that's amazing. I grew up in a area that was far below the US average income. in fact, we did actually car pool growing up and most of us ran cars on just a few bucks of gas to spare money for other things. but my god, we still went out to eat, rented movies, went to movie theaters......
but there was this amazing thing that most of us had to supply us the disposable income to go out to dinner(even if going out to dinner meant DQ), we called it a part time job and yes, they are out there even if they aren't fun or rewarding. Now I think you are making a big leap from what I was saying, so I'll say it again.
The parent didn't say his sister was destitute, he was trying to make the point that she bought music when it it fell in line with her preferences ( and implied as soon as she had the money, she bought the music so in fact, she didn't cause a negative impact). my point was simple, if she does have disposable income to do other things, then its just a choice and suddenly, there is a negative impact because the ability to download distorts those choices.
I was a teenager once without the most full of pockets. I made my choices on how to spend the money I had and it wasn't ever all on one item. if I had the chance of getting something small for free to free up money elsewhere, I took it. I"m not saying its not commonly done.
oh wait, you wanted me to take the OP literally when he said his sister was saving pennies to buy music. look up the word hyperbole. its extremely pertinent to the OP.
depends, took me a while to figure out why they said inverse, and it may have been that they were working with vector math. and the inverse in vector math is exactly what its doing. since it was graphics code, I'd bet it came from there. but who knows. anyways, inverse sounds cooler.
problem is, I'm betting your sister is destitute, barely making ends meet, and spending her only free income on music ( I can just see it, deciding between 20 cent ramen tonight or adding to the music money jar).
I don't mean to make fun of your sister is that, its just that as long as she is like most consumers, I'm willing to bet she spends her extra(even if meager) money on a myriad of options: dinner with friends, going to movies, concerts, trips, shopping, etc). As long as she is doing that, then the free option easily distorts her current rationing of her income, at least somewhat away from music. of course, this doesn't mean the CD won't every be purchased, but the lower demand it incites currently does hurt the **AA ability to have monopolistic pricing.
of course, if you sister really already puts 100% of her discretionary income towards music, then you are right, the free option is meaningless to her. As you the point about you, I cannot really say. That would take a study of your current listening habits compared to before you started downloading along with a more comprehensive comparison of your purchasing decisions during those times. so I concede that as at the best, not provable(from my perspective).
so in other words you are trying to actually say this poor poor girl has no other money (besides what goes to necessities like food, water, housing, medical care) and whose only discretionary purchase she ever makes is music?
Think about that for a second. as long as she is like most western consumers, she has a myriad of things she spends her disposable income on(going to movies, dinners, trips with friends, shopping, concerts, music, etc), then it does distort her choices. She can fill one of those discretionary areas at any time (at least partially, because she enjoys listening to and legally owning the music) then she can move some desired spending away from that category, even if for a short time.
oh wait, you were thinking she is destitute, living on the street, and going almost hungry, but still finds time to every now and then save up 15 bucks to get a CD (I believe that is the going rate for most new CD's now, right?) . So I guess my tirade only applies to about every other consumer of music.....
that's all good and well but you are still cutting into their revenues. In the end, your ability to continue to consume the content(or more relevant, your sister's) and millions like her force the labels to lower prices from a very early stage to try adn make the initial sales while the movie is only moderately good. The ability to satiate that desire to see the movie makes it a difficult proposition to continue to have new releases at extremely high prices.
So while your sister and millions like her may be willing to spend their pennies on the music when its available, its very difficult to actually argue she isn't hurting the industry by receiving a free option to wait. The downward price pressure the weaker sales environment is providing does cut into profits.
Your situation is still creating a similar market environment. you say you download when you see a song you want, but don't have to have. that is all and well, but you are again getting a free option to wait. either for a lower price on that given good, or until your tastes move away. compared to a situation in which you did not have that particular option, there would definitely be some goods on the margin you would end up buying at some point(not all, and maybe only a small minority, but there would definitely be some non-zero amount. now, there exists a similar counter argument. there is equually the possibility that music you downloaded evolved into a must have song that you ended up buying. Again, this still has the embedded value you received of being able to wait but is probably offset by the added revenue the practice brought.
now let me say, I'm not condemning what you or your sister does and I'm not saying that the **AA don't have some shit business tactics, but there are real negative effects out there that seem to just get discounted. The current legal system does extend monopolistic pricing power to the **AA for an extended period of time on music (and personally, I think its horse shit how far it has been extended) but that is the system we are in. Every circumvention can very well be seen as a direct negative impact from their view point(even though there may be secondary positive effects whose magnitude is probably more difficult to determine).
Now there are those who rampantly pirate everythign they can get their hands on, but then again, they are just like your sister. They aren't willing to spend money at current prices and will wait till they ahve enough to spend. Every rampant pirater I have ever known (one standing at some 500 GB of music and movies on hard drives nad a few hundred cd's beyond that collection) owns some content. They just don't have the money on hand to buy the music today. Worse yet, they fall very close to you, in that once they do have the money, they generally don't care about the music any more(and it gets off loaded onto cd for some later time). So just because they are a bit more extreme in their preferences doesn't make them worlds apart in preferences to you.
but the idea that these people are the real threat is not a stance that has any rigorous proof. People have been violating copyrights by illegally reselling music for a long time(and on pretty large scales in many foreign countries). I'd say the danger is similar to what the pharmaceutical companies worry about. Pirating in a poor country is something to work against in a very small way, but when the pirating effects the main profit centers, its time to take up the fight. AllofMP3 was doubtfully attacked because lots of Russian and Asian citizens were using it to download music. It was most likely a target because it offered its services to markets the **AA wanted closed to its monopoly pricing to guarantee its profits. Well, I take that back. That's all my opinion but I'm sure one day we will find out what they were discussing behind closed doors during this time.
thanks. its just a pet peeve of mine when people lump good cops in with the bad. but of course, I freely admit there are lots of people out there that shouldn't be cops because they believe it makes them judge, jury, and once in a while executioner.
the belief that it is always proper to quietly follow the rules is inherently saying that any form of civil disobedience is wrong. Since that is obviously what you implied with your post, I thought I'd just give you an example of who you sounded like(mainly, a couple of my neighbors from where I grew up). They were all very nice to me and I'm not white or Christian, but they inherently believed standing up for your basic rights in certain ways was unacceptable. you just sounded a whole lot like them is all.
so let me just more clearly state what I meant by my sentences. While you may not be obviously racist, you are showing a great deal of closed mindedness and therefore, tacit support to those who may be racist by claiming that it is always the right (not "lawful") thing to just keep quiet and follow the rules as written and as enforced.
but hey, what do I know? I'm just pointing out some disturbing parallels between your thoughts as expressed in your post and the thoughts expressed by a great many Americans in the 50's and 60's. you should again look for a single statement where I called you a racist. My other big point was that if people thought the way you did, a lot fo the civil rights movement would never have happened(because they would simply quietly follow the rules). and yes, I agree having rules like having to show ID in an effectively "members only" area is a very straight forward rule, but the legitimacy of the rule is only as good as its enforcement. and if you single out certain groups and enforce a seemingly reasonable rule in a racist or otherwise improper way, the rule should be challenged. another historical example:
Requiring a library card to get books from a public library is very sensible. in fact it should be a rule. but as was done, requiring cards and then limiting the cards such that a certain group can't get one makes it an improper and illegitimate rule (and one that needs to be vocally challenged). worse yet, saying that you should calmly accept this rule simply because that is the way it is written is at the best being closed minded. at the worst, it is being racist behind the veneer of being "law abiding".
wrong. an officer (not undercover) must show his badge when requested. or else anyone could dress in blue and just say they were an officer. written in plain english on the badge is the badge number. so asking for the badge number is only equivalent to asking to see the officer's badge. an officer that refuses this request does not have the benefit of claiming any extra powers we grant officers. its why they show their badge or display it openly when dressed up.
the relevant point about an undercover cop is that if you hit a cop and he doesn't identify himself or have some form of id present(wearing your badge is making it available to see), then you aren't assaulting a police officer. here's a bit of further reading, since I doubt you will believe me:
google search: police officer will provide his or her name and badge number upon request
but you do make a good point. I didn't search long, but a law wasn't forthcoming. so maybe it is locality by locality and it just happens to be in every locality I've ever been to, its the law. so while you are wrong about being required to give a badge number, so was I. both of us made blanket statements without proof of such. at best, I can only show you that several major districts have exactly that law on the books. as I am unable to access the florida government website, I can't give a straight forward state law example. but maybe you can do some research into it as well.
Re:Windows will continue to dominate
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Leopard Vs. Vista
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really, that is quite funny. I own a mac and I still hold that the last two are true. Excel(and yes, I have to be able to use microsoft excel because there are a lot of in house programs we write for it, and I don't mean VBA code) on a Mac is piss poor. I spent a good month trying to get to where it was as fast but it just never got near where I would like it. This isn't apple's fault, it just happens to be that I pick my computer based on the software I run for it (which isn't superior or inferior, just different in my opinion).
furthermore, the best way I know to avoid a mouse and still be able to pick up programs quickly are the alt+ some keys shortcuts. I believe some people call them accelerator keys(though I have yet to meet someone in person that says that). they aren't in any mac programs I have run across yet and I find it really slow to try and hit a multi-button shortcut to do things(on my mac, its fn+ctrl+f2 I believe). so yes, I have tried. I still invest time in learning my way around the GUI because I want to learn Unix/Linux cli when I get the chance. its useful for another side of my work I may end up doing.
key point, I guess I should have said for me it lacks these two. some people really love traditional shortcuts, I find them horribly inefficient. but that probably has something to do with how I think. maybe its because I first learned a computer in a gui with a mouse that makes the idea of flipping through menus using letters much more natural.
of course, I can flip through the menus on a mac, it just takes about twice as many key strokes. a big example for me today at work:
excel: alt, e, s, f
on a mac: ctrl+f2, E , enter, p a s t e " " s enter, down down down down enter.
and the only thing I"m not certain on is that last set of commands starting with the down.
so in that sense, I don't know of a quick way to paste special and ctrl + shift + some f key will not stick and will only be almost as fast because it takes my fingers off the home row. and I think with "paste special" you can just type p twice to get to that particular option but that is only because "paste special" has two p's in it. its similar to being in finder and hitting:
ctrl+f2, enter, s s the first S takes you to shutdown (because it cycles through in alphabetical order, which I didn't like at first but got used to after a while) adn the second s takes you to system preferences becuase its the only option with 2 s's (out of the options starting with an S).
now, if you know a way to put such accelerator keys into a mac quickly and relatively painlessly (I'd rather not go choosing a key for every menu option) for programs I run, I'm all about it. I'd love to hear about it. but all I've ever heard when I say this is that I'm a complete idiot because I find a lack of accelerator keys(which every other OS I've used has) an impediment and that memorizing regular shortcuts is far superior.
so yes, I tried quite a bit. I was taking the basic excel keyboard drills we give people who only know how to use the mouse and trying to do them in excel on a mac. I learned them but it just took too much time even when I knew what I had to do. but if you have a relevent solution, please do share it. its more meaningful that calling someone you don't know lazy when you have no idea what exactly they might have meant.
your right darn it. and that diner down the street from where I grew up shoudl still have a sign that says "White's Only" because its private property. And so should the real estate agent a few minutes away from that diner.
oh, wait, we made these things illegal in the US. You should read your history just a bit before making blanket statements. most of what makes the US what it is in the way of civil rights would never have happened if people thought the way you did.
just look up "sit in" (may have a hyphen depending on the web page).
OH, and there were lots of people that said those "niggers should just be sent off to jail" or "why don't we just send 'em all back to Africa where they came from" when those things were going on. and those people weren't card carrying Klan members either.
I agree the cops here were out of line, but to say that that is the number one philosophy among cops does many good police officers a disservice. just as it is wrong to bucket all Arab/Persian/brown skinned foreigners as terrorists, its equally wrong to say most cops are just out to physically confront people.
but I'm only speaking from my personal experience with my local police officers and that is another limited view. so maybe its equally wrong for me to form my conclusions on that basis.
I think you mis read his statement. he said the cop has to give out his badge number, he did not say he is supposed to stop detaining someone in the process.
a cop does have to prove he is a police officer. we are talking about giving your badge number after hand cuffing the guy adn detaining him in your police car. remember, he only said it is regardless of whoever the officer is and whatever the officer's claim is. not whatever the officer is doing.
AMD vs Intel: the Intel procs are currently better than the AMD ones! So your "choice above all" maxim boils down to "I want to be able to choose a worse processor"...
or I want a different price-performance ratio
btw, motherboards are significantly different. as are different types of ram(depending on your price-performance point). The problem with macs is I can't just buy a system with those parts installed if they are what fit my needs. I have to buy the apple blessed hardware and then fork over extra to get what I need. at some point, it becomes a hassle.
its funny you responded like this to the GP, basically by saying that if you find something that works better, you must be an idiot that isn't looking at the situation correctly. the apple inc screwdriver isn't the only one and definitely isn't the best for every situation.
I'm not sure if you are joking. you just made the point. I can't do:
OS X + Corsair + AMD + ATI out of the box, ever. but if I just let up on OS X, I can choose any of 4 systems. i think the idea is, macs aren't this amazing group that can network with any set of hardware I want to use. I"m not saying linux or windows is 100%, but they are a hell of a lot further along evidenced by your post.
Re:Windows will continue to dominate
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Leopard Vs. Vista
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macs are useless in my work. no one can opener does it all for one group. I consider a mac a nice toy to have, but not something for work. but then, my work isn't video editing. what killer work apps are you referring to? I need reuters, bloomberg, and excel and an efficient way to never use the mouse. what macs really lack are the last two in this list.
Re:Let's cut the "more expsnsive" nonsense...
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Leopard Vs. Vista
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· Score: 1
ok, expanded memory to 1 gig, added full 3 year protection plan, 80 gig HD, and made one addition to the HP.
That one addition was an upgrade from onboard graphics to an Nvidia 7200 Go,far superior if I ever want to play a game on my new computer. my final price: 1432.00 for HP 1472.00 for a mac so I've come away with expanded functionality and 40 bucks. I'm not sure what you were pricing off of, but if I take out the 3 year warranty and the video card, the HP suddenly goes from a 40 dollar savings to a 280 dollar savings.
basic problem, macs don't scale competitively in price when you upgrade a computer. btw, I own a mac so I'm not saying anything about value.
um..... your point would be good except you don't seem to know much about medical training. Doctors really only share about 3 years of the "same" training. Then to go on to be a surgeon you need 5 more years of training and to go on adn become a general physician you require 4 more years of training(the 4th year of med school is different depending on what you want to go into, even the 3rd year but to a much lesser extent). For other specialities, it gets quite different. Most of your training as a doctor is in residency, which is very limited in scope(surgeons do not make rounds in a pediatrics infectious disease ward, so they don't know much about it).
and yes, I know this for a fact. I have both in my family nad the surgeons couldn't diagnose an infection if their life depended on it(throat infection or the likes) but the general physicians can't do surgery on me.
I think the saying is very relevant. both groups get certain training that is the same and a lot of other training that isn't. and then they can switch if they want to, but that requires a great deal of retraining.
so in other words you hate the fact that in about 2 weeks, all the people playing the PS3's that are available are going to be the ones who were able to afford the market price for them(basically, the 480K that are willing to pay the most) rather than what.... those people that were only willing to pay 700 or800 bucks for it?
no one gets fucked over by capitalism in this case. if you aren't willing to pay as much as the guy standing next to you, why do you think you deserve to have a game sold to you? its not food, shelter, health care, etc. so why whine that the richer gamers get to play it first?
Now what exactly is ugly about this? I really want to know.
except they control a great deal of money going through several key states with loud members of congress. And with the WTO(which every western economy is a part of), the US has the right to call for protection of its IP. It would seriously hurt the commercial distribution side of linux.
I'm a fan of linux(if only I coudl get it to work on my current computer...) but there aren't many companies that are grabbing the latest fedora install(or any other brand) and just running it. Most get support through a commercial vendor. These are the people that microsoft can move. it helps them keep their death grip on the pre installed OS market. And it means that either apple or MS will be used in schools. Based purely on price, apple gets pretty much ruled out of most school systems so you are right back to MS having a death grip on the install base in major countries.
yes, linux will still be run everywhere in the world. its just that it will have lost its commericial backing.
granted, this is only what I think would happen if they could prove quickly adn beyond doubt that they had bullet proof patents that linux was violating(and that are central to the workings fo the linux kernel).
What would probably happen is most commerical distributors would be under fire until all the infringing code was removed and a solid work around was made. unfortunately, if it was important, that coudl take a lot of time(especially if it required rewriting a great deal of software). Now, I'm not much of a computer programmer so I'm not sure what could be that central and not be already known about, but patents do have a way of showing up when you least expect. and that several months it would take to get linux running again would be expensive to the linux take up commercially.
I don't know about you, but I would listen to those Cubans who fled that system over my own limited experience in Cuba. I thought it was a beautiful country, but one of the big reasons we still have sanctions is that massive voting bloc from my home state, the Cubans who left to come to America (and are probably the most model americans I've ever seen). If a person said they were going to lift the blockade, I guarantee they lose florida(there are also are Sugar farmers that have gotten very used to not competing with the sugar from Cuba).
of course, I'm sure there are groups of Cubans in the US that want the blockade ended. I'm just saying a vast majority that left Cuba believe Castro is a blight on their mother country and vote in such a way to force him into a corner.
This about those states that have been close in the last few elections and you will know why few people have the guts to say it should be ended.
p.s. I'm a bit free market kind of guy(as long as rules are followed on all sides). so I'm all for the end of the blockade. But its pretty ineffective in keeping US money from flowing to Cuba so I'm not too up in arms about it.
in economics though, this person values all his time at 500$ per hour. this is because if he valued an hour of free time(to do whatever he is already doing) at 600$ per hour, he would reduce work to do slightly more of this(making it worth slightly less) and therefore, increase how much he earns on average(if he is salaried as you are assuming). So that 4 hours is exactly worth 500$ per hour.
on the other hand, I had an offer from a guy from my work to stand in line and he would pay for my PS3 if I bought him one. granted, he easily clear 1000000 dollars a year, so its pocket change to him. For him, his time is easily worth close to 500 dollars per hour. He only works about 9 - 10 hour days. So I"m not surprised at all that this happens and I think the example is very reasonable for a large group of people(compared to the 80000 units that were launched)
of course, with many lawyers, there pay goes directly in line with how many hours you work. my cousin works at one of thsoe firms, and he makes a certain percent(hefty one) of what he is able to bill the clients. Hours billed goes linearly with hours worked(especially since those hours not billed are about the same every day, on average it goes super linear because he loses those starting hours.
ok, ok. I figure you aren't going ot read this but if you even take the time to read it,
try microsoft word out. alt+f+u. there are three options that use u(though they are underlined). now if I reduced the number of options to one by modifying the file menu, it acts just like a mouse click. else, I can cyle through all three adn press enter on the one I want to select. The funny thing is though, they seem to match your definition of accelerator keys in all other ways.
witter is UK slang. it is not a real word. similarly, just because Doh now appears in the dictionary doesn't mean it is either a real word or one to be used in proper conversation.
try out dictionary.com. it doesn't include slang for the most part. It may help you expand your working vocabulary(of real words). I'm glad though you finally realized you were being mocked. unfortunately, I lose my evening laugh at your arrogance (and slight ignornace). Such is life.....
great job buddy. I like how you try two menus and then make yourself look like an idiot by claiming they are all that way.. So again, you're great at calling someone stupid without actually checking the examples you are giving. try the bookmark menu. go on. (which , by the way, has three entries that start with a "b" and by hitting b three times, I can cycle through them). of course, its ok. its just your lack of attention to detail.I suggest in your next reply, you just take a couple extra minutes to verify what you are about to say before you type all that useless information. it'll help save you some time and effort(but then, I won't have as much fun).
now I never said the accelerator keys didn't work in firefox. I just said the letters weren't underlined. and in two of the menus, they aren't. I'll let you find the other one, just to see you come up with an excuse for them. I really am excited to hear this one.
I do like how to quote homer simpson, because with your lack of reading comprehension and your lack of actually testing out your examples before you give them, you really must not be exceptionally bright. but I think your just impatient. but good job on coming up with your two letter quote, after saying initially that by hitting the first letter, you could access a command. again, I wasn't looking for you to tell me how. notice how I didn't ask you to. its pretty damn simple, but again, you were so sure of yourself you didn't take two seconds to check on it.
don't take your subpar developer skills (or whatever else you are compensating for) out on me for saying a mac is worthless for my work. windows and linux run great. both are damn efficient and well put together for people who are trying to work quickly. Hey, a Mac certainly has its place. That place just isn't in a bank. It remains a slow, inefficient operating system. Granted, so is any new version of windows, so I don't move out of 2000 when I want to get work done and time is an issue.
oh, just so you don't do it anymore, wittering isn't a word. I'm sure you want it to be and you have used it before, but it just isn't. I'm sure you didn't mean witting and twittering is a possibility but it would be a real stretch from what any accepted definition is.
but I guess your a developer, so you don't need to use real words all the time. again,
signed, Sincerely, waiting to hear your piss poor excuses again
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that's amazing. I grew up in a area that was far below the US average income. in fact, we did actually car pool growing up and most of us ran cars on just a few bucks of gas to spare money for other things. but my god, we still went out to eat, rented movies, went to movie theaters......
but there was this amazing thing that most of us had to supply us the disposable income to go out to dinner(even if going out to dinner meant DQ), we called it a part time job and yes, they are out there even if they aren't fun or rewarding. Now I think you are making a big leap from what I was saying, so I'll say it again.
The parent didn't say his sister was destitute, he was trying to make the point that she bought music when it it fell in line with her preferences ( and implied as soon as she had the money, she bought the music so in fact, she didn't cause a negative impact). my point was simple, if she does have disposable income to do other things, then its just a choice and suddenly, there is a negative impact because the ability to download distorts those choices.
I was a teenager once without the most full of pockets. I made my choices on how to spend the money I had and it wasn't ever all on one item. if I had the chance of getting something small for free to free up money elsewhere, I took it. I"m not saying its not commonly done.
oh wait, you wanted me to take the OP literally when he said his sister was saving pennies to buy music. look up the word hyperbole. its extremely pertinent to the OP.
depends, took me a while to figure out why they said inverse, and it may have been that they were working with vector math. and the inverse in vector math is exactly what its doing. since it was graphics code, I'd bet it came from there. but who knows. anyways, inverse sounds cooler.
problem is, I'm betting your sister is destitute, barely making ends meet, and spending her only free income on music ( I can just see it, deciding between 20 cent ramen tonight or adding to the music money jar).
I don't mean to make fun of your sister is that, its just that as long as she is like most consumers, I'm willing to bet she spends her extra(even if meager) money on a myriad of options: dinner with friends, going to movies, concerts, trips, shopping, etc). As long as she is doing that, then the free option easily distorts her current rationing of her income, at least somewhat away from music. of course, this doesn't mean the CD won't every be purchased, but the lower demand it incites currently does hurt the **AA ability to have monopolistic pricing.
of course, if you sister really already puts 100% of her discretionary income towards music, then you are right, the free option is meaningless to her. As you the point about you, I cannot really say. That would take a study of your current listening habits compared to before you started downloading along with a more comprehensive comparison of your purchasing decisions during those times. so I concede that as at the best, not provable(from my perspective).
so in other words you are trying to actually say this poor poor girl has no other money (besides what goes to necessities like food, water, housing, medical care) and whose only discretionary purchase she ever makes is music?
Think about that for a second. as long as she is like most western consumers, she has a myriad of things she spends her disposable income on(going to movies, dinners, trips with friends, shopping, concerts, music, etc), then it does distort her choices. She can fill one of those discretionary areas at any time (at least partially, because she enjoys listening to and legally owning the music) then she can move some desired spending away from that category, even if for a short time.
oh wait, you were thinking she is destitute, living on the street, and going almost hungry, but still finds time to every now and then save up 15 bucks to get a CD (I believe that is the going rate for most new CD's now, right?) . So I guess my tirade only applies to about every other consumer of music.....
that's all good and well but you are still cutting into their revenues. In the end, your ability to continue to consume the content(or more relevant, your sister's) and millions like her force the labels to lower prices from a very early stage to try adn make the initial sales while the movie is only moderately good. The ability to satiate that desire to see the movie makes it a difficult proposition to continue to have new releases at extremely high prices.
So while your sister and millions like her may be willing to spend their pennies on the music when its available, its very difficult to actually argue she isn't hurting the industry by receiving a free option to wait. The downward price pressure the weaker sales environment is providing does cut into profits.
Your situation is still creating a similar market environment. you say you download when you see a song you want, but don't have to have. that is all and well, but you are again getting a free option to wait. either for a lower price on that given good, or until your tastes move away. compared to a situation in which you did not have that particular option, there would definitely be some goods on the margin you would end up buying at some point(not all, and maybe only a small minority, but there would definitely be some non-zero amount. now, there exists a similar counter argument. there is equually the possibility that music you downloaded evolved into a must have song that you ended up buying. Again, this still has the embedded value you received of being able to wait but is probably offset by the added revenue the practice brought.
now let me say, I'm not condemning what you or your sister does and I'm not saying that the **AA don't have some shit business tactics, but there are real negative effects out there that seem to just get discounted. The current legal system does extend monopolistic pricing power to the **AA for an extended period of time on music (and personally, I think its horse shit how far it has been extended) but that is the system we are in. Every circumvention can very well be seen as a direct negative impact from their view point(even though there may be secondary positive effects whose magnitude is probably more difficult to determine).
Now there are those who rampantly pirate everythign they can get their hands on, but then again, they are just like your sister. They aren't willing to spend money at current prices and will wait till they ahve enough to spend. Every rampant pirater I have ever known (one standing at some 500 GB of music and movies on hard drives nad a few hundred cd's beyond that collection) owns some content. They just don't have the money on hand to buy the music today. Worse yet, they fall very close to you, in that once they do have the money, they generally don't care about the music any more(and it gets off loaded onto cd for some later time). So just because they are a bit more extreme in their preferences doesn't make them worlds apart in preferences to you.
but the idea that these people are the real threat is not a stance that has any rigorous proof. People have been violating copyrights by illegally reselling music for a long time(and on pretty large scales in many foreign countries). I'd say the danger is similar to what the pharmaceutical companies worry about. Pirating in a poor country is something to work against in a very small way, but when the pirating effects the main profit centers, its time to take up the fight. AllofMP3 was doubtfully attacked because lots of Russian and Asian citizens were using it to download music. It was most likely a target because it offered its services to markets the **AA wanted closed to its monopoly pricing to guarantee its profits. Well, I take that back. That's all my opinion but I'm sure one day we will find out what they were discussing behind closed doors during this time.
thanks. its just a pet peeve of mine when people lump good cops in with the bad. but of course, I freely admit there are lots of people out there that shouldn't be cops because they believe it makes them judge, jury, and once in a while executioner.
the belief that it is always proper to quietly follow the rules is inherently saying that any form of civil disobedience is wrong. Since that is obviously what you implied with your post, I thought I'd just give you an example of who you sounded like(mainly, a couple of my neighbors from where I grew up). They were all very nice to me and I'm not white or Christian, but they inherently believed standing up for your basic rights in certain ways was unacceptable. you just sounded a whole lot like them is all.
so let me just more clearly state what I meant by my sentences. While you may not be obviously racist, you are showing a great deal of closed mindedness and therefore, tacit support to those who may be racist by claiming that it is always the right (not "lawful") thing to just keep quiet and follow the rules as written and as enforced.
but hey, what do I know? I'm just pointing out some disturbing parallels between your thoughts as expressed in your post and the thoughts expressed by a great many Americans in the 50's and 60's. you should again look for a single statement where I called you a racist. My other big point was that if people thought the way you did, a lot fo the civil rights movement would never have happened(because they would simply quietly follow the rules). and yes, I agree having rules like having to show ID in an effectively "members only" area is a very straight forward rule, but the legitimacy of the rule is only as good as its enforcement. and if you single out certain groups and enforce a seemingly reasonable rule in a racist or otherwise improper way, the rule should be challenged. another historical example:
Requiring a library card to get books from a public library is very sensible. in fact it should be a rule. but as was done, requiring cards and then limiting the cards such that a certain group can't get one makes it an improper and illegitimate rule (and one that needs to be vocally challenged). worse yet, saying that you should calmly accept this rule simply because that is the way it is written is at the best being closed minded. at the worst, it is being racist behind the veneer of being "law abiding".
wrong. an officer (not undercover) must show his badge when requested. or else anyone could dress in blue and just say they were an officer. written in plain english on the badge is the badge number. so asking for the badge number is only equivalent to asking to see the officer's badge. an officer that refuses this request does not have the benefit of claiming any extra powers we grant officers. its why they show their badge or display it openly when dressed up.
p olice_agreement.htm
S topped/if_stopped.html
the relevant point about an undercover cop is that if you hit a cop and he doesn't identify himself or have some form of id present(wearing your badge is making it available to see), then you aren't assaulting a police officer. here's a bit of further reading, since I doubt you will believe me:
google search: police officer will provide his or her name and badge number upon request
three of the first 10 or so results:
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/documents/buffalo_
http://www.ci.tucson.az.us/police/Public_Info/If_
www.nyc.gov/html/ccrb/html/news.html
but you do make a good point. I didn't search long, but a law wasn't forthcoming. so maybe it is locality by locality and it just happens to be in every locality I've ever been to, its the law. so while you are wrong about being required to give a badge number, so was I. both of us made blanket statements without proof of such. at best, I can only show you that several major districts have exactly that law on the books. as I am unable to access the florida government website, I can't give a straight forward state law example. but maybe you can do some research into it as well.
really, that is quite funny. I own a mac and I still hold that the last two are true. Excel(and yes, I have to be able to use microsoft excel because there are a lot of in house programs we write for it, and I don't mean VBA code) on a Mac is piss poor. I spent a good month trying to get to where it was as fast but it just never got near where I would like it. This isn't apple's fault, it just happens to be that I pick my computer based on the software I run for it (which isn't superior or inferior, just different in my opinion).
furthermore, the best way I know to avoid a mouse and still be able to pick up programs quickly are the alt+ some keys shortcuts. I believe some people call them accelerator keys(though I have yet to meet someone in person that says that). they aren't in any mac programs I have run across yet and I find it really slow to try and hit a multi-button shortcut to do things(on my mac, its fn+ctrl+f2 I believe). so yes, I have tried. I still invest time in learning my way around the GUI because I want to learn Unix/Linux cli when I get the chance. its useful for another side of my work I may end up doing.
key point, I guess I should have said for me it lacks these two. some people really love traditional shortcuts, I find them horribly inefficient. but that probably has something to do with how I think. maybe its because I first learned a computer in a gui with a mouse that makes the idea of flipping through menus using letters much more natural.
of course, I can flip through the menus on a mac, it just takes about twice as many key strokes. a big example for me today at work:
excel: alt, e, s, f
on a mac: ctrl+f2, E , enter, p a s t e " " s enter, down down down down enter.
and the only thing I"m not certain on is that last set of commands starting with the down.
so in that sense, I don't know of a quick way to paste special and ctrl + shift + some f key will not stick and will only be almost as fast because it takes my fingers off the home row. and I think with "paste special" you can just type p twice to get to that particular option but that is only because "paste special" has two p's in it. its similar to being in finder and hitting:
ctrl+f2, enter, s s
the first S takes you to shutdown (because it cycles through in alphabetical order, which I didn't like at first but got used to after a while) adn the second s takes you to system preferences becuase its the only option with 2 s's (out of the options starting with an S).
now, if you know a way to put such accelerator keys into a mac quickly and relatively painlessly (I'd rather not go choosing a key for every menu option) for programs I run, I'm all about it. I'd love to hear about it. but all I've ever heard when I say this is that I'm a complete idiot because I find a lack of accelerator keys(which every other OS I've used has) an impediment and that memorizing regular shortcuts is far superior.
so yes, I tried quite a bit. I was taking the basic excel keyboard drills we give people who only know how to use the mouse and trying to do them in excel on a mac. I learned them but it just took too much time even when I knew what I had to do. but if you have a relevent solution, please do share it. its more meaningful that calling someone you don't know lazy when you have no idea what exactly they might have meant.
your right darn it. and that diner down the street from where I grew up shoudl still have a sign that says "White's Only" because its private property. And so should the real estate agent a few minutes away from that diner.
oh, wait, we made these things illegal in the US. You should read your history just a bit before making blanket statements. most of what makes the US what it is in the way of civil rights would never have happened if people thought the way you did.
just look up "sit in" (may have a hyphen depending on the web page).
OH, and there were lots of people that said those "niggers should just be sent off to jail" or "why don't we just send 'em all back to Africa where they came from" when those things were going on. and those people weren't card carrying Klan members either.
I agree the cops here were out of line, but to say that that is the number one philosophy among cops does many good police officers a disservice. just as it is wrong to bucket all Arab/Persian/brown skinned foreigners as terrorists, its equally wrong to say most cops are just out to physically confront people.
but I'm only speaking from my personal experience with my local police officers and that is another limited view. so maybe its equally wrong for me to form my conclusions on that basis.
I think you mis read his statement. he said the cop has to give out his badge number, he did not say he is supposed to stop detaining someone in the process.
a cop does have to prove he is a police officer. we are talking about giving your badge number after hand cuffing the guy adn detaining him in your police car. remember, he only said it is regardless of whoever the officer is and whatever the officer's claim is. not whatever the officer is doing.
AMD vs Intel: the Intel procs are currently better than the AMD ones! So your "choice above all" maxim boils down to "I want to be able to choose a worse processor"...
or I want a different price-performance ratio
btw, motherboards are significantly different. as are different types of ram(depending on your price-performance point). The problem with macs is I can't just buy a system with those parts installed if they are what fit my needs. I have to buy the apple blessed hardware and then fork over extra to get what I need. at some point, it becomes a hassle.
its funny you responded like this to the GP, basically by saying that if you find something that works better, you must be an idiot that isn't looking at the situation correctly. the apple inc screwdriver isn't the only one and definitely isn't the best for every situation.
I'm not sure if you are joking. you just made the point. I can't do: OS X + Corsair + AMD + ATI out of the box, ever. but if I just let up on OS X, I can choose any of 4 systems. i think the idea is, macs aren't this amazing group that can network with any set of hardware I want to use. I"m not saying linux or windows is 100%, but they are a hell of a lot further along evidenced by your post.
macs are useless in my work. no one can opener does it all for one group. I consider a mac a nice toy to have, but not something for work. but then, my work isn't video editing. what killer work apps are you referring to? I need reuters, bloomberg, and excel and an efficient way to never use the mouse. what macs really lack are the last two in this list.
or the mac mini (as originally released)
ok,
expanded memory to 1 gig, added full 3 year protection plan, 80 gig HD, and made one addition to the HP.
That one addition was an upgrade from onboard graphics to an Nvidia 7200 Go,far superior if I ever want to play a game on my new computer. my final price:
1432.00 for HP
1472.00 for a mac
so I've come away with expanded functionality and 40 bucks. I'm not sure what you were pricing off of, but if I take out the 3 year warranty and the video card, the HP suddenly goes from a 40 dollar savings to a 280 dollar savings.
basic problem, macs don't scale competitively in price when you upgrade a computer. btw, I own a mac so I'm not saying anything about value.
um..... your point would be good except you don't seem to know much about medical training. Doctors really only share about 3 years of the "same" training. Then to go on to be a surgeon you need 5 more years of training and to go on adn become a general physician you require 4 more years of training(the 4th year of med school is different depending on what you want to go into, even the 3rd year but to a much lesser extent). For other specialities, it gets quite different. Most of your training as a doctor is in residency, which is very limited in scope(surgeons do not make rounds in a pediatrics infectious disease ward, so they don't know much about it).
and yes, I know this for a fact. I have both in my family nad the surgeons couldn't diagnose an infection if their life depended on it(throat infection or the likes) but the general physicians can't do surgery on me.
I think the saying is very relevant. both groups get certain training that is the same and a lot of other training that isn't. and then they can switch if they want to, but that requires a great deal of retraining.
so in other words you hate the fact that in about 2 weeks, all the people playing the PS3's that are available are going to be the ones who were able to afford the market price for them(basically, the 480K that are willing to pay the most) rather than what.... those people that were only willing to pay 700 or800 bucks for it?
no one gets fucked over by capitalism in this case. if you aren't willing to pay as much as the guy standing next to you, why do you think you deserve to have a game sold to you? its not food, shelter, health care, etc. so why whine that the richer gamers get to play it first?
Now what exactly is ugly about this? I really want to know.
we already do, where do you think gold comes from?
except they control a great deal of money going through several key states with loud members of congress. And with the WTO(which every western economy is a part of), the US has the right to call for protection of its IP. It would seriously hurt the commercial distribution side of linux.
I'm a fan of linux(if only I coudl get it to work on my current computer...) but there aren't many companies that are grabbing the latest fedora install(or any other brand) and just running it. Most get support through a commercial vendor. These are the people that microsoft can move. it helps them keep their death grip on the pre installed OS market. And it means that either apple or MS will be used in schools. Based purely on price, apple gets pretty much ruled out of most school systems so you are right back to MS having a death grip on the install base in major countries.
yes, linux will still be run everywhere in the world. its just that it will have lost its commericial backing.
granted, this is only what I think would happen if they could prove quickly adn beyond doubt that they had bullet proof patents that linux was violating(and that are central to the workings fo the linux kernel).
What would probably happen is most commerical distributors would be under fire until all the infringing code was removed and a solid work around was made. unfortunately, if it was important, that coudl take a lot of time(especially if it required rewriting a great deal of software). Now, I'm not much of a computer programmer so I'm not sure what could be that central and not be already known about, but patents do have a way of showing up when you least expect. and that several months it would take to get linux running again would be expensive to the linux take up commercially.
I don't know about you, but I would listen to those Cubans who fled that system over my own limited experience in Cuba. I thought it was a beautiful country, but one of the big reasons we still have sanctions is that massive voting bloc from my home state, the Cubans who left to come to America (and are probably the most model americans I've ever seen). If a person said they were going to lift the blockade, I guarantee they lose florida(there are also are Sugar farmers that have gotten very used to not competing with the sugar from Cuba).
of course, I'm sure there are groups of Cubans in the US that want the blockade ended. I'm just saying a vast majority that left Cuba believe Castro is a blight on their mother country and vote in such a way to force him into a corner.
This about those states that have been close in the last few elections and you will know why few people have the guts to say it should be ended.
p.s. I'm a bit free market kind of guy(as long as rules are followed on all sides). so I'm all for the end of the blockade. But its pretty ineffective in keeping US money from flowing to Cuba so I'm not too up in arms about it.
in economics though, this person values all his time at 500$ per hour. this is because if he valued an hour of free time(to do whatever he is already doing) at 600$ per hour, he would reduce work to do slightly more of this(making it worth slightly less) and therefore, increase how much he earns on average(if he is salaried as you are assuming). So that 4 hours is exactly worth 500$ per hour.
on the other hand, I had an offer from a guy from my work to stand in line and he would pay for my PS3 if I bought him one. granted, he easily clear 1000000 dollars a year, so its pocket change to him. For him, his time is easily worth close to 500 dollars per hour. He only works about 9 - 10 hour days. So I"m not surprised at all that this happens and I think the example is very reasonable for a large group of people(compared to the 80000 units that were launched)
of course, with many lawyers, there pay goes directly in line with how many hours you work. my cousin works at one of thsoe firms, and he makes a certain percent(hefty one) of what he is able to bill the clients. Hours billed goes linearly with hours worked(especially since those hours not billed are about the same every day, on average it goes super linear because he loses those starting hours.
ok, ok. I figure you aren't going ot read this but if you even take the time to read it,
try microsoft word out. alt+f+u. there are three options that use u(though they are underlined). now if I reduced the number of options to one by modifying the file menu, it acts just like a mouse click. else, I can cyle through all three adn press enter on the one I want to select. The funny thing is though, they seem to match your definition of accelerator keys in all other ways.
witter is UK slang. it is not a real word. similarly, just because Doh now appears in the dictionary doesn't mean it is either a real word or one to be used in proper conversation.
try out dictionary.com. it doesn't include slang for the most part. It may help you expand your working vocabulary(of real words). I'm glad though you finally realized you were being mocked. unfortunately, I lose my evening laugh at your arrogance (and slight ignornace). Such is life.....
great job buddy. I like how you try two menus and then make yourself look like an idiot by claiming they are all that way.. So again, you're great at calling someone stupid without actually checking the examples you are giving. try the bookmark menu. go on. (which , by the way, has three entries that start with a "b" and by hitting b three times, I can cycle through them). of course, its ok. its just your lack of attention to detail.I suggest in your next reply, you just take a couple extra minutes to verify what you are about to say before you type all that useless information. it'll help save you some time and effort(but then, I won't have as much fun).
now I never said the accelerator keys didn't work in firefox. I just said the letters weren't underlined. and in two of the menus, they aren't. I'll let you find the other one, just to see you come up with an excuse for them. I really am excited to hear this one.
I do like how to quote homer simpson, because with your lack of reading comprehension and your lack of actually testing out your examples before you give them, you really must not be exceptionally bright. but I think your just impatient. but good job on coming up with your two letter quote, after saying initially that by hitting the first letter, you could access a command. again, I wasn't looking for you to tell me how. notice how I didn't ask you to. its pretty damn simple, but again, you were so sure of yourself you didn't take two seconds to check on it.
don't take your subpar developer skills (or whatever else you are compensating for) out on me for saying a mac is worthless for my work. windows and linux run great. both are damn efficient and well put together for people who are trying to work quickly. Hey, a Mac certainly has its place. That place just isn't in a bank. It remains a slow, inefficient operating system. Granted, so is any new version of windows, so I don't move out of 2000 when I want to get work done and time is an issue.
oh, just so you don't do it anymore, wittering isn't a word. I'm sure you want it to be and you have used it before, but it just isn't. I'm sure you didn't mean witting and twittering is a possibility but it would be a real stretch from what any accepted definition is.
but I guess your a developer, so you don't need to use real words all the time. again,
signed,
Sincerely,
waiting to hear your piss poor excuses again