725 karma · joined September 16, 2011
20 years or so later everyone has a digital camera and all Kodak has are some patents.
Take this ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6xj4jS8cho
This the truth...
You spent an hour to go to the shop's and buy it / waited a day for delivery He spent 15 minutes downloading it.
You have to sit though ad's you cannot skip. You have to watch a 39 second anti-piracy ad on a legitimate DVD. You have to wait 30 seconds for the title menu to load because some moron decided to show clips of the film you want to fecking play before it appears!
He is already 5 minutes into the film.
------------------
Its horrible.
As for the rest of the arguments I disagree.
1) Because you don't use my money well
It doesn't matter how they spend there money. They are provided a product that you want. If they didn't exist the product wouldn't exist.
"Everything else was probably diluted in stuffs I don't need: packaging, distribution, transport, marketing,"
If they didn't market you wouldn't have heard about it. If they didn't pay for distribution you wouldn't be able to get it. If they didn't pay for packaging you would receive a scratched, perhaps broken CD...
2) Because you are messing with my life
"Worst, you will use my money to sue me in court because I would have downloaded something that I didn't want to buy anyway!"
Yeah.. your like stealing their stuff? Why shouldn't they come after you? If you don't want it don't download. If you download it.. don't pretend you didn't want it.
"With the change left, you will pay lobbyists to ensure the governments make stupid and dangerous laws."
The politicians pass the law's. I see nothing wrong with the music / film industry lobbying to protect their interest's. Where it gets scary is when politicians act on the side of lobbyists without considering the wider picture.
3) Because you are destroying the whole society
I agree there are problems but I completely disagree that these problems are all caused by the film and music industry. I didn't know EMI signed teachers for their lectures?
Finally...
"If I'm a pirate, it's not to have some cheap music. It is because the time has come for you to fuck off. In your arrogance, you are hurting the fundamental value of freedom only to save your little petty interests."
I guess big hollywood movies and the majority of career musicians can fuck off as well aye?
For me, discarding kitchen things and stuff needed to run a house (furniture, hoover, ironing board etc) I use / wear maybe 25 things frequently.
The main difference between that guy and most people is he chooses to sell / discard / not buy crap he doesn't need. Most people accumulate stuff and fill their attic with it.
Google have advertisers and business to worry about. They also have the G+ vs Facebook battle to be concerned about.
If Google blackout and no one else does then what will people do during the hours Google is down? They would go else where... shareholders and investors would be very unhappy. Especially if you consider these people who pop to Bing may decide they like Bing better.
If Facebook / Google / Yahoo / Bing all went offline from 6-9pm in a rolling blackout across the states on one night. (i.e. blackout by IP based on states timezone.) It would have a massive effect.
Hell, they don't even need to completely blackout. Just randomly black out elements of the page.
American's are still afraid of communism right? Lets add a bar at the top of the sites.
"SOPA would mean that we would have to black out portions of the Internet. Do you know who else does this? CHINA. Are you a communist? Campaign against SOPA here."
It's a bit direct but I thought this was how US politics worked?
You black out your website to raise awareness to the cause. I think it is a fair bet that an extremely high number of HN users know a lot about SOPA / PIPA. So there is no point doing this to educate regulars.
Perhaps news will spread. Sure, it will spread in the tech community. In the tech community knowledge of SOPA / PIPA is well known. Shock waves from HN being blacked out won't travel to the general public or politicians.
But what if it does travel to the public / politicians. "A website called Hacker News blacked out? Hackers are bad right? A bit like pirates which this bill is protecting us against? Shouldn't this site be blacked out anyway?"
HN has an unfortunate name. You black out a website to make a statement. With HN which is so obviously anti-SOPA/PIPA I don't see the point.
Now.. if gravatar blacked out all of the avatars for a day. Or Google + Bing + Yahoo turned off the switch for a couple of hours at the same time... that would be a statement.
Comet seem to say that as manufacturers stopped packaging computer's with CD's they decided to make their own.
Assuming this is true. Each computer had a valid Windows license. Comet decided to burn the CD's itself so users didn't have to try to make their own recovery disks.
I don't seem the harm. I mean.. users can make their own recovery disc's anyway can't they? Comet was just saving them a step?
I was watching the Harry Potter part 8 movie and teens came with their dad. They talked on and off for the first half of the film. Their dad did nothing. It wasn't until I turned around in my seat and told them to shut up that they actually did.
Flash back about 10 years. Maybe a bit more. There was a projectionist. There was often a staff member sitting by the entrance of the movie. Some kids would mess around. The staff would wait to see if it settled down for a minute or so then a flash light would come on and out would go the talkers.
I forget what film it was but there were 4 major distractions where staff had to come in and order people out. As we left staff members apologised and handed out vouchers because they knew the screening had been ruined.
I don't mind people gasping or saying "Oh no he didn't!" during scary films. There have always been idiots at the cinema. They have only started ruining films of late because cinemas have lost the will to deal with these people.
In business you would work your way up. Employee >> Supervisor of Employees >> Manager with budgets >> Area Manager >> Country Manger >> CEO. You gain responsibility as you go. MP's do not have this. They fall into a job which they are almost never qualified for. Some do OK. However.. if you look closely at the majority you will see mistakes that anywhere else would see them fired.
In the states these dubiously qualified MP's are now looking to legislate an global network as a single nation... I am sure that some of them cannot even comprehend what the Internet is.
Copy and pasting usually means you never knew what the code said anyway.
Typing it once means you will remember it till the end of the day but tomorrow? The day after?
Typing it 20 times and saying it out loud to yourself helps it stick. There is no need to run to Google to look up the command. You should know it after doing it this many times. Especially if in the following days you recap with some basic memory exercises.
I have always thought that this is what set's Zed Shaw's books apart. They teach you a language in a way that sticks.
If you don't find it useful or for your style of learning pick up a book focusing more on theory rather than doing.
I am also an Android user. This feature isn't something I need.
Like I said in my original post, it probably isn't how it seems. The fact remains though that Apple saw an opportunity with voice commands on its mobile platform. Google may have been working on voice technology before hand but was it for Android?
Google is doing great on other things. Chrome, Chromebooks (maybe released a few years too early but they took a risk on it) and driverless cars.
With Android, I have yet to see it really innovate by itself. I should say that I do not follow Android development. I am just an Android user who casually looks at an iPhone from time to time to compare the two.
It probably isn't like this at all but this is how it comes across. It seems that when Apple innovates, Google copies.
Bringing out your own version of insert item here is fine but it would be nice if Google didn't come across as plainly copying someone else. Apple has Siri, 3 month's later: "Introducing Siri for Android! I mean Majel!"
Would be nice if the next version of Android has its own killer feature people could shout about instead of waiting for someone else to invent it first.
The only other time I go on it is when I get an email notification saying someone has sent me a message.
I don't bother with status updates or reading what other people write. If its interesting they will tell me when I see them. Unsurprisingly when I do see them I don't hear about 90% of the crap they put on Facebook.
Counterfeit cash only has to be good enough to trick a human. It is for this reason that I don't think it would be too long before counterfeiters found a cheap low tech method of creating a similar looking effect.
I remember the first purchase I made on Amazon. I was like 13 and I needed my mum's card to make it. She knew nothing about computers and almost nothing about the internet. It took her 2 weeks to look into it before giving me the OK. She then struggled through the Amazon website to get what I wanted. Spent a large amount of time making sure she was only getting one, the item was correct and it was being delivered to the right address. She then pressed the purchased button.
That is parenting. That is common sense. I have no idea when it became the norm to trust teen and preteen kids with parents passwords and access to credit card linked accounts.
The vulnerability i thought was that the iPad remembered the password for a short amount of time, if you handed your iPad to a kid in that time they could fire up the app and make a purchase without needing to re-enter the password. Typically though, the kid would be unable to make purchases without a password.
I lesson I learned quickly on the iPad was that few applications were really free. Either the ad's were intrusive or the majority of the content had to be purchased. I typically do not bother with free app's any more and just look for a high rated paid version.
In a similar story Warner Bros abused the DMCA to take down HotFile content that didn't infringe their copyright.
http://torrentfreak.com/warner-bros-admits-sending-hotfile-f...
Label's and studio's have every right to defend their products. However, they must do it in a responsible way. Stories like this make it difficult for politicians to legislate for more power's when the existing ones are already being abused by those they are set up to protect.
The only thing the users had apparently done wrong was not updated their installation. It was because of this that I started to move clients away from Wordpress. The trouble is that a lot of non-tech clients will not touch their admin panel very often and I have found the older generation don't like the word update. It suggests to them "may break or change theme so I can't find stuff."
I find the idea that - probably - the worlds most popular website platform can frequently ship with security issues demoralising. If you look at all the people involved with Wordpress you would have thought that by now they would have squeezed the issues out of WP and learnt enough to ensure they stay squashed in the future. Maybe I expect a bit too much here.
One of the big selling points of Wordpress is that there is a plugin for anything. However.. how many of these have security issues? It is even worse as non-tech users just assume that as the plugin can be accessed from the their admin panel it must be safe.
It is for these reasons that I do not use Wordpress at all. I think it is an alright platform, not keen on the theming aspect but it is OK. However its incredible popularity makes it the target of hackers and spammers. When working with non-tech clients who may or may not update their website, Wordpress is liability more than anything else.
I calculate percentages every day. Turns out yesterday the guy in charge of the company I worked for asked me the formula to work out the % difference between 2 numbers. He didn't ask because he is stupid or has no capacity to do Math. He asked because it has literally been years since he has been required to do it.
Similarly, if you ask me what an onomatopoeia is. I learned it in school and I know the word exists but I haven't been asked to define its meaning for so long that I have forgotten. Now I come to think of it, it might be a word that sounds like another word? Anyway, the point is if you do not practice or recap these things you forget.
4 years ago I passed the Cisco CCNA. I haven't touched a router or switch since. If you asked me anything about networking I would look at you with a blank expression and then answer it with 'Google it?'
Now.. failing a 10th grade Math exam then saying that the tests are too hard or not relevant to daily life is ridiculous. Some of this stuff may not be relevant to your daily life but in general a lot of jobs and general task's in day to day life touch on the key Math skills you learned in school.
School should provide you with a firm foundation in key subjects. If 5 years later you have forgotten 70% of what you learned in science because your job doesn't involve this knowledge and you have no interest in reading / keeping up with science in general it doesn't matter. The chances are you will have remembered 90% of what you learned in English and 80% of what you learned in Math because these you depend on to complete your work.
It doesn't matter that a board member completely flunked a Math exam. It doesn't make him stupid. What is worrying is the attitude the educator takes to his failure. The best response is 'wow compared to these kids I am really rusty at Math.' The worst response is 'my math skills are OK, this test is irrelevant to day to day life.' It undermines teachers and tells kids it is OK to be terrible Math. (If the kid has aspirations to be a school board member this may be true but for a million other jobs and situations it certainly isn't.)
On the surface it looks like a lack of strategy lead to the company hiring too many PHP developers. Of course, it could also be the developers were CHEAP and couldn't transition to another language. It could also be a lack of leadership didn't realise programmers could transition between languages or individuals were not reassigned to focus on another language so little got done.
With so little content all you have is speculation so who knows what was going on.
It seems to me that both Regretsy and PayPal are at fault. Regretsy for using a button with implications they didn't realise. Paypal for not making these issues clear and what looks like some shocking customer support. I hope PayPal look into the customer support issue but that aside the issue is resolved. PayPal have publically admitted fault and are taking steps to correct it. Good on them.
PayPal gets a lot of bad press. I do feel though if you look at the quantity of transactions they deal with and the amount of rules and regulations they have to work with they are doing an alright job. The could improve in areas but lets face it.. what big company couldn't.
It still looks incredibly ugly on the Mac. The last time I used Firefox on Mac it was wobbly. I only now have it installed for testing. The change in versioning was a mistake which caused a load of confusion. Firefox may be getting better in performance or memory usage but does it matter? Other browsers are already there.
I will keep tabs on Firefox but I see no reason to switch from Safari or anything else for that matter to Firefox at the moment. It is a bit like IE tbh. It is getting better but for a generation of users the reputation damage is already done.
The trouble Europe has is that a number of member states are drowning in debt. Their debt greatly exceeds GDP and it is getting worse.. for a country like Italy this is recoverable as long as the markets believe they can pay it back! As soon as the markets stop believing their debt interest will stay above 7%, they will unable to maintain their debt and will probably go under as they are too big to bail out.
This is where UK and the US differ. There is a strong belief in the markets that they can pay their debt back just fine. The interest on their debt is about 2% and everything is manageable.
At least this is how I understand it.
The main thing Firefox need to do is drop the version numbers all together. These numbers should be for developer's only. I could even argue developers do not need the version numbers and could work just fine with feature detection.
The fact is that most people do not care what version of Firefox they have. All they want is Firefox Latest. The latest and hopefully best version of Firefox will allow for the fastest and smoothest browsing experience. When I hear FF7/8/9 is out I sigh. Firefox automatically updates now, why all the grand announcements, especially considering for the majority of users the changes between 7 and 8 are fairly irrelevant background changes that won't be noticed.
Chrome is on what now? v15? Does Chrome continuously shout about how version 15 is out? No.. it just updates.. the user doesn't really know about it. The user doesn't really care about it.
Please.. just call the damn product [Firefox - no version number on the end] and be done with it.
OK, the cost of living is cheaper in India than it is in the West. Thats fine. However, if that means that they are charging 25% of the minimum you would expect to pay you have to ask why it is THAT cheap.
Often the difference in cost is a linguistic barrier and copy and paste programming.
I think India can really compete by charging 60-75% of what a project would cost in the West and providing the work to meet those expectations.
If you are going to India for a bargain though you are more than likely going to get burned.
The problem is that both position themselves as one login for tonnes of services. I do use Twitter to auth into services from time to time. This is why a strong password is important for these. An attacker could get into your account then cause some serious damage to your reputation both amongst your friends and to the outside world by authenticating themselves into one of the million services and acting like a prat.
I know that one of 3 passwords is compromised. All of my friends know it. Even some of my friends of friends know it. So far I haven't noticed any of my accounts being abused. If anything I have noticed friends using it as their memorable password :)
If one site lost its database. Lets say I have 60 accounts on various sites. Based on my 3 passwords 20 or so would probably be compromised. Apart from maybe my name and email address these sites have almost no other personal information. What is the worst that could happen? The account gets banned? A phishing attempt for a site I don't care about?
I don't need to change the password. If an account gets banned or the password changes I will just make another account. I would rather do this than not know passwords and rely on some third party service to make and store secure ones for me.
I have unique passwords for my email accounts, github, facebook, twitter and bank accounts. I only need to remember about 8 passwords. They are all pretty memorable. I usually write them down gasp. I then manually type them in until I remember them. I then rip the paper in two putting half in recycling and half in the trash.
For every other site I use 1 of 3 passwords. Why? Why not? I mean seriously, if a site contains no personal information apart from your email why do you need a separate password for it?
I only use unique 10+ character long passwords to guard things that are worth protecting. If a forum account, stack overflow account etc gets hacked.. oh well. I will make another. It really doesn't matter.
I would use 1 password for all non-critical sites but password restrictions means I need 3.
I buy the music of bands I really like. I buy their albums as a conscious choice to support them. For other bands I would download their music, the artist would get £0 from me unless I went to see them live.
Since switching to Spotify, artists whose albums I would have'pirated' are getting a few cents which they wouldn't otherwise have got. They are winning.. if you could call a few cents winning.
The problem the music industry has is that non-pirates, people who otherwise would have purchased an album are switching to Spotify for recreational listening. If a CD is worth £8 to various people it means that shops, labels and artists loose about £7.90 if the person chooses Spotify instead of purchasing.
Artists and Labels can work around this. They can not put latest albums on Spotify. They can withdraw their music in the hopes they can negotiate a higher streaming price. Both of these would lead to more piracy.. MORE IMPORTANTLY.. this would lead to more casual listeners purchasing music and keeping the wheel's turning for labels.
Spotify is reducing piracy at the cost of reducing the number of non-pirates prepared to pay for music ownership.
Music label's say that piracy is the devil and they are missing out on millions. Spotify proves there is limited value in ending piracy. Spotify also proves there is a growing desire for people to have access to, but not ownership of, music. This is what should be terrifying labels, not piracy.