Here, walk with me through an observation. It's generally presumed that people should be left alone, and be free to do what they want, correct? In other words, we presume that anyone farming their fields anywhere in the world would rather be left to themselves than to be told how they're going to live? Okay, which forms of government are the least meddlesome in individuals' lives but still provide for basic security and services, individual freedom (women's rights, religion, etc.) and so on? For the last hundred or so years democracies have had an good track record in that regard, especially in comparison with the Soviet or Communist Chinese systems, (Stalin and Mao didn't help of course). Also theocracies have been shown to be dangerous to human rights, since one belief system is inflicted upon an entire population, many times victimizing women or minorities.
So the idea is this: Western democracy must survive, not because of some idea of 'fairness' or 'rightness', but because once you consider all the competing systems that will otherwise rule the world, it is the least oppressive.
So when someone says they don't want a dictatorship to have nukes, it's perfectly reasonable to say "It's in the best interest of every individual on the planet that western civilization survives, therefore a dangerous dictatorship shouldn't be allowed to have nukes". You're not looking at the fairness between countries, you're considering the welfare of the common individual, anywhere in the world.
Well, it's a good thing that you haven't given those dictators any help staying in power, for example by giving them an obvious external enemy they can blame all their troubles for, not to mention justify tightening their fist, now isn't it?
I'm sure you know dictators have no trouble finding external enemies, no matter the time period or which countries happen to exist at the moment. They don't need anyone's help for that.:)
Ok, maybe I'm alone on this one, but when I watch a black & white movie, say, Dr. Strangelove, after about the first 10 minutes I don't consciously notice the "black & white" - I'm absorbed in the story. If I get distracted from the tv for a minute, I'll come back aware that the movie is in black & white, but I don't notice it much during the experience. The characters aren't "less real" because of the presentation.
Now before you call me a geezer I'm under 35, so I promise I'm not doing the "back in my day" thing.
It's just that I've seen many movies in different formats over the years, and like most people this includes everything from grainy cable channels to VHS tapes whose tracking won't settle down. And in every case where the movie is interesting at all, when I get engrossed in the story I don't generally notice the imperfections of the delivery.
This being the case, I feel like 3d is pointless in movies. Since you can't actually change your viewing angle relative to the characters, (which would be cool and actually 3d), it's instead only a depth-perception trick.(!) And worse, as above, if it's not there you don't miss it, and when it is there, if you're involved in the story you stop noticing it until it's rammed down your throat.
I'm not against movies being done in 3d, but I'm certainly not that impressed. The signal to noise, or "hype to reward" ratio is really really low IMHO.
I don't know why that was modded "Flamebait", maybe by a fanboy? Because what he says is true:
I thought it was just my perception while in the store. Well, over christmas I talked to my sister and her husband, (two of the most non-tech savvy people I know, a marketer and a lawyer.... I know). I assumed, being the slave to fashion that my sister is, that she'd have bought an iPhone right when they came out.
Instead, it turned out that both of them commented on the attitude of the Apple store sales people. They went in to buy her an iPhone, and the sales people all had this arrogant attitude about them using windows machines, etc. They were both really put off and left. Mind you - they were prepared to buy an iPhone and possibly a computer that day, and they walked out disgusted.
So 2 months ago, my sister's marketing company bought her a new Apple, and she told them she didn't want it. They gave it to her anyway, and it's been sitting in its box unopened ever since. She went out and bought a 'regular'[sic] laptop with her own money.
Now I'm not saying this to flame or bash Apple. I'm only relating this because Apple should understand that they're losing sales this way. The arrogance probably works to pick up egocentric people to whom a computer is a status symbol, (what's with that?), but they're alienating people who just want a machine to work. It seems that this is the crowd they should be trying to cater to, with all their "it just works" advertising.
If this self-righteous attitude isn't what Apple wants to portray in their stores, then they need to clean house a bit. I've noticed this same thing in a nearby west coast Apple store, and the above story happened in a NY Apple store. If this is the attitude they want to portray, (and I suspect this to be the case,) they're doing a stellar job.
You guys don't get it. It doesn't matter how much of their stuff we *don't* buy. You see, whenever we express our displeasure by not buying their stuff, they see lost money on the bottom line. Then they translate this into, "People are now stealing even MORE of our stuff online!". Because hey, if they made X last year, they should make X+some this year. If they don't, then it's time for more lawsuits and legislation!
Unlike any other industry I'm aware of, they can't be damaged by not buying their products.
First off, I'm assuming you're talking about the US. If not, disregard...
Since we haven't had a small gov't any time in the last 20 years there isn't enough data to suggest either way. Bush and Clinton have created the largest gov't there has ever been in the US...
I'm too lazy to look it up now, but there was a discussion here a while back on why you don't see that many engineers over 45-50. They're out there, but not many. In the end, most people said they could do CS type stuff for about 20 years before they'd had it, and found something else to do with their time.
"Passion" holds out for a maximum of probably 5-8 years in any tech field IMHE. After that, if you do it every day, it becomes just another 'job'. It seems to be human nature. Passionate or not, after about 20 years of it professionally, it gets pretty tiring. (There may be one or two individual exceptions out of 100, but they're just the ones who haven't been paying attention.:) )
Then, the idea of renting body boards and umbrellas to tourists on Waikiki beach starts sounding pretty good. Hmm... 6-8 hour days at the beach, or 12+hr days for getting some patch done/server running/disasterOfTheDay fixed.
Wow, calm. I think GP was just saying, "Pick your battles". Do you think every defendant who settles thinks they did something wrong? Most businesses, when sued, look at the economics of the fight; how much is this going to cost to fight in court? What are the repercussions of settling? Is it less expensive to settle than to bother? Additionally, investors don't like to see pending lawsuits listed on quarterly and yearly reports, so you try and keep that list short, to battles that you're really married to fighting.
You say that means that the RIAA could write demand letters to everyone and get settlements. That is an absolutely true statement. We've already seen them get into cases that make them look ridiculous, because generally they're expecting people to roll over and cough up the dough, and not try to fight.
So if you got a letter, really the question comes down to this; is this a fight you really want to get into? You can buy your way out with a fixed sum. You can negotiate with them and say, "I want to pay you, but I make 4 dollars a year, and so what can I give you to settle? etc." Or..... You can fight it head on, get your own attorneys and fight it with righteous zeal, defending your honor, truth and all that is holy and right. Mind you, this latter choice, while emotionally rewarding, will cost many many times what the original settlement offer was. So is it worth it to spend tens of thousands of dollars over a year or more to prove a point? Or just pay it and get them out of your hair?
It's your personal choice. Choosing one over the other isn't necessarily morally right. I don't think GP deserved the lashing later in your post.
Does the RIAA need to be stopped? You bet. But stopping RIAA's crusade against their own customers isn't going to happen while you're defending yourself in court. The best you could really do is not have to pay, and maybe make them look like fools, (ie: the "I have no computer" example), but that won't stop them.
Something else needs to happen to bring the whole thing to a halt, and I'm not sure what that needs to be.
People all around the world sit down every night and watch 2-4 hrs of TV, and no one bats an eye. Yet if they spend that time playing a game instead, now they're addicts?
The only reason people make so much of video game 'addiction' is because the older generation isn't comfortable with entertainment that seemingly takes a lot of time and that they don't understand.
I'm not contesting that it's possible to get 'addicted' in the informal sense to any form of entertainment, but the double standard is astounding.
If you think you will always have a highhorse to sit on just because you run Linux or Mac, then I'll be there when you fall...
"Pride goeth before destruction...". As it were.
Heh, the rest is good too: "...and an haughty spirit before a fall."
-Proverbs 16:18
Being careful to not overstate the security of any IT/CS related thing seems a good policy, because when something eventually goes wrong,(and it will), you don't look like an idiot in hindsight.
As a programmer though, is anyone ever that secure with their own code? I mean enough to sit back and say it can't be exploited somehow? Or that it's impenetrable? Seems like it's usually users, architects and marketers who make these claims...
It's almost at the point where it's better to wipe the damn thing clean immediately and then re-install the OS from scratch!
Funny, I just did that very thing just yesterday! UPS delivered my new laptop from Dell, took it out, fired up Vista once to make sure it turned on, put in a new XP Pro install cd, reboot...
I think you could reasonably argue before a judge that it is restraint of trade, and here's how:
There are no other competitors for the "Home User" PC market, that will run on non-proprietary PCs. (I like linux, but it doesn't have the regular pc-home-user market penetration to seriously qualify as a 'competitor' there)
As has been shown by several previous articles, they are ceasing the production of a product that is both demonstrated to be in high demand, and necessary for pc clone architectures to run (for the avg individual, non-geek). The end of production is for no apparent compelling reason; there is no great production cost for MS to distribute to OEMs, they just distribute license keys.
I'd like to hear their argument to the contrary; they'd have to say that they're *not* a monopoly somehow, that you can instead use product X, and ending production of this high demand product is not restraint of the free market. It's clearly not a move many companies would make - to stop production on a product that costs a) nearly nothing to produce per copy, and b) is in such high demand that people *would rather buy it* than your 'new' product.
Agreed. And when we read articles here about MS stopping the OEM distribution of XP by the end of the year to force OEM Vista adoption, how does that *not* qualify as restraint of trade?
I don't see how the DOJ can be ignoring this, (in the US anyway).
I agree. Plus China seems more interested in making money than blowing things up ATM. We're happy to make money with less-than-desirable but stable administrations, because people interested in making money don't usually want to screw up their cash flow. OTOH nutcases who keep threatening their neighbors don't make you any money and destabilize their own regions. This is both bad for business and it gets people killed. Therein lies the difference.
Oh no, you're doomed! Unless girlfriend 5.0 has previously been installed as wife 1.0 for someone else, the 'no upgrade path' messages are luring you into a false sense of security with plugin feature Sex Life 10.0. Any spawned Child versions may only be generated within a short time of girlfriend 5.0's inception date, and every instance of girlfriend is aware of it.
You're still in the pre-wife 1.0 demand deception phase. Enjoy the phase but be vigilant, and hold onto your wallet.
Yes, but that 10400 EUR is for ONLY 4 SEATS(!). That pricing is sky-high outrageous, considering a team of 12 developers would be over 30,000 EUR. FOR A BLOODY WINDOWING SYSTEM ONLY. WTF? In previous commercial projects we've intentionally avoided QT for just this reason.
If we were talking about, say, 15,000 EUR for a 50 user SITE LICENSE, then maybe, but the current pricing is exorbitant.
So, if someone likes spending that kind of money, that's fine. I'm just saying that I'm one user who will never ever use it so long as this pricing is in place, in business or otherwise. I will never promote its use on any project of which I'm in charge. I'm just one man, and I guarantee there are hundreds like me out there - those who would otherwise be paying to use trolltech's products for commercial applications, if it weren't such a financial albatross sucking down your project's bottom line.
I'm afraid that he would never give up creative control of something he had money in though- JarJar would be the new "Ship's pilot" and would be written in to be Kaylee's new love interest, or some other revolting thing.
Keep him away from anything that has real non-suck creativity left in it.:)
(It'd be really satisfying to see Zoe beat the tar out of JarJar though.)
So you basically blow an entire work week every month without getting anything useful done?
Umm, no, with drive imaging utilities you can change out your main drive in 2 hrs, and be back up and running. Check out www.acronis.com (et.al.)
I agree with the GP post, my system has changed several times since the end of July, and I have a full time job, grad school, and a family, so it's not like you need a bunch of time to make changes.
Man, after reading all of this, I'm really glad I never bought Apple. My no-name i-river mp3 player works great!!
Slashdot Mirror
Here, walk with me through an observation. It's generally presumed that people should be left alone, and be free to do what they want, correct? In other words, we presume that anyone farming their fields anywhere in the world would rather be left to themselves than to be told how they're going to live? Okay, which forms of government are the least meddlesome in individuals' lives but still provide for basic security and services, individual freedom (women's rights, religion, etc.) and so on? For the last hundred or so years democracies have had an good track record in that regard, especially in comparison with the Soviet or Communist Chinese systems, (Stalin and Mao didn't help of course). Also theocracies have been shown to be dangerous to human rights, since one belief system is inflicted upon an entire population, many times victimizing women or minorities.
So the idea is this: Western democracy must survive, not because of some idea of 'fairness' or 'rightness', but because once you consider all the competing systems that will otherwise rule the world, it is the least oppressive.
So when someone says they don't want a dictatorship to have nukes, it's perfectly reasonable to say "It's in the best interest of every individual on the planet that western civilization survives, therefore a dangerous dictatorship shouldn't be allowed to have nukes". You're not looking at the fairness between countries, you're considering the welfare of the common individual, anywhere in the world.
Well, it's a good thing that you haven't given those dictators any help staying in power, for example by giving them an obvious external enemy they can blame all their troubles for, not to mention justify tightening their fist, now isn't it?
I'm sure you know dictators have no trouble finding external enemies, no matter the time period or which countries happen to exist at the moment. They don't need anyone's help for that. :)
Cheers!
looney82 I want to thank you for doing what you're doing.
Ok, maybe I'm alone on this one, but when I watch a black & white movie, say, Dr. Strangelove, after about the first 10 minutes I don't consciously notice the "black & white" - I'm absorbed in the story. If I get distracted from the tv for a minute, I'll come back aware that the movie is in black & white, but I don't notice it much during the experience. The characters aren't "less real" because of the presentation.
Now before you call me a geezer I'm under 35, so I promise I'm not doing the "back in my day" thing.
It's just that I've seen many movies in different formats over the years, and like most people this includes everything from grainy cable channels to VHS tapes whose tracking won't settle down. And in every case where the movie is interesting at all, when I get engrossed in the story I don't generally notice the imperfections of the delivery.
This being the case, I feel like 3d is pointless in movies. Since you can't actually change your viewing angle relative to the characters, (which would be cool and actually 3d), it's instead only a depth-perception trick.(!) And worse, as above, if it's not there you don't miss it, and when it is there, if you're involved in the story you stop noticing it until it's rammed down your throat.
I'm not against movies being done in 3d, but I'm certainly not that impressed. The signal to noise, or "hype to reward" ratio is really really low IMHO.
In "Stubbs the Zombie" you get to be one...
ooo, the "Doom network". That sounds fun!
I don't know why that was modded "Flamebait", maybe by a fanboy? Because what he says is true:
I thought it was just my perception while in the store. Well, over christmas I talked to my sister and her husband, (two of the most non-tech savvy people I know, a marketer and a lawyer.... I know). I assumed, being the slave to fashion that my sister is, that she'd have bought an iPhone right when they came out.
Instead, it turned out that both of them commented on the attitude of the Apple store sales people. They went in to buy her an iPhone, and the sales people all had this arrogant attitude about them using windows machines, etc. They were both really put off and left. Mind you - they were prepared to buy an iPhone and possibly a computer that day, and they walked out disgusted.
So 2 months ago, my sister's marketing company bought her a new Apple, and she told them she didn't want it. They gave it to her anyway, and it's been sitting in its box unopened ever since. She went out and bought a 'regular'[sic] laptop with her own money.
Now I'm not saying this to flame or bash Apple. I'm only relating this because Apple should understand that they're losing sales this way. The arrogance probably works to pick up egocentric people to whom a computer is a status symbol, (what's with that?), but they're alienating people who just want a machine to work. It seems that this is the crowd they should be trying to cater to, with all their "it just works" advertising.
If this self-righteous attitude isn't what Apple wants to portray in their stores, then they need to clean house a bit. I've noticed this same thing in a nearby west coast Apple store, and the above story happened in a NY Apple store. If this is the attitude they want to portray, (and I suspect this to be the case,) they're doing a stellar job.
You guys don't get it. It doesn't matter how much of their stuff we *don't* buy. You see, whenever we express our displeasure by not buying their stuff, they see lost money on the bottom line. Then they translate this into, "People are now stealing even MORE of our stuff online!". Because hey, if they made X last year, they should make X+some this year. If they don't, then it's time for more lawsuits and legislation!
Unlike any other industry I'm aware of, they can't be damaged by not buying their products.
Heh, that's funny at first, and remarkably accurate the more you apply it to other things...
First off, I'm assuming you're talking about the US. If not, disregard...
Since we haven't had a small gov't any time in the last 20 years there isn't enough data to suggest either way. Bush and Clinton have created the largest gov't there has ever been in the US...
I'm too lazy to look it up now, but there was a discussion here a while back on why you don't see that many engineers over 45-50. They're out there, but not many. In the end, most people said they could do CS type stuff for about 20 years before they'd had it, and found something else to do with their time.
:) )
"Passion" holds out for a maximum of probably 5-8 years in any tech field IMHE. After that, if you do it every day, it becomes just another 'job'. It seems to be human nature. Passionate or not, after about 20 years of it professionally, it gets pretty tiring. (There may be one or two individual exceptions out of 100, but they're just the ones who haven't been paying attention.
Then, the idea of renting body boards and umbrellas to tourists on Waikiki beach starts sounding pretty good. Hmm... 6-8 hour days at the beach, or 12+hr days for getting some patch done/server running/disasterOfTheDay fixed.
Wow, calm. I think GP was just saying, "Pick your battles". Do you think every defendant who settles thinks they did something wrong? Most businesses, when sued, look at the economics of the fight; how much is this going to cost to fight in court? What are the repercussions of settling? Is it less expensive to settle than to bother? Additionally, investors don't like to see pending lawsuits listed on quarterly and yearly reports, so you try and keep that list short, to battles that you're really married to fighting.
You say that means that the RIAA could write demand letters to everyone and get settlements. That is an absolutely true statement. We've already seen them get into cases that make them look ridiculous, because generally they're expecting people to roll over and cough up the dough, and not try to fight.
So if you got a letter, really the question comes down to this; is this a fight you really want to get into? You can buy your way out with a fixed sum. You can negotiate with them and say, "I want to pay you, but I make 4 dollars a year, and so what can I give you to settle? etc." Or..... You can fight it head on, get your own attorneys and fight it with righteous zeal, defending your honor, truth and all that is holy and right. Mind you, this latter choice, while emotionally rewarding, will cost many many times what the original settlement offer was. So is it worth it to spend tens of thousands of dollars over a year or more to prove a point? Or just pay it and get them out of your hair?
It's your personal choice. Choosing one over the other isn't necessarily morally right. I don't think GP deserved the lashing later in your post.
Does the RIAA need to be stopped? You bet. But stopping RIAA's crusade against their own customers isn't going to happen while you're defending yourself in court. The best you could really do is not have to pay, and maybe make them look like fools, (ie: the "I have no computer" example), but that won't stop them.
Something else needs to happen to bring the whole thing to a halt, and I'm not sure what that needs to be.
Ya the title confused me at first as well... Reading the article, "This doesn't say anything about Fallout..."
People all around the world sit down every night and watch 2-4 hrs of TV, and no one bats an eye. Yet if they spend that time playing a game instead, now they're addicts?
The only reason people make so much of video game 'addiction' is because the older generation isn't comfortable with entertainment that seemingly takes a lot of time and that they don't understand.
I'm not contesting that it's possible to get 'addicted' in the informal sense to any form of entertainment, but the double standard is astounding.
'Obviousness' is the legal term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_no n-obviousness
"Pride goeth before destruction...". As it were.
Heh, the rest is good too: "...and an haughty spirit before a fall."
-Proverbs 16:18
Being careful to not overstate the security of any IT/CS related thing seems a good policy, because when something eventually goes wrong,(and it will), you don't look like an idiot in hindsight.
As a programmer though, is anyone ever that secure with their own code? I mean enough to sit back and say it can't be exploited somehow? Or that it's impenetrable? Seems like it's usually users, architects and marketers who make these claims...
Funny, I just did that very thing just yesterday! UPS delivered my new laptop from Dell, took it out, fired up Vista once to make sure it turned on, put in a new XP Pro install cd, reboot...
I think you could reasonably argue before a judge that it is restraint of trade, and here's how:
There are no other competitors for the "Home User" PC market, that will run on non-proprietary PCs. (I like linux, but it doesn't have the regular pc-home-user market penetration to seriously qualify as a 'competitor' there)
As has been shown by several previous articles, they are ceasing the production of a product that is both demonstrated to be in high demand, and necessary for pc clone architectures to run (for the avg individual, non-geek). The end of production is for no apparent compelling reason; there is no great production cost for MS to distribute to OEMs, they just distribute license keys.
I'd like to hear their argument to the contrary; they'd have to say that they're *not* a monopoly somehow, that you can instead use product X, and ending production of this high demand product is not restraint of the free market. It's clearly not a move many companies would make - to stop production on a product that costs a) nearly nothing to produce per copy, and b) is in such high demand that people *would rather buy it* than your 'new' product.
Oh well. They are MS- we *will* submit...Agreed. And when we read articles here about MS stopping the OEM distribution of XP by the end of the year to force OEM Vista adoption, how does that *not* qualify as restraint of trade?
I don't see how the DOJ can be ignoring this, (in the US anyway).
Well, and managers generally seek to expand their individual kingdoms, so they usually resist losing people. IMHExperience.
I agree. Plus China seems more interested in making money than blowing things up ATM. We're happy to make money with less-than-desirable but stable administrations, because people interested in making money don't usually want to screw up their cash flow. OTOH nutcases who keep threatening their neighbors don't make you any money and destabilize their own regions. This is both bad for business and it gets people killed. Therein lies the difference.
Oh no, you're doomed! Unless girlfriend 5.0 has previously been installed as wife 1.0 for someone else, the 'no upgrade path' messages are luring you into a false sense of security with plugin feature Sex Life 10.0. Any spawned Child versions may only be generated within a short time of girlfriend 5.0's inception date, and every instance of girlfriend is aware of it. You're still in the pre-wife 1.0 demand deception phase. Enjoy the phase but be vigilant, and hold onto your wallet.
Didn't mean to post that as AC.
Yes, but that 10400 EUR is for ONLY 4 SEATS(!). That pricing is sky-high outrageous, considering a team of 12 developers would be over 30,000 EUR. FOR A BLOODY WINDOWING SYSTEM ONLY. WTF? In previous commercial projects we've intentionally avoided QT for just this reason.
If we were talking about, say, 15,000 EUR for a 50 user SITE LICENSE, then maybe, but the current pricing is exorbitant.
Now to be fair, there is a 'small buisness pricing plan' http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/pric ing/licensing/smallbusiness which reduces the price 65%, but I sure wouldn't want my licensing to hinge on this.
So, if someone likes spending that kind of money, that's fine. I'm just saying that I'm one user who will never ever use it so long as this pricing is in place, in business or otherwise. I will never promote its use on any project of which I'm in charge. I'm just one man, and I guarantee there are hundreds like me out there - those who would otherwise be paying to use trolltech's products for commercial applications, if it weren't such a financial albatross sucking down your project's bottom line.
Well, anyway, one man's opinion...
I'm afraid that he would never give up creative control of something he had money in though- JarJar would be the new "Ship's pilot" and would be written in to be Kaylee's new love interest, or some other revolting thing.
:)
Keep him away from anything that has real non-suck creativity left in it.
(It'd be really satisfying to see Zoe beat the tar out of JarJar though.)
Umm, no, with drive imaging utilities you can change out your main drive in 2 hrs, and be back up and running. Check out www.acronis.com (et.al.)
I agree with the GP post, my system has changed several times since the end of July, and I have a full time job, grad school, and a family, so it's not like you need a bunch of time to make changes.
Man, after reading all of this, I'm really glad I never bought Apple. My no-name i-river mp3 player works great!!