As the world changes, it's perfectly normal that people/company/organisation/language/laws/product/... will become irrelevant. The real crime is not adapting and artificially insisting on remaining relevant. The record companies have been doing that for years, the book publishers as well and at a later time, the movie studios will to. The only reason it hasn't happened yet to the movie studios is the relatively high budget of movies as opposed to the one of books and music.
That being said, the internet is providing a direct pathway from the authors to the reader. Amazon is a publisher in this picture but it is selling directly to the reader so there one (or more) person to feed down the line. Everybody wins except the superfluous people who are not relevant and became greedy to compensate for a loss of revenues instead of adapting. Apple and Google will probably do the same and some artist/writers will try to sell directly to listeners/readers. It's all good and I'm alright with that.
Personnaly I don't like saying that I will 'NEVER' buy from 'X' again. I normaly punish them with a term of non-buying from 1 to 5 years depending on the offense 'X' did against the universe.
In Sony's case; they got 5 years (with no parole) from me in 2005 following that small 'rootkit on CDs' incident. I respected their sentence and only last december I purchased a VAIO i7 740m laptop. Looks like it's gonna be another 5 years... Stupid pricks...
You obviously haven't used it seriously. It's really a great language for web applications.
There's a really good open source community for alternative coldfusion server environment but still, the principle is that Microsoft could be tempted to kill it to push.net and ***vomiting*** ASP.
For my part, I just hope that they don't do with ColdFusion what they did with Visual Fox Pro. It was a shame at the time and it would be the same now.
I also use Photoshop and Lightroom but they are cashcows and MS has nothing to compete against so I guess they will be safe for a while until Microsoft does a rewrite and completely FUBARs them.
The way I see it; Google is entirely entitled to make a profit, and a big one.
It all about my perception of what what they give back to the world for what they get in revenues.
The whole open-source comunity gives alot back for what they take.
A little higher in the scale would be Google. It's value in that regard is very high. Granted many of their tools and software are self serving; they are more than usefull and yes they bring rainbows into my life.
Microsoft does offer some value back but my perception is that it's alot less value for the money.
We can go on and Sun wold have been somewhere in the higher tier giving some value back to the world with Java, OpenOffice and MySql and some good boxes.
A little higher up the chain would be Oracle with their ridiculous enterprise software license that don't really score very high on the 'give back' scale and also for slowly killing off Sun's rainbows.
At the top of the chain, often invisible we have the patent trolls that make absolutely no efforts to give anything back but instead rake in billions by questionable means.
So Yes, for a Public, For Profit company; Google has alot to teach to everybody in terms of giving back good value. If people could follow this example and give back as much as they take; the world would be a better place... They are the ultimate torrent seeders as opposed to most other who are leechers.
From what I can see, Bell with its Bell TV satelite service has a lot to loose to Netflix as their Pay-Per-View @ 5.99$/film may suffer from Netflix's streaming (if available here) and could opt for a similar strategy and lower their monthly quota on their DSL access.
Videotron wich is a major cable operator and ISP and also the major owner/operator of video clubs is owned by Quebecor Media which also operate Archambault Music who sells DVDs. They, also, have a lot to loose to Netflix and may lower their monthly quota.
My plan with them was originaly unlimited and then they lowered it to 100gb/month so what's next?
The whole judgment is a very good read and one notable quote is on paragraphs 75-76.
It says that Microsoft is also present in court to sustain the RRQ's (wrong) decision. Microsoft says it's in its best interest to be there since Savoir Faire Linux is asking for a reversal of the contract attributed to Microsoft.
Paragrah 76 adds that in fact Microsoft is in fact there to sustain its monopoly.
Court cases involving technology are often misunderstood by the judge but in this case it's refreshingly not the case.
I didn't go the the movies to see the film but when it came out on DVD I decided to rent it. So here I was at home with my girlfriend ready to watch it.
I live in Québec and speak french most of the time but there's no way in hell I will watch a french translated movie especially when the original language is English....I put the movie in the DVD player only to realize that the only language on the DVD is french. 99.999% of all movies on DVD here in Québec have at least french and English available but not this one.
The stupid company who distribute the movie in Canada (Maple Pictures) has put out two versions of the DVD in each language and all the video clubs I went to had only the french version available.
BTW; Maple Picture is the company who put DVD sets of 'The Dead Zone' with episodes in the wrong order and missing episodes. They refused to correct the problems and these sets are still available today at Wal-Mart with a notice that client see only after opening the shrink wrap..
Anyways, granted I should have read the DVD cover better, I decided to download the torrent since I felt cheated out of my English version... I don't really feel bad for what I did.
He should be awarded a retroactive unnecessary broad patent for everything wireless. Software and Hardware. We should also find a way to slip some video CODEC info into that patent.
That patent would have expired by now and it should neuter most trolls of today...
While I completely agree with OS, the GPL and its enforcement. The question that I ask myself is what impact those lawsuits will have on the OpenSource model.
Will patent trolls become OS Trolls and will OpenSource become Open 'sue us'?
For me, language is just a form of expression and has nothing to do with Nationality. Unfortunately, some of our leaders are so paranoid of being 'corrupted' by other cultures and loose their french 'identity' that they would go to any length to protect it. Most of them are too stupid to learn English and act like morons to hide their fears.
The Loi 101 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_101) with dictates this behavior is often mis-interpreted and goes too far.
A film is a form of art like music and is created in one and only one language. Subtitles can be put to help understand the dialogue but the original voice and emotions of the artist should be heard.
Anyways, the same goes for music and to a lesser degree, to video games. Let the market regulate itself and let the game publisher decide if it is in their best interest to have a french version.
To regulate that is to go too far and intervene in private business matters.
Back in the days that I ran an ISP business, I was frequently hiring young people for technical support and programming jobs.
I quickly noticed that their paper qualifications were not directly proportional to their practical efficiency.
Since many technologies that they learned in school where already obsolete, their capacity to keep themselves self updated was far more important than their capacity to perform in a school environment.
I then remembered that I made the same decision myself a few years prior to that... In the late 80's I was going to university and I was accepted in Business Administration and Computer Science. I had to make a choice and I decided that the 'paper' I would get from my BA studies would probably more important than the paper I got from my CS studies for the reasons I stated above.
So... having been in one area or the other of the IT business for more than 25 years not having any formal IT training never prevented my to run a successful ISP business for 6 years and being an independent consultant and a programmer since I sold the ISP business several years ago.
Some of this example may not apply today but the base principle is true for many fields.
We all know that the endoskeleton of the Terminators is made of a derivative of Coltan. According to an episode of 'The Sarah Conner Chronicles' I saw on TV.
A heavy demand for Coltan can only mean one thing...
I hear you... I was with Fido a few years back. They had good plans but poor coverage out of the big cities. To make up for that they would let you activate an analog phone @.20$/minute for the minutes used outside their network. They were renting network access from Bell and Telus. The big joke is that they went from accommodating their clients @.20$/minutes with someone else's network to screwing their clients @.30$/minutes from their OWN network when Teddy Boy took over and with reduced coverage on top of it all. They didn't really merge the networks; they sold the extended Roger network to Fido users as an option.
The long distances minutes went from.10$ to.30$ citing increasing costs...
All the good plans disappeared.
I'm now with virgin mobile but it seems to no nonsense, no catch network of Sir Richard Branson was after all only Bell's puppet and they too became greedy.
They're all on life support anyways, in 10 years they'll be gone
I hear that the RIAA has 33,111,100 pre-litigation letters ready to send to every Canadian citizen.
The MPAA is also expected to seize all Canadian owned camcorders because you know we ALL tape movies in movie theater.
They are just waiting for this bill to pass.
We're just a big bunch of happy criminals.
Same here... I ran a Wildcat! BBS in the early 90s and every single KB counted. The best I could do was with the QEMM memory manager by Quaterdeck and running their Desqview software to do multitasking DRDOS wich was bought by Novell during these years!
I had 2 modems per PC and about 15 PCs before I bought my first terminal server and turned into a full ISP in 1995. Almost every option; games, message reader, etc in BBS software were called DOORS and exited to a DOS shell to provide the service. You can imagine the various levels of software running one atop another so indeed, every kb counted.
...But when Cisco purchased Linksys a few years back I was under the impression that the deal was to leave these guys alone and give them alot of autonomy. I liked linksys because they were giving Cisco a run for their money in some product lines. Lately I saw too many Linksys products hitting the streets without being ready (WIP300 'iPhone', WRV200 VPN router,...) and I was afraid that something was wrong and that Cisco was taking over and the Linksys guys were muted from the inside. I don't see that in a good ways.
This may be modded as flamebait but back in the days when I ran an ISP, I know for a fact that if I had purchased Cisco products instead of Allied Telesyn, Livinston (Lucent) and others I would have run bankrupt, the price difference was 1:3 between Cisco and the other brands and I simply couldn't afford it. They are going to mess up the skinny athletic Linksys with their big fat lethargic ways... For me, Cisco is a brand name like 'Microsoft' but it really doesn't mean it's better...
I read a few articles on that news this afternoon but they are mainly aimed at the financial aspect of the story. I'm still trying to find what exactly are those patents and what are the larger (if any) implications for VOIP in general. Open Source Software like Asterisk could eventually suffer if Verizon begins a patent war and Vonage was only this first victim.
Traditional carrier are having a hard time adjusting to new technology and they will try anything to keep their old ways to stay relevant. During the last few years this happened in many 'traditional' sectors, music and movies being two of them. In the long run, they will adjust or die but for now all of those dinosaurs are desperate to keep their heads above the water. The crippled patent system is their flotation device...
This quote is from CNN's article on the subject coming from a Verizon lawyer:
"Patents encourage and protect innovations that benefit consumers, create jobs, and keep the economy growing. Verizon's innovations are central to its strategy of building the best communications networks in the world,"
Indeed, as much as I hate Canada Revenue Agency and Revenue Quebec (yes in Quebec we try to re-invent the wheel so we have to terrorist agencies watching us!) this aspect of Canadian tax law actually makes sense.
In fact it's the principle that all the expenses you incur to get an income are generally tax deductible. Since here in Quebec, the lottery is controlled by the provincial government, they actually get the best of it and taxing the winnings would mean that everyone purchasing tickets would be able to deduct the ticket cost from their income and probably some other expenses as well. Now we all know that on average, you spend more in ticket cost than you get in winning even over an extended period of time. So do the math.
Every person entering a contest with the goal of wining something could deduct the expenses they made to try to achieve that goal.
I seems to me that the IRS is trying to have it both ways in taxing the winnings but not accepting the collective expenses of everyone who tries to win as being tax deductible. Those expenses are probably bigger than the winning value itself.
I knew those guys where aliens. Humans only have 2 feet and the RIAA shot themselves so many times in the foot that they must have more than two thus they are not human...
They found the quickest way to drown themselves. Alienate both sources of revenue at the same time and blame everything on the pirates. Good job, I couldn't have done it better.
Slashdot Mirror
As the world changes, it's perfectly normal that people/company/organisation/language/laws/product/... will become irrelevant. The real crime is not adapting and artificially insisting on remaining relevant. The record companies have been doing that for years, the book publishers as well and at a later time, the movie studios will to. The only reason it hasn't happened yet to the movie studios is the relatively high budget of movies as opposed to the one of books and music.
That being said, the internet is providing a direct pathway from the authors to the reader. Amazon is a publisher in this picture but it is selling directly to the reader so there one (or more) person to feed down the line. Everybody wins except the superfluous people who are not relevant and became greedy to compensate for a loss of revenues instead of adapting. Apple and Google will probably do the same and some artist/writers will try to sell directly to listeners/readers. It's all good and I'm alright with that.
Personnaly I don't like saying that I will 'NEVER' buy from 'X' again. I normaly punish them with a term of non-buying from 1 to 5 years depending on the offense 'X' did against the universe.
In Sony's case; they got 5 years (with no parole) from me in 2005 following that small 'rootkit on CDs' incident. I respected their sentence and only last december I purchased a VAIO i7 740m laptop. Looks like it's gonna be another 5 years... Stupid pricks...
Most recent Denon and Onkyo Home Theatre receivers with usb port support OGG and FLAC.
You obviously haven't used it seriously. It's really a great language for web applications.
There's a really good open source community for alternative coldfusion server environment but still, the principle is that Microsoft could be tempted to kill it to push .net and ***vomiting*** ASP.
For my part, I just hope that they don't do with ColdFusion what they did with Visual Fox Pro. It was a shame at the time and it would be the same now.
I also use Photoshop and Lightroom but they are cashcows and MS has nothing to compete against so I guess they will be safe for a while until Microsoft does a rewrite and completely FUBARs them.
The way I see it; Google is entirely entitled to make a profit, and a big one.
It all about my perception of what what they give back to the world for what they get in revenues.
The whole open-source comunity gives alot back for what they take.
A little higher in the scale would be Google. It's value in that regard is very high. Granted many of their tools and software are self serving; they are more than usefull and yes they bring rainbows into my life.
Microsoft does offer some value back but my perception is that it's alot less value for the money.
We can go on and Sun wold have been somewhere in the higher tier giving some value back to the world with Java, OpenOffice and MySql and some good boxes.
A little higher up the chain would be Oracle with their ridiculous enterprise software license that don't really score very high on the 'give back' scale and also for slowly killing off Sun's rainbows.
At the top of the chain, often invisible we have the patent trolls that make absolutely no efforts to give anything back but instead rake in billions by questionable means.
So Yes, for a Public, For Profit company; Google has alot to teach to everybody in terms of giving back good value. If people could follow this example and give back as much as they take; the world would be a better place... They are the ultimate torrent seeders as opposed to most other who are leechers.
From what I can see, Bell with its Bell TV satelite service has a lot to loose to Netflix as their Pay-Per-View @ 5.99$/film may suffer from Netflix's streaming (if available here) and could opt for a similar strategy and lower their monthly quota on their DSL access.
Videotron wich is a major cable operator and ISP and also the major owner/operator of video clubs is owned by Quebecor Media which also operate Archambault Music who sells DVDs. They, also, have a lot to loose to Netflix and may lower their monthly quota.
My plan with them was originaly unlimited and then they lowered it to 100gb/month so what's next?
Seriously, after a few weeks of EVERYBODY in the whole world not filtering any spam whatsoever; The problem should resolve itself.
Idiot trolls...
The whole judgment is a very good read and one notable quote is on paragraphs 75-76.
It says that Microsoft is also present in court to sustain the RRQ's (wrong) decision. Microsoft says it's in its best interest to be there since Savoir Faire Linux is asking for a reversal of the contract attributed to Microsoft.
Paragrah 76 adds that in fact Microsoft is in fact there to sustain its monopoly.
Court cases involving technology are often misunderstood by the judge but in this case it's refreshingly not the case.
I didn't go the the movies to see the film but when it came out on DVD I decided to rent it. So here I was at home with my girlfriend ready to watch it.
I live in Québec and speak french most of the time but there's no way in hell I will watch a french translated movie especially when the original language is English. ...I put the movie in the DVD player only to realize that the only language on the DVD is french. 99.999% of all movies on DVD here in Québec have at least french and English available but not this one.
The stupid company who distribute the movie in Canada (Maple Pictures) has put out two versions of the DVD in each language and all the video clubs I went to had only the french version available.
BTW; Maple Picture is the company who put DVD sets of 'The Dead Zone' with episodes in the wrong order and missing episodes. They refused to correct the problems and these sets are still available today at Wal-Mart with a notice that client see only after opening the shrink wrap..
Anyways, granted I should have read the DVD cover better, I decided to download the torrent since I felt cheated out of my English version... I don't really feel bad for what I did.
Thant article is almost a patent application.
He should be awarded a retroactive unnecessary broad patent for everything wireless. Software and Hardware. We should also find a way to slip some video CODEC info into that patent.
That patent would have expired by now and it should neuter most trolls of today...
While I completely agree with OS, the GPL and its enforcement. The question that I ask myself is what impact those lawsuits will have on the OpenSource model.
Will patent trolls become OS Trolls and will OpenSource become Open 'sue us'?
This may be the rise of a new business model...
I've been holding some pretty good 'screw Microsoft' meetings for years in the toilet.
Nothing new here...
Joking aside; a little farther and these meetings could been seen as illegal collusion.
...There are some days when I'm ashamed to live in the province of Québec; not many but they do exist and today is one of those days...
For me, language is just a form of expression and has nothing to do with Nationality. Unfortunately, some of our leaders are so paranoid of being 'corrupted' by other cultures and loose their french 'identity' that they would go to any length to protect it. Most of them are too stupid to learn English and act like morons to hide their fears.
The Loi 101 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_101) with dictates this behavior is often mis-interpreted and goes too far.
A film is a form of art like music and is created in one and only one language. Subtitles can be put to help understand the dialogue but the original voice and emotions of the artist should be heard.
I mean for years; Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice has been dubbed by a guy who sells washers and dryers and picks lottery numbers on TV here in Québec. Talk about a mood killer. Fuck you Corbeil... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Corbeil)
Anyways, the same goes for music and to a lesser degree, to video games. Let the market regulate itself and let the game publisher decide if it is in their best interest to have a french version.
To regulate that is to go too far and intervene in private business matters.
Back in the days that I ran an ISP business, I was frequently hiring young people for technical support and programming jobs.
I quickly noticed that their paper qualifications were not directly proportional to their practical efficiency.
Since many technologies that they learned in school where already obsolete, their capacity to keep themselves self updated was far more important than their capacity to perform in a school environment.
I then remembered that I made the same decision myself a few years prior to that... In the late 80's I was going to university and I was accepted in Business Administration and Computer Science. I had to make a choice and I decided that the 'paper' I would get from my BA studies would probably more important than the paper I got from my CS studies for the reasons I stated above.
So... having been in one area or the other of the IT business for more than 25 years not having any formal IT training never prevented my to run a successful ISP business for 6 years and being an independent consultant and a programmer since I sold the ISP business several years ago.
Some of this example may not apply today but the base principle is true for many fields.
Can't we make a little joke!
We all know that the endoskeleton of the Terminators is made of a derivative of Coltan. According to an episode of 'The Sarah Conner Chronicles' I saw on TV.
A heavy demand for Coltan can only mean one thing...
Don't you get it, SKYNET has begun building it's Terminator army.
Let me get naked and go back in time to fix that for you...
I hear you... I was with Fido a few years back. They had good plans but poor coverage out of the big cities. To make up for that they would let you activate an analog phone @ .20$/minute for the minutes used outside their network. They were renting network access from Bell and Telus. The big joke is that they went from accommodating their clients @ .20$/minutes with someone else's network to screwing their clients @ .30$/minutes from their OWN network when Teddy Boy took over and with reduced coverage on top of it all. They didn't really merge the networks; they sold the extended Roger network to Fido users as an option.
.10$ to .30$ citing increasing costs...
The long distances minutes went from
All the good plans disappeared.
I'm now with virgin mobile but it seems to no nonsense, no catch network of Sir Richard Branson was after all only Bell's puppet and they too became greedy.
They're all on life support anyways, in 10 years they'll be gone
I hear that the RIAA has 33,111,100 pre-litigation letters ready to send to every Canadian citizen. The MPAA is also expected to seize all Canadian owned camcorders because you know we ALL tape movies in movie theater. They are just waiting for this bill to pass. We're just a big bunch of happy criminals.
Same here... I ran a Wildcat! BBS in the early 90s and every single KB counted. The best I could do was with the QEMM memory manager by Quaterdeck and running their Desqview software to do multitasking DRDOS wich was bought by Novell during these years! I had 2 modems per PC and about 15 PCs before I bought my first terminal server and turned into a full ISP in 1995. Almost every option; games, message reader, etc in BBS software were called DOORS and exited to a DOS shell to provide the service. You can imagine the various levels of software running one atop another so indeed, every kb counted.
...But when Cisco purchased Linksys a few years back I was under the impression that the deal was to leave these guys alone and give them alot of autonomy. I liked linksys because they were giving Cisco a run for their money in some product lines. Lately I saw too many Linksys products hitting the streets without being ready (WIP300 'iPhone', WRV200 VPN router,...) and I was afraid that something was wrong and that Cisco was taking over and the Linksys guys were muted from the inside. I don't see that in a good ways.
This may be modded as flamebait but back in the days when I ran an ISP, I know for a fact that if I had purchased Cisco products instead of Allied Telesyn, Livinston (Lucent) and others I would have run bankrupt, the price difference was 1:3 between Cisco and the other brands and I simply couldn't afford it. They are going to mess up the skinny athletic Linksys with their big fat lethargic ways... For me, Cisco is a brand name like 'Microsoft' but it really doesn't mean it's better...
I read a few articles on that news this afternoon but they are mainly aimed at the financial aspect of the story. I'm still trying to find what exactly are those patents and what are the larger (if any) implications for VOIP in general. Open Source Software like Asterisk could eventually suffer if Verizon begins a patent war and Vonage was only this first victim.
Traditional carrier are having a hard time adjusting to new technology and they will try anything to keep their old ways to stay relevant. During the last few years this happened in many 'traditional' sectors, music and movies being two of them. In the long run, they will adjust or die but for now all of those dinosaurs are desperate to keep their heads above the water. The crippled patent system is their flotation device...
This quote is from CNN's article on the subject coming from a Verizon lawyer:
"Patents encourage and protect innovations that benefit consumers, create jobs, and keep the economy growing. Verizon's innovations are central to its strategy of building the best communications networks in the world,"
Enough said!
Indeed, as much as I hate Canada Revenue Agency and Revenue Quebec (yes in Quebec we try to re-invent the wheel so we have to terrorist agencies watching us!) this aspect of Canadian tax law actually makes sense. In fact it's the principle that all the expenses you incur to get an income are generally tax deductible. Since here in Quebec, the lottery is controlled by the provincial government, they actually get the best of it and taxing the winnings would mean that everyone purchasing tickets would be able to deduct the ticket cost from their income and probably some other expenses as well. Now we all know that on average, you spend more in ticket cost than you get in winning even over an extended period of time. So do the math. Every person entering a contest with the goal of wining something could deduct the expenses they made to try to achieve that goal. I seems to me that the IRS is trying to have it both ways in taxing the winnings but not accepting the collective expenses of everyone who tries to win as being tax deductible. Those expenses are probably bigger than the winning value itself.
I knew those guys where aliens. Humans only have 2 feet and the RIAA shot themselves so many times in the foot that they must have more than two thus they are not human... They found the quickest way to drown themselves. Alienate both sources of revenue at the same time and blame everything on the pirates. Good job, I couldn't have done it better.
Crap, I paniqued and ate my 15$ credit all at once when I saw it was still working before reading the article. Call me a premature downloader...