You can rent games from GameFly and it's cheaper than buying-then-reselling them. If that's what you're looking for, your needs are already taken care of.
Wake up and smell the coffee - whether you like it or not, the world doesn't function the way you think it should. Might makes right, and in a confusing turn of events the plebeians have the power to copy bits. We do not require justification. You aren't going to talk us out of it.
Fuck you. Do you even realize you're ruining everything for the rest of us? Why do you think there's DRM on video? Why do you think video games install nasty fake CD drivers that fuck with your system? Why do you think Microsoft uses an activation system? It's YOUR FUCKING FAULT.
I'm waiting until you get to the part where you explain how that justifies piracy.
Nothing stops you from writing your own codecs that avoid existing patents. What's that, you say? That's HARD WORK? Of *course* it's fucking HARD WORK! That's why people expect to get paid for it!
Also: your video game example is retarded. Computers exist... right? Or are you living in some weird parallel universe?
But the programs have already been developed. Restricting copying after the fact is just pure waste. Forcing people to use inferior programs when there is no extra cost to society is uneconomical and little more than a bi product of a corrupt capitalistic system.
Under your little system here, how is the developer supposed to fund the initial development of the product?
They could take out a loan but, oh wait, according to Wildclaw's Law, nobody has to pay for the software after it's developed. How do you re-pay the loan? You can't... out of business.
You can fund it from the profits of your previous version or other products but-- oh wait! Wildclaw's Law again! Nobody has to pay for your previous version or other products, because you've finished them. Out of business again.
Sounds to me like you just want to be a good little anarchist and rub dirt on our "corrupt capitalistic system." In that case, go get 'em, Lenin!
If they're not willing to pay, they don't have the moral right to pirate. Your argument doesn't change anything.
Look, the way IP laws work here is simple: if I create X, I have the right to distribute X under whatever terms I want. If I want to give it away, I can do that. If I want to charge $50, I can do that too. You as a customer, have two choices: 1) Take it, 2) Leave it.
If you think it's too expensive, you take option 2. Period. End of story.
What gives you the moral right to restrict him from listening to/using it. It isn't like there is some law of scarcity involved that makes it necessary to restrict access? No, in fact, the only reason to restrict access to him is so that you can feel superior. You own the lebensraum. Not him. And you just have to make that point.
If he was paying the duplication cost (admittedly tiny), *and* his portion of the initial development costs (much larger), then you might have a case. People who bought World of Goo on their name-your-price system for, say, $2 would be in this category. As-is, he's taking the product for absolutely nothing... it's hard to argue that taking something that is worth *something* for *nothing* isn't theft.
Unless you literally believe it's worth nothing, in which I'd like to see the logic in that... if it's worth nothing nobody would pirate it, because what would be the point? It's worthless.
Laziness is the greatest virtue of all. It is mother of all inventions. Those who claim that it is a sin, are those who want to strive backwards into the middle ages.
Lazy people don't invent things, and if they do they don't successfully bring them to market. The Laz-E-Boy (obvious example) was invented by an enterprising person for *other* people who were lazy.
If everybody was lazy, society would grind to a stand-still. Imagine if everybody in the world was a DMV employee! Fortunately for us, a large number of people are born with ambition.
You have the right to claim that, but it doesn't make it true.
Him claiming it doesn't make it true. But it just so happens to be true regardless.
The free market solution would be to not buy Matlab then. Matlab sucking isn't a justification for piracy, just a justification for not buying their product.
Are you saying that there is no scientific merit to studying systems of people people and societies? Or are you saying that sociologists don't know how to apply the scientific method in their studies?
I'm going to take option C: He likes to feel better than other people, so he makes fun of them for no good reason.
Of course, I also have a friend who is a licensed Chiropractor and also a licensed family medicine M.D. Try telling him that Chiropractors aren't Doctors... that would be a hard case to make!
If the article's good, it's good. If it's not, it's not... doesn't matter to me where it's published, or who tells me about it (even if it's the person who wrote it.)
The real problem is that Slashdot rubber-stamps terrible articles all the time. If they only linked to really good articles on blogs, I doubt anybody would mind.
That's nothing. The "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant" quote frequently attributed to Admiral Yamamoto? He never said that. It was invented by the screenwriters of Tora! Tora! Tora!
So, while the story here might have a point, why does Hollywood get a pass? They've altered a lot more historical events than the gaming industry.
Of course you're right, but in practice, Classic Mac still crashed less than, say, Windows 95 (before OSR2 came out). It really wasn't that bad, and it taught you how to save after every single sentence.:)
The problem is that the US Federal Government needs to be able to over-ride State laws in some cases, for example, to protect interstate commerce. What needs to happen is a "scope reduction", not a "power reduction." The Feds should still be able to override State laws, but they should be prevented from making any laws *not* relating to interstate commerce, foreign policy, or defense.
The other thing that bugs me is people trying to amend the Constitution without amending the Constitution-- for example, the lawmakers trying to add extreme restrictions on gun ownership without doing things the proper way and repealing the Second Amendment. If you want gun control, fine-- but you have to repeal the amendment first! You can't shoehorn it in alongside!
Didn't anybody tell you as a child that two wrongs didn't make a right? Regardless of the US' spying capabilities, the issues brought up in the article are still issues.
Especially since China is spying on US companies, while the US is (probably!) only spying on Chinese government/military networks. (Which, while arguably morally wrong, is at least accepted as a fact of life.)
Of course, using the example of the US Federal Government shows that idea can only work for so long. Now there's absolutely no part of life that the US Feds won't interfere with.
The one thing that bugs me about Vista is that they got rid of Filmstrip view in Explorer. You can kind of "simulate" it by dinking with icon size and turning on the preview pane, but it's just not the same.
That said, I don't want Microsoft to ship&support two versions of Explorer. It's just more for them to QA, and odds are instead of hiring more QA staff, they'd simply QA each version half as much-- I'd much rather have one fully debugged file browser that isn't exactly what I want.
Then came the time where it was blatantly obvious that at least some of the "MS fanboys" were in fact paid for making their voices heard.
You see this every week on Slashdot. I've yet to see any evidence.
I think I dimly remember that even the PR company doing it was revealed.
Yeah, a lot of people "dimly remember" things that never happened. Show me. Back up your assertion so I know you're not just spouting bullshit. Give me a citation.
After that, everyone speaking in favour of MS was accused of being essentially an advertisement on two legs, and ignored.
That part actually happened. What you're missing is that the part where it was proved that Microsoft was paying people to post in this (and other) forums? That part never happened. It's all bullshit.
Why do I have to re-learn everything because microsoft wants to try to sell more copies of an OS?
What did you have to re-learn?
The thing most amazing to me about Windows is how similar every version is, and yet how many people claim there's this massive amount of retraining needed. Retraining for what!? The UI is almost identical to XP, except looking slightly different. The differences are so trivial that if you have Vista in "Classic" mode, and compared it to XP in "Classic" mode, you can't even tell the damned difference.
And completely ignoring things like boot time, security, and backwards comparability (the things the Customer actually cares about), while bending over backwards to make sure DRM for hollywood is in the OS
Windows being able to play Blu-Ray disks *is* something the customer actually cares about. And putting DRM in the OS is the only way to allow it to play Blu-Ray disks.
You're basically arguing: "Microsoft should do the things customers actually care about! Unless the thing the customer actually cares about involves working with the MPAA, in which case they shouldn't!"
They could look at my account, realize I've never bought a music track or iPhone application, give up on me as a lost cause, and authorize me for the "lite" version.:)
No joke. I'm getting it shipped *from the Microsoft employee store* and people in the UK have it first. Mine just hit the UPS tracking system this morning.
Slashdot Mirror
You can rent games from GameFly and it's cheaper than buying-then-reselling them. If that's what you're looking for, your needs are already taken care of.
You want "platform independence"? We already had that with source.\
Then what's that ./configure step for? None of that's in the source, right?
And I can take the resulting application file, put it on a USB key, then run it on a PPC Linux computer?
No?
Oh, well, then I guess it's not at all the same and you're full of shit.
OTOH, there is a lot less call for blob-ware on Ubuntu and Linux in general. Always has been.
And therefore it's perfectly acceptable that Ubuntu handles it like shit. Is that the logic you're going for?
Because it seems to me that you'd be better off making *everything* work well, no matter how much "call for it" there is.
The bad is that notebooks are rather problematic. I have an HP tablet that when the screen is flipped causes the machine to stop dead in its tracks.
My HP tablet works fine with Windows 7 on it. Of course, I'm smart enough to not install HP's shitty-ass drivers.
Wake up and smell the coffee - whether you like it or not, the world doesn't function the way you think it should. Might makes right, and in a confusing turn of events the plebeians have the power to copy bits. We do not require justification. You aren't going to talk us out of it.
Fuck you. Do you even realize you're ruining everything for the rest of us? Why do you think there's DRM on video? Why do you think video games install nasty fake CD drivers that fuck with your system? Why do you think Microsoft uses an activation system? It's YOUR FUCKING FAULT.
Ok.
I'm waiting until you get to the part where you explain how that justifies piracy.
Nothing stops you from writing your own codecs that avoid existing patents. What's that, you say? That's HARD WORK? Of *course* it's fucking HARD WORK! That's why people expect to get paid for it!
Also: your video game example is retarded. Computers exist... right? Or are you living in some weird parallel universe?
But the programs have already been developed. Restricting copying after the fact is just pure waste. Forcing people to use inferior programs when there is no extra cost to society is uneconomical and little more than a bi product of a corrupt capitalistic system.
Under your little system here, how is the developer supposed to fund the initial development of the product?
They could take out a loan but, oh wait, according to Wildclaw's Law, nobody has to pay for the software after it's developed. How do you re-pay the loan? You can't... out of business.
You can fund it from the profits of your previous version or other products but-- oh wait! Wildclaw's Law again! Nobody has to pay for your previous version or other products, because you've finished them. Out of business again.
Sounds to me like you just want to be a good little anarchist and rub dirt on our "corrupt capitalistic system." In that case, go get 'em, Lenin!
If they're not willing to pay, they don't have the moral right to pirate. Your argument doesn't change anything.
Look, the way IP laws work here is simple: if I create X, I have the right to distribute X under whatever terms I want. If I want to give it away, I can do that. If I want to charge $50, I can do that too. You as a customer, have two choices: 1) Take it, 2) Leave it.
If you think it's too expensive, you take option 2. Period. End of story.
What gives you the moral right to restrict him from listening to/using it. It isn't like there is some law of scarcity involved that makes it necessary to restrict access? No, in fact, the only reason to restrict access to him is so that you can feel superior. You own the lebensraum. Not him. And you just have to make that point.
If he was paying the duplication cost (admittedly tiny), *and* his portion of the initial development costs (much larger), then you might have a case. People who bought World of Goo on their name-your-price system for, say, $2 would be in this category. As-is, he's taking the product for absolutely nothing... it's hard to argue that taking something that is worth *something* for *nothing* isn't theft.
Unless you literally believe it's worth nothing, in which I'd like to see the logic in that... if it's worth nothing nobody would pirate it, because what would be the point? It's worthless.
Laziness is the greatest virtue of all. It is mother of all inventions. Those who claim that it is a sin, are those who want to strive backwards into the middle ages.
Lazy people don't invent things, and if they do they don't successfully bring them to market. The Laz-E-Boy (obvious example) was invented by an enterprising person for *other* people who were lazy.
If everybody was lazy, society would grind to a stand-still. Imagine if everybody in the world was a DMV employee! Fortunately for us, a large number of people are born with ambition.
You have the right to claim that, but it doesn't make it true.
Him claiming it doesn't make it true. But it just so happens to be true regardless.
The free market solution would be to not buy Matlab then. Matlab sucking isn't a justification for piracy, just a justification for not buying their product.
Are you saying that there is no scientific merit to studying systems of people people and societies? Or are you saying that sociologists don't know how to apply the scientific method in their studies?
I'm going to take option C: He likes to feel better than other people, so he makes fun of them for no good reason.
Of course, I also have a friend who is a licensed Chiropractor and also a licensed family medicine M.D. Try telling him that Chiropractors aren't Doctors... that would be a hard case to make!
If the article's good, it's good. If it's not, it's not... doesn't matter to me where it's published, or who tells me about it (even if it's the person who wrote it.)
The real problem is that Slashdot rubber-stamps terrible articles all the time. If they only linked to really good articles on blogs, I doubt anybody would mind.
That's nothing. The "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant" quote frequently attributed to Admiral Yamamoto? He never said that. It was invented by the screenwriters of Tora! Tora! Tora!
So, while the story here might have a point, why does Hollywood get a pass? They've altered a lot more historical events than the gaming industry.
You're making (or baselessly repeating) the claim, you have to provide evidence. Since you have none, I'm assuming you're full of shit.
In the end, whether or not it's true or a false, shared memory doesn't matter to it being the reason pro-MS arguments go ignored.
You think it's ok for a person to ignore arguments because their head has been filled with bullshit? You seriously find that acceptable? Fuck.
Of course you're right, but in practice, Classic Mac still crashed less than, say, Windows 95 (before OSR2 came out). It really wasn't that bad, and it taught you how to save after every single sentence. :)
The problem is that the US Federal Government needs to be able to over-ride State laws in some cases, for example, to protect interstate commerce. What needs to happen is a "scope reduction", not a "power reduction." The Feds should still be able to override State laws, but they should be prevented from making any laws *not* relating to interstate commerce, foreign policy, or defense.
The other thing that bugs me is people trying to amend the Constitution without amending the Constitution-- for example, the lawmakers trying to add extreme restrictions on gun ownership without doing things the proper way and repealing the Second Amendment. If you want gun control, fine-- but you have to repeal the amendment first! You can't shoehorn it in alongside!
Objection! Relevance!
Didn't anybody tell you as a child that two wrongs didn't make a right? Regardless of the US' spying capabilities, the issues brought up in the article are still issues.
Especially since China is spying on US companies, while the US is (probably!) only spying on Chinese government/military networks. (Which, while arguably morally wrong, is at least accepted as a fact of life.)
Of course, using the example of the US Federal Government shows that idea can only work for so long. Now there's absolutely no part of life that the US Feds won't interfere with.
The one thing that bugs me about Vista is that they got rid of Filmstrip view in Explorer. You can kind of "simulate" it by dinking with icon size and turning on the preview pane, but it's just not the same.
That said, I don't want Microsoft to ship&support two versions of Explorer. It's just more for them to QA, and odds are instead of hiring more QA staff, they'd simply QA each version half as much-- I'd much rather have one fully debugged file browser that isn't exactly what I want.
But it's pretty common for guys to head to a strip club after a business meeting.
Where are you? I've never heard of this happening in the Seattle area-- I've heard jokes, but never have I heard of it actually happening.
Then came the time where it was blatantly obvious that at least some of the "MS fanboys" were in fact paid for making their voices heard.
You see this every week on Slashdot. I've yet to see any evidence.
I think I dimly remember that even the PR company doing it was revealed.
Yeah, a lot of people "dimly remember" things that never happened. Show me. Back up your assertion so I know you're not just spouting bullshit. Give me a citation.
After that, everyone speaking in favour of MS was accused of being essentially an advertisement on two legs, and ignored.
That part actually happened. What you're missing is that the part where it was proved that Microsoft was paying people to post in this (and other) forums? That part never happened. It's all bullshit.
Why do I have to re-learn everything because microsoft wants to try to sell more copies of an OS?
What did you have to re-learn?
The thing most amazing to me about Windows is how similar every version is, and yet how many people claim there's this massive amount of retraining needed. Retraining for what!? The UI is almost identical to XP, except looking slightly different. The differences are so trivial that if you have Vista in "Classic" mode, and compared it to XP in "Classic" mode, you can't even tell the damned difference.
And completely ignoring things like boot time, security, and backwards comparability (the things the Customer actually cares about), while bending over backwards to make sure DRM for hollywood is in the OS
Windows being able to play Blu-Ray disks *is* something the customer actually cares about. And putting DRM in the OS is the only way to allow it to play Blu-Ray disks.
You're basically arguing: "Microsoft should do the things customers actually care about! Unless the thing the customer actually cares about involves working with the MPAA, in which case they shouldn't!"
They could look at my account, realize I've never bought a music track or iPhone application, give up on me as a lost cause, and authorize me for the "lite" version. :)
No joke. I'm getting it shipped *from the Microsoft employee store* and people in the UK have it first. Mine just hit the UPS tracking system this morning.