1) Which is why everyone should really get in the habit of saying 'Hold on a sec' while they're driving and talking on the phone. All the time. No, it's not rude in any way, and people who are talking to drivers need to understand that anything might be happening. (Of course, when I mean 'driving and talking on the phone', I mean 'using hands free'.)
Maybe, when this happens, people will learn to STFU when I say "Hold on a sec, some asshole just almost rearended me even though I'm already doing 5 over.".
I've probably sent probably several thousand texts while driving, never even came near an accident because of it that I've noticed. Of course, I have no idea how many people almost hit me while I was stopped at a light and not paying attention. We'll ignore the fact that I would have been unable to get out of the way of a vehicle that wasn't stopping, becaus that's inconvenient to my position.
If you live in a rural area and have to drive 50+ miles to the nearest store, an SUV is an amazing piece of equipment, even for a single driver with no passengers. If you get 15 miles per gallon, but only have to drive out once a month, you're doing better than if you had a smaller car and had to drive out weekly at 30MPG.
Now, in an urban environment, there's no purpose for SUVs. For large groups of people, a minivan or properly-appointed van is a much better-suited choice; for single drivers or small groups, a sedan or coupe is the way to go. For insecure girls with daddy-issues, or men who have (ahem, lack) something to compensate for, an SUV is a good compliment; and they're driven accordingly and with the expected lack of skill.
I grew up at the outskirts of a small town with a permanent population of less than 500.
If 500 people live within a 10 minute walk of the same place, you've got a population density of more than 5 people per suqare mile.
I've lived everywhere from a small town, as depicted in GP's post, right up to Detroit, Indianapolis, and San Francisco. I've also visited towns and cities of every imagineable density and structure. I can tell you right now, the only place you can live without a car (either one you own or one you have regular access to) is either NYC of San Francisco.
It's also quite amusing that you equate living in a rural area with working in agriculture. Who staffed the post office, corner store, drug store, and restaurants in the rural town you grew up in? Surely not agricultural workers; and surely more people staffed those locations than the farms in your town. The numbers who live rurally far outweigh those who simply work in agriculture; even if that Wikipedia article is correct, its numbers are not valid for your argument.
That said, I will agree with you regarding shitty zoning laws in most places. Downtown Walnut Creek, where I currently live, is just small enough that its zoning regulations still don't make me walk for more than 10-15 minutes to get where I want to go, but in most simarly-structured cities, you're screwed if you don't have a car.
You must live in NYC. I've never been anywhere else where the text you quoted wasn't absolute truth.
To be clear, I live at the top of a hill. At the bottom of the hill in one direction is my office. In another direction is a restaurant and library. In another direction is some apartments. In another direction is a grocery store. None of these places are more than 1/3 of a mile away.
I walk to work, I walk to the library, I walk to that restaurant (and, indeed, many others which happen not to be right at the bottom of my hill), I walk to visit friend in those apartments, but I drive for groceries. I live in a downtown metropolitan area and the only reason I have driven in the last month has been to move boxes from my old apartment to my new apartment and to get groceries.
Food is a pretty good motivator. When one must drive for food, you see people, who would otherwise be walking, driving.
Ignoring that obvious fallacy, getting your license at 18 or 20, rather than 16, won't make one a better driver. Being a good driver comes with experience. A 20 year old who got their license at 16 will be a better driver than a 20 year old who got their license at 18; it's not even fair to compate the driver who got their license at 20.
Every asshole I've ever had swerve into my lane while texting has been a fully grown adult. It may be considered a youth activity, but damn those kids doing it must be better drivers than their adult counterparts.
Drivers who are good enough to pass that test will recognize that, even with their skills, it is not worth the risk. Nobody who could pass that test would ever take it.
Yes. The horn is a signaling device, intended to be used for signaling an unsafe condition or to get someone's attention to prevent an unsafe condition; it is not intended to be used as a "fuck you" signal as most people use it. You, sir (or ma'm), are doing it right.
Rewind to a near-collision I had the other day: I was waiting to turn right against cross-traffic, cross-traffic stopped for their red light as the turn light for that traffit turned green. The other car was in a line of cars making left turns, so I went for my right turn; half way through my right turn I hear a horn and both the other car and I come to a stop. He lays on his horn for a good 20 seconds, rather than just driving off. This is an example of one using their horn as a "fuck you" signal rather than as intended, though the result, initially, was the same.
Before anyone points out that the driver making the u-turn had right of way, in California (where I live) this would only be true had I been pulling out of a parking lot; and, then, only because I was entering the roadway. Neither of us had the right of way initially, in this situation; however, by the time he got on his horn, he was slightly behind me and to the left. In California, the vehicle to the left is supposed to yield to the driver on the right. By the time I has half way through my right turn and he had begun his u-turn, I had the right of way; by the time he got on his horn, I was already clear of his path.
Likewise. I can't count the number of times someone on a bike has made a left turn *ON RED* in front of me when I had a green light to go straight. Of course, since I'm paying attention, I know to lay on the horn, flash the brights, and floor it. Maybe after I kill a few of you, you'll learn to obey traffic laws just as you expect us to.
Usability is recognizing that the user has better things to do than type "Where did I mention " and " ?" when all they're looking for is "Brad".
I know how complicated text searching can get, because I've done exactly what you suggest. What I think you're failing to see, or maybe just not willing to admit, is that "Brad" and "Where did I mention Brad?" are two different searches that should (and do) return different results.
You mean "type in what you want to find and I'll find it for you" isn't straightforward enough? The way search boxes have worked since the dawn of the search box? The same search boxes secretaries have been using since before Windows 3.1 came out? It's worked fine for this long, everyone who's had minimal training knows how to use them, so why change it?
BTW, if you want your fairy-tale mind0reading search box to exist, you might want to stop being a dick to the people who posess the specialty skill required to make it happen.
Oh, and since when were secretaries (ahem... administrative assistants if you want to be PC) expert geeks? As stated above, there's not a secretary worth hiring that doesn't know you type "Brad" into that search box if you want to know where "Brad" is mentioned in a document. In fact, go find a secretary and ask them how they feel about your wonder-box. Be prepared to for a response that rhymes with "duck cough".
How did small local shops survive before radio, TV, and print? Word of mouth? Making a quality product that people talked about? Treating people with some respect and decency so they will want to come back?
Let me tell you, there are a large number of people who *DO NOT* buy shit they see heavily advertized; the majority of people I associate with are like this. If you take half a second to think about it, it makes sense. If your product was so awesome that I just have to have it, wouldn't people be talking about it? Wouldn't I hear it from them? Would you be spending millions of dollars, that would otherwise be profit for you, to shove your product in my face if it was that good?
In order: YES, YES, NO.
It's also worth noting that it is kind of childish to completely ignore a product simply because it is being advertized. Once in a great while, a really good product comes along that is simply made by a company with a huge ego and advertizing budget. One example of this is the Gillette Fusion Proglide Styler, which I bought a couple months ago (and I'm still on the first blade, though it's finally getting dull) when I needed a quick shave and had forgotten to pack my trimmer/shaver, because it was the cheapest product on the shelf that did both trimming and shaving. Let me say I've never been a fan of the 5 blade razors, too much drag, but the vibration (stronger than other vibrating razors) makes it glide smoothly. The trimmer doesn't seem to bind up on my thick whiskers like my $70 trimmer, either. Not a bad product for $20 and I've made sure to let people know that (for some reason, shaving has come up in conversation a lot lately, so it's been relevant).
The point I'm trying to make here is that it was not advertizing that sold the product; in my case, it was price point for a product that was going to be throw-away but has, instead, replaced two much more expensive items. For three of my friends who went out and got one after hearing about it from me, it was not the advertizing, but word of mouth, which led them to purchase. Advertizing is useful, in moderation, to inform people of new products. Beyond that, it's wasteful, counterproductive, and annoying
If you need to advertize a product beyond its initial launch, you have a failed product; please stop trying to shove it down my throat.
And if you want to find the text "Where did I mention Brad"" you're supposed to type "Where did I type 'Where did I mention Brad?'?"?
That would surely be a bad tool. Nope, if I want to find where I mentioned Brad, I type "Brad" into the search box and the editor finds it and highlights it. If I want to find the text "Where did I mention Brad?", I type that into the search box and the editor finds it and highlights it.
Is a philips head screwdriver a bad tool if you don't know how to use it properly to drive a philips head screw? No, you're just a moron.
That's the best you've got--"you're taking up space." You're going to tell me about how I'm breathing oxygen, too, huh?
That's not the best I've got, but it's good enough to make my point. Regarding your breathing, you see, there's a process by which your body takes in oxygen and transfers it into your blood stream, exchanging it for carbon dioxide, which your body then expels.:) Yes, I'm pretty sure you're breathing oxygen, but I'm not sure what it has to do with this.
How am I costing Disney money? Disney is going to operate the park whether I'm there or not, so it's not like they're paying extra for electricity to haul my fat white ass up the side of Space Mountain.
In a crowded park, you're taking up space that someone else could be using. Plus, if you're not going to pay for anything, you're either just taking up space and probably not getting much enjoyment (e.g. not very relevant to this discussion) or you're sneaking onto rides, which is filling a seat that could have been filled by a paying customer. There are a finite number of seats, so by taking one for yourself without paying, you are denying Disney payment for a finite resource that costs them money to operate.
To drag your "using resources" argument back into the fray, resources were used to write and record that music. Resources were used to create that movie. My purchase of a movie ticket or CD or online download helped defray those costs. Your illegal downloading did not.
To drag your counter to my "using resources" argument back into the fray, those resources were used regardless of whether or not I pirated the media. The costs were set and the money already spent on those resources. Stealing a physical copy, of which there are a finite number which are created using resources which cost money, hurts somebody. I'd even go so far as to say that pirating a copy, when you have the means to purchase, and don't follow that up with either deletion or purchase, someone is seeing a loss (e.g. someone's getting hurt). If you don't have the means to purchase, it hurts nobody to make a copy, of which their is an infinite supply which can be made using only your own resources and those resources offered up by willing parties; I would also posit that, once one acquires the means to purchase, they are, then, creating a loss (e.g. hurting somebody) by not doing so.
No, the studios paid for it and set their price long before I pirated anything. Piracy doesn't affect you, as a consumer, in the slightest. Moreso, my piracy doesn't affect you, or the content creator, because I'm either deleting it immediately (and it's as though I bought it, didn't like it, returned it, and got a full refund; to wit, I wouldn't pirate if this were possible, because I wouldn't need to) or purchasing it (and it's as though I never pirated it to begin with).
Or, to put it another way, I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who enjoys the resources that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a guitar and write a song. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.
Good to see that someone else on Slashdot can engage in a legitimate discussion and still keep a sens of humor without trolling. Great quote, by the way. I think I'll have to go download that movie and watch it tonight; only because I'm not sure which box my Blu-Ray copy is in.
Piracy is filling a market need, the ability to try a product in your own home, on your own equipment, the way you are actually going to be using it, and not be out any money if it doesn't pan out. It really became an epidemic around the time the compulsory "no returns if opened" policy was put into effect.
Good point. I would never consider going to Disneyland. Therefore it's okay if I sneak in because, after all, I wouldn't have gone anyway. They didn't lose any money off of me sneaking in for free.
You're taking up space in the park and using their resources. You're not just getting something for free, your actions are literally costing Disney money, so it's not a zero-sum game at that point.
Because you're getting for free what others are paying for. That is hurting others. Why should you get something for free when others have to pay?
How does me geting a free copy of a CD hurt you? Explain it, please, so I can figure out the best playlist to download to kill off people like you as quickly as possible.
You grab the last paragraph of my post, which poses a question, and fail to answer it while disregarding the rest of the post and declaring it to be built of straw. I'll provide a bit more courtesy to your post.
However most people who download movies do have some money - certainly compared with the $20 cost of the movies they want to watch - and they are potential economic participants in the market for entertainment products.
I addressed this in my post. I, indeed, do have money, yet I still download a shit-ton of content. 100% of my purchases over the last 12 years have been content that had previously pirated; most of those purchases were made within mere days of the initial download. I asked "If you can enrich your own life without hurting anyone else, why shouldn't you?" and nobody will ever answer that question in a straightforward, non-trolling manner, because such an answer doesn't exist. Would you like to try? And if you're going to explain that downloading a copy of something you have not paid for is hurting someone, please make sure to account for the purchases that would not have occurred without those same downloads; I, for example, am not going to plunk down $20 for a CD unless I've listened to the whole thing first, not just the 30 second samples provided by Amazon and one or two full songs that get radio play, especially when I can't return it if I don't like it. Please, tell me I'm wrong; then be prepared to back that up with logic.
If there is no moral or legal prejudice against downloading movies without authorisation then illegal downloads are just another 'supplier' to the market. The availability of a source of products for $0 has to affect the market for people trying to sell equivalent (at least in the case of DVD or Blu-rays, only semi-equivalent for movie theatres) products for >$0. To say otherwise is to assert that price has no impact at all on people's behaviour, which is even more ridiculous than the crap the MPIAA comes out with.
Well, then, it's a good thing I didn't say that, isn't it? For me, at least, it's less about the availability of a $0 source than it is about the availability of an unrestricted (use it how I want, not necessarily to share it with thousands of my closest friends), high quality source for media with zero risk of wasted purchases. That's right, let me return it if I don't like it. Too much to ask? Well, then I'll download it and either delete it because I didn't like it (I don't have it and I got to keep my money, just like if I had returned it, and there was no lost sale), or buy it (I have it, you have my money, and there was no lost sale). I can say with 100% certainty and honesty that there have been 0 lost sales as a result of my piracy and, in fact, there is a pending sale of a quite expensive piece of software now that they have released a version that runs stable on my system, to be completed as soon as I finish moving into my new apartment. These are sales gained by piracy, not sales lost, and they are sales that would have happened without piracy were there a way for me to return, for a full refund, media I did not like. That's why I pirate; not to get shit for free, but to ensure that I don't waste my hard earned money on shit i'm just going the throw away.
Piracy is an attempt to get all of the benefits out of that offer without suffering any of the costs.
Piracy has many motives. I've listed mine here, and in several other threads, and they are not in line with the single, limited-case, motive you state. Consider all of the driving forces behind the market and you'll see that the vast majority of the piracy problem is created by the industry itself; consider this fora moment longer and you'll see that the actualy piracy problem is minor compared to what the industry accountants want to claim.
You missed the point. The point, of course, being that even if he couldn't pirate, he couldn't pay; no lost sale, no harm done.
If you can enrich your own life without hurting anyone else, why shouldn't you? Meanwhile, you're doing your damndest to try and bring someone else down for doing just that... without hurting anyone else, indeed. At least, that's how I try to live my life; have a positive impact, or none at all, on the people around me. And piracy does just that.
I'm either not going to buy or I am going to buy. Piracy has never prevented me from buying something I would have bought could I not have pirated it, but it has lead me to make purchases I would otherwise not have made. It's not a rationalization, it's a fact.
You're welcome to disagree, but then I would ask you to please explain to me how someone with no money can ever count as a lost sale. To illustrate what I'm looking for in an answer here, let's say I'm homeless, unemployed, have no cash, and my only posessions are my clothes and a digital camera; if I walk into an art gallery and snap photos of the works I like, rather than buying them, have I hurt anyone?
I was not aware that there was a docking station that provided peripheral (including USB, printing, and mass storage) support, an extended displa, and a full hardware keyboard and trackpad (or mouse/trackball.whatever via USB) for an existing iDevice. In fact, I'm still not aware that there is, even after reading your link.
My Motorola Atrix 4G has this and I am typing this reply from it right now. I think spire3661 might be banking on WebTop, an Android extenstion (by Motorola Mobility, now owned by Google, so likely to become a mainstream Android feature) which runs a full desktop Linux distro (modified Ubuntu in the case of my Atrix). Nothing like it for iOS as far as I'm aware, and I'm saying this as someone who works with OSX daily, has used an iPhone 3G as a primary phone for several months, and whose wife owns an iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone 4s, all of which I have used to some extent.
In considering switching back to iPhone, I looked for a LapDock replacement and found nothing suitable.
As for "mac fan boys", if you mean "someone who stupidly claims that Mac OS is completely impervious to malware" I challenge you to name an actual person who fits this mythological description
My boss, even after I told him I had found FlashBack on our PM's Mac and removed it.
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1) Which is why everyone should really get in the habit of saying 'Hold on a sec' while they're driving and talking on the phone. All the time. No, it's not rude in any way, and people who are talking to drivers need to understand that anything might be happening. (Of course, when I mean 'driving and talking on the phone', I mean 'using hands free'.)
Maybe, when this happens, people will learn to STFU when I say "Hold on a sec, some asshole just almost rearended me even though I'm already doing 5 over.".
I've probably sent probably several thousand texts while driving, never even came near an accident because of it that I've noticed. Of course, I have no idea how many people almost hit me while I was stopped at a light and not paying attention. We'll ignore the fact that I would have been unable to get out of the way of a vehicle that wasn't stopping, becaus that's inconvenient to my position.
Emphasis mine.
If you live in a rural area and have to drive 50+ miles to the nearest store, an SUV is an amazing piece of equipment, even for a single driver with no passengers. If you get 15 miles per gallon, but only have to drive out once a month, you're doing better than if you had a smaller car and had to drive out weekly at 30MPG.
Now, in an urban environment, there's no purpose for SUVs. For large groups of people, a minivan or properly-appointed van is a much better-suited choice; for single drivers or small groups, a sedan or coupe is the way to go. For insecure girls with daddy-issues, or men who have (ahem, lack) something to compensate for, an SUV is a good compliment; and they're driven accordingly and with the expected lack of skill.
I grew up at the outskirts of a small town with a permanent population of less than 500.
If 500 people live within a 10 minute walk of the same place, you've got a population density of more than 5 people per suqare mile.
I've lived everywhere from a small town, as depicted in GP's post, right up to Detroit, Indianapolis, and San Francisco. I've also visited towns and cities of every imagineable density and structure. I can tell you right now, the only place you can live without a car (either one you own or one you have regular access to) is either NYC of San Francisco.
It's also quite amusing that you equate living in a rural area with working in agriculture. Who staffed the post office, corner store, drug store, and restaurants in the rural town you grew up in? Surely not agricultural workers; and surely more people staffed those locations than the farms in your town. The numbers who live rurally far outweigh those who simply work in agriculture; even if that Wikipedia article is correct, its numbers are not valid for your argument.
That said, I will agree with you regarding shitty zoning laws in most places. Downtown Walnut Creek, where I currently live, is just small enough that its zoning regulations still don't make me walk for more than 10-15 minutes to get where I want to go, but in most simarly-structured cities, you're screwed if you don't have a car.
You must live in NYC. I've never been anywhere else where the text you quoted wasn't absolute truth.
To be clear, I live at the top of a hill. At the bottom of the hill in one direction is my office. In another direction is a restaurant and library. In another direction is some apartments. In another direction is a grocery store. None of these places are more than 1/3 of a mile away.
I walk to work, I walk to the library, I walk to that restaurant (and, indeed, many others which happen not to be right at the bottom of my hill), I walk to visit friend in those apartments, but I drive for groceries. I live in a downtown metropolitan area and the only reason I have driven in the last month has been to move boxes from my old apartment to my new apartment and to get groceries.
Food is a pretty good motivator. When one must drive for food, you see people, who would otherwise be walking, driving.
Ignoring that obvious fallacy, getting your license at 18 or 20, rather than 16, won't make one a better driver. Being a good driver comes with experience. A 20 year old who got their license at 16 will be a better driver than a 20 year old who got their license at 18; it's not even fair to compate the driver who got their license at 20.
Every asshole I've ever had swerve into my lane while texting has been a fully grown adult. It may be considered a youth activity, but damn those kids doing it must be better drivers than their adult counterparts.
Drivers who are good enough to pass that test will recognize that, even with their skills, it is not worth the risk. Nobody who could pass that test would ever take it.
Yes. The horn is a signaling device, intended to be used for signaling an unsafe condition or to get someone's attention to prevent an unsafe condition; it is not intended to be used as a "fuck you" signal as most people use it. You, sir (or ma'm), are doing it right.
Rewind to a near-collision I had the other day: I was waiting to turn right against cross-traffic, cross-traffic stopped for their red light as the turn light for that traffit turned green. The other car was in a line of cars making left turns, so I went for my right turn; half way through my right turn I hear a horn and both the other car and I come to a stop. He lays on his horn for a good 20 seconds, rather than just driving off. This is an example of one using their horn as a "fuck you" signal rather than as intended, though the result, initially, was the same.
Before anyone points out that the driver making the u-turn had right of way, in California (where I live) this would only be true had I been pulling out of a parking lot; and, then, only because I was entering the roadway. Neither of us had the right of way initially, in this situation; however, by the time he got on his horn, he was slightly behind me and to the left. In California, the vehicle to the left is supposed to yield to the driver on the right. By the time I has half way through my right turn and he had begun his u-turn, I had the right of way; by the time he got on his horn, I was already clear of his path.
Likewise. I can't count the number of times someone on a bike has made a left turn *ON RED* in front of me when I had a green light to go straight. Of course, since I'm paying attention, I know to lay on the horn, flash the brights, and floor it. Maybe after I kill a few of you, you'll learn to obey traffic laws just as you expect us to.
No, but you can have your lamp on and not be at you desk, which is what I think GP's point was.
Its probly also a typo. And im probly makeing a few ov them on purpis.
Usability is recognizing that the user has better things to do than type "Where did I mention " and " ?" when all they're looking for is "Brad".
I know how complicated text searching can get, because I've done exactly what you suggest. What I think you're failing to see, or maybe just not willing to admit, is that "Brad" and "Where did I mention Brad?" are two different searches that should (and do) return different results.
You mean "type in what you want to find and I'll find it for you" isn't straightforward enough? The way search boxes have worked since the dawn of the search box? The same search boxes secretaries have been using since before Windows 3.1 came out? It's worked fine for this long, everyone who's had minimal training knows how to use them, so why change it?
BTW, if you want your fairy-tale mind0reading search box to exist, you might want to stop being a dick to the people who posess the specialty skill required to make it happen.
Oh, and since when were secretaries (ahem... administrative assistants if you want to be PC) expert geeks? As stated above, there's not a secretary worth hiring that doesn't know you type "Brad" into that search box if you want to know where "Brad" is mentioned in a document. In fact, go find a secretary and ask them how they feel about your wonder-box. Be prepared to for a response that rhymes with "duck cough".
I don't think you g-g-g-get the reference. This is l-l-live and direct, N-network 23.
How did small local shops survive before radio, TV, and print? Word of mouth? Making a quality product that people talked about? Treating people with some respect and decency so they will want to come back?
Let me tell you, there are a large number of people who *DO NOT* buy shit they see heavily advertized; the majority of people I associate with are like this. If you take half a second to think about it, it makes sense. If your product was so awesome that I just have to have it, wouldn't people be talking about it? Wouldn't I hear it from them? Would you be spending millions of dollars, that would otherwise be profit for you, to shove your product in my face if it was that good?
In order: YES, YES, NO.
It's also worth noting that it is kind of childish to completely ignore a product simply because it is being advertized. Once in a great while, a really good product comes along that is simply made by a company with a huge ego and advertizing budget. One example of this is the Gillette Fusion Proglide Styler, which I bought a couple months ago (and I'm still on the first blade, though it's finally getting dull) when I needed a quick shave and had forgotten to pack my trimmer/shaver, because it was the cheapest product on the shelf that did both trimming and shaving. Let me say I've never been a fan of the 5 blade razors, too much drag, but the vibration (stronger than other vibrating razors) makes it glide smoothly. The trimmer doesn't seem to bind up on my thick whiskers like my $70 trimmer, either. Not a bad product for $20 and I've made sure to let people know that (for some reason, shaving has come up in conversation a lot lately, so it's been relevant).
The point I'm trying to make here is that it was not advertizing that sold the product; in my case, it was price point for a product that was going to be throw-away but has, instead, replaced two much more expensive items. For three of my friends who went out and got one after hearing about it from me, it was not the advertizing, but word of mouth, which led them to purchase. Advertizing is useful, in moderation, to inform people of new products. Beyond that, it's wasteful, counterproductive, and annoying
If you need to advertize a product beyond its initial launch, you have a failed product; please stop trying to shove it down my throat.
And if you want to find the text "Where did I mention Brad"" you're supposed to type "Where did I type 'Where did I mention Brad?'?"?
That would surely be a bad tool. Nope, if I want to find where I mentioned Brad, I type "Brad" into the search box and the editor finds it and highlights it. If I want to find the text "Where did I mention Brad?", I type that into the search box and the editor finds it and highlights it.
Is a philips head screwdriver a bad tool if you don't know how to use it properly to drive a philips head screw? No, you're just a moron.
That's the best you've got--"you're taking up space." You're going to tell me about how I'm breathing oxygen, too, huh?
That's not the best I've got, but it's good enough to make my point. Regarding your breathing, you see, there's a process by which your body takes in oxygen and transfers it into your blood stream, exchanging it for carbon dioxide, which your body then expels. :) Yes, I'm pretty sure you're breathing oxygen, but I'm not sure what it has to do with this.
How am I costing Disney money? Disney is going to operate the park whether I'm there or not, so it's not like they're paying extra for electricity to haul my fat white ass up the side of Space Mountain.
In a crowded park, you're taking up space that someone else could be using. Plus, if you're not going to pay for anything, you're either just taking up space and probably not getting much enjoyment (e.g. not very relevant to this discussion) or you're sneaking onto rides, which is filling a seat that could have been filled by a paying customer. There are a finite number of seats, so by taking one for yourself without paying, you are denying Disney payment for a finite resource that costs them money to operate.
To drag your "using resources" argument back into the fray, resources were used to write and record that music. Resources were used to create that movie. My purchase of a movie ticket or CD or online download helped defray those costs. Your illegal downloading did not.
To drag your counter to my "using resources" argument back into the fray, those resources were used regardless of whether or not I pirated the media. The costs were set and the money already spent on those resources. Stealing a physical copy, of which there are a finite number which are created using resources which cost money, hurts somebody. I'd even go so far as to say that pirating a copy, when you have the means to purchase, and don't follow that up with either deletion or purchase, someone is seeing a loss (e.g. someone's getting hurt). If you don't have the means to purchase, it hurts nobody to make a copy, of which their is an infinite supply which can be made using only your own resources and those resources offered up by willing parties; I would also posit that, once one acquires the means to purchase, they are, then, creating a loss (e.g. hurting somebody) by not doing so.
No, the studios paid for it and set their price long before I pirated anything. Piracy doesn't affect you, as a consumer, in the slightest. Moreso, my piracy doesn't affect you, or the content creator, because I'm either deleting it immediately (and it's as though I bought it, didn't like it, returned it, and got a full refund; to wit, I wouldn't pirate if this were possible, because I wouldn't need to) or purchasing it (and it's as though I never pirated it to begin with).
Or, to put it another way, I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who enjoys the resources that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a guitar and write a song. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.
Good to see that someone else on Slashdot can engage in a legitimate discussion and still keep a sens of humor without trolling. Great quote, by the way. I think I'll have to go download that movie and watch it tonight; only because I'm not sure which box my Blu-Ray copy is in.
Piracy is filling a market need, the ability to try a product in your own home, on your own equipment, the way you are actually going to be using it, and not be out any money if it doesn't pan out. It really became an epidemic around the time the compulsory "no returns if opened" policy was put into effect.
I'm not saying there's no other reason
Good point. I would never consider going to Disneyland. Therefore it's okay if I sneak in because, after all, I wouldn't have gone anyway. They didn't lose any money off of me sneaking in for free.
You're taking up space in the park and using their resources. You're not just getting something for free, your actions are literally costing Disney money, so it's not a zero-sum game at that point.
Because you're getting for free what others are paying for. That is hurting others. Why should you get something for free when others have to pay?
How does me geting a free copy of a CD hurt you? Explain it, please, so I can figure out the best playlist to download to kill off people like you as quickly as possible.
You grab the last paragraph of my post, which poses a question, and fail to answer it while disregarding the rest of the post and declaring it to be built of straw. I'll provide a bit more courtesy to your post.
However most people who download movies do have some money - certainly compared with the $20 cost of the movies they want to watch - and they are potential economic participants in the market for entertainment products.
I addressed this in my post. I, indeed, do have money, yet I still download a shit-ton of content. 100% of my purchases over the last 12 years have been content that had previously pirated; most of those purchases were made within mere days of the initial download. I asked "If you can enrich your own life without hurting anyone else, why shouldn't you?" and nobody will ever answer that question in a straightforward, non-trolling manner, because such an answer doesn't exist. Would you like to try? And if you're going to explain that downloading a copy of something you have not paid for is hurting someone, please make sure to account for the purchases that would not have occurred without those same downloads; I, for example, am not going to plunk down $20 for a CD unless I've listened to the whole thing first, not just the 30 second samples provided by Amazon and one or two full songs that get radio play, especially when I can't return it if I don't like it. Please, tell me I'm wrong; then be prepared to back that up with logic.
If there is no moral or legal prejudice against downloading movies without authorisation then illegal downloads are just another 'supplier' to the market. The availability of a source of products for $0 has to affect the market for people trying to sell equivalent (at least in the case of DVD or Blu-rays, only semi-equivalent for movie theatres) products for >$0. To say otherwise is to assert that price has no impact at all on people's behaviour, which is even more ridiculous than the crap the MPIAA comes out with.
Well, then, it's a good thing I didn't say that, isn't it? For me, at least, it's less about the availability of a $0 source than it is about the availability of an unrestricted (use it how I want, not necessarily to share it with thousands of my closest friends), high quality source for media with zero risk of wasted purchases. That's right, let me return it if I don't like it. Too much to ask? Well, then I'll download it and either delete it because I didn't like it (I don't have it and I got to keep my money, just like if I had returned it, and there was no lost sale), or buy it (I have it, you have my money, and there was no lost sale). I can say with 100% certainty and honesty that there have been 0 lost sales as a result of my piracy and, in fact, there is a pending sale of a quite expensive piece of software now that they have released a version that runs stable on my system, to be completed as soon as I finish moving into my new apartment. These are sales gained by piracy, not sales lost, and they are sales that would have happened without piracy were there a way for me to return, for a full refund, media I did not like. That's why I pirate; not to get shit for free, but to ensure that I don't waste my hard earned money on shit i'm just going the throw away.
Piracy is an attempt to get all of the benefits out of that offer without suffering any of the costs.
Piracy has many motives. I've listed mine here, and in several other threads, and they are not in line with the single, limited-case, motive you state. Consider all of the driving forces behind the market and you'll see that the vast majority of the piracy problem is created by the industry itself; consider this fora moment longer and you'll see that the actualy piracy problem is minor compared to what the industry accountants want to claim.
I guess they get trolled, too.
You missed the point. The point, of course, being that even if he couldn't pirate, he couldn't pay; no lost sale, no harm done.
If you can enrich your own life without hurting anyone else, why shouldn't you? Meanwhile, you're doing your damndest to try and bring someone else down for doing just that... without hurting anyone else, indeed. At least, that's how I try to live my life; have a positive impact, or none at all, on the people around me. And piracy does just that.
I'm either not going to buy or I am going to buy. Piracy has never prevented me from buying something I would have bought could I not have pirated it, but it has lead me to make purchases I would otherwise not have made. It's not a rationalization, it's a fact.
You're welcome to disagree, but then I would ask you to please explain to me how someone with no money can ever count as a lost sale. To illustrate what I'm looking for in an answer here, let's say I'm homeless, unemployed, have no cash, and my only posessions are my clothes and a digital camera; if I walk into an art gallery and snap photos of the works I like, rather than buying them, have I hurt anyone?
Besides if you want to troll billboards in America,
you should put them under bridges.
I was not aware that there was a docking station that provided peripheral (including USB, printing, and mass storage) support, an extended displa, and a full hardware keyboard and trackpad (or mouse/trackball.whatever via USB) for an existing iDevice. In fact, I'm still not aware that there is, even after reading your link.
My Motorola Atrix 4G has this and I am typing this reply from it right now. I think spire3661 might be banking on WebTop, an Android extenstion (by Motorola Mobility, now owned by Google, so likely to become a mainstream Android feature) which runs a full desktop Linux distro (modified Ubuntu in the case of my Atrix). Nothing like it for iOS as far as I'm aware, and I'm saying this as someone who works with OSX daily, has used an iPhone 3G as a primary phone for several months, and whose wife owns an iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone 4s, all of which I have used to some extent.
In considering switching back to iPhone, I looked for a LapDock replacement and found nothing suitable.
As for "mac fan boys", if you mean "someone who stupidly claims that Mac OS is completely impervious to malware" I challenge you to name an actual person who fits this mythological description
My boss, even after I told him I had found FlashBack on our PM's Mac and removed it.