No, I'm pretty sure it just makes you consume vast amounts of caffeine and junk food until you're fat, causes you to spend all your time indoors so you're ablino pale, and revokes your ability to talk to girls.
What if all of these people clutched their ideas to their chest and said "This is MY piece and you have to pay me to use it"?
They do. Specifically, Microsoft does all the time. The answer to your question is:
Some people would pay them, and other people would come up with a different idea.
Seems to be working okay so far. The 1% of the population that hangs out on slashdot complaining all the time doesn't make me think that the entire concept of patenting protocols is flawed. Nor do I think that Cisco is really "running against the philosophy that built the Internet in the first place." I assume we're not talking about ARPA, but rather the modern Internet. Huge portions of today's internet run on Cisco switches and routers, running CDP, STP, and EIGRP. Nor were the fiber backbones laid for free. Sometimes stuff costs money. Yes, even ideas. If you're not willing to pay, don't. If most people aren't willing to pay, then another way will be found
Yes. We're talking about economies here, so the question isn't whether or not something is possible, but whether or not it is worth the effort.
As I see it, even with "HYMN", or whatever they're calling it by the time I post this, the piracy angle still requires that some guy actually pay for music off iTunes, then run the DRM-removal tool, then share the files.
I don't think the vast p2p community existed because every user was driven to go out of their way for the glory of fighting RIAA (although many of the crowd around here might). I figure they were people who ripped CDs for their own convenience (like I do), then figured they might as well share those files while they were trying to download others. If you want a demonstration of how lazy the average p2p source user is, look at how often the encoding quality is poor, or the tags are mislabeled.
I figure by adding an extra step, they're actually reducing the degree to which their files get shared, substantially. Sure, it's not 100% protection, but it doesn't have to be. It just has to be enough to run a business.
Yeah, I went the other way. I HATED the "hold a button to point upwards, keep holding it, then press down to point downwards" of the two GBA Metroid games. I wanted my L-is-down R-is-up config back. I also preferred selecting missles or super missles to just having gradually upgraded missles.
And I liked the controls better on SOTN than in Aria of Sorrow.
I guess it comes down to personal preference. But I would think it would be better to have four buttons and try to simplify your game's interface to only use two of them, rather than to have two buttons and be forced to cram your complicated interface into an insufficient controller.
I don't begrudge anyone their crazy new features. If you want to play Splinter Cell, or watch TV, or take pictures, or check the attenuation of Cat 5 cables. But I want a better PHONE.
I mean I want an earpiece with good volume, which fits comfortably against the ear, and a connection over which I can speak clearly without distortion or delay. I personally use Verizon Wireless, but I don't think I've ever spoken to anyone on their cellphone, regardless of their carrier, and had the quality be near landline quality. I'm not an expert at the wireless signaling technology involved, but I would assume that there is some way to improve signal quality, though obviously at some cost. All I'm saying is that I'm willing to put my money into that cost, rather than into a digital camera, web-enabled, voice-recognizing gadget. I can get that from an actual digital camera or a PDA. I want a friggin' cellphone that works like a normal phone.
I think HTML needs a sarcasm tag, which causes the text to appear somehow different, maybe dripping. It seems that many slashdot readers are unable to detect the irony simply from the content of the text.
And you are a fool if you dont realize that Nielsen's ratings are the word of God as far as network television is concerned, focus groups my ass.
Well, the weight of your totally unsupported rhetoric and simplified assumptions has convinced me. You must be right, you use so many impressive words, like "cohort". I guess I am indeed a fool. Maybe I can get one of those colorful hats with the bells on the ends...
I am writing you due to the story that I read at the New York Post that you are considering raising the price for songs and albums at the iTunes Music Store
Dear Mr. Roy,
I'm sorry, did you say the New York Post? Seriously? And you noticed that part "could rise to $1.25, according to sources familiar with the negotiations"
See, here's the thing. The New York Post... not exactly the same as the New York Times, and even they are getting unreliable these days. And the part where they're extremely vague, that should have tipped you off as well.
On the other hand, the ten times where Steve Jobs stated clearly and in public that prices would not rise, that seems at least a little bit credible.
In conclusion, please keep buying our products, but please stop writing us letters about every crazy tabloid story you hear on slashdot.
Respectfully,
P.R. Flakington
Apple Public Relations
Note to slashdot readers: Read the article. Notice the sources. Apply skepticism before righteous indignation.
No. 40% correct information is not useless. It's 40% better than no information at all. I agree, that's still really crappy, but there isn't a better alternative.
This one monopoly gets to make up numbers any way it sees fit
No, it doesn't. You can accuse Nielsen of being inaccurate, but there aren't any credible (the tinfoil-clad need not apply) accusations of it making up numbers to fit some agenda it holds.
Nielsen Media isn't some government regime with FCC shock-troops at its disposal in case the networks disobey its fiat. It's a private group that provides a commercial service. As long as the networks feel they are getting accurate information from Nielsen, they'll keep reading it. If Nielsen "decides" to report that a special about Ralph Nader is the most watched program ever, in order to drive Nader-related programming and push the Green Party's agenda, the networks will tell them they're crazy and stop listening to what they say. Meanwhile, they already are using other methods (cable company feedback, focus groups, etc...) to gather more data. The Nielsen ratings are just one source of information. Useful, but hardly complete.
If you think you can do better, there's a couple companies probably willing to give you millions of dollars. I suggest you put your money where your conspiracy theory is.
I don't give a damn if my neighbor's Windows XP is falling apart
Yes, but you're not representative of the majority of Windows users. So Microsoft and most of their customers don't give a damn about what you don't give a damn about.
Legitimate (as in, paid for their copy) Windows users who don't patch their machines (be it out of ignorance, convenience, or fear that the updates will break their current applications) benefit from having a larger percentage of the other Windows machines patched. It works just like disease innoculation. If you're not innoculated, but 95% of the population is, then you're safe. The question at hand is:
Does that benefit outweigh (in Microsoft's view) the "benefit" of fighting piracy?
Whether or not fighting piracy is really a benefit or not is another question, and one which Microsoft has already decided on (although I generally disagree with them in that decision). Having decided that it's a benefit, I expect that the only way they'll consider it worthwhile to allow updates on pirated copies is if the announcement can be made in the name of "helping the community fight malicious worm outbreaks", in an attempt to offset the bad publicity the worms are creating.
Will that happen? I dunno, I'd say it's fifty-fifty.
And while you're at it, keep in mind that privacy advocates will scream about it if you want to gather any data without each person's express permission. And that if you only gather with express permission, you're already biasing your sample against people with privacy concerns.
Given the choice between bad information, a legally-questionably publicity-scandal-invoking scheme, and no information, Nielsen chooses bad information. Gee, those dicks.
I don't understand why people keep complaining that they're merging it with G4. As far as I can tell, G4 produces about an hour or two a day of decent content, stretched across the entire day. I'm a pretty avid gamer, and I know other pretty avid gamers, and I read gamer sites. I don't know anyone who genuinely likes G4.
What it really needs is to be compressed into a couple hours of programming, and totally retooled. It sounds like that's exactly what's going to happen. I say good for them. TechTV might have a decent hour or two of gaming related shows, rather than a whole other network of gaming related crap.
Yeah, I'm a Google fan. Sometimes the library is better - but not for factoid lookups or finding out what the Royal Wessex couple did on Tuesday.
Especially if, like me, you didn't recognize those names and know who they were. I wouldn't even know where to start looking at the library, or who to call on the phone, but just punching the names into Google would have told me.
Security holes in any system will come out more quickly when more people use it. The fact that Apple can (usually) find and fix security holes before they are made publicly known might just stem from the fact that their user base is smaller than Microsoft's and therefore their security holes are more obscure (in terms of publicity, not coding content).
It's not just popularity, (although that is an important point, which has been made many times before). Most of the big deal worms (Blaster, Sasser, etc...) were developed after Microsoft published the vulnerability. The vulnerability wasn't found simply because of Windows' popularity.
Microsoft is finding its security holes faster than the the people exploiting them, and they're publishing the fixes for those holes. The two real problems are:
1) People who don't apply those fixes, which sometimes happens because:
2) The fixes that they release sometimes break other software.
That's a legitimate gripe, but I'm not sure how prevalent it is. I suspect that a very small percentage of unpatched machines are unpatched because the patch was found to break that machine's necessary functions.
This is not the cue for five posts saying "that happened in my company". Your anecdotal evidence does not constitute proof about the majority. My experience (also limited, not statistically valid proof, but it's what I'll use until better evidence surfaces) leads me to belive that most unpatched Windows machines are unpatched because the person responsible for patching them:
1) Doesn't know it needs patching
2) Doesn't know how to patch it
3) Doesn't think it's worth their trouble to patch it
Slashdot Mirror
No, I'm pretty sure it just makes you consume vast amounts of caffeine and junk food until you're fat, causes you to spend all your time indoors so you're ablino pale, and revokes your ability to talk to girls.
What if all of these people clutched their ideas to their chest and said "This is MY piece and you have to pay me to use it"?
They do. Specifically, Microsoft does all the time. The answer to your question is:
Some people would pay them, and other people would come up with a different idea.
Seems to be working okay so far. The 1% of the population that hangs out on slashdot complaining all the time doesn't make me think that the entire concept of patenting protocols is flawed. Nor do I think that Cisco is really "running against the philosophy that built the Internet in the first place." I assume we're not talking about ARPA, but rather the modern Internet. Huge portions of today's internet run on Cisco switches and routers, running CDP, STP, and EIGRP. Nor were the fiber backbones laid for free. Sometimes stuff costs money. Yes, even ideas. If you're not willing to pay, don't. If most people aren't willing to pay, then another way will be found
You do realize that every Zelda except for the N64 ones had a cartoon look to it, right?
Not to mention that there was an actual Zelda cartoon.
I believe the term is Ninjarific.
Yes.
We're talking about economies here, so the question isn't whether or not something is possible, but whether or not it is worth the effort.
As I see it, even with "HYMN", or whatever they're calling it by the time I post this, the piracy angle still requires that some guy actually pay for music off iTunes, then run the DRM-removal tool, then share the files.
I don't think the vast p2p community existed because every user was driven to go out of their way for the glory of fighting RIAA (although many of the crowd around here might). I figure they were people who ripped CDs for their own convenience (like I do), then figured they might as well share those files while they were trying to download others. If you want a demonstration of how lazy the average p2p source user is, look at how often the encoding quality is poor, or the tags are mislabeled.
I figure by adding an extra step, they're actually reducing the degree to which their files get shared, substantially. Sure, it's not 100% protection, but it doesn't have to be. It just has to be enough to run a business.
Yeah, I went the other way.
I HATED the "hold a button to point upwards, keep holding it, then press down to point downwards" of the two GBA Metroid games. I wanted my L-is-down R-is-up config back. I also preferred selecting missles or super missles to just having gradually upgraded missles.
And I liked the controls better on SOTN than in Aria of Sorrow.
I guess it comes down to personal preference. But I would think it would be better to have four buttons and try to simplify your game's interface to only use two of them, rather than to have two buttons and be forced to cram your complicated interface into an insufficient controller.
I don't begrudge anyone their crazy new features. If you want to play Splinter Cell, or watch TV, or take pictures, or check the attenuation of Cat 5 cables. But I want a better PHONE.
I mean I want an earpiece with good volume, which fits comfortably against the ear, and a connection over which I can speak clearly without distortion or delay. I personally use Verizon Wireless, but I don't think I've ever spoken to anyone on their cellphone, regardless of their carrier, and had the quality be near landline quality. I'm not an expert at the wireless signaling technology involved, but I would assume that there is some way to improve signal quality, though obviously at some cost. All I'm saying is that I'm willing to put my money into that cost, rather than into a digital camera, web-enabled, voice-recognizing gadget. I can get that from an actual digital camera or a PDA. I want a friggin' cellphone that works like a normal phone.
I think HTML needs a sarcasm tag, which causes the text to appear somehow different, maybe dripping. It seems that many slashdot readers are unable to detect the irony simply from the content of the text.
Virtual economist Edward Castronova also comments
Virtual economist?
Is that like: "I'm not an economist, but I play one online" ?
Linus Torvalds - I don't need to say who he is - but why isn't he there either.
Was he that other kid with Charlie Brown, in Peanuts?
And you are a fool if you dont realize that Nielsen's ratings are the word of God as far as network television is concerned, focus groups my ass.
Well, the weight of your totally unsupported rhetoric and simplified assumptions has convinced me. You must be right, you use so many impressive words, like "cohort". I guess I am indeed a fool. Maybe I can get one of those colorful hats with the bells on the ends...
Dear Apple,
I am writing you due to the story that I read at the New York Post that you are considering raising the price for songs and albums at the iTunes Music Store
Dear Mr. Roy,
I'm sorry, did you say the New York Post? Seriously? And you noticed that part "could rise to $1.25, according to sources familiar with the negotiations"
See, here's the thing. The New York Post... not exactly the same as the New York Times, and even they are getting unreliable these days. And the part where they're extremely vague, that should have tipped you off as well.
On the other hand, the ten times where Steve Jobs stated clearly and in public that prices would not rise, that seems at least a little bit credible.
In conclusion, please keep buying our products, but please stop writing us letters about every crazy tabloid story you hear on slashdot.
Respectfully,
P.R. Flakington
Apple Public Relations
Note to slashdot readers: Read the article. Notice the sources. Apply skepticism before righteous indignation.
Which makes it not only useless
No. 40% correct information is not useless. It's 40% better than no information at all. I agree, that's still really crappy, but there isn't a better alternative.
This one monopoly gets to make up numbers any way it sees fit
No, it doesn't. You can accuse Nielsen of being inaccurate, but there aren't any credible (the tinfoil-clad need not apply) accusations of it making up numbers to fit some agenda it holds.
Nielsen Media isn't some government regime with FCC shock-troops at its disposal in case the networks disobey its fiat. It's a private group that provides a commercial service. As long as the networks feel they are getting accurate information from Nielsen, they'll keep reading it. If Nielsen "decides" to report that a special about Ralph Nader is the most watched program ever, in order to drive Nader-related programming and push the Green Party's agenda, the networks will tell them they're crazy and stop listening to what they say. Meanwhile, they already are using other methods (cable company feedback, focus groups, etc...) to gather more data. The Nielsen ratings are just one source of information. Useful, but hardly complete.
If you think you can do better, there's a couple companies probably willing to give you millions of dollars. I suggest you put your money where your conspiracy theory is.
I don't give a damn if my neighbor's Windows XP is falling apart
Yes, but you're not representative of the majority of Windows users. So Microsoft and most of their customers don't give a damn about what you don't give a damn about.
Legitimate (as in, paid for their copy) Windows users who don't patch their machines (be it out of ignorance, convenience, or fear that the updates will break their current applications) benefit from having a larger percentage of the other Windows machines patched. It works just like disease innoculation. If you're not innoculated, but 95% of the population is, then you're safe. The question at hand is:
Does that benefit outweigh (in Microsoft's view) the "benefit" of fighting piracy?
Whether or not fighting piracy is really a benefit or not is another question, and one which Microsoft has already decided on (although I generally disagree with them in that decision). Having decided that it's a benefit, I expect that the only way they'll consider it worthwhile to allow updates on pirated copies is if the announcement can be made in the name of "helping the community fight malicious worm outbreaks", in an attempt to offset the bad publicity the worms are creating.
Will that happen? I dunno, I'd say it's fifty-fifty.
[comic-book-guy]
Worst. Channel. EVER.
[/comic-book-guy]
And while you're at it, keep in mind that privacy advocates will scream about it if you want to gather any data without each person's express permission. And that if you only gather with express permission, you're already biasing your sample against people with privacy concerns.
Given the choice between bad information, a legally-questionably publicity-scandal-invoking scheme, and no information, Nielsen chooses bad information. Gee, those dicks.
Yeah, imagine that.
Sales and ratings are better at convincing companies to do stuff than petitions are.
I've got an idea, why don't we start a petition to increase the effectiveness of petitions?
I don't understand why people keep complaining that they're merging it with G4. As far as I can tell, G4 produces about an hour or two a day of decent content, stretched across the entire day. I'm a pretty avid gamer, and I know other pretty avid gamers, and I read gamer sites. I don't know anyone who genuinely likes G4.
What it really needs is to be compressed into a couple hours of programming, and totally retooled. It sounds like that's exactly what's going to happen. I say good for them. TechTV might have a decent hour or two of gaming related shows, rather than a whole other network of gaming related crap.
what next news flash, there is Oxygen in the atmosphere?
"Press release from Linux company disagrees with statements made by SCO."
"RIAA sues copyright infringers"
"Government agency monitors communications"
and "Microsoft press release claims Windows is really good."
After all, paying engineers is obviosly more costly than paying hores.
Hey... I think you're on to something, since you could probably find engineers who would work in exchange for whores.
Google is google no matter where you live
That's not true. I hear that in Soviet Russia, Google searches you.
Yeah, I'm a Google fan. Sometimes the library is better - but not for factoid lookups or finding out what the Royal Wessex couple did on Tuesday.
Especially if, like me, you didn't recognize those names and know who they were. I wouldn't even know where to start looking at the library, or who to call on the phone, but just punching the names into Google would have told me.
Don't anthropomorphize computers.
They hate it when you do that.
[this joke wasn't "stolen", it was "shared"]
Great post. We need more like this, with links to evidence instead of rhetoric.
However, the microsoft.com link you provided yields a "not found". Has the page been removed in the last two hours, or is there a mistake in the link?
Security holes in any system will come out more quickly when more people use it. The fact that Apple can (usually) find and fix security holes before they are made publicly known might just stem from the fact that their user base is smaller than Microsoft's and therefore their security holes are more obscure (in terms of publicity, not coding content).
It's not just popularity, (although that is an important point, which has been made many times before). Most of the big deal worms (Blaster, Sasser, etc...) were developed after Microsoft published the vulnerability. The vulnerability wasn't found simply because of Windows' popularity.
Microsoft is finding its security holes faster than the the people exploiting them, and they're publishing the fixes for those holes. The two real problems are:
1) People who don't apply those fixes, which sometimes happens because:
2) The fixes that they release sometimes break other software.
That's a legitimate gripe, but I'm not sure how prevalent it is. I suspect that a very small percentage of unpatched machines are unpatched because the patch was found to break that machine's necessary functions.
This is not the cue for five posts saying "that happened in my company". Your anecdotal evidence does not constitute proof about the majority. My experience (also limited, not statistically valid proof, but it's what I'll use until better evidence surfaces) leads me to belive that most unpatched Windows machines are unpatched because the person responsible for patching them:
1) Doesn't know it needs patching
2) Doesn't know how to patch it
3) Doesn't think it's worth their trouble to patch it