For fucks sake they invested and first developed and sold the technology. Credit where credit is due. Just because you have a personal grudge against the company doesn't mean you have to bash everything they do. New technology is expensive.
Pretty much all the popular distros are relatively easy to use these days. If "look and feel" is simply a matter of where the task bar is place and where the clock is, then rest assured that can be set with pretty much any. If they really only need a handful of apps you could just leave them with a default Installation of anything and be done.
But there again, anything more than that may take getting used to. Things like mounting drives or even just using the package manager can be trouble, but Ubuntu certainly seems to have got it to the point that it *just works*. You can't go wrong with recommending Ubuntu.
If you have an expensive plan, then yeah, the subsidy will be more. But that still doesn't make the iPhone any cheaper or change the fact that it's overpriced unless I use all those texts and minutes. Most people don't BTW.
As a paying customer, I believe it's their duty to after pirates. Why should I pay for people who are too greedy to pay for themselves?
All the other things you mention have never been targeted by publishers. It's always been about piracy, and piracy has always been about saving a buck and not about tinkering or freedom.
Piracy and DRM have always been major factors in the games Industry. Effective DRM platforms have attracted business and created huge markets (NES or Steam) At best you could say that if a platform is tremendously popular, such as the Playstation or DS, there are enough real customers to keep everything afloat. But the lack of success for GTA on the DS for example can probably be attributed to the fact that most of the target audience know how to buy a flash card and copy ROMs onto it. On that scale, certain developers and types of games certainly do suffer.
I only need to look at my DS-playing friends, who have never actually bought a DS game, to see that it's a huge problem.
Microsoft sell a device and an online service "as-is". If you want to tinker with your hardware that's up to you, but why should Microsoft support your efforts? If you want an open platform buy standard PC hardware (which will work out cheaper and more useful than an XBOX anyway). It's not like there's a shortage. If you want to hack your console then keep in mind that you may not be able to get the latest updates and play the latest games or use Live.
I think it's pretty well documented at this point that piracy in most cases has at worst an only slightly negative effect, and in many cases a positive one.
I think it's pretty well documented that most arguments are spontaneously pulled out the ass with nothing to back it up.
People who don't want to pay simply aren't going to, even if that means they just don't play the game at all.
Nice and logical generalization there. So people who play games are going to start cooking and reading?
But people who do play, even if they pirated, may generate sales for the company through word of mouth.
These days word-of-mouth is worthless. It's all about advertising and media presence. The "hardcore" audience read reviews on gaming sites. Apart from that, if you compare the sales to the popularity of game torrents, you can see that this argument is moot.
That's just another way of wording DRM. If someone offers "free" servers or hacks for online games then they'd go after them with full force of the law.
And it's terrible idea. The reason people like consoles is because it's so simple to just buy a game and play it. I for one hate online pay-for-in-game-items games and excessive monthly subscriptions. I want to buy a full game and play it as much as I want.
Not at all. Consumers who are offered the choice often go for the cheaper, more competitive plans. €30 - €40 are totally adequate for an extensive voice+data plan. I can get a data-only plan for €15/month. iPhone plans on the other hand are just plain expensive.
The point is that an iPhone doesn't cost $99, but $1780. If the waiter could barely afford $120 for the cheap phone, he wouldn't be able to pay 2/3rds of that every month. The guy probably uses a pre-paid sim card with very reasonable rates (by U.S. and European standards)
The iPhone exclusivity is all about premium prices and has nothing to do with technical difficulties. If Apple weren't intent on raking in a large chunk of those $1680, they'd let me use the Phone with a cheap data plan of my choice.
From the perspective of the brand owners - they want to promote their stuff in the major retailers. In recent years brands have been cooperating tightly with major stores to the point that they even send salespeople and rent store space. I feel more like I'm walking into a showroom than a retail store. The retailers can have premium margins, and the major brands can be sure to stomp out pesky competition. It used to be that retailers sought to purchase the best stock available and sell it at competitive prices. The only ones that still do are online retailers. And the dominant brands and retailers don't like that.
Knol isn't meant to be a general encyclopedia but a database for articles. It isn't collaborative and only one author can edit it. That means you're relying on the authors reputation and authority. So unlike an encyclopedia, you can cite it. A number of Wikipedia pages link to reputable sources on Knol.
There are loads of DS card-readers out there that will let you run homebrew code. Even Datel made one. But the reason why they go after the R4 (and also the reason why the card is so popular in the first place) is because there are always updates so that the latest and greatest games work. Just downloaded a ROM that doesn't work? Head over to their website and download the latest firmware. Now tell me they're not about Piracy.
You're assuming consumers are well-informed and always make rational choices.
The truth is that most people don't know what FOSS is and have difficulty comprehending how it can replace a thousands-per-license app. They think there's something magical about obscenely expensive "professional-grade" software and every wanna-be designer thinks it's the only app to use.
Instead of encouraging diversity in software people think it has to be Photoshop or Cubase or whatever people say is "professional". GIMP seems to be progressing perfectly. I feel more sorry for the other (non-free) reasonably-priced alternatives. Instead of considering them most users will just use expensive, bloated, ugly, hard-tp-use and comparatively bare applications, and praise them like crazy.
There is certainly a base need for energy, but the inefficiency of our consumption today can certainly be cut back by a huge amount. Home can be built to be independent of energy for heating and cooling.through passive design and transport is so incredibly inefficient even by the standards of currently available technology.
Good lord. Out of all the chocolate you could import, you choose Cadbury? That's worse than importing Budweiser. 57% sugar is not what you call real chocolate. Seriously, their cocoa content is the bare minimum they can legally get away with to still call it "chocolate". And chocolate shouldn't be adulterated with vegetable fat. I know Brits feel a certain national pride for their last mass-market chocolate brand, but yuck.
You see, this is the problem with the American bipartisan spectrum. People wear the "liberal" or "conservative" badge and engage in groupthink and inevitably get defensive on their "positions". You're not convincing anyone that you're speaking for "Conservatives" by quoting old sayings. But the fact of the matter is that politicians traditionally describe as conservatives have often opposed welfare programs by reasoning that poverty and misery is the failure of those who are affected. In reality the truth is somewhere in between, but fundamentalist rejection to belong to a partisan group prevents anything meaningful from forming.
I don't understand why everybody is so intent on nailing to "other" party for "ruining" the space program. The Republicans are in the opposition. Of course they're going to blabber on about how the government is doing everything wrong and that they ought to do this and that and send men to the moon. That's what they do. The administration on the other hand has to figure out what best to do with the money that's available and axe it when it's on a road to failure. I have no doubt that all congressmen, democrats and republicans, would love to see NASA build an interplanetary fleet and develop sci-fi technology and stick it to the Chinese and the Russians. But as soon as any party gets into the government they realize that huge budgets are very inflexible and that as soon as funds are free people have different ideas of what to do with it ("not bulding up dept" is one of them).
From an objective viewpoint the analysis is pretty clear and there is no need for partisan bashing. After Columbia the Bush administration was under pressure to lay out the long-term future for NASA. What they came up with was probably the most ill-conceived program devised by NASA and heavily underfunded. Progress was painfully slow in the following years and when Obama took over he was left with a huge mess of a program which would only be an embarrassment if it were to continue in it's form. And because they'd never be able to sell a ten-fold increase in spending they had to adapt and see what could be done with what's available.
You can't negate angular momentum, that's absurd. A counter-rotating disc will cancel out the reactionary torque (leaning to the left turns the wheel to the left) which will make it exceedingly difficult to steer, but the restoring torque will still be there.
Yeah, Ubuntu is terrible with updates. I tend to have to reinstall Ubuntu regularly. Usually from trying to get video cards to work how I want them. And OS version upgrades. Granted, I do insist on having the most recent release. OTOH reinstalling is made so easy that it's hardly worth trying to fix it.
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For fucks sake they invested and first developed and sold the technology. Credit where credit is due.
Just because you have a personal grudge against the company doesn't mean you have to bash everything they do. New technology is expensive.
Pretty much all the popular distros are relatively easy to use these days. If "look and feel" is simply a matter of where the task bar is place and where the clock is, then rest assured that can be set with pretty much any.
If they really only need a handful of apps you could just leave them with a default Installation of anything and be done.
But there again, anything more than that may take getting used to. Things like mounting drives or even just using the package manager can be trouble, but Ubuntu certainly seems to have got it to the point that it *just works*. You can't go wrong with recommending Ubuntu.
If you have an expensive plan, then yeah, the subsidy will be more. But that still doesn't make the iPhone any cheaper or change the fact that it's overpriced unless I use all those texts and minutes. Most people don't BTW.
As a paying customer, I believe it's their duty to after pirates. Why should I pay for people who are too greedy to pay for themselves?
All the other things you mention have never been targeted by publishers. It's always been about piracy, and piracy has always been about saving a buck and not about tinkering or freedom.
Piracy and DRM have always been major factors in the games Industry. Effective DRM platforms have attracted business and created huge markets (NES or Steam)
At best you could say that if a platform is tremendously popular, such as the Playstation or DS, there are enough real customers to keep everything afloat. But the lack of success for GTA on the DS for example can probably be attributed to the fact that most of the target audience know how to buy a flash card and copy ROMs onto it. On that scale, certain developers and types of games certainly do suffer.
I only need to look at my DS-playing friends, who have never actually bought a DS game, to see that it's a huge problem.
Microsoft sell a device and an online service "as-is". If you want to tinker with your hardware that's up to you, but why should Microsoft support your efforts?
If you want an open platform buy standard PC hardware (which will work out cheaper and more useful than an XBOX anyway). It's not like there's a shortage.
If you want to hack your console then keep in mind that you may not be able to get the latest updates and play the latest games or use Live.
I think it's pretty well documented at this point that piracy in most cases has at worst an only slightly negative effect, and in many cases a positive one.
I think it's pretty well documented that most arguments are spontaneously pulled out the ass with nothing to back it up.
People who don't want to pay simply aren't going to, even if that means they just don't play the game at all.
Nice and logical generalization there. So people who play games are going to start cooking and reading?
But people who do play, even if they pirated, may generate sales for the company through word of mouth.
These days word-of-mouth is worthless. It's all about advertising and media presence. The "hardcore" audience read reviews on gaming sites.
Apart from that, if you compare the sales to the popularity of game torrents, you can see that this argument is moot.
That's just another way of wording DRM. If someone offers "free" servers or hacks for online games then they'd go after them with full force of the law.
And it's terrible idea. The reason people like consoles is because it's so simple to just buy a game and play it. I for one hate online pay-for-in-game-items games and excessive monthly subscriptions. I want to buy a full game and play it as much as I want.
Not at all. Consumers who are offered the choice often go for the cheaper, more competitive plans. €30 - €40 are totally adequate for an extensive voice+data plan. I can get a data-only plan for €15/month. iPhone plans on the other hand are just plain expensive.
The point is that an iPhone doesn't cost $99, but $1780. If the waiter could barely afford $120 for the cheap phone, he wouldn't be able to pay 2/3rds of that every month. The guy probably uses a pre-paid sim card with very reasonable rates (by U.S. and European standards)
The iPhone exclusivity is all about premium prices and has nothing to do with technical difficulties. If Apple weren't intent on raking in a large chunk of those $1680, they'd let me use the Phone with a cheap data plan of my choice.
You call $1500 surcharge a "contract technicality"?
From the perspective of the brand owners - they want to promote their stuff in the major retailers. In recent years brands have been cooperating tightly with major stores to the point that they even send salespeople and rent store space. I feel more like I'm walking into a showroom than a retail store.
The retailers can have premium margins, and the major brands can be sure to stomp out pesky competition.
It used to be that retailers sought to purchase the best stock available and sell it at competitive prices. The only ones that still do are online retailers. And the dominant brands and retailers don't like that.
Knol isn't meant to be a general encyclopedia but a database for articles. It isn't collaborative and only one author can edit it. That means you're relying on the authors reputation and authority. So unlike an encyclopedia, you can cite it. A number of Wikipedia pages link to reputable sources on Knol.
There are loads of DS card-readers out there that will let you run homebrew code. Even Datel made one. But the reason why they go after the R4 (and also the reason why the card is so popular in the first place) is because there are always updates so that the latest and greatest games work.
Just downloaded a ROM that doesn't work? Head over to their website and download the latest firmware. Now tell me they're not about Piracy.
You're assuming consumers are well-informed and always make rational choices.
The truth is that most people don't know what FOSS is and have difficulty comprehending how it can replace a thousands-per-license app. They think there's something magical about obscenely expensive "professional-grade" software and every wanna-be designer thinks it's the only app to use.
Instead of encouraging diversity in software people think it has to be Photoshop or Cubase or whatever people say is "professional".
GIMP seems to be progressing perfectly. I feel more sorry for the other (non-free) reasonably-priced alternatives. Instead of considering them most users will just use expensive, bloated, ugly, hard-tp-use and comparatively bare applications, and praise them like crazy.
F-spot does all those things and more in a non-destructive fashion (meaning you can always undo) and comes with every Ubuntu install. Try it out.
There is certainly a base need for energy, but the inefficiency of our consumption today can certainly be cut back by a huge amount. Home can be built to be independent of energy for heating and cooling.through passive design and transport is so incredibly inefficient even by the standards of currently available technology.
Good lord. Out of all the chocolate you could import, you choose Cadbury? That's worse than importing Budweiser. 57% sugar is not what you call real chocolate. Seriously, their cocoa content is the bare minimum they can legally get away with to still call it "chocolate". And chocolate shouldn't be adulterated with vegetable fat.
I know Brits feel a certain national pride for their last mass-market chocolate brand, but yuck.
You mean a Skibob? They have to have skis on their feet to not fall off.
Swoooooosh.....
You see, this is the problem with the American bipartisan spectrum. People wear the "liberal" or "conservative" badge and engage in groupthink and inevitably get defensive on their "positions".
You're not convincing anyone that you're speaking for "Conservatives" by quoting old sayings.
But the fact of the matter is that politicians traditionally describe as conservatives have often opposed welfare programs by reasoning that poverty and misery is the failure of those who are affected.
In reality the truth is somewhere in between, but fundamentalist rejection to belong to a partisan group prevents anything meaningful from forming.
I don't understand why everybody is so intent on nailing to "other" party for "ruining" the space program.
The Republicans are in the opposition. Of course they're going to blabber on about how the government is doing everything wrong and that they ought to do this and that and send men to the moon. That's what they do. The administration on the other hand has to figure out what best to do with the money that's available and axe it when it's on a road to failure.
I have no doubt that all congressmen, democrats and republicans, would love to see NASA build an interplanetary fleet and develop sci-fi technology and stick it to the Chinese and the Russians. But as soon as any party gets into the government they realize that huge budgets are very inflexible and that as soon as funds are free people have different ideas of what to do with it ("not bulding up dept" is one of them).
From an objective viewpoint the analysis is pretty clear and there is no need for partisan bashing. After Columbia the Bush administration was under pressure to lay out the long-term future for NASA. What they came up with was probably the most ill-conceived program devised by NASA and heavily underfunded. Progress was painfully slow in the following years and when Obama took over he was left with a huge mess of a program which would only be an embarrassment if it were to continue in it's form. And because they'd never be able to sell a ten-fold increase in spending they had to adapt and see what could be done with what's available.
You can't negate angular momentum, that's absurd. A counter-rotating disc will cancel out the reactionary torque (leaning to the left turns the wheel to the left) which will make it exceedingly difficult to steer, but the restoring torque will still be there.
http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/
Yeah, Ubuntu is terrible with updates. I tend to have to reinstall Ubuntu regularly. Usually from trying to get video cards to work how I want them. And OS version upgrades. Granted, I do insist on having the most recent release. OTOH reinstalling is made so easy that it's hardly worth trying to fix it.