*nods* and this highlights the problem with any legal argument over Sealand. Once you throw concepts like 'annex' in we leave the realm of law and enter into international diplomacy. In the end, Sealand has no mechanism to stop the UK (or any other nation) from simply taking it since there realistically is no court that covers actions like that.
The only way Sealand would be able to survive is either be not worth dealing with (its current state) or get allies that have enough leverage to cause the UK to back off (unlikely).
Well, enough resell their games that some game companies are making a big deal out of it, so I would wager quite a few.
Enough at least that it means games get into circulation that otherwise would not.
Also keep in mind, there is no guarantee that the price will ever 'drop'. Some games get released at a lower price point, but many just stay at their high price or go out of production. Those 'price drop' usually IS the used game market, though that is probably why Steam generally does so well since it actually provides a lower cost 'later' market for games that have passed their initial cycle.
Not just mean spirited, but bad buisness. I am trying to figure out what box of cracker jacks these CEOs got their MBAs out of... various industries have encountered this for centuries, each has tried to wipe out the 'used' market because it felt they were not getting a good deal out of it, and they each tend to rediscover the same basic problem, the used market puts money into their industry and ads value to their products
Stop used sales, and your product becomes worth less... one might get more of each sale, but the total number of sales tends to go down resulting in a net decrease of income. Sadly, new industries keep forgetting that there is more to a market then the immediate first order effects.. learning how things interconnect is important. grrr.
Eh, MPAA members have done a good job over the years of somehow convincing judges that their near duplication of other people's work counts as 'fair use'... so they are safe.
Not likely since this was a UK court decision and DMCA is a US law.
Though it is not unusual for US courts to reference decisions in the UK or Europe (since the rest of the world does not seem to legally exist) so I would not be surprised if this comes up domestically....
Who then consolidate their power anyway. That is the flaw in libertarianism, it has no mechanism to stop the concentration of power. You just end up with powerful states, or powerful utilities, or powerful something else. It eventually ends up back in the hands of a few.
Oh, and smaller local communities are not less prone to corruption, in fact they are notorious for it.
I have to agree, brandy on the rocks is blasphemy of a similar order to eating NY pizza with a knife and fork.. it is just.. wrong.. and ruins a perfectly good brandy.
In which case you will slide in into libertarian style slavery instead. Libertarian is no better, it just gives power to a different small group of people.
This is why I dislike the WH petition system.. it makes people feel like they are being heard and doing something, but it is little more then a placebo. It does not actually do anything other then make people feel like they are doing something.
The entire point of having a constitution is to put limits on what the government can and can not do, which also means that defendants have rights.
There are also a whole range of things that are legal but you still might not want people seeing or potentially getting out there. Juicy evidence has a way of making it out of the station, or at least becoming wank fodder for officers.
There is also the issue of fishing expeditions when they just want to troll through someone's personal files in the hopes of finding something that can be twisted into a charge. A surprising number of legal activities can become illegal when a prosecutor really wants to get you, which if they have already invested in your case, they will often put that energy in since it is politically embarrassing to admit you were wrong.
A lot of utilities do it this way. I have had both water and power companies bill like this, including going for months paying zero because they over estimated during the previous cycle. Annoying, but not uncommon.
Is this a bulk discount, or a plan that is only available to people who already had it? From the OP it sounded like it was a grandfathered 'these people pay $360, everyone else pays XYZ, and there is no way for new people to get the lower rate' setup.
If I only had mod points. Well said. Hopefully a better reported version will pop up soon.
That being said, I have heard speculation that something (probably microbial) could be living in the cloud layer and provides a good explanation for some of the effects we see, so the idea is not a cooky as it first sounds.
I suspect it is less because they want to close the analog hole.. and more 'because they can'. This is a huge power trip, and executives who push tech companies to do stuff like this successfully will have promotions and new oppurtutnies awaiting them because they showed how far they can piss.
Well, it is possible, I guess, that if the tech actually exists it does not scale well, and thus you get a diminishing return on building bigger units. But, as you say, one should just get a bunch of small units then, unless the units require significant maintaince/fueling in which case there might be cost savings in having one big one to take care of rather then 1000 little ones. Who knows, and since he is leaving that part out of his little narrative, I guess he has not thought up a reason either.
Seems kinda limiting. When I look at these machines I see the potential to make all sorts of stuff that normally I would have to contract out to a machine shop (which for 1 or 2 of an item is not very cost effective)... but if the thing is going to start breaking down after a few months or years that kinda limits applications.
I think the important question will be, how obvious will this connection be to the average user? Geeks might do the research and find out what is causing the ads, but unless they make it clear, most people will not understand what is causing adverts to appear in their feed and thus will continue to hit 'like' on things they think are cool.
Every manufacturer makes garbage. Canon's low end stuff is crap too. Kodak made some really damn good high end stuff, and I still see Kodak backs fetching high prices on the used markets (a domain Canon has not even entered yet).
Slashdot Mirror
*nods* and this highlights the problem with any legal argument over Sealand. Once you throw concepts like 'annex' in we leave the realm of law and enter into international diplomacy. In the end, Sealand has no mechanism to stop the UK (or any other nation) from simply taking it since there realistically is no court that covers actions like that.
The only way Sealand would be able to survive is either be not worth dealing with (its current state) or get allies that have enough leverage to cause the UK to back off (unlikely).
Well, enough resell their games that some game companies are making a big deal out of it, so I would wager quite a few.
Enough at least that it means games get into circulation that otherwise would not.
Also keep in mind, there is no guarantee that the price will ever 'drop'. Some games get released at a lower price point, but many just stay at their high price or go out of production. Those 'price drop' usually IS the used game market, though that is probably why Steam generally does so well since it actually provides a lower cost 'later' market for games that have passed their initial cycle.
Not just mean spirited, but bad buisness. I am trying to figure out what box of cracker jacks these CEOs got their MBAs out of... various industries have encountered this for centuries, each has tried to wipe out the 'used' market because it felt they were not getting a good deal out of it, and they each tend to rediscover the same basic problem, the used market puts money into their industry and ads value to their products
Stop used sales, and your product becomes worth less... one might get more of each sale, but the total number of sales tends to go down resulting in a net decrease of income. Sadly, new industries keep forgetting that there is more to a market then the immediate first order effects.. learning how things interconnect is important. grrr.
Eh, MPAA members have done a good job over the years of somehow convincing judges that their near duplication of other people's work counts as 'fair use'... so they are safe.
Not likely since this was a UK court decision and DMCA is a US law.
Though it is not unusual for US courts to reference decisions in the UK or Europe (since the rest of the world does not seem to legally exist) so I would not be surprised if this comes up domestically....
Who then consolidate their power anyway. That is the flaw in libertarianism, it has no mechanism to stop the concentration of power. You just end up with powerful states, or powerful utilities, or powerful something else. It eventually ends up back in the hands of a few.
Oh, and smaller local communities are not less prone to corruption, in fact they are notorious for it.
I have to agree, brandy on the rocks is blasphemy of a similar order to eating NY pizza with a knife and fork.. it is just.. wrong.. and ruins a perfectly good brandy.
I suspect the post was intentional bullshit ^_^
In which case you will slide in into libertarian style slavery instead. Libertarian is no better, it just gives power to a different small group of people.
This is why I dislike the WH petition system.. it makes people feel like they are being heard and doing something, but it is little more then a placebo. It does not actually do anything other then make people feel like they are doing something.
The entire point of having a constitution is to put limits on what the government can and can not do, which also means that defendants have rights.
There are also a whole range of things that are legal but you still might not want people seeing or potentially getting out there. Juicy evidence has a way of making it out of the station, or at least becoming wank fodder for officers.
There is also the issue of fishing expeditions when they just want to troll through someone's personal files in the hopes of finding something that can be twisted into a charge. A surprising number of legal activities can become illegal when a prosecutor really wants to get you, which if they have already invested in your case, they will often put that energy in since it is politically embarrassing to admit you were wrong.
The problem there is that this would count as destruction of evidence, which is a separate and rather serious offense.
A lot of utilities do it this way. I have had both water and power companies bill like this, including going for months paying zero because they over estimated during the previous cycle. Annoying, but not uncommon.
Is this a bulk discount, or a plan that is only available to people who already had it? From the OP it sounded like it was a grandfathered 'these people pay $360, everyone else pays XYZ, and there is no way for new people to get the lower rate' setup.
If I only had mod points. Well said. Hopefully a better reported version will pop up soon.
That being said, I have heard speculation that something (probably microbial) could be living in the cloud layer and provides a good explanation for some of the effects we see, so the idea is not a cooky as it first sounds.
Unless it doesn't work....
I suspect it is less because they want to close the analog hole.. and more 'because they can'. This is a huge power trip, and executives who push tech companies to do stuff like this successfully will have promotions and new oppurtutnies awaiting them because they showed how far they can piss.
Well, it is possible, I guess, that if the tech actually exists it does not scale well, and thus you get a diminishing return on building bigger units. But, as you say, one should just get a bunch of small units then, unless the units require significant maintaince/fueling in which case there might be cost savings in having one big one to take care of rather then 1000 little ones. Who knows, and since he is leaving that part out of his little narrative, I guess he has not thought up a reason either.
Esp if the magic is a chemical fuel cell inside the 'tamper proof' box.... or just a bunch of lead acid batteries....
Seems kinda limiting. When I look at these machines I see the potential to make all sorts of stuff that normally I would have to contract out to a machine shop (which for 1 or 2 of an item is not very cost effective)... but if the thing is going to start breaking down after a few months or years that kinda limits applications.
I wonder if it can also support non-biodegradable materials too. Biodegradable is not always a good thing for durable/non-disposable things.
I think the important question will be, how obvious will this connection be to the average user? Geeks might do the research and find out what is causing the ads, but unless they make it clear, most people will not understand what is causing adverts to appear in their feed and thus will continue to hit 'like' on things they think are cool.
*nods* I know a few professional blacksmiths, still making horseshoes, no shortage of business. But as you say, it is a niche.
Actually I do see Fuji stuff used for studio/product work, but that would fall under the technical camera category.
Every manufacturer makes garbage. Canon's low end stuff is crap too. Kodak made some really damn good high end stuff, and I still see Kodak backs fetching high prices on the used markets (a domain Canon has not even entered yet).