p.s. I seem to recall yes you can request footage from CCTV cameras but I think they are supposed to blur other people's faces.
Which got me googling and turning my comment into something relevant to the OP - a decision notice [PDF] by the Information Commissioner's Office on CCTV:
in the Commissionerâ(TM)s view, were CCTV footage to be available to the public on-demand, this would be likely not only to undermine the intended use and purpose of the technology but also to adversely affect individualsâ(TM) personal privacy.
And on a more general note of disclosure of CCTV footage:
In this case, disclosure of the requested footage (whether to the complainants or the general public) would be an unnecessary and disproportionate interference by a public authority in individualsâ(TM) private lives as it cannot be justified by any of the reasons provided for in Article 8(2) ECHR and, as such, would be incompatible with that right. Further, in the Commissionerâ(TM)s view, were the public allowed access to CCTV footage on demand by virtue of the Act this would erode personal privacy and undermine public confidence in the acceptable and responsible use of CCTV technology and the benefits such technology brings. As a result, release of this footage to the complainants or the general public would not only be unfair, but would also be unlawful as it would amount to a breach of section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998, which provides that it is unlawful for a public authority (in this case the PCT) to act in a way which is incompatible with a Convention right (in this case Article 8 ECHR).
Some sites have a default where the most favourable ratings (5/5 etc) are the ones shown by default - a link at the bottom allows viewing all reviews. I can think of one that has no apparent incentive to dupe the viewer, and personally if I was manager of the others I would certainly be more concerned about repeat business, and how costly returns are.
My assumption is that less favourable reviews tend to be the least accurate, a guess held up by viewing the negative comments which repeatedly complained about issues that were obviously completely unrelated, were laughably unrealistic expectations for the price, the product was not designed for or were addressed in the description. People use the reviews system as a forum to ask questions, giving a zero rating.
Good reviews meanwhile filled in any blanks in the description (often these would be major issues for some people), noted the build quality etc and gave a personal opinion on the product in the context of price. Personally I found these much more informative.
No doubt some sites use it just to make sales, but I think there's an element of filtering for quality too.
There is free support for Linux via the newsgroups, forums, Wiki sites, HOWTOs, Man pages, and many other things. But beware of the trolls that like to bite the n00bz and say RTFM. You need to have actually read the Linux manual before asking questions which consists of man pages.
That is not "support" (in the context of the parent) in the same way that, say, a passer-by providing first-aid at the scene of an accident is not health care. Availability, timeliness and quality is random - highly unreliable.
"You need to have actually read the Linux manual" is the first thing wrong with Linux, in terms of being suitable for mass-adoption. For some people obviously this is not an issue - actually I suspect it's often the main attraction.
"You need to have actually read the Linux manual before asking questions" compounds the first.
Seriously. Can anyone with a legal background explain what part of corporate daily business requires that corporations be legally considered equivalent to people?
If there's nothing truly fundamental that requires it [...]
To allow a person to invest without requiring them to manage.
Any "person" who can do anything must be accountable for those actions. With a sole trader or partnership business that responsibility falls on those owners, whom thus have substantial rights to manage the business. A company on the other hand is an investment vehicle - investors put money in and do not manage (beyond voting). People with money to invest do not necessarily have the skills or time to manage a business. Do you even know which companies your pension is invested in, never mind have the capacity to manage the business sufficiently to satisfy your legal obligations?
For what it's worth any person (shareholder or not) who does manage is liable as a director regardless of whether he has been appointed or not (shadow director).
So... What we're trying to imply here is that this is another Firewire: pretty good (arguably better) but inevitably unable to compete with the ubiquitous USB?
Last I read, PGP style encryption works by the sender using the recipient's public key to encrypt data that can then only be unencrypted using the recipient's private key. The sender does not use his own key to encrypt data intended for others, because then everybody needs to generate a unique key for every person they deal with - resulting in a travelling salesman problem.
Therefore in the automatic scenario, if a sender selects the wrong email from his list then he would apply the wrong encryption, and if he simply mistypes the email address he would apply no encryption. The only way he can send a file to the wrong person whom cannot then open it is if he first encrypts the file (correctly) and then sends it (incorrectly).
The same thing happens if there is some kind of global database of keys, which would solve the problem of the email client automatically finding public keys of people that it has previously never dealt with.
I'm not talking about this specific issue in the OP, I'm talking about why nobody besides geeks use encryption. They need it to be automatic, and by nature encryption cannot be both automatic and secure because of the damn PEBKAC.
I don't see encryption becoming widely used by "the masses" until it comes with Outlook and it all happens automatically. User sends an email and outlook automatically includes a copy of the public key, which the other guy's client automatically applies to any email sent to that email address in future.
This would still be of no help in this situation because when the sender selected the wrong email address, the email client would apply that recipients' encryption.
Working as an accountant the ONLY time I have been sent anything encrypted is when it is from Scottish Widows (who actually email you a link to what is broadly an encrypted webmail, that you need your own login for. And the system works both ways, I can log into it and send them a file encrypted (though of course that could be intercepted en route). Either side can cancel the encrypted message/file if they realise a mistake before the other side accesses it. 10/10 to them for security, though yes it is substantially more time-consuming, and mildly annoying, especially if it's a one-time thing.
But it does make me wonder why a bank doesn't integrate something like the above into the online banking site for it's customers.
Apparently the only measure of entertainment value
on
Why Games Cost $60
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Sure, $60 isn't so bad compared to $15 for a movie when comparing the time spent. But that isn't the half of it. Two hours entertainment from a good movie isn't the same as two hours of a good DVD movie, cinema, music CD, gig, the game, golf, hookers or whatever you do for fun. Two hours from different games isn't even the same, nor often is any two hours from the same game. If you're going to use hours as your criteria then how does gaming value stack up against a good novel, a good website, or a walk in the park?
Sure, I think gaming is good value when you pick with care, but breaking it down into $ per-hour is folly.
There's an article I can't now find that has a dev stating it's £7 on the 360, i.e. ~15% (closer to 50% for XBLA and whatever, but then they're basically taking over the retailer's cut). I assume it is the "anything else" making up a big chunk of the $10 in TFA.
This makes some sense since you can buy lots of things in stores that obviously cost a lot more to produce (more complex, more materials) for much less than $10, in fact I buy my DVD's from a store that sells about 1/3 of DVD movies for half that or less. It may be reasonable for the article to do this because apparently royalties are charged on manufacture rather than on sale like most industries, and since it's quite hard to confirm what the royalty actually is, I'm guessing console makers must be very protective over it.
The console manufacturer's licence fee would appear to be a good deal for developers and publishers: they are moving towards consoles in droves.
At some point you have to stop asking why companies are choosing to pay less tax and start asking why they are being invited to. States are basically competing with each other, taking tax from one state in order to receive a lesser amount of tax or even simply to create jobs - at the expense of the other state. A degree of competition may be healthy and there should be room for some variation, but where the difference is great someone is losing out more than the other is gaining.
So what you're doing is allowing those who make/have lots of money to make a lot more money, and making it very difficult for those without a lot of money/income to increase their position. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the divide increases.
How so? A sales tax increases the cost of purchases. In that, everybody gets poorer because the cost of living goes up (or more specifically, the like-for-like cost of a given standard of living is increased). A new 5% sales tax on everything means the same standard of living now costs 5% more. But this applies equally to the rich and the poor: both have a cost of living increase of 5%.
If you add exemptions, the balance only changes if the exemptions apply to things that make up differing proportions of the spending of the rich and the poor. If you exempt only housing and say a poor person spends 2/5 of his income on housing and a rich person 1/5, the new 5% tax means the cost of living has increased by 3% while the rich person's goes up by 4%. It is only if the rich spend a greater proportion of their income on mansions or whatever that the tax becomes regressive.
How do the rich suddenly become able to get richer? They don't, life costs them more too. Sure, it looks like more wealth on paper because the rich guy's savings are being taxed less than the poor guys' spending. But you're forgetting those savings are only worth what they can buy, and overnight every single penny is now "worth" 5% less: they merely delayed spending the tax.
The idea that the sales tax is a regressive tax only holds true where a) exemptions benefit the rich more than the poor or b) there is a corresponding fall in income taxes (and even then only when that fall benefits the rich more than the poor).
OK, there is a point in that while both the poor and rich person are saving (roughly) equally less as a % of their income, the rich person may now be investing relatively more (a poor person who previously saved 3% of his income now saves nothing, while a rich person saving 10% now saves 6%: 3:10 vs 0:6). The rich person thus is able to make a return on that 6% while the poor person gets no return. The rich person still will pay the tax when he makes use of those savings, so essentially the rich person is able to delay the taxation and earn a return on it in the meantime. Relative to incomes however the effect is trivial unless the sales tax is substantial, because the poor was making bugger-all return on their savings in the first place.
If you want a regressive tax, have a look at income tax. Once your income gets above a point it becomes beneficial to take counter-measures and make use of a tax advisor. The richer you become, the more beneficial the tax advisor becomes and the more options become viable.
A sole trader paying normal income tax can become much more tax-efficient if he incorporates his business to take advantage of corporation rates, time-shifts income by retaining profits in the company and taking dividends when beneficial, puts his wife on the payroll, maybe moves states... Here in the UK if a sole trader incorporates his business he may sell "goodwill" to the company typically around 2-3x last years' profits, and £30k of it is tax free and the remainder is taxed at just 18%, instead of 32% at the basic rate and 52% at the higher rate (counting NIC). Open trust funds to shift wealth to the kids, avoiding inheritance tax. Make big pension payments to reduce taxable income now in order to pay tax when they are older and on a lower rate (and the pension investment makes a return all the while). This shit doesn't even get counted as tax avoidance, never mind (illegal) evasion.
The only thing you can do with a sales tax is delay it by investing instead of spending. So-called "progressive" taxes however get more and more regressive the more "progressive" they appear to be. The problem is that with a sales tax you can't have a higher rate for high-earners other than by fiddling with the exemptions, and exemptions are often unfair (if one person earns exactly $1k more than another but spends exactly $1k more on rent, guess who pays a lower proportion of tax).
Channel 4 is not a "public service" broadcaster in the same way the BBC is, you seem to imply that it's a Govt. controlled channel with commercial advertising.
I merely said "public service, but funded by adverts". But anyway, no it is not quite the same situation as the BBC, but it is indeed a government controlled channel funded by advertising.
From the Channel 4 website (which appears to have an.exe file in the url but does not download anything):
Channel 4 is a publicly owned corporation whose board is appointed by OFCOM, in agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
The BBC on the other hand is an organisation established by Royal Charter (very loosely a special form of "company", "owned" by the Queen and by extension the public). It is overseen by the trustees who are formally appointed by the Queen (who is told who to appoint by government ministers).
Channel 4 is thus arguably more closely controlled by the government than the BBC is, in that technically the Queen is in the way of appointing who runs the BBC - however unlikely her intervention may be. In practice however C4 has more freedom and anyway the Gov't set the BBC licence fee which obviously confers influence.
Second, is BBC the only supplier of TV programming in the British market (aside from satellite)? If there are other minor networks, that want to specify their own DRM or just don't want to participate, I'd think the TV manufacturers would be apoplectic.
The TV content providers on "terrestrial" (the analogue, "free" broadcast) are:
BBC (public service)
ITV (commercial)
Channel Four (public service, but funded by adverts)
Five (commercial)
There are, by my count, up to* 48 additional "free" channels on digital broadcast via the Freeview service, a fair chunk of which are provided by the above 4 providers (I guess around 15-20 content providers, though corporate connections aren't always clear). Pretty much everyone has Freeview now since it's £30 for a box that gives you all these channels for free.
I'll point out that Freeview is ran by... The BBC. Well, "Freeview is managed by DTV Services Ltd, a company owned and run by its five shareholders - BBC, BSkyB, Channel 4, ITV and Arqiva", but it was only thanks to the BBC that it got going.
After free-to-air, there are 3 further alternatives for broadcasting, with a lot of channel overlap even above them all also showing Freeview:
Sky (sattelite) - channels
Virgin (cable) - channels
BT (relatively trivial, a mix of freeview and broadband delivery, dont think they have their own channels)
The situation for downloading programming is a bit of a mess right now, providers have their own software and it's a nuisance. BBC did try to get a combined thing going but it got shot down, I have some hopes for Hulu which is on the way. Oh yes and BBC got the whole online delivery going too, the other channels basically followed their lead. For DRM, TV's/boxes sold everywhere are probably going to need a flexible system that can cope with many forms, and oft-updated of DRM anyway, so one more in the mix won't really matter.
* Obligitory "up to" small print: Whether you'll get all those channels is another matter, though most people get most of the best channels and about everyone should get the rest when the analogue signal is switched off (digital will take over the whole spectrum).
Is there anything stopping you installing your own camera?
I think the issue in the OP is that the camera is controlled by someone other than the owner of the car or it's driver. Besides the advertised one, the insurance company has a very obvious potential motive for putting cameras on drivers they insure. Not that it would always work in the favour of the insurer: the 'neutral driving coach' would be obligated to supply evidence if given a writ.
On top of that there is the potential for the wireless transmission to be intercepted.
[...] DRM. (Which means Digital Rights Management. Which means tinkering with music and video games to try to make people actually pay for them.)
DRM usually involves computer code added to music or game files to prevent people copying them (ostentatiously at least). That's not the same as trying to make people pay for them, nor is it what it "means".
DRM, at the heart of it, has a noble goal: To keep thieves from stealing things.
Wrong again: the goal is to prevent copyright infringement. That's not the same as stealing because the latter involves a victim who directly loses possession of the item. Just to be clear, I'm not saying copyright infringement is OK, just that it and stealing are simply not the same thing - and while I'm on the subject every time I see "downloading in stealing" my reaction is "no it isn't". This makes me wonder why they are fibbing when "copyright infringement" is a bad thing, and surely they can think up a sexy name for it while still being accurate. When you say something obviously inaccurate people tend to question your entire message.
Preventing copyright infringement is not something I would consider "noble" either. I'm not saying it's shameful or anything but nor is it lofty principles. I rank it somewhere alongside CCTV cameras. This may seem to be rather picky with semantics, but it's not like I'm going to swallow the other side talking about if a person could take five loaves of bread and two fishes and turn them into thousands...
When the inability to share (or pirate) a product comes with a low price, I don't mind any more.
Somehow he arrives at the conclusion that no piracy means cheaper prices. What part of that makes sense? The only effect piracy can logically have on sales is as competition - to lower the price because the sale has to compete against the pirated alternative. That's economic and marketing gospel. The only way it will not hold true is if your products are not priced by the market, in which case that's your problem right there. It is lower prices that means reduced piracy - not the reverse!
If it was up to me all schools would teach basic things like touch typing, but I'm still baffled why they don't teach basic personal finance. While we're on the subject, how about what could turn out to be irrefutably the most important thing you can ever learn: first aid.
Even as a long time FF user I keep going to the Plugins menu, looking for and wondering why there isn't a "check for updates" button, just like there is for extensions.
Most plug-in authors do have their own auto-update programs but I dislike using them - I keep having to disable them from loading at boot, and they seem to do other crap I don't want like try to installl their other crapware. Even just trying to download flash they want you to install some download manager first; there used to be a proper installer hidden away as a re-distributable but I can't find it any more. Adobe Reader auto-updates but decides to install Actobat.com (which seems to be an Air application and not a web link) and it putting a shortcut on the desktop also irritates. Java update seems relatively benign but need to remember to untick the Yahoo! search bar, I'll tolerate the advert for OpenOffice. QuickTime have at least stopped having the iTunes bundle as the default, but every time I update it seems to forget my settings.
Not so long ago we were warning newbies to be wary of any software that tries to pull stunts like these.
I can see the Today Programme interview with the PRS (UK RIAA) now
I really can't see the PRS agreeing to be quizzed by a real journalist. That's part of what is so annoying, the lies are told and repeated and nobody really asks questions or holds them to account.
ps. the PRS is more like ASCAP, the BPI would then be the RIAA. RPS does take the lion's share of the hate though, because of the youtube thing and because every shop basically has to pay the PRS their protection money if they so much as have a radio in the employee break room.
I expect every nation that thinks it is going to host the HQ of any such organisation will be all for it. But not so much when they realise the entire patents system would be controlled by foreign nations. At an individual level, I don't give a shit what is patented in the US. Unless I do something over there, you don't have ANY claim to authority over me. But if my country has chosen to patent that specific thing then OK, I'll respect that, I use my authority as a citizen to grant them that authority over me (by that same token, I quite rightly do not have any say over what is patented in the US).
A patent is an agreement between an "inventor" (sadly, needing to use the term very loosely) and society. The inventor offers details of the invention in return to society granting the inventor specific rights for a specified period of time. Therefore it follows that the society upholding the rights be the one agreeing to it, as closely as practicable.
I see plenty arguments here that favour the inventor, but nothing to restore balance by favouring society - unless you accept "enrich public knowledge" (knowledge that they cannot do much with) or "encourage competition" (competition in submitting patents that is).
Furthermore the national system works quite well in limiting excessive scope. Presently it is only worth an inventor obtaining a patent in a country he has some intention to trade in. With a global system, he would obtain a patent whether he intends to trade there or not.
The article seems to intentionally avoid any issues that any user is likely to prioritise when deciding whether to go with Windows 7 or Snow Leopard. They are not two different operating systems, they are two different platforms and the points used to compare them are utterly trivial.
A marketer will tell you all the things listed in the parent is still only part of the story. Well OK, a marketer will tell you marketing is everything that is intended to satisfy a customer's wants, to build customer relationships, to identify and position the product...
All a bit wishy-washy, but it does highlight that the line between marketing and development is quite blurred. Market research plays a part in how the game is designed. A focus group might be brought in to see how particular features are working out - for example whether the new control scheme is intuitive. Issues will be found and ironed out, or ripped out and replaced. This is marketing that results in a better product. Is the expenditure marketing or development?
but I'll let that slide if you'll give me "administration expenses"
That's the catch-all category that includes just about everything other than cost of sales & R&D, only a fraction of it is marketing (how big a fraction, we don't know). "Costs and expenses" only has a few categories to cover ALL the expenses so they're heavily grouped.
Also need to be careful with the figures you use for R&D expenditure because what is recorded in the income statement isn't necessarily even close to what was spent. R&D spending may be capitalised (treated as an asset) and then amortised over the expected useful life of that R&D, e.g. the work on a drug will be capitalised and then slowly amortised (written off) to the income statement over the remaining duration of the patent on the drug, but R&D accounting is a bit messy. Here's one of the "explanatory" notes:
Amortization expense related to acquired intangible assets that contribute to our ability to sell, manufacture, research, market and distribute products, compounds and intellectual property is included in Amortization of intangible assets as it benefits multiple business functions. Amortization expense related to acquired intangible assets that are associated with a single function is included in Cost of sales, Selling, informational and administrative expenses and Research and development expenses , as appropriate. Total amortization expense for finite-lived intangible assets was $615 million for the second quarter of 2009, $694 million for the second quarter of 2008, $1.2 billion for the first six months of 2009 and $1.5 billion for the first six months of 2008.
She had also acted provocatively in seeking to view complaints laid against her by colleagues.
That little line tells us there's far more to this story than using caps in an email, but they just drop it in and try to pretend it isn't there, like an embarrassing little fart that stinks up the story they want to write.
I know we enjoy complaining about bad journalism but it's no better to promote their shitty little articles.
What he is complaining about is that he can't have his cake and eat it. The BBC was there before Murdoch made investments in UK media. That investment was substantially cheaper due to the existence of the BBC - he paid a price and made decisions that factored in the competition from the BBC. Yet now he complains about not being able to achieve the profits he might if there was no BBC.
It's tempting to draw conclusions about him having a sense of entitlement to reap monopoly rents, a sense that he is entitled to run his business in an environment of his choosing with no "unfair" barrier holding him back. The mentality is not uncommon in powerful people who are used to getting what they want and who base all their thinking on heavily summarised "executive level" information that is disconnected from customers and the reality on the ground.
This isn't some crybaby rant. He is well aware that the BBC was and is part of the media environment in the UK. The BBC is simply in the way of his control and profit, and since he can't buy it, he is trying other ways.
Slashdot Mirror
This is me modding up without any mod points.
p.s. I seem to recall yes you can request footage from CCTV cameras but I think they are supposed to blur other people's faces.
Which got me googling and turning my comment into something relevant to the OP - a decision notice [PDF] by the Information Commissioner's Office on CCTV:
And on a more general note of disclosure of CCTV footage:
The ICO have guidance to help organisations using CCTV to stay within the law.
Some sites have a default where the most favourable ratings (5/5 etc) are the ones shown by default - a link at the bottom allows viewing all reviews. I can think of one that has no apparent incentive to dupe the viewer, and personally if I was manager of the others I would certainly be more concerned about repeat business, and how costly returns are.
My assumption is that less favourable reviews tend to be the least accurate, a guess held up by viewing the negative comments which repeatedly complained about issues that were obviously completely unrelated, were laughably unrealistic expectations for the price, the product was not designed for or were addressed in the description. People use the reviews system as a forum to ask questions, giving a zero rating.
Good reviews meanwhile filled in any blanks in the description (often these would be major issues for some people), noted the build quality etc and gave a personal opinion on the product in the context of price. Personally I found these much more informative.
No doubt some sites use it just to make sales, but I think there's an element of filtering for quality too.
That is not "support" (in the context of the parent) in the same way that, say, a passer-by providing first-aid at the scene of an accident is not health care. Availability, timeliness and quality is random - highly unreliable.
"You need to have actually read the Linux manual" is the first thing wrong with Linux, in terms of being suitable for mass-adoption. For some people obviously this is not an issue - actually I suspect it's often the main attraction.
"You need to have actually read the Linux manual before asking questions" compounds the first.
To allow a person to invest without requiring them to manage.
Any "person" who can do anything must be accountable for those actions. With a sole trader or partnership business that responsibility falls on those owners, whom thus have substantial rights to manage the business. A company on the other hand is an investment vehicle - investors put money in and do not manage (beyond voting). People with money to invest do not necessarily have the skills or time to manage a business. Do you even know which companies your pension is invested in, never mind have the capacity to manage the business sufficiently to satisfy your legal obligations?
For what it's worth any person (shareholder or not) who does manage is liable as a director regardless of whether he has been appointed or not (shadow director).
So... What we're trying to imply here is that this is another Firewire: pretty good (arguably better) but inevitably unable to compete with the ubiquitous USB?
Last I read, PGP style encryption works by the sender using the recipient's public key to encrypt data that can then only be unencrypted using the recipient's private key. The sender does not use his own key to encrypt data intended for others, because then everybody needs to generate a unique key for every person they deal with - resulting in a travelling salesman problem.
Therefore in the automatic scenario, if a sender selects the wrong email from his list then he would apply the wrong encryption, and if he simply mistypes the email address he would apply no encryption. The only way he can send a file to the wrong person whom cannot then open it is if he first encrypts the file (correctly) and then sends it (incorrectly).
The same thing happens if there is some kind of global database of keys, which would solve the problem of the email client automatically finding public keys of people that it has previously never dealt with.
I'm not talking about this specific issue in the OP, I'm talking about why nobody besides geeks use encryption. They need it to be automatic, and by nature encryption cannot be both automatic and secure because of the damn PEBKAC.
I don't see encryption becoming widely used by "the masses" until it comes with Outlook and it all happens automatically. User sends an email and outlook automatically includes a copy of the public key, which the other guy's client automatically applies to any email sent to that email address in future.
This would still be of no help in this situation because when the sender selected the wrong email address, the email client would apply that recipients' encryption.
Working as an accountant the ONLY time I have been sent anything encrypted is when it is from Scottish Widows (who actually email you a link to what is broadly an encrypted webmail, that you need your own login for. And the system works both ways, I can log into it and send them a file encrypted (though of course that could be intercepted en route). Either side can cancel the encrypted message/file if they realise a mistake before the other side accesses it. 10/10 to them for security, though yes it is substantially more time-consuming, and mildly annoying, especially if it's a one-time thing.
But it does make me wonder why a bank doesn't integrate something like the above into the online banking site for it's customers.
Sure, $60 isn't so bad compared to $15 for a movie when comparing the time spent. But that isn't the half of it. Two hours entertainment from a good movie isn't the same as two hours of a good DVD movie, cinema, music CD, gig, the game, golf, hookers or whatever you do for fun. Two hours from different games isn't even the same, nor often is any two hours from the same game. If you're going to use hours as your criteria then how does gaming value stack up against a good novel, a good website, or a walk in the park?
Sure, I think gaming is good value when you pick with care, but breaking it down into $ per-hour is folly.
There's an article I can't now find that has a dev stating it's £7 on the 360, i.e. ~15% (closer to 50% for XBLA and whatever, but then they're basically taking over the retailer's cut). I assume it is the "anything else" making up a big chunk of the $10 in TFA.
This makes some sense since you can buy lots of things in stores that obviously cost a lot more to produce (more complex, more materials) for much less than $10, in fact I buy my DVD's from a store that sells about 1/3 of DVD movies for half that or less. It may be reasonable for the article to do this because apparently royalties are charged on manufacture rather than on sale like most industries, and since it's quite hard to confirm what the royalty actually is, I'm guessing console makers must be very protective over it.
The console manufacturer's licence fee would appear to be a good deal for developers and publishers: they are moving towards consoles in droves.
At some point you have to stop asking why companies are choosing to pay less tax and start asking why they are being invited to. States are basically competing with each other, taking tax from one state in order to receive a lesser amount of tax or even simply to create jobs - at the expense of the other state. A degree of competition may be healthy and there should be room for some variation, but where the difference is great someone is losing out more than the other is gaining.
How so? A sales tax increases the cost of purchases. In that, everybody gets poorer because the cost of living goes up (or more specifically, the like-for-like cost of a given standard of living is increased). A new 5% sales tax on everything means the same standard of living now costs 5% more. But this applies equally to the rich and the poor: both have a cost of living increase of 5%.
If you add exemptions, the balance only changes if the exemptions apply to things that make up differing proportions of the spending of the rich and the poor. If you exempt only housing and say a poor person spends 2/5 of his income on housing and a rich person 1/5, the new 5% tax means the cost of living has increased by 3% while the rich person's goes up by 4%. It is only if the rich spend a greater proportion of their income on mansions or whatever that the tax becomes regressive.
How do the rich suddenly become able to get richer? They don't, life costs them more too. Sure, it looks like more wealth on paper because the rich guy's savings are being taxed less than the poor guys' spending. But you're forgetting those savings are only worth what they can buy, and overnight every single penny is now "worth" 5% less: they merely delayed spending the tax.
The idea that the sales tax is a regressive tax only holds true where a) exemptions benefit the rich more than the poor or b) there is a corresponding fall in income taxes (and even then only when that fall benefits the rich more than the poor).
OK, there is a point in that while both the poor and rich person are saving (roughly) equally less as a % of their income, the rich person may now be investing relatively more (a poor person who previously saved 3% of his income now saves nothing, while a rich person saving 10% now saves 6%: 3:10 vs 0:6). The rich person thus is able to make a return on that 6% while the poor person gets no return. The rich person still will pay the tax when he makes use of those savings, so essentially the rich person is able to delay the taxation and earn a return on it in the meantime. Relative to incomes however the effect is trivial unless the sales tax is substantial, because the poor was making bugger-all return on their savings in the first place.
If you want a regressive tax, have a look at income tax. Once your income gets above a point it becomes beneficial to take counter-measures and make use of a tax advisor. The richer you become, the more beneficial the tax advisor becomes and the more options become viable.
A sole trader paying normal income tax can become much more tax-efficient if he incorporates his business to take advantage of corporation rates, time-shifts income by retaining profits in the company and taking dividends when beneficial, puts his wife on the payroll, maybe moves states... Here in the UK if a sole trader incorporates his business he may sell "goodwill" to the company typically around 2-3x last years' profits, and £30k of it is tax free and the remainder is taxed at just 18%, instead of 32% at the basic rate and 52% at the higher rate (counting NIC). Open trust funds to shift wealth to the kids, avoiding inheritance tax. Make big pension payments to reduce taxable income now in order to pay tax when they are older and on a lower rate (and the pension investment makes a return all the while). This shit doesn't even get counted as tax avoidance, never mind (illegal) evasion.
The only thing you can do with a sales tax is delay it by investing instead of spending. So-called "progressive" taxes however get more and more regressive the more "progressive" they appear to be. The problem is that with a sales tax you can't have a higher rate for high-earners other than by fiddling with the exemptions, and exemptions are often unfair (if one person earns exactly $1k more than another but spends exactly $1k more on rent, guess who pays a lower proportion of tax).
I merely said "public service, but funded by adverts". But anyway, no it is not quite the same situation as the BBC, but it is indeed a government controlled channel funded by advertising.
From the Channel 4 website (which appears to have an .exe file in the url but does not download anything):
The BBC on the other hand is an organisation established by Royal Charter (very loosely a special form of "company", "owned" by the Queen and by extension the public). It is overseen by the trustees who are formally appointed by the Queen (who is told who to appoint by government ministers).
Channel 4 is thus arguably more closely controlled by the government than the BBC is, in that technically the Queen is in the way of appointing who runs the BBC - however unlikely her intervention may be. In practice however C4 has more freedom and anyway the Gov't set the BBC licence fee which obviously confers influence.
The TV content providers on "terrestrial" (the analogue, "free" broadcast) are:
BBC (public service)
ITV (commercial)
Channel Four (public service, but funded by adverts)
Five (commercial)
There are, by my count, up to* 48 additional "free" channels on digital broadcast via the Freeview service, a fair chunk of which are provided by the above 4 providers (I guess around 15-20 content providers, though corporate connections aren't always clear). Pretty much everyone has Freeview now since it's £30 for a box that gives you all these channels for free.
I'll point out that Freeview is ran by... The BBC. Well, "Freeview is managed by DTV Services Ltd, a company owned and run by its five shareholders - BBC, BSkyB, Channel 4, ITV and Arqiva", but it was only thanks to the BBC that it got going.
After free-to-air, there are 3 further alternatives for broadcasting, with a lot of channel overlap even above them all also showing Freeview:
Sky (sattelite) - channels
Virgin (cable) - channels
BT (relatively trivial, a mix of freeview and broadband delivery, dont think they have their own channels)
The situation for downloading programming is a bit of a mess right now, providers have their own software and it's a nuisance. BBC did try to get a combined thing going but it got shot down, I have some hopes for Hulu which is on the way. Oh yes and BBC got the whole online delivery going too, the other channels basically followed their lead. For DRM, TV's/boxes sold everywhere are probably going to need a flexible system that can cope with many forms, and oft-updated of DRM anyway, so one more in the mix won't really matter.
* Obligitory "up to" small print: Whether you'll get all those channels is another matter, though most people get most of the best channels and about everyone should get the rest when the analogue signal is switched off (digital will take over the whole spectrum).
Is there anything stopping you installing your own camera?
I think the issue in the OP is that the camera is controlled by someone other than the owner of the car or it's driver. Besides the advertised one, the insurance company has a very obvious potential motive for putting cameras on drivers they insure. Not that it would always work in the favour of the insurer: the 'neutral driving coach' would be obligated to supply evidence if given a writ.
On top of that there is the potential for the wireless transmission to be intercepted.
DRM usually involves computer code added to music or game files to prevent people copying them (ostentatiously at least). That's not the same as trying to make people pay for them, nor is it what it "means".
Wrong again: the goal is to prevent copyright infringement. That's not the same as stealing because the latter involves a victim who directly loses possession of the item. Just to be clear, I'm not saying copyright infringement is OK, just that it and stealing are simply not the same thing - and while I'm on the subject every time I see "downloading in stealing" my reaction is "no it isn't". This makes me wonder why they are fibbing when "copyright infringement" is a bad thing, and surely they can think up a sexy name for it while still being accurate. When you say something obviously inaccurate people tend to question your entire message.
Preventing copyright infringement is not something I would consider "noble" either. I'm not saying it's shameful or anything but nor is it lofty principles. I rank it somewhere alongside CCTV cameras. This may seem to be rather picky with semantics, but it's not like I'm going to swallow the other side talking about if a person could take five loaves of bread and two fishes and turn them into thousands...
Somehow he arrives at the conclusion that no piracy means cheaper prices. What part of that makes sense? The only effect piracy can logically have on sales is as competition - to lower the price because the sale has to compete against the pirated alternative. That's economic and marketing gospel. The only way it will not hold true is if your products are not priced by the market, in which case that's your problem right there. It is lower prices that means reduced piracy - not the reverse!
If it was up to me all schools would teach basic things like touch typing, but I'm still baffled why they don't teach basic personal finance. While we're on the subject, how about what could turn out to be irrefutably the most important thing you can ever learn: first aid.
Even as a long time FF user I keep going to the Plugins menu, looking for and wondering why there isn't a "check for updates" button, just like there is for extensions.
Most plug-in authors do have their own auto-update programs but I dislike using them - I keep having to disable them from loading at boot, and they seem to do other crap I don't want like try to installl their other crapware. Even just trying to download flash they want you to install some download manager first; there used to be a proper installer hidden away as a re-distributable but I can't find it any more. Adobe Reader auto-updates but decides to install Actobat.com (which seems to be an Air application and not a web link) and it putting a shortcut on the desktop also irritates. Java update seems relatively benign but need to remember to untick the Yahoo! search bar, I'll tolerate the advert for OpenOffice. QuickTime have at least stopped having the iTunes bundle as the default, but every time I update it seems to forget my settings.
Not so long ago we were warning newbies to be wary of any software that tries to pull stunts like these.
I really can't see the PRS agreeing to be quizzed by a real journalist. That's part of what is so annoying, the lies are told and repeated and nobody really asks questions or holds them to account.
ps. the PRS is more like ASCAP, the BPI would then be the RIAA. RPS does take the lion's share of the hate though, because of the youtube thing and because every shop basically has to pay the PRS their protection money if they so much as have a radio in the employee break room.
I expect every nation that thinks it is going to host the HQ of any such organisation will be all for it. But not so much when they realise the entire patents system would be controlled by foreign nations. At an individual level, I don't give a shit what is patented in the US. Unless I do something over there, you don't have ANY claim to authority over me. But if my country has chosen to patent that specific thing then OK, I'll respect that, I use my authority as a citizen to grant them that authority over me (by that same token, I quite rightly do not have any say over what is patented in the US).
A patent is an agreement between an "inventor" (sadly, needing to use the term very loosely) and society. The inventor offers details of the invention in return to society granting the inventor specific rights for a specified period of time. Therefore it follows that the society upholding the rights be the one agreeing to it, as closely as practicable.
I see plenty arguments here that favour the inventor, but nothing to restore balance by favouring society - unless you accept "enrich public knowledge" (knowledge that they cannot do much with) or "encourage competition" (competition in submitting patents that is).
Furthermore the national system works quite well in limiting excessive scope. Presently it is only worth an inventor obtaining a patent in a country he has some intention to trade in. With a global system, he would obtain a patent whether he intends to trade there or not.
The article seems to intentionally avoid any issues that any user is likely to prioritise when deciding whether to go with Windows 7 or Snow Leopard. They are not two different operating systems, they are two different platforms and the points used to compare them are utterly trivial.
A marketer will tell you all the things listed in the parent is still only part of the story. Well OK, a marketer will tell you marketing is everything that is intended to satisfy a customer's wants, to build customer relationships, to identify and position the product...
All a bit wishy-washy, but it does highlight that the line between marketing and development is quite blurred. Market research plays a part in how the game is designed. A focus group might be brought in to see how particular features are working out - for example whether the new control scheme is intuitive. Issues will be found and ironed out, or ripped out and replaced. This is marketing that results in a better product. Is the expenditure marketing or development?
That's the catch-all category that includes just about everything other than cost of sales & R&D, only a fraction of it is marketing (how big a fraction, we don't know). "Costs and expenses" only has a few categories to cover ALL the expenses so they're heavily grouped.
Also need to be careful with the figures you use for R&D expenditure because what is recorded in the income statement isn't necessarily even close to what was spent. R&D spending may be capitalised (treated as an asset) and then amortised over the expected useful life of that R&D, e.g. the work on a drug will be capitalised and then slowly amortised (written off) to the income statement over the remaining duration of the patent on the drug, but R&D accounting is a bit messy. Here's one of the "explanatory" notes:
From TFA:
That little line tells us there's far more to this story than using caps in an email, but they just drop it in and try to pretend it isn't there, like an embarrassing little fart that stinks up the story they want to write.
I know we enjoy complaining about bad journalism but it's no better to promote their shitty little articles.
The phone has a flash drive.
What he is complaining about is that he can't have his cake and eat it. The BBC was there before Murdoch made investments in UK media. That investment was substantially cheaper due to the existence of the BBC - he paid a price and made decisions that factored in the competition from the BBC. Yet now he complains about not being able to achieve the profits he might if there was no BBC.
It's tempting to draw conclusions about him having a sense of entitlement to reap monopoly rents, a sense that he is entitled to run his business in an environment of his choosing with no "unfair" barrier holding him back. The mentality is not uncommon in powerful people who are used to getting what they want and who base all their thinking on heavily summarised "executive level" information that is disconnected from customers and the reality on the ground.
This isn't some crybaby rant. He is well aware that the BBC was and is part of the media environment in the UK. The BBC is simply in the way of his control and profit, and since he can't buy it, he is trying other ways.