A license can clearly be written such that the law interprets it as the right to view content on a particular medium/format for as long as that is practical.
It can be, but often isn't, and wasn't if we go back in history looking at VHS and DVDs (when they first came out). And I don't hand over the money anymore... I actually buy very little content anymore because of it.
This isn't something important like Health Care or Jobs.
I agree... I wasn't justifying anything illegal. That people violate IP laws because they don't want to pay for their entertainment actually really irks me, and I complain about it all the time. At the same time, it also pisses me off that the honest consumers are the ones that get the most limited flexibility, that get saddled with DRM, and also the "privilege" of paying for it - after all, they are passing the costs of the technology - including licensing the DRM technology - onto us.
Right... I'm actually against IP infringement of any kind - it's all just entertainment, nobody "owes" you a damn thing, while at the same time I have no patience for the exaggerated claims of the industry, or the fact that only the honest paying customers (like me) are the ones saddled with DRM (and I do circumvent it in some cases, so that I can watch what I've legally purchased on my tablet)
However, the problem you describe is that there's a group of people with X amount of entertainment dollars, they spend it on one thing... then think they're entitled to the other things, also. I have a serious problem with people that think that mentality is somehow justified. None of us are entitled to games or songs or movies for free. If you do don't want to pay what's being asked, don't watch.
I agree with both of you... I think the experience is often terrible, with a-holes with cellphones (even just texting... might as well be waving a flashlight around), crying kids, whispering and giggling, the sound of dozens of people munching on popcorn or something... but if you go at off-times, it can be really quite good. We go to Sunday matinees... not only aren't they very popular, but half the people in GA seem to be in church anyway.
I admit I don't bother even looking in the library because so many people want the new, big, popular releases that it's a pain; you go on a wait list and then you don't actually get to see it when you want to. For older movies it's probably quite good. At the same time, Netflix and Amazon Prime have enough stuff that I don't have to bother driving to the library just to get a movie to watch. But I agree that watching streaming at home is a huge cost savings if you're willing to wait for the release instead of seeing a movie right away. For us, going to the movies has become more of a social thing, where the family gets together and goes out and enjoys the movie, then maybe we get food afterwards; but we don't do that very often (one reason is we all rarely agree on what movie to see).
As far as the original topic is concerned, I absolutely hate when people rip off IP, when the show a complete lack of respect for the content creators. We're talking about movies here, not some necessity of life. If you can't live without watching some movie, you have no rights to "take" it without paying, period. At the same time, I am no fan of the movie or recording industries (or gaming industry), I hate DRM, I think they'd be better off saving their money instead of paying all that extra money for the technical restrictions (both hardware and licensing payments) and paying their lawyers... there are actually honest people like me who would still pay for content, and we wouldn't be punished with DRM while the "pirates" get their content without restriction. It's backwards.
IOW, if they just accept some loss and move on, we'd all be a whole lot better off.
They want it both ways... when it's convenient, they are selling you a license. When you say "OK, I've paid for the license, now I want the content I've paid for in a different format," they claim you paid for the content on that original medium.
When we make soceity beholden to us, be become beholden to society. You can call it an unintended consequence, but no one with a brain can say it was an unforeseen consequence.
The problem with your assessment is that everyone wants to do music, art, entertainment, science, research and experimentation... nobody wants to clean the bathrooms, haul trash, unclog the shit in the sewers... we need all those people, too. What's their "motivation?" Let's face it, MOST jobs are shit. People might find it rewarding to create new serums, materials, hardware or software, music and entertainment... who finds it rewarding to flip burgers?
Maybe, but I don't think so. First of all, for this "exploit" to have been around so many years, it's interesting how I've never heard of it actually being used to hack or vandalize a system... second, if someone is already able to write arbitrary filenames, they're already into your system; if it's a normal user, you'd be able to track down who it is... it just seems like a really "weak" exploit, if I'd call it an exploit at all. IOW, IMO, nothing to see here.
Pointing, not aiming. Aiming might take a little bit more time... pointing your rifle from one side to the other is done very quickly... then aiming it at a target takes a little longer. I don't have a rifle, but in movies and news footage, I see soldiers and SWAT team members often going at least 60 degrees left and right, if not more, in the blink of an eye.
Good point. I guess he realized there wasn't and racism by the company. But you're right... people who insist on equality, and therefore seek to make it so by focusing only on candidates of a particular race (or sex) are themselves being racist (or sexist).
Plus 1 insightful, but no mod points. I recall almost 20 years ago the single black person working in our department stood up at a department meeting and asked when more blacks would be hired, and the VP of the company stood up to field the question and answered, quite simply, "when more qualified black people apply for open positions." And then he sat down. And that was that. We did hire more black people... the guy that asked the question made it his goal to seek out talented black people for open positions, and succeeded on several occasions; but he realized there was no racism going on, there was just good business going on.
Not necessarily, but until they contrast the numbers with the number of applicants and what their qualifications are, it's all bulls#!t. Equal opportunity doesn't guarantee equal outcome. The PC police understand this... yet still spew their B.S. ad-infinitum, without qualifying their data, without looking at, for example, the graduation rate of people in the fields that Google and Yahoo need.... No, they focus on an unequal outcome and demand action.
I'm in GA. My choices are only AT&T and Comcast; No Verizon, and the competing cable company doesn't service my area. I pay about $80/month just for internet, no cable TV. Sadly, even if Google decides to come here, it'll both take forever and probably not reach out to the area I live in. Comcast is about 5 times faster than AT&T. I'd use AT&T anyway, but we use Netflix (which now runs great on Comcast for some strange reason), and my son is online gaming at every free moment (except right now... we're watching world cup).
+1 Informative... too bad I have no mod points, but it's an incredibly interesting graph. As a Netflix/Comcast subscriber, with no viable alternative to high speed internet service, I've always argued against Netflix's caving into Comcast's extortion. Of course, the date is supplied by Netflix, but it echoes what we've experienced at home.... it used to work just fine, then suddenly it was terrible and we were always getting "rebuffering" messages, and often enough Netflix would just give up and not play.
I know people counter that this was a result of Netflix's service provider not having decent connections to the rest of the net, but the graph tells all...
It's true but, nevertheless, SW has been one of the best selling lines since it's introduction and, personally, while I don't like every license, I'm glad they licensed sets - I think a lot of them are absolutely awesome.
In fact, one of my favorites was this fairly simple steam engine from The Lone Ranger: Constituion., I put the figures away, I just liked the train. I never even saw the movie.
I can (and do), but you're missing the point - there's a HUGE amount of variety for male minifigure parts compared to females, and because of that, often enough, the female faces and hair are often priced higher. You just don't have the variety. Now, maybe if they stuck with the basic smiley face LEGO it wouldn't be a problem... but they didn't.
None of these are licensed, and they are all awesome LEGO sets. Yes, it'd different from when we were kids, but it's certainly not worse. On top of all that, look at the parts you wished you had as a kid... I've been able to make remote control cars and tanks, among other things:
This... The LEGO Group has been failing miserably at trying to attract girls (well, I guess those friends sets are selling, probably purchased by dads who wish their daughters were into LEGO). The fact is, they get berated for for selling "girl" sets with pink and purple bricks, but instead of adding a decent mix of female minifigures into ordinary sets, they come up with things like "Friends," where we're right back to the pink and purple and "girl" jobs, like Vet and fluff reporter for TV (yes, she's not reporting on politics in the set, she's reporting on a giant birthday cake!).
Of course whenever I've discussed it, the conclusion was not to force gender equality in a police force or fire department - that's simply a fake reality, but it's not to make bricks pink and purple either. Most women even agreed they just wanted more female figures in sets... I don't think that's too much to ask for, and putting in alternative heads/hair is probably the best idea I've heard on the subject.
As an adult LEGO enthusiast, I actually like a lot of the friends sets... except, as the poster you're responding to pointed out, it's all pink and purple and the minidolls (as opposed to the minifigs) are terrible, IMO. At the same time, that same post made some wildly inaccurate claims... it was never the case that, given the entire "library" of sets released in any year, that it was 99% male, even given that licensed sets reflect the movies (mostly males).
Still, for those of us that make town layouts, women ARE underrepresented, so I'm glad for these sets, personally. I build with my daughter all the time, we're making a carnival... it's hard to get as many little girls as boys into the scene because the variety of heads and hair just isn't as large for girls.
Agreed... it's true that a couple of decades ago The LEGO Group started releasing less versatile sets with larger molded pieces... and they still do, if you look at some of the train and plane sets... but they're not all like that; they release sets for varying levels of difficulty, and many sets are amazingly beautiful without those big, specialized pieces. Some trains and planes are completely brick built, and the larger sets (especially the creator sets) are very versatile. And it never ceases to amaze me how many people complain about it when you can still just buy buckets of bricks.
What's hilarious is that this is a post about... guess what? A non-LEGO set someone came up with on their own and submitted to LEGO Ideas to have it made into an official set. According to you, that's plainly not possible. Moreover, why don't you peruse some of the other ideas on the site (linked to in the summary), and other sites like ReBrickable.? Maybe you'd see that, while it may be true that sets have gotten more specific, your conclusion that you can't build unique things anymore is completely wrong!
And I remember when The LEGO Group was about to go bankrupt... you know, before they started licensing Star Wars?
For the record, they've released a number of space themes, city themes, castle themes while doing these licenses... and for the other whiners out there, you always still buy tubs of just bricks.
You people will complain about anything.... you sound like your parents and grandparents now, I hope you realize that! "When I was a kid...!!!!"
Slashdot Mirror
It can be, but often isn't, and wasn't if we go back in history looking at VHS and DVDs (when they first came out). And I don't hand over the money anymore... I actually buy very little content anymore because of it.
I agree... I wasn't justifying anything illegal. That people violate IP laws because they don't want to pay for their entertainment actually really irks me, and I complain about it all the time. At the same time, it also pisses me off that the honest consumers are the ones that get the most limited flexibility, that get saddled with DRM, and also the "privilege" of paying for it - after all, they are passing the costs of the technology - including licensing the DRM technology - onto us.
Right... I'm actually against IP infringement of any kind - it's all just entertainment, nobody "owes" you a damn thing, while at the same time I have no patience for the exaggerated claims of the industry, or the fact that only the honest paying customers (like me) are the ones saddled with DRM (and I do circumvent it in some cases, so that I can watch what I've legally purchased on my tablet)
However, the problem you describe is that there's a group of people with X amount of entertainment dollars, they spend it on one thing... then think they're entitled to the other things, also. I have a serious problem with people that think that mentality is somehow justified. None of us are entitled to games or songs or movies for free. If you do don't want to pay what's being asked, don't watch.
I agree with both of you... I think the experience is often terrible, with a-holes with cellphones (even just texting... might as well be waving a flashlight around), crying kids, whispering and giggling, the sound of dozens of people munching on popcorn or something... but if you go at off-times, it can be really quite good. We go to Sunday matinees... not only aren't they very popular, but half the people in GA seem to be in church anyway.
I admit I don't bother even looking in the library because so many people want the new, big, popular releases that it's a pain; you go on a wait list and then you don't actually get to see it when you want to. For older movies it's probably quite good. At the same time, Netflix and Amazon Prime have enough stuff that I don't have to bother driving to the library just to get a movie to watch. But I agree that watching streaming at home is a huge cost savings if you're willing to wait for the release instead of seeing a movie right away. For us, going to the movies has become more of a social thing, where the family gets together and goes out and enjoys the movie, then maybe we get food afterwards; but we don't do that very often (one reason is we all rarely agree on what movie to see). As far as the original topic is concerned, I absolutely hate when people rip off IP, when the show a complete lack of respect for the content creators. We're talking about movies here, not some necessity of life. If you can't live without watching some movie, you have no rights to "take" it without paying, period. At the same time, I am no fan of the movie or recording industries (or gaming industry), I hate DRM, I think they'd be better off saving their money instead of paying all that extra money for the technical restrictions (both hardware and licensing payments) and paying their lawyers... there are actually honest people like me who would still pay for content, and we wouldn't be punished with DRM while the "pirates" get their content without restriction. It's backwards. IOW, if they just accept some loss and move on, we'd all be a whole lot better off.
They want it both ways... when it's convenient, they are selling you a license. When you say "OK, I've paid for the license, now I want the content I've paid for in a different format," they claim you paid for the content on that original medium.
It's OK, Timothy, some of us still understand sarcasm.
When we make soceity beholden to us, be become beholden to society. You can call it an unintended consequence, but no one with a brain can say it was an unforeseen consequence.
The problem with your assessment is that everyone wants to do music, art, entertainment, science, research and experimentation... nobody wants to clean the bathrooms, haul trash, unclog the shit in the sewers... we need all those people, too. What's their "motivation?" Let's face it, MOST jobs are shit. People might find it rewarding to create new serums, materials, hardware or software, music and entertainment... who finds it rewarding to flip burgers?
Agree... seems like a substantial portion of society doesn't want to be free if it means having the illusion of security (financial and/or physical).
Maybe, but I don't think so. First of all, for this "exploit" to have been around so many years, it's interesting how I've never heard of it actually being used to hack or vandalize a system... second, if someone is already able to write arbitrary filenames, they're already into your system; if it's a normal user, you'd be able to track down who it is... it just seems like a really "weak" exploit, if I'd call it an exploit at all. IOW, IMO, nothing to see here.
Pointing, not aiming. Aiming might take a little bit more time... pointing your rifle from one side to the other is done very quickly... then aiming it at a target takes a little longer. I don't have a rifle, but in movies and news footage, I see soldiers and SWAT team members often going at least 60 degrees left and right, if not more, in the blink of an eye.
Good point. I guess he realized there wasn't and racism by the company. But you're right... people who insist on equality, and therefore seek to make it so by focusing only on candidates of a particular race (or sex) are themselves being racist (or sexist).
Plus 1 insightful, but no mod points. I recall almost 20 years ago the single black person working in our department stood up at a department meeting and asked when more blacks would be hired, and the VP of the company stood up to field the question and answered, quite simply, "when more qualified black people apply for open positions." And then he sat down. And that was that. We did hire more black people... the guy that asked the question made it his goal to seek out talented black people for open positions, and succeeded on several occasions; but he realized there was no racism going on, there was just good business going on.
Not necessarily, but until they contrast the numbers with the number of applicants and what their qualifications are, it's all bulls#!t. Equal opportunity doesn't guarantee equal outcome. The PC police understand this... yet still spew their B.S. ad-infinitum, without qualifying their data, without looking at, for example, the graduation rate of people in the fields that Google and Yahoo need.... No, they focus on an unequal outcome and demand action.
I'm in GA. My choices are only AT&T and Comcast; No Verizon, and the competing cable company doesn't service my area. I pay about $80/month just for internet, no cable TV. Sadly, even if Google decides to come here, it'll both take forever and probably not reach out to the area I live in. Comcast is about 5 times faster than AT&T. I'd use AT&T anyway, but we use Netflix (which now runs great on Comcast for some strange reason), and my son is online gaming at every free moment (except right now... we're watching world cup).
+1 Informative... too bad I have no mod points, but it's an incredibly interesting graph. As a Netflix/Comcast subscriber, with no viable alternative to high speed internet service, I've always argued against Netflix's caving into Comcast's extortion. Of course, the date is supplied by Netflix, but it echoes what we've experienced at home.... it used to work just fine, then suddenly it was terrible and we were always getting "rebuffering" messages, and often enough Netflix would just give up and not play.
I know people counter that this was a result of Netflix's service provider not having decent connections to the rest of the net, but the graph tells all...
Too many bugs.
It's true but, nevertheless, SW has been one of the best selling lines since it's introduction and, personally, while I don't like every license, I'm glad they licensed sets - I think a lot of them are absolutely awesome.
In fact, one of my favorites was this fairly simple steam engine from The Lone Ranger: Constituion., I put the figures away, I just liked the train. I never even saw the movie.
I can (and do), but you're missing the point - there's a HUGE amount of variety for male minifigure parts compared to females, and because of that, often enough, the female faces and hair are often priced higher. You just don't have the variety. Now, maybe if they stuck with the basic smiley face LEGO it wouldn't be a problem... but they didn't.
They still do! That's the problem... you probably just don't know they're out there because LEGO is largely off your radar these days.
Examples:
Forest Animals (new this year)
Bike Shop and Cafe (new this year)
Twin Rotor Helicopter
Palace Cinema
Horizon Express
The Emerald Night (the most beautiful train set LEGO has ever made)
Green Grocer
Haunted House
None of these are licensed, and they are all awesome LEGO sets. Yes, it'd different from when we were kids, but it's certainly not worse. On top of all that, look at the parts you wished you had as a kid... I've been able to make remote control cars and tanks, among other things:
Power Functions
Is that sparking any creative ideas?
This... The LEGO Group has been failing miserably at trying to attract girls (well, I guess those friends sets are selling, probably purchased by dads who wish their daughters were into LEGO). The fact is, they get berated for for selling "girl" sets with pink and purple bricks, but instead of adding a decent mix of female minifigures into ordinary sets, they come up with things like "Friends," where we're right back to the pink and purple and "girl" jobs, like Vet and fluff reporter for TV (yes, she's not reporting on politics in the set, she's reporting on a giant birthday cake!).
Of course whenever I've discussed it, the conclusion was not to force gender equality in a police force or fire department - that's simply a fake reality, but it's not to make bricks pink and purple either. Most women even agreed they just wanted more female figures in sets... I don't think that's too much to ask for, and putting in alternative heads/hair is probably the best idea I've heard on the subject.
As an adult LEGO enthusiast, I actually like a lot of the friends sets... except, as the poster you're responding to pointed out, it's all pink and purple and the minidolls (as opposed to the minifigs) are terrible, IMO. At the same time, that same post made some wildly inaccurate claims... it was never the case that, given the entire "library" of sets released in any year, that it was 99% male, even given that licensed sets reflect the movies (mostly males).
Still, for those of us that make town layouts, women ARE underrepresented, so I'm glad for these sets, personally. I build with my daughter all the time, we're making a carnival... it's hard to get as many little girls as boys into the scene because the variety of heads and hair just isn't as large for girls.
Agreed... it's true that a couple of decades ago The LEGO Group started releasing less versatile sets with larger molded pieces... and they still do, if you look at some of the train and plane sets... but they're not all like that; they release sets for varying levels of difficulty, and many sets are amazingly beautiful without those big, specialized pieces. Some trains and planes are completely brick built, and the larger sets (especially the creator sets) are very versatile. And it never ceases to amaze me how many people complain about it when you can still just buy buckets of bricks.
What's hilarious is that this is a post about... guess what? A non-LEGO set someone came up with on their own and submitted to LEGO Ideas to have it made into an official set. According to you, that's plainly not possible. Moreover, why don't you peruse some of the other ideas on the site (linked to in the summary), and other sites like ReBrickable.? Maybe you'd see that, while it may be true that sets have gotten more specific, your conclusion that you can't build unique things anymore is completely wrong!
And I remember when The LEGO Group was about to go bankrupt... you know, before they started licensing Star Wars?
For the record, they've released a number of space themes, city themes, castle themes while doing these licenses... and for the other whiners out there, you always still buy tubs of just bricks.
You people will complain about anything.... you sound like your parents and grandparents now, I hope you realize that! "When I was a kid...!!!!"