No matter what any company says, to an incorporated company complying with the law is simply a cost-benefit proposition in any case. In this case, they make more money by turning in people from China than they'd lose by being the moral objector. In the EU case they'd lose more money by complying with the law, therefore the avoidance.
I think in a part I've been a subject of computer addiction. However, truly, sometimes there just is nothing better you really could be doing with your time. I suppose that before computers people would take this time to watch TV, but I actually find that computers enhance other parts of my lives sometimes, especially with the Internet. By using a computer instead of watching the television, I tend to stay more informed, etc. than the people around me. However, I do think that computers are a very isolating machine, because unlike television, people don't tend to compute in groups. So it's an inherently lonely affair. There is AIM and such, but when you really think about the fact that it is all really a kind of illusion and really you are just sitting there typing on a machine, it's really kind of sad.
Why not release a generic x86 Mac OS? If they want to seriously win the war, why don't they at least make themselves a player? I never understood why they always had to tie together their software and hardware anyway. I say they should take this as an opportunity to maybe change strategies.
Customer! I've got a choice between two cell phone providers. Their prices and services are very nearly the same. One refers to "consumers" on it's web site. The other uses "customers." Guess who gets my business?
Regardless of what they call you on the site, they both regard you as a consumer =P
Maybe I'm paranoid, however, do people stop to think that Google is simply a corporation like any other, and that their primary motive is not "do no evil" as they would state it is, but to make profit. That is the chief motivating factor of any corporation, by law, for christ's sake. I know that they have sold computer saavy people with this line of rhetoric they have currently, but the truth is that Google is simply a corporation, it doesn't have a soul and it doesn't have morals. The reason why they want to indicate that you can trust them is so that you will trust them, because your trust is probably a large section of their future business.
Let's face it folks, anyone buying the "do no evil" line is most definitely too easily persuaded. Google can't have morals anymore than a building has morals. A corporation is an institution like any other, it does not have moral fiber and you shouldn't trust it with anything vital.
It's about time that the US regulated its corporations a little more. I think if you want to be based in the US, you should have to follow some basic regulations, like not trading with nations with oppressive human rights violations. It's this kind of Laissez-faire mentality that lets companies pay their employees 0.3% of the final retail cost of a product simply because the oppressed citizens are willing to work for 30 cents an hour.
Now you can say that being involved with Google may do more good for China than it would harm, however, I think that corporations should consider government type before trading with such flagrantly oppressive governments. Google definitely gets a benefit out of the situation, that's for sure. But this situation is rather hypocritical because other companies trade with China with no problem and it goes unnoticed.
I say if you want to revoke Google from China you should revoke Nike, or whomever is involved in paying the Chinese starvation wages as well. At least be consistent, and I honestly would recommend this approach.
With these kinds of things, regular users will still be able to do what they like with their own copy, be it back it up or transfer it to another medium for personal use. At the same time, it will allow those tracking piracy to find the source and press charges only against that person, and not the random multitude.
Yep they will be able to do whatever they want, and they'll be registered so whatever organization they buy their music will have a convenient little list of everything they ever purchased and possibly even how many times they listened to it on a computer. What convenient marketing information this will be for all involved.
You code media players to detect the watermark (which would have to be in a standardized format) and refuse to play anything that does not contain the watermark. Conversely, ripping programs will not rip anything containing the watermark, making it harder to copy the source. You wouldn't have to worry so much about removal programs, as programs that would "fake" the watermark, basically couterfeiting programs. Of course, those would pop up fifteen minutes later.
And instants later, new versions of open source media players are released which contain the ability to play any watermarked file, and new burning programs are released which burn watermarked files into standard audio CDs. Then easily burned, re-encoded, re-released.
A major corporation will never stop a public that is crying out for digital freedom from having it, especially when the public knows the technology better than the company, and, could even be the same set of people.
How can we trust that ANY piece of software isn't spyware?
In the case of closed source, you can't. In the case of open source, anyone can look in and see what the code is doing and raise a red flag online, slashdot would post that story immediately. This is just another argument for OSS...
But what happens when they lose their fight? All that data they are collecting for their 'marketing' gets turned over without any personal subpoena, giving any government agency the ability to subpoena one company and collect the personal data of almost everyone in the country.
Not only that, but why does Google need so much of my personal information to market to me? I understand google ads on search, fine, but do you really have to look through my e-mails to find ad keywords and now store all my personal documents? How precise does a targetted advertisement need to be that you keep all this information, google ads on the engine itself is already pretty good. Stop keeping my info to market to me better. I'd suggest that people quit being so naive about Google...
That's just the excuse. It's important that they have these abilities to "use against terrorism," it's just an added bonus that they can use it to spy on non-terrorists. Let's face it, the Patriot act has probably resulted in Bush's team spying in more non-terrorist organizations than it did to stop actual terror. And that was probably the goal all along anyway. Like Talib says though, "You're a fool if you don't think that they've already tapped the line."
Well if you upgraded OSes just to play one game, you are a nerd, and/or pirated the OS. A common mistake a nerd/pirate makes here is thinking the average consumer is anything like one. Nobody in all seriousness is gonna upgrade OSes to play a game.
Come on, you expect to only be fucked in the ass once?
You don't own the content nor do you license it. It was okay to make tape-to-tape copies only because they couldn't really prevent it, now they think they can and so they will. The whole industry has gone apeshit and they use P2P as their excuse, when really, they had these ideas before Napster.
You don't own a movie, the movie owns you. It's like George Carlin says, you have an owner.
I was just talking about this phenomenon last night. DVDs have already reached the good enough point for most consumers. Even some people who have HD-TVs (my brother for example) don't know that DVD isn't true HD quality, because let's face it, it looks just fine how it is.
Why they would try to give this product to consumers when it is obviously too expensive to market as a real DVD alternative is beyond me. Especially since I know I get by just fine on a divx rip of a movie. That's just like when they release surround audio CDs. It's going to be hard to convince a generation that just underwent an upgrade to pay more for an even less significant transition to some "a little better looking than DVD" format. Why doesn't the technology market wait until a media has matured in the R&D department before releasing it?
Just imagine it. GTA... except the most expensive sports cars can fly, and if you piss off the military then they turn up in tanks that transform into mecha. A futuristic GTA playing off anime and SF cliches, with fully destructible buildings - which will, of course, have been mysteriously repaired by the Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division when you come back to the same spot ten minutes later...
That would be great, if they wanted a GTA game for a niche market. The big thing about GTA is that it is like real life. It's like playing a gangster flick out on your playstation. While London 1969 was fun for what it was, let's be honest, GTA was a niche market back then as well. I'd love to see GTA's freedom branch out into other venues, I'm just not so sure sci-fi is what GTA needs.
There are many other things that have yet to be fleshed out in the gaming market. What I would really love to see is a version of GTA with an extremely larger map and the ability to fly between cities. The ability to maybe have true style lackies and design buildings... There are many things that could be done with GTA. An RPG is another option, I've already seen with Fable that this kind of model could work, but even Fable was a lot more restrictive than what GTA could offer for this genre.
GTA went from niche to mainstream when it went 3d. If they wish to extend the franchise for investors any movement back into a niche market would be a bad thing, because the type of people that played san andreas won't play that game. The average GTA fan nowadays would not like sci-fi, so they have to either keep expanding on the current idea (which honestly there is a lot to be done if you wanted to), or branch out altogether.
Seriously people, the Internet is world wide, no matter how sophisticated you believe Google to be I highly doubt they are going to create their own Internet, their own OS, their own Itunes, their own government, their own worldwide banking system... Let's keep it in perspective, they are just a search company... Nothing is saying any of these moves could even work financially.
But seriously, I'd rather have the security problems fixed at the source, instead of having to add layers and layers of so called "security software".
Don't you see though, this is how MS can create markets to expand into. First you create insecure software, then you create software to deal with the insecurity problems. Next there will be software to fix the insecurity problems in the security software, that will be fun!
Modern graphics cards need super beefy machines under them to perform at their full potential. Therefore sequeezing the latest NIVDIA card (that will cost hundreds of pounds/dollars) into a 3-4 year old machine will only result in dissapointment, tears, and a 5-6 average fps.
The best way, I find, as a casual gamer that doesn't need to pay the games at the highest possible resolution, etc. Is to just buy a 100-200 dollar video card every 2-3 years. A mediocre video card can usually play modern games just fine, and in that span you've upgraded all your other hardware to match the capability of the card. I don't need 60fps in the newest game at 1600x1400 to be happy, so this approach works fine for me.
This is off-topic, but I don't understand why they make coffee that hot. Even if you warn me it's hot, why the hell would you make something so hot it burns my mouth if I take a straight sip? I always have to wait for it to cool, why can't they just make coffee a little cooler? I guess I should just stick to the cold stuff.
Is allofmp3.com downloading actually legal in the US? It doesn't say on the site, and I know the site only corresponds to Russian law. But if this is legal, this is quite a service.
Slashdot Mirror
But just think, if they took a stand we wouldn't have such quality dollar store merchandise.
No matter what any company says, to an incorporated company complying with the law is simply a cost-benefit proposition in any case. In this case, they make more money by turning in people from China than they'd lose by being the moral objector. In the EU case they'd lose more money by complying with the law, therefore the avoidance.
I think in a part I've been a subject of computer addiction. However, truly, sometimes there just is nothing better you really could be doing with your time. I suppose that before computers people would take this time to watch TV, but I actually find that computers enhance other parts of my lives sometimes, especially with the Internet. By using a computer instead of watching the television, I tend to stay more informed, etc. than the people around me. However, I do think that computers are a very isolating machine, because unlike television, people don't tend to compute in groups. So it's an inherently lonely affair. There is AIM and such, but when you really think about the fact that it is all really a kind of illusion and really you are just sitting there typing on a machine, it's really kind of sad.
Why not release a generic x86 Mac OS? If they want to seriously win the war, why don't they at least make themselves a player? I never understood why they always had to tie together their software and hardware anyway. I say they should take this as an opportunity to maybe change strategies.
Regardless of what they call you on the site, they both regard you as a consumer =P
Maybe I'm paranoid, however, do people stop to think that Google is simply a corporation like any other, and that their primary motive is not "do no evil" as they would state it is, but to make profit. That is the chief motivating factor of any corporation, by law, for christ's sake. I know that they have sold computer saavy people with this line of rhetoric they have currently, but the truth is that Google is simply a corporation, it doesn't have a soul and it doesn't have morals. The reason why they want to indicate that you can trust them is so that you will trust them, because your trust is probably a large section of their future business.
Let's face it folks, anyone buying the "do no evil" line is most definitely too easily persuaded. Google can't have morals anymore than a building has morals. A corporation is an institution like any other, it does not have moral fiber and you shouldn't trust it with anything vital.
It's about time that the US regulated its corporations a little more. I think if you want to be based in the US, you should have to follow some basic regulations, like not trading with nations with oppressive human rights violations. It's this kind of Laissez-faire mentality that lets companies pay their employees 0.3% of the final retail cost of a product simply because the oppressed citizens are willing to work for 30 cents an hour.
Now you can say that being involved with Google may do more good for China than it would harm, however, I think that corporations should consider government type before trading with such flagrantly oppressive governments. Google definitely gets a benefit out of the situation, that's for sure. But this situation is rather hypocritical because other companies trade with China with no problem and it goes unnoticed.
I say if you want to revoke Google from China you should revoke Nike, or whomever is involved in paying the Chinese starvation wages as well. At least be consistent, and I honestly would recommend this approach.
Yep they will be able to do whatever they want, and they'll be registered so whatever organization they buy their music will have a convenient little list of everything they ever purchased and possibly even how many times they listened to it on a computer. What convenient marketing information this will be for all involved.
And instants later, new versions of open source media players are released which contain the ability to play any watermarked file, and new burning programs are released which burn watermarked files into standard audio CDs. Then easily burned, re-encoded, re-released.
A major corporation will never stop a public that is crying out for digital freedom from having it, especially when the public knows the technology better than the company, and, could even be the same set of people.
When are they ever fair to the consumer?
brand name clothes are cool because they are cool!
In the case of closed source, you can't. In the case of open source, anyone can look in and see what the code is doing and raise a red flag online, slashdot would post that story immediately. This is just another argument for OSS...
Not only that, but why does Google need so much of my personal information to market to me? I understand google ads on search, fine, but do you really have to look through my e-mails to find ad keywords and now store all my personal documents? How precise does a targetted advertisement need to be that you keep all this information, google ads on the engine itself is already pretty good. Stop keeping my info to market to me better. I'd suggest that people quit being so naive about Google...
That's just the excuse. It's important that they have these abilities to "use against terrorism," it's just an added bonus that they can use it to spy on non-terrorists. Let's face it, the Patriot act has probably resulted in Bush's team spying in more non-terrorist organizations than it did to stop actual terror. And that was probably the goal all along anyway. Like Talib says though, "You're a fool if you don't think that they've already tapped the line."
Well if you upgraded OSes just to play one game, you are a nerd, and/or pirated the OS. A common mistake a nerd/pirate makes here is thinking the average consumer is anything like one. Nobody in all seriousness is gonna upgrade OSes to play a game.
What a great way to prove the cartoon wrong!
"Hunny, this cartoon is saying that all Muslims are terrorists!"
"How dare they say that, we are not all terrorists, how insensitive of them! Now let's go light the neighbors on fire, that'll show em!"
Who are these people? And how come I've never met a single one in my life?!?
Come on, you expect to only be fucked in the ass once?
You don't own the content nor do you license it. It was okay to make tape-to-tape copies only because they couldn't really prevent it, now they think they can and so they will. The whole industry has gone apeshit and they use P2P as their excuse, when really, they had these ideas before Napster.
You don't own a movie, the movie owns you. It's like George Carlin says, you have an owner.
I was just talking about this phenomenon last night. DVDs have already reached the good enough point for most consumers. Even some people who have HD-TVs (my brother for example) don't know that DVD isn't true HD quality, because let's face it, it looks just fine how it is.
Why they would try to give this product to consumers when it is obviously too expensive to market as a real DVD alternative is beyond me. Especially since I know I get by just fine on a divx rip of a movie. That's just like when they release surround audio CDs. It's going to be hard to convince a generation that just underwent an upgrade to pay more for an even less significant transition to some "a little better looking than DVD" format. Why doesn't the technology market wait until a media has matured in the R&D department before releasing it?
That would be great, if they wanted a GTA game for a niche market. The big thing about GTA is that it is like real life. It's like playing a gangster flick out on your playstation. While London 1969 was fun for what it was, let's be honest, GTA was a niche market back then as well. I'd love to see GTA's freedom branch out into other venues, I'm just not so sure sci-fi is what GTA needs.
There are many other things that have yet to be fleshed out in the gaming market. What I would really love to see is a version of GTA with an extremely larger map and the ability to fly between cities. The ability to maybe have true style lackies and design buildings... There are many things that could be done with GTA. An RPG is another option, I've already seen with Fable that this kind of model could work, but even Fable was a lot more restrictive than what GTA could offer for this genre.
GTA went from niche to mainstream when it went 3d. If they wish to extend the franchise for investors any movement back into a niche market would be a bad thing, because the type of people that played san andreas won't play that game. The average GTA fan nowadays would not like sci-fi, so they have to either keep expanding on the current idea (which honestly there is a lot to be done if you wanted to), or branch out altogether.
Google to make alternative planet Earth?
Seriously people, the Internet is world wide, no matter how sophisticated you believe Google to be I highly doubt they are going to create their own Internet, their own OS, their own Itunes, their own government, their own worldwide banking system... Let's keep it in perspective, they are just a search company... Nothing is saying any of these moves could even work financially.
Don't you see though, this is how MS can create markets to expand into. First you create insecure software, then you create software to deal with the insecurity problems. Next there will be software to fix the insecurity problems in the security software, that will be fun!
The best way, I find, as a casual gamer that doesn't need to pay the games at the highest possible resolution, etc. Is to just buy a 100-200 dollar video card every 2-3 years. A mediocre video card can usually play modern games just fine, and in that span you've upgraded all your other hardware to match the capability of the card. I don't need 60fps in the newest game at 1600x1400 to be happy, so this approach works fine for me.
This is off-topic, but I don't understand why they make coffee that hot. Even if you warn me it's hot, why the hell would you make something so hot it burns my mouth if I take a straight sip? I always have to wait for it to cool, why can't they just make coffee a little cooler? I guess I should just stick to the cold stuff.
Is allofmp3.com downloading actually legal in the US? It doesn't say on the site, and I know the site only corresponds to Russian law. But if this is legal, this is quite a service.