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  1. Moral Hazard (was Re:Morals?) on Economics of File-Sharing · · Score: 4, Informative

    "moral" here is being used in the sense it is used in "moral certainty". The contrast in both cases isn't moral as opposed to immoral, but moral/practical as opposed to theoretical. A moral certainty is a practical certainty, a certainty great enough for to determine one's action, but not enough for a mathematical demonstration. A moral hazard is a practical danger, that is, one's action puts one in danger.

    It's just how academics talk.

  2. Re:They should provide insurance? on Economics of File-Sharing · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Insurance can help move merchandise. Back when I was in high school in the late '70s, I bought an album by Gruppo Sportivo because it was advertised by the local record store with a money-back offer: if you don't like the record, return it. I bought it, liked it, and didn't return it. Since I'd never heard of Gruppo Sportivo before, I likely wouldn't have bought it without the insurance. As it is, I have one more fond memory of the cool music of my youth.

  3. One weakness of both articles: free always wins on Economics of File-Sharing · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Both of the linked articles make a compelling case that consumers embraced file-sharing as a form of insurance in a situation of moral hazard. What the articles don't explain is why consumers would be willing to move away from file-sharing toward any of the various proposed contracts.

  4. Re:Reviews are useless... on First Review Of Return Of The King · · Score: 1
    I don't trust reviewers. Most of them suck, and those that don't still hold very different opinions than I do a large percentage of the time.

    If you find one or two reviewers whose tastes are in line with yours, you can use their reviews to help guide your choices. There are some reviewers whose opinions I'll almost always trust. Stanley Kauffman of The New Republic writes excellent reviews. The only blind spot I've noticed for him is that he loves beautiful naked women a bit too much. I remember back in the 80's and early 90's, he raved about Rebecca DeMornay in every rotten movie she was in. But knowing about that blind spot helps me evaluate his reviews.

  5. Re:Reviews are useless... on First Review Of Return Of The King · · Score: 1
    Right, so if the Return of the King got bad reviews, you wouldn't go see it anyway?

    I noticed that Matrix Revolutions got bad reviews, so I didn't go see it. Maybe when it hits the dollar theater. Lots of people I know, however, went out and (according to them) wasted 9 or 10 bucks on it. I don't have enough money or time to watch every single movie and "judge for myself".

  6. Re:Reviews are useless... on First Review Of Return Of The King · · Score: 3, Insightful
    IMHO reviews are not worth the time and effort to read.


    There are more movies released in a single year than any one person (except a reviewer) should see. You don't have the option of seeing all the movies you could possibly see, so you have to pick and choose. Many of use find reviews a useful tool for making these decisions. What tools do you use to help you decide which movies to see?

  7. NO JURY ON EARTH on Man Arrested for 'Spam Rage' · · Score: 1

    will convict this guy. He just needs to make sure he has a good lawyer and that they do lots of discovery to document the behavior of the comany.

  8. Re:i suspect the charges will be dropped on Man Arrested for 'Spam Rage' · · Score: 1
    i suspect the charges will be dropped


    The plaintiff in a criminal trial is the government, not the victim. The government doesn't and shouldn't care how bad the victim looks as a result of discovery.

  9. Re:painful to say on Bill Joy on Linux and Mac OS X · · Score: -1, Troll

    Linux doesn't _need_ to do anything, fool.

  10. Re:Should the government really be providing this? on Utah Cities To Provide High-Speed Net Access · · Score: 1
    The job of the government is to provide whatever we, the people, want it to provide.


    Great! Most of the people where I live would like government to provide religious education to children.

  11. Re:hardware autodetection... on First Look at Debian's Next Generation Installer · · Score: 1
    What exactly is the purpose of hardware detection in this case?


    It's nice if the installer can see your hard drive, so that it has somewhere to install to.

  12. Re:Sounds good, but ... on Penn State Students to Get Free Music From Napster · · Score: 1
    Why should Penn State not do something that benefits 95+% of their student body just because they can't offer it to another 5%?


    Because the benefit in question doesn't have diddly to do with the mission of the university.

  13. At least ask the right question! on Not Offering A Demo Better For Indie Games? · · Score: 1
    Does not offering a demo sometimes increase the sales of a game?


    I think you mean: "does sometimes not offering a demo increase the sales of a game?" That's a much different (and more relevant) question, and the answer is probably yes.

  14. Re:So... on For Americans, Imported Textbooks Can Be Cheaper · · Score: 1
    the university as a whole is out to "rape the students".

    Many, many schools have contracted out cafeteria, bookstore and even housing to outside companies, because they couldn't afford to run them themselves. I personally know of several universities that have done this. It's not the university as a whole out to rape you. The university as a whole realized that it was losing a lot of money on things like bookstores and cafeterias, so it has handed over those operations to outside companies -- which in turn are definitely out to rape you!


    The university as a whole, however, continues to wish you and yours well.

  15. Re:"Free" Software is a Misnomer on The FSF, Linux's Hit Men · · Score: 1
    "I'm giving you the use of this software for free (of any monetary license fees), but with the provision that you must make any derived works available under the same GPL license."

    That's true only if you want to distribute those derived works. If you keep the derived works to yourself, you don't have to distribute the code.

  16. Re:Time for a boycott of Canopy companies? on NY Times Reveals SCO/Canopy Group Hypocrisy · · Score: 1
    And what is Trolltech supposed to do?

    Kick the Canopy representative off their Board of Directors.

  17. Re:Who wouldn't benefit from a do not call list? on FCC To Enforce Do Not Call List, Not FTC · · Score: 1
    EVERYTHING sold by telemarketing is a bad deal.

    That's just not true. I wish it were, but it's not. There have been times when I've been called and offered a better price on some good or service (a good or service that I already wanted) than was available otherwise.

  18. Re:Grr Spam. on The Next Step In Spam Filtering · · Score: 1
    The results you'll get will be putting lots of innocent companies out of business.

    That's fine with me. It will motivate other innocent companies to make sure they're not associating with spammers. I'm ready to see a few "innocent" companies taken down.

  19. Re:You're wrong... on EMusic Acquired, Halting Unlimited Downloads · · Score: 1
    I might go three months between actually having time to spend an evening downloading, at which point I may want to download a lot more than 40 songs.

    That's how I've always used emusic. I download a ton of new music, and listen to it for a couple of months. Most of it is junk, but some of it is great. Then I go back and download a lot more new music.

    If I'm going to have to download new music from emusic each and every month in order for my subscription to be valuable, it just doesn't make sense for me. I'm not a teenager or obsessed with music. I like to have a supply of new music around to listen to, and I don't want to spend more than a few minutes every few months getting it.

  20. Re:What do you people want? on EMusic Acquired, Halting Unlimited Downloads · · Score: 1
    and noisy old jazz recordings from companies that got rights to shitty old recordings after the artist died.

    Some of those old jazz recordings are classics.

  21. Re:Make the professors demand it on Digital Textbooks for College? · · Score: 1
    If you demand e-books, they will see a demand, and make sure at the very least their next book has an electronic format.


    Most professors love real books, and they wish you loved them too. It makes them sad when they see you not making notations in the margins of your books. There's nothing like a real book.

  22. Re:Who wouldn't benefit from a do not call list? on FCC To Enforce Do Not Call List, Not FTC · · Score: 2, Insightful
    What boggles my mind is why telemarketers think their job is going to be harder with a list of people who don't want to receive calls from them. That's the most absurd logic ever.


    Many people on the list (such as myself) sometimes buy products or services as a result of phone solicitations, but would prefer, all things considered, to get no such calls (since most of them are just annoying). The telemarketers will lose a lot of business when this list is enforced, but it's their own fault for not policing themselves.

  23. Re:Just to address a few on IBM's New Linux Advertising · · Score: 1

    Faust7, you sound a tad defensive.

  24. Re:Dude, you are over-reacting. on New Dell Clickthrough Software License · · Score: 1

    how problematic is this license really, to me it looks like a ordinary Windows EULA.

    Perhaps you missed the point where he explained that he couldn't find a copy of the license to read!

  25. I have bought things from telemarketers on 41 Million Sign Up for National Do-Not-Call List · · Score: 1

    At least two or three different times, I bought a subscription, for a very low price, to a magazine I already had a special interest in. And I once hired a pest control company that cold-called me, because I knew other people who had used them and were happy, and the special they offered was quite good.

    That handful of satisfactory purchases, however, never made up for the deluge of garbage calls. I signed up for the do not call list as soon as it became available.

    I regret that I won't any longer occasionally receive a call offering something I want at a great price. But I'm happy to forego that if it mean no more annoying calls.

    Too bad there's no way to limit telemarketers to only calling you about items you might be interested in -- say through specifying some preferences.