There are many state and federal felonies that basically negate your rights under the Constitution. For instance, this kid may never be allowed to leave the country. He may never be allowed to vote. So, giving the government a DNA sample may be a moot point. I will agree that the govt. having a DNA sample of any citizen is scary beyond belief, for a myriad of reasons, but convicted felons aren't exactly citizens anymore.
Yes, "doping" or should I say "duping" (?), an ass load of packages with CDs and DVDs would certainly be an interesting DDoS attack on these dogs. That would be some funny stuff!
I can see it now, "Hey, everybody who has a friend in the UK, send them a FedEx package with two to three blank DVDs or CDs in it on May XX." Would be hi-larious!
Shipping any illegal product violates many federal and international laws. Basically, what the MPAA has done is provide funding and support to research new ways of cracking down on offenders, thus steering (with money) the priorities of agencies that SHOULD be looking out for things a Hell of a lot more dangerous than counterfeit DVDs! Don't ask me what the heck the dogs are using as a trigger. Might be the smell of the polymer substrate material, because if it was the dye used the dogs wouldn't get false positives from manufactured DVDs. If it is the substrate, then they can probably sniff out the CDs as well, and the RIAA will be happy for that.
Legally, they have grounds to search given "probable cause", i.e., the reaction of the dogs to a package, but morally and ethically (morals and ethics being the foundations of law) they may be on shaky ground. This whole deal with the RIAA and MPAA is purely, and unquestionably driven by greed and an unwillingness to adapt business models to changes in consumer needs/wants. This is still going to be a long battle.
Being a current cancer patient (Hodgkin's), this research looks very promising. Let's hope someone fast tracks this research with some good money and facilities. Chemo sucks!
But, you can't have it both ways. Double standards NEVER work. Let's remember that in a democracy, in theory, the government *IS* the people. If the people want regulations put on this industry (like we already regulate others for consumer protection issues) then that's what will be done. This isn't a monopoly situation, but it certainly could turn into a cartel situation, much like the RIAA and music. If the people don't get involved and make the legislation, the corporations will and the people will get screwed! I don't want to be screwed, you don't want to be screwed. So, instead of making a blanket "Butt out government" statement, maybe take a step back and look at the bigger picture here. Read some more history, and look at what's going on here. Unless, you work for or own stock in one of these big providers you have NOTHING to gain from this situation and everything to lose, if they have their way.
Wait a minute...I've been trying to figure this out, and I think it boils down to this (mod me down if I'm wrong):
The big guy providers that supply backbone bandwidth are losing money because the local ISPs are raking in cash for services locally that cost more anyway because the last mile is the really expensive part. The big guys are seeing a disparity in what they are charging for bandwidth and what the local guys are getting in their cut. This disparity is causing them to rethink how they charge for bandwidth, and one model they are using is to tier pricing based on not only bandwidth, but types of services as well (bits not being just bits), i.e., QoS, packet scheduling, etc. based on the type of customer, not just the categories of business and home.
Is that right? So, what we have here is a big fat pity party where everyone and their grab ass brother is trying to get into the "screw the end user" game so they can make more money? Wow, they're all turning into the RIAA and the petroleum companies!!! Thank you "W" you giant f**k-wad!
I get what you're trying to say, but your analogies are WAY off. The truck one in particular.
This argument of "Net Neutrality" is very similar to what the RIAA is wanting to do with iTunes with a tiered pricing model. But, the markets and the services provided are very different. The communications providers (and they're not all telcos) are trying to find a way to leverage their profits by taxing heavy bandwidth users even further than they already are. This I find very confusing, because as the service model stands now, you get what you pay for. I pay "X" dollars a month for a DSL connection at "Y" speed, and the business I work for pays "10*X" for "20*Y" speed (there are economies of scale). What the providers seem to be saying now is that not all bits are the same. If the business I work for wants to do more than push simple data across the connection they want to charge more? Huh? Bits is bits! If I want QoS and packet scheduling so I can do video on demand or VoIP there are some hardware costs associated with that, as well as support, but that really shouldn't affect the bottom line as much as the providers seemingly wanting to charge. Am I getting this right? They, the providers, seem to be claiming that bits are not just bits and that Google's bits, because they're doing things that others aren't with their "Y" bandwidth, should pay more than some other guy just pushing bits with the same "Y" bandwidth.
I call shenanigans if that's truly the case. The arguments are all kind of nebulous right now, I haven't been able to find any good documentation on what's really going on here, just pieces and veiled reasons. I'm gonna do some more research, but what I wrote above seems to be what's going on. There also seems to be some pissing and moaning about traffic crossing over other providers' networks. Seems a bit fishy to me as well.
I think what we're seeing is the initial stages of something that I've postulated for some time. Much like the RIAA losing the war to keep an obsolete business model, the providers seem to think they're missing out on profits because their business model sucks and are playing a similar game. The only ones to lose in this battle are the individual end users like you and me. We get screwed because these big guys won't compromise and they pass on the financial burden for these arguments on to us, the consumers. Nice! Hence, the people (who are the government in a democracy; in theory) are trying to legislate the industry. What a mess!
After reading the paper and contemplating some issues, I do believe a microkernel-like approach is favorable for what Tanenbaum wants to focus on; reliability and security. I say "microkernel-like" because micro is a relative term when you think about the growing complexity of applications and devices a modern operating system has to deal with. I think his TV analogy falls flat on its face UNLESS you are willing to tailor individual operating system distributions to vertical markets. This is not at all practical in the open-source/FOSS space, and even less so in the commercial OS space. Who wants to write different kernels and services for every possible use a mixed set of hardware and software could be put to? His more reliable and secure consumer product examples are just that, embedded and highly specialized versions of an operating system. It can be done in the consumer electronics space because the cost of doing this is passed on to the customer and figured into the retail price. Since the OS and the hardware are removed from each other in all but a few cases, i.e. Apple and Mac OS, Sun and Solaris, and the now defunct SGI and IRIX, it is extraordinarily difficult (and costly) to achieve Tanenbaum's goals.
So, to return to the microkernel-like statement, I think that modern OSes *ARE* trying to achieve the goals that Tanenbaum aspires to. The points he brings up *ARE* being addressed in Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. The contention is that they will not happen overnight, and they will only happen faster as more negative feedback is fed into the mechanisms of change, i.e., the project development community or corporate entity doing the work. But, corporate entities in particular have to balance the equation. They can't just sacrifice performance and compatibility for the sole sake of reliability and security. I don't believe that Tanenbaum would disagree with that point. We are seeing more compartmentalization (modularization if you will) within the structure of most OS kernels. I think his wrapper idea for device drivers has merit. Personally, I'd rather see a common driver framework developed for categories of devices to help minimize the number of driver specific wrappers that would need to be created manually (455 seems like a tremendously large number). Virtualization is growing in popularity in the IT community at large. I think there are some huge benefits to this that will alter OS development in the future, the near future for some things. His two more holistic approaches are novel. I think the Multiserver approach may have more of a chance than the Laguage-Based approach, but time will tell which theory takes hold in practice, or if a new or hybrid approach may emerge.
All-in-all a good read and definitely thought and discussion provoking.
Mars atmosphere is quite a bit thinner than Earth's; about one percent as thick to be exact. A simple Google search would have told you this: http://starryskies.com/solar_system/mars/martian_a tmosphere.html Plus, Mars atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide (95 percent) which would suffocate a person in a short period of time.
The type of writing that garners the most interest from young minds is creative writing rather than the more mundane technical or analytical types. These are engineers. They need to be able to abstract and yet be "technically" correct.
Writing assignments that start with a foundation, akin to how Sean Connery's character in Finding Forrester helped his apprentice stir his creative juices, can be really effective. I remember quite clearly an English teacher I had in eighth grade that would give us assignments like that. He would start us off with a paragraph setting a scene or introducing a character and we would have to take the story forward from there. Obviously, there are some additional parameters that you as the instructor can wrap around the assignment, but the concept is something that works well for a mixed audience of students.
Oh, and you forgot to mention how Elvis being 71 years old gives him a tactical advantage. Who wants to beat up the old guy looking through a file cabinet?
Given what you said as being the MPAA/RIAA perceived reality, you cannot categorize theft as lost revenue simply because it cannot be accurately quantified. For them to call it loss is simply FRAUD! If theft could be accounted for on any company's balance sheet, regardless of what business they were in, no company on the planet would declare itself profitable. I'm sorry, but you can't commit a crime (fraud) to fight a crime (theft/piracy), and THAT is the bullshit thing they are getting away with.
I'm not saying that loss isn't something that appears on a balance sheet, it does. Loss can include products (real ones) that have been damaged, destroyed, or returned, BUT NOT STOLEN unless you have documented proof of theft, i.e., witnesses, a police report, and that the item(s) were not recovered. Even then, you cannot apply the retail or street value to the item in the accounting, you have to declare the cost that the company paid for the item itself; not any amortized costs like production (i.e., studio time, wages, etc.) and the like, that's supposed to be in the actual cost not the retail value. In the case of CDs and DVDs, that actual cost is something under $5.00USD each (single disc price), not the $12.99, $19.99, or higher that would be charged at the sales counter. Claiming retail values for loss due to theft is also FRAUD because the company did not lose the retail value of the item, because it did not pay that cost for the item.
Ok, one thing that I know has not appeared in the threads yet, is that Boot Camp is "Public Beta" software. It says so right in the header graphic of the page, http://www.vbc.vt.edu/SystemX_pgs/SystemX_md.html
To point out its limitations as intentional and say that it's some conspiracy against Windows users to get them to switch is a bit thin. Especially, when there is talk that Apple has revived the "Red Box" component from the Rhapsody development days (pre-Mac OS X), and the "Yellow Box for Windows". The Red Box was supposed to be a complete set of Windows APIs built for Mac OS X that would allow any Windows application to run natively without emulation or virtualization. The Yellow Box for Windows is the exact opposite. It is the complete set of Cocoa/Carbon APIs for Windows so that any Mac OS X application would run natively under Windows.
This development effort would require a great deal of cooperation between the two companies, I know. I also know that the two haven't exactly been friendly lately (and the new Apple ads don't help that cause). BUT, there is significant advantage in the marketplace for both companies to work toward the Red Box for Mac OS X and Yellow Box for Windows. Why? It would possibly increase the number of Mac hardware sales and it would certainly increase the number of Windows licenses for Microsoft. One other thing it does is to finally do away with two versions of applications. Developers for the Mac could now choose to use EITHER development environment they were comfortable in (Xcode/Mac OS X or Windows.Net) and produce a single binary that would run everywhere. Microsoft would stand to gain from that as well, as they could do away with the Mac BU all together. Apple could penetrate into the Windows market with their creative tools (iLife and the Final Cut Studio suite) and stand to make significant inroads in software sales.
Yes, there are some potential bad outcomes as well, I realize. But, the possibilities of such a move are quite enticing. Does Apple want people to switch to their platform? Of course, they believe its better and I happen to agree, but making that transition happen a bit smoother and offering an opportunity to run all the apps you need during the transition is a much better way to entice novice users (i.e., average home PC users). Advanced users will switch or not switch, period. That crowd is pretty resistant to change and there won't be a mass exodus from one platform to another from them...ever.
Your comments are dead on target! What they are trying to quantify is totally unquantifiable and could HARDLY be called "losses" even if it was. If they could estimate movie and music piracy numbers with any kind of accuracy and precision, then they could tell me what companies are going out of business long before they do. We'd all be rich from playing the stock market full of only winners, and we'd know who every criminal was in the world! PUH-LEEZ! It's clearly a case of, "We're not making as much money as we think we should, so we're gonna blame anybody but our own poor business practices and shoddy investments," finger pointing bullshit!
1. I applaud the parent poster of this thread for supporting the artist and fucking the record company. Huzzah!
2. The RIAA members are going down the tubes because they are unwilling or unable to adapt their business model (how they do business) to changes in the market (notably the effect of changes in technology), not because of pricing in the existing market. They're arrogant assholes afraid of losing their silk lined pockets paid for by the blood of indentured servants-in the form of recording artists-that have actually worked and scraped to be where they are and have talent that can be appreciated as art. The RIAA members need to learn hard and fast, ADAPT OR DIE!
Actually, your personal example is not really the same thing as the MPAA $6.1 billion. It would be more like, 3com/Palm losing $100,000 because somebody was selling fraudulent shares in the market to you and you still making the money off them by selling them for a profit above the $100,000. Why? Because 3com/Palm didn't realize that capital, but you still profited from the fraudulent shares. That is a more analogous example to what the MPAA is crying foul over. But, again (I said this in an earlier thread above) it's really not "losses" to the MPAA, it's lost sales. BIG difference, and a bit of wah-wah-wah in my opinion. I'm also pretty sure that those numbers are bloated in the MPAA's favor. Why would you pay for and publicize ANY findings to the contrary of your perceived opinion? SHENANIGANS! I say.
Actually, what you've said and a few others in this thread makes no sense whatsoever. This study was commissioned by the Motion Picture Association of AMERICA, the MPAA for the whos at home. So, what you're saying is the MPAA would refuse to sell movies to the market that they exist in? HUH?!?!?! That makes no sense. Plus, they're not losing $1.3 billion by selling movies here, they're losing $1.3 billion dollars from NOT SELLING movies that have been pirated here. It's lost revenue due to the lack of sale, not losses due to sales.
That same John Butler Trio album (all 14 tracks) is $9.90USD at the iTunes music store. So, if it were available when I bought the CD I could have saved some cash, and some gasoline.
Ok, I get CDs from local bands too. Sometimes for free, or for $10 or less. I should have specified, "Bought from a store and not self produced." I also should have specified, "Non-compilation, i.e., single artist CDs." Sure, you can go out and buy compilations of various artist content for less than you would pay for a single album from one of the artists. It's a ploy by the labels to get you to buy the full CD by an artist. Obviously, there are bargains to be found in the market, but they are mostly (not exclusively) outside the mainstream mass market that the labels are counting on for revenue in the first place.
Quick questions for everyone that makes the same comments you just made.
What did you pay for your last physical CD you bought NEW (not used) and how many tracks did it have on it?
I'll give an answer and you can do the math. I live in a small university town in rural southwest Virginia. There are about a dozen or so places that sell CDs within a 15 minute walk or drive, this includes Wal-mart, if you can stomach shopping there.
The last CD I bought was a John Butler Trio album. It was $12.99 and had 14 tracks on it. At the time I bought it, gas was still $1.59 (glorious by today's standard!) a gallon and I probably burned a gallon going to and from where I bought it, so that CD cost me $14.58 for 14 tracks. This is NOT a Billboard Top 40 artist. Those CDs go for anything between the $12.99 to $17.99! and often have only 10 to 12 tracks on them. And, it's those Top 40 tracks the labels are bitching the most about!
Now tell me $0.99 a track is expensive. Also tell me how many albums you own where you like all the tracks on the album? Also, please define what you mean by older? Older, as in the artist is dead. Older, as in the album is greater than or less than "X" number of years old. Where do you draw the line for what is considered old? How would you propose the labels draw the lines?
I just ask these things because I don't think most people have thought this through as thoroughly as the folks at Apple have HAD to to come up with that $0.99 a track number. Sure, Apple wants to make a profit, obvious. But, they also want to help. Let's not forget, Stevie-poo and a lot of his employees and stock holders are BIG music fans as well. They certainly don't want to get ripped off KNOWING a lot more about what's behind the curtain than a lot of people on the street! A buck a song, just ain't that bad for whatever it is you might want.
Interesting idea for limiting infrastructure costs for content delivery. Alleviate the the bandwidth and server burden on the supplier end and leverage the good things in a technology deemed evil by the very content providers (i.e., the RIAA, and MPAA) you are serving. Nice little bit of irony there.
There are a lot of theorists posting, "Why not donate the old machines to [insert education or third-world country here]?"
Well, the answer to that is very simple: Because you are passing the ecological disaster on and not dealing with it. Off the cuff, it sounds like a good idea, however, a developing nation is not going to have the resources to deal with recycling the hand-me-down computers that we passed off to them so we didn't have to properly recycle them.
Let's just properly recycle the old crap and sell them new machines with fewer parts and less of a recycling burden. No one says we have to use the latest and greatest things performance-wise in what is made for them, but dumping our junk on a less fortunate country is just wrong people!
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"Your party" hasn't had credibility since Abraham Lincoln was in office...please. History speaks for itself.
...Adrain may have little rights at all as a convicted felon (on probation to boot).
http://www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/1046.pdf
There are many state and federal felonies that basically negate your rights under the Constitution. For instance, this kid may never be allowed to leave the country. He may never be allowed to vote. So, giving the government a DNA sample may be a moot point. I will agree that the govt. having a DNA sample of any citizen is scary beyond belief, for a myriad of reasons, but convicted felons aren't exactly citizens anymore.
Yes, "doping" or should I say "duping" (?), an ass load of packages with CDs and DVDs would certainly be an interesting DDoS attack on these dogs. That would be some funny stuff!
I can see it now, "Hey, everybody who has a friend in the UK, send them a FedEx package with two to three blank DVDs or CDs in it on May XX." Would be hi-larious!
Shipping any illegal product violates many federal and international laws. Basically, what the MPAA has done is provide funding and support to research new ways of cracking down on offenders, thus steering (with money) the priorities of agencies that SHOULD be looking out for things a Hell of a lot more dangerous than counterfeit DVDs! Don't ask me what the heck the dogs are using as a trigger. Might be the smell of the polymer substrate material, because if it was the dye used the dogs wouldn't get false positives from manufactured DVDs. If it is the substrate, then they can probably sniff out the CDs as well, and the RIAA will be happy for that.
Legally, they have grounds to search given "probable cause", i.e., the reaction of the dogs to a package, but morally and ethically (morals and ethics being the foundations of law) they may be on shaky ground. This whole deal with the RIAA and MPAA is purely, and unquestionably driven by greed and an unwillingness to adapt business models to changes in consumer needs/wants. This is still going to be a long battle.
Being a current cancer patient (Hodgkin's), this research looks very promising. Let's hope someone fast tracks this research with some good money and facilities. Chemo sucks!
But, you can't have it both ways. Double standards NEVER work. Let's remember that in a democracy, in theory, the government *IS* the people. If the people want regulations put on this industry (like we already regulate others for consumer protection issues) then that's what will be done. This isn't a monopoly situation, but it certainly could turn into a cartel situation, much like the RIAA and music. If the people don't get involved and make the legislation, the corporations will and the people will get screwed! I don't want to be screwed, you don't want to be screwed. So, instead of making a blanket "Butt out government" statement, maybe take a step back and look at the bigger picture here. Read some more history, and look at what's going on here. Unless, you work for or own stock in one of these big providers you have NOTHING to gain from this situation and everything to lose, if they have their way.
Wait a minute...I've been trying to figure this out, and I think it boils down to this (mod me down if I'm wrong):
The big guy providers that supply backbone bandwidth are losing money because the local ISPs are raking in cash for services locally that cost more anyway because the last mile is the really expensive part. The big guys are seeing a disparity in what they are charging for bandwidth and what the local guys are getting in their cut. This disparity is causing them to rethink how they charge for bandwidth, and one model they are using is to tier pricing based on not only bandwidth, but types of services as well (bits not being just bits), i.e., QoS, packet scheduling, etc. based on the type of customer, not just the categories of business and home.
Is that right? So, what we have here is a big fat pity party where everyone and their grab ass brother is trying to get into the "screw the end user" game so they can make more money? Wow, they're all turning into the RIAA and the petroleum companies!!! Thank you "W" you giant f**k-wad!
I get what you're trying to say, but your analogies are WAY off. The truck one in particular.
This argument of "Net Neutrality" is very similar to what the RIAA is wanting to do with iTunes with a tiered pricing model. But, the markets and the services provided are very different. The communications providers (and they're not all telcos) are trying to find a way to leverage their profits by taxing heavy bandwidth users even further than they already are. This I find very confusing, because as the service model stands now, you get what you pay for. I pay "X" dollars a month for a DSL connection at "Y" speed, and the business I work for pays "10*X" for "20*Y" speed (there are economies of scale). What the providers seem to be saying now is that not all bits are the same. If the business I work for wants to do more than push simple data across the connection they want to charge more? Huh? Bits is bits! If I want QoS and packet scheduling so I can do video on demand or VoIP there are some hardware costs associated with that, as well as support, but that really shouldn't affect the bottom line as much as the providers seemingly wanting to charge. Am I getting this right? They, the providers, seem to be claiming that bits are not just bits and that Google's bits, because they're doing things that others aren't with their "Y" bandwidth, should pay more than some other guy just pushing bits with the same "Y" bandwidth.
I call shenanigans if that's truly the case. The arguments are all kind of nebulous right now, I haven't been able to find any good documentation on what's really going on here, just pieces and veiled reasons. I'm gonna do some more research, but what I wrote above seems to be what's going on. There also seems to be some pissing and moaning about traffic crossing over other providers' networks. Seems a bit fishy to me as well.
I think what we're seeing is the initial stages of something that I've postulated for some time. Much like the RIAA losing the war to keep an obsolete business model, the providers seem to think they're missing out on profits because their business model sucks and are playing a similar game. The only ones to lose in this battle are the individual end users like you and me. We get screwed because these big guys won't compromise and they pass on the financial burden for these arguments on to us, the consumers. Nice! Hence, the people (who are the government in a democracy; in theory) are trying to legislate the industry. What a mess!
After reading the paper and contemplating some issues, I do believe a microkernel-like approach is favorable for what Tanenbaum wants to focus on; reliability and security. I say "microkernel-like" because micro is a relative term when you think about the growing complexity of applications and devices a modern operating system has to deal with. I think his TV analogy falls flat on its face UNLESS you are willing to tailor individual operating system distributions to vertical markets. This is not at all practical in the open-source/FOSS space, and even less so in the commercial OS space. Who wants to write different kernels and services for every possible use a mixed set of hardware and software could be put to? His more reliable and secure consumer product examples are just that, embedded and highly specialized versions of an operating system. It can be done in the consumer electronics space because the cost of doing this is passed on to the customer and figured into the retail price. Since the OS and the hardware are removed from each other in all but a few cases, i.e. Apple and Mac OS, Sun and Solaris, and the now defunct SGI and IRIX, it is extraordinarily difficult (and costly) to achieve Tanenbaum's goals.
So, to return to the microkernel-like statement, I think that modern OSes *ARE* trying to achieve the goals that Tanenbaum aspires to. The points he brings up *ARE* being addressed in Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. The contention is that they will not happen overnight, and they will only happen faster as more negative feedback is fed into the mechanisms of change, i.e., the project development community or corporate entity doing the work. But, corporate entities in particular have to balance the equation. They can't just sacrifice performance and compatibility for the sole sake of reliability and security. I don't believe that Tanenbaum would disagree with that point. We are seeing more compartmentalization (modularization if you will) within the structure of most OS kernels. I think his wrapper idea for device drivers has merit. Personally, I'd rather see a common driver framework developed for categories of devices to help minimize the number of driver specific wrappers that would need to be created manually (455 seems like a tremendously large number). Virtualization is growing in popularity in the IT community at large. I think there are some huge benefits to this that will alter OS development in the future, the near future for some things. His two more holistic approaches are novel. I think the Multiserver approach may have more of a chance than the Laguage-Based approach, but time will tell which theory takes hold in practice, or if a new or hybrid approach may emerge.
All-in-all a good read and definitely thought and discussion provoking.
Mars atmosphere is quite a bit thinner than Earth's; about one percent as thick to be exact. A simple Google search would have told you this: http://starryskies.com/solar_system/mars/martian_a tmosphere.html Plus, Mars atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide (95 percent) which would suffocate a person in a short period of time.
The type of writing that garners the most interest from young minds is creative writing rather than the more mundane technical or analytical types. These are engineers. They need to be able to abstract and yet be "technically" correct.
Writing assignments that start with a foundation, akin to how Sean Connery's character in Finding Forrester helped his apprentice stir his creative juices, can be really effective. I remember quite clearly an English teacher I had in eighth grade that would give us assignments like that. He would start us off with a paragraph setting a scene or introducing a character and we would have to take the story forward from there. Obviously, there are some additional parameters that you as the instructor can wrap around the assignment, but the concept is something that works well for a mixed audience of students.
Just a suggestion.
Oh, and you forgot to mention how Elvis being 71 years old gives him a tactical advantage. Who wants to beat up the old guy looking through a file cabinet?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_and_loss
Given what you said as being the MPAA/RIAA perceived reality, you cannot categorize theft as lost revenue simply because it cannot be accurately quantified. For them to call it loss is simply FRAUD! If theft could be accounted for on any company's balance sheet, regardless of what business they were in, no company on the planet would declare itself profitable. I'm sorry, but you can't commit a crime (fraud) to fight a crime (theft/piracy), and THAT is the bullshit thing they are getting away with.
I'm not saying that loss isn't something that appears on a balance sheet, it does. Loss can include products (real ones) that have been damaged, destroyed, or returned, BUT NOT STOLEN unless you have documented proof of theft, i.e., witnesses, a police report, and that the item(s) were not recovered. Even then, you cannot apply the retail or street value to the item in the accounting, you have to declare the cost that the company paid for the item itself; not any amortized costs like production (i.e., studio time, wages, etc.) and the like, that's supposed to be in the actual cost not the retail value. In the case of CDs and DVDs, that actual cost is something under $5.00USD each (single disc price), not the $12.99, $19.99, or higher that would be charged at the sales counter. Claiming retail values for loss due to theft is also FRAUD because the company did not lose the retail value of the item, because it did not pay that cost for the item.
Ok, one thing that I know has not appeared in the threads yet, is that Boot Camp is "Public Beta" software. It says so right in the header graphic of the page, http://www.vbc.vt.edu/SystemX_pgs/SystemX_md.html
.Net) and produce a single binary that would run everywhere. Microsoft would stand to gain from that as well, as they could do away with the Mac BU all together. Apple could penetrate into the Windows market with their creative tools (iLife and the Final Cut Studio suite) and stand to make significant inroads in software sales.
To point out its limitations as intentional and say that it's some conspiracy against Windows users to get them to switch is a bit thin. Especially, when there is talk that Apple has revived the "Red Box" component from the Rhapsody development days (pre-Mac OS X), and the "Yellow Box for Windows". The Red Box was supposed to be a complete set of Windows APIs built for Mac OS X that would allow any Windows application to run natively without emulation or virtualization. The Yellow Box for Windows is the exact opposite. It is the complete set of Cocoa/Carbon APIs for Windows so that any Mac OS X application would run natively under Windows.
This development effort would require a great deal of cooperation between the two companies, I know. I also know that the two haven't exactly been friendly lately (and the new Apple ads don't help that cause). BUT, there is significant advantage in the marketplace for both companies to work toward the Red Box for Mac OS X and Yellow Box for Windows. Why? It would possibly increase the number of Mac hardware sales and it would certainly increase the number of Windows licenses for Microsoft. One other thing it does is to finally do away with two versions of applications. Developers for the Mac could now choose to use EITHER development environment they were comfortable in (Xcode/Mac OS X or Windows
Yes, there are some potential bad outcomes as well, I realize. But, the possibilities of such a move are quite enticing. Does Apple want people to switch to their platform? Of course, they believe its better and I happen to agree, but making that transition happen a bit smoother and offering an opportunity to run all the apps you need during the transition is a much better way to entice novice users (i.e., average home PC users). Advanced users will switch or not switch, period. That crowd is pretty resistant to change and there won't be a mass exodus from one platform to another from them...ever.
Your comments are dead on target! What they are trying to quantify is totally unquantifiable and could HARDLY be called "losses" even if it was. If they could estimate movie and music piracy numbers with any kind of accuracy and precision, then they could tell me what companies are going out of business long before they do. We'd all be rich from playing the stock market full of only winners, and we'd know who every criminal was in the world! PUH-LEEZ! It's clearly a case of, "We're not making as much money as we think we should, so we're gonna blame anybody but our own poor business practices and shoddy investments," finger pointing bullshit!
1. I applaud the parent poster of this thread for supporting the artist and fucking the record company. Huzzah!
2. The RIAA members are going down the tubes because they are unwilling or unable to adapt their business model (how they do business) to changes in the market (notably the effect of changes in technology), not because of pricing in the existing market.
They're arrogant assholes afraid of losing their silk lined pockets paid for by the blood of indentured servants-in the form of recording artists-that have actually worked and scraped to be where they are and have talent that can be appreciated as art. The RIAA members need to learn hard and fast, ADAPT OR DIE!
Actually, your personal example is not really the same thing as the MPAA $6.1 billion. It would be more like, 3com/Palm losing $100,000 because somebody was selling fraudulent shares in the market to you and you still making the money off them by selling them for a profit above the $100,000. Why? Because 3com/Palm didn't realize that capital, but you still profited from the fraudulent shares. That is a more analogous example to what the MPAA is crying foul over. But, again (I said this in an earlier thread above) it's really not "losses" to the MPAA, it's lost sales. BIG difference, and a bit of wah-wah-wah in my opinion. I'm also pretty sure that those numbers are bloated in the MPAA's favor. Why would you pay for and publicize ANY findings to the contrary of your perceived opinion? SHENANIGANS! I say.
Actually, what you've said and a few others in this thread makes no sense whatsoever. This study was commissioned by the Motion Picture Association of AMERICA, the MPAA for the whos at home. So, what you're saying is the MPAA would refuse to sell movies to the market that they exist in? HUH?!?!?! That makes no sense. Plus, they're not losing $1.3 billion by selling movies here, they're losing $1.3 billion dollars from NOT SELLING movies that have been pirated here. It's lost revenue due to the lack of sale, not losses due to sales.
That same John Butler Trio album (all 14 tracks) is $9.90USD at the iTunes music store. So, if it were available when I bought the CD I could have saved some cash, and some gasoline.
BTW, 10 Pounds is more than $12.99USD (7.08 Pounds).
Ok, I get CDs from local bands too. Sometimes for free, or for $10 or less. I should have specified, "Bought from a store and not self produced." I also should have specified, "Non-compilation, i.e., single artist CDs." Sure, you can go out and buy compilations of various artist content for less than you would pay for a single album from one of the artists. It's a ploy by the labels to get you to buy the full CD by an artist. Obviously, there are bargains to be found in the market, but they are mostly (not exclusively) outside the mainstream mass market that the labels are counting on for revenue in the first place.
Quick questions for everyone that makes the same comments you just made.
What did you pay for your last physical CD you bought NEW (not used) and how many tracks did it have on it?
I'll give an answer and you can do the math. I live in a small university town in rural southwest Virginia. There are about a dozen or so places that sell CDs within a 15 minute walk or drive, this includes Wal-mart, if you can stomach shopping there.
The last CD I bought was a John Butler Trio album. It was $12.99 and had 14 tracks on it. At the time I bought it, gas was still $1.59 (glorious by today's standard!) a gallon and I probably burned a gallon going to and from where I bought it, so that CD cost me $14.58 for 14 tracks. This is NOT a Billboard Top 40 artist. Those CDs go for anything between the $12.99 to $17.99! and often have only 10 to 12 tracks on them. And, it's those Top 40 tracks the labels are bitching the most about!
Now tell me $0.99 a track is expensive. Also tell me how many albums you own where you like all the tracks on the album? Also, please define what you mean by older? Older, as in the artist is dead. Older, as in the album is greater than or less than "X" number of years old. Where do you draw the line for what is considered old? How would you propose the labels draw the lines?
I just ask these things because I don't think most people have thought this through as thoroughly as the folks at Apple have HAD to to come up with that $0.99 a track number. Sure, Apple wants to make a profit, obvious. But, they also want to help. Let's not forget, Stevie-poo and a lot of his employees and stock holders are BIG music fans as well. They certainly don't want to get ripped off KNOWING a lot more about what's behind the curtain than a lot of people on the street! A buck a song, just ain't that bad for whatever it is you might want.
Interesting idea for limiting infrastructure costs for content delivery. Alleviate the the bandwidth and server burden on the supplier end and leverage the good things in a technology deemed evil by the very content providers (i.e., the RIAA, and MPAA) you are serving. Nice little bit of irony there.
Me thinks, me smell a patent infringement. Possibly? Anyone? Anyone? Don't know for sure, will go looking.
There are a lot of theorists posting, "Why not donate the old machines to [insert education or third-world country here]?"
Well, the answer to that is very simple: Because you are passing the ecological disaster on and not dealing with it. Off the cuff, it sounds like a good idea, however, a developing nation is not going to have the resources to deal with recycling the hand-me-down computers that we passed off to them so we didn't have to properly recycle them.
Let's just properly recycle the old crap and sell them new machines with fewer parts and less of a recycling burden. No one says we have to use the latest and greatest things performance-wise in what is made for them, but dumping our junk on a less fortunate country is just wrong people!