"Previously I would go to the showroom or store to physically see/touch/learn about a product, then go back home and order it online (because it would invariably be cheaper)."
Last time I went in a physical store to buy a product, only because I wanted to support a local shop and not to see/touch or anytrhing, they told me that the product I was looking for didn't exist (of course it does exist). And I don't need to touch/see most of the things I buy. Only thing where it could have made a difference was my audio monitors, which I bought in a local shop because it is pretty expensive stuff and I felt better that way, though they were not particularly helpful, nor learned me anything that I hadn't read on various reviews and forums.
Now I know that in the US, shopkeepers are possibly more welcoming than here (I'm sure the bets buy guys are great too.. no?), but really, no when I buy online it's never profiteering on local shops, because there's nothing they can learn me that Internet cannot (my local coffee seller doesn't know as much as some "coffee geeks" around), and for ultra specific product where seeing/touching is important, people do not necessarily buy online.
So, no, I don't find this argument to justify any kind of tax.
Yeah there must be some kind of real problem because the ADSL I know in my foreign (well, not foreign to me) country has nothing to see with what I read about it here. For me it means a rock solid connection, low price, no caps, 3MBPS TV, HDTV for some events, VOD, free phone, +10MPBS even in small towns, and a whole lot of services (no need for Tivos here, ADSL boxes do the same things). For 30 a month.
"There will be lots of hate posts from people that haven't tried the game. Or that just don't like or "get" Tolkein."
That's adventurous to say, for what I see it's only friends who don't "get" Tolkien who plays this game (I suppose that by "get", you mean "get the books in a bookstore, read and enjoy").
In WOW's PVP I really loved the solid (emphasize on solid) action-game feeling. Maybe it is because i didn't play LOTR (saw a friend playing it) but it seemed slightly more static.
I tend to think that if this kind of privacy (people not seeing inside ones house) is important, it is easy to protect it.
I have a more practical approach to this problem: because of some plants I grow, I don't care if John Doe or the UPS man sees inside my house, in both cases this is a problem. This woman think that John Doe isn't a problem, but UPS/Google, whatever, is. I think there are no differences of principle. Google being a commercial endeavor makes no differences in determining what is important privacy or not, that is something you should decide for yourself and not for who may see it.
Ok sorry I messed up with the formating. I do no post often enough to remember than the default setting here is "horribly garbled text":)
Playing games, being creative (in my case playing music), being entertained or learning something, or both, being enthralled by a cunning forum thread or a great article (there is lot of free quality content on the net, no doubt about it). While at the same time downloading a missed TV show, and recording a TV channel with VLC. Making relatives discover a documentary, a movie, a musician, or just ideas (and if they like, they tend to buy products).
I use my computer as: -work tool -TV (good and solid encoding and broadcast, many channels and services) -music player -electronic music instrument, with some MIDI hardware -gaming rig (with friends and family on Hamachi and Xfire) -information and communication: Google (including Gmail, docs, trends, gapminder, etc), some online newspapers, forums, Wikipedia, youtube, and many others.
My user experience is more and more internet related. By looking back on it, I'm surprised how quickly it just... got normal, usual. Even my music softwares tends to 'use' internet more and more; like free downloading of sound sets inside the application itself, integrated chat and collaboration tools.
I couldn't pinpoint a single thing, but my (relatively naive) user experience is certainly very different from what it was even two years ago.
Playing games, being creative (in my case playing music), being entertained or learning something, or both, being enthralled by a cunning forum thread or a great article (there is lot of free quality content on the net, no doubt about it). While at the same time downloading a missed TV show, and recording a TV channel with VLC. Making relatives discover a documentary, a movie, a musician, or just ideas (and if they like, they tend to buy products).
I use my computer as:
-work tool
-TV (good and solid encoding and broadcast, many channels and services)
-music player
-electronic music instrument, with some MIDI hardware
-gaming rig (with friends and family on Hamachi and Xfire)
-information and communication: Google (including Gmail, docs, trends, gapminder, etc), some online newspapers, forums, Wikipedia, youtube, and many others.
My user experience is more and more internet related. By looking back on it, I'm surprised how quickly it just... got normal, usual. Even my music softwares tends to 'use' internet more and more; like free downloading of sound sets inside the application itself, integrated chat and collaboration tools.
I couldn't pinpoint a single thing, but my (relatively naive) user experience is certainly very different from what it was even two years ago.
To simply express an intermediate point of view, I'm not disturbed by technological advancement in crops (including GMO), but I'm not fond at all of processed foods (because I know how to cook rather well, it's healthier, most often taste better, is cheaper, and I always have 1/2 hour a day for it).
I'd be interested by a proper answer to that question. Do they own more to the NASA than the NASA to Newton and Nazis? or not really more than that? it's a real question, because obviously they are doing something right here.
Isn't it highly disingenuous of you to note that the Palestine article is semi protected? or the one on the recent Iraq war (I don't know if it is, but I'm guessing that it is), or other war hot topics. I mean, people die everyday, no two countries can agree on what to do , wars are waged upon this subject, Wikipedia cannot solve problems that the whole world cannot, or don't want to solve.
We have a proverb here: "the best is the enemy of the good", ie: be realist.
I'm just thinking out loud here: music theory is maybe naturally problematic for an Encyclopedia. European tonal rules are rooted, like many others, in a few physical phenomenons (like our natural preference for consonances) but most of the stuff in it is an interpretation, not science.
I think that music theory is passionating, but that maybe many people understand it like a natural quasi scientific evolution (in the way we wrongly think that evolution in animals make them "better" with time), and I don't believe that. It may go from "simple" to "complex", and back, but it has no aim like a science has. It's just a temporary picture of a few physical facts and the ways (sometime rather complex) in which people work with tonality at one moment in time.
"The concept of copyright is not only just, it is necessary. There are a lot of people who, if they didn't have copyright laws to protect their creations, wouldn't create them, either because those creations cost too much or simply because there was a more profitable use of their time."
Saying that artist create because of copyrights (ie because they will earn more money) is like saying that people are moral because they fear god. While "money money money" is truely a religion by now, there are better reasons for people to play great music or for people to be moral.
To my taste the greatest music ever made is the one which is the FARTHER from music industry and copyrights, and even from money sometimes; like the queen of all musics, Gypsy music, and hundred of artists from anywhere in the world, who sometime only earn(ed) little money with live performances and small labels (when they have one) which have nothing in common with the music industry goals and tools. Django Reinhardt, Hamza El Din, Ustad Mohammad Omar, Fairuz, Dead Can Dance, Pixies, John Lee Hooker, Charles Mingus, Zhou Yu, who all are very important artists amongts dozens of others, please tell me whom of those "if they didn't have copyright laws to protect their creations, wouldn't create them,". None.
My sister and my mother both live at around 12000 feet (4km) from the DSLAM, with copper lines. They have around 6MPBPS down, which is enough for my sister's friend to watch TV while she's phoning to me, on the same line.
"but I haven't found any sites with big enough pipes to see the difference"
I've found quite a few moments when a high speed Internet is really welcome: fresh Windows install, torrents, graphic card drivers, updates, softwares, games (lets say you want to download albatross18 or trackmania, they have good servers), files on ftp servers, watching TV. I'm not yet eagerly waiting for fiber optics, but I already really love the TV via ADSL (because I don't watch TV that much, and via ADSL most of my favorite broadcasts are freely on demand for a week or so) and 4 or 5 MBPS is a minimum -TV here is encoded in MPEG2 at 3MBPS-.
From a French perspective, you have both a culture of firearms (that we don't really have) and no guns zone. I mean, you seem to have the worst of both worlds: the most probable zones for easy mass killings, like universities, are also those where only dangerous people will have firearms, it's highly illogical and almost criminal. It seem impossible to stop the firearm culture in the whole US, and maybe it is fine this way, but the students should have the right to protect themselves as well, given the rate at which those events occur.
There are maybe new economic models to invent. It often happens the main selling point for a software is "support"; like new soundbanks for your virtual synth. Maybe it's the music industry that has become a little too big and industrial to financially support itself, with inane prices for music (that surely pays for the weight of the industry a lot more than for the creation) and near zero adaptation to new technologies that we users live by (thanks to Amazon and Apple and others for that).
"Audio should not be done inside a PC"
That would be a correct statement if it didn't include audio activities that work with a computer: listening to audio, composing music, and not be anal.
Re:It's not about the customers
on
AMD's New DRM
·
· Score: 1
Wouldn't VLC be an answer to your media playing problem?
Slashdot Mirror
"Previously I would go to the showroom or store to physically see/touch/learn about a product, then go back home and order it online (because it would invariably be cheaper)."
Last time I went in a physical store to buy a product, only because I wanted to support a local shop and not to see/touch or anytrhing, they told me that the product I was looking for didn't exist (of course it does exist). And I don't need to touch/see most of the things I buy. Only thing where it could have made a difference was my audio monitors, which I bought in a local shop because it is pretty expensive stuff and I felt better that way, though they were not particularly helpful, nor learned me anything that I hadn't read on various reviews and forums.
Now I know that in the US, shopkeepers are possibly more welcoming than here (I'm sure the bets buy guys are great too.. no?), but really, no when I buy online it's never profiteering on local shops, because there's nothing they can learn me that Internet cannot (my local coffee seller doesn't know as much as some "coffee geeks" around), and for ultra specific product where seeing/touching is important, people do not necessarily buy online.
So, no, I don't find this argument to justify any kind of tax.
Yeah there must be some kind of real problem because the ADSL I know in my foreign (well, not foreign to me) country has nothing to see with what I read about it here. For me it means a rock solid connection, low price, no caps, 3MBPS TV, HDTV for some events, VOD, free phone, +10MPBS even in small towns, and a whole lot of services (no need for Tivos here, ADSL boxes do the same things). For 30 a month.
A better cooler can also be set at a lower speed, for people aiming to a near silent PC.
"There will be lots of hate posts from people that haven't tried the game. Or that just don't like or "get" Tolkein."
That's adventurous to say, for what I see it's only friends who don't "get" Tolkien who plays this game (I suppose that by "get", you mean "get the books in a bookstore, read and enjoy").
In WOW's PVP I really loved the solid (emphasize on solid) action-game feeling. Maybe it is because i didn't play LOTR (saw a friend playing it) but it seemed slightly more static.
I tend to think that if this kind of privacy (people not seeing inside ones house) is important, it is easy to protect it.
I have a more practical approach to this problem: because of some plants I grow, I don't care if John Doe or the UPS man sees inside my house, in both cases this is a problem. This woman think that John Doe isn't a problem, but UPS/Google, whatever, is. I think there are no differences of principle. Google being a commercial endeavor makes no differences in determining what is important privacy or not, that is something you should decide for yourself and not for who may see it.
Ok sorry I messed up with the formating. I do no post often enough to remember than the default setting here is "horribly garbled text" :)
Playing games, being creative (in my case playing music), being entertained or learning something, or both, being enthralled by a cunning forum thread or a great article (there is lot of free quality content on the net, no doubt about it). While at the same time downloading a missed TV show, and recording a TV channel with VLC. Making relatives discover a documentary, a movie, a musician, or just ideas (and if they like, they tend to buy products).
I use my computer as:
-work tool
-TV (good and solid encoding and broadcast, many channels and services)
-music player
-electronic music instrument, with some MIDI hardware
-gaming rig (with friends and family on Hamachi and Xfire)
-information and communication: Google (including Gmail, docs, trends, gapminder, etc), some online newspapers, forums, Wikipedia, youtube, and many others.
My user experience is more and more internet related. By looking back on it, I'm surprised how quickly it just... got normal, usual. Even my music softwares tends to 'use' internet more and more; like free downloading of sound sets inside the application itself, integrated chat and collaboration tools.
I couldn't pinpoint a single thing, but my (relatively naive) user experience is certainly very different from what it was even two years ago.
Playing games, being creative (in my case playing music), being entertained or learning something, or both, being enthralled by a cunning forum thread or a great article (there is lot of free quality content on the net, no doubt about it). While at the same time downloading a missed TV show, and recording a TV channel with VLC. Making relatives discover a documentary, a movie, a musician, or just ideas (and if they like, they tend to buy products). I use my computer as: -work tool -TV (good and solid encoding and broadcast, many channels and services) -music player -electronic music instrument, with some MIDI hardware -gaming rig (with friends and family on Hamachi and Xfire) -information and communication: Google (including Gmail, docs, trends, gapminder, etc), some online newspapers, forums, Wikipedia, youtube, and many others. My user experience is more and more internet related. By looking back on it, I'm surprised how quickly it just... got normal, usual. Even my music softwares tends to 'use' internet more and more; like free downloading of sound sets inside the application itself, integrated chat and collaboration tools. I couldn't pinpoint a single thing, but my (relatively naive) user experience is certainly very different from what it was even two years ago.
I didn't answer to the correct parent, my apologies.
To simply express an intermediate point of view, I'm not disturbed by technological advancement in crops (including GMO), but I'm not fond at all of processed foods (because I know how to cook rather well, it's healthier, most often taste better, is cheaper, and I always have 1/2 hour a day for it).
I'd be interested by a proper answer to that question. Do they own more to the NASA than the NASA to Newton and Nazis? or not really more than that? it's a real question, because obviously they are doing something right here.
Isn't it highly disingenuous of you to note that the Palestine article is semi protected? or the one on the recent Iraq war (I don't know if it is, but I'm guessing that it is), or other war hot topics. I mean, people die everyday, no two countries can agree on what to do , wars are waged upon this subject, Wikipedia cannot solve problems that the whole world cannot, or don't want to solve. We have a proverb here: "the best is the enemy of the good", ie: be realist.
Well let's not ALL forget to add a little, little word for W40K - Dawn of War. Awesome game.
I'm just thinking out loud here: music theory is maybe naturally problematic for an Encyclopedia. European tonal rules are rooted, like many others, in a few physical phenomenons (like our natural preference for consonances) but most of the stuff in it is an interpretation, not science. I think that music theory is passionating, but that maybe many people understand it like a natural quasi scientific evolution (in the way we wrongly think that evolution in animals make them "better" with time), and I don't believe that. It may go from "simple" to "complex", and back, but it has no aim like a science has. It's just a temporary picture of a few physical facts and the ways (sometime rather complex) in which people work with tonality at one moment in time.
I agree with you that this French idea is stupid, but I don't see why the rest of your post is about the USA.
"The concept of copyright is not only just, it is necessary. There are a lot of people who, if they didn't have copyright laws to protect their creations, wouldn't create them, either because those creations cost too much or simply because there was a more profitable use of their time."
Saying that artist create because of copyrights (ie because they will earn more money) is like saying that people are moral because they fear god. While "money money money" is truely a religion by now, there are better reasons for people to play great music or for people to be moral.
To my taste the greatest music ever made is the one which is the FARTHER from music industry and copyrights, and even from money sometimes; like the queen of all musics, Gypsy music, and hundred of artists from anywhere in the world, who sometime only earn(ed) little money with live performances and small labels (when they have one) which have nothing in common with the music industry goals and tools. Django Reinhardt, Hamza El Din, Ustad Mohammad Omar, Fairuz, Dead Can Dance, Pixies, John Lee Hooker, Charles Mingus, Zhou Yu, who all are very important artists amongts dozens of others, please tell me whom of those "if they didn't have copyright laws to protect their creations, wouldn't create them,". None.
Not directly related, I'd like to publicize the recording of a 13th century manuscript, the Worcester fragments:- Consort/dp/B000002052/ref=sr_1_6/102-6883430-63329 31?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1178109790&sr=8-6
http://www.amazon.com/Worcester-Fragments-Orlando
There are no reviews but this disc is really good. Nice work, performance and recording.
Its comfortable here on Slashdot, where simple users can't post stories, to attack the editorial behavior of Digg's founder.
"You never say anything on the phone that you wouldn't say to a cop." IE, you're never using your phone at all.
My sister and my mother both live at around 12000 feet (4km) from the DSLAM, with copper lines. They have around 6MPBPS down, which is enough for my sister's friend to watch TV while she's phoning to me, on the same line.
"but I haven't found any sites with big enough pipes to see the difference"
I've found quite a few moments when a high speed Internet is really welcome: fresh Windows install, torrents, graphic card drivers, updates, softwares, games (lets say you want to download albatross18 or trackmania, they have good servers), files on ftp servers, watching TV. I'm not yet eagerly waiting for fiber optics, but I already really love the TV via ADSL (because I don't watch TV that much, and via ADSL most of my favorite broadcasts are freely on demand for a week or so) and 4 or 5 MBPS is a minimum -TV here is encoded in MPEG2 at 3MBPS-.
From a French perspective, you have both a culture of firearms (that we don't really have) and no guns zone. I mean, you seem to have the worst of both worlds: the most probable zones for easy mass killings, like universities, are also those where only dangerous people will have firearms, it's highly illogical and almost criminal. It seem impossible to stop the firearm culture in the whole US, and maybe it is fine this way, but the students should have the right to protect themselves as well, given the rate at which those events occur.
There are maybe new economic models to invent. It often happens the main selling point for a software is "support"; like new soundbanks for your virtual synth. Maybe it's the music industry that has become a little too big and industrial to financially support itself, with inane prices for music (that surely pays for the weight of the industry a lot more than for the creation) and near zero adaptation to new technologies that we users live by (thanks to Amazon and Apple and others for that).
"Audio should not be done inside a PC" That would be a correct statement if it didn't include audio activities that work with a computer: listening to audio, composing music, and not be anal.
Wouldn't VLC be an answer to your media playing problem?