Oh, jeebus lord christ, don't start rambling probabilities while defending the essential rights of those who went on a religious holiday to Afghanistan in, say, 2001, and happened to be captured by the US military while being 100% innocent of any wrongdoing. That probability is likely to be situated somewhere on the ocean floor.
"Vad som kommer att ske den 17 juni? Ja vem vet. Kan ju bli pÃ¥kÃrd, sjuk, vara pÃ¥ resande fot, bli gravid eller bara vara dÃr och rÃsta ja. Vem vet. Den dagen den sorgen."
Translation:
"What will happen on the 17:th of June? Well, who knows? I might be hit by a car, become ill, spend the day travelling, become pregnant or just be there and vote yes. That day, that sorrow..."
The sad fact of life is that Swedish MP:s serve almost entirely on the whim of their party leadership. If they make trouble, they get wiped off the list in the next election, and they're gone.
So, is restricting development on the iPhone a stepping stone to market dominance? If that's true, that would seem to validate Apple's model choice very much indeed!
Otherwise, abusing a dominant position is what MS has been getting nailed for, and Apple are nowhere near that position in the mobile phone market. Hence, they have a much more free hand, just as they have with respect to bundling software with the Mac.
There is some improvement (Skype and Aftonbladet now have many free Café hotspots in Stockholm), but the presence of relatively cheap flatrate Turbo 3G everywhere for 30 bucks / month or so means that the incentive to build more is rather small - most laptop owners who need mobility already have that small 3G dongle attached to their computer. I care only because I use my iPod Touch to surf on at Cafés.;)
If you believe putting "Vista Capable" on something that does indeed run Vista, but doesn't run the whole whoosh-whoosh warrants a class action lawsuit for "fraud", the...
Oh, I know that 3G is where most mobile data is at - part of the reason I was pleasantly surprised by the initiative. And 3G can be a dog sometimes if you are unlucky with the base station load, etc., so having some WiFi around can be neat.
I was pleasantly surprised to find Free WiFi making inroads into Europe - using my iPod Touch at my local Café, Skype and Aftonbladet (the major Swedish tabloid) offered free Wi-Fi. Let's hope it spreads.
Looking at the TPB top 100 movies / TV shows, it's pretty obvious that the vast majority of pirated content is European. Certainly, there is non-US content, but it's a small share.
He should learn to Google, as he put quotes around the search ("Harry Potter Goblet Fire Torrent"), meaning Google searches for the exact phrase "Harry Potter Goblet Fire Torrent". Which, needless to say, isn't very common on teh interwebs. Removing the quotes yields some 118 000 hits. Pretty neat.
"As I have patiently explained many times, America does not lead the world in most areas of science and technology. By what metric? It certainly hosts most world-class institutions of higher education, which would be one relevant way of measuring things. Nobel Prizes, etc. also look pretty good for being numbero uno. Are we talking patents per capita? Or some other metric?
"Or free speech." Dunno. The first amendment beats most speech protection on this side of the pond. Or to the north or south of you...
"Or social mobility." Certainly not if you use a distributional definition - after all, randomness will play a far larger role in a compressed income distribution. The US does have large opportunities for actually getting rich (or affluent).
"Or even per capita wealth." The US is certainly in the top 10, which is pretty decent.
"The only thing the US leads the world in is military power" Erm, the country with the largest absolute wealth anyone?
"and as Iraq has shown that doesn't seem to help you much anyway." This is indeed true - the largest benificiary of US military supremacy isn't the US, but the rest of the world, which doesn't really have to bother much with conventional military capacity any more. Also, it tempts leaders into irresponsible action. Perhaps it's time for you to give isolationism another whirl? I'm all for it.
"I hope you notice that candidates in other countries just don't talk in such belligerent terms about their nations position in the world."
He is talking about science and innovation, while acknowledging the obvious - the US is the most powerful nation in the world. Wouldn't call that "belligerent". In the Republican race, I much prefer him over "100 years in Iraq" McCain.
Mandatory preemptive strike: And no, Ron Paul won't get the Repub nomination.
So, as you have already indicated that measuring demand by people buying / renting / doing legal downloads is out of the question, would it be too much to ask how is demand is to be measured?
"Recording a song, filming a movie, or writing a program takes just as much effort, and deserves just as much compensation, no matter how many copies are eventually made. " Indeed - consumer demand should never enter the equation. And given that "effort" is the metric to be used in determining compensation, I would speculate that your scheme would give us lots of glorious 12-hour movies featuring starvation victims shoveling manure into a furnace, with the camera crew doing bare-knuckle pushups on broken glass, and other similar "high-effort" setups.
Because, you know, that would be like totally high-effort and stuff.
"Wouldn't watch at the current prices, yes. If I wasn't downloading, I would be waiting for the DVD. Even then, I wouldn't be buying - I'd rent...(snip) Thank you for confirming my thesis.
"I download movies I wouldn't pay to see at the cinema. If I like it, I buy the DVD." I download movies, then... well, I sure as hell don't go out and buy a DVD. I'm fairly certain there is a substantial number of people like me among TPB users.
"Half of the shows I like aren't broadcast in my country, and if they are, in no particular order." I know, being able to watch The Wire Season five the day after it was on in the US is great. For me. But will I watch it again when it shows up on basic/medium cable in a year or two? The question sort of answers itself, no?
"I can't argue with you on this one, but a lot of the community here uses all freeware/open source and has no need to pirate shitty overpriced software." I am curious - if the "overpriced" (I.e. price>0) software is indeed "shitty", why do so many people pirate it on sites like TPB instead of downloading the superior FOSS alternatives?
Maybe if the Pirate Bay is able to make so much money off this, the RIAA/MPAA should get smart and do the same. Hmm... perhaps running a torrent site where you offer what others have produced for free is a different business proposition compared to actually *producing* the movies/TV shows/software on offer? Nah.
If DVDs didn't have 10 minutes of forced watching at the start, they'd get more sales out of them too. Probably, yes. But that's a marginal issue, and you know it.
Do you really think the multi-million (billion?) dollar corporations need you here to stand up for them? So it seems, considering I got modded "Troll" for merely offering up a contrary viewpoint to the self-serving Slashdot groupthink.
Misleading, due to MS channel stuffing in late 2006. (Looking at actual sales to consumers via NPD, et al, sales are actually up) Still, nice to see them paying a PR price for their overshipping last year...
"As a serious proposal, it makes about as much sense as suggesting that Congress pass a law allowing unrestricted legal immigration in order to increase the numbers of young workers and thus solve the demographic problems of Medicare and Social Security."
If the immigrants are stripped of their own rights to medicare and social security, yes. Otherwise, not so much. That's of course disregarding other slight problems with the scheme, such as the US falling apart in swift order while absorbing a billion or so largely poor and uneducated people.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, jeebus lord christ, don't start rambling probabilities while defending the essential rights of those who went on a religious holiday to Afghanistan in, say, 2001, and happened to be captured by the US military while being 100% innocent of any wrongdoing. That probability is likely to be situated somewhere on the ocean floor.
From his blog: http://federley.blogspot.com/
"Vad som kommer att ske den 17 juni? Ja vem vet. Kan ju bli pÃ¥kÃrd, sjuk, vara pÃ¥ resande fot, bli gravid eller bara vara dÃr och rÃsta ja. Vem vet. Den dagen den sorgen."
Translation:
"What will happen on the 17:th of June? Well, who knows? I might be hit by a car, become ill, spend the day travelling, become pregnant or just be there and vote yes. That day, that sorrow..."
The sad fact of life is that Swedish MP:s serve almost entirely on the whim of their party leadership. If they make trouble, they get wiped off the list in the next election, and they're gone.
So, is restricting development on the iPhone a stepping stone to market dominance? If that's true, that would seem to validate Apple's model choice very much indeed!
Otherwise, abusing a dominant position is what MS has been getting nailed for, and Apple are nowhere near that position in the mobile phone market. Hence, they have a much more free hand, just as they have with respect to bundling software with the Mac.
There is some improvement (Skype and Aftonbladet now have many free Café hotspots in Stockholm), but the presence of relatively cheap flatrate Turbo 3G everywhere for 30 bucks / month or so means that the incentive to build more is rather small - most laptop owners who need mobility already have that small 3G dongle attached to their computer. I care only because I use my iPod Touch to surf on at Cafés. ;)
"is wrong, since you're not."
Uh-huh.
"Second, you fail to understand the issue."
Uh-huh.
"Third, you'd do well in stopping now, since the hole you're digging is only getting deeper."
Oh noes! How will I get up?
"Fourth, you appear to be a moron."
Oh noes!
"See the above three points for why, including the third, which you are soon about to break, again."
So, I'm a moron because I would "...do well in stopping now, since the hole you're digging is only getting deeper"? That's just moronic!
If you believe putting "Vista Capable" on something that does indeed run Vista, but doesn't run the whole whoosh-whoosh warrants a class action lawsuit for "fraud", the...
*I realize I am arguing with the Hivemind*
Oh well, never mind.
In short, this is a class-action lawsuit based on some people expecting a whooshier, flashier UI from Vista.
A UI the the Slashdot Hivemind (TM) assures us is completely useless.
But of course, a bunch of whiny tech know-nothings being deprived of said UI is a crime against humanity according to the Slashdot Hivemind (TM).
Gotcha.
PS.
Only in America would something like this require divulging internal e-mail, etc. It's ridiculous.
DS.
There is of course a simple solution: BitTorrent. More demand with BT = More supply of bandwidth.
Oh, I know that 3G is where most mobile data is at - part of the reason I was pleasantly surprised by the initiative. And 3G can be a dog sometimes if you are unlucky with the base station load, etc., so having some WiFi around can be neat.
I was pleasantly surprised to find Free WiFi making inroads into Europe - using my iPod Touch at my local Café, Skype and Aftonbladet (the major Swedish tabloid) offered free Wi-Fi. Let's hope it spreads.
Ooops! "that the vast majority of pirated content is American".
PS.
GET AN EDIT FEATURE SLASHDOT! THIS IS 2008!
That is all.
DS.
Looking at the TPB top 100 movies / TV shows, it's pretty obvious that the vast majority of pirated content is European. Certainly, there is non-US content, but it's a small share.
He should learn to Google, as he put quotes around the search ("Harry Potter Goblet Fire Torrent"), meaning Google searches for the exact phrase "Harry Potter Goblet Fire Torrent". Which, needless to say, isn't very common on teh interwebs. Removing the quotes yields some 118 000 hits. Pretty neat.
That's why the 360 isn't cracked wide open already. Lack of interest. And why the PS3 is even less cracked - no interest. Sure. Yea.
"Or free speech."
Dunno. The first amendment beats most speech protection on this side of the pond. Or to the north or south of you...
"Or social mobility."
Certainly not if you use a distributional definition - after all, randomness will play a far larger role in a compressed income distribution. The US does have large opportunities for actually getting rich (or affluent).
"Or even per capita wealth."
The US is certainly in the top 10, which is pretty decent.
"The only thing the US leads the world in is military power"
Erm, the country with the largest absolute wealth anyone?
"and as Iraq has shown that doesn't seem to help you much anyway."
This is indeed true - the largest benificiary of US military supremacy isn't the US, but the rest of the world, which doesn't really have to bother much with conventional military capacity any more. Also, it tempts leaders into irresponsible action. Perhaps it's time for you to give isolationism another whirl? I'm all for it.
"I hope you notice that candidates in other countries just don't talk in such belligerent terms about their nations position in the world."
He is talking about science and innovation, while acknowledging the obvious - the US is the most powerful nation in the world. Wouldn't call that "belligerent". In the Republican race, I much prefer him over "100 years in Iraq" McCain.
Mandatory preemptive strike: And no, Ron Paul won't get the Repub nomination.
So, as you have already indicated that measuring demand by people buying / renting / doing legal downloads is out of the question, would it be too much to ask how is demand is to be measured?
Because, you know, that would be like totally high-effort and stuff.
...because they only download movies they wouldn't watch otherwise.
And shows they watch anyways. For "backup" purposes.
And computer programs and games they are thinking about getting. For evaluation purposes.
And we could just switch to FOSS movies, TV and computer programs anyways. It has to be true - I read it on Slashdot!
Misleading, due to MS channel stuffing in late 2006. (Looking at actual sales to consumers via NPD, et al, sales are actually up) Still, nice to see them paying a PR price for their overshipping last year...
"the 'Nazi Socialist PC ball buster' only really exists in the minds of men who are insecure about their own masculinity."
You would be more convincing if you left out at least the most tired of Nazi-Socialist-PC-ball-busting clichés.
"As a serious proposal, it makes about as much sense as suggesting that Congress pass a law allowing unrestricted legal immigration in order to increase the numbers of young workers and thus solve the demographic problems of Medicare and Social Security."
If the immigrants are stripped of their own rights to medicare and social security, yes. Otherwise, not so much. That's of course disregarding other slight problems with the scheme, such as the US falling apart in swift order while absorbing a billion or so largely poor and uneducated people.
120 million. And you appear to have missed the point entirely. But I guess there was a reason for posting as a coward.