.....but is also clearly not a natural object.....
How do you KNOW whether an object is "natural" or man/alien made, ie. intelligently designed? What are the characteristics of an artificial object and a natural one and what differentiates them?
...one would have most certainly destroyed the other or both...
So then what's so intelligent about two so called intelligent species destroying one another? It seems to me that a REAL sign of intelligence would be to use those smarts to figure out how to get along with one another. Judging from human history, it seems that people today don't live together in peace any better than they did in the supposed cave-man days. Does that mean that humans today are less intelligent than our ancient forebears? After all, the only thing we seem to be better at is greatly increasing the destructive capability of the weapons we construct to use against one another.
In every area, individual, family, businesses, ethnic groups within and countries against one another, humans are still continually at war with one another, despite a yearning for peace on the part of many.
Maybe intelligence has nothing whatsoever to do whether even members of the same species can live peacefully together. Maybe instead it demonstrates that humans today are LESS intelligent.
If truly intelligent extraterrestrial beings from the far reaches of the universe did exist and observed the human race, they'd be the biggest of fools to make contact with that warring bunch of low-life called humanity. Instead, they'd surely use their advanced technology and knowledge to ensure that we all remain safely quarantined here in the solar system, lest we export our quarrels throughout an otherwise peaceful universe.
Even in our space fictions, war on a cosmic scale is a constant, recurring theme. Imaginary weapons are built that can vaporize an entire planet. To me that is definitely NOT a sign of intelligence.
No kidding! Most heavy graphics users who REALLY need a super-power computer will likely be in a studio or other place where they can use a REALLY powerful computer such as the eight processor XEON based MacPro connected to a BIG cinema display. If need be, the three components of such a a REAL powerhouse can be packed in the trunk of a car and taken on location.
When traveling, artists, like most people will likely opt for a smaller, less backbreaking computer, unless of course they are training for the the next Olympics. I would say that the applications for such a monster "portable' computer are somewhat limited.
....Just because you legally can charge 1k for something...
A seller can and may charge any price they want. It is the buyer who ultimately determines the price the item is given up for by the seller. If the buyer wants to make a huge gift to the seller, is that immoral? The good in question here was not misrepresented was it?
....a compulsory setup designed for Apple to be able to kill off the competition...
I sincerely hope you are wrong about that. It is quite usual for some to ascribe ulterior motives to others, because they themselves have such thoughts. Why not wait a while and see what Apple actually does with this capability, before ascribing ulterior motives to them? It is generally better to assume innocence rather than guilt. I hope that they really only use this ability to kill programs like a fire alarm switch, kinda like "break glass and pull lever" in case of fire.
....Don't think I won't go to a provider that has the sense to let me work with things MY way.....
You and at lot of/.ers feel that way, but does that apply to most users who only want a device the "just works"?
What would do more damage: A malicious, sleeping trojan that made it through Apple's initial screening process, but later, maybe months later wreaked havoc with thousands or even million of phones and nothing could be done to remove it from the already installed base? OR Apple does have the ability to wipe such code after it is installed?
What is different about this from the current anti-virus software on Windows systems? Does it not also remove or disable software that does harm? It it better to force all users to install performance robbing, battery eating anti-malware software on each and every phone? We all still have that annoyance on Windows systems, even after all these years!
Some/. users are also rather hypocritical. When the iPhone came out, some here lamented that it is not useful for the enterprise, because unlike some other devices, the original iPhone could not be wiped clean in case it got lost or stolen. Now these same people complain that the new iPhone DOES have this capability.
As Steve said, Apple hopes they will not have to use this "kill switch". For all users ordinary outside of the/. crowd it is likely reassuring that Apple CAN restore their device, even if it somehow got contaminated despite all the precautions Apple has taken that this should not happen in the first place.
On the other hand, if Apple ever DID use this capability to bestow on themselves and their partners a clear business advantage, that would be truly evil. I hope they never stoop that low, as that other company has.
....Why shouldn't online credit card transactions have the same restrictions that physical credit card transactions have?.....
Some of them do. They ask for the billing address and the shipping address and compare those with what the credit card company has for that person. Some merchants will not ship to some other address.
If everybody did this, a phisher could not have anything shipped to their location even if they got your password. They would have to also do an address change.
The point is that if you have something that's extremely valuable to somebody else, they can threaten your life. Most people, and I suspect you too, will give the attacker what they want from you before you let them kill you. Only if someone is willing to die, will an attacker or torturer by unsuccessful with such a person.
The weakest link insecurity is ultimately the human being, not any conceivable mechanical system. If you possess something valuable enough so that another person or entity is willing to kill you to obtain it, they WILL get it, unless you value what they want from you higher than your own life.
....Someone can take your something held. Ideally you would have both....
So if there is something REALLY valuable protected and someone wants it very badly, they can threaten your life unless you hand over both. What is more valuable than your life?
Security needs to be commensurate with the value of what is protected and how badly someone wants it. Passwords and ordinary locks and keys happen to be good enough for most of us. Bank vaults and certain computer systems have higher requirements to be secure.
....Adding the second factor to the authentication system does move "beyond passwords".....
So now there are TWO things a user can do to not be able to accomplish what they want. First they can forget the PIN and then they can also lose the card.
There is a tradeoff between security and ease of getting things done. The difficulty has to be geared to the possible consequences if the security is compromised. That's why we don't have bank vault doors and locks on our houses. There is nothing in the average house that is worth taking that would justify such security.
All that is really needed is to make your house more secure than your neighbors. That is the biggest reason why there a virtually no real world attacks on Apple's computers. It's not that they are like bank vaults, but that they resist intrusion better than Windows systems.
Passwords are good enough to protect many systems, same as ordinary keys and locks are good enough for most houses. Therefore passwords will be with us for most systems for a VERY long time. Choosing a good password is all the security most of us will ever need or want.
....The complexity of cloning security tokens varies....
Who needs to clone or copy anything? Nobody has ever car-jacked a vehicle by sticking a gun in the owner's ribs and demanding the ORIGINAL key? Nobody has ever robbed a "secure" vault by kidnapping the person who has legitimate access to that vault, key, combination or both?
Anyone who can come up with a security system that uses NEITHER what you have nor what you know would win a Nobel Prize and become extremely rich.
This assumes you HAVE cell phone. It in effect is no different than your house or car key. Has anybody ever come up with an authentication mechanism that does NOT rely on either something you HAVE or something you KNOW or both? If your cell phone is lost, broken or even only has a dead battery you would have no access to your money, in the case of an ATM. Someone else's cell phone would not work because it would have to somehow get the key. Even biometric data is based on something you have, such as your iris or fingerprint.
...it's when the Sun goes down that we need electricity the most....
Actually, in the sunniest and hottest places, it takes lots of power to run all those air conditioners. After the sun goes down the heat subsides and so does the load on the grid.
....because the transmission capability wasn't there.....
That fact is, it has and will continue to put a crimp into the idea of building large scale solar power plants in far away places. Building a major high voltage transmission line involves dealing with hundreds or even thousands of property owners. Most people I know will resist by every means available to them the idea of a big ugly, possibly dangerous line crossing their land.
Solar power produced by utility sized power stations will only be built in places that already have a suitable transmission line. When solar panels and to a lesser extent, batteries become cheap enough, most solar power will be generated right where it is used, rather than being sent down a lossy transmission line for hundreds of miles.
....In places like Europe that don't subsidize fossil fuels as much....
Most, if not all of the difference in price of gasoline in the US and Europe is due to much higher TAXES in Europe. In the US gas taxes are almost exclusively used for transportation related projects, mostly roads. This is NOT the case in other countries, where taxes on fuel are put in the general tax pot. Other vehicle taxes, such as registration and driver licenses are also part of the general government expenses there, while in the US these costs are also less and are mostly used for transportation related things, such as highway cops, and the DMV administration. Generally, the sales taxes on automobiles is the only major revenue source that is NOT tied to transportation.
...copying someone's work that is their livelihood is every bit as immoral as stealing.....
So what's the difference if I borrow a book or movie from a friend or library and read/watch it rather than buying a copy. I can legally borrow a copy to read/watch under present law, can't I? Is borrowing immoral? What if I made a copy first and then read/watch the copy? In either case, the copyright holder doesn't gain nor lose anything nor does anyone else.
If however I would try to gain an income in some way from that work, it would deprive the rights holder of such income. That is in effect theft which is both illegal and immoral. It could be argued that making an income from someone else's work without paying them is equivalent to hiring a worker to do some job and then refusing to pay the prevailing or agreed wage.
.....I frequently ponder whether or not piracy would be so common if we had 5-10 year copyright limits....
Much commercial "piracy" infringement is of newer works well within that time frame. What would really slow down, not eliminate 'piracy' is to freely allow non-commercial copying for personal use. This is happening anyway, law or no law. If someone tries to make an INCOME from other people's work, that should carry very draconian legal consequences, such as is commonly levied for theft or fraud.
People have always shared books, for example. If a friend or even a library has a book I like and I borrow it to read, the publisher doesn't make any more or less money than if I made a copy of it first and then read the copy. If I really like the book or other work, I'd go out and buy a copy to add to my collection. In a sense, people privately sharing a work is like word-of-mouth advertising of a good product. Most people are honest and will go out and buy it.
It's only if I try to sell a copy, I would wrongfully attempt to profit by the work of the copyright holder.
...But I still feel like a penny saved is a penny earned.....
You forgot to add the tax on the earnings. So a penny saved is actually MORE than a penny earned, because the government has not yet figured out how to tax that saved penny.
...There will be some legal action against such pratice....
You really mean that the government through a court can force a company to sell their product to all that want that product? Maybe in a dictatorship that may work.
To permanently and forever squelch all this nonsense, Apple can simply require proof of ownership of genuine Mac hardware, before they will sell anyone an UPGRADE of OSX. After all, copies of OSX are effectively upgrades, since EVERY Mac comes with the original base version. This was the case when Apple first switched to Intel processors. There was NO copy of OSX available at all apart of what came installed in a new Mac. Apple does not HAVE to sell upgrades to their OS on the open market.
Even if Steve Jobs' SS Nazis did NOT cripple OSX, which could really be installed effortlessly and perfectly on some hardware other than that made by Apple, only pirates would be able to install a stolen copy of OSX.
You and other envious Windows or even Linux users should remember that Apple is a HARDWARE maker, such as Dell, HP, Lenovo etc. NOT another Microsoft selling their software to anyone who will shovel money into their coffers. Apple makes the WHOLE computer, of which the software is but an integral part, just like their iPod, iTouch and iPhone. They will not sell their iPhone or iTouch software to anyone who doesn't own an iPhone or to other phone makers either.
.....little by little we will all be forced to hop on board to blu-ray train...
Probably not. Just as the mp3 format is good enough for the vast majority of music listeners, so too the present DVD and even the compressed H.264 downloaded movie format is good enough for most people. HD disks and CD disks will become the domain of video/audio enthusiasts who pay attention to high quality. For a true audio nut with $1000+ speakers, the iPod compressed sound is an abomination, but for millions of ordinary people it is plenty fine enough. All digital content will mostly be downloaded from cyberspace. This will be especially true when "Big Content" finally wakes up to forego the extra expense of DRM encumbered material.
....Bluray is going to be dead as a video medium.....
The future of ALL entertainment -- audio and video -- will be in cyberspace. Most music is now already purchased as a downloaded digital file, not on a piece of plastic. Movies are going that route also. Besides, the high definition by itself doesn't change the content of a given movie or TV program. Being able to tell that the news anchor or weather guy used a dull razor of forgot to shave altogether doesn't bring greater enjoyment of the program, now does it?
The biggest driver of sales of CDs and DVDs over cassettes and VHS, was NOT the markedly better sound/picture quality, but the convenience factor. No more mangled cassettes, ripped tapes, wear and dirty playback heads that needed periodic cleaning and waiting for rewinds, as you pointed out. This large factor is absent in the case of bluray, as well as the fact that the TV itself also has to be replaced for what is perceived as only a marginal increase in total value. Apparently, the survey in the article bears this out pretty well already.
...and charge sick people more but still not as much as their true cost....
Much sickness is due to lifestyle. How is a poor lifestyle compensated for? MUST those who have a healthier lifestyle subsidize those who choose to abuse their bodies with drugs, poor diet and lack of exercise?
How is healthcare anymore my responsibility than other necessities of life, such as food, clothing and shelter? Should society insure these also? Everybody gets these also through some sort of "insurance"?
For most of human history, it has been an individual pursuit to secure one's own livelihood, which includes health. If I can volunteer to help someone who has had some misfortune, that is one thing, but if my neighbors (society) FORCE me to take care of some who refuse to make an effort on their own, that is quite another thing and totally unacceptable.
We have some close friends living near by, whose house burned to the ground due to a faulty appliance about a month ago. They lost everything but their life. Neither they nor their landlord had any sort of insurance. We and many others in our community helped and are continuing to help them financially and with life's essentials. However, we are doing this voluntarily, not under coercion of a government decree.
Insurance is a good thing ONLY if it is voluntary, just as it is voluntary whether I go to a casino or not. Would you like it if your neighbors (society) decreed that you had to go to and gamble your money away every so often?
The fact that doctors often give substantial discounts to those who pay with cash on the barrelhead, proves that insurance increases medical costs. This sometimes also true of car repair after a fender-bender accident. The attitude: "Oh it's OK, after all it is insured" is fairly common these days.
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.....but is also clearly not a natural object.....
How do you KNOW whether an object is "natural" or man/alien made, ie. intelligently designed? What are the characteristics of an artificial object and a natural one and what differentiates them?
...one would have most certainly destroyed the other or both...
So then what's so intelligent about two so called intelligent species destroying one another? It seems to me that a REAL sign of intelligence would be to use those smarts to figure out how to get along with one another. Judging from human history, it seems that people today don't live together in peace any better than they did in the supposed cave-man days. Does that mean that humans today are less intelligent than our ancient forebears? After all, the only thing we seem to be better at is greatly increasing the destructive capability of the weapons we construct to use against one another.
In every area, individual, family, businesses, ethnic groups within and countries against one another, humans are still continually at war with one another, despite a yearning for peace on the part of many.
Maybe intelligence has nothing whatsoever to do whether even members of the same species can live peacefully together. Maybe instead it demonstrates that humans today are LESS intelligent.
If truly intelligent extraterrestrial beings from the far reaches of the universe did exist and observed the human race, they'd be the biggest of fools to make contact with that warring bunch of low-life called humanity. Instead, they'd surely use their advanced technology and knowledge to ensure that we all remain safely quarantined here in the solar system, lest we export our quarrels throughout an otherwise peaceful universe.
Even in our space fictions, war on a cosmic scale is a constant, recurring theme. Imaginary weapons are built that can vaporize an entire planet. To me that is definitely NOT a sign of intelligence.
....Sometimes less really is more....
No kidding! Most heavy graphics users who REALLY need a super-power computer will likely be in a studio or other place where they can use a REALLY powerful computer such as the eight processor XEON based MacPro connected to a BIG cinema display. If need be, the three components of such a a REAL powerhouse can be packed in the trunk of a car and taken on location.
When traveling, artists, like most people will likely opt for a smaller, less backbreaking computer, unless of course they are training for the the next Olympics. I would say that the applications for such a monster "portable' computer are somewhat limited.
....Just because you legally can charge 1k for something ...
A seller can and may charge any price they want. It is the buyer who ultimately determines the price the item is given up for by the seller. If the buyer wants to make a huge gift to the seller, is that immoral? The good in question here was not misrepresented was it?
....or to be able to run Apple's software .....
Why would you want to run Apple software if it is such crap? Why not run MS crap or freebie Linux?
....a compulsory setup designed for Apple to be able to kill off the competition...
I sincerely hope you are wrong about that. It is quite usual for some to ascribe ulterior motives to others, because they themselves have such thoughts. Why not wait a while and see what Apple actually does with this capability, before ascribing ulterior motives to them? It is generally better to assume innocence rather than guilt. I hope that they really only use this ability to kill programs like a fire alarm switch, kinda like "break glass and pull lever" in case of fire.
....Don't think I won't go to a provider that has the sense to let me work with things MY way.....
You and at lot of /.ers feel that way, but does that apply to most users who only want a device the "just works"?
What would do more damage: A malicious, sleeping trojan that made it through Apple's initial screening process, but later, maybe months later wreaked havoc with thousands or even million of phones and nothing could be done to remove it from the already installed base? OR Apple does have the ability to wipe such code after it is installed?
What is different about this from the current anti-virus software on Windows systems? Does it not also remove or disable software that does harm? It it better to force all users to install performance robbing, battery eating anti-malware software on each and every phone? We all still have that annoyance on Windows systems, even after all these years!
Some /. users are also rather hypocritical. When the iPhone came out, some here lamented that it is not useful for the enterprise, because unlike some other devices, the original iPhone could not be wiped clean in case it got lost or stolen. Now these same people complain that the new iPhone DOES have this capability.
As Steve said, Apple hopes they will not have to use this "kill switch". For all users ordinary outside of the /. crowd it is likely reassuring that Apple CAN restore their device, even if it somehow got contaminated despite all the precautions Apple has taken that this should not happen in the first place.
On the other hand, if Apple ever DID use this capability to bestow on themselves and their partners a clear business advantage, that would be truly evil. I hope they never stoop that low, as that other company has.
....Why shouldn't online credit card transactions have the same restrictions that physical credit card transactions have?.....
Some of them do. They ask for the billing address and the shipping address and compare those with what the credit card company has for that person. Some merchants will not ship to some other address.
If everybody did this, a phisher could not have anything shipped to their location even if they got your password. They would have to also do an address change.
The point is that if you have something that's extremely valuable to somebody else, they can threaten your life. Most people, and I suspect you too, will give the attacker what they want from you before you let them kill you. Only if someone is willing to die, will an attacker or torturer by unsuccessful with such a person.
The weakest link insecurity is ultimately the human being, not any conceivable mechanical system. If you possess something valuable enough so that another person or entity is willing to kill you to obtain it, they WILL get it, unless you value what they want from you higher than your own life.
....Someone can take your something held. Ideally you would have both....
So if there is something REALLY valuable protected and someone wants it very badly, they can threaten your life unless you hand over both. What is more valuable than your life?
Security needs to be commensurate with the value of what is protected and how badly someone wants it. Passwords and ordinary locks and keys happen to be good enough for most of us. Bank vaults and certain computer systems have higher requirements to be secure.
....In my opinion it's probably best if we moved to gesturing.....
What, such as the extended middle finger salute? I wonder how many would use that gesture?
....Adding the second factor to the authentication system does move "beyond passwords".....
So now there are TWO things a user can do to not be able to accomplish what they want. First they can forget the PIN and then they can also lose the card.
There is a tradeoff between security and ease of getting things done. The difficulty has to be geared to the possible consequences if the security is compromised. That's why we don't have bank vault doors and locks on our houses. There is nothing in the average house that is worth taking that would justify such security.
All that is really needed is to make your house more secure than your neighbors. That is the biggest reason why there a virtually no real world attacks on Apple's computers. It's not that they are like bank vaults, but that they resist intrusion better than Windows systems.
Passwords are good enough to protect many systems, same as ordinary keys and locks are good enough for most houses. Therefore passwords will be with us for most systems for a VERY long time. Choosing a good password is all the security most of us will ever need or want.
....The complexity of cloning security tokens varies....
Who needs to clone or copy anything? Nobody has ever car-jacked a vehicle by sticking a gun in the owner's ribs and demanding the ORIGINAL key? Nobody has ever robbed a "secure" vault by kidnapping the person who has legitimate access to that vault, key, combination or both?
Anyone who can come up with a security system that uses NEITHER what you have nor what you know would win a Nobel Prize and become extremely rich.
...while the point of torturing a person for retina-scan or retina-sample is rather moot....
So then someone can't stick a gun in your ribs and politely ask you to peer into the retina scanner in order to get into whatever they want?
....on the cellphone display...
This assumes you HAVE cell phone. It in effect is no different than your house or car key. Has anybody ever come up with an authentication mechanism that does NOT rely on either something you HAVE or something you KNOW or both? If your cell phone is lost, broken or even only has a dead battery you would have no access to your money, in the case of an ATM. Someone else's cell phone would not work because it would have to somehow get the key. Even biometric data is based on something you have, such as your iris or fingerprint.
...it's when the Sun goes down that we need electricity the most....
Actually, in the sunniest and hottest places, it takes lots of power to run all those air conditioners. After the sun goes down the heat subsides and so does the load on the grid.
....because the transmission capability wasn't there.....
That fact is, it has and will continue to put a crimp into the idea of building large scale solar power plants in far away places. Building a major high voltage transmission line involves dealing with hundreds or even thousands of property owners. Most people I know will resist by every means available to them the idea of a big ugly, possibly dangerous line crossing their land.
Solar power produced by utility sized power stations will only be built in places that already have a suitable transmission line. When solar panels and to a lesser extent, batteries become cheap enough, most solar power will be generated right where it is used, rather than being sent down a lossy transmission line for hundreds of miles.
....In places like Europe that don't subsidize fossil fuels as much....
Most, if not all of the difference in price of gasoline in the US and Europe is due to much higher TAXES in Europe. In the US gas taxes are almost exclusively used for transportation related projects, mostly roads. This is NOT the case in other countries, where taxes on fuel are put in the general tax pot. Other vehicle taxes, such as registration and driver licenses are also part of the general government expenses there, while in the US these costs are also less and are mostly used for transportation related things, such as highway cops, and the DMV administration. Generally, the sales taxes on automobiles is the only major revenue source that is NOT tied to transportation.
...copying someone's work that is their livelihood is every bit as immoral as stealing.....
So what's the difference if I borrow a book or movie from a friend or library and read/watch it rather than buying a copy. I can legally borrow a copy to read/watch under present law, can't I? Is borrowing immoral? What if I made a copy first and then read/watch the copy? In either case, the copyright holder doesn't gain nor lose anything nor does anyone else.
If however I would try to gain an income in some way from that work, it would deprive the rights holder of such income. That is in effect theft which is both illegal and immoral. It could be argued that making an income from someone else's work without paying them is equivalent to hiring a worker to do some job and then refusing to pay the prevailing or agreed wage.
.....I frequently ponder whether or not piracy would be so common if we had 5-10 year copyright limits....
Much commercial "piracy" infringement is of newer works well within that time frame. What would really slow down, not eliminate 'piracy' is to freely allow non-commercial copying for personal use. This is happening anyway, law or no law. If someone tries to make an INCOME from other people's work, that should carry very draconian legal consequences, such as is commonly levied for theft or fraud.
People have always shared books, for example. If a friend or even a library has a book I like and I borrow it to read, the publisher doesn't make any more or less money than if I made a copy of it first and then read the copy. If I really like the book or other work, I'd go out and buy a copy to add to my collection. In a sense, people privately sharing a work is like word-of-mouth advertising of a good product. Most people are honest and will go out and buy it.
It's only if I try to sell a copy, I would wrongfully attempt to profit by the work of the copyright holder.
...But I still feel like a penny saved is a penny earned.....
You forgot to add the tax on the earnings. So a penny saved is actually MORE than a penny earned, because the government has not yet figured out how to tax that saved penny.
...There will be some legal action against such pratice....
You really mean that the government through a court can force a company to sell their product to all that want that product? Maybe in a dictatorship that may work.
To permanently and forever squelch all this nonsense, Apple can simply require proof of ownership of genuine Mac hardware, before they will sell anyone an UPGRADE of OSX. After all, copies of OSX are effectively upgrades, since EVERY Mac comes with the original base version. This was the case when Apple first switched to Intel processors. There was NO copy of OSX available at all apart of what came installed in a new Mac. Apple does not HAVE to sell upgrades to their OS on the open market.
Even if Steve Jobs' SS Nazis did NOT cripple OSX, which could really be installed effortlessly and perfectly on some hardware other than that made by Apple, only pirates would be able to install a stolen copy of OSX.
You and other envious Windows or even Linux users should remember that Apple is a HARDWARE maker, such as Dell, HP, Lenovo etc. NOT another Microsoft selling their software to anyone who will shovel money into their coffers. Apple makes the WHOLE computer, of which the software is but an integral part, just like their iPod, iTouch and iPhone. They will not sell their iPhone or iTouch software to anyone who doesn't own an iPhone or to other phone makers either.
.....little by little we will all be forced to hop on board to blu-ray train...
Probably not. Just as the mp3 format is good enough for the vast majority of music listeners, so too the present DVD and even the compressed H.264 downloaded movie format is good enough for most people. HD disks and CD disks will become the domain of video/audio enthusiasts who pay attention to high quality. For a true audio nut with $1000+ speakers, the iPod compressed sound is an abomination, but for millions of ordinary people it is plenty fine enough. All digital content will mostly be downloaded from cyberspace. This will be especially true when "Big Content" finally wakes up to forego the extra expense of DRM encumbered material.
....Bluray is going to be dead as a video medium.....
The future of ALL entertainment -- audio and video -- will be in cyberspace. Most music is now already purchased as a downloaded digital file, not on a piece of plastic. Movies are going that route also. Besides, the high definition by itself doesn't change the content of a given movie or TV program. Being able to tell that the news anchor or weather guy used a dull razor of forgot to shave altogether doesn't bring greater enjoyment of the program, now does it?
The biggest driver of sales of CDs and DVDs over cassettes and VHS, was NOT the markedly better sound/picture quality, but the convenience factor. No more mangled cassettes, ripped tapes, wear and dirty playback heads that needed periodic cleaning and waiting for rewinds, as you pointed out. This large factor is absent in the case of bluray, as well as the fact that the TV itself also has to be replaced for what is perceived as only a marginal increase in total value. Apparently, the survey in the article bears this out pretty well already.
...and charge sick people more but still not as much as their true cost....
Much sickness is due to lifestyle. How is a poor lifestyle compensated for? MUST those who have a healthier lifestyle subsidize those who choose to abuse their bodies with drugs, poor diet and lack of exercise?
How is healthcare anymore my responsibility than other necessities of life, such as food, clothing and shelter? Should society insure these also? Everybody gets these also through some sort of "insurance"?
For most of human history, it has been an individual pursuit to secure one's own livelihood, which includes health. If I can volunteer to help someone who has had some misfortune, that is one thing, but if my neighbors (society) FORCE me to take care of some who refuse to make an effort on their own, that is quite another thing and totally unacceptable.
We have some close friends living near by, whose house burned to the ground due to a faulty appliance about a month ago. They lost everything but their life. Neither they nor their landlord had any sort of insurance. We and many others in our community helped and are continuing to help them financially and with life's essentials. However, we are doing this voluntarily, not under coercion of a government decree.
Insurance is a good thing ONLY if it is voluntary, just as it is voluntary whether I go to a casino or not. Would you like it if your neighbors (society) decreed that you had to go to and gamble your money away every so often?
The fact that doctors often give substantial discounts to those who pay with cash on the barrelhead, proves that insurance increases medical costs. This sometimes also true of car repair after a fender-bender accident. The attitude: "Oh it's OK, after all it is insured" is fairly common these days.