Re:Come on
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
if I am buying a console today, I would hopr it would be 110% of a gaming machine since that is why I am buying the damn thing
Well you do need power for other things like putting real AI in drivers in GTA4.
I think the grafics in the PS2 stomp the graphics in a gaming PC with the GF3. games run smooth on PS2, the look good
I respectfully disagree. What resolution does the PS2 normally run at when connected to a TV? I know that lots of people foolishly compare a console game running a 512x384 or whatever with a PC running at 1024x768, ignoring the fact that the PC is pushing >4x as many pixels. In any case I have yet to see a stunning game on the PS2, whereas on a GF3 running at high rez something like Quake 3 (yup it still rocks with every feature turned on) roxxors. Operation Flashpoint offers graphics, AI and features that consoles can only dream of.
While GTA3 is a pretty impressive game, really how long can it carry a system for? I've never actually played it but merely read reviews, but it seems like the kind of game that would get tiring really quickly (i.e. I've read the AI players aren't AI at all: They're on rails doing the exact same thing every time. Coming from games like F1 2000 CS I would find that unbearable).
This situation really is a riot because technically the Xbox absolutely stomps the PS2 (and it demolishes the Nintendo. Despite the ramblings that they are "equal" on the Salon article, the reality is that graphics power is 95% of a game machine, and the graphics power in the Xbox brutalizes the Nintendo. That's ignoring the 3d audio processors, etc.) so it's just a matter of killer games (and some reviews have been falling overthemselves to proclaim Halo the best game ever, so perhaps it already has one). Now wait just one minute...where was that last time I heard that argument? Why it was with the PS/2 launch! For those with selective memories, the PS/2 launched with a pile of shit games, and only recently got a "killer game" by way of GTA3.
And on top of that, software faults are generally in direct proportion to the complexity of the software (barring some revolutionary software development technologies). I would not be surprized if there were some little faults hidden in the XBox just because it's that complex of a device, and it isn't of much merit for people to run in and claim that their Pong machine never crashed.
Okay, are you writing comments to yourself? This comment just seems a little bit bizarre. However I agree that the "troll" modding is just lame, but then again that's why, as Homer says, democracy doesn't work.
31357 is a pretty cool uid and is almost is the desired 31337 (is there a 31337 out there that actually uses their account?)
Seriously though cynicism and critical hindsight is pretty easy to find these days. I'd respect the book much better if it were released 3 years ago. The sad thing is that the same people who today are bemoaning the terrible lack of planning and logic behind the net revolution (or alternately talking about how obvious the tech crash was to anyone with half a brain, which means most of you [bwahahahaha]) were the same people who were pimping the bubble or writing the next "How to e-volize your business!".
This makes no sense. On one hand I think "While maybe it's a classic Slashdot slam at patents?", but in this case the innovators are the students, rather than the professors, so...it just makes no sense.
Obviously very few of the people on here are going to have better sources than the news media themselves, so if you're coming here looking for the final say in the news... People are relaying what each of the different news outlets are saying, and if those outlets are giving false info: Well don't blame the messenger. However I'd rather get all the information than "Wait until tomorrow when we have everything sorted out".
Of course this is all ignoring the fact that most high speed standards in the electronics field are developed for the low end consumer market and then filtrate up, rather than the other way around that you seem to believe. The other humorous thing is the fact that I can search on Google or Google Groups and find countless articles comparing AGP with PCI, PCI-X, 3GIO, and Infiniband : Crazy me talking about the PC (when the PC would be the marketplace that will almost certainly drive the financing and implementation of the standard).
Of course your message was completely stupid in the first place. Why is it that so many people on slashdot look at every technology as though the PC is the only important system on the planet?
Well gosh, I'm sorry to not live up to your standards oh-wise Guru. Let me quote from the story:
They provide bandwidth in multiples of that offered by PCI...
In case you're not aware, PCI is an intra-PC communications standard, hence the story set the tone by specifically putting it in context fuckwad. Do yourself a favour and get some context wanker.
What is the killer application for these technologies? Seriously though it is largely irrelevant if you drop the best of the best video card on a AGP4x slot versus an AGP1x, because the extra-bandwidth largely isn't necessary. What would be the killer application that would encourage us to replace our architectures with it?
I got this in my inbox at yesterday at 9:14pm (EST). If you really care about security with Windows machines look at this page, specifically that mailing list service.
So, using your example, you apparently would advocate that poor people infected with TB should not be given antibiotics. After all, it was probably their unhygenic lifestyle that led to them getting the disease in the first place.
No matter how heartless it makes me, in some situations yes, people should be denied medicine. If a peoples refused to exercise proper hygeine and disease control, and you haven't controlled that FIRST, then handing out meds as a free-for-all will kill the planet. Medicine is not magic, and nature always comes back and wins, so you have to fight the battle really carefully, and the fool who runs in with a box of vancomicin is dooming the entire planet Earth because their short-term perception of what is "right" is horribly, horribly wrong.
In any case my perspective has never been "Don't help the Africans" or "don't help poor people". Instead my perspective is that the myopic little fantasy land that some people think the world is is a very, very dangerous thing (presuming they were in a position of power, but thankfully they seldom are, and when they leave high school they generally get a little wiser).
Funny, I didn't know I had a CD-Rom in my computer
Bwahahahahahaha. This is too funny. Yes you represent the majority of computer users who of course don't have CD-ROMs in their computer. Funny but I would say that, oh, > 99.9% of the users reading this right now DO have a CD-ROM in their computer. How unbelievably asinine.
And it's a whole lot easier to search, "Dave Matthews Band Crash" or the 5 other songs on that CD that I really like, and download in a few minutes than rip.
How utterly ridiculous. On my PC with a utility like MusicMatch it takes about 2 minutes to rip an entire CD (including searching out and using the track names, or subdirectory storying them appropriately), and you're claiming that searching for, and then downloading (and of course dealing with the rips that have clicks, received email sounds, or that are just mistitled), is faster. There's no beating a logical genius like you.
It's like space travel. No company is going to invest in something like Mars probes, Voyager, etc. So the government does. And it benefits society as a whole, pushes us forward. Some things are better done, or can only be done, by the government. Research into diseases where medicine wouldn't be profitable is one such area. Space travel is another. The military is another. Private companies can not fill every need in a society.
I could not agree more. You see the difference in this whole argument that has been occuring is that people like to look to the creations of a private company and say "Gosh, that should be free for everyone!" rather than saying "Yes, I'm willing, as a taxpayer, to invest $5 billion in the research and investigation of a cure for Malaria.". It's the armchair world saviour that I'm getting a good laugh out of on here (all of whom I'm guessing have never given a penny to any charities, and they're busy saving up for their new crucial-to-survival Ti500 video card), so righteously willing to erode the rights of others because it's so convenient for them.
Capitalism is great for any number of things: making cars, toasters, computers, and so forth. It's rather lousy at things like space travel, public education, and providing medical services. What I'm saying is that there are human interests where capitalism as a system just plain sucks - on a moral level. it might be the most efficient use of resources, but it sure as hell isn't the most ethical.
Wow you really missed the point. The whole point is that idealists, such as yourself (on any other forum but the socialist idealist high school site that Slashdot largely is I would call you a troll), like to take the FRUITS OF CAPITALISM and then rant about the evils of capitalism and how those fruits should be free. The pure idiocity of it absolutely blows my mind. BTW: While NASA is the US spending power, in reality the overwhelming majority of space travel enabling technologies are the result of capitalist countries fighting with each other for a chance to get some of that NASA money.
Hilarious, since the U.S. has never had socialized medicine or drug development, and comparing it to other countries with lesser resources is an exercise in stupidity.
How about China? The former Soviet Union? Both of them hypothetically have similar resources, unless of course you feel that the advantage that the US gained through the judicious use of capitalism is unfair? (oh the irony...)
And then there's that other type of person in this apparently clearly defined, fantasy world that you live in:
The dickhead armchair psychologist that defends a network that is STATISTICALLY KNOWN to be almost entirely comprised of thieving assholes, pretending that no, that's just everyone's imagination: Instead it's a bunch of moral freedom fighters with their garage bands and "Grabbing MP3s of CDs they already own" (>coughcough
Your logic is so ridiculous. If what you are saying is true, I guess all AIDS drugs are just pointless, because lifestyle changes are the way to fix the problem, and because drug-resistant strains develop. Oh, but you don't mean that to apply to everyone. Just poor Africans.
Just the Africans? Who said that? Rather: If it's a humanitarian effort then go for the low hanging fruit first that yields the most success. In case you're not aware, that is how the AIDS epidemic in North America was levelled off and is now receeding. Again I guess it's the difference between true compassion and fake compassion.
Let me give you another example: Hypothetically we would all be healthier if Doctors just gave us a prescription for Vancomicin (a antimicrobial) once a month, and we merrily take our pills and have no worries about getting infections, lung infections, etc (things that kills 10s or 100s of thousands of North Americans yearly). Sounds ideal doesn't it? What a moral hero you would be to advocate the free giving of such drugs to all the people's of this world. Oh but wait: Suddenly a vancomicin resistant strain of TB appears (because it's proportionate with the usage : Nature is always trying to fight back, and odds say that the more people that you make an experiment, the more that nature will win in) and within two months it's circled the globe and we all fuxxored and have absolutely no cure. Therein lies the difference between the illogical compassionate, and the reasonable person that in the end means far better.
Gnutella is an inferior P2P implementation, that has been easily proven by example time and time again. I use Morpheus, and often download legitimate CDs
Until, of course, the RIAA goes in and pulls the centralized plug.
IF I buy the CD, I have rights to the MP3. Therefor your statistic of MP3 trading is skewed, because you are assuming that everyone is trading illegitimately.
So let me get this straight: You have the CD, and could drop it in your drive and go "rip CD" and have perfect quality at the bitrate that you want with perfect labels and everything, but rather you go hunting through Morpheus for them....Alrighty. BTW: How much can you sell me the Golden Gate bridge for?
Actually we still have freedom of speech in this country, so it is my right.
Sorry I would have better phrased that as "It isn't your right to dictate what they can do". Sorry for the confusion.
And my point was not that they shouldn't be allowed to make such drugs, but that your characterization of drug companies as some force of good in the world is absurd. Drug companies are about profit and profit alone. If their most profitable course of action was to release anthrax into the water supply and then sell everyone a cure, they'd do it.
Ah yes the Slashdot anti-business belief that businesses are evil entities run by evil cyborg villains (rather than people like you and me just making a living in a little niche in this world). Having said that as I stated previously, I ABSOLUTELY AGREE. Drug companies are 100% about profits, and that is a-okay by me: It's the best system we've got, and if you can show me a socialist model that worked better I'd love to see it.
And exactly who the fuck is saying this? Not me. The drug companies don't have to provide any drugs for free(and please show some information that they do...), all they have to do is let countries too poor to pay for drugs make them themselves.
I could keep going through the drug companies. The point I am making is that (a) these drugs wouldn't exist without the IP protections that allowed them to be developed, and (b) it isn't your right to tell them what their rights are. I applaud the drug companies for donating these drugs, which wouldn't exist otherwise, to poorer nations.
I am not saying the drug companies don't have a right to make a profit. I am saying that when you have on the one hand a tiny financial gain for mega-corps, and on the other a massive gain in quality and quantity of human life, it's pretty damn sickening to hear someone argue the pro-pharm side.
Again I am for what works, not just what "seems" like the right solution. I guess it's the old "illusion of XYZ" thing (see the "illusion of safety" after the World Trade Center). It's ironic that in some countries in Africa they still believe that having unprotected sex with a virgin gets rid of AIDS, and you're telling me that the solution to improve the quantity and quality of life is to give them all free drugs (drugs which some strains become resistant to, hence it becomes a serious risk to the world in societies with 80%+ AIDS infection rates)?
No, drug companies have 100s of thousands of people working day in and day out to make the drug companies a massive amount of money. They are a corporation, not some fucking humanitarian group.
Totally completely agree! Indeed that's my POINT. My point is that the machinations of the capitalist IP protecting system is what has sprouted an incredible array of life improving drugs.
If the purpose of the drug companies is to help people live longer, why do they spend so much more in R&D working on a cure for baldness than malaria?
Because they have free will, and if you want to start a drug company to cure malaria: Go nuts! A cure for baldness, or a drug to make a guy's dick hard improve quality of life, and it isn't your right to tell them if it's right or not.
BTW, if you pay with tax dollars instead, the benefits would be that:
a) money could be directed towards the most public good, not the most profit
b) it could actually cost less than with a corporation, because you wouldn't be paying the 40% that is just profit into stockholder's pockets
Wow. Do you honestly, sincerely believe that the government would be effective at creating drugs?
Personally I think this whole argument is bullshit. People in Africa can't pay for the drugs in the first place. It's not as if by letting those countries ignore the patents the pharm corps will lose tons of money. Africa is what? 1, 2% of their total revenue?
Actually, the drug companies ARE providing billions of dollars worth of drugs for free. The problem is that idealistic IDIOTS take that a step further, claiming that all drugs should be free: Everyone on Slashdot feels that they have the right to not only choose their own IP rights, but to choose the IP rights of others. It's a lot like the hilarity of the open source business model.
-Make open source software
-???
-Tonnes of money!
Instead in these clowns minds it's
-????
-????
-Free drugs for everyone!
Fuck you people's after-the-fact attempts to justify what is essentially murder. They can save people's lives without lifting a god damn finger: just let the countries make the drug for themselves.
Unbelievable. Tell me: How much money have you donated to Africa? I mean REALLY. If you're not living in a box on the side of the road, donating 95% of your income (presuming you have one) to Africa, then you are a MURDERER. Do you understand that? Do you realize that instead of having McDonalds you could have fed 3 starving children in Africa? I'm 100% serious. If you don't live a life of pure squalor (what the hell are you doing on the Internet hanging around on Slashdot, apparently with a COMPUTER for God's sake? Go save some lives!) then you have absolutely NO GROUND TO STAND ON.
The basic fact of the matter is that some people care more about the right of the drug companies to make massive profits than the right of some poor African to continue living. And that is just repulsive.
What a moral high-grounder. It must be tough looking at all those bastards, being so righteous as you are, eh? The basic fact of the matter is that socialist clown idealists like to takes the fruits of an IP-protecting world and pretend like it came as a gift from no-where, created out of nothing by goodwill ambassadors. People like me realize that most of the drugs that these idiots are saying should be free exist ONLY because people like me have defended the rights of IP holders in the past. It's the difference between someone who knows the difference between fantasy land and reality.
Hey I actually think the patent expiry system works quite nicely, however the downside is that for a short while drugs are quite expensive, and the people who benefit from them are the one's who'll rant about how they should be free, etc. It's the chasm between reality and idealism, and on Slashdot you sure will find a lot of idealism.
Before you come up with bullshit ass-figures of %99.99.. and your famed collection of pop garbage why don't you try utilizing the service a bit and realize it isn't just a big web of theft.
The biggest problem with most fanaticists and their opposition is seldom do facts and reason get used; only word of mouth and half-informed opinions.
Sorry but I see actual reality, rather than the world through rose tinted glasses. Here's a little clue: Download LimeWire (or any other Gnutella client) and turn on the monitor to see what people are searching for. Wait an hour and amongst the "japanese porn rape" you'll see them intermixed with pop drivel. Of course Napster, which we were largely talking about, WAS ONLY MP3s, so you didn't have the 60% "legal" porn P2P, but rather then it was just enormously copyright infringement.
Slashdot Mirror
if I am buying a console today, I would hopr it would be 110% of a gaming machine since that is why I am buying the damn thing
Well you do need power for other things like putting real AI in drivers in GTA4.
I think the grafics in the PS2 stomp the graphics in a gaming PC with the GF3. games run smooth on PS2, the look good
I respectfully disagree. What resolution does the PS2 normally run at when connected to a TV? I know that lots of people foolishly compare a console game running a 512x384 or whatever with a PC running at 1024x768, ignoring the fact that the PC is pushing >4x as many pixels. In any case I have yet to see a stunning game on the PS2, whereas on a GF3 running at high rez something like Quake 3 (yup it still rocks with every feature turned on) roxxors. Operation Flashpoint offers graphics, AI and features that consoles can only dream of.
While GTA3 is a pretty impressive game, really how long can it carry a system for? I've never actually played it but merely read reviews, but it seems like the kind of game that would get tiring really quickly (i.e. I've read the AI players aren't AI at all: They're on rails doing the exact same thing every time. Coming from games like F1 2000 CS I would find that unbearable).
This situation really is a riot because technically the Xbox absolutely stomps the PS2 (and it demolishes the Nintendo. Despite the ramblings that they are "equal" on the Salon article, the reality is that graphics power is 95% of a game machine, and the graphics power in the Xbox brutalizes the Nintendo. That's ignoring the 3d audio processors, etc.) so it's just a matter of killer games (and some reviews have been falling overthemselves to proclaim Halo the best game ever, so perhaps it already has one). Now wait just one minute...where was that last time I heard that argument? Why it was with the PS/2 launch! For those with selective memories, the PS/2 launched with a pile of shit games, and only recently got a "killer game" by way of GTA3.
And on top of that, software faults are generally in direct proportion to the complexity of the software (barring some revolutionary software development technologies). I would not be surprized if there were some little faults hidden in the XBox just because it's that complex of a device, and it isn't of much merit for people to run in and claim that their Pong machine never crashed.
Okay, are you writing comments to yourself? This comment just seems a little bit bizarre. However I agree that the "troll" modding is just lame, but then again that's why, as Homer says, democracy doesn't work.
31357 is a pretty cool uid and is almost is the desired 31337 (is there a 31337 out there that actually uses their account?)
Seriously though cynicism and critical hindsight is pretty easy to find these days. I'd respect the book much better if it were released 3 years ago. The sad thing is that the same people who today are bemoaning the terrible lack of planning and logic behind the net revolution (or alternately talking about how obvious the tech crash was to anyone with half a brain, which means most of you [bwahahahaha]) were the same people who were pimping the bubble or writing the next "How to e-volize your business!".
This makes no sense. On one hand I think "While maybe it's a classic Slashdot slam at patents?", but in this case the innovators are the students, rather than the professors, so...it just makes no sense.
Obviously very few of the people on here are going to have better sources than the news media themselves, so if you're coming here looking for the final say in the news... People are relaying what each of the different news outlets are saying, and if those outlets are giving false info: Well don't blame the messenger. However I'd rather get all the information than "Wait until tomorrow when we have everything sorted out".
Of course this is all ignoring the fact that most high speed standards in the electronics field are developed for the low end consumer market and then filtrate up, rather than the other way around that you seem to believe. The other humorous thing is the fact that I can search on Google or Google Groups and find countless articles comparing AGP with PCI, PCI-X, 3GIO, and Infiniband : Crazy me talking about the PC (when the PC would be the marketplace that will almost certainly drive the financing and implementation of the standard).
Of course your message was completely stupid in the first place. Why is it that so many people on slashdot look at every technology as though the PC is the only important system on the planet?
Well gosh, I'm sorry to not live up to your standards oh-wise Guru. Let me quote from the story:
They provide bandwidth in multiples of that offered by PCI...
In case you're not aware, PCI is an intra-PC communications standard, hence the story set the tone by specifically putting it in context fuckwad. Do yourself a favour and get some context wanker.
What is the killer application for these technologies? Seriously though it is largely irrelevant if you drop the best of the best video card on a AGP4x slot versus an AGP1x, because the extra-bandwidth largely isn't necessary. What would be the killer application that would encourage us to replace our architectures with it?
I got this in my inbox at yesterday at 9:14pm (EST). If you really care about security with Windows machines look at this page, specifically that mailing list service.
So, using your example, you apparently would advocate that poor people infected with TB should not be given antibiotics. After all, it was probably their unhygenic lifestyle that led to them getting the disease in the first place.
No matter how heartless it makes me, in some situations yes, people should be denied medicine. If a peoples refused to exercise proper hygeine and disease control, and you haven't controlled that FIRST, then handing out meds as a free-for-all will kill the planet. Medicine is not magic, and nature always comes back and wins, so you have to fight the battle really carefully, and the fool who runs in with a box of vancomicin is dooming the entire planet Earth because their short-term perception of what is "right" is horribly, horribly wrong.
In any case my perspective has never been "Don't help the Africans" or "don't help poor people". Instead my perspective is that the myopic little fantasy land that some people think the world is is a very, very dangerous thing (presuming they were in a position of power, but thankfully they seldom are, and when they leave high school they generally get a little wiser).
Funny, I didn't know I had a CD-Rom in my computer
Bwahahahahahaha. This is too funny. Yes you represent the majority of computer users who of course don't have CD-ROMs in their computer. Funny but I would say that, oh, > 99.9% of the users reading this right now DO have a CD-ROM in their computer. How unbelievably asinine.
And it's a whole lot easier to search, "Dave Matthews Band Crash" or the 5 other songs on that CD that I really like, and download in a few minutes than rip.
How utterly ridiculous. On my PC with a utility like MusicMatch it takes about 2 minutes to rip an entire CD (including searching out and using the track names, or subdirectory storying them appropriately), and you're claiming that searching for, and then downloading (and of course dealing with the rips that have clicks, received email sounds, or that are just mistitled), is faster. There's no beating a logical genius like you.
Go read a book.
Uh...okay.
Ha! I didn't even notice that. That's hilarious. Damn < symbol!
It's like space travel. No company is going to invest in something like Mars probes, Voyager, etc. So the government does. And it benefits society as a whole, pushes us forward. Some things are better done, or can only be done, by the government. Research into diseases where medicine wouldn't be profitable is one such area. Space travel is another. The military is another. Private companies can not fill every need in a society.
I could not agree more. You see the difference in this whole argument that has been occuring is that people like to look to the creations of a private company and say "Gosh, that should be free for everyone!" rather than saying "Yes, I'm willing, as a taxpayer, to invest $5 billion in the research and investigation of a cure for Malaria.". It's the armchair world saviour that I'm getting a good laugh out of on here (all of whom I'm guessing have never given a penny to any charities, and they're busy saving up for their new crucial-to-survival Ti500 video card), so righteously willing to erode the rights of others because it's so convenient for them.
Capitalism is great for any number of things: making cars, toasters, computers, and so forth. It's rather lousy at things like space travel, public education, and providing medical services. What I'm saying is that there are human interests where capitalism as a system just plain sucks - on a moral level. it might be the most efficient use of resources, but it sure as hell isn't the most ethical.
Wow you really missed the point. The whole point is that idealists, such as yourself (on any other forum but the socialist idealist high school site that Slashdot largely is I would call you a troll), like to take the FRUITS OF CAPITALISM and then rant about the evils of capitalism and how those fruits should be free. The pure idiocity of it absolutely blows my mind. BTW: While NASA is the US spending power, in reality the overwhelming majority of space travel enabling technologies are the result of capitalist countries fighting with each other for a chance to get some of that NASA money.
Hilarious, since the U.S. has never had socialized medicine or drug development, and comparing it to other countries with lesser resources is an exercise in stupidity.
How about China? The former Soviet Union? Both of them hypothetically have similar resources, unless of course you feel that the advantage that the US gained through the judicious use of capitalism is unfair? (oh the irony...)
And then there's that other type of person in this apparently clearly defined, fantasy world that you live in:
Your logic is so ridiculous. If what you are saying is true, I guess all AIDS drugs are just pointless, because lifestyle changes are the way to fix the problem, and because drug-resistant strains develop. Oh, but you don't mean that to apply to everyone. Just poor Africans.
Just the Africans? Who said that? Rather: If it's a humanitarian effort then go for the low hanging fruit first that yields the most success. In case you're not aware, that is how the AIDS epidemic in North America was levelled off and is now receeding. Again I guess it's the difference between true compassion and fake compassion.
Let me give you another example: Hypothetically we would all be healthier if Doctors just gave us a prescription for Vancomicin (a antimicrobial) once a month, and we merrily take our pills and have no worries about getting infections, lung infections, etc (things that kills 10s or 100s of thousands of North Americans yearly). Sounds ideal doesn't it? What a moral hero you would be to advocate the free giving of such drugs to all the people's of this world. Oh but wait: Suddenly a vancomicin resistant strain of TB appears (because it's proportionate with the usage : Nature is always trying to fight back, and odds say that the more people that you make an experiment, the more that nature will win in) and within two months it's circled the globe and we all fuxxored and have absolutely no cure. Therein lies the difference between the illogical compassionate, and the reasonable person that in the end means far better.
Gnutella is an inferior P2P implementation, that has been easily proven by example time and time again. I use Morpheus, and often download legitimate CDs
Until, of course, the RIAA goes in and pulls the centralized plug.
IF I buy the CD, I have rights to the MP3. Therefor your statistic of MP3 trading is skewed, because you are assuming that everyone is trading illegitimately.
So let me get this straight: You have the CD, and could drop it in your drive and go "rip CD" and have perfect quality at the bitrate that you want with perfect labels and everything, but rather you go hunting through Morpheus for them....Alrighty. BTW: How much can you sell me the Golden Gate bridge for?
Actually we still have freedom of speech in this country, so it is my right.
Sorry I would have better phrased that as "It isn't your right to dictate what they can do". Sorry for the confusion.
And my point was not that they shouldn't be allowed to make such drugs, but that your characterization of drug companies as some force of good in the world is absurd. Drug companies are about profit and profit alone. If their most profitable course of action was to release anthrax into the water supply and then sell everyone a cure, they'd do it.
Ah yes the Slashdot anti-business belief that businesses are evil entities run by evil cyborg villains (rather than people like you and me just making a living in a little niche in this world). Having said that as I stated previously, I ABSOLUTELY AGREE. Drug companies are 100% about profits, and that is a-okay by me: It's the best system we've got, and if you can show me a socialist model that worked better I'd love to see it.
And exactly who the fuck is saying this? Not me. The drug companies don't have to provide any drugs for free(and please show some information that they do...), all they have to do is let countries too poor to pay for drugs make them themselves.
Pfizer
Lilly
I could keep going through the drug companies. The point I am making is that (a) these drugs wouldn't exist without the IP protections that allowed them to be developed, and (b) it isn't your right to tell them what their rights are. I applaud the drug companies for donating these drugs, which wouldn't exist otherwise, to poorer nations.
I am not saying the drug companies don't have a right to make a profit. I am saying that when you have on the one hand a tiny financial gain for mega-corps, and on the other a massive gain in quality and quantity of human life, it's pretty damn sickening to hear someone argue the pro-pharm side.
Again I am for what works, not just what "seems" like the right solution. I guess it's the old "illusion of XYZ" thing (see the "illusion of safety" after the World Trade Center). It's ironic that in some countries in Africa they still believe that having unprotected sex with a virgin gets rid of AIDS, and you're telling me that the solution to improve the quantity and quality of life is to give them all free drugs (drugs which some strains become resistant to, hence it becomes a serious risk to the world in societies with 80%+ AIDS infection rates)?
No, drug companies have 100s of thousands of people working day in and day out to make the drug companies a massive amount of money. They are a corporation, not some fucking humanitarian group.
Totally completely agree! Indeed that's my POINT. My point is that the machinations of the capitalist IP protecting system is what has sprouted an incredible array of life improving drugs.
If the purpose of the drug companies is to help people live longer, why do they spend so much more in R&D working on a cure for baldness than malaria?
Because they have free will, and if you want to start a drug company to cure malaria: Go nuts! A cure for baldness, or a drug to make a guy's dick hard improve quality of life, and it isn't your right to tell them if it's right or not.
BTW, if you pay with tax dollars instead, the benefits would be that: a) money could be directed towards the most public good, not the most profit b) it could actually cost less than with a corporation, because you wouldn't be paying the 40% that is just profit into stockholder's pockets
Wow. Do you honestly, sincerely believe that the government would be effective at creating drugs?
Personally I think this whole argument is bullshit. People in Africa can't pay for the drugs in the first place. It's not as if by letting those countries ignore the patents the pharm corps will lose tons of money. Africa is what? 1, 2% of their total revenue?
Actually, the drug companies ARE providing billions of dollars worth of drugs for free. The problem is that idealistic IDIOTS take that a step further, claiming that all drugs should be free: Everyone on Slashdot feels that they have the right to not only choose their own IP rights, but to choose the IP rights of others. It's a lot like the hilarity of the open source business model.
-Make open source software
-???
-Tonnes of money!
Instead in these clowns minds it's
-????
-???? -Free drugs for everyone!
Fuck you people's after-the-fact attempts to justify what is essentially murder. They can save people's lives without lifting a god damn finger: just let the countries make the drug for themselves.
Unbelievable. Tell me: How much money have you donated to Africa? I mean REALLY. If you're not living in a box on the side of the road, donating 95% of your income (presuming you have one) to Africa, then you are a MURDERER. Do you understand that? Do you realize that instead of having McDonalds you could have fed 3 starving children in Africa? I'm 100% serious. If you don't live a life of pure squalor (what the hell are you doing on the Internet hanging around on Slashdot, apparently with a COMPUTER for God's sake? Go save some lives!) then you have absolutely NO GROUND TO STAND ON.
The basic fact of the matter is that some people care more about the right of the drug companies to make massive profits than the right of some poor African to continue living. And that is just repulsive.
What a moral high-grounder. It must be tough looking at all those bastards, being so righteous as you are, eh? The basic fact of the matter is that socialist clown idealists like to takes the fruits of an IP-protecting world and pretend like it came as a gift from no-where, created out of nothing by goodwill ambassadors. People like me realize that most of the drugs that these idiots are saying should be free exist ONLY because people like me have defended the rights of IP holders in the past. It's the difference between someone who knows the difference between fantasy land and reality.
Hey I actually think the patent expiry system works quite nicely, however the downside is that for a short while drugs are quite expensive, and the people who benefit from them are the one's who'll rant about how they should be free, etc. It's the chasm between reality and idealism, and on Slashdot you sure will find a lot of idealism.
Before you come up with bullshit ass-figures of %99.99.. and your famed collection of pop garbage why don't you try utilizing the service a bit and realize it isn't just a big web of theft. The biggest problem with most fanaticists and their opposition is seldom do facts and reason get used; only word of mouth and half-informed opinions.
Sorry but I see actual reality, rather than the world through rose tinted glasses. Here's a little clue: Download LimeWire (or any other Gnutella client) and turn on the monitor to see what people are searching for. Wait an hour and amongst the "japanese porn rape" you'll see them intermixed with pop drivel. Of course Napster, which we were largely talking about, WAS ONLY MP3s, so you didn't have the 60% "legal" porn P2P, but rather then it was just enormously copyright infringement.