Why not just put the computer in a locked cabinet under the desk (with proper ventilation) and run cables and external CD-ROM through a hole in the top of the desk?
I'd much prefer a to lock up a standard Dell in an immovable cabinet than to have an immovable computer on my floor.
Regardless, you can't argue that having a $0 version of the exact same piece of software as you have to pay $n for, with very little risk involved in obtaining it, doesn't have any effect on revenue. The effect is no doubt inflated by executives, but to say it has no effect is just plain wrong.
Someone who really wants Photoshop (or whatever other software, as it seems like a lot of responses got bogged down in this example) will most likely weigh the cost of buying it with the effort of pirating it. Piracy is a downward force on the value of goods in this case. If piracy were not an option, and you only have one avenue of getting the software, you are more likely to buy it.
Perhaps it's not worth paying $1 for a song to you if you could otherwise get it for free. But, in any given pirated music collection, there are most likely a couple of songs that the owner would have paid $1 if piracy were not an option. To say that the owner would have bought all of the songs is stupid, but to say that the owner would have bought none of the songs is equally stupid. The answer lies somewhere inbetween. Piracy does hurt revenue, by some undetermined amount.
It's absolutely true that some people will pirate a piece of software even if it cost a penny. That's not my argument. I simply argue that pirates are forcing a company to compete with a free version of its own product, and that absolutely does devalue its product.
In some sense, I think copyright infringement of things like Photoshop is even more destructive than theft, insofar as there is little risk involved and there is this perception of it not being a serious thing.
When you download Photoshop, you are forcing Adobe to compete with a free, easy to get version of their own product. This is incredibly destructive to the free market as it applies to software. Instead of paying Adobe for the goods they provide, you pay them for those goods in light of the fact that you can also get them for free. Note, this is not an attack on Free Software, I'm talking about the situation where a company is forced to compete with a low risk free version of their own product once it hits the market.
So, my bet is that if they were to offer a $50 version of Photoshop and piracy were impossible, maybe half the Photoshop pirates out there would buy it. If, however, piracy were possible, they may have to make their price, say, $20 to get half the pirates to buy a copy.
So that's that. Piracy devalues the product. It doesn't matter if you wouldn't have bought a copy anyway, or that it's overpriced or anything. By pirating, you are taking away the expected revenue of a product by making the company that releases it compete with a free product. You may not see it as stealing, but that company had to put a certain amount of money into development and they are losing some portion (not all) of their revenue due to the fact that piracy has devalued their software.
By your argument does that company have to lose enough revenue that they lose money in the venture before you call it stealing?
I think it's funny that on page one he says "I recommend you bookmark this page now" and on page 2 he says "It may also help if you could get your visitors to bookmark you."
Thanks to you, I spend more time with my family than ever. Whenever I visit my out of town relatives, they all make sure I come and pay a visit to clean the spyware off their computers. I get numerous great meals with my family members because of the services I provide. I further wouldn't receive half as many calls from my dear mother without Microsoft. How many times do I get to hear her loving voice saying "My Internet is broken," thanks to you, Microsoft?
You have had a profound impact in bringing me closer to my family.
I think the GP meant that despite the fact that x86 is a bad architecture, it is the dominant one, and it is dominant because the market favors a bad open architecture over a good closed one.
In this case superior means which one will win in the market, not which one is the best design-wise.
the ironing is delicious.
I get this image of cooking french toast on an iron. Ooh you could fill the iron with syrup which would drizzle all over the toast when you pushed the steam button.
Because "bold" is presentation whereas "strong" is content. "Strong" doesn't mean "bold," and with CSS you could make strong render as italic site-wide by changing one line in the stylesheet.
Actually, once you were at the speed of light, an eternity would pass and the entire universe would die its heat death before you'd feel a second pass.
I posted just above you about the same issue. I've talked to their customer support also. They first complained about it being beta (last year) and then they just ignored me.
I think I'll write back with statistics to back it up.
It's also interesting to note that the same error comes up when you go to www.weightwatchers.de, where supposedly Firefox has >20% market share.
I find that somewhat confusing, also. It's suspect that their market share is around 3.7% but this suggests that their browser has a market share of around half that (depending on how you interpret their share of "other").
I have one example which really annoys me: www.weightwatchers.com requires non-Firefox browsers.
There are ways to bypass their redirect page and view the rest of their site. It appears to all work fine in Firefox.
I've emailed the web admin twice about this. The first time was last summer, and the response was that they had no intention of supporting a browser that was still in beta. I emailed them again once 1.0 was released and have gotten no answer.
It's just plain dumb for business to block a site like this.
The article says it took 55 CPU years to factor the number, though they did it in parallel for about a year and a half.
I'd hate to imagine the teams that we don't hear about who are, say, 30 CPU years into the problem who just found out it's already been done.
Slashdot Mirror
Why not just put the computer in a locked cabinet under the desk (with proper ventilation) and run cables and external CD-ROM through a hole in the top of the desk? I'd much prefer a to lock up a standard Dell in an immovable cabinet than to have an immovable computer on my floor.
This is all due to a misplaced comma. A long time ago in a galaxy, far far away.
100 years according to which observer?
Regardless, you can't argue that having a $0 version of the exact same piece of software as you have to pay $n for, with very little risk involved in obtaining it, doesn't have any effect on revenue. The effect is no doubt inflated by executives, but to say it has no effect is just plain wrong.
Someone who really wants Photoshop (or whatever other software, as it seems like a lot of responses got bogged down in this example) will most likely weigh the cost of buying it with the effort of pirating it. Piracy is a downward force on the value of goods in this case. If piracy were not an option, and you only have one avenue of getting the software, you are more likely to buy it.
Perhaps it's not worth paying $1 for a song to you if you could otherwise get it for free. But, in any given pirated music collection, there are most likely a couple of songs that the owner would have paid $1 if piracy were not an option. To say that the owner would have bought all of the songs is stupid, but to say that the owner would have bought none of the songs is equally stupid. The answer lies somewhere inbetween. Piracy does hurt revenue, by some undetermined amount.
It's absolutely true that some people will pirate a piece of software even if it cost a penny. That's not my argument. I simply argue that pirates are forcing a company to compete with a free version of its own product, and that absolutely does devalue its product.
In some sense, I think copyright infringement of things like Photoshop is even more destructive than theft, insofar as there is little risk involved and there is this perception of it not being a serious thing.
When you download Photoshop, you are forcing Adobe to compete with a free, easy to get version of their own product. This is incredibly destructive to the free market as it applies to software. Instead of paying Adobe for the goods they provide, you pay them for those goods in light of the fact that you can also get them for free. Note, this is not an attack on Free Software, I'm talking about the situation where a company is forced to compete with a low risk free version of their own product once it hits the market.
So, my bet is that if they were to offer a $50 version of Photoshop and piracy were impossible, maybe half the Photoshop pirates out there would buy it. If, however, piracy were possible, they may have to make their price, say, $20 to get half the pirates to buy a copy.
So that's that. Piracy devalues the product. It doesn't matter if you wouldn't have bought a copy anyway, or that it's overpriced or anything. By pirating, you are taking away the expected revenue of a product by making the company that releases it compete with a free product. You may not see it as stealing, but that company had to put a certain amount of money into development and they are losing some portion (not all) of their revenue due to the fact that piracy has devalued their software.
By your argument does that company have to lose enough revenue that they lose money in the venture before you call it stealing?
What? I don't know that. AAAAAAHHHHH!
How many football fields is that?
I think it's funny that on page one he says "I recommend you bookmark this page now" and on page 2 he says "It may also help if you could get your visitors to bookmark you."
Lame.
Dear Microsoft,
Thanks to you, I spend more time with my family than ever. Whenever I visit my out of town relatives, they all make sure I come and pay a visit to clean the spyware off their computers. I get numerous great meals with my family members because of the services I provide. I further wouldn't receive half as many calls from my dear mother without Microsoft. How many times do I get to hear her loving voice saying "My Internet is broken," thanks to you, Microsoft?
You have had a profound impact in bringing me closer to my family.
Thank you, Microsoft!
The other comment.
Anyone else think this comment is funny in light of the signature attached to it?
I think the GP meant that despite the fact that x86 is a bad architecture, it is the dominant one, and it is dominant because the market favors a bad open architecture over a good closed one.
In this case superior means which one will win in the market, not which one is the best design-wise.
Their "trust" only determines whether a site is rendered with the IE or Firefox engine, not whether or not it is rendered.
That's a lot of nuts!
(Don't suppose anyone here remembers Kung Pao: Enter the Fist that well)
You see, geeks do have poetry in their souls. It's just in a language they don't teach in the English department.
Klingon?
the ironing is delicious.
I get this image of cooking french toast on an iron. Ooh you could fill the iron with syrup which would drizzle all over the toast when you pushed the steam button.
Sorry, I skipped lunch.
Because "bold" is presentation whereas "strong" is content. "Strong" doesn't mean "bold," and with CSS you could make strong render as italic site-wide by changing one line in the stylesheet.
How's that for less typing?
Done and done. .blinktag
{
text-decoration:blink;
}
Diamond is also quite brittle. It wouldn't work well for a laptop screen.
Actually, once you were at the speed of light, an eternity would pass and the entire universe would die its heat death before you'd feel a second pass.
I posted just above you about the same issue. I've talked to their customer support also. They first complained about it being beta (last year) and then they just ignored me.
I think I'll write back with statistics to back it up.
It's also interesting to note that the same error comes up when you go to www.weightwatchers.de, where supposedly Firefox has >20% market share.
I find that somewhat confusing, also. It's suspect that their market share is around 3.7% but this suggests that their browser has a market share of around half that (depending on how you interpret their share of "other").
I have one example which really annoys me: www.weightwatchers.com requires non-Firefox browsers.
There are ways to bypass their redirect page and view the rest of their site. It appears to all work fine in Firefox.
I've emailed the web admin twice about this. The first time was last summer, and the response was that they had no intention of supporting a browser that was still in beta. I emailed them again once 1.0 was released and have gotten no answer.
It's just plain dumb for business to block a site like this.
The article says it took 55 CPU years to factor the number, though they did it in parallel for about a year and a half. I'd hate to imagine the teams that we don't hear about who are, say, 30 CPU years into the problem who just found out it's already been done.
Then didn't Moses just go back to the OEM and beg for a new copy?