninspired architecture could have been forgiven if the previous two points had been fixed, but as it is it adds up to an underwhelming experience.
However, I still have hope for future Deus Ex stories. One possible direction would be to return to J.C. Denton's time and play alternative storylines, i.e. look at the world from other viewpoints. One obvious candidate for a hero would be Paul.
Alternatively, just declare DX:IW a bad dream induced by J.C. being hit on the head once too often, and make a _true_ sequel...
What happened at Kalkar was FAR worse - far more money was invested (i.e. wasted) by various governments. Read all about it here. My parents paid the extra "Kalkar tax" (to pay for the reactor) for years and years, and now it, too, is a theme park. And not even a nuclear theme park, it is simply a health spa. I know, I visited while you could still see most of the reactor and equipment...
Oddly enough, this is in Germany as well. Makes you wonder...
Hey, if it is over in 20 minutes I wouldn't mind! Long flights with annoying people are so bad because you cannot get away from them for long periods of time.
During long flights I have pondered the possibility of transporting people in stacked coffin-like caskets (i.e. lying down). Yes, it would be awkward to get in and out, but climbing over people is awkward too and at least these things you can close off... And who knows, the two-person version may actually become quite popular.
Or perhaps using a mild sedative to make everyone sleep through the flight? At least if the plane goes down you won't know about it until you wake up dead...
In case you hadn't realized, I don't really like flying ;-)
And no, I'm not one of those people who freak out when they hear the word "nucular", in case you were wondering.
Defining Google is even easier: just do this...
Considering the fact he is long deceased, I expect not very much...
We are considering using tablet PC's for data entry in the cleanroom (marking locations of thermocouples and heaters and other equipment on our test specimens). Ideally this requires us to display 3D images on the screen. Would you happen to know if this is in any way realistic using a tablet PC (i.e. are there any that have decent 3D capabilities)?
In fact my last name, happily obscured in this forum, also has the same "uy" and the hard "g" sounds, and I know from experience that there is absolutely no way for english speakers to pronounce it correctly. Usually I let people stumble a few times and then tell them to call me by my first name.
I cannot begin to spell "Huijgens" phonetically, but I can tell you this: the common english pronunciation, "Joogens", is wrong. The "H" is the same sound as in the word "help", the "uij" doesn't exist in any English word as far as I can tell but it isn't "oo" or "oi", and the "g" is proncounced more like a short, rolling "r".
I'm not sure if "Reuters" was originally a Dutch name, but if it was the "eu" sound is mispronounced as well - it shouldn't sound like "oi".
No doubt some slashdotter who knows how to spell phonetically will come to my rescue and tell you how to pronounce both ;-)
That's what I meant with my "NVidia can do it" argument. At the time of C='s demise, the prevalent argument was that a single company couldn't make all the parts needed for a computer; that specialized companies would be making each component (audio, video, network, whatever) to unbeatable standards. NVidia proves that this is simply not true: they _do_ make boards that have all the equivalents to the Amiga custom chips by themselves, and are apparently doing fine. C= could have done so too, had they invested in R&D.
The "corrupt executives" argument has appeal to the screwed users, but I kinda doubt it really made a significant difference one way or another. The main problem was that they were idiots, not that they were overpaid.
Idiocy is as bad as corruption, especially when you are being paid such an enormeous salary...
Anyway, happy new year, and may this be the year of the new AmigaOS / Linux on the desktop / when a meteor strikes Redmond! ;-)
I can see it now: "So here the log shows how the truck went from 60MPh to 0MPh in less than a second, which can only be caused by hitting a solid, non-yielding object, yet it took the company three hours before they called an ambulance for the driver."
I heard that, yes, but I'm not buying it. The Amiga had already lived through a number of compatibility-destroying events (1.x -> 2.x; RAM expansion above 512KB; 68000 -> 680x0), and in each case, survived. By the time of the A4000 there were machines on the market with a variety of OS versions, RAM configurations, and CPU speeds, and the worst compatibility problems were over. Hell, mine (still standing here besides me) has a non-native graphics card (Picasso IV), audio board (Concierto) and CPU board (PowerPC + 68060) - and the whole configuration works just fine with any software I care to throw at it.
Long after C= was gone there were some mutterings by the people porting AmigaOS to new hardware that actually the OS wasn't so bad after all - it wasn't "completely tied to the custom hardware" as so many had claimed for so long. Not that it came as any surprise to anyone already using non-native hardware, like myself, but still...
So a playstation-style solution would have been possible: shrink the old hardware into a corner of a single chip and make sure any new hardware isn't hit as badly as the old was, so the problem wouldn't repeat in the next generation. But that would have required R&D to take place, and that is difficult to afford when your $10M director wants to fly his company plane...
Would you agree to being tracked from second to second in YOUR job? If not, what makes you think you are so much more deserving of human dignity than the people affected by this? Would you like to answer questions regarding the duration or frequency of bathroom breaks? Length of time spent in front of a traffic light ("were you out for a sandwich by any chance?")? Time spent at a customer ("longer than 5 minutes? Do you have a girlfriend there or something?")?
Your remark wrt. programmer creativity is interesting as well. I have no idea if you have any clue how programmers are perceived by much of management, but think "interchangeable warm body that we can outsource to India at a whim" and you'll be close. Creativity? Variation? Get real, he is there to type in a pre-defined specification. Anyone can do that, and it is the exact same job every single day.