Once again the defenders of "copyright infridgement is theft" arguments show that they are irrational and insonsistent. First you say "He never would have spent money on them." and later "someone ends up losing money at some level whenever someone else doesn't pay appropriately to view a movie or listen to a CD legally". Are you really that stupid? If he would not have paid, then noone is losing money from him not buying the films.
This is an even more shortsighted view. By your logic letting blacks ride only in the back of a bus is good strategy, because otherwise they would be blocked from riding a bus completely.
Even though I am against censorship, I accept that fact that censorship can be good for Chinese people in general. The problem is when Google tries to censor MY search results.
Check out Who Eats the Energy? study. A HDD eats about 2-3 Watts when in use and 0.5 Watts when idle. A wireless card eats 1 Watt in base idle mode (less than in power saving mode) and 2-3 when transmittin/receiving. With a network computer it would be working 100% of the time, while a HDD would be mostly idle. So your assumption is not true. Also note that notebook power consumption in that study was 11-16 Watts in total, so switching to network computing mode can decrease battery life as much as 10-25%.
Make a simple/cheap device that can do those over a network (web msn / aim express/ gmail hmm maybe we're already there...) and you'll have converts. This is just not true. Many companies made such devices, but none of them are with us today. There is simply no significant demand for such devices in developed countries, even though you personally believe that some people should take that and be happy.:)
Furthermore, you can provide IM/Email/Browsing just as easily using a 100$ handheld. Or may be something even cheaper. Basically I believe you can make the device for 50$ if you try really hard (plus the screen). That setup would provide the same security and the same reliability, especially if you provide autoupdate. The problem is that people don't want devices with limited functionality, even if they don't really need that functionality. This was proven in many other markets.
This is really stupid. If you want a secure environment, you can just install secure software. You pretend to be so smart, but you still haven't managed to set up a restricted user account on MS Windows, restrict access to applications, including Internet Explorer (or even delete it), set up a firewall that blocks everything that is not enabled by defaul, an antivirus with autoupdate and monitoring, and enable automatic downloading and installation of Windows Update patches. This is really simple and takes about 2 hours of your time if you know what you are doing.
The same can be done by an ISP, even remotedly (insert CD in drive, click OK or download, run, click OK). If you want restricted computing, fine, you can have it today if you want, but most customers would not accept a machine that does less and costs them money per month (because it makes no sense and they never accepted it in the past).
Do you seriously believe that the majority of the customers would be willing to pay for 3-4 computers instead of one? A cheap PC costs 200-300$ today (without a monitor) and the software can be as cheap as you like. There is no way home users would be interested in an expensive setup like you have with no benefits apparent to them.
The only area where thin clients can be useful is the corporate world where thousands of machines need the same software. But even there the situation will not stay the same in the long term as different software more and more permeates every corner of our lives (including professional lives), so the environment is no longer a homogenous setup of office + email + browser. Furthermore, everything that can be done using thin clients can be done just as easily using traditional computers if you are willing to accept the same limitations that NC imposes on you.
I don't think there is any sane user, who would be willing to accept that every time the WiFi LED on his laptop dims the laptop stops responding as well. Not to mention the fact this would place further tax the laptop battery.
No, this is a silly idea even for desktops and it will never fly, because local computing can be made just as good as remote and it doesn't have so many limitations.
There is almost no real need for network computing. If you want homogenous web/email/IM/word processing/photo viewing systems, they can be implemented safely using a cheap computer and any brand of Linux, coupled with automatic remote updates. Everything that you can do as a web-application on a thin client can be done as an application on the same computer running Linux (or MS Windows, for that matter). Everything - the ease of updates, the security, the backups - everything can be done using a secure Linux computer connected to the Net even better. The problem is that there is demand for general computing, for systems which can be customized for different needs, different uses, different peripherals, etc. It is possible to do, but it would be a gagrantuan task to port all the richness of the PC world to network computers. And if you don't port the richness, but only a few applications, I fail to see how installing them locally is worse.
The article simply suggests we replace the local insecurities of MS Windows with remote insecurities of IIS. It suggest we take miriads of Windows applications that Linux still can't reproduce, and port them to web-application architecture. This is simply not feasible.
The logical fallacy is quite obvious - the article shows how some problems can be fixed by network computers, but fails to mention the limitations that would be inherent in the new system and that that if we accept these limitations, all problems can be fixed locally just as easily.
You can say that the scene is about giving credit. About reputation. Depriving someone of reputation is wrong. You can "steal" an image or a movie, but don't pass it off as your own work if it isn't.
The pirate guy was clearly kidding, but this scribbler is happy to add anything that would "spice up" the article. Note also the "superfast processors" that he mentions and lots of other errors and exaggerations. Journalists suck big hairy sweaty monkey balls.
I can easily understand wanting to get a better product for yourself. By all means, pay attention to dead pixels when buying LCDs, just as I personally would do. But please cut on the indignation. Dead pixels are defects, but an LCD with dead pixels is not defective. The product you are buying is not perfect by design. Just like plasma TVs that have plasma burnm just like fresh milk that spoils in a few days. Current technology allows us a tradeoff. You don't like it, you don't buy it. Don't like fresh milk, buy pasteurized or sterilized milk instead. A few dead pixels do not prevent most people from using their LCD display.
As for a choice, the manufacturers have no responsibility to offer it to every new customer who appears on the market. They most likely tried it in the past and found that people want a better screen, but are not willing to pay for it. Throwing away slightly inperfect screens would be too expensive and would harm customers by forcing prices up. When it becomes possible, they would solve the problem, but until then please stop blaming them.
Dead pixels are, in fact, defects. No, they are not. They are imperfections in the product. I can claim that I won't buy a new Mercedes car unless every detail is manufactured with micron precision, but that would obviously be stupid. Just as stupid is claiming that dead pixels are defects. They are a side effect of the manufacturing process. If it was so easy to get rid of them, it would be done years ago.
The producers probably found out that the customers are not willing to pay a premium for dead-pixel-free displays, so they can't sell "good" and "bad" displays at different price. One option is to throw away all non-perfect panels, but that would drive prices for good ones up. So the only remaining option is to say that since you aren't willing to pay more for a perfect display, learn to live with a risk that a few dead pixels may appear, or buy a CRT.
Customers are usually informed very clearly that there is a certain (small) number of dead pixels on LCDs, bad blocks on HDD that is acceptable and will not be sufficient reason for product return. There is nothing unfair about it if the customer is warned.
Or, great. Now everyone you disagree with works for RIAA. Not funny.
1) I am not saying that 12 euro is directly based on the claims o copyright holders. I hope (and it looks like) it's a result of careful consideration by the lawmakers. 12$ per PC certainly doesn't sound like much. But then I am not defending this particular number, it certainly should be open to criticism. 2) A recent UK study by Toshiba showed that 60 percent of users of portable devices (though the methodology is not at all clear from that article) have 1000-2000 songs on their devices. I am certainly not saying everyone has that on their PC, but judging by various estimates of the number of P2P users I don't think this figure is very far from the truth. And don't forget that software is even more expensive per item. This is my assumption, but not baseless. 3) Yes, you make it sound scary, but we have no evidence that this (demanding higher taxes) would happen - in Canada and other countries with such a levy this didn't happen. 4) The levy is not different from copyright in principle. Creators of content are given something "for nothing" (and rights of others are infringed upon), because it is believed that the society would benefit. 5) It isn't any more wrong than taxes. You buy French wine, you pay levies and then the government dotates production of California wine. You also buy Australian milk, but then the government again uses the levy to support the production of wine in California. You may argue - "But I don't even drink wine, I only drink milk, why should my money be used to support production of wine?" But this is how a modern society based on taxes works. This particular levy is not worse than all others.
No, it is not. The difference is in amount of money. It's more like anyone driving a car paying 50$/year for compensating traffic accident victims (a scheme also known as liability insurance).
Currently if you are guilty, you may be forced to pay thousands of euros/dollars in damages for copyright violations. The new scheme suggests a much smaller fee instead (some may say in addition). It's not at all like a speed ticket for everyone.
Well, I can certainly appreciate your sentiment, but. There is always a bit of a but. 2 out of 4 AAA FPS games released in 2004 were based on well-known brands and had huge marketing forces behind them - Doom 3 and Half-Life 2. No wonder that those games were hyped by all sites for several years, got a lot of 9.5/10 and 10/10 in the first reviews immediately after release and sold like hot cakes.
Meanwhile two other AAA FPS games - Far Cry and Chronicles of Riddick were not heavily hyped, didn't get so many reviews and weren't very popular among the public. Lack of promotion is their only problem. Arguably both of these games were more innovative and had better stories than at least HL2, but THE BIG BRAND means that popular sells. There are many excellent games made all the time, which sell very poorly (consider the previous Prince of Persia) because of lack of promotion, despite having better artwork, better gameplay and better sense of "success" whatever that means.
If you decide to play only mainstream most hyped titles, you limit yourself very much. Often their less known competitors are just better.
If this law assumed that everyone is guilty, the levy would not be 12 euro, it would be 1200 euro (the price of a thousand MP3s). This law is simply a practical tool to compensate content producers for the (perceived) losses while not harming or inconveniencing the consumers in any significant way.
So this law doesn't imply that anyone breaks the law, it's just another tax.
No, this doesn't assumes that everyone is a theif. Just like it doesn't assume that everyone who violates speed limits is a bad driver who risks the lives of others. It's just that sometime we enforce arbitrary blanket limits and rules when determining who exactly should be affected is too expensive.
This new law is simply a way for the economy to function better, like taxes. There is a belief that private copying happens and that it negatively impacts content producers. The state recognizes this and creates an economic mechanism to benefit the society (or so they believe). Just like the original copyright this is a conscious move to help the society. Creating a "just" system that doesn't tax those who don't download pirated works would be 100 times worse, because it would require DRM and monitoring of all private computers. That would be outright unethical and extremely expensive. This "stupid" system has low overhead, doesn't have significant negative impact on computer manufacturers, has no privacy implications and makes content producers happy.
I am making just one assumption - that this exploit can be exploited. By leaving the machine unpatched you are taking much greater risks than patching it with a not fully tested counterworm.
I am also saying that the chances of a remote exploit, a backdoor, a troyan or some other crap bringing down an air traffic control system inadvertently are greater than the chances of a white worm causing this. So even though it remains theoretically possible that white worm may cause damage, a rational decision would be to allow it to operate, because it produces an expected net benefit.
I suggest we stop these useless speculations and wait until your hypothetical case becomes reality. And even in the unlikely case that this white worm causes harm to one system, this is more than compensated by many other systems that it successfully fixes.
But the net effect is that a patched system is still better than vulnerable or even exploited one. If you were in the middle of a deadly virus outbreak, wouldn't you prefer to use a vaccine, even if you were only 90% sure that it works?
Well, but they may be right, that's the point. This depends on what particular freedom a person finds important for him. In some respects the US is freer (if you want to run a big business, if you want to fight someone in court and have the resources, if you want to request information from the government, or if you want to publish information which is not against the law), but in other respects Cuba may very well be freer. And while the list of freedoms where Cuba wins may not be very long, there are certainly some very important ones, such as freedoms to get good education and health care for free. Again, I am not implying that a relatively poor country managed to provide perfect services to every citizen in these areas, just that they did a damn good job with what resources they had and that many people in developed countries (particularly in the US) have a reason to be envious. And I also think it's important to realise the different between what you are free to do in the USA and what you are allowed to do by the government.
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Once again the defenders of "copyright infridgement is theft" arguments show that they are irrational and insonsistent. First you say "He never would have spent money on them." and later "someone ends up losing money at some level whenever someone else doesn't pay appropriately to view a movie or listen to a CD legally". Are you really that stupid? If he would not have paid, then noone is losing money from him not buying the films.
Good points.
This is an even more shortsighted view. By your logic letting blacks ride only in the back of a bus is good strategy, because otherwise they would be blocked from riding a bus completely.
Even though I am against censorship, I accept that fact that censorship can be good for Chinese people in general. The problem is when Google tries to censor MY search results.
Check out Who Eats the Energy? study. A HDD eats about 2-3 Watts when in use and 0.5 Watts when idle. A wireless card eats 1 Watt in base idle mode (less than in power saving mode) and 2-3 when transmittin/receiving. With a network computer it would be working 100% of the time, while a HDD would be mostly idle. So your assumption is not true. Also note that notebook power consumption in that study was 11-16 Watts in total, so switching to network computing mode can decrease battery life as much as 10-25%.
Make a simple /cheap device that can do those over a network (web msn / aim express/ gmail hmm maybe we're already there...) and you'll have converts. :)
This is just not true. Many companies made such devices, but none of them are with us today. There is simply no significant demand for such devices in developed countries, even though you personally believe that some people should take that and be happy.
Furthermore, you can provide IM/Email/Browsing just as easily using a 100$ handheld. Or may be something even cheaper. Basically I believe you can make the device for 50$ if you try really hard (plus the screen). That setup would provide the same security and the same reliability, especially if you provide autoupdate. The problem is that people don't want devices with limited functionality, even if they don't really need that functionality. This was proven in many other markets.
This is really stupid. If you want a secure environment, you can just install secure software. You pretend to be so smart, but you still haven't managed to set up a restricted user account on MS Windows, restrict access to applications, including Internet Explorer (or even delete it), set up a firewall that blocks everything that is not enabled by defaul, an antivirus with autoupdate and monitoring, and enable automatic downloading and installation of Windows Update patches. This is really simple and takes about 2 hours of your time if you know what you are doing.
The same can be done by an ISP, even remotedly (insert CD in drive, click OK or download, run, click OK). If you want restricted computing, fine, you can have it today if you want, but most customers would not accept a machine that does less and costs them money per month (because it makes no sense and they never accepted it in the past).
Do you seriously believe that the majority of the customers would be willing to pay for 3-4 computers instead of one? A cheap PC costs 200-300$ today (without a monitor) and the software can be as cheap as you like. There is no way home users would be interested in an expensive setup like you have with no benefits apparent to them.
The only area where thin clients can be useful is the corporate world where thousands of machines need the same software. But even there the situation will not stay the same in the long term as different software more and more permeates every corner of our lives (including professional lives), so the environment is no longer a homogenous setup of office + email + browser. Furthermore, everything that can be done using thin clients can be done just as easily using traditional computers if you are willing to accept the same limitations that NC imposes on you.
I don't think there is any sane user, who would be willing to accept that every time the WiFi LED on his laptop dims the laptop stops responding as well. Not to mention the fact this would place further tax the laptop battery.
No, this is a silly idea even for desktops and it will never fly, because local computing can be made just as good as remote and it doesn't have so many limitations.
There is almost no real need for network computing. If you want homogenous web/email/IM/word processing/photo viewing systems, they can be implemented safely using a cheap computer and any brand of Linux, coupled with automatic remote updates. Everything that you can do as a web-application on a thin client can be done as an application on the same computer running Linux (or MS Windows, for that matter). Everything - the ease of updates, the security, the backups - everything can be done using a secure Linux computer connected to the Net even better. The problem is that there is demand for general computing, for systems which can be customized for different needs, different uses, different peripherals, etc. It is possible to do, but it would be a gagrantuan task to port all the richness of the PC world to network computers. And if you don't port the richness, but only a few applications, I fail to see how installing them locally is worse.
The article simply suggests we replace the local insecurities of MS Windows with remote insecurities of IIS. It suggest we take miriads of Windows applications that Linux still can't reproduce, and port them to web-application architecture. This is simply not feasible.
The logical fallacy is quite obvious - the article shows how some problems can be fixed by network computers, but fails to mention the limitations that would be inherent in the new system and that that if we accept these limitations, all problems can be fixed locally just as easily.
What a waste of time.
Just like posting on Slashdot, for that matter. Or playing MMORPGs. People sometimes enjoy doing boring stuff. For each his own.
You can say that the scene is about giving credit. About reputation. Depriving someone of reputation is wrong. You can "steal" an image or a movie, but don't pass it off as your own work if it isn't.
The pirate guy was clearly kidding, but this scribbler is happy to add anything that would "spice up" the article. Note also the "superfast processors" that he mentions and lots of other errors and exaggerations. Journalists suck big hairy sweaty monkey balls.
I can easily understand wanting to get a better product for yourself. By all means, pay attention to dead pixels when buying LCDs, just as I personally would do. But please cut on the indignation. Dead pixels are defects, but an LCD with dead pixels is not defective. The product you are buying is not perfect by design. Just like plasma TVs that have plasma burnm just like fresh milk that spoils in a few days. Current technology allows us a tradeoff. You don't like it, you don't buy it. Don't like fresh milk, buy pasteurized or sterilized milk instead. A few dead pixels do not prevent most people from using their LCD display.
As for a choice, the manufacturers have no responsibility to offer it to every new customer who appears on the market. They most likely tried it in the past and found that people want a better screen, but are not willing to pay for it. Throwing away slightly inperfect screens would be too expensive and would harm customers by forcing prices up. When it becomes possible, they would solve the problem, but until then please stop blaming them.
Dead pixels are, in fact, defects.
No, they are not. They are imperfections in the product. I can claim that I won't buy a new Mercedes car unless every detail is manufactured with micron precision, but that would obviously be stupid. Just as stupid is claiming that dead pixels are defects. They are a side effect of the manufacturing process. If it was so easy to get rid of them, it would be done years ago.
The producers probably found out that the customers are not willing to pay a premium for dead-pixel-free displays, so they can't sell "good" and "bad" displays at different price. One option is to throw away all non-perfect panels, but that would drive prices for good ones up. So the only remaining option is to say that since you aren't willing to pay more for a perfect display, learn to live with a risk that a few dead pixels may appear, or buy a CRT.
Customers are usually informed very clearly that there is a certain (small) number of dead pixels on LCDs, bad blocks on HDD that is acceptable and will not be sufficient reason for product return. There is nothing unfair about it if the customer is warned.
Or, great. Now everyone you disagree with works for RIAA. Not funny.
1) I am not saying that 12 euro is directly based on the claims o copyright holders. I hope (and it looks like) it's a result of careful consideration by the lawmakers. 12$ per PC certainly doesn't sound like much. But then I am not defending this particular number, it certainly should be open to criticism.
2) A recent UK study by Toshiba showed that 60 percent of users of portable devices (though the methodology is not at all clear from that article) have 1000-2000 songs on their devices. I am certainly not saying everyone has that on their PC, but judging by various estimates of the number of P2P users I don't think this figure is very far from the truth. And don't forget that software is even more expensive per item. This is my assumption, but not baseless.
3) Yes, you make it sound scary, but we have no evidence that this (demanding higher taxes) would happen - in Canada and other countries with such a levy this didn't happen.
4) The levy is not different from copyright in principle. Creators of content are given something "for nothing" (and rights of others are infringed upon), because it is believed that the society would benefit.
5) It isn't any more wrong than taxes. You buy French wine, you pay levies and then the government dotates production of California wine. You also buy Australian milk, but then the government again uses the levy to support the production of wine in California. You may argue - "But I don't even drink wine, I only drink milk, why should my money be used to support production of wine?" But this is how a modern society based on taxes works. This particular levy is not worse than all others.
No, it is not. The difference is in amount of money. It's more like anyone driving a car paying 50$/year for compensating traffic accident victims (a scheme also known as liability insurance).
Currently if you are guilty, you may be forced to pay thousands of euros/dollars in damages for copyright violations. The new scheme suggests a much smaller fee instead (some may say in addition). It's not at all like a speed ticket for everyone.
Well, I can certainly appreciate your sentiment, but. There is always a bit of a but. 2 out of 4 AAA FPS games released in 2004 were based on well-known brands and had huge marketing forces behind them - Doom 3 and Half-Life 2. No wonder that those games were hyped by all sites for several years, got a lot of 9.5/10 and 10/10 in the first reviews immediately after release and sold like hot cakes.
Meanwhile two other AAA FPS games - Far Cry and Chronicles of Riddick were not heavily hyped, didn't get so many reviews and weren't very popular among the public. Lack of promotion is their only problem. Arguably both of these games were more innovative and had better stories than at least HL2, but THE BIG BRAND means that popular sells. There are many excellent games made all the time, which sell very poorly (consider the previous Prince of Persia) because of lack of promotion, despite having better artwork, better gameplay and better sense of "success" whatever that means.
If you decide to play only mainstream most hyped titles, you limit yourself very much. Often their less known competitors are just better.
You don't realise that comments like that increase the chances for a submission to be accepted.
If this law assumed that everyone is guilty, the levy would not be 12 euro, it would be 1200 euro (the price of a thousand MP3s). This law is simply a practical tool to compensate content producers for the (perceived) losses while not harming or inconveniencing the consumers in any significant way.
So this law doesn't imply that anyone breaks the law, it's just another tax.
No, this doesn't assumes that everyone is a theif. Just like it doesn't assume that everyone who violates speed limits is a bad driver who risks the lives of others. It's just that sometime we enforce arbitrary blanket limits and rules when determining who exactly should be affected is too expensive.
This new law is simply a way for the economy to function better, like taxes. There is a belief that private copying happens and that it negatively impacts content producers. The state recognizes this and creates an economic mechanism to benefit the society (or so they believe). Just like the original copyright this is a conscious move to help the society. Creating a "just" system that doesn't tax those who don't download pirated works would be 100 times worse, because it would require DRM and monitoring of all private computers. That would be outright unethical and extremely expensive. This "stupid" system has low overhead, doesn't have significant negative impact on computer manufacturers, has no privacy implications and makes content producers happy.
Don't be silly.
I am making just one assumption - that this exploit can be exploited. By leaving the machine unpatched you are taking much greater risks than patching it with a not fully tested counterworm.
I am also saying that the chances of a remote exploit, a backdoor, a troyan or some other crap bringing down an air traffic control system inadvertently are greater than the chances of a white worm causing this. So even though it remains theoretically possible that white worm may cause damage, a rational decision would be to allow it to operate, because it produces an expected net benefit.
I suggest we stop these useless speculations and wait until your hypothetical case becomes reality. And even in the unlikely case that this white worm causes harm to one system, this is more than compensated by many other systems that it successfully fixes.
But the net effect is that a patched system is still better than vulnerable or even exploited one. If you were in the middle of a deadly virus outbreak, wouldn't you prefer to use a vaccine, even if you were only 90% sure that it works?
Well, but they may be right, that's the point. This depends on what particular freedom a person finds important for him. In some respects the US is freer (if you want to run a big business, if you want to fight someone in court and have the resources, if you want to request information from the government, or if you want to publish information which is not against the law), but in other respects Cuba may very well be freer. And while the list of freedoms where Cuba wins may not be very long, there are certainly some very important ones, such as freedoms to get good education and health care for free. Again, I am not implying that a relatively poor country managed to provide perfect services to every citizen in these areas, just that they did a damn good job with what resources they had and that many people in developed countries (particularly in the US) have a reason to be envious. And I also think it's important to realise the different between what you are free to do in the USA and what you are allowed to do by the government.
P.S. The fireworks today are amazing.