Yes, the argument that pirates buy a lot as well as downloading makes them 'good' customers is inherently flawed.
If we presume good customer to mean one who spends the most possible, then we have to ask this question: Are pirates buying more than they would have, or less? The kneejerk reaction the studios have is 'they are buying less than they would have, as they would have bought the items they are pirating' - the response from the other camp is 'more, because the pirates are trying new stuff they then go on to buy, they become bigger consumers and so buy more, etc...'.
The reality is the study doesn't tell us either of these things, it just tells us that pirates, on average, consume more media than other people, which makes sense, as people don't just start pirating for no reason.
I would weigh in on the side of piracy being a good thing for the industry in the end. The main groups of pirates are young people with little money availible, pirating because otherwise they wouldn't get the product - here the industry isn't loosing sales, but is generating future customers, and creating more buzz and knowledge about the products and consumers who want to try before they buy, who would often not buy products, but due to piracy get the chance to try a product and enjoy it, encouraging them to buy it.
The industry won't like this because it encourages good media and punishes bad media - the industry likes being able to create a marketing buzz and still rake in money on poor products.
I'm not saying that there won't be some loss of sales due to piracy, but I think the reality is it'll generate more in consumer interest and purchases in the end, if done right. The reality is people are now not buying due to horrible DRM, poor methods of getting the product to the consumer. How many people who used to pirate games just hop on with Good Old Games and Steam? How many people who used to pirate songs now subscribe to spotify? How many of those people then go on to buy new games in the franchise, to purchase albums and go to gigs? Piracy works because it's easy and doesn't cost the user. If the industry makes it easier and keeps the price at a good level, consumers will pay hapily, and there will be huge bonuses in marketing and user satisfaction.
Remember they are trying to maximise profit. Yes, they could simply try and provide the best product and get people to buy them, what they'd much rather do is keep a system where people can't try before they buy, ensuring them large profits from mediocre products, and ensuring their prices can remain higher than the should be.
So using an accelerometer (a component used to detect orientation) to detect the orientation of a device... This is clearly patentable genius!
Come on, patents are there to give incentive to innovate and develop. Using a component for it's intended use is not that. If they developed the Accelerometer, fair play, otherwise, this is rubbish.
And taking an existing invention and putting it into something smaller is patentable innovation?
Come on. Even if that is the way it works (which I'm pretty sure it isn't) - anyone with half a brain can see that's stupid and not the intention of patents.
Re:Tau is used everywhere. I prefer k_k
on
Happy Tau Day
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· Score: 1
Maybe next time the person the cops beat on the street will be you, your wife, your children. So think before making stupid statements.
The police do not have the power to be judge, jury and executioner.
As an English guy at the age of 19 doing a CompSci degree at the University of Leicester (1st year almost done), I can't comment on the value of the degree for the price I'm paying, and even if I could, it'd be irrelevant for people deciding in the future here as it tuition fees are going up massively soon.
That said, I am really, really enjoying my degree. The people, the course, the whole experience. Yeah, I'm sure I'd get some of that working, but it is a great thing. If I don't take massive monetary value out of my degree, in knowledge and enjoyment, I'm hoping to take a hell of a lot.
You're not part of the control group, by the way. You get the gel. Chernobyl got blue paint. Hahaha. All joking aside, that did happen - lots of people died. Tragic. But informative. Or so I'm told.
And I never said it did. I never said that a webhost would be forced to provide you with hosting, or that you must get free internet access - I do not believe that you should be denied access to it, given you are willing to go through the normal means to do so.
I'm not saying everyone should have every little thing they want printed on google.com for them, I'm saying that if someone wants to go on the internet, they should be able to. That way a government cannot control that, and deny them that freedom of speech. Say you have had some great wrongdoing done to you, if the government can cut off your internet access on a whim, they can deny you that freedom of speech.
I am not saying that everyone should have a right to be listened to, or get provided with everything pro-bono - of course not, that's rediuculous. What is important, however, is that people are given the opportunity to use those resources. Just as the American constitution (I'm English, but it's a good example) gives you the right to own a gun (but not given it for free, nor provided with free ammunition) to protect your rights, you should be given the right to internet access, so that you can communicate and protect your rights. What is the difference?
Exactly. The whole point of many rights, when you get down to it, is you have that horribly recursive right to your basic rights. If you can't protect those rights, histroy has taught us people will take it away from you.
Nothing is more powerful protection than the ability to speak out and get others involved.
The question is, why do we have our rights? Some, like a right to water, etc... are basic because they are needed for survival.
Some, like freedom of speech, are there to protect our other rights.
The question is, in the modern day and age, can you truly have freedom of speech without Internet access? It's become so vital to communicate, and such a powerful tool, having access the internet is a safeguard against tyranny, just as a soapbox was before it.
Internet access protects your other rights. That is enough to mean maybe we should think of it as a right.
I'm not saying, just as he isn't, that it's as essential as water or whatever to survival, but we should aim for better than that, and do in other instances, so why not here?
That's really odd, my Dell streak handles spotify streaming at the same time as browsing perfectly. It does have a little more poke, but not *that* much.
Yeah... Actually, it can. My IDE automatically indents my Python. It's not really hard, it raises it by a level whenever a line ends with a colon. I can reindent blocks easily too... I don't really get your issue.
Well, I use IDEs and editors that support block collapsing with Python - and that can highlight the block of code the cursor resides in. As to passing the current object, it's a simple matter of it makes a lot of sense. Rather than having an extra keyword limiting you, and having to just know it appears out of nowhere, the 'self' way of doing it works very well, and it works consistantly. For example, if you have a class that inherits from another class, and you want to change a function, but simply want to add on a segment, you simple call OldClassName.function_name(self, *args) at the beginning of the replacement function, and it just works, as you are passing running the function from the old class on the new object that inherits from it. Because of Python's setup, this works in the mannar you'd expect. Python tries not to surprise you where possible, and to do what you'd expect. I'd say that yes - the whole self thing can go against this (people new to Python can get a lot of errors about passing too many attributes), but it really is the better of two evils, having it appear out of nowhere is more limiting and less clear.
In the end, it is a matter of personal preference, and I can understand how you could find it stupid to call brackets redundant, but not the self argument, but I don't agree. Maybe that's just because I've spent so much time writing Python code.
Exactly. The code simply can't get to that point with Python. Some people hate having it forced on them, but it simply is a better solution. It's more natural and more sensible. Python tries to encourage a good, or at the very least, consistant, coding style wherever possible.
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Yes, the argument that pirates buy a lot as well as downloading makes them 'good' customers is inherently flawed.
If we presume good customer to mean one who spends the most possible, then we have to ask this question: Are pirates buying more than they would have, or less? The kneejerk reaction the studios have is 'they are buying less than they would have, as they would have bought the items they are pirating' - the response from the other camp is 'more, because the pirates are trying new stuff they then go on to buy, they become bigger consumers and so buy more, etc...'.
The reality is the study doesn't tell us either of these things, it just tells us that pirates, on average, consume more media than other people, which makes sense, as people don't just start pirating for no reason.
I would weigh in on the side of piracy being a good thing for the industry in the end. The main groups of pirates are young people with little money availible, pirating because otherwise they wouldn't get the product - here the industry isn't loosing sales, but is generating future customers, and creating more buzz and knowledge about the products and consumers who want to try before they buy, who would often not buy products, but due to piracy get the chance to try a product and enjoy it, encouraging them to buy it.
The industry won't like this because it encourages good media and punishes bad media - the industry likes being able to create a marketing buzz and still rake in money on poor products.
I'm not saying that there won't be some loss of sales due to piracy, but I think the reality is it'll generate more in consumer interest and purchases in the end, if done right. The reality is people are now not buying due to horrible DRM, poor methods of getting the product to the consumer. How many people who used to pirate games just hop on with Good Old Games and Steam? How many people who used to pirate songs now subscribe to spotify? How many of those people then go on to buy new games in the franchise, to purchase albums and go to gigs? Piracy works because it's easy and doesn't cost the user. If the industry makes it easier and keeps the price at a good level, consumers will pay hapily, and there will be huge bonuses in marketing and user satisfaction.
Remember they are trying to maximise profit. Yes, they could simply try and provide the best product and get people to buy them, what they'd much rather do is keep a system where people can't try before they buy, ensuring them large profits from mediocre products, and ensuring their prices can remain higher than the should be.
Fair enough, but you didn't say that. Just making the point.
You are right, HTML isn't that hard - and it's not intended to be used to style - such as italicizing - anything. You could emphasize it.
This is because of the phone hacking thing? I just thought this was because reading The Sun is roughly equivalent to torture.
Accelerometers exist. Their purpose is to give orientation data.
Devices which use orientation data to chance screen layout exist.
Are you saying that using a device for it's intended purpose to do something people have done before is non-obvious?
If something has been done - by definition someone must have been the first to do it. It is obvious to use a device for it's intended purpose.
So using an accelerometer (a component used to detect orientation) to detect the orientation of a device... This is clearly patentable genius! Come on, patents are there to give incentive to innovate and develop. Using a component for it's intended use is not that. If they developed the Accelerometer, fair play, otherwise, this is rubbish.
And taking an existing invention and putting it into something smaller is patentable innovation? Come on. Even if that is the way it works (which I'm pretty sure it isn't) - anyone with half a brain can see that's stupid and not the intention of patents.
And of course 3pi was k_k_k... wait...
Where does it say that? It says you just have to buy an item.
Maybe next time the person the cops beat on the street will be you, your wife, your children. So think before making stupid statements. The police do not have the power to be judge, jury and executioner.
As an English guy at the age of 19 doing a CompSci degree at the University of Leicester (1st year almost done), I can't comment on the value of the degree for the price I'm paying, and even if I could, it'd be irrelevant for people deciding in the future here as it tuition fees are going up massively soon.
That said, I am really, really enjoying my degree. The people, the course, the whole experience. Yeah, I'm sure I'd get some of that working, but it is a great thing. If I don't take massive monetary value out of my degree, in knowledge and enjoyment, I'm hoping to take a hell of a lot.
You're not part of the control group, by the way. You get the gel. Chernobyl got blue paint. Hahaha. All joking aside, that did happen - lots of people died. Tragic. But informative. Or so I'm told.
And I never said it did. I never said that a webhost would be forced to provide you with hosting, or that you must get free internet access - I do not believe that you should be denied access to it, given you are willing to go through the normal means to do so.
I'm not saying everyone should have every little thing they want printed on google.com for them, I'm saying that if someone wants to go on the internet, they should be able to. That way a government cannot control that, and deny them that freedom of speech. Say you have had some great wrongdoing done to you, if the government can cut off your internet access on a whim, they can deny you that freedom of speech.
I am not saying that everyone should have a right to be listened to, or get provided with everything pro-bono - of course not, that's rediuculous. What is important, however, is that people are given the opportunity to use those resources. Just as the American constitution (I'm English, but it's a good example) gives you the right to own a gun (but not given it for free, nor provided with free ammunition) to protect your rights, you should be given the right to internet access, so that you can communicate and protect your rights. What is the difference?
Exactly. The whole point of many rights, when you get down to it, is you have that horribly recursive right to your basic rights. If you can't protect those rights, histroy has taught us people will take it away from you.
Nothing is more powerful protection than the ability to speak out and get others involved.
The question is, why do we have our rights? Some, like a right to water, etc... are basic because they are needed for survival.
Some, like freedom of speech, are there to protect our other rights.
The question is, in the modern day and age, can you truly have freedom of speech without Internet access? It's become so vital to communicate, and such a powerful tool, having access the internet is a safeguard against tyranny, just as a soapbox was before it.
Internet access protects your other rights. That is enough to mean maybe we should think of it as a right.
I'm not saying, just as he isn't, that it's as essential as water or whatever to survival, but we should aim for better than that, and do in other instances, so why not here?
That's really odd, my Dell streak handles spotify streaming at the same time as browsing perfectly. It does have a little more poke, but not *that* much.
Because 1000 sounds so much 'better' (in the media sense of the term) than '1'.
Because you gave them permission to do so.
I know what you mean, a technology site focusing on the technology aspect of it. Crazy.
That's a problem with your browser, not Python.
Yeah... Actually, it can. My IDE automatically indents my Python. It's not really hard, it raises it by a level whenever a line ends with a colon. I can reindent blocks easily too... I don't really get your issue.
Well, I use IDEs and editors that support block collapsing with Python - and that can highlight the block of code the cursor resides in. As to passing the current object, it's a simple matter of it makes a lot of sense. Rather than having an extra keyword limiting you, and having to just know it appears out of nowhere, the 'self' way of doing it works very well, and it works consistantly. For example, if you have a class that inherits from another class, and you want to change a function, but simply want to add on a segment, you simple call OldClassName.function_name(self, *args) at the beginning of the replacement function, and it just works, as you are passing running the function from the old class on the new object that inherits from it. Because of Python's setup, this works in the mannar you'd expect. Python tries not to surprise you where possible, and to do what you'd expect. I'd say that yes - the whole self thing can go against this (people new to Python can get a lot of errors about passing too many attributes), but it really is the better of two evils, having it appear out of nowhere is more limiting and less clear.
In the end, it is a matter of personal preference, and I can understand how you could find it stupid to call brackets redundant, but not the self argument, but I don't agree. Maybe that's just because I've spent so much time writing Python code.
Exactly. The code simply can't get to that point with Python. Some people hate having it forced on them, but it simply is a better solution. It's more natural and more sensible. Python tries to encourage a good, or at the very least, consistant, coding style wherever possible.