Also, computers are produced by companies. Companies like to give discounts or free tech to little cute school kids. Its good advertising. Theres no such private-sector motivation for donating to top off teacher salaries.
Yeah, government institutions are always sucky. You know, poorly funded, not enough resources, can't seem to attract the top teaching talent with decent salaries...
If I were you, I'd always vote in favour of giving the government less in taxes, and then demand that they should pay you to put your kid through a private school. You know, what with their inability to provide adequate resources for education for some strange reason.
What's happened is that the implementor (Joe Shmoe, lets say) has been confused with the inventor.
Few people invent radically new devices. As the cliche goes, the cell phone was invented in 1954, and yet putting a camera on a cellphone, two existing inventions together is called 'innovation'. Yeah, a cell phone with a camera was something new, but so was the first zipper painted blue! Lots of things are 'new', but only because they are simply the result of the millions of ways of combining all the technology we have. Something *truely* new, not just a recombination of things that have already existed, or an existing technology in a different shape, size, color, etc, comes along far less often than the patent office records or brochure claims of corperations will have you believe.
My term is 'gaming the system'. When you exploit loopholes and bend rules, you defeat the purpose and intent of a system, thus ensuring that even if you believe the system in theory should work as intended, it won't.
Some people assume if you end up with the desired goal of the system (wealth), than it has served its purpose. In reality, the system was devised not so an individual can become rich, but rather so we have a set of rules in which to facilitate improving our standard of living without resorting to social friction and unfair (subjective, I realize) treatment of others.
All the market tactics, advertising ploys, and accounting/legalese rule bendings seem to weaken the role of merit in capitalism. And I know what constitutes 'merit' is subjective, but I'd rather not give merit to those creative and smart enough to figure out how to bend rules in their favour without being caught.
Any history of capitalism will start around the 1500s. Check it out yourself. Locke was on this shit at 1690 when he was publishing books such as "Some Considerations of the Consequences of Lowering of Interest, and Raising the Value of Money."
Reference: [here]
But google it up, theres lots of info on capitalism before the poster child Adam Smith appeared.
I'm talking about the majority here.. there will always be people who steal, but....
In post-capitalist 17th century UK, people couldn't afford bread. Rather than storm the bakeries and steal the bread, they stormed the bakeries and demanded a fair price.
People are happy to pay a fair price. Thats the very definition of fair value. A value people will pay.
Between overpriced and free, people choose free. But when they sense that a fair price can be obtained, ie, when the bakers (ie, the RIAA) are actually willing to come to the table and discuss the price, people will choose fair price over free because we require our socialeconomic systems to exist in order to benifit from them.
If we can't benifit at all, we might as well get for free. When we can benifit, we're smart enough to support that system rather than torpedo it.
Its the survivalist instinct that makes us choose between not and all and illegally free, and the same instinct that makes us choose fair price over damaging suppliers by aquiring their goods in a way that will put them out of business.
Actually, thats exactly the definition of capitalist government in its purest form: The only thing the government does in a 100% pure capitalist state is gaurd your private property. They need money to do that, both from internal and external forces. No market intervention, no social programs. All money goes to enforcement of property ownership and the required administrative functions to facilitate it.
So you're right, it is the primary job of the government in a capitalist state.
I believe in social programs, so I don't mind taxes above and beyond, but it is amusing to see capitalists from time to time, whine about taxes as if taxes were never a part of capitalism to begin with. Its really the opposite. You *need* taxes to allow a government to enforce ownership laws.
Not that I'm assuming the parent poster is capitalist - maybe he's completely socialist (not likely;), or anarchist? Can he shed light on this?
Idiots? Outnumbered only by 'holier than thou' Anonymous Cowards who are so scared of losing karma, I'm beginning to think some of you think you'll need it as a pension later in life.
Windows is getting easier and easier to use.. in fact, by the time the "Play My Music" button is the size of your monitor, theres no way you could mistakeningly hit the wrong button!
The point stands as soon as non-functining Windows gets in the way of productivity (which at least *some* people benifit from directly via commisions/bonuses/profitsharing), and or job performance. Secondly, its still true because most people dont fix their own computer - they ask knowledgable friends to do it. Friends who probably make a living in some way from computers. Friends that have a difficult time asking friends for payment for their services. Finally, if it isn't true, then why wouldn't people *always* buy the worst-performing solution if the time fixing it isn't actually worth anything to them?
The point was glib, but the reasoning does stand in numerous unquantifiable ways. If the time != $$, then it sure as hell == something else important to people, because I see people spending more for a better working solution every day of the week.
Why not? These people know shit-all about computers (definately the majority of computer purchasers) and have stable, mid-level white collar jobs (probably the majority of comptuer purchasers.)
And while maybe most people wouldn't just up-and-buy a new computer, remember that their computers were 3 years old. Many people think that this is a reasonable 'life span' for a computer, thanks to MSes 2 year upgrade cycle. People feel its easier to throw out a Windows installation than fix it. Unless you hang with computer saavy people (I suspect this is true of most/.ers), you'll find scores of people who believe this to be true, which says a lot about how convenient it is to keep Windows tuned and in decent working order.
Linux is nice, but c'mon, if my neighbours can fuck up their Windows computers, fucking up Linux/BSD would be a piece of cake unless they were all sent to 'Whats a symlink, is it like a shortcut?' school.
So, lets compare out-of-the-box GUI'd commercial OSes. I wish I could include BeOS and Warp in the list, but alas, MS slayed them.
The hardware shipped with G5s kick the stuffing out of any 600$ box, thankyouverymuch. Thats apples to oranges (shit, the gfx card in a G5 is half of you 600$ box alone.. and theres a DVD recorder in there.. )
So try again? Build me a PC box with the level of componants in an Apple rig.. which Alien Ware does. A rough check says their systems go from 1500-2500..
Its good that you can get what you need for 600 bucks, but your resulting rig would be a far cry from the capabilities of a G5. I'm not saying that you can't build a cheaper PC rig that can do the same things as a G5, but at least be fair if you're going to honestly try and crunch my glibly provided numbers in my orig post.
And I'm a FreeBSD developer.. a real *nix guy who builds his own PCs. Unless you can prove that you can appreciate what the Apple experience provides, theres no sense in pointing out that you can get what *you* like for cheaper.
No, its that consumers still don't 'value' OSes at their true value. Just because Ladas were cheaper than Hondas didn't mean Ladas outsold. Why? Cause people knew Ladas sucked shit, and Hondas didn't.
If Microsoft advertising ever stops drowning everybody out and they stop forcing computer distributors to *only* offer their OS, then people still start to gain a little more visibility. It really wasn't all that long ago that people knew Amiga, Commadore, Apple, IBM existed.. and we'll see such a day again. When the average consumer understands that the OS market does offer a few choices, and that actually choosing a better OS is a money-saving decision, Apple will do better.
I know of at least two people recently who bought a whole new computer cause they fucked up their Windows installation and figured it'd be easier to buy a new machine. This is an excellant example of how little choice consumers feel they have in the OS world. Who the hell buys something, watches it break from every day use, and goes out to buy the exact same thing? Obviously, somebody who feels that there isn't much else to buy.
Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, and nobody ever felt alone suffering through Windows problems. When more of your friends have Apple, you'll be more likely to see the value of spending more on a computer (and subsequently buying computers/OS upgrades less often).. being a consumer is about being educated to make strong decisions. Ask anybody why they bought Windows today, and 95% of the time, the person will answer along the lines of "What else is there" or "Because of work/school/friend/game/application, I didn't have any other choice". 4% will say something along the lines of "Well, its the most popular OS, so how bad can it be?".. your usual leader-worshippers.. the same folks who equate financial success with product superiority (tho engineers know better.) The last 1% actually like Windows, but they also happen to be the 1% of the population that exhibits a distinct interest in sadomasochism.
And of course I run Windows. Because my neighbours do.. although at the rate I'm being asked to fix peoples computers, its probably worth the extra 1000$ for me to *not* have Windows and be able to feign ignorance when begged for help.
Yeah, I mean, its not like people have problems playing too much EQ to begin with. Imagine what suggesting that time spent in EQ == real life dollars is going to do to that. Evercrack seems like a better and better term to use.. all that was missing was the exchange of money between said market participants.
If I can't lend my book to 3 other people, I'm not going to value the book as much.
So I'd value (by proxy, I charge the market in general would value) that book, saaaay... one forth as valuable as they are priced now?
It wouldn't work. My numbers are pulled out of my ass, but you can see what I'm getting at. Limit the value of the copy by restricting what you can do with it, and the market will devalue it.. causing the distributor to settle for charging less.
According to US law, you don't. When you buy the album, you're buying a right to copy that copy for personal backup. You're *not* buying the right to have somebody else violate copyright law (ie, by sharing their copy, electroically or otherwise) in order for you to get another copy.
The law says: "Backup your own media", not "Once you've bought an album, you can back it up from somebody elses copy.
Not that I think thats the way things should be, but it wasn't really a problem up until file sharing became so widely available.
Slashdot Mirror
Just like most car users reject Ferrarri and buy Toyota! Toyota must make the better car.
Also, computers are produced by companies. Companies like to give discounts or free tech to little cute school kids. Its good advertising. Theres no such private-sector motivation for donating to top off teacher salaries.
Yeah, government institutions are always sucky. You know, poorly funded, not enough resources, can't seem to attract the top teaching talent with decent salaries ...
If I were you, I'd always vote in favour of giving the government less in taxes, and then demand that they should pay you to put your kid through a private school. You know, what with their inability to provide adequate resources for education for some strange reason.
The irony here is that MacOSX now exposes more of the fundamental concepts of computing than Windows does.
I think the important question is whether they need laptops at all?
What's happened is that the implementor (Joe Shmoe, lets say) has been confused with the inventor.
Few people invent radically new devices. As the cliche goes, the cell phone was invented in 1954, and yet putting a camera on a cellphone, two existing inventions together is called 'innovation'. Yeah, a cell phone with a camera was something new, but so was the first zipper painted blue! Lots of things are 'new', but only because they are simply the result of the millions of ways of combining all the technology we have. Something *truely* new, not just a recombination of things that have already existed, or an existing technology in a different shape, size, color, etc, comes along far less often than the patent office records or brochure claims of corperations will have you believe.
My term is 'gaming the system'. When you exploit loopholes and bend rules, you defeat the purpose and intent of a system, thus ensuring that even if you believe the system in theory should work as intended, it won't.
Some people assume if you end up with the desired goal of the system (wealth), than it has served its purpose. In reality, the system was devised not so an individual can become rich, but rather so we have a set of rules in which to facilitate improving our standard of living without resorting to social friction and unfair (subjective, I realize) treatment of others.
All the market tactics, advertising ploys, and accounting/legalese rule bendings seem to weaken the role of merit in capitalism. And I know what constitutes 'merit' is subjective, but I'd rather not give merit to those creative and smart enough to figure out how to bend rules in their favour without being caught.
Any history of capitalism will start around the 1500s. Check it out yourself. Locke was on this shit at 1690 when he was publishing books such as "Some Considerations of the Consequences of Lowering of Interest, and Raising the Value of Money." Reference: [here] But google it up, theres lots of info on capitalism before the poster child Adam Smith appeared.
.. the lack of Outlook Express for free.
;)
Its the killer net-wired computer app, and Microsoft is taking away the free treat. Interesting to see what happens with Mozilla's email client.
I wonder what Eudora Lite is like these days?
I'm talking about the majority here .. there will always be people who steal, but ....
In post-capitalist 17th century UK, people couldn't afford bread. Rather than storm the bakeries and steal the bread, they stormed the bakeries and demanded a fair price.
People are happy to pay a fair price. Thats the very definition of fair value. A value people will pay.
Between overpriced and free, people choose free. But when they sense that a fair price can be obtained, ie, when the bakers (ie, the RIAA) are actually willing to come to the table and discuss the price, people will choose fair price over free because we require our socialeconomic systems to exist in order to benifit from them.
If we can't benifit at all, we might as well get for free. When we can benifit, we're smart enough to support that system rather than torpedo it.
Its the survivalist instinct that makes us choose between not and all and illegally free, and the same instinct that makes us choose fair price over damaging suppliers by aquiring their goods in a way that will put them out of business.
Actually, thats exactly the definition of capitalist government in its purest form: The only thing the government does in a 100% pure capitalist state is gaurd your private property. They need money to do that, both from internal and external forces. No market intervention, no social programs. All money goes to enforcement of property ownership and the required administrative functions to facilitate it.
;), or anarchist? Can he shed light on this?
So you're right, it is the primary job of the government in a capitalist state.
I believe in social programs, so I don't mind taxes above and beyond, but it is amusing to see capitalists from time to time, whine about taxes as if taxes were never a part of capitalism to begin with. Its really the opposite. You *need* taxes to allow a government to enforce ownership laws.
Not that I'm assuming the parent poster is capitalist - maybe he's completely socialist (not likely
Idiots? Outnumbered only by 'holier than thou' Anonymous Cowards who are so scared of losing karma, I'm beginning to think some of you think you'll need it as a pension later in life.
Windows is getting easier and easier to use .. in fact, by the time the "Play My Music" button is the size of your monitor, theres no way you could mistakeningly hit the wrong button!
Oh yeah, I wasn't syaing they'd come in even, I was just saying the 600$ price tag of a similar PC rig was way off.
:)
Thanks for the work tho - its exactly what I wanted to see, but I was too lazy to do it.
You know all those annoying car alarms that go off in the middle of the night waking everybody up?
I've made a better car alarm: it makes an even LOUDER sound, thus drowning out the original car alarm for everybody's protection.
Its the first time I see a car alarm that actually does something good!
bullshit, tongue in cheek, whats the difference.
The point stands as soon as non-functining Windows gets in the way of productivity (which at least *some* people benifit from directly via commisions/bonuses/profitsharing), and or job performance. Secondly, its still true because most people dont fix their own computer - they ask knowledgable friends to do it. Friends who probably make a living in some way from computers. Friends that have a difficult time asking friends for payment for their services. Finally, if it isn't true, then why wouldn't people *always* buy the worst-performing solution if the time fixing it isn't actually worth anything to them?
The point was glib, but the reasoning does stand in numerous unquantifiable ways. If the time != $$, then it sure as hell == something else important to people, because I see people spending more for a better working solution every day of the week.
Why not? These people know shit-all about computers (definately the majority of computer purchasers) and have stable, mid-level white collar jobs (probably the majority of comptuer purchasers.)
/.ers), you'll find scores of people who believe this to be true, which says a lot about how convenient it is to keep Windows tuned and in decent working order.
And while maybe most people wouldn't just up-and-buy a new computer, remember that their computers were 3 years old. Many people think that this is a reasonable 'life span' for a computer, thanks to MSes 2 year upgrade cycle. People feel its easier to throw out a Windows installation than fix it. Unless you hang with computer saavy people (I suspect this is true of most
Linux is nice, but c'mon, if my neighbours can fuck up their Windows computers, fucking up Linux/BSD would be a piece of cake unless they were all sent to 'Whats a symlink, is it like a shortcut?' school.
.. and theres a DVD recorder in there .. )
.. which Alien Ware does. A rough check says their systems go from 1500-2500 ..
.. a real *nix guy who builds his own PCs. Unless you can prove that you can appreciate what the Apple experience provides, theres no sense in pointing out that you can get what *you* like for cheaper.
So, lets compare out-of-the-box GUI'd commercial OSes. I wish I could include BeOS and Warp in the list, but alas, MS slayed them.
The hardware shipped with G5s kick the stuffing out of any 600$ box, thankyouverymuch. Thats apples to oranges (shit, the gfx card in a G5 is half of you 600$ box alone
So try again? Build me a PC box with the level of componants in an Apple rig
Its good that you can get what you need for 600 bucks, but your resulting rig would be a far cry from the capabilities of a G5. I'm not saying that you can't build a cheaper PC rig that can do the same things as a G5, but at least be fair if you're going to honestly try and crunch my glibly provided numbers in my orig post.
And I'm a FreeBSD developer
No, its that consumers still don't 'value' OSes at their true value. Just because Ladas were cheaper than Hondas didn't mean Ladas outsold. Why? Cause people knew Ladas sucked shit, and Hondas didn't.
.. and we'll see such a day again. When the average consumer understands that the OS market does offer a few choices, and that actually choosing a better OS is a money-saving decision, Apple will do better.
.. being a consumer is about being educated to make strong decisions. Ask anybody why they bought Windows today, and 95% of the time, the person will answer along the lines of "What else is there" or "Because of work/school/friend/game/application, I didn't have any other choice". 4% will say something along the lines of "Well, its the most popular OS, so how bad can it be?" .. your usual leader-worshippers .. the same folks who equate financial success with product superiority (tho engineers know better.) The last 1% actually like Windows, but they also happen to be the 1% of the population that exhibits a distinct interest in sadomasochism.
.. although at the rate I'm being asked to fix peoples computers, its probably worth the extra 1000$ for me to *not* have Windows and be able to feign ignorance when begged for help.
If Microsoft advertising ever stops drowning everybody out and they stop forcing computer distributors to *only* offer their OS, then people still start to gain a little more visibility. It really wasn't all that long ago that people knew Amiga, Commadore, Apple, IBM existed
I know of at least two people recently who bought a whole new computer cause they fucked up their Windows installation and figured it'd be easier to buy a new machine. This is an excellant example of how little choice consumers feel they have in the OS world. Who the hell buys something, watches it break from every day use, and goes out to buy the exact same thing? Obviously, somebody who feels that there isn't much else to buy.
Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, and nobody ever felt alone suffering through Windows problems. When more of your friends have Apple, you'll be more likely to see the value of spending more on a computer (and subsequently buying computers/OS upgrades less often)
And of course I run Windows. Because my neighbours do
you mean
2) I can't afford one because I'd rather spend 3000$ of my own time fixing Windows than the extra 1000$ it costs to buy a Mac.
Time is money, and this is where people get the equation wrong.
Yeah, I mean, its not like people have problems playing too much EQ to begin with. Imagine what suggesting that time spent in EQ == real life dollars is going to do to that. Evercrack seems like a better and better term to use .. all that was missing was the exchange of money between said market participants.
see above
If I can't lend my book to 3 other people, I'm not going to value the book as much.
... one forth as valuable as they are priced now?
.. causing the distributor to settle for charging less.
So I'd value (by proxy, I charge the market in general would value) that book, saaaay
It wouldn't work. My numbers are pulled out of my ass, but you can see what I'm getting at. Limit the value of the copy by restricting what you can do with it, and the market will devalue it
Its exactly what nintendo wants (network without having to risk dollars to in), but being Nintendo, I can't imagine them being friendly to this group.
According to US law, you don't. When you buy the album, you're buying a right to copy that copy for personal backup. You're *not* buying the right to have somebody else violate copyright law (ie, by sharing their copy, electroically or otherwise) in order for you to get another copy.
The law says: "Backup your own media", not "Once you've bought an album, you can back it up from somebody elses copy.
Not that I think thats the way things should be, but it wasn't really a problem up until file sharing became so widely available.