I just don't understand why people put up with this crap and don't just boycott Sony?
One reason is that Sony doesn't actually block sales of games, but they have a patent on blocking sales of used games. Which means Sony can or can not use that technology, as they choose, but everyone else can _not_ use this technology anymore without permission from Sony and without paying license fees to Sony. The second part is surely a good thing. The first part is fine as long as Sony doesn't use this technology.
A seller (store) is responsible that goods work for a reasonable time. Typically two years for electronic goods. A snag is that after six months, the buyer has to prove that the fault was present at time of purchase (within the first six months, the seller would have to prove that the fault was not present at the time of purchase).
I'd consider it a very clear fault if a game that I purchased doesn't work after I had to buy a replacement console for a broken one. And since the fault was intentionally built into the game, having to prove the fault was present is no problem. So stores in the UK and elsewhere in Europe will be very, very, very unhappy with this. I'd also consider it a serious fault if I can't sell a game because it doesn't work on the console of a prospective buyer.
This seems like an eminently sensible idea. Part of the problem is that the Certifying Authorities get "too big to fail" and it takes something pretty massive for a CA to have their authority revoked as doing so impacts a lot of users.
I wouldn't say any CA is "too big to fail". If Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Mozilla remove your root certificates, you are gone. And they can go beyond removing your root certificates; they can hardcode revocation of your root certificate into the SSL stack.
So guy is working hard to make sure that he is irreplaceable. It could give him more years on paycheck, but eventually business will put business continuity on higher priority.
So how does writing bad code make him irreplaceable? He writes code that nobody understands. That means he doesn't understand it himself either. So one day the company will hire someone who is actually clever enough to maintain that awful code a lot quicker than he can.
Hasn't Apple already murdered tons of people people in the Australian desert simply by sticking "Mildura" in the wrong spot? I'm sure of it. Either that or those Maps "victims" were awfully inconvenienced, probably missing their favorite reality TV shows, which is nearly as bad.
In my village, two people were killed because they followed Google's instructions to get to the pub, which was in the middle of the cricket field. During a game. They annoyed the players so much they were clubbed to death. (The deaths are not true, the pub in the middle of the cricket field on Google maps is).
In the USA, millions and millions of people have guns that could easily be used to murder anybody. In Western countries in general, almost everybody has kitchen knifes that could easily be used to murder someone. I have a spade and a pitchfork that could be used for murder. Why would I worry that about "Murder by Internet-Connected Devices"?
The iPad 4 was really only a minor update. No-one cared when it came out six months after the iPad 3, and no-one will care when the iPad 5 comes out in sixth months with further refinements.
Interestingly, on macrumors there was a huge amount of teeth gnashing about the iPad 4, people complaining how Apple dared to replace the iPad 3 with a better model after only six months. People swearing that they would never, ever buy from a company again because it upgrades its products. Quite absurd actually.
Not wishing to burst your bubble but I watch a movie while another one is downloading. You do not have to stop your life and watch it download. It just does it while you sleep or work.
You can certainly download more pirated music than you can ever listen to, and definitely more pirated eBooks than you can ever read. You can probably download 10 times more free, legal eBooks than you could read in a lifetime.
I thought because jailbreaking voided the warranty, it was more often done on devices whose warranty had already expired. I also thought that older devices were more likely to have a working jailbreak.
Jailbreaking doesn't void the warranty. Only if the act of jailbreaking caused the damage.
So by extension, not only have we established that stealing was indeed the correct word to use here, and entirely applicable, but also that one possible definition of theft does not require depriving someone else of the items, so it could be argued reasonably that this is both stealing *and* theft, not just stealing.
In German law, for example, theft does not mean "taking away to deprive another", but "taking away to enrich yourself". I suppose that hundred years ago nobody would have noticed much difference to the definition in US law, so US law might very well have adopted that wording.
I have no problem with paying for what I want from the app store, but seriously... who pays full price for an iPhone, or that kind of price for their plan? I know things are different from country to country, but I got my first and only iPhone (these days I use Android) free with a ã36 per month plan.
You paid full price for the iPhone, and then some. Of the £36 per month (I hope everyone knows that £ is a British pound mutilated by the Slashdot software) about £22 is the full price of the iPhone in 24 monthly installments, plus some generous interest.
While not condoning software piracy, I don't think it is wise to repeat the myth that "Pirated software is chock-full of malware".
It's more like "malware software masquerades as pirated software". Pirated software is safe (except for some people using inappropriate measures to stop piracy), but what you _think_ is pirated software may be chock-full of malware.
The article claims that going from royalty-free licensing to FRAND licensing hurts FOSS. That's wrong. Royalty-free licensing can be just as incompatible with GPLv3 for example as FRAND licensing. GPLv3 requires that you need a patent license that allows you to distribute the software directly or indirectly without any restrictions.
Here's a GPLv3 incompatible license: "I allow you and everybody else to use my patent in your software and any derived software and distribute it under the GPLv3 or a later license, as long as you send me a copy of the source code, and everyone creating and distributing a derived version also sends me a copy of the source code".
Note that all these people have to send me a copy of the source anyway if I ask them, so there is no hardship involved at all, but this license means they have to send a copy without me even asking. That makes it incompatible with GPLv3.
To put it into a better context for you, it's like finding a lost wallet on the ground: you should turn it in to the police, but frankly, aside from the owner, who cares if you don't? You won't get punished for taking it, but you might not get rewarded for returning it, whereas if you take it, the reward is guaranteed. After all, "Finders keepers, losers weepers!".
Let's just say that in California it is theft. And in the state of New York it is theft. And I bet in many other states of the USA it is theft, or in some other way criminal.
I don't think it will take that long. Speculators will increase demand for *new sets* but it's not a precious commodity. If Lego sees more demand for a new set, they'll make sure they make more of them. It's just plastic. That will mean lots of speculators will be sitting on sets they don't really want, and there'll be a glut of them on E-Bay. That will transfer wads of cash from speculators to Lego. Possibly lots of cash from late speculators to early speculators, but that's it. People who actually want Lego to play with might be able to pick up newer sets for cheaper than retail price on E-Bay too, which would be OK.
Here's my maths: Number of sets sold = Number of sets purchased and built + number of sets purchased as unwanted presents + number of sets purchased by speculators. By creating new sets all the time and releasing them for a short time, the company can sell lots of expensive sets to speculators. They could even have employees put sets on eBay and then buy them off each other for five times original price to keep up the appearance of speculative gains.
You are just another person who "thinks" you understand what's going on. You can't buy the Taj Mahal anymore. Right there makes it a collectible. Now you have people who are older and have jobs that can help them buy it. If you are a LEGO fan that always wanted this set, you will be the one willing to pay the price in order to have it. Its not really investors selling to to investors. Its investors selling to fans that can financially support it or other collectors.
If you are a Lego fan who always wanted the set, you bought it when it was released. Why on earth would you want to "collect" these? That's like when the iMacs were released in five colours and there was actually an Apple advert saying "collect them all" - I hope everyone got that it was a joke.
Scarcity doesn't make it a collectible, since Lego can make a new run any time they want. The "people who are older and have jobs" had jobs last year as well when Lego was selling the set. It's not investors selling to fans, its one lot of speculators selling to another lot of speculators (plus the odd fan taking his £200 Taj Mahal apart and back in the box and taking advantage of the speculators, using the money to buy four current sets of equal size).
The purported manufacture price is estimated at $207. See link in summary.
The cost of manufacturing is loss than the cost of sale. Cost of sale includes many other things, for example warranty repairs, breakages, theft, cost of processing payment, and so on. If Apple sold that iPhone at $207, they would go bankrupt quite soon.
The difference between revenue and cost of sales is called gross profit. Gross profit however only takes into account that cost of selling one phone, it doesn't take into account cost that is incurred whether you buy a phone or not, like development, marketing, sales and so on.
In other words, anyone comparing manufacturing price and retail price is a clueless moron.
If thieves can tell them apart how come Apple's lawyers think there is brand confusion?
Because Samsung lawyers couldn't tell them apart? Which shows that Samsung's lawyers were even more stupid than thieves? (To be serious; some Samsung lawyers couldn't keep an iPad and a Samsung tablet apart, and that is in my opinion a very, very serious lack of preparation by the lawyer which should never, ever happened).
I can see why people are drawing this comparison, but I don't think it applies. Beanie Babies were a fad that came and went, and Legos have been around for 40 or more years. I think Lego has proven they are not a fad. That's not to say that there isn't a danger in this strategy, only that I think there is a little more permanence to Legos than posters are giving them credit for.
Lego is not a fad. However, buying Lego sets and selling them for a profit is a fad. As an example, the 6000 parts Taj Mahal was for sale around £200 I believe and now people try to sell it for £1000. It's obviously not worth that as a toy, because you get equally challenging sets for £200 - why would you pay five times as much? The only ones paying that money are idiots who think it is an investment. And once you run out of idiots, the prices will drop.
How nice to be in a position to storm out of job interviews. Some people have it a little tougher than that these days.
I wonder what happens _if_ you are asked. You could refuse to answer and/or sue for $1000 in damages, but that would probably mean no job. Are you allowed to lie to such questions?
No, the question would be, does "Bob's Meat Market" own the facebook or gmail account of someone who applies for a job there, and I think the answer to that is a pretty solid "no".
Even stronger, if you apply for a job at Facebook, or you work at Facebook, they cannot ask you about Facebook accounts, except those that you have as a Facebook employee.
In the case of used cars, legislation that makes it impossible to buy and sell used cars would kill the new car market immediately.
There are people who need a car but only can afford to pay $10,000. These people can't buy a new car, so they'll use the bus or train, take a taxi, stay at home, or buy a bicycle or moped. There are people who have a working car and would like a better one. Well, most people with a two year old $80,000 Mercedes can't actually afford anything better. Most could afford a new Mercedes if someone bought the old one for $50,000-60,000, but not if they have to find the whole amount because they can't sell the old one.
Long term everyone would buy a new car and drive it until it falls apart. Short term, car companies would go bankrupt.
Just saying that if you go into a school armed and start killing people, you know this isn't going to end well for yourself; you will die or spend the rest of your life in jail. That's an unavoidable fact. Whether school teachers are armed or not doesn't make any difference to that. It may make a difference to the number of victims before you are stopped, but the number will still be "too many".
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I just don't understand why people put up with this crap and don't just boycott Sony?
One reason is that Sony doesn't actually block sales of games, but they have a patent on blocking sales of used games. Which means Sony can or can not use that technology, as they choose, but everyone else can _not_ use this technology anymore without permission from Sony and without paying license fees to Sony. The second part is surely a good thing. The first part is fine as long as Sony doesn't use this technology.
A seller (store) is responsible that goods work for a reasonable time. Typically two years for electronic goods. A snag is that after six months, the buyer has to prove that the fault was present at time of purchase (within the first six months, the seller would have to prove that the fault was not present at the time of purchase).
I'd consider it a very clear fault if a game that I purchased doesn't work after I had to buy a replacement console for a broken one. And since the fault was intentionally built into the game, having to prove the fault was present is no problem. So stores in the UK and elsewhere in Europe will be very, very, very unhappy with this. I'd also consider it a serious fault if I can't sell a game because it doesn't work on the console of a prospective buyer.
This seems like an eminently sensible idea. Part of the problem is that the Certifying Authorities get "too big to fail" and it takes something pretty massive for a CA to have their authority revoked as doing so impacts a lot of users.
I wouldn't say any CA is "too big to fail". If Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Mozilla remove your root certificates, you are gone. And they can go beyond removing your root certificates; they can hardcode revocation of your root certificate into the SSL stack.
So guy is working hard to make sure that he is irreplaceable. It could give him more years on paycheck, but eventually business will put business continuity on higher priority.
So how does writing bad code make him irreplaceable? He writes code that nobody understands. That means he doesn't understand it himself either. So one day the company will hire someone who is actually clever enough to maintain that awful code a lot quicker than he can.
Hasn't Apple already murdered tons of people people in the Australian desert simply by sticking "Mildura" in the wrong spot? I'm sure of it. Either that or those Maps "victims" were awfully inconvenienced, probably missing their favorite reality TV shows, which is nearly as bad.
In my village, two people were killed because they followed Google's instructions to get to the pub, which was in the middle of the cricket field. During a game. They annoyed the players so much they were clubbed to death. (The deaths are not true, the pub in the middle of the cricket field on Google maps is).
In the USA, millions and millions of people have guns that could easily be used to murder anybody. In Western countries in general, almost everybody has kitchen knifes that could easily be used to murder someone. I have a spade and a pitchfork that could be used for murder. Why would I worry that about "Murder by Internet-Connected Devices"?
The iPad 4 was really only a minor update. No-one cared when it came out six months after the iPad 3, and no-one will care when the iPad 5 comes out in sixth months with further refinements.
Interestingly, on macrumors there was a huge amount of teeth gnashing about the iPad 4, people complaining how Apple dared to replace the iPad 3 with a better model after only six months. People swearing that they would never, ever buy from a company again because it upgrades its products. Quite absurd actually.
Not wishing to burst your bubble but I watch a movie while another one is downloading. You do not have to stop your life and watch it download. It just does it while you sleep or work.
You can certainly download more pirated music than you can ever listen to, and definitely more pirated eBooks than you can ever read. You can probably download 10 times more free, legal eBooks than you could read in a lifetime.
I thought because jailbreaking voided the warranty, it was more often done on devices whose warranty had already expired. I also thought that older devices were more likely to have a working jailbreak.
Jailbreaking doesn't void the warranty. Only if the act of jailbreaking caused the damage.
So by extension, not only have we established that stealing was indeed the correct word to use here, and entirely applicable, but also that one possible definition of theft does not require depriving someone else of the items, so it could be argued reasonably that this is both stealing *and* theft, not just stealing.
In German law, for example, theft does not mean "taking away to deprive another", but "taking away to enrich yourself". I suppose that hundred years ago nobody would have noticed much difference to the definition in US law, so US law might very well have adopted that wording.
I have no problem with paying for what I want from the app store, but seriously... who pays full price for an iPhone, or that kind of price for their plan? I know things are different from country to country, but I got my first and only iPhone (these days I use Android) free with a ã36 per month plan.
You paid full price for the iPhone, and then some. Of the £36 per month (I hope everyone knows that £ is a British pound mutilated by the Slashdot software) about £22 is the full price of the iPhone in 24 monthly installments, plus some generous interest.
While not condoning software piracy, I don't think it is wise to repeat the myth that "Pirated software is chock-full of malware".
It's more like "malware software masquerades as pirated software". Pirated software is safe (except for some people using inappropriate measures to stop piracy), but what you _think_ is pirated software may be chock-full of malware.
The article claims that going from royalty-free licensing to FRAND licensing hurts FOSS. That's wrong. Royalty-free licensing can be just as incompatible with GPLv3 for example as FRAND licensing. GPLv3 requires that you need a patent license that allows you to distribute the software directly or indirectly without any restrictions.
Here's a GPLv3 incompatible license: "I allow you and everybody else to use my patent in your software and any derived software and distribute it under the GPLv3 or a later license, as long as you send me a copy of the source code, and everyone creating and distributing a derived version also sends me a copy of the source code".
Note that all these people have to send me a copy of the source anyway if I ask them, so there is no hardship involved at all, but this license means they have to send a copy without me even asking. That makes it incompatible with GPLv3.
To put it into a better context for you, it's like finding a lost wallet on the ground: you should turn it in to the police, but frankly, aside from the owner, who cares if you don't? You won't get punished for taking it, but you might not get rewarded for returning it, whereas if you take it, the reward is guaranteed. After all, "Finders keepers, losers weepers!".
Let's just say that in California it is theft. And in the state of New York it is theft. And I bet in many other states of the USA it is theft, or in some other way criminal.
I don't think it will take that long. Speculators will increase demand for *new sets* but it's not a precious commodity. If Lego sees more demand for a new set, they'll make sure they make more of them. It's just plastic. That will mean lots of speculators will be sitting on sets they don't really want, and there'll be a glut of them on E-Bay. That will transfer wads of cash from speculators to Lego. Possibly lots of cash from late speculators to early speculators, but that's it. People who actually want Lego to play with might be able to pick up newer sets for cheaper than retail price on E-Bay too, which would be OK.
Here's my maths: Number of sets sold = Number of sets purchased and built + number of sets purchased as unwanted presents + number of sets purchased by speculators. By creating new sets all the time and releasing them for a short time, the company can sell lots of expensive sets to speculators. They could even have employees put sets on eBay and then buy them off each other for five times original price to keep up the appearance of speculative gains.
You are just another person who "thinks" you understand what's going on. You can't buy the Taj Mahal anymore. Right there makes it a collectible. Now you have people who are older and have jobs that can help them buy it. If you are a LEGO fan that always wanted this set, you will be the one willing to pay the price in order to have it. Its not really investors selling to to investors. Its investors selling to fans that can financially support it or other collectors.
If you are a Lego fan who always wanted the set, you bought it when it was released. Why on earth would you want to "collect" these? That's like when the iMacs were released in five colours and there was actually an Apple advert saying "collect them all" - I hope everyone got that it was a joke.
Scarcity doesn't make it a collectible, since Lego can make a new run any time they want. The "people who are older and have jobs" had jobs last year as well when Lego was selling the set. It's not investors selling to fans, its one lot of speculators selling to another lot of speculators (plus the odd fan taking his £200 Taj Mahal apart and back in the box and taking advantage of the speculators, using the money to buy four current sets of equal size).
No, you just took the facepalm to a new level because criminals steal guns since they can't legally buy them, not because they can't afford them.
The problem with buying guns is that you can't use a gun that you bought without (at least a good chance of) getting caught.
The purported manufacture price is estimated at $207. See link in summary.
The cost of manufacturing is loss than the cost of sale. Cost of sale includes many other things, for example warranty repairs, breakages, theft, cost of processing payment, and so on. If Apple sold that iPhone at $207, they would go bankrupt quite soon.
The difference between revenue and cost of sales is called gross profit. Gross profit however only takes into account that cost of selling one phone, it doesn't take into account cost that is incurred whether you buy a phone or not, like development, marketing, sales and so on.
In other words, anyone comparing manufacturing price and retail price is a clueless moron.
If thieves can tell them apart how come Apple's lawyers think there is brand confusion?
Because Samsung lawyers couldn't tell them apart? Which shows that Samsung's lawyers were even more stupid than thieves? (To be serious; some Samsung lawyers couldn't keep an iPad and a Samsung tablet apart, and that is in my opinion a very, very serious lack of preparation by the lawyer which should never, ever happened).
I can see why people are drawing this comparison, but I don't think it applies. Beanie Babies were a fad that came and went, and Legos have been around for 40 or more years. I think Lego has proven they are not a fad. That's not to say that there isn't a danger in this strategy, only that I think there is a little more permanence to Legos than posters are giving them credit for.
Lego is not a fad. However, buying Lego sets and selling them for a profit is a fad. As an example, the 6000 parts Taj Mahal was for sale around £200 I believe and now people try to sell it for £1000. It's obviously not worth that as a toy, because you get equally challenging sets for £200 - why would you pay five times as much? The only ones paying that money are idiots who think it is an investment. And once you run out of idiots, the prices will drop.
How nice to be in a position to storm out of job interviews. Some people have it a little tougher than that these days.
I wonder what happens _if_ you are asked. You could refuse to answer and/or sue for $1000 in damages, but that would probably mean no job. Are you allowed to lie to such questions?
No, the question would be, does "Bob's Meat Market" own the facebook or gmail account of someone who applies for a job there, and I think the answer to that is a pretty solid "no".
Even stronger, if you apply for a job at Facebook, or you work at Facebook, they cannot ask you about Facebook accounts, except those that you have as a Facebook employee.
Obviously not, since your post mentioned that atrocity and this one doesn't.
In the case of used cars, legislation that makes it impossible to buy and sell used cars would kill the new car market immediately.
There are people who need a car but only can afford to pay $10,000. These people can't buy a new car, so they'll use the bus or train, take a taxi, stay at home, or buy a bicycle or moped. There are people who have a working car and would like a better one. Well, most people with a two year old $80,000 Mercedes can't actually afford anything better. Most could afford a new Mercedes if someone bought the old one for $50,000-60,000, but not if they have to find the whole amount because they can't sell the old one.
Long term everyone would buy a new car and drive it until it falls apart. Short term, car companies would go bankrupt.
Just saying that if you go into a school armed and start killing people, you know this isn't going to end well for yourself; you will die or spend the rest of your life in jail. That's an unavoidable fact. Whether school teachers are armed or not doesn't make any difference to that. It may make a difference to the number of victims before you are stopped, but the number will still be "too many".