We can only hope, for the good of all society, that this day comes soon.
How would this help our society? In one fell swoop, you would indeed remove the incentive for many, many, many, many great writers to publish as much as they do. Why should things of value be free just because you want them to be free? What if I said, "we can only hope, for the good of all society, that [whatever you do for a living] will be done for free in the future."
Does that change your perspective at all?
Luckily Google isn't looking to make all information free, just searchable.
Maybe you missed the news about how in spite of the hurricane damage to their equipment and the overtime repairs the oils companies somehow made record profits last quarter?
Is that surprising, considering demand is so high, world-wide?
The important question is, how much higher are their profit margins these last couple years, compared with those before? And why are they higher?
I still prefer CDs over downloads, in all their 'wasteful' uncompressed goodness. (my 20-year-old CDs still play just great, but will your iTunes downloads still be usable in that time, when software becomes incompatible, or you get locked out by DRM when your hard drive tanks and Apple doesn't feel like helping you out?) I generally only buy used, and only when it's not pseudo-DRM encrusted.
I have just as much likelihood of being locked out of 5 computers accidentally as you do of having your entire CD collection stolen. If I care that much about my music, I can burn them to CDs for backup purposes, and in all likelihood, worst case scenario, crack the DRM.
Yeah, and that was handled. Or do you have proof that they are still price-fixing? If so, please present it.
Not to mention other nastiness like payola.
Payola has nothing to do with high or low CD prices. However, payola definitely still occurs and WHO CARES. If a CD company wants to pay someone to play their record on the radio, why the fuck should I care? They can do this legally on satellite radio, why not land-based radio? As long as everyone knows the song placements are bought and paid for, I couldn't care less about payola.
You should try panic once in a while, get some experience as to how the real world works.
I've lived in Florida for 30 years. Is that enough experience for you?
The threat of increases in the price of any necessity (hell, anything) leads to panic buying. Look at gas sales before, during, and after a hurricane, look at house sales whenever interest rates look like they might go up. Making statements like this without understanding mob mentality or panic situations makes you look ignorant. Especially in reference to hurricanes and destruction.
Ummm, well I have some experience with hurricanes. You may recall the four that hit our state last year, and the one that hit our state this year? And that is just 2 out of 30 years. So permit me to speak on the subject.
Panic buying occurs, naturally. However, the curb to panic buying (hoarding, and eventually selling out of) gasoline is to allow the stations to raise the prices as the market dictates. Yet the first thing you hear in this situation from some clueless moron in office is "we will have no tolerance for 'price gouging!'" So the price is kept ARTIFICIALLY LOW, and everyone buys as much of it as they can git their hands on, creating shortages.
The free market is great at handling scarcity, if you let it work unhibited. Now imagine after a hurricane, the price of gas increases to $5 or $6 a gallon, based on demand. Now everyone starts buying just what they need to get buy, and the supply side is not slammed as hard, and then the price naturally decreases shortly afterward as supply is improved further and the trouble passes.
Do you think they'll spend money to build new refineries so they can make less money? Gasoline is mostly inelastic, they'll sell the same amount either way.
Actually, they'll keep selling more and more of it, because the demand for it is increasing. Since it is a free market (mostly), it is in their best interest to be able to refine more oil into gas so they can sell more of it, to keep up with the growing demand in the US and places like China.
If they build more refineries, and they can continue to increase the oil supply, they will absolutely make more money. The limiting factor for them now is refining capability, not supply.
I know it may be hard to believe, but just because gas prices and revenues are high doesn't mean profits will continue to increase. You have to look at their profit MARGINS, that is the only thing that matters really.
Now you have some government officials wanting to dip their hands into "excess profits" of the gas companies. I have two big issues with that: (1) Was the government giving the same oil companies money back when they were losing money in the 70's and 80's? Quid pro quo? (2) When you steal a company's profits, you are messing with the market in many subtle ways. They now have less money to pay shareholders, for one thing, and that is not just rich Texans, but mom and pop investors, old folks with retirement accounts, you and me, everyone. They have less money for R&D on alternate fuel sources (believe me, they have to plan for alternate fuel sources, because there's money to be made in those fields as well as oil). And most importantly, it's just not fair, it's not the American Way. If the government can come in and steal your legally gotten profits, there is less incentive to go into business. Private property rights must be held in high esteem, or this country is in for some troubled times.
The RIAA has kept the prices artifically high and you go along with it.
What does "artificially high" mean?
If we are "going along with it," that means this is a price the market will bear, and thus the prices are not too high. Incidentally, music CD's used to cost more. When they were new things, they were regularly in the $20's. Then it was high teens. Now it is low to high teens, and sometimes below that.
Also consider inflation, and you will see the actual price of a CD has indeed come down quite a bit over the years.
You probably also think gas prices in towns affected by hurricanes should be kept as low as they were before hurricanes, thereby creating gas shortages, rather than letting supply and demand to its thang, increasing the cost of a good that is in short supply to naturally curb hoarding.
The market is what it is. If you think CDs are "too expensive," don't buy them. If enough people agree, they'll come down in price or be replaced by similar technology that is less expensive.
Ummm... the service I am referring to is the fact that users will know a.mobi address is phone-safe. Just as they know they can go to a tradeshow, and all the booths at the show will adhere to certain standards.
When you buy a.mobi domain, you're buying a booth at a tradeshow.
In exchange for being promoted to a select group of people (mobile phone users), you are required to follow certain rules. If you don't like it, setup shop at another trade show (.com).
Oh, and don't listen to anyone who compares WoW's GMs with Slashdot's moderation system. Tell me, does WoW have meta-GMs??? If one GM slaps you down, can two more GMs bring you back up?
The GM on WoW is the equivalent not of moderation on Slashdot, but of the so-called "bitch-slap moderation," whereby your subsequent posts are all started at -1 from here to eternity, or whenever the bitch-slap is revoked.
So, yes, the folks that are comparing Slashdot's behavior to this example from WoW are right on target.
How about free will? Doesn't having free will also mean you have freedom of speech, regardless of what any law might or might not say?
Please yell "Fire!" in a crowded theatre using your free will.
Secondly, you missed my point. Any person that disagrees with this school's policy can remove their child. Any person 18 or older can remove themselves. Freedom of speech doesn't apply, this school is not the government.
The constitution doesn't grant us the right of free speech, it merely attempts to protect it.
You almost got it right. You left off three words: "... from the government." My reference to the constitution was because the person I was replying to was implying this was a free speech matter. "Free speech" is a reference to the Constitution.
Sorry I have to connect the dots like that, but my original post is at +1 Troll for some reason, so I don't want to leave any room for error here.
So you don't see any problems with countries conducting gross violation of human rights as long as they don't recieve your tax dollars?
Hello Mr. Strawman! What do "countries" have to do with this? This is a discussion of a private organization. Also, freedom of speech is not a human right, it's a constitutional right, and those apply to the government, not private organizations.
Which is a good reason not to go to a private school and actually work to improve your public school system.
Why should we pay taxes to the government to run the public school system AND have to "actually work to improve" them? Maybe the government shouldn't be in charge of schooling our children?
Of course, exactly the opposite is happening as people have lost all concept of community.
What does "community" have to do with government run public schools?
I think there's vastly more "community" in small private schools, where my children can go to other children in "my community."
If there's been a loss of the concept of community, it's precisely due to the government: people have stopped relying on each other and their own communities to help rear their children, and have instead decided they should just rely on good ol' government to do their jobs for them.
Might have had something to do with the fact that MsSql was branched of Sybase 4.0:-)
It is my understanding that SQL Server has been completely rewritten over the years and shares no code with the Sybase "fork" it started with years ago.
I've been using SQL Server since 7.0, and in my opinion it is the best piece of software Microsoft has ever released. SQL Server 2K is similarly great to use. Fingers crossed that SQL2K5 follows through.
Another, previous poster under the story "WSJ approves of iPod nano" or some-such quoted Mossberg, who could (paraphrasing, here...) "hear his iPod nano with crystal clarity while flying down the freeway @ 70 with the top down in his convertible." Which is funny, because that's exactly the setup I would use to assess clarity and quality, driving at 70 with all that wind noise.
Actually if instead of paraphrasing from memory you actually read the article again, you'd know he was assessing what he thought of as the power of the little device, what he perceived as its ability to output enough sound to be heard with his top down at 70mph. Although most techies understand this isn't really an amazing feat, he surely wasn't trying to assess the "clarity" of the sound in that environment, which would truly be stupid.
Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player
on
Video iPod Screen Test
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I don't know why the guy is that surprised.... I think the guy probably has IBM Good and Apple Bad idea stuck in his head from the 80s
Mossberg generally likes Apple products, read his past reviews of other ipods.
No, I think he used "surprisingly" in the context of "here is a small video screen that is surprisingly good quality," not meaning that he was surprised due to it coming from Apple.
Honestly, I have never in my life heard someone call a non-Apple mp3 player an iPod.
That'd be like me pointing to my Camry and saying, "How do you like my Lexus?"
Sorry, it just doesn't happen in the real world.
I *have* heard people call regular DVR's "TiVo," but that makes sense since TiVo basically created its market, as well as dominated it. Apple didn't create the mp3 market.
The point is not that they take free content and provide infrastructure around it. The point is that *it started out as a completely free user-to-user community* and then became corporate infrastructure, just like CDDB.
How is IMDB any different to the end-user that submits the information than it was when it started? I have noticed absolutely no difference. I could submit info before, I could search info before, and I can still do both now. For free. And because they are the best game in town, the data gets better and better.
Slashdot Mirror
We can only hope, for the good of all society, that this day comes soon.
How would this help our society? In one fell swoop, you would indeed remove the incentive for many, many, many, many great writers to publish as much as they do. Why should things of value be free just because you want them to be free? What if I said, "we can only hope, for the good of all society, that [whatever you do for a living] will be done for free in the future."
Does that change your perspective at all?
Luckily Google isn't looking to make all information free, just searchable.
Dude, I just saw U2 last night, and I can say without a doubt that Bono, not to mention The Edge, are definitely Irish Catholic.
However, Larry Mullen, Jr. does have shift eyes, so he may indeed be a Scientologist.
Maybe you missed the news about how in spite of the hurricane damage to their equipment and the overtime repairs the oils companies somehow made record profits last quarter?
Is that surprising, considering demand is so high, world-wide?
The important question is, how much higher are their profit margins these last couple years, compared with those before? And why are they higher?
I still prefer CDs over downloads, in all their 'wasteful' uncompressed goodness. (my 20-year-old CDs still play just great, but will your iTunes downloads still be usable in that time, when software becomes incompatible, or you get locked out by DRM when your hard drive tanks and Apple doesn't feel like helping you out?) I generally only buy used, and only when it's not pseudo-DRM encrusted.
I have just as much likelihood of being locked out of 5 computers accidentally as you do of having your entire CD collection stolen. If I care that much about my music, I can burn them to CDs for backup purposes, and in all likelihood, worst case scenario, crack the DRM.
That they were caught price-fixing.
:)
Yeah, and that was handled. Or do you have proof that they are still price-fixing? If so, please present it.
Not to mention other nastiness like payola.
Payola has nothing to do with high or low CD prices. However, payola definitely still occurs and WHO CARES. If a CD company wants to pay someone to play their record on the radio, why the fuck should I care? They can do this legally on satellite radio, why not land-based radio? As long as everyone knows the song placements are bought and paid for, I couldn't care less about payola.
Care to revise that economics lecture now?
Don't need to.
You should try panic once in a while, get some experience as to how the real world works.
I've lived in Florida for 30 years. Is that enough experience for you?
The threat of increases in the price of any necessity (hell, anything) leads to panic buying. Look at gas sales before, during, and after a hurricane, look at house sales whenever interest rates look like they might go up. Making statements like this without understanding mob mentality or panic situations makes you look ignorant. Especially in reference to hurricanes and destruction.
Ummm, well I have some experience with hurricanes. You may recall the four that hit our state last year, and the one that hit our state this year? And that is just 2 out of 30 years. So permit me to speak on the subject.
Panic buying occurs, naturally. However, the curb to panic buying (hoarding, and eventually selling out of) gasoline is to allow the stations to raise the prices as the market dictates. Yet the first thing you hear in this situation from some clueless moron in office is "we will have no tolerance for 'price gouging!'" So the price is kept ARTIFICIALLY LOW, and everyone buys as much of it as they can git their hands on, creating shortages.
The free market is great at handling scarcity, if you let it work unhibited. Now imagine after a hurricane, the price of gas increases to $5 or $6 a gallon, based on demand. Now everyone starts buying just what they need to get buy, and the supply side is not slammed as hard, and then the price naturally decreases shortly afterward as supply is improved further and the trouble passes.
Do you think they'll spend money to build new refineries so they can make less money? Gasoline is mostly inelastic, they'll sell the same amount either way.
Actually, they'll keep selling more and more of it, because the demand for it is increasing. Since it is a free market (mostly), it is in their best interest to be able to refine more oil into gas so they can sell more of it, to keep up with the growing demand in the US and places like China.
If they build more refineries, and they can continue to increase the oil supply, they will absolutely make more money. The limiting factor for them now is refining capability, not supply.
I know it may be hard to believe, but just because gas prices and revenues are high doesn't mean profits will continue to increase. You have to look at their profit MARGINS, that is the only thing that matters really.
Now you have some government officials wanting to dip their hands into "excess profits" of the gas companies. I have two big issues with that: (1) Was the government giving the same oil companies money back when they were losing money in the 70's and 80's? Quid pro quo? (2) When you steal a company's profits, you are messing with the market in many subtle ways. They now have less money to pay shareholders, for one thing, and that is not just rich Texans, but mom and pop investors, old folks with retirement accounts, you and me, everyone. They have less money for R&D on alternate fuel sources (believe me, they have to plan for alternate fuel sources, because there's money to be made in those fields as well as oil). And most importantly, it's just not fair, it's not the American Way. If the government can come in and steal your legally gotten profits, there is less incentive to go into business. Private property rights must be held in high esteem, or this country is in for some troubled times.
Interpret that how you will, but I take it to mean apple wants to offer a larger number of TV shows for download to your Mac or PC.
Thank you, Captain Obvious. How on Earth did you achieve such glorious insight? You must be Steve Jobs's right-hand man.
Apple wants to sell more stuff on iTunes, news at 11.
The RIAA has kept the prices artifically high and you go along with it.
What does "artificially high" mean?
If we are "going along with it," that means this is a price the market will bear, and thus the prices are not too high. Incidentally, music CD's used to cost more. When they were new things, they were regularly in the $20's. Then it was high teens. Now it is low to high teens, and sometimes below that.
Also consider inflation, and you will see the actual price of a CD has indeed come down quite a bit over the years.
You probably also think gas prices in towns affected by hurricanes should be kept as low as they were before hurricanes, thereby creating gas shortages, rather than letting supply and demand to its thang, increasing the cost of a good that is in short supply to naturally curb hoarding.
The market is what it is. If you think CDs are "too expensive," don't buy them. If enough people agree, they'll come down in price or be replaced by similar technology that is less expensive.
Ummm... the service I am referring to is the fact that users will know a .mobi address is phone-safe. Just as they know they can go to a tradeshow, and all the booths at the show will adhere to certain standards.
And let ME try again. Them policing the content IS PART OF THE SERVICE.
When you buy a .mobi domain, you're buying a booth at a tradeshow.
In exchange for being promoted to a select group of people (mobile phone users), you are required to follow certain rules. If you don't like it, setup shop at another trade show (.com).
Obligatory Link
No, this is not news. I'll give you some news.
SULU IS GAY! (CNN was able to really summarize the article in the picture of Mr. Takei giving the gayest 'vulcan hand signal' EVER.)
This brings new meaning to the question, "Are their Klingons around Uranus?"
Welllll Sulu, are there?
Oh, and don't listen to anyone who compares WoW's GMs with Slashdot's moderation system. Tell me, does WoW have meta-GMs??? If one GM slaps you down, can two more GMs bring you back up?
The GM on WoW is the equivalent not of moderation on Slashdot, but of the so-called "bitch-slap moderation," whereby your subsequent posts are all started at -1 from here to eternity, or whenever the bitch-slap is revoked.
So, yes, the folks that are comparing Slashdot's behavior to this example from WoW are right on target.
You must be old here.
How about free will? Doesn't having free will also mean you have freedom of speech, regardless of what any law might or might not say?
Please yell "Fire!" in a crowded theatre using your free will.
Secondly, you missed my point. Any person that disagrees with this school's policy can remove their child. Any person 18 or older can remove themselves. Freedom of speech doesn't apply, this school is not the government.
The constitution doesn't grant us the right of free speech, it merely attempts to protect it.
You almost got it right. You left off three words: "... from the government." My reference to the constitution was because the person I was replying to was implying this was a free speech matter. "Free speech" is a reference to the Constitution.
Sorry I have to connect the dots like that, but my original post is at +1 Troll for some reason, so I don't want to leave any room for error here.
So you don't see any problems with countries conducting gross violation of human rights as long as they don't recieve your tax dollars?
Hello Mr. Strawman! What do "countries" have to do with this? This is a discussion of a private organization. Also, freedom of speech is not a human right, it's a constitutional right, and those apply to the government, not private organizations.
Which is a good reason not to go to a private school and actually work to improve your public school system.
Why should we pay taxes to the government to run the public school system AND have to "actually work to improve" them? Maybe the government shouldn't be in charge of schooling our children?
Of course, exactly the opposite is happening as people have lost all concept of community.
What does "community" have to do with government run public schools?
I think there's vastly more "community" in small private schools, where my children can go to other children in "my community."
If there's been a loss of the concept of community, it's precisely due to the government: people have stopped relying on each other and their own communities to help rear their children, and have instead decided they should just rely on good ol' government to do their jobs for them.
and what exactly is the problem with google answers?
Nothing. The parent poster has fallen into the typical Slashdot geek trap of thinking "if I don't use it, it must not be popular."
Primal cravings make people do strange and stupid things. They made me build a Windows Media Center PC. ... snip ...
The first secret is that you need to scam your way into getting a copy of Windows XP Media Edition 2005, which is only sold to OEMs.
I bet if this guy tried to build a real TiVo, it might suck as well.
Perhaps windows media center is sold to OEMs only because they are the ones that know how the machines have to be built to work properly?
Reviews like this are why Apple will never license MacOS X for PCs.
Might have had something to do with the fact that MsSql was branched of Sybase 4.0 :-)
It is my understanding that SQL Server has been completely rewritten over the years and shares no code with the Sybase "fork" it started with years ago.
I've been using SQL Server since 7.0, and in my opinion it is the best piece of software Microsoft has ever released. SQL Server 2K is similarly great to use. Fingers crossed that SQL2K5 follows through.
Another, previous poster under the story "WSJ approves of iPod nano" or some-such quoted Mossberg, who could (paraphrasing, here...) "hear his iPod nano with crystal clarity while flying down the freeway @ 70 with the top down in his convertible." Which is funny, because that's exactly the setup I would use to assess clarity and quality, driving at 70 with all that wind noise.
Actually if instead of paraphrasing from memory you actually read the article again, you'd know he was assessing what he thought of as the power of the little device, what he perceived as its ability to output enough sound to be heard with his top down at 70mph. Although most techies understand this isn't really an amazing feat, he surely wasn't trying to assess the "clarity" of the sound in that environment, which would truly be stupid.
I don't know why the guy is that surprised.... I think the guy probably has IBM Good and Apple Bad idea stuck in his head from the 80s
Mossberg generally likes Apple products, read his past reviews of other ipods.
No, I think he used "surprisingly" in the context of "here is a small video screen that is surprisingly good quality," not meaning that he was surprised due to it coming from Apple.
Honestly, I have never in my life heard someone call a non-Apple mp3 player an iPod.
That'd be like me pointing to my Camry and saying, "How do you like my Lexus?"
Sorry, it just doesn't happen in the real world.
I *have* heard people call regular DVR's "TiVo," but that makes sense since TiVo basically created its market, as well as dominated it. Apple didn't create the mp3 market.
The point is not that they take free content and provide infrastructure around it. The point is that *it started out as a completely free user-to-user community* and then became corporate infrastructure, just like CDDB.
How is IMDB any different to the end-user that submits the information than it was when it started? I have noticed absolutely no difference. I could submit info before, I could search info before, and I can still do both now. For free. And because they are the best game in town, the data gets better and better.