So here's the question: what effect do these predictions have on the ways in which companies in control of these industries approach their market? Do companies move to prevent the predicted move to electronic means or do they embrace it because of it's new seeming inevitability? Or has Forrester taken the very effects of its own findings release into account? And if so, might companies recognize this and try to undermine the research adjustment by acting differently than it otherwise would. Don't you just love how these silly little viscous cycles can come out of attempts at predicting trends in a market so easily controlled?
"1. Let the customer see the contract before the sale. It should be easy for customers of mass-market software products and computer information contracts to compare the contract terms for a product..." It would be interesting to see how the court opinions which make this right one of the few listed which are already enforcable would serve as precident in relation to the new agreements imposed by microsoft as one installs mission-critical updates. Would drastic changes to EULA's made by Microsoft in software updates which are all but absolutly essential for the wellbeing of your data, etc, be court enforcable? Probably not...
Scientists develop $5 artificial diamonds and scientists develop economically produced artificial silk; I'd say its been a pretty good time for those who had kept their hopes up for alchemy after the 18th century turned out unfruitful... How long until workers in industries "ruined" by scientific development (though only ever valued for the rareness of their product) develop a cult-like anti-scientific religion and take over the world?
Reminder: Discussing the unicode, etc., support of linux is completely off topic; these goverments are creating their own open-source alternative to Windows, not a distro of linux...
Before everyone comes out to commend this as countries embracing open-source software, it needs to be pointed out that the obvious result of the effort would moreover be the creation of a system with the real, ubiquitous support for the unique Asain languages, in which Windows has always been lacking...
When I read the title, I imagined a hoard of old geezers, using walkers, coming at me with sticks... but seriously, I don't see how this type of attack could prove as unstoppable or undetectable as claimed; I'm not particularly briefed with the mechanics of Retransmission Time Out, but can the mechanism not be tweaked to avoid these types of attacks without sacrificing all of its benefit?
See European nations propose crazy directive...
See Citizens protest in large numbers...
See directive's author, and about half the government of Holland resign...
See directive disappear...
Rinse...
Repeat...
"if you tax LAN, you can tax telephone, gas lines, electricity, radio, TV... anything... havent they heard than in the 20th century, it's the state for it's people rather than the people for the sate...?!!!!"
Ummmmm... They tax telephone... and gas lines... and electricity... and I don't really understand how you propose they have a state for the people with no damn money...
As for the question raised of what their taxing: "Computer networks would be taxed at that percent on either annual lease payments or depreciation," which I presume to mean replacement purchases...
THe article claims that from 50 total subpoenas being checked, they can deduce overall proportions of artist representation in the subpoenas, which is, frankly, a load of crock; with a sample size that small, margin of error would be enormous. Oh, and by the way, it's not like the RIAA needs to limit itself to these artists of these songs, they just happen to be what they were searching for to trigger some results, and with the huge body of work protected by the RIAA, I imagine that if it were not for simple lack of motivation, they could easily cycle through an enormous number of searches to perform... Perhaps they'll do exactly this each time someone tries to analyze their "pattern"...
I forgot this part of my numbers game: Let's say for each subpoena filed, half an RIAA lawyer hour is taken. Then, let's say for each settlement reached, 4 RIAA lawyer hours are taken. For every court battle, 20 lawyer hours are taken if the battle is won, 25 if it is lost. Assuming equal ratios, that's about 17 eventual lawyer hours per subpoena, that makes 465375 eventual lawyer hours per year, after all follow up. Assuming the going Wall Street law firm rate to be $400 (which is quite liberal), that means, for those of us who like useless numbers arrived at from the top of one's head, $186 million in lawyer fees per year for the RIAA...
I'm gonna be the first to make some crazy numerical speculations to bring this number down to a more sensible time in which the RIAA can disable national file sharing. Please, these numbers are meant as argument-starters, so by all means, argue against them. Let's say of 75 people a day who are subpoenaed, 25 are scared shitless and settle. They each have 15 close friends each, who they also scare shitless, and who stop sharing (I say sharing, because it is those who are sharing who get subpoenaed, and they keep the networks alive). Also, publicity from the settlements brings 50 sharers down per settlement. That's 1650 sharers gone, per day. Then let's say 25 of those who are subpoenaed battle it out in court, and lose. A loss will have much larger publicity, so let's say we lose 200 sharers per loss, and the friend effect should bring down another 50 people a piece (think about seeing your friends lose thousands of dollars to the music industry after a court ordeal). That's 6275 sharers down per day. Finally let's say 25 people never see continued legal battle, or just win. That inspires 100 sharers to get back online, apiece. This all makes for 5425 sharers lost per day, net. Finally, there is an effect whereby sharers will be generally afraid of being subpoenaed in general. We can probably safely bet that for every 10% of the current sharing community which is subpoenaed, 2% of other sharers will be scared out of sharing, and that proportion would probably grow exponentially as the RIAA gains monster effect. Finally, consider that once the community loses more and more sharers, sharers are able to download less and less music in return for their contribution, and will share less and less. With all these effect coupled, I dare say that two millennia is a bit of a longshot...
Omigod! Predictive tool, my ass! How desperate have we gotten to keep our economies stable in times of despair? A way to instantly give people an economic boost when tragedy strikes? I thought the balanced budget was a lot to be sacrificing for a stable economy, with these refund checks, but now, we're staking our relations with the world? Like the article points out, ``How would you feel if you were the king of Jordan and learned that the U.S. Department of Defense was creating a futures market in whether you're going to be overthrown." I really, really hope this is a joke...
I think that the organ donation network mentioned is being slightly misrepresented by the fire department analogy; what I can gather is that the network serves to make organ donation more ubiquitous by giving preferential organ reciept to those who have also pledged to donate, an idea which seems a little off but which I'd look a little more into before I trash it...
Just a little point of note: I live in Belgium, and I've yet to hear anything about the implications of these recent battles here, but I will note that three years ago, during the Napster era, the government here actually took matters completely into their own hands, and raided the houses of over 20 users of that software, taking custody of computers. I haven't heard any follow-up on those raids, but I'd take this lesson from them: if you live in Europe, or moreover, a country like Belgium with lax warrent and search laws, be cautious about how much your activity exposes you. And never forget, in looking at the battle between ISP's, etc. and the RIAA in the US, the level of cooperation in many of these nations between the governments and monopolies in major industries, particularly, oh, what was it? Oh yes, the Telecom/Internet industry...
They make one huge point that I've been waiting for someone to make aloud: "Disable the "sharing" or "uploading" features on your P2P application that allow other users on the network to get copies of files from your computer or scan any of your music directories. We hate this option, but it does appear that it will reduce your chances of becoming an RIAA target right now." I see this as a foolproof approach because there is no way to defend oneself as a sharer, but downloaders may still claim rights to listen to the music; the approach has one obvious flaw, however, which I'd still like to see covered in some major media outlet: once everyone begins to turn sharing off, there is nothing to download and the system collapses. My bet? The RIAA recognises this effect and is just waiting for it to render P2P file-sharing dead...
Implications? An increased number of one-meter-balloon purchases and camera-raining-down-from-sky events in suburbia... Incidentally, you can get nice high-res aerial images of almost every major populated area in the US for just under the price tag of this rigged weather balloon: Keyhole's Earthviewer software and service, $49.95 a month... By all means, though, if it's an image from above of the new 2:1 scale Star Wars vessel you built in your backyard that you need and Keyhole's archived shots won't do it for you, be my guest and rig one of these babies up!
""They'd have to come up with some way to get the user to click on that file," said Stephen Toulouse of Microsoft's Security Response Center, noting that default security settings in recent versions of Microsoft Outlook e-mail software and the Internet Explorer Web browser prevent automatic launching of such files. "
Last I checked, as annoying as the feature is, the ability to have IE play MIDI files autonomyously is still there; a friend sent a link to me last night with a lovely display of world architecture and sappy MIDI music playing in the background... This is not a matter of downloading, not a matter of clicking, MIDI files have always been thought harmless, and its that feeling of complacency which threatens to make this dangerous for common users...
Regardless of the validity of his immediate predictions, I feel this dependence is bound to come at some point, and I have an observation to make about it: in an economy which would be based on robots performing so many tasks, I just don't think you can base economic statements on unemployment like we are used to. There's nothing to say that if technological resources dwarf human ones, human unemployment is a significant issue in the scheme of the proper use of resources. I think the biggest problem ends up being allocation of wealth produced by a non-human workforce, and I can't help but call thoughts of Marxism and the like to mind...
Slashdot Mirror
So here's the question: what effect do these predictions have on the ways in which companies in control of these industries approach their market? Do companies move to prevent the predicted move to electronic means or do they embrace it because of it's new seeming inevitability? Or has Forrester taken the very effects of its own findings release into account? And if so, might companies recognize this and try to undermine the research adjustment by acting differently than it otherwise would. Don't you just love how these silly little viscous cycles can come out of attempts at predicting trends in a market so easily controlled?
"1. Let the customer see the contract before the sale. It should be easy for customers of mass-market software products and computer information contracts to compare the contract terms for a product..." It would be interesting to see how the court opinions which make this right one of the few listed which are already enforcable would serve as precident in relation to the new agreements imposed by microsoft as one installs mission-critical updates. Would drastic changes to EULA's made by Microsoft in software updates which are all but absolutly essential for the wellbeing of your data, etc, be court enforcable? Probably not...
Way to misinterpret... well, let's see... EVERYTHING!
Scientists develop $5 artificial diamonds and scientists develop economically produced artificial silk; I'd say its been a pretty good time for those who had kept their hopes up for alchemy after the 18th century turned out unfruitful... How long until workers in industries "ruined" by scientific development (though only ever valued for the rareness of their product) develop a cult-like anti-scientific religion and take over the world?
Reminder: Discussing the unicode, etc., support of linux is completely off topic; these goverments are creating their own open-source alternative to Windows, not a distro of linux...
Before everyone comes out to commend this as countries embracing open-source software, it needs to be pointed out that the obvious result of the effort would moreover be the creation of a system with the real, ubiquitous support for the unique Asain languages, in which Windows has always been lacking...
When I read the title, I imagined a hoard of old geezers, using walkers, coming at me with sticks... but seriously, I don't see how this type of attack could prove as unstoppable or undetectable as claimed; I'm not particularly briefed with the mechanics of Retransmission Time Out, but can the mechanism not be tweaked to avoid these types of attacks without sacrificing all of its benefit?
The UK Post service is inundated with more than three times the usual number of letters to carry...
See European nations propose crazy directive... See Citizens protest in large numbers... See directive's author, and about half the government of Holland resign... See directive disappear... Rinse... Repeat...
"if you tax LAN, you can tax telephone, gas lines, electricity, radio, TV... anything... havent they heard than in the 20th century, it's the state for it's people rather than the people for the sate...?!!!!" Ummmmm... They tax telephone... and gas lines... and electricity... and I don't really understand how you propose they have a state for the people with no damn money...
As for the question raised of what their taxing: "Computer networks would be taxed at that percent on either annual lease payments or depreciation," which I presume to mean replacement purchases...
I'm just hazarding a guess that although they're doing crazy things with copyright extensions lately, not even Bach's late work is still protected...
Nope, the RIAA is not going out against people who are downloading here, they are going after sharers, and there's no free use in distribution...
THe article claims that from 50 total subpoenas being checked, they can deduce overall proportions of artist representation in the subpoenas, which is, frankly, a load of crock; with a sample size that small, margin of error would be enormous. Oh, and by the way, it's not like the RIAA needs to limit itself to these artists of these songs, they just happen to be what they were searching for to trigger some results, and with the huge body of work protected by the RIAA, I imagine that if it were not for simple lack of motivation, they could easily cycle through an enormous number of searches to perform... Perhaps they'll do exactly this each time someone tries to analyze their "pattern"...
I forgot this part of my numbers game: Let's say for each subpoena filed, half an RIAA lawyer hour is taken. Then, let's say for each settlement reached, 4 RIAA lawyer hours are taken. For every court battle, 20 lawyer hours are taken if the battle is won, 25 if it is lost. Assuming equal ratios, that's about 17 eventual lawyer hours per subpoena, that makes 465375 eventual lawyer hours per year, after all follow up. Assuming the going Wall Street law firm rate to be $400 (which is quite liberal), that means, for those of us who like useless numbers arrived at from the top of one's head, $186 million in lawyer fees per year for the RIAA...
I'm gonna be the first to make some crazy numerical speculations to bring this number down to a more sensible time in which the RIAA can disable national file sharing. Please, these numbers are meant as argument-starters, so by all means, argue against them. Let's say of 75 people a day who are subpoenaed, 25 are scared shitless and settle. They each have 15 close friends each, who they also scare shitless, and who stop sharing (I say sharing, because it is those who are sharing who get subpoenaed, and they keep the networks alive). Also, publicity from the settlements brings 50 sharers down per settlement. That's 1650 sharers gone, per day. Then let's say 25 of those who are subpoenaed battle it out in court, and lose. A loss will have much larger publicity, so let's say we lose 200 sharers per loss, and the friend effect should bring down another 50 people a piece (think about seeing your friends lose thousands of dollars to the music industry after a court ordeal). That's 6275 sharers down per day. Finally let's say 25 people never see continued legal battle, or just win. That inspires 100 sharers to get back online, apiece. This all makes for 5425 sharers lost per day, net. Finally, there is an effect whereby sharers will be generally afraid of being subpoenaed in general. We can probably safely bet that for every 10% of the current sharing community which is subpoenaed, 2% of other sharers will be scared out of sharing, and that proportion would probably grow exponentially as the RIAA gains monster effect. Finally, consider that once the community loses more and more sharers, sharers are able to download less and less music in return for their contribution, and will share less and less. With all these effect coupled, I dare say that two millennia is a bit of a longshot...
Omigod! Predictive tool, my ass! How desperate have we gotten to keep our economies stable in times of despair? A way to instantly give people an economic boost when tragedy strikes? I thought the balanced budget was a lot to be sacrificing for a stable economy, with these refund checks, but now, we're staking our relations with the world? Like the article points out, ``How would you feel if you were the king of Jordan and learned that the U.S. Department of Defense was creating a futures market in whether you're going to be overthrown." I really, really hope this is a joke...
I think that the organ donation network mentioned is being slightly misrepresented by the fire department analogy; what I can gather is that the network serves to make organ donation more ubiquitous by giving preferential organ reciept to those who have also pledged to donate, an idea which seems a little off but which I'd look a little more into before I trash it...
Just a little point of note: I live in Belgium, and I've yet to hear anything about the implications of these recent battles here, but I will note that three years ago, during the Napster era, the government here actually took matters completely into their own hands, and raided the houses of over 20 users of that software, taking custody of computers. I haven't heard any follow-up on those raids, but I'd take this lesson from them: if you live in Europe, or moreover, a country like Belgium with lax warrent and search laws, be cautious about how much your activity exposes you. And never forget, in looking at the battle between ISP's, etc. and the RIAA in the US, the level of cooperation in many of these nations between the governments and monopolies in major industries, particularly, oh, what was it? Oh yes, the Telecom/Internet industry...
They make one huge point that I've been waiting for someone to make aloud: "Disable the "sharing" or "uploading" features on your P2P application that allow other users on the network to get copies of files from your computer or scan any of your music directories. We hate this option, but it does appear that it will reduce your chances of becoming an RIAA target right now." I see this as a foolproof approach because there is no way to defend oneself as a sharer, but downloaders may still claim rights to listen to the music; the approach has one obvious flaw, however, which I'd still like to see covered in some major media outlet: once everyone begins to turn sharing off, there is nothing to download and the system collapses. My bet? The RIAA recognises this effect and is just waiting for it to render P2P file-sharing dead...
Implications? An increased number of one-meter-balloon purchases and camera-raining-down-from-sky events in suburbia... Incidentally, you can get nice high-res aerial images of almost every major populated area in the US for just under the price tag of this rigged weather balloon: Keyhole's Earthviewer software and service, $49.95 a month... By all means, though, if it's an image from above of the new 2:1 scale Star Wars vessel you built in your backyard that you need and Keyhole's archived shots won't do it for you, be my guest and rig one of these babies up!
When $850K+ became "for the masses," I'll never know...
I think "Play sounds in web sites" should do it in IE under the advanced tab, but for moz I couldn't tell ya...
""They'd have to come up with some way to get the user to click on that file," said Stephen Toulouse of Microsoft's Security Response Center, noting that default security settings in recent versions of Microsoft Outlook e-mail software and the Internet Explorer Web browser prevent automatic launching of such files. " Last I checked, as annoying as the feature is, the ability to have IE play MIDI files autonomyously is still there; a friend sent a link to me last night with a lovely display of world architecture and sappy MIDI music playing in the background... This is not a matter of downloading, not a matter of clicking, MIDI files have always been thought harmless, and its that feeling of complacency which threatens to make this dangerous for common users...
Regardless of the validity of his immediate predictions, I feel this dependence is bound to come at some point, and I have an observation to make about it: in an economy which would be based on robots performing so many tasks, I just don't think you can base economic statements on unemployment like we are used to. There's nothing to say that if technological resources dwarf human ones, human unemployment is a significant issue in the scheme of the proper use of resources. I think the biggest problem ends up being allocation of wealth produced by a non-human workforce, and I can't help but call thoughts of Marxism and the like to mind...