A LOT of people seem to share the opinion that VII had the best story line... But I don't feel that way. I wonder, when did you get introduced to the series? While I found VII to be very enjoyable, II/IV was my favorite as far as storyline, followed closely by III/VI.
There is an inherent flaw in the weighting system used for honors classes in MOST schools. This happened to me...
Freshman year of high school we were encouraged to take at least one hour of study hall. Not being interested in wasting 55 minutes of my day, I decided instead to take an extra elective. So, out of 7 courses, 3 honors courses (weighted at A = 5.0) and 4 courses (weighted at A = 4.0) was my freshman year.
Fast forward to the end of my Junior year.
Even with straight A's all the way through, I noticed that there were several students with higher GPAs than me, high enough in fact, that I would not be valedictorian (still able to graduate with honors, though). As I began to investigate, I noticed the difference was that these other students had taken the same honors courses, but always kept a study hall.
So, my GPA for one year would be: ~4.43
And the others: 4.5
Keep this in mind when your kids get into high school!
Having the source of the FairPlay DRM shouldn't make circumventing it any easier (if it is designed correctly). Encryption algorithms (such as AES, BlowFish, etc.) are all very openly documented, still not simple to "crack".
You're right, of course. Someone dropped the ball. However, almost every company in the industry is taking notice and sparing no expense to increase their performance. These things to take time though, and now its a race against the volume. Should be an exciting (from a development perspective at least), couple of years.
I am involved only tengentally, so I can't speak for exactly what NSX ran into. I'm only saying the issues that I am currently seeing with our systems. We are taking every precaution to make sure that the same thing DOESN'T happen to us.
One thing to note, these systems are (in general) running on the most cutting edge systems that money can buy... Hardware upgrades are usually deployed as soon as they are certified, which may only be weeks after a release. When you are already paying 6 figures for a single machine, there isn't much vertical mobility in terms of hardware selection.
If a consumer won't purchase an item because the PRICE is not agreeable, then THAT consumer does not affect the profit margin whatsoever.
Now, in this case, the consumer doesn't have the "right" to participate in copyright infringement, but if they do so, it STILL doesn't affect the profit margin.
Data rates have doubled at the exchanges in the recent past, and they are likely to double again the the near future. Keeping ahead of this curve is not as easy as one might think...
Just one stock for instance, APPL will have millions of transactions in a single days trading... Including just trades and quotes you can see close to 100Mb of activity for a single symbol in a day.
We are constantly trying to increase capacity, but we're near a point where the only meaningful upgrades for capacity planning are new hardware. To top this off,most of the downstream (client side) applications are limited not by the hardware but by the available bandwidth.
Honestly, one of the things that kept me away from sat. radio for so long was confusion over the concept of "commercial free". I imagined it just as you describe... Like having my iPod on shuffle. That doesn't really interest me, as I can do that on my own.
I have to say that the DJs on the Sirius stations that I listen to (the Vault, Jam On) are refreshing to hear. The frequently have insights into the bands that are being played that are a very nice addition. It's what listening to radio "should" be like.
Well, this thread had gone nicely without any flaming until now... In any case, if you get me to pay what I am WILLING to pay, then I contend I am NOT a sucker after all.
Interesting that you bring up market makers in this context.... In the finance industry a market maker will dictate BOTH the buy and sell price. In this context, it seems to indicate that shill bidding is OK.
You appear to have defined the term market maker differently than is traditionally accepted.
Because if I'm willing to pay $300,000 for your house, then that it what it is worth to ME.
Allow me to turn around the question with a hypothetical example:
A few months ago, my wife and I decided to try to sell our house to extract some equity and put that forth into building a new house for our expanding family. We had our house appraised with 3 acres of land, and the appraisal came back at a nice $315,000.
We built the house doing a lot of work ourselves, and if we could have sold it for $290,000 we would have been completely out of debt, and been ready to immediately start building a new home.
However, the market around our area is currently flooded with new construction, and potential buyers have to drive by several brand new subdivisions with builders that allow them to choose their floor plan and options that are within the same price range.
With that added competition we were not able to get any offers on our house at our asking price, even after reducing it thrice.
So, if someone made an offer on our house for $200,000, should we have taken it? Clearly we were in a situation where we wanted to get rid of the house. We would love to have sold it for $290,000, but we could have accepted $200,000? Should we only accept the minimum offer made by any particular client?
You have to admit that this is not a cut and dry issue. It may be unethical, and may be against the terms of service of eBay, but as a seller, I have the right to charge anything I want for an item at ANY time prior to the sale of that item. Auctions blur this line a little, but I still stand fast. If the people in your example were willing to pay $300K, then that's what it was worth to them, and they got a GREAT deal because of it.
Note, that I wasn't necessarily standing up for sellers who utilize this practice. At the same time, MOST of the items listed on ebay are things that can easily be attained from other sources. With that in mind, the "fair market value" for most items is already well established. If the thing that I am selling retails for $50, there is a basic understanding that the value of this item is withing a reasonable range (obviously based upon its condition).
The problem is, people in general WANT to get the best deal, and really HATE to have to pay more than they assume they should, even when they do. Look at all the people who adamantly claim that the car dealer screwed them over on their last purchase...
All that aside, I agree there is fraud going on here, but not (in my humble opinion) to the extent that it needs to be investigated and stopped. Sellers SHOULD start their auctions at whatever MINIMUM price they are willing to accept, however that just doesn't happen and the sooner all the eBay'ers out there accept that, the less they will be affected by this practice.
But you just conceded that you were willing to pay a certain amount? Where is the harm if I sell you something for MORE than I [i]needed[/i] to get out of it, if you are willing to pay the higher price?
I honestly don't see the problem here, on eBay, you should bid what you are willing to pay, and no more. I think the people who get "burned" are bidding higher than they should.
Frankly, if John Q. Public thinks that the HPV vaccine is a vaccine against cervical cancer, and are therefore MORE likely to have the vaccine administered to his family members, I'm all for the misinformation in this case.
Not to mention the logistics of hitting a cow with a vehicle hard enough to cause death, and then continuing to drive said vehicle. Do you know how much damage a 1 ton bovine would cause?
Apple may have "forced" the pricing model, but in actuality, its not any different, and in fact probably MORE lucrative for the RIAA.
At $0.99/song, you are paying about $10-$15 dollars per album. Not only are you paying the same amount (or more) in general, you have less "goods" than you would have had if you had purchased the CD.
I don't know how much of the cut goes to Apple vs. the record company, but I think the record company gets a higher percentage of the money, and they have to spend less money in producing the product. It's a win for them.
Unless, once his schooling is completed your son wants to find a job outside of security/law enforcement. In that case, his lack of experience will affect his job search.
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A LOT of people seem to share the opinion that VII had the best story line... But I don't feel that way.
I wonder, when did you get introduced to the series?
While I found VII to be very enjoyable, II/IV was my favorite as far as storyline, followed closely by III/VI.
There is an inherent flaw in the weighting system used for honors classes in MOST schools. This happened to me...
Freshman year of high school we were encouraged to take at least one hour of study hall. Not being interested in wasting 55 minutes of my day, I decided instead to take an extra elective. So, out of 7 courses, 3 honors courses (weighted at A = 5.0) and 4 courses (weighted at A = 4.0) was my freshman year.
Fast forward to the end of my Junior year.
Even with straight A's all the way through, I noticed that there were several students with higher GPAs than me, high enough in fact, that I would not be valedictorian (still able to graduate with honors, though). As I began to investigate, I noticed the difference was that these other students had taken the same honors courses, but always kept a study hall.
So, my GPA for one year would be: ~4.43 And the others: 4.5
Keep this in mind when your kids get into high school!
I know, I know... WAAAAAHHHHHH!!!
Having the source of the FairPlay DRM shouldn't make circumventing it any easier (if it is designed correctly). Encryption algorithms (such as AES, BlowFish, etc.) are all very openly documented, still not simple to "crack".
You're right, of course. Someone dropped the ball. However, almost every company in the industry is taking notice and sparing no expense to increase their performance. These things to take time though, and now its a race against the volume. Should be an exciting (from a development perspective at least), couple of years.
I am involved only tengentally, so I can't speak for exactly what NSX ran into. I'm only saying the issues that I am currently seeing with our systems. We are taking every precaution to make sure that the same thing DOESN'T happen to us. One thing to note, these systems are (in general) running on the most cutting edge systems that money can buy... Hardware upgrades are usually deployed as soon as they are certified, which may only be weeks after a release. When you are already paying 6 figures for a single machine, there isn't much vertical mobility in terms of hardware selection.
If a consumer won't purchase an item because the PRICE is not agreeable, then THAT consumer does not affect the profit margin whatsoever.
Now, in this case, the consumer doesn't have the "right" to participate in copyright infringement, but if they do so, it STILL doesn't affect the profit margin.
Copyright infringement is morally wrong? How do you know?
Data rates have doubled at the exchanges in the recent past, and they are likely to double again the the near future. Keeping ahead of this curve is not as easy as one might think...
Just one stock for instance, APPL will have millions of transactions in a single days trading... Including just trades and quotes you can see close to 100Mb of activity for a single symbol in a day.
We are constantly trying to increase capacity, but we're near a point where the only meaningful upgrades for capacity planning are new hardware. To top this off,most of the downstream (client side) applications are limited not by the hardware but by the available bandwidth.
Honestly, one of the things that kept me away from sat. radio for so long was confusion over the concept of "commercial free". I imagined it just as you describe... Like having my iPod on shuffle. That doesn't really interest me, as I can do that on my own. I have to say that the DJs on the Sirius stations that I listen to (the Vault, Jam On) are refreshing to hear. The frequently have insights into the bands that are being played that are a very nice addition. It's what listening to radio "should" be like.
Well, this thread had gone nicely without any flaming until now... In any case, if you get me to pay what I am WILLING to pay, then I contend I am NOT a sucker after all.
Interesting that you bring up market makers in this context.... In the finance industry a market maker will dictate BOTH the buy and sell price. In this context, it seems to indicate that shill bidding is OK.
You appear to have defined the term market maker differently than is traditionally accepted.
Because if I'm willing to pay $300,000 for your house, then that it what it is worth to ME.
Allow me to turn around the question with a hypothetical example:
A few months ago, my wife and I decided to try to sell our house to extract some equity and put that forth into building a new house for our expanding family. We had our house appraised with 3 acres of land, and the appraisal came back at a nice $315,000.
We built the house doing a lot of work ourselves, and if we could have sold it for $290,000 we would have been completely out of debt, and been ready to immediately start building a new home.
However, the market around our area is currently flooded with new construction, and potential buyers have to drive by several brand new subdivisions with builders that allow them to choose their floor plan and options that are within the same price range.
With that added competition we were not able to get any offers on our house at our asking price, even after reducing it thrice.
So, if someone made an offer on our house for $200,000, should we have taken it? Clearly we were in a situation where we wanted to get rid of the house. We would love to have sold it for $290,000, but we could have accepted $200,000? Should we only accept the minimum offer made by any particular client?
You have to admit that this is not a cut and dry issue. It may be unethical, and may be against the terms of service of eBay, but as a seller, I have the right to charge anything I want for an item at ANY time prior to the sale of that item. Auctions blur this line a little, but I still stand fast. If the people in your example were willing to pay $300K, then that's what it was worth to them, and they got a GREAT deal because of it.
Note, that I wasn't necessarily standing up for sellers who utilize this practice. At the same time, MOST of the items listed on ebay are things that can easily be attained from other sources. With that in mind, the "fair market value" for most items is already well established. If the thing that I am selling retails for $50, there is a basic understanding that the value of this item is withing a reasonable range (obviously based upon its condition).
The problem is, people in general WANT to get the best deal, and really HATE to have to pay more than they assume they should, even when they do. Look at all the people who adamantly claim that the car dealer screwed them over on their last purchase...
All that aside, I agree there is fraud going on here, but not (in my humble opinion) to the extent that it needs to be investigated and stopped. Sellers SHOULD start their auctions at whatever MINIMUM price they are willing to accept, however that just doesn't happen and the sooner all the eBay'ers out there accept that, the less they will be affected by this practice.
But you just conceded that you were willing to pay a certain amount? Where is the harm if I sell you something for MORE than I [i]needed[/i] to get out of it, if you are willing to pay the higher price?
I honestly don't see the problem here, on eBay, you should bid what you are willing to pay, and no more. I think the people who get "burned" are bidding higher than they should.
That is not DIRECTLY the fault of microsoft. Usually it is the fault of sloppy installation scripts on the part of the 3rd party developers...
Also, it doesn't help that the windows installer scripts are so cryptic and the 3rd part tools used to manipulate them are overly complex.
InstallShield 10.5 anyone???
whois lookup, subpoena your ISP for your home address, and TP your house!
Frankly, if John Q. Public thinks that the HPV vaccine is a vaccine against cervical cancer, and are therefore MORE likely to have the vaccine administered to his family members, I'm all for the misinformation in this case.
I think he want to McDonald's for coffee once a day for 10 days.
This is slashdot, we all know your sex.
Very good info, thank you. (Can't answer your tax questions though) ;)
Not to mention the logistics of hitting a cow with a vehicle hard enough to cause death, and then continuing to drive said vehicle. Do you know how much damage a 1 ton bovine would cause?
I thought the HSA was use it or lose it. At least that's how it was explained to me every year when open enrollment comes along.
Apple may have "forced" the pricing model, but in actuality, its not any different, and in fact probably MORE lucrative for the RIAA.
At $0.99/song, you are paying about $10-$15 dollars per album. Not only are you paying the same amount (or more) in general, you have less "goods" than you would have had if you had purchased the CD.
I don't know how much of the cut goes to Apple vs. the record company, but I think the record company gets a higher percentage of the money, and they have to spend less money in producing the product. It's a win for them.
Well, there was, but not the one we all are thinking of. 6.5 years ago was roughly May 8th, 2000.
Unless, once his schooling is completed your son wants to find a job outside of security/law enforcement. In that case, his lack of experience will affect his job search.