Re:We could re-do Myst...better, even!
on
Cyan Worlds Closes
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· Score: 1
I guess if you are just talking about putting together a picture. But for these games, its not the obvious things that make them good. Its the small details that take months to do. Its why you don't get professional programmers to do the art, you get professional artists. attention to that kind of detail isn't a skill most programmer's have.
But yeah, the ability to program a game like Myst is simplistic by today's standards, no one can argue that. It doesn't mean that 13 years ago it wasn't ground breaking, it is just proof that people keep getting better at it(as have the software tools and hardware).
you do realize some people have a really hard time on tests do to the environment. It's why most teachers give homework. that way they can get a rough idea of how much this person knows without having to base it all on one test.
I personally can perform incredibly well on a test. But that isn't true for all people and teachers that understand that are usually the best ones you will find(everyone can learn in their classes).
If you take a class you are overqualified for, its your own fault for getting bored and not doing all the work. Its possibly that the point of a basic intro programming course isn't as much about learning to write great programs as it is about learning to familiarize yourself with a new way of thinking. sometimes you need to not look at it from your view point to understand why grading is done differently.
the university system works nothing like you describe. if you are that intelligent then take a harder class. But don't get high and mighty when you take a remedial class(for where you insinuate your skill levels were) and get a bad grade. its a really common thing. It happens to loads of people and like you, I just laugh at them for being lazy and taking a remedial class.
um.... just wondering, what does htis have to do with anything? and why the snide remark to democrats? bush works no harder than other presidents have in recent memory. And almost 90% of what you said he did was already planned out far before these dates(like nominations), are types of compaigning(these speeches are only for that), and just plain easy(not like signing a bill into law is exceptionally difficult once the decision is made). Not to say any of this is wrong. I am certain most democratic presidents in recent history have done the exact same types of things. So what is your point?
my question is straight forward, if dos was inferior(as everyone on slashdot says, well, almost everyone), then why would anyone license it. I think its a very valid question. Thats like me going out and buying a pinto with no warranty when a camry is sitting right next to it and equally available. Now why would I originally buy the pinto?? The camry has better performance, is safer, and all around better offering. so if the pinto also has a shitty warranty, it just fails another of my lithmus tests.
you don't get the ability to force incredibly restrictive licensing without already having the power from something.
I honest to god hope the answer isn't(following the analogy) "People were just stupid and were completely fooled as to both dos's inferior offereing and worse license."
I'll address your last point first. and if you don't like being made to look like a raving fool, don't read the next paragraph.
just for you, I did google shareholder activism. The first link is a nice guide about it. I quote: "Cannot address the validity of company's product or line of business" http://www.foe.org/international/shareholder/poten tial.html so it would seem my buying 100 shares in aapl doesn't allow me to bring up their lacking support of certain formats.
so before you go acting like you know what you are talking about, maybe you should read your own references?? just a suggestion. I have been looking at the calpers website, and I'm not sure what an opt in retirement fund has to do with public companies like apple.
further, I must admit, I made an error when I said apple won't license AAC. That was a mis step by me(apple doesn't have that option), but the outcome is the same. as you said, they won't license Fairplay, which essentially locks out every other mp3 players from the itunes music store. Now there may be ways around that and you can argue till your blue in the face about that, but its still a locked format only the Ipod can use. In the end, apple is still locking down there offering to make it only fully usable with other apple hardware(which, as a good friend of miine explained, is all about preserving the uniqueness of the apple experience).
btw, MS offers up to date version of office to apple both to make some money and also because of that who anti trust issue they had to deal with. as I'm no MS defender, I will tell you that the reason they do a lot of things is to avoid losing again and possibly being broken up. This way no one can say they are denying a different platform their software.
personally, I don't mind the x86 processor. It seems to work pretty damn well. but of course, if you really hate it, you do have several other options.
oh, and you do realize that what apple has done recently with open source does not mean they would have embraced open source immediately had they dominated the market. Its all a what if situation. What they are doing now is always going to be a direct response to the fact that they didn't win(and a load of other things that have happened in 15 years).
I personally believe the best way to look at what apple would have done is to see how they are handling their powerful position with the Ipod(in a lot of ways, equivalent to the windows monopoly). they are not going to license the competition's DRM(WMA, right?) or offer the copetition the lisense to their DRM, basically locking out all late comers to this game. Sure, apple supports those formats that are standards, but those formats will never be used for legal commerical music(not without some DRM).
I get that they did these illegal things to keep competitors from surfacing. but everyone is about 6 years where I posed my question. i want to know how they got in such a position to force these things on people. these are moves that can only be made from a position of power. how did MS, with an inferior original offereing that had at least 3 major competitors, still win.
I think another post answered that though. They realized the value of getting as many copies out as possible, even if it meant not making much money at first. then once they had a position of power, they could go on and do all those things that were ruled illegal.
what do you mean the illegal per processor agreement(honest to god question). And again, I will pose the other question. These vendors had choices in the beginning. Why did they all go with MS then?? MS still beat them first to get the option to use predatory practices. You can't force things on people until you have cemented yourself as the leader. so I am still wondering how they did that.
just one thing: Name your game players please. these people you think made these changes possible. you seem to be good at putting up loads of arguments with nothing behind them. name your court cases besides the one I already did that you feel paved the way. name your leaders who made it all possible.
I will always give that Brown vs. board was a major case of the time. But keep going. because that can't be all that you mean. Many southern states didn't desegregate for 15-20 years after that, so I guess your court system and friendly congress were really getting their act together?
really now? you think the busses in montgomery allowed blacks to sit up front because of court gains or congress?? go read a history book before you start making civil rights comments that both sweeping and uninformed.
check your facts as well. Congress was another battle ground but congress was vehemently against the civil rights movement until public opinion finally crushed them. The FBI was knowingly used to try and crush civil rights leaders(especially members of the black panthers).
Civil rights might have been finally won in the courts and in congress, but that was only made possibly by the daily work of millions of blacks(and tens of thousands of whites) in the trenches. The willingness to stare down a fire hose or gun for something as simple as going to the same restroom helped open the eyes of millions of americans. and without that, nothing would have changed. or do you think that congress would have gotten around to enacting the civil rights act without the civil rights movement??
I don't deny it at all, DOS is what made them great. now what I want to know is how dos beat the rest of the market that did exist at the time(and yes, there was much more htan just apple back then, even though linux was still a decade away)
um... I htought that was the GP's point. Apple is just as bad as microsoft. And if they were in the position of MS, they would do the exact same things to other companies.
you realize the reason the Itunes music store is lokced out to other players is because the itunes format is copywrited and apple refuses to liscense it. while they woudl have early on, they can sense their impending doom as 10's of other companies are gearing up to attack this market.
now go the other way, apple won't support the other 20 percent of the market place. Why should MS support less than 5% of the market place by doing anything for apple?? its simple, MS makes its money on its software, apple doesn't. Apple doesn't make much(if any) money on the i tunes music store, they makes tons on the Ipod. apple has always been the company vying for a complete monopoly in computer hardware, thank god they failed. Because then they would have extended that to software. at least now all I have to deal with is a software monopoly with so much competition its only monopoly is with the uninformed.
also, you do know shareholders(esp. small ones) have absolutely no say in the strategic business decisions of a company like apple except in that they can vote for a different member of the board. even then, teh board members do not involve themselves with the decisions except to the point that they appoint the head officers of a company. So really, buying shares is a completely worthless endeavor.
these are the posts I don't get. Everyone gives them incredibly high ratings but you haven't said anything really ground breaking. The question is simple: why, if MS had so many competitors that were better than it at making software, did they succeed?
you have attributed it "locking everyone in" but they didn't do that at all. The PC industry was originally a battle between apple and IBM.
So how did they beat everyone is the question? the lock-in's for vendors didn't come until the early 90's (maybe very late 80's), and this was years after they started up.
IBM did not orginally give a monopoly over hte PC to microsoft, they beat the competitors out early on.
so what I want to know is what they did right to beat these people most/.'ers consider much better/smarter.
299 dollars for the bare minimum. And that is 200 cheaper than the mac mini(about 40%). And this is why apple couldn't beat MS. Yes, its prodcuts are worth the extra 40% in some idealisitic measurement. But if all Iwant is a computer I can research with and type of reports, that 200$ means a lot. So while that mac has lots of other features, it just isn't useful(frankly, I can do without the dashboard, even though it's cool).
I woudl bet so many people feel like you that this is why it is now pointless. The civil rights movement was mainly fueled by marches, sit-ins, and general protests. It was only after several YEARS of this(which mainly changed the stances of many people) that the government began to listen and change its stances.
So guess what, its not an easy road. No matter how much slashdot seems like the world, lots of people out there are very happy with what the government is doing. Government always bends to the will of the people in the states, you just have to realize that most of the people just might be against you.
correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought catholics taught that a child that dies before baptism goes to purgatory because of original sin. am I wrong or is there a lot of dissent between catholics or were you just making a point.
ok my point called as well. I just won't call you a dumbass for it.
1. I'm calling bull shit on you. I can't find any references to cases that are like the ones you cited. What I can find are cases that are generic(the 10 commandments being removed from a public building, not some cash register worker as you insinuated) and challenges to the "later" addition of "under god" in the pledge of allegiance(which, if you didn't know, was a backlash to communism having nothing to do with teh spirituality of our nation, rather a this is us and that is them distinction).
2. THE ACLU was formed to protect individual liberties. While this falls under such a broad topic, a look at the cases they actually involve themselves in are ones in which the person/few people cannot defend themselves. This doubtfully falls under that banner. Just look at their website and newsroom adn you will see what they are interested in.
Specific links or court cases are needed. Or again, its just a bunch of bull shit.
if you don't have any cases to point to, then don't put up complete BS about this stuff. The ACLU is also spending its time protecting bible beating christians in Las Vegas to keep there rights to demonstrate infront of the casinos. And that is a real case they defended and won(on CNN about 6 months back).
probably, the insulation has been a problem with repsect to where it is when taking into account where things like heat shields are. The foam insulation itself is a requirement to help safe guard the fuel tanks.
oddly enough, reading online forums has made me lazy with grammar and spelling and made me unable to catch said errors(I've trained myself to just read through them).
I blame the internet for lacking grammar and spelling skills!!! down with the internet to protect the children!!!
why should that matter? we have geniuses at my school(top 10) who are math majors who can't do 675/25 in their heads. They instinctively grab a calculator because they have spent the last 6 years doing math problems that can't be done in your head.
doing math in your head(if you aren't a savant) is like most other useless skills, it takes practice that 99% of people don't care to do. I don't see you getting angry about someone not being able to juggle 5 balls and its about as useful as that long division. I can do it in my head, but that comes from constant practice and enjoyment. It's a worthless skill in the real world. Real world numbers are usually too cumbersome for most people to deal with(even with practice). Talk to adults today. Even some of the most educated have an exceptionally weak grasp of grammar and spelling.
The question you should ask is "are these skills I think people don't have really essential" and "did people ever have them". You'll probably get a resounding no for those skills you seem to think are most important.
haha, my econometrics teacher put it best, econ proves why you should still go for it on 4th down and 2 on the opposition's 30 yard line, its just cost benefit analysis at its simplest. Of course, those football coaches disagree simple because they think there way is better and economists aren't willing to break it down in an extremely simple manner.
yeah, my big surprise in the real world is when businesses pay people with my degree 80,000 dollars a year to tell them what I just said but applied to there exact product.
but, I guess if your talking about that who surprise about what its like to be rich, I'll be happy when it comes with the real world. It is nice to know that the econ ability of the general population is where yours is; I love having job security;-)
just to clarify some of your points. People do reveal there value for products all the time. Its in buying the object and understanding the market that the theory of revealed preferences comes into play. Its interestingly stuff and very subtle, but you can figure out the value a person placed on an object, after the fact.
Furthermore, you dont exactly arbitrarily choose your price. Some markets just don't exist because they aren't profitable to be in. If your software costs 350 and the market does not support this software, then it won't ever exist and this IS NOT an inefficiency. Consider the market for me carrying your package by hand to NYC from LA. Just beucase I am willing to do it for 1000 dollars and no one will pay it does not mean there is some inefficiency in the market place. Even if XYZ places the value of it at 50 dollars, the market hasn't lost that 50 dollars(on net, it hasn't).
Now consider your example. I know about marginal cost pricing of goods so stick with me for a second. Why does someone charge 100 dollars for a piece of software? This is where classical economics is no help. It has to do with covering startup costs. With software, fixed costs are everything. marginal costs are nothing. And if the marginal cost can never exceed the fixed cost, and average fixed cost never drops below price even at maximum market saturation, you have a problem. Software falls into this black hole of economics. While the ability to price discriminate(what you hint at with your example) is one solution, it is usually not feasible. So it should be included that price discrimination doesn't usually exist because it is so expensive to do(car dealerships are an excellent example of price discrimination. We were able to get a guy to go 600 dollars below invoice for a car to us, but other people paid MSRP, about 6000 more).
IP laws are in place because people actually value software as the several hundred/several thousand dollar price tag but there is no way of a software company to take advantage of this. We say that the benefit of having the software at all is worth having to deal with prices that are above the optimum for society(in this case, marginal cost pricing). What people need to realize is that software as we know it today does not exist without IP laws. This is not to say software would not exist, but IP laws allow for the creation of software outside of the case by case, contractual basis it would ahve to be to engage in price discrimination.
your economics needs work. People do not pay what they are willing to pay unless a supplier has a monopoly and can engage in perfect price discrimination. Neither has ever been the case in at least the last century, probably much longer.
Microsoft does not go off setting a ridiculously high price just because it is a monopoly(which it isn't a pure monopoly, it is actually the main actor in an oligopoly). They set the profit maximizing price and it happens to be that with market power, that price is higher than the price that maximizes consumer and producer surplus(think happiness, though this is a bad definition). Now, no one can pursue superior or cheaper alternatives if you are a monopoly, there are none. that is the definition.
So what is wrong with what you said? It doesn't matter if you(as the producer) think there are other alternatives or not. It only matters if the consumer knows they exist. If you do not, you will simply be put out of business. One complication, software differentiation. As long as two pieces are not perfect substitutes(no matter how close), there is room for price differentiation.
Furthermore, economics does not say that exorbitantly high prices were the problem for the RIAA/record industry. the problem was a cheaper, perfect subsitute(that happens to be illegal). A person could get the exact same song for a much lower price. While copyright laws are supposed to help stifle this, they have had only limited success. If they charged 5 bucks a cd, it doesn't change the fact that the price of illegal downloading(there big problem right now) would attract people. The answer is much subtler and lies in risk management.
Think of it this way, lets say that there is a 5000 dollar penalty on downloading illegally. Lets say that there is a 1 percent chance you get caught. this means you would illegally download anything with a 50 dollar price tag or higher, because the price has exceeded your price of following the law. Well, with music downloading, there is an interesting time dialation. Over time, the chance of getting caught goes up, increasing your maximum price you would pay. But assuming download speeds stay the same in this window, the amount of music you can download does not equally increase. So there are two options they could follow. by lowering the price, people who see there chances of getting caught as relatively high would be willing to switch to legal music. They can also attempt to increase the perception of the probability of being caught. They are currently doing both. Right now you can get a song for 1 dollar as compared to about 3 bucks for a single. This means for a 10 song album, the price is essentially 10 dollars. They are also increasing people's maximum willingness to pay by enforcing their copyrights.
The reason they can't just keep lowering prices as you would recommend is there are still profit margins to consider. Of course, if they just changed nothing, they would have no problems, but then they would be out of business. Big business does not forget anything that could increase their profit margins.
Your wild accusations of unfair pricing are just as uninformed. there is no such thing as fair in the market. Tehre is simply the price people are willing to pay and the price people are willing to produce at.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess if you are just talking about putting together a picture. But for these games, its not the obvious things that make them good. Its the small details that take months to do. Its why you don't get professional programmers to do the art, you get professional artists. attention to that kind of detail isn't a skill most programmer's have.
But yeah, the ability to program a game like Myst is simplistic by today's standards, no one can argue that. It doesn't mean that 13 years ago it wasn't ground breaking, it is just proof that people keep getting better at it(as have the software tools and hardware).
though I have to ask,what the hell is Schizm?
pushing the chip to extremes of physics.
I didn't know 50 degrees Celcius was the extreme end anymore;-)
you do realize some people have a really hard time on tests do to the environment. It's why most teachers give homework. that way they can get a rough idea of how much this person knows without having to base it all on one test.
I personally can perform incredibly well on a test. But that isn't true for all people and teachers that understand that are usually the best ones you will find(everyone can learn in their classes).
If you take a class you are overqualified for, its your own fault for getting bored and not doing all the work. Its possibly that the point of a basic intro programming course isn't as much about learning to write great programs as it is about learning to familiarize yourself with a new way of thinking. sometimes you need to not look at it from your view point to understand why grading is done differently.
the university system works nothing like you describe. if you are that intelligent then take a harder class. But don't get high and mighty when you take a remedial class(for where you insinuate your skill levels were) and get a bad grade. its a really common thing. It happens to loads of people and like you, I just laugh at them for being lazy and taking a remedial class.
um.... just wondering, what does htis have to do with anything? and why the snide remark to democrats? bush works no harder than other presidents have in recent memory. And almost 90% of what you said he did was already planned out far before these dates(like nominations), are types of compaigning(these speeches are only for that), and just plain easy(not like signing a bill into law is exceptionally difficult once the decision is made).
Not to say any of this is wrong. I am certain most democratic presidents in recent history have done the exact same types of things.
So what is your point?
my question is straight forward, if dos was inferior(as everyone on slashdot says, well, almost everyone), then why would anyone license it. I think its a very valid question. Thats like me going out and buying a pinto with no warranty when a camry is sitting right next to it and equally available. Now why would I originally buy the pinto?? The camry has better performance, is safer, and all around better offering. so if the pinto also has a shitty warranty, it just fails another of my lithmus tests.
you don't get the ability to force incredibly restrictive licensing without already having the power from something.
I honest to god hope the answer isn't(following the analogy) "People were just stupid and were completely fooled as to both dos's inferior offereing and worse license."
I'll address your last point first. and if you don't like being made to look like a raving fool, don't read the next paragraph.
n tial.html
just for you, I did google shareholder activism. The first link is a nice guide about it. I quote:
"Cannot address the validity of company's product or line of business"
http://www.foe.org/international/shareholder/pote
so it would seem my buying 100 shares in aapl doesn't allow me to bring up their lacking support of certain formats.
so before you go acting like you know what you are talking about, maybe you should read your own references?? just a suggestion. I have been looking at the calpers website, and I'm not sure what an opt in retirement fund has to do with public companies like apple.
further, I must admit, I made an error when I said apple won't license AAC. That was a mis step by me(apple doesn't have that option), but the outcome is the same. as you said, they won't license Fairplay, which essentially locks out every other mp3 players from the itunes music store. Now there may be ways around that and you can argue till your blue in the face about that, but its still a locked format only the Ipod can use. In the end, apple is still locking down there offering to make it only fully usable with other apple hardware(which, as a good friend of miine explained, is all about preserving the uniqueness of the apple experience).
btw, MS offers up to date version of office to apple both to make some money and also because of that who anti trust issue they had to deal with. as I'm no MS defender, I will tell you that the reason they do a lot of things is to avoid losing again and possibly being broken up. This way no one can say they are denying a different platform their software.
personally, I don't mind the x86 processor. It seems to work pretty damn well. but of course, if you really hate it, you do have several other options.
oh, and you do realize that what apple has done recently with open source does not mean they would have embraced open source immediately had they dominated the market. Its all a what if situation. What they are doing now is always going to be a direct response to the fact that they didn't win(and a load of other things that have happened in 15 years).
I personally believe the best way to look at what apple would have done is to see how they are handling their powerful position with the Ipod(in a lot of ways, equivalent to the windows monopoly). they are not going to license the competition's DRM(WMA, right?) or offer the copetition the lisense to their DRM, basically locking out all late comers to this game. Sure, apple supports those formats that are standards, but those formats will never be used for legal commerical music(not without some DRM).
I get that they did these illegal things to keep competitors from surfacing. but everyone is about 6 years where I posed my question. i want to know how they got in such a position to force these things on people. these are moves that can only be made from a position of power. how did MS, with an inferior original offereing that had at least 3 major competitors, still win.
I think another post answered that though. They realized the value of getting as many copies out as possible, even if it meant not making much money at first. then once they had a position of power, they could go on and do all those things that were ruled illegal.
what do you mean the illegal per processor agreement(honest to god question). And again, I will pose the other question. These vendors had choices in the beginning. Why did they all go with MS then?? MS still beat them first to get the option to use predatory practices. You can't force things on people until you have cemented yourself as the leader. so I am still wondering how they did that.
just one thing: Name your game players please. these people you think made these changes possible. you seem to be good at putting up loads of arguments with nothing behind them. name your court cases besides the one I already did that you feel paved the way. name your leaders who made it all possible.
I will always give that Brown vs. board was a major case of the time. But keep going. because that can't be all that you mean. Many southern states didn't desegregate for 15-20 years after that, so I guess your court system and friendly congress were really getting their act together?
really now? you think the busses in montgomery allowed blacks to sit up front because of court gains or congress?? go read a history book before you start making civil rights comments that both sweeping and uninformed.
check your facts as well. Congress was another battle ground but congress was vehemently against the civil rights movement until public opinion finally crushed them. The FBI was knowingly used to try and crush civil rights leaders(especially members of the black panthers).
Civil rights might have been finally won in the courts and in congress, but that was only made possibly by the daily work of millions of blacks(and tens of thousands of whites) in the trenches. The willingness to stare down a fire hose or gun for something as simple as going to the same restroom helped open the eyes of millions of americans. and without that, nothing would have changed. or do you think that congress would have gotten around to enacting the civil rights act without the civil rights movement??
I don't deny it at all, DOS is what made them great. now what I want to know is how dos beat the rest of the market that did exist at the time(and yes, there was much more htan just apple back then, even though linux was still a decade away)
What's good for the goose...
um... I htought that was the GP's point. Apple is just as bad as microsoft. And if they were in the position of MS, they would do the exact same things to other companies.
you realize the reason the Itunes music store is lokced out to other players is because the itunes format is copywrited and apple refuses to liscense it. while they woudl have early on, they can sense their impending doom as 10's of other companies are gearing up to attack this market.
now go the other way, apple won't support the other 20 percent of the market place. Why should MS support less than 5% of the market place by doing anything for apple?? its simple, MS makes its money on its software, apple doesn't. Apple doesn't make much(if any) money on the i tunes music store, they makes tons on the Ipod. apple has always been the company vying for a complete monopoly in computer hardware, thank god they failed. Because then they would have extended that to software. at least now all I have to deal with is a software monopoly with so much competition its only monopoly is with the uninformed.
also, you do know shareholders(esp. small ones) have absolutely no say in the strategic business decisions of a company like apple except in that they can vote for a different member of the board. even then, teh board members do not involve themselves with the decisions except to the point that they appoint the head officers of a company. So really, buying shares is a completely worthless endeavor.
these are the posts I don't get. Everyone gives them incredibly high ratings but you haven't said anything really ground breaking. The question is simple: why, if MS had so many competitors that were better than it at making software, did they succeed?
/.'ers consider much better/smarter.
you have attributed it "locking everyone in" but they didn't do that at all. The PC industry was originally a battle between apple and IBM.
So how did they beat everyone is the question? the lock-in's for vendors didn't come until the early 90's (maybe very late 80's), and this was years after they started up.
IBM did not orginally give a monopoly over hte PC to microsoft, they beat the competitors out early on.
so what I want to know is what they did right to beat these people most
now that is just false, look on the far right:a spx/desktops?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/compare.
299 dollars for the bare minimum. And that is 200 cheaper than the mac mini(about 40%). And this is why apple couldn't beat MS. Yes, its prodcuts are worth the extra 40% in some idealisitic measurement. But if all Iwant is a computer I can research with and type of reports, that 200$ means a lot. So while that mac has lots of other features, it just isn't useful(frankly, I can do without the dashboard, even though it's cool).
I woudl bet so many people feel like you that this is why it is now pointless. The civil rights movement was mainly fueled by marches, sit-ins, and general protests. It was only after several YEARS of this(which mainly changed the stances of many people) that the government began to listen and change its stances.
So guess what, its not an easy road. No matter how much slashdot seems like the world, lots of people out there are very happy with what the government is doing. Government always bends to the will of the people in the states, you just have to realize that most of the people just might be against you.
damn, death for eating an apple, y'all got it tough. you sure this god is all loving and all forgiving and all that jazz;-)?
(note: I don't know if original sin was the eating of the apple and this is just a joke, don't get too riled up)
correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought catholics taught that a child that dies before baptism goes to purgatory because of original sin. am I wrong or is there a lot of dissent between catholics or were you just making a point.
ok my point called as well. I just won't call you a dumbass for it.
s /
0 3,A%253D155268%2526M%253D50011,00.html
1. I'm calling bull shit on you. I can't find any references to cases that are like the ones you cited. What I can find are cases that are generic(the 10 commandments being removed from a public building, not some cash register worker as you insinuated) and challenges to the "later" addition of "under god" in the pledge of allegiance(which, if you didn't know, was a backlash to communism having nothing to do with teh spirituality of our nation, rather a this is us and that is them distinction).
2. THE ACLU was formed to protect individual liberties. While this falls under such a broad topic, a look at the cases they actually involve themselves in are ones in which the person/few people cannot defend themselves. This doubtfully falls under that banner. Just look at their website and newsroom adn you will see what they are interested in.
Specific links or court cases are needed. Or again, its just a bunch of bull shit.
now to cite the cases I am talking about:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/08/22/ten.commandment
http://www.lifeway.com/lwc/article_main_page/0,17
(a very conservative newspaper raging about this case)
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/125225.htm
( a blog which quotes the LA times)
if you don't have any cases to point to, then don't put up complete BS about this stuff. The ACLU is also spending its time protecting bible beating christians in Las Vegas to keep there rights to demonstrate infront of the casinos. And that is a real case they defended and won(on CNN about 6 months back).
probably, the insulation has been a problem with repsect to where it is when taking into account where things like heat shields are. The foam insulation itself is a requirement to help safe guard the fuel tanks.
oddly enough, reading online forums has made me lazy with grammar and spelling and made me unable to catch said errors(I've trained myself to just read through them).
I blame the internet for lacking grammar and spelling skills!!! down with the internet to protect the children!!!
why should that matter? we have geniuses at my school(top 10) who are math majors who can't do 675/25 in their heads. They instinctively grab a calculator because they have spent the last 6 years doing math problems that can't be done in your head.
doing math in your head(if you aren't a savant) is like most other useless skills, it takes practice that 99% of people don't care to do. I don't see you getting angry about someone not being able to juggle 5 balls and its about as useful as that long division. I can do it in my head, but that comes from constant practice and enjoyment. It's a worthless skill in the real world. Real world numbers are usually too cumbersome for most people to deal with(even with practice). Talk to adults today. Even some of the most educated have an exceptionally weak grasp of grammar and spelling.
The question you should ask is "are these skills I think people don't have really essential" and "did people ever have them". You'll probably get a resounding no for those skills you seem to think are most important.
haha, my econometrics teacher put it best, econ proves why you should still go for it on 4th down and 2 on the opposition's 30 yard line, its just cost benefit analysis at its simplest. Of course, those football coaches disagree simple because they think there way is better and economists aren't willing to break it down in an extremely simple manner.
yeah, my big surprise in the real world is when businesses pay people with my degree 80,000 dollars a year to tell them what I just said but applied to there exact product.
but, I guess if your talking about that who surprise about what its like to be rich, I'll be happy when it comes with the real world. It is nice to know that the econ ability of the general population is where yours is; I love having job security;-)
just to clarify some of your points. People do reveal there value for products all the time. Its in buying the object and understanding the market that the theory of revealed preferences comes into play. Its interestingly stuff and very subtle, but you can figure out the value a person placed on an object, after the fact.
Furthermore, you dont exactly arbitrarily choose your price. Some markets just don't exist because they aren't profitable to be in. If your software costs 350 and the market does not support this software, then it won't ever exist and this IS NOT an inefficiency. Consider the market for me carrying your package by hand to NYC from LA. Just beucase I am willing to do it for 1000 dollars and no one will pay it does not mean there is some inefficiency in the market place. Even if XYZ places the value of it at 50 dollars, the market hasn't lost that 50 dollars(on net, it hasn't).
Now consider your example. I know about marginal cost pricing of goods so stick with me for a second. Why does someone charge 100 dollars for a piece of software? This is where classical economics is no help. It has to do with covering startup costs. With software, fixed costs are everything. marginal costs are nothing. And if the marginal cost can never exceed the fixed cost, and average fixed cost never drops below price even at maximum market saturation, you have a problem. Software falls into this black hole of economics. While the ability to price discriminate(what you hint at with your example) is one solution, it is usually not feasible. So it should be included that price discrimination doesn't usually exist because it is so expensive to do(car dealerships are an excellent example of price discrimination. We were able to get a guy to go 600 dollars below invoice for a car to us, but other people paid MSRP, about 6000 more).
IP laws are in place because people actually value software as the several hundred/several thousand dollar price tag but there is no way of a software company to take advantage of this. We say that the benefit of having the software at all is worth having to deal with prices that are above the optimum for society(in this case, marginal cost pricing). What people need to realize is that software as we know it today does not exist without IP laws. This is not to say software would not exist, but IP laws allow for the creation of software outside of the case by case, contractual basis it would ahve to be to engage in price discrimination.
your economics needs work. People do not pay what they are willing to pay unless a supplier has a monopoly and can engage in perfect price discrimination. Neither has ever been the case in at least the last century, probably much longer.
Microsoft does not go off setting a ridiculously high price just because it is a monopoly(which it isn't a pure monopoly, it is actually the main actor in an oligopoly). They set the profit maximizing price and it happens to be that with market power, that price is higher than the price that maximizes consumer and producer surplus(think happiness, though this is a bad definition). Now, no one can pursue superior or cheaper alternatives if you are a monopoly, there are none. that is the definition.
So what is wrong with what you said? It doesn't matter if you(as the producer) think there are other alternatives or not. It only matters if the consumer knows they exist. If you do not, you will simply be put out of business. One complication, software differentiation. As long as two pieces are not perfect substitutes(no matter how close), there is room for price differentiation.
Furthermore, economics does not say that exorbitantly high prices were the problem for the RIAA/record industry. the problem was a cheaper, perfect subsitute(that happens to be illegal). A person could get the exact same song for a much lower price. While copyright laws are supposed to help stifle this, they have had only limited success. If they charged 5 bucks a cd, it doesn't change the fact that the price of illegal downloading(there big problem right now) would attract people. The answer is much subtler and lies in risk management.
Think of it this way, lets say that there is a 5000 dollar penalty on downloading illegally. Lets say that there is a 1 percent chance you get caught. this means you would illegally download anything with a 50 dollar price tag or higher, because the price has exceeded your price of following the law. Well, with music downloading, there is an interesting time dialation. Over time, the chance of getting caught goes up, increasing your maximum price you would pay. But assuming download speeds stay the same in this window, the amount of music you can download does not equally increase. So there are two options they could follow. by lowering the price, people who see there chances of getting caught as relatively high would be willing to switch to legal music. They can also attempt to increase the perception of the probability of being caught. They are currently doing both. Right now you can get a song for 1 dollar as compared to about 3 bucks for a single. This means for a 10 song album, the price is essentially 10 dollars. They are also increasing people's maximum willingness to pay by enforcing their copyrights.
The reason they can't just keep lowering prices as you would recommend is there are still profit margins to consider. Of course, if they just changed nothing, they would have no problems, but then they would be out of business. Big business does not forget anything that could increase their profit margins.
Your wild accusations of unfair pricing are just as uninformed. there is no such thing as fair in the market. Tehre is simply the price people are willing to pay and the price people are willing to produce at.