Simple: let's say I open an HSA today with $100, planning to deposit an additional $100 every month. If I break my leg tomorrow, whoops, my account only has $100 in it! On the other hand, if I buy an insurance policy for $100 a month, I'm covered from day one.
HSAs only work if you can be completely confident that you won't incur any medical expenses before you have enough money saved up to cover them.
I also wonder when we're going to have truly holographic displays? All one would need would be a high enough resolution LCD, with instead of a white backlight, a mirrored back and a laser frontlight.
Unfortunately, "high enough resolution" would be something like 250,000 DPI.
If you're running an electrical heater you've already lost. That should be banned (already is, in many places).
Uh... what?
You have to heat your home somehow. If electricity is cheaper than the alternative (usually gas), why not use electricity?
In some places, electricity comes from burning the sort of fuel that could easily and safely be burned at home, so you lose efficiency... but that's not true everywhere. If your electricity comes from a nuclear reactor, hydroelectric dam, or garbage incinerator, why not use it for heating?
The issue is that I'm taxed out the wazoo to pay for the education you're throwing away.
No, the issue is that students are forced into classes whether they want to be there or not. If kids who'd rather spend their time elsewhere were allowed to do so, you'd save tax dollars and they'd be happier.
Did you know that it's legal - and often even encouraged - to sign up for more difficult and challenging classes so that you're not wasting everyone's time?
Legal, sure. Possible? Not very often. When I was in high school, we took the classes we were required to take, with room for a couple electives. If something like Pacific Northwest History was a waste of our time and our teachers' time, too bad - we had to be there anyway.
All it proves is that the elderly turnout on election day dwarfs that of any other age group.
No, come on: you don't think any other age group would stand for the same treatment, do you? If a new study showed that the most dangerous group of drivers were actually, say, 30-40 year olds, you can be sure they wouldn't be banned from the road either.
It's not about turnout among the elderly. It's about young people being disenfranchised. They're discriminated against at every turn because they're powerless to stop it.
You'd think with all of us former teens, still scarred from society's relentless abuse, would rally around the cause of eliminating teenage oppression. But we don't. You know why? Most of us look back at how unbelievably stupid, reckless and irresponsible we were as teenagers. With age, comes some perspective.
That's one theory.
Here's another: most adults don't care about teenage oppression because it isn't their problem anymore. It's easier to just ignore it as soon as you turn 18, or 21, than to keep fighting for a cause that doesn't benefit you personally. Many of them also feel a perverse sense of justice in subjecting the next generation to the same poor treatment that they themselves had to face.
You seem to be incapible of doing anything other than playing Ad Hominem
That's hilarious coming from a guy who deems everyone who disagrees with him an "Apple Hater".
This is a classic instance of projection, where you accuse others of doing what you do yourself. It'd be sad if it weren't so ineptly done: it's as if you don't realize that youradhominems are preserved here for everyone to see. For deception like this to succeed, you need to do it in a less permanent forum.
like most of your ilk you just try to cover up what truth I offer with a lot of noise in an effort to drive something you are not willing to recognize as true, out of your realm of perception.
Heh. How many of those apps can you actually run on your iPhone for free without jailbreaking it?
I could put a BREW app up on Google Code too. That doesn't mean you're going to get it on your phone for free, because to run it, you need a signature, and that costs money.
From who? Generally the complaints I see revolve around them [Apple computers] being overly simplistic or not configurable enough.
Just look at any thread where someone compares the price tag of the MacBook Pro to competing laptops. As soon as one person points out that you can get the same or better screen/CPU/graphics/memory/disk for a fraction of the price, along comes an Apple apologist saying "but that $800 HP notebook doesn't have <some checklist feature nobody cares about>".
Of of course the reason you willfully overlook - more usable.
No, that's a myth. You're starting with the assumption that Apple products must be more usable and concluding that the same is true of the iPod. But if you lost the assumption and actually compared the iPod to competing players, you might see it differently.
It's a matter of taste, I suppose, but the competing players I've used have been every bit as usable as the iPod, if not more so. For example, I find the scroll wheel to be a big pain in the ass, and so do the other iPod owners I've asked about it. I'd much rather have arrow buttons, like the ones on every other player.
The fact you consider the iPod to be a "fad" (to vanish any year now!) shows just how far off the rails your train of thought has gone.
I don't know who you think you're quoting, but it's not me. I never called it a fad, I just agreed with the other poster that it's a status symbol. People buy it more for what they (and others) think of the brand than for the product's actual merits.
Don't you Apple Haters feel even a tiny bit of embarassmant for making yurself look totally incapible of even the simplest Google search? I guess not, you're too focused on your Hate.
It's funny, you sound like those Republicans who are so blinded by party loyalty that they ascribe all opposition to "Bush Derangement Syndrome". There can't possibly be any reasonable objection to this president's actions or policies, they think, so anyone who disagrees must just be an irrational emotion-driven Hater.
It's a shame you have so little respect for everyone who disagrees with you. You might learn something if you gave their positions a little honest thought.
Also, there are more open source (as in code) iPhone apps in the world today than Android apps. I see no reason why that would change, you can have open source apps on the iPhone just as easily as on Android.
iPhone development isn't free. Yes, you can have open source apps on the iPhone, but those developers have to pay for their licenses somehow, so you won't see as many open source apps as you would on a free platform.
It's the same reason why you don't see many free applications on, say, Verizon's Get It Now store. Developing BREW applications costs actual money, so people aren't inclined to give them away, even though they technically could.
If there actually were [players out there that were better than the iPod], people would buy them.
You're ignoring network effects and the sexiness of the iPod/Apple brand.
But what there are are a lot of devices that function OK and have masses of checklist features that no-one really cares about.
Funny, that's a good description of Apple computers, often used to justify their high prices relative to the closest competing models. (FireWire? Check! Lighted keyboard? Check! 1/8" thinner than the competition? Check!)
Truth is, the iPod also just functions "OK". There's plenty of room for improvement: for example, I've often wished my iPod could jump to the artist or album of the currently playing song, but instead I have to remember what's playing and then navigate to the artist or album from the top menu (using that godawful scroll wheel).
Poor Apple Hater, unable to see the future coming right at him.
Poor Apple Apologist, unable to see merit in the words of anyone who isn't also a True Believer.
The iPod is no "status symbol" either as status symbols are very prone to being dropped by the market at the drop of a hat, which the iPod (and now iPhone) have not seen.
Of course it is, it's just had a long run.
iPod competitors are generally more affordable and more flexible. People still buy the iPod instead for two reasons: network effect (there's a lot of DRM content and accessories that only work with an iPod) and because the iPod brand has cachet.
This misundertanding you and countless Apple Haters before you make is the reason why you cannot understand Apple's success, and never will.
Apple Apologists will never understand Apple's success either, because they're in denial about the leading causes of that success. Fortunately for Apple, they don't have fanboys running their company. They know exactly why people keep buying their products, so they maintain a hip corporate image, continue designing their products to look as expensive as they are, and cultivate the myth that the degree of control they demand over their products after they're sold is necessary to produce a good user experience.
OS X just works because of Apple's tight integration of software and hardware.
As a Mac owner, I wish that were true. But in reality, OS X doesn't "just work" any better than a Windows machine with preinstalled drivers.
I encounter just as many crashes and bugs per hour of use on my Mac as I do on my Windows desktop. Ever seen the multilingual kernel crash screen? I have, multiple times. How about the repeating and misleading error on the network preferences panel that says another application has changed the settings? How about when it pops up a dialog box claiming your cell modem isn't connected, while you can see it's right there in the list of connected devices?
The tight integration of Apple's hardware and software doesn't make either perfect. It just makes them profitable, since Apple can charge a premium for the hardware and doesn't have to test the software with as many configurations.
How can someone who cannot sign a binding contract own something?
I can only assume you're referring to sales contracts here.
First, it's not true that minors can't enter into binding contracts. What do you think happens when a minor goes into a store and buys something, entering into a verbal contract for that sale? Does the sale not really happen? (Minors can also enter into binding, explicit contracts for such necessities as housing and utilities, even when they can't sign other contracts.)
Second, sales contracts aren't a prerequisite to becoming the owner of property. You don't need to sign a contract to receive a gift, for example.
Unless the parents signed a sort of transfer of their parenting rights to school personnel (which may be the case), teachers do not have any right to confiscate anything.
It sucks, yes. But frankly, allowing parents to confiscate their children's property isn't much better. The real problem is that legislators and courts place virtually no importance on the rights of anyone under 18.
I can understand how people want to get stuff for free, even though I fundamnetally disagree with piracy. What I do NOT understand is why those peole cannot see that if everyone does what they do, no new content will be produced.
Simple: because that's not true.
As long as there are people who have money and want new content, and other people who want money and have the ability to produce new content, content will continue to be produced. Even if evangelical pirates manage to convince everyone to download content for free, that'll just mean that people who want new content will have to pool their money and hire artists to produce it, paying directly for labor instead of paying for copies after the fact.
It just goes to reinforce my belief that its mainly immature kids who do this kind of thing.
That's unfortunate. The misunderstanding is yours, not theirs.
Until we get a phone that doesn't use any code signing, nobody is going to be very interested in the product, because it's merely an iPhone competitor (and the iPhone has Apple's sexy marketing behind it, so you might as well just develop for that and make more money).
But to develop for the iPhone, you need to get a $99 development license, and then you still have to play by Apple's rules: no emulators, no competing with built-in apps, etc.
Developing for Android is free, and there are no limitations on what you're allowed to develop or distribute. You can write software that not only competes with built-in apps, but actually replaces them. And you can distribute them through Google's marketplace, through a competing marketplace, through your own web site, or anywhere else.
Code signing only means that you can't replace the OS with a version you've compiled yourself... but even that is being worked around.
It's a myth because its highly misleading. There is the condition, which you failed to mention, that you must have seen that string of words before, as they are exactly, in another work. There's also the fact that you have to form extremely large strings of words to qualify - far too large for there to be any measurable chance of it happening by accident. Suddenly, your phrasing, which suggests that forming strings of words is like treading in a minefield doesn't sound nearly so ludicrous. That is the myth.
That's a strange way to interpret what I wrote. Did you really think I was worried about what might happen to people who string words together at random and accidentally stumble upon a copyrighted sequence? I would've written "randomly spew certain sequences" if that were the case, not "repeat certain sequences", which implies that they've been heard somewhere.
I'm not talking about treading in a minefield. I'm talking about repeating sequences of words that you've seen or heard, simply because abridging your speech makes it easier for a third party to make money. That's ludicrous enough on its own without any embellishment.
"Certain facts" is another misleading statement. That suggests that, say, summarising the book is not OK (it is), or that lending it to a friend is not OK (it is), or any of the other many activities that you seem to be suggesting are not allowed.
Again, the culprit here is your interpretation, not my statements. You're reading something into my words that I didn't put there.
Copyright restricts the facts you can share about your property. If you own, say, a rock, you can describe in exquisite detail the position of every grain and speckle on its surface. You can cut it open, analyze its mineral makeup, and share your findings with whoever cares to listen. You can take pictures and put them on your homepage. Everything you can possibly measure or discover about that rock, you're allowed to share with anyone you want.
But if you own a book, you don't have that freedom. You can describe what it looks like on the outside, as long as you aren't too specific about the illustrated cover. You can say how much it weighs. You can say what font it's printed in. You can describe in general terms what happens on page 1. You can even say what the first word is on page 1, and the second word, and the third word... but keep going long enough, and you'll find that you've shared too much of what you know about this thing that you own.
These are objective, measurable things about a piece of your property, and the law requires you to keep them secret. And why? Not because national security is at stake. Not because anyone's privacy would be violated and their life ruined. Not because that information would be dangerous in the wrong hands. Instead, you must keep this information secret simply so that someone thousands of miles away can have an easier time selling copies of it. That's what I call ludicrous.
Why don't you call them like they are? "Large portions of the work", for example.
I want to illustrate what it means to prevent someone from sharing "large portions of the work". It means there are objective, measurable, undeniable facts that anyone can easily verify just by looking at a copy of that book, and yet you'll open yourself up to a lawsuit or worse if you share too many of them.
Copyright isn't as single-minded as you seem to be suggesting. It does support the sharing of ideas and inspiration, just not large verbatim portions of the work!
Once again, you're reading more into my words than is actually there. I didn't say copyright outlaws the sharing of all facts (or ideas, or inspiration) -- just an awful lot of them.
But it must be said that copyright does prevent the use of many ideas, even though they aren't "large portions of the work". If you write and sell a story about a bespectacled lad
Plus, if [publishers] do have those kinds of objections, they have constant access to the artists involved, and can negotiate with them. Large groups of investors (under your system) can do that, but only if meetings are arranged, and pamphlets published, all costing a lot of money.
Meetings arranged and pamphlets published? Dude, it's the 21st century. That can be done online, quickly, easily, and cheaply. There's no reason the contributors couldn't have constant access to the artists they're funding.
That's another myth. It's only illegal (at least, here in Australia) if you reproduce 10% of the work or more, and I'm sure there are similar provisions in the US under the fair use doctrine. Not only that, it doesn't prevent you from coming up with those words on your own, only if you actually copy them. If you choose to read a copyrighted work, then be prepared to see (really, really large - pages even) strings of words that you can't copy verbatim.
In other words, it's not a myth at all. You agree that it is, as I wrote, illegal for us to repeat certain sequences of words due to a choice someone else has made.
Copyright law says that I can't share those strings of words with someone else. If I purchase a copy of that book, there are certain facts about my property that I'm required to keep secret, because if I divulge too many of them, I will have given someone else the means to reproduce the book (or a large part of it). That's not an unintended consequence, it's exactly how copyright is meant to operate.
No, that's not true. You can avoid experiencing any copyrighted work. Sure, you can't avoid certain public arenas where music is playing or a painting print is being displayed, [...]
So again, in other words, it is true. That's an odd tactic you've deployed here, starting off a paragraph by asserting a claim that you then disprove by the end of the paragraph.
If I experience a copyrighted work, which we agree is effectively impossible to avoid, then whether I like it or not, I'm subject to restrictions on my speech in order to prevent me from sharing that experience with someone else. I have no choice in the matter.
How unfortunate that I've chosen to support a system that doesn't force anyone into anything! My arguments would be so much more convincing if I could end them with "... and then anyone who doesn't play along is arrested or sued into destitution."
If the work is released, you don't just get money from the early adopters (for lack of a better term), you get money from people who pick it up and like it, you get money from people who withhold their judgement and then buy. You might even get money from people determined to hate it, but love it after they experience it.
All of this can be flipped around, though. You might get money from people who like the sound of the idea at first, but end up not liking the finished product. And for every "what if people don't want to pay up front", there's a "what if people don't want to pay for copies (since illicit copying is ultimately unpreventable)".
The problem with that solution is that artistry is a trial and error operation. What started out as a serious nuclear doomsday thriller could easily turn out to become a comedy classic. Under that system, that could constitute fraud.
Under the current system, it could also constitute fraud - against the investors.
The argument never was that no-one would contribute, the argument was that the amount contributed is considerably less than the demand. Out of all the voters who vote for a specific party, how many of them contribute? Not many comparatively.
But that's irrelevant. A candidate doesn't need every voter to contribute, and an artist doesn't need everyone who enjoys his work to pay. He only needs to collect enough money in total to fund the production of that work.
With music, you get nothing if the project fails. Nothing.
You get your money back, so what's the problem?
It's about choice. Artists can choose whichever system they prefer, and we can choose to reward whatever system we prefer.
But we don't really get a choice, other than to buy or not buy a product. It's illegal for us to repeat certain sequences of words due to a choice someone else has made. We're forced to participate in the copyright business model whether we want to or not. Why should we care about offering a choice to someone else if they're not willing to extend us the same courtesy?
The fact that people want it doesn't mean that they will cough up the cash, or that coughing up cash is enough. For example, say I have a completely unique taste for a particular type of movie, one that I don't have the capacity to make myself. I want to buy it, but, of course, I don't want to pay more than about $40. That won't cover the cost of making it, unfortunately. There it is: demand, willingness to buy does not necessarily imply availability.
Of course, that only holds true for your hypothetical corner case.
In the real world, people share tastes. $40 from one person isn't enough to make a movie, but $40 from a million people is. As long as there's enough combined demand, the only thing that's missing is a framework to collect money from all those people and deliver it to the filmmakers. And that's exactly the sort of thing that the internet makes easy.
This is not like other services that you pay for beforehand. Unlike these services, you have no guarantee that your money will produce anything
Sure you do. You have exactly the same guarantee as with any other service: if you pay but the service isn't provided, or is substantially different from what was agreed upon, the provider has failed to hold up his end of the contract and you can take him to court.
and you may get what you want without paying, which is a big disincentive to invest.
It's only a disincentive to the extent that the project is likely to be funded without your help. If it's a popular project, then sure, keep your money and someone else will probably fund it instead. If not, then you have a clear choice: if you want to see the work completed and released, you'll pay; if you don't really care whether it's ever made, then keep your money and maybe it won't be.
In any case, I don't think these are realistic criticisms. Look at political campaigns again: no one has any guarantee that their money will be used for any particular thing (much less any guarantee that their candidate will win if he raises $X), and everyone knows that there are other contributors out there. And yet every time someone puts up a contribution button with a monetary goal and a shiny thermometer graph indicating progress, they meet that goal.
Sounds great! Get some investors, sign some artists, and get it started! See how well it does!
As I already mentioned, I don't think artists will have much incentive to try a new system as long as they can still use copyright as a crutch. This isn't about making a system that's more appealing to artists and winning their allegiance, it's about making a system that's better for everyone -- one that doesn't restrict free speech in order to make it easier for artists to make a buck.
The farmer and house painter are free to choose to sell their "sweat" for as little or as much as they want. An artist, if he chooses to trade, is forced to trade for zero value. His sweat is effectively stolen.
I don't get it. You seem to be asserting that artists can't sell their labor, which is obviously false. No one forces them to write, paint, or sing for free; they can hold out their hands and say "I won't sing until you give me some money", just like a farmer, a house painter, or anyone else can -- and does -- refuse to do their job until they've been paid (or at least promised some money). Since there is demand for the production of new works, and since that production depends on artistic labor, the money will be there.
Just like it works for farmers and house-painters, it should also be applied artists, lest they feel strongly compelled to actually work at something they get a reward from. The problem is that this doesn't work automatically, thanks to a relatively unprecedented situation. We have intangible goods which can be copied by anyone, but they can't be created originally by anyone.
It's only unprecedented if you insist on focusing on the works as the basis of trade. But there's no reason to do that. Artists perform labor, just like virtually everyone else, and they can avoid all this headache simply by trading that labor, the way everyone else manages to trade theirs.
New works are in demand and scarce, but as soon as they hit the shelves, they lose all their commercial value. The fact that this situation is relatively unprecedented means that we need to go back to first principles in order to find a solution.
Or maybe it means that since artistic works don't behave like other goods, we shouldn't pretend to treat them like other goods. The system we have for trading goods depends on scarcity; a good that isn't scarce belongs under an entirely different system.
Anything that competes with traditional copyright for market-share, but doesn't unfairly undermine copyrighted works works for me.
I don't think that would work. Copyright is so slanted toward copyright holders, and so ingrained in the common conception of How Art Is Made, that I wouldn't expect many people to choose an alternative. A wage-based system is preferable not just because it guarantees an income for artists, but also because it gives rights back to the public; artists aren't the only ones with a stake in this decision, so it shouldn't be left entirely up to them.
Forming a wage-based system would be a welcome change for most artists. Their pay is often sporadic, and making art for profit is a risky investment. The problem is that we haven't figured out a framework on which we can pay wages. Who will pay for these wages? We know they must be paid before an artist creates anything of value, so they must be paid as an advance on the work itself. So I repeat: who will pay?
I'm not sure why you think this is such a tough question. People pay for services all the time without knowing exactly what they're going to get, based on gathering what information they can about the service provider (e.g. reading reviews) and discussing their expectations with the provider beforehand.
The only thing that separates artistic services from others in this case is the ratio between the price that a typical consumer is willing to pay and the price that the artist will demand. A single person can pay the full price of a $15 haircut, but he can't pay the full price of a $50,000 album.
But the solution is simple: spread the cost between many individuals. To see how this is done, look at the recent political campaigns, or at sellaband.com (which is close, but not exactly the same as what I have in mind). If a candidate can raise $500 million by collecting $20 at a time from people who aren't even guaranteed to get anything in return, th
And getting elected is like being modded up by a plurality of the voters. I think the guy was saying you don't get elected if you stick to the facts, either.
Sure you can: Barack Obama just did. The guy was trying to say that Obama made unrealistic promises, but as I pointed out, that's not the case.
Slashdot Mirror
Why not go to a HSA or FSA?
Simple: let's say I open an HSA today with $100, planning to deposit an additional $100 every month. If I break my leg tomorrow, whoops, my account only has $100 in it! On the other hand, if I buy an insurance policy for $100 a month, I'm covered from day one.
HSAs only work if you can be completely confident that you won't incur any medical expenses before you have enough money saved up to cover them.
I also wonder when we're going to have truly holographic displays? All one would need would be a high enough resolution LCD, with instead of a white backlight, a mirrored back and a laser frontlight.
Unfortunately, "high enough resolution" would be something like 250,000 DPI.
No kidding. For a heat pump to work, there has to be some heat to pump in the first place. When it's -2F outside, you have to make heat.
If you're running an electrical heater you've already lost. That should be banned (already is, in many places).
Uh... what?
You have to heat your home somehow. If electricity is cheaper than the alternative (usually gas), why not use electricity?
In some places, electricity comes from burning the sort of fuel that could easily and safely be burned at home, so you lose efficiency... but that's not true everywhere. If your electricity comes from a nuclear reactor, hydroelectric dam, or garbage incinerator, why not use it for heating?
The issue is that I'm taxed out the wazoo to pay for the education you're throwing away.
No, the issue is that students are forced into classes whether they want to be there or not. If kids who'd rather spend their time elsewhere were allowed to do so, you'd save tax dollars and they'd be happier.
Did you know that it's legal - and often even encouraged - to sign up for more difficult and challenging classes so that you're not wasting everyone's time?
Legal, sure. Possible? Not very often. When I was in high school, we took the classes we were required to take, with room for a couple electives. If something like Pacific Northwest History was a waste of our time and our teachers' time, too bad - we had to be there anyway.
The real problem is that government requires businesses to invest in unprofitable markets
[citation needed]
All it proves is that the elderly turnout on election day dwarfs that of any other age group.
No, come on: you don't think any other age group would stand for the same treatment, do you? If a new study showed that the most dangerous group of drivers were actually, say, 30-40 year olds, you can be sure they wouldn't be banned from the road either.
It's not about turnout among the elderly. It's about young people being disenfranchised. They're discriminated against at every turn because they're powerless to stop it.
You'd think with all of us former teens, still scarred from society's relentless abuse, would rally around the cause of eliminating teenage oppression. But we don't. You know why? Most of us look back at how unbelievably stupid, reckless and irresponsible we were as teenagers. With age, comes some perspective.
That's one theory.
Here's another: most adults don't care about teenage oppression because it isn't their problem anymore. It's easier to just ignore it as soon as you turn 18, or 21, than to keep fighting for a cause that doesn't benefit you personally. Many of them also feel a perverse sense of justice in subjecting the next generation to the same poor treatment that they themselves had to face.
You seem to be incapible of doing anything other than playing Ad Hominem
That's hilarious coming from a guy who deems everyone who disagrees with him an "Apple Hater".
This is a classic instance of projection, where you accuse others of doing what you do yourself. It'd be sad if it weren't so ineptly done: it's as if you don't realize that your ad hominems are preserved here for everyone to see. For deception like this to succeed, you need to do it in a less permanent forum.
like most of your ilk you just try to cover up what truth I offer with a lot of noise in an effort to drive something you are not willing to recognize as true, out of your realm of perception.
There it is again. Thanks for proving my point. :)
Google code says otherwise.
Heh. How many of those apps can you actually run on your iPhone for free without jailbreaking it?
I could put a BREW app up on Google Code too. That doesn't mean you're going to get it on your phone for free, because to run it, you need a signature, and that costs money.
From who? Generally the complaints I see revolve around them [Apple computers] being overly simplistic or not configurable enough.
Just look at any thread where someone compares the price tag of the MacBook Pro to competing laptops. As soon as one person points out that you can get the same or better screen/CPU/graphics/memory/disk for a fraction of the price, along comes an Apple apologist saying "but that $800 HP notebook doesn't have <some checklist feature nobody cares about>".
Of of course the reason you willfully overlook - more usable.
No, that's a myth. You're starting with the assumption that Apple products must be more usable and concluding that the same is true of the iPod. But if you lost the assumption and actually compared the iPod to competing players, you might see it differently.
It's a matter of taste, I suppose, but the competing players I've used have been every bit as usable as the iPod, if not more so. For example, I find the scroll wheel to be a big pain in the ass, and so do the other iPod owners I've asked about it. I'd much rather have arrow buttons, like the ones on every other player.
The fact you consider the iPod to be a "fad" (to vanish any year now!) shows just how far off the rails your train of thought has gone.
I don't know who you think you're quoting, but it's not me. I never called it a fad, I just agreed with the other poster that it's a status symbol. People buy it more for what they (and others) think of the brand than for the product's actual merits.
Don't you Apple Haters feel even a tiny bit of embarassmant for making yurself look totally incapible of even the simplest Google search? I guess not, you're too focused on your Hate.
It's funny, you sound like those Republicans who are so blinded by party loyalty that they ascribe all opposition to "Bush Derangement Syndrome". There can't possibly be any reasonable objection to this president's actions or policies, they think, so anyone who disagrees must just be an irrational emotion-driven Hater.
It's a shame you have so little respect for everyone who disagrees with you. You might learn something if you gave their positions a little honest thought.
Also, there are more open source (as in code) iPhone apps in the world today than Android apps. I see no reason why that would change, you can have open source apps on the iPhone just as easily as on Android.
iPhone development isn't free. Yes, you can have open source apps on the iPhone, but those developers have to pay for their licenses somehow, so you won't see as many open source apps as you would on a free platform.
It's the same reason why you don't see many free applications on, say, Verizon's Get It Now store. Developing BREW applications costs actual money, so people aren't inclined to give them away, even though they technically could.
If there actually were [players out there that were better than the iPod], people would buy them.
You're ignoring network effects and the sexiness of the iPod/Apple brand.
But what there are are a lot of devices that function OK and have masses of checklist features that no-one really cares about.
Funny, that's a good description of Apple computers, often used to justify their high prices relative to the closest competing models. (FireWire? Check! Lighted keyboard? Check! 1/8" thinner than the competition? Check!)
Truth is, the iPod also just functions "OK". There's plenty of room for improvement: for example, I've often wished my iPod could jump to the artist or album of the currently playing song, but instead I have to remember what's playing and then navigate to the artist or album from the top menu (using that godawful scroll wheel).
Poor Apple Hater, unable to see the future coming right at him.
Poor Apple Apologist, unable to see merit in the words of anyone who isn't also a True Believer.
The iPod is no "status symbol" either as status symbols are very prone to being dropped by the market at the drop of a hat, which the iPod (and now iPhone) have not seen.
Of course it is, it's just had a long run.
iPod competitors are generally more affordable and more flexible. People still buy the iPod instead for two reasons: network effect (there's a lot of DRM content and accessories that only work with an iPod) and because the iPod brand has cachet.
This misundertanding you and countless Apple Haters before you make is the reason why you cannot understand Apple's success, and never will.
Apple Apologists will never understand Apple's success either, because they're in denial about the leading causes of that success. Fortunately for Apple, they don't have fanboys running their company. They know exactly why people keep buying their products, so they maintain a hip corporate image, continue designing their products to look as expensive as they are, and cultivate the myth that the degree of control they demand over their products after they're sold is necessary to produce a good user experience.
OS X just works because of Apple's tight integration of software and hardware.
As a Mac owner, I wish that were true. But in reality, OS X doesn't "just work" any better than a Windows machine with preinstalled drivers.
I encounter just as many crashes and bugs per hour of use on my Mac as I do on my Windows desktop. Ever seen the multilingual kernel crash screen? I have, multiple times. How about the repeating and misleading error on the network preferences panel that says another application has changed the settings? How about when it pops up a dialog box claiming your cell modem isn't connected, while you can see it's right there in the list of connected devices?
The tight integration of Apple's hardware and software doesn't make either perfect. It just makes them profitable, since Apple can charge a premium for the hardware and doesn't have to test the software with as many configurations.
Minor children have no property.
False.
How can someone who cannot sign a binding contract own something?
I can only assume you're referring to sales contracts here.
First, it's not true that minors can't enter into binding contracts. What do you think happens when a minor goes into a store and buys something, entering into a verbal contract for that sale? Does the sale not really happen? (Minors can also enter into binding, explicit contracts for such necessities as housing and utilities, even when they can't sign other contracts.)
Second, sales contracts aren't a prerequisite to becoming the owner of property. You don't need to sign a contract to receive a gift, for example.
Unless the parents signed a sort of transfer of their parenting rights to school personnel (which may be the case), teachers do not have any right to confiscate anything.
Parents don't need to sign; the school acts in loco parentis.
It sucks, yes. But frankly, allowing parents to confiscate their children's property isn't much better. The real problem is that legislators and courts place virtually no importance on the rights of anyone under 18.
I can understand how people want to get stuff for free, even though I fundamnetally disagree with piracy. What I do NOT understand is why those peole cannot see that if everyone does what they do, no new content will be produced.
Simple: because that's not true.
As long as there are people who have money and want new content, and other people who want money and have the ability to produce new content, content will continue to be produced. Even if evangelical pirates manage to convince everyone to download content for free, that'll just mean that people who want new content will have to pool their money and hire artists to produce it, paying directly for labor instead of paying for copies after the fact.
It just goes to reinforce my belief that its mainly immature kids who do this kind of thing.
That's unfortunate. The misunderstanding is yours, not theirs.
Until we get a phone that doesn't use any code signing, nobody is going to be very interested in the product, because it's merely an iPhone competitor (and the iPhone has Apple's sexy marketing behind it, so you might as well just develop for that and make more money).
But to develop for the iPhone, you need to get a $99 development license, and then you still have to play by Apple's rules: no emulators, no competing with built-in apps, etc.
Developing for Android is free, and there are no limitations on what you're allowed to develop or distribute. You can write software that not only competes with built-in apps, but actually replaces them. And you can distribute them through Google's marketplace, through a competing marketplace, through your own web site, or anywhere else.
Code signing only means that you can't replace the OS with a version you've compiled yourself... but even that is being worked around.
It's a myth because its highly misleading. There is the condition, which you failed to mention, that you must have seen that string of words before, as they are exactly, in another work. There's also the fact that you have to form extremely large strings of words to qualify - far too large for there to be any measurable chance of it happening by accident. Suddenly, your phrasing, which suggests that forming strings of words is like treading in a minefield doesn't sound nearly so ludicrous. That is the myth.
That's a strange way to interpret what I wrote. Did you really think I was worried about what might happen to people who string words together at random and accidentally stumble upon a copyrighted sequence? I would've written "randomly spew certain sequences" if that were the case, not "repeat certain sequences", which implies that they've been heard somewhere.
I'm not talking about treading in a minefield. I'm talking about repeating sequences of words that you've seen or heard, simply because abridging your speech makes it easier for a third party to make money. That's ludicrous enough on its own without any embellishment.
"Certain facts" is another misleading statement. That suggests that, say, summarising the book is not OK (it is), or that lending it to a friend is not OK (it is), or any of the other many activities that you seem to be suggesting are not allowed.
Again, the culprit here is your interpretation, not my statements. You're reading something into my words that I didn't put there.
Copyright restricts the facts you can share about your property. If you own, say, a rock, you can describe in exquisite detail the position of every grain and speckle on its surface. You can cut it open, analyze its mineral makeup, and share your findings with whoever cares to listen. You can take pictures and put them on your homepage. Everything you can possibly measure or discover about that rock, you're allowed to share with anyone you want.
But if you own a book, you don't have that freedom. You can describe what it looks like on the outside, as long as you aren't too specific about the illustrated cover. You can say how much it weighs. You can say what font it's printed in. You can describe in general terms what happens on page 1. You can even say what the first word is on page 1, and the second word, and the third word... but keep going long enough, and you'll find that you've shared too much of what you know about this thing that you own.
These are objective, measurable things about a piece of your property, and the law requires you to keep them secret. And why? Not because national security is at stake. Not because anyone's privacy would be violated and their life ruined. Not because that information would be dangerous in the wrong hands. Instead, you must keep this information secret simply so that someone thousands of miles away can have an easier time selling copies of it. That's what I call ludicrous.
Why don't you call them like they are? "Large portions of the work", for example.
I want to illustrate what it means to prevent someone from sharing "large portions of the work". It means there are objective, measurable, undeniable facts that anyone can easily verify just by looking at a copy of that book, and yet you'll open yourself up to a lawsuit or worse if you share too many of them.
Copyright isn't as single-minded as you seem to be suggesting. It does support the sharing of ideas and inspiration, just not large verbatim portions of the work!
Once again, you're reading more into my words than is actually there. I didn't say copyright outlaws the sharing of all facts (or ideas, or inspiration) -- just an awful lot of them.
But it must be said that copyright does prevent the use of many ideas, even though they aren't "large portions of the work". If you write and sell a story about a bespectacled lad
Plus, if [publishers] do have those kinds of objections, they have constant access to the artists involved, and can negotiate with them. Large groups of investors (under your system) can do that, but only if meetings are arranged, and pamphlets published, all costing a lot of money.
Meetings arranged and pamphlets published? Dude, it's the 21st century. That can be done online, quickly, easily, and cheaply. There's no reason the contributors couldn't have constant access to the artists they're funding.
That's another myth. It's only illegal (at least, here in Australia) if you reproduce 10% of the work or more, and I'm sure there are similar provisions in the US under the fair use doctrine. Not only that, it doesn't prevent you from coming up with those words on your own, only if you actually copy them. If you choose to read a copyrighted work, then be prepared to see (really, really large - pages even) strings of words that you can't copy verbatim.
In other words, it's not a myth at all. You agree that it is, as I wrote, illegal for us to repeat certain sequences of words due to a choice someone else has made.
Copyright law says that I can't share those strings of words with someone else. If I purchase a copy of that book, there are certain facts about my property that I'm required to keep secret, because if I divulge too many of them, I will have given someone else the means to reproduce the book (or a large part of it). That's not an unintended consequence, it's exactly how copyright is meant to operate.
No, that's not true. You can avoid experiencing any copyrighted work. Sure, you can't avoid certain public arenas where music is playing or a painting print is being displayed, [...]
So again, in other words, it is true. That's an odd tactic you've deployed here, starting off a paragraph by asserting a claim that you then disprove by the end of the paragraph.
If I experience a copyrighted work, which we agree is effectively impossible to avoid, then whether I like it or not, I'm subject to restrictions on my speech in order to prevent me from sharing that experience with someone else. I have no choice in the matter.
How unfortunate that I've chosen to support a system that doesn't force anyone into anything! My arguments would be so much more convincing if I could end them with "... and then anyone who doesn't play along is arrested or sued into destitution."
If the work is released, you don't just get money from the early adopters (for lack of a better term), you get money from people who pick it up and like it, you get money from people who withhold their judgement and then buy. You might even get money from people determined to hate it, but love it after they experience it.
All of this can be flipped around, though. You might get money from people who like the sound of the idea at first, but end up not liking the finished product. And for every "what if people don't want to pay up front", there's a "what if people don't want to pay for copies (since illicit copying is ultimately unpreventable)".
The problem with that solution is that artistry is a trial and error operation. What started out as a serious nuclear doomsday thriller could easily turn out to become a comedy classic. Under that system, that could constitute fraud.
Under the current system, it could also constitute fraud - against the investors.
The argument never was that no-one would contribute, the argument was that the amount contributed is considerably less than the demand. Out of all the voters who vote for a specific party, how many of them contribute? Not many comparatively.
But that's irrelevant. A candidate doesn't need every voter to contribute, and an artist doesn't need everyone who enjoys his work to pay. He only needs to collect enough money in total to fund the production of that work.
With music, you get nothing if the project fails. Nothing.
You get your money back, so what's the problem?
It's about choice. Artists can choose whichever system they prefer, and we can choose to reward whatever system we prefer.
But we don't really get a choice, other than to buy or not buy a product. It's illegal for us to repeat certain sequences of words due to a choice someone else has made. We're forced to participate in the copyright business model whether we want to or not. Why should we care about offering a choice to someone else if they're not willing to extend us the same courtesy?
The fact that people want it doesn't mean that they will cough up the cash, or that coughing up cash is enough. For example, say I have a completely unique taste for a particular type of movie, one that I don't have the capacity to make myself. I want to buy it, but, of course, I don't want to pay more than about $40. That won't cover the cost of making it, unfortunately. There it is: demand, willingness to buy does not necessarily imply availability.
Of course, that only holds true for your hypothetical corner case.
In the real world, people share tastes. $40 from one person isn't enough to make a movie, but $40 from a million people is. As long as there's enough combined demand, the only thing that's missing is a framework to collect money from all those people and deliver it to the filmmakers. And that's exactly the sort of thing that the internet makes easy.
This is not like other services that you pay for beforehand. Unlike these services, you have no guarantee that your money will produce anything
Sure you do. You have exactly the same guarantee as with any other service: if you pay but the service isn't provided, or is substantially different from what was agreed upon, the provider has failed to hold up his end of the contract and you can take him to court.
and you may get what you want without paying, which is a big disincentive to invest.
It's only a disincentive to the extent that the project is likely to be funded without your help. If it's a popular project, then sure, keep your money and someone else will probably fund it instead. If not, then you have a clear choice: if you want to see the work completed and released, you'll pay; if you don't really care whether it's ever made, then keep your money and maybe it won't be.
In any case, I don't think these are realistic criticisms. Look at political campaigns again: no one has any guarantee that their money will be used for any particular thing (much less any guarantee that their candidate will win if he raises $X), and everyone knows that there are other contributors out there. And yet every time someone puts up a contribution button with a monetary goal and a shiny thermometer graph indicating progress, they meet that goal.
Sounds great! Get some investors, sign some artists, and get it started! See how well it does!
As I already mentioned, I don't think artists will have much incentive to try a new system as long as they can still use copyright as a crutch. This isn't about making a system that's more appealing to artists and winning their allegiance, it's about making a system that's better for everyone -- one that doesn't restrict free speech in order to make it easier for artists to make a buck.
The farmer and house painter are free to choose to sell their "sweat" for as little or as much as they want. An artist, if he chooses to trade, is forced to trade for zero value. His sweat is effectively stolen.
I don't get it. You seem to be asserting that artists can't sell their labor, which is obviously false. No one forces them to write, paint, or sing for free; they can hold out their hands and say "I won't sing until you give me some money", just like a farmer, a house painter, or anyone else can -- and does -- refuse to do their job until they've been paid (or at least promised some money). Since there is demand for the production of new works, and since that production depends on artistic labor, the money will be there.
Just like it works for farmers and house-painters, it should also be applied artists, lest they feel strongly compelled to actually work at something they get a reward from. The problem is that this doesn't work automatically, thanks to a relatively unprecedented situation. We have intangible goods which can be copied by anyone, but they can't be created originally by anyone.
It's only unprecedented if you insist on focusing on the works as the basis of trade. But there's no reason to do that. Artists perform labor, just like virtually everyone else, and they can avoid all this headache simply by trading that labor, the way everyone else manages to trade theirs.
New works are in demand and scarce, but as soon as they hit the shelves, they lose all their commercial value. The fact that this situation is relatively unprecedented means that we need to go back to first principles in order to find a solution.
Or maybe it means that since artistic works don't behave like other goods, we shouldn't pretend to treat them like other goods. The system we have for trading goods depends on scarcity; a good that isn't scarce belongs under an entirely different system.
Anything that competes with traditional copyright for market-share, but doesn't unfairly undermine copyrighted works works for me.
I don't think that would work. Copyright is so slanted toward copyright holders, and so ingrained in the common conception of How Art Is Made, that I wouldn't expect many people to choose an alternative. A wage-based system is preferable not just because it guarantees an income for artists, but also because it gives rights back to the public; artists aren't the only ones with a stake in this decision, so it shouldn't be left entirely up to them.
Forming a wage-based system would be a welcome change for most artists. Their pay is often sporadic, and making art for profit is a risky investment. The problem is that we haven't figured out a framework on which we can pay wages. Who will pay for these wages? We know they must be paid before an artist creates anything of value, so they must be paid as an advance on the work itself. So I repeat: who will pay?
I'm not sure why you think this is such a tough question. People pay for services all the time without knowing exactly what they're going to get, based on gathering what information they can about the service provider (e.g. reading reviews) and discussing their expectations with the provider beforehand.
The only thing that separates artistic services from others in this case is the ratio between the price that a typical consumer is willing to pay and the price that the artist will demand. A single person can pay the full price of a $15 haircut, but he can't pay the full price of a $50,000 album.
But the solution is simple: spread the cost between many individuals. To see how this is done, look at the recent political campaigns, or at sellaband.com (which is close, but not exactly the same as what I have in mind). If a candidate can raise $500 million by collecting $20 at a time from people who aren't even guaranteed to get anything in return, th
And getting elected is like being modded up by a plurality of the voters. I think the guy was saying you don't get elected if you stick to the facts, either.
Sure you can: Barack Obama just did. The guy was trying to say that Obama made unrealistic promises, but as I pointed out, that's not the case.