The mainframes were hobbled by the lack of their ability to do more than any one task at a time, and their ultra-slow methods of input.
You're kinda aggrandizing the whole retro-computing thing. It's cool and all, don't get me wrong, I liked my C-64 as well. But saying that mainframes were more powerful than the modern global computing infrastructure is just silly.
Even Star Trek didn't have those (not TOS, anyway). All the desktop terminals looked like those giant hand-held slide viewers (YES, PHOTO SLIDES) you could stick a few batteries in, so clearly the intent was that they were small, high-definition CRTs:) They did have the tablet computers, though (stylus and everything), though of course the effects tech was far too primitive to make them actually look functional.
Not necessarily. As a matter of fact, if the act itself is performing the material, it may not be paid at all.
Cover bands, as well, don't necessarily generate significant income for a copyright holder, since there's no technological solution for tracking every performed song in the world at every venue. That's why venues pay flat fees to ASCAP in the US, based on a number of variables, to account for that shortcoming.
I'm sure that one day there will be systems that are smart enough to recognize covers that are "close enough" and will be able to itemize the payments due for a cover.
So, your position is that anyone can use any recorded work for any purpose, whenever they want, without compensating the owner of the copyright?
You're not just against a law, you're opposed to a law that has a firm basis in the Constitution of the US (not to mention most other countries in the world).
I don't know why this is strange to you, but the people who own (and administer) the copyrights to their works get to dictate what you have to pay to publicly perform their works.
Your gregorian chant station isn't really going to bring in more record sales, and you'd still owe per-song, per-broadcast fees at any point in history for that use.
And frankly, we all know that blogs are *much* more likely to result in people posting up a FLAC archive on rapidshare/megaupload/mediafire/etc than to actually tell people to go out and buy the album.
Free was nice while it lasted, but "free" is no way to promote the arts.
They're paying 25% of their revenue for the rights to give public performances of copyrighted material which they themselves did not create. What exactly do you find unfair about that?
Yes, Apple does not have on-site service for retail/consumer level purchases. However, Dell/HP/etc do not have easily locatable, consistently trained retail repair locations. GeekSquad and its ilk don't count. Apple, however, does, and they're consistently rated very high.
Apple also does not offer, insofar as I know, the same sort of easily accessible programs for corporate support departments, such as Dell's Warranty Parts Direct service.
You have two choices if you're currently using Apple products in your organization and dislike the way Apple handles corporate accounts: Switch away from Apple, or leave the company. Corporate users simply are not a focus of Apple anymore.
I've seen Apple replace keyboards that were taken apart by the user intentionally, at no cost. People walking in with iPhones that have problems that could easily be caused by user abuse (not hammering it, but no one covers that), and they replace it on the spot.
However, Apple does not have a very good corporate support and sales structure. Their educational organization support is better, but there's a reason relatively few companies are Apple-based in their desktop infrastructure. Centralizing on Apple for the corporate environment is a recipe for endless headaches.
However, Applecare for retail/home users is quite good when compared to the equivalent Dell/HP/Geeksquad/etc support system.
He's getting medium security. Not a bad way at all to live out the rest of your life, protecting your family conspirators, and having lived in the lap of luxury for decades.
Well, in lieu of going bankrupt and free, he'll be in a medium security prison (at most) for the rest of his life and living on the public tab. So, for a couple decades he got to live the life of a billionaire, and now he'll take it easy on our dime until he dies. Sounds like a plan to me.
Except that Balrogs and Sauron aren't even really the same type of creature. You could make an argument that Morgoth is an "ultimate evil" sort of figure (I'd disagree), but Morgoth is long gone, the Balrogs are not Maiar, and so Sauron is Lucifer, pt 2?
If you look long enough you can find similarities between anything, but in this particular case, it doesn't work so great once you get to the details.
This is still contrived. The number of computer games that are intended to be played in the same physical locale AND are not playable on the same screen is very small. The vast majority of games that require multiple players buying a license to play on a machine for a single player at a time are Internet based (XBL, etc), and so even if it was kids buying it, it would be different parents buying for their kids, not one parent buying it for a kid and all his friends.
Sorry, there's a lot to be said about the price of video games, but your strangely constructed scenario doesn't fit in that conversation.
majority of major applications for this OS also come with high price-tag
The actual attraction is "most of the major applications in popular desktop computing run on Windows", and "Windows does 99% of what you want to do, 95% of the time, for 95% of the desktop computing population."
Also, as stated many times above, the majority of consumers will get it pre-installed on their machines after a certain date, so to them it's "free".
Then I take it you don't play PC first-person shooters ($160 for licenses for each of four PCs in a household at $40 each), PC real-time war sims (likewise $160 for four licenses)
Er, why would you count 4 individual licenses as one game? What game do you own that requires 4 people to play it, and requires one person to pay for all the copies? I don't necessarily agree with what the GPP has to say, but this is silly.
Sure, but I think his point is that Apple overcharges you on the hardware end while putting out cheap upgrades. Whereas Microsoft might charge more on the OS end, but that's because they're really not making any money from hardware sales.
Even Gandalf was afraid of the corrupting influence of the One Ring. The Eagles couldn't carry it, and even in the end, Frodo had been corrupted by Its will. Only Tom Bombadil (and Sauron, of course, who had become corrupted much earlier than the creation of all the Rings, so its a moot point) was unaffected, but Tom is an odd guy (and wasn't in the movie, too boot).
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yeah, you could do that with the Commodore 1541 drives as well, but dunno if you could do 3-4 (I only ever had 2 that I could try it with)
The mainframes were hobbled by the lack of their ability to do more than any one task at a time, and their ultra-slow methods of input.
You're kinda aggrandizing the whole retro-computing thing. It's cool and all, don't get me wrong, I liked my C-64 as well. But saying that mainframes were more powerful than the modern global computing infrastructure is just silly.
I love that line. Much more than "I'll be back". It's just so.. great. I dunno how else to say it.
flat screen desktop computers
Even Star Trek didn't have those (not TOS, anyway). All the desktop terminals looked like those giant hand-held slide viewers (YES, PHOTO SLIDES) you could stick a few batteries in, so clearly the intent was that they were small, high-definition CRTs :) They did have the tablet computers, though (stylus and everything), though of course the effects tech was far too primitive to make them actually look functional.
Not necessarily. As a matter of fact, if the act itself is performing the material, it may not be paid at all.
Cover bands, as well, don't necessarily generate significant income for a copyright holder, since there's no technological solution for tracking every performed song in the world at every venue. That's why venues pay flat fees to ASCAP in the US, based on a number of variables, to account for that shortcoming.
I'm sure that one day there will be systems that are smart enough to recognize covers that are "close enough" and will be able to itemize the payments due for a cover.
So, your position is that anyone can use any recorded work for any purpose, whenever they want, without compensating the owner of the copyright?
You're not just against a law, you're opposed to a law that has a firm basis in the Constitution of the US (not to mention most other countries in the world).
No wonder you feel oppressed :)
I don't know why this is strange to you, but the people who own (and administer) the copyrights to their works get to dictate what you have to pay to publicly perform their works.
Your gregorian chant station isn't really going to bring in more record sales, and you'd still owe per-song, per-broadcast fees at any point in history for that use.
And frankly, we all know that blogs are *much* more likely to result in people posting up a FLAC archive on rapidshare/megaupload/mediafire/etc than to actually tell people to go out and buy the album.
Free was nice while it lasted, but "free" is no way to promote the arts.
They're paying 25% of their revenue for the rights to give public performances of copyrighted material which they themselves did not create. What exactly do you find unfair about that?
Sounds like you need to increase your energy expenditure more, to me. As you say, unless you go anorexic, decreasing caloric intake only goes so far.
Yes, Apple does not have on-site service for retail/consumer level purchases. However, Dell/HP/etc do not have easily locatable, consistently trained retail repair locations. GeekSquad and its ilk don't count. Apple, however, does, and they're consistently rated very high.
Apple also does not offer, insofar as I know, the same sort of easily accessible programs for corporate support departments, such as Dell's Warranty Parts Direct service.
You have two choices if you're currently using Apple products in your organization and dislike the way Apple handles corporate accounts: Switch away from Apple, or leave the company. Corporate users simply are not a focus of Apple anymore.
I've seen Apple replace keyboards that were taken apart by the user intentionally, at no cost. People walking in with iPhones that have problems that could easily be caused by user abuse (not hammering it, but no one covers that), and they replace it on the spot.
However, Apple does not have a very good corporate support and sales structure. Their educational organization support is better, but there's a reason relatively few companies are Apple-based in their desktop infrastructure. Centralizing on Apple for the corporate environment is a recipe for endless headaches.
However, Applecare for retail/home users is quite good when compared to the equivalent Dell/HP/Geeksquad/etc support system.
Gee, that must be why I sat at the Apple Store and watched people get replacement iPhones while they waited.
Not difficult. Apple has a lot of things that can be said about them, so let's not just start making things up.
He's a danger to people who didn't do their homework, or people who knew about his scheme didn't get out of it fast enough, when it boils down to it.
He's getting medium security. Not a bad way at all to live out the rest of your life, protecting your family conspirators, and having lived in the lap of luxury for decades.
Well, in lieu of going bankrupt and free, he'll be in a medium security prison (at most) for the rest of his life and living on the public tab. So, for a couple decades he got to live the life of a billionaire, and now he'll take it easy on our dime until he dies. Sounds like a plan to me.
Except that Balrogs and Sauron aren't even really the same type of creature. You could make an argument that Morgoth is an "ultimate evil" sort of figure (I'd disagree), but Morgoth is long gone, the Balrogs are not Maiar, and so Sauron is Lucifer, pt 2?
If you look long enough you can find similarities between anything, but in this particular case, it doesn't work so great once you get to the details.
This is still contrived. The number of computer games that are intended to be played in the same physical locale AND are not playable on the same screen is very small. The vast majority of games that require multiple players buying a license to play on a machine for a single player at a time are Internet based (XBL, etc), and so even if it was kids buying it, it would be different parents buying for their kids, not one parent buying it for a kid and all his friends.
Sorry, there's a lot to be said about the price of video games, but your strangely constructed scenario doesn't fit in that conversation.
majority of major applications for this OS also come with high price-tag
The actual attraction is "most of the major applications in popular desktop computing run on Windows", and "Windows does 99% of what you want to do, 95% of the time, for 95% of the desktop computing population."
Also, as stated many times above, the majority of consumers will get it pre-installed on their machines after a certain date, so to them it's "free".
Doesn't matter to the consumer, because the ones who perceive it to be "free" with the computer, in all likelihood, won't be buying the Linux version.
I know I damn well won't pay $100 for a game
Then I take it you don't play PC first-person shooters ($160 for licenses for each of four PCs in a household at $40 each), PC real-time war sims (likewise $160 for four licenses)
Er, why would you count 4 individual licenses as one game? What game do you own that requires 4 people to play it, and requires one person to pay for all the copies? I don't necessarily agree with what the GPP has to say, but this is silly.
Sure, but I think his point is that Apple overcharges you on the hardware end while putting out cheap upgrades. Whereas Microsoft might charge more on the OS end, but that's because they're really not making any money from hardware sales.
The answer to your question is: Lighten up, Francis. Not everything is grounds for a Dworkin-esque rage against the dying of the light.
Gee, a mythology where a theological figure falls from grace? That ONLY happens in Christianity!
The history is a little more complex than that: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/s/sauron.html
Even Gandalf was afraid of the corrupting influence of the One Ring. The Eagles couldn't carry it, and even in the end, Frodo had been corrupted by Its will. Only Tom Bombadil (and Sauron, of course, who had become corrupted much earlier than the creation of all the Rings, so its a moot point) was unaffected, but Tom is an odd guy (and wasn't in the movie, too boot).