Also, I couldn't give two shits about the environment, or the survival of the human species :) I'll stick to driving my fossil fueling burning powerhouses.
Maybe when these vegan pussies can design a truck (never will I drive a car) that's "green" and is at least 3x more powerful than the 7.3L International Diesel in Fords, the maaaaaybbbe I would consider it. 'Till then, I'll piss off the eco-nuts.
I find it quite ironic that it is easier, faster, and far more convenient for me to downloaded pirated versions of games, movies, and music than it is to get these things legitimately. It is no wonder people flock to P2P sources for entertainment. Individual people using free software have established vast social networks that work better than the retail system of the billion dollar corporations. Now why is this?
Case in point: Some time ago, I wanted to check out the Doom 3 demo. I click on the links to get the demo, but do I get a download prompt? Hell no, I get treated to the corporate runaround. They want me to register for this or that service, they want my private details, they want my email, they expect me to fill out copious amounts of paperwork when all I want is to see what the game is all about. Now if you do go through the rigmarole of jumping through all those hoops and actually do get to a page where you can actually download, the page you will find there is a lengthy wait because you didn’t BUY the premium service granting you instant access.
Why go through all this for a mere demo when in less than 30 seconds I can open my browser and get a torrent from Suprnova for the full game. No registering, no waiting, no hassle. I say these companies have no right to complain since they make getting their products so difficult. They have really dropped the ball if they let themselves get skunked by a bunch of ordinary people who created a sophisticated retail distribution system quite literally by accident or chance.
The root of their problem is outright greed. It is greed that compels them to seek out my private information and email address so they can sell me even more crap. It is never enough for them to be happy they made a sale, oh no, now you the consumer are made to feel guilty because you didn’t buy enough. Last Xmas the major retail chains even had the balls to blame customers for their poor sales. Oh the customers just wouldn’t buy enough. Boo fucking hoo, lower your damn prices asshats.
These companies like the RIAA and MPAA are acting as though they are entitled to all of your money. They consider every CD-R or DVD-R ever sold as being used only to copy music and movies. Why by their estimates they are out several hundred quadrillion dollars a year in sales. It is funny that the same arguments they use against piracy are the ones a more enlightened government used to establish public libraries. Here we have these buildings in every podunk little town in the US that I can go to get the latest Michael Crichton novel, for free mind you, while at the same time the parking lot at the Barnes and Noble isn’t exactly empty.
Indeed books cost just as much as a CD album despite the fact the book costs far more than the cheap piece of plastic from the drugged out hippies who didn’t even write the songs they are contractually obligated to sing. No, the only people who get hurt by music piracy are the massive corporate conglomerates that belong to the RIAA who have historically screwed both consumer and singer alike. I don’t know if there is such a thing as karma, but the RIAA is surely getting exactly what it deserves.
It is not so much the piracy for piracy's sake as it is just easier for the consumer to obtain the pirated goods. Furthermore it is not that getting pirated goods is too easy, but that getting the legit thing is so damn hard.
The movie industry is so scared about pirates that they will not release movies online. This means a lot of people are just fucked because they have no way to get the movie they want. With P2P I can watch just about anything I want for free by downloading it. I ask you this: Who is wrong, me for getting something for free that I have no idea where to buy, or them for failing to offer something I would buy if I knew where to look?
A friend has introduced me to the theory that money is a substitute for work. For years I have been trying to wrap my head around where exactly wealth comes from. I have heard about, and agree with, wealth is NOT a zero sum game (in zero sum if you get rich that means someone else gets poor). Now I see that wealth, or money, is work made real.
Therefore if money is a substitute for work, then I should be able to fork over some cash and have a company let me download a movie without any hassle. Yet the exact opposite is true: It takes far more work AND money to get the legit article when I can just download the thing without any hassles AND get it for free.
The point being all these movie big wigs have to do is let me download their films for a modest fee. Just let me have what I want when I want for a reasonable amount. Is that hard? Apparently it is because they will not do this. They would rather sell nothing then concede that someone might get something for nothing when they are getting that something for nothing either way. That is like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Today I opened windows media player to listen to some net radio. I noticed the "music" tab and clicked on it. I don't use WMP that often so I decided to check out some of its features. I was whisked off to a page with a selection of the latest and most popular albums. One of those albums was something by Green Day. I decided to check it out and clicked on the link. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was not at all surprised they wanted me to buy the songs. 99 cents a pop and two you had to buy the album to get. Quite tricky on their part since there are 9 songs (at 99 cents a pop) but the album is $10.89.
I decided to try a little experiment. Would it be easier to get the songs by paying or from P2P? I went to ThePirateBay and found several torrents of the album, and I found several rars and zips on DC++. These began downloading in earnest, the DC version at 45k/s and the torrent at around 90k/s. Back on the MSN network I first had to "sign up" before I could order anything. Needless to say by the time I was ready to submit my order for ONE stupid song the torrent was done (and the torrent was a full CD quality rip).
The reason it is so hard to get music and especially movies is their greed. I mentioned earlier I would gladly pay a reasonable price for movies if I could download them. I would also pay a reasonable price for music. But their prices are NOT reasonable. They are outrageous! Paying $25-$30 for a titney spears album is not reasonable. 99 cents for one song is not reasonable. Renting a movie for 24 hours for $5 is not reasonable.
These bastards are getting pirated because their sense of greed is so overwhelming. They go beyond greed and into malfeasance. They are little more than monopolists, or rather collusionists. The RIAA already got sued a few years for conspiring to keep retail prices of music artificially high. The longer they keep trying to peddle their overpriced wares on an outdated distribution system the more rampant piracy will become simply because it is the most efficient economic system.
"I pirate not because I don't have the money, but because they won't offer the product."
The software scene is something different altogether. I understand the need for many software publishers to charge high prices simply because they have such a small market. This argument does NOT apply to the likes of Microsoft or the gaming industry as they have plenty of customers, but they charge a lot anyway (greed). How many people really need to buy photoshop? A few thousand companies maybe? The current price for either Adobe CS or the Adobe Video Collection is about $1500. Outrageous yes, worth it no, unless you are a company. I can download both of these for nothing faster and easier than buying them.
However, if I could not pirate these I would never pay that much money for them. The fact is most people who pirate software never intended to buy it in the first place. I think it is disingenuous of the software industry to decry every pirated download as a lost sale. The fact is Photoshop would not be nearly as popular as it is if millions of people could not pirate it. These millions of users have created reams of how-to websites and guides, posted informative articles, and have contributed to the design of macros and plug-ins. These resources have in turn allowed Adobe to become as popular as it is. Piracy helped Adobe.
Until there is a new paradigm of thinking in the corporate world involving significantly lower prices and better distribution piracy will reign supreme.
Consider this: The cost of computer hardware has fallen dramaticially over the past 10 years. It used to be a mainstream system would cost well over $3000. At these prices the cost of Windows OS is something of an afterthought. Today, computer systems are starting to reach a price point of true affordability except for one component that remains increasingly expensive: the OS.
That's right, good ol' Windows in keeping the cost of computers sky high. In a low end system it is the single most expensive component! A quick websearch of current prices for XP pro reveals it costs between $120 to $250. A year ago my graphics card cost me $160, and it was the most expensive component. Even upgrades to XP cost over $100.
Microsoft spends too much time trying to do everything and ends up sucking at just about everything. Who among you relies on the Windows firewall? What about the encryption features? DO you use the CD burning utils? The movie maker?
There are tons of appz out there that replicate the features of windows and do an infinately better job. That's funny considering how staggeringly wealthy Micro$oft is. If I knew how to safely rip out most of the WIndows bloatware I would. Maybe if they concentrated on actually making an OS that worked things would be better.
They won't, of course. They are greedy, so they try to include as many features as possible to block any competition from gaining a market share and to justify an entirely new version of windows rather than a mere service pack. Service packs don't make money.
In the end Windows is a jack of all trades, master of none. Full of features only newbs will rely on, and still it crashes. I hope someone starts suing software makers because of bugs. If software companies were held to the same standards as physical product manufactures I bet Windows would not be the piece of crap it has always been.
You're all fucking idiots, period. Oh, now I'll wait for some loser who thinks he has a clever comeback to retort so I can have a good laugh. You losers pay for a game that requires you have no life.. GJ.
I don't get what's so difficult about living your life without the guidance of some stupid and unfactual book. In fact, it's the most unfactual document to ever exist. I don't particularly care what any of you think, there are too many FACTS that PROVE there isn't, never was and never will be a Jesus. Kthx
Diesel-powered Loremo promises to hit 150 miles per gallon
Feb 21st 2008 8:06PM (Engadget)Maybe when these vegan pussies can design a truck (never will I drive a car) that's "green" and is at least 3x more powerful than the 7.3L International Diesel in Fords, the maaaaaybbbe I would consider it. 'Till then, I'll piss off the eco-nuts.
Diesel-powered Loremo promises to hit 150 miles per gallon
Feb 21st 2008 7:59PM (Engadget)It looks like crap.
FBI amassing largest face, fingerprint, palm database in the world
Dec 23rd 2007 3:21PM (Engadget)China outdoes itself with unprecedented surveillance initiative
Aug 13th 2007 10:36PM (Engadget)Workaround enables Netflix 'Watch Now' titles to be decrypted, saved
Aug 9th 2007 1:26PM (Engadget)Case in point: Some time ago, I wanted to check out the Doom 3 demo. I click on the links to get the demo, but do I get a download prompt? Hell no, I get treated to the corporate runaround. They want me to register for this or that service, they want my private details, they want my email, they expect me to fill out copious amounts of paperwork when all I want is to see what the game is all about. Now if you do go through the rigmarole of jumping through all those hoops and actually do get to a page where you can actually download, the page you will find there is a lengthy wait because you didn’t BUY the premium service granting you instant access.
Why go through all this for a mere demo when in less than 30 seconds I can open my browser and get a torrent from Suprnova for the full game. No registering, no waiting, no hassle. I say these companies have no right to complain since they make getting their products so difficult. They have really dropped the ball if they let themselves get skunked by a bunch of ordinary people who created a sophisticated retail distribution system quite literally by accident or chance.
The root of their problem is outright greed. It is greed that compels them to seek out my private information and email address so they can sell me even more crap. It is never enough for them to be happy they made a sale, oh no, now you the consumer are made to feel guilty because you didn’t buy enough. Last Xmas the major retail chains even had the balls to blame customers for their poor sales. Oh the customers just wouldn’t buy enough. Boo fucking hoo, lower your damn prices asshats.
These companies like the RIAA and MPAA are acting as though they are entitled to all of your money. They consider every CD-R or DVD-R ever sold as being used only to copy music and movies. Why by their estimates they are out several hundred quadrillion dollars a year in sales. It is funny that the same arguments they use against piracy are the ones a more enlightened government used to establish public libraries. Here we have these buildings in every podunk little town in the US that I can go to get the latest Michael Crichton novel, for free mind you, while at the same time the parking lot at the Barnes and Noble isn’t exactly empty.
Indeed books cost just as much as a CD album despite the fact the book costs far more than the cheap piece of plastic from the drugged out hippies who didn’t even write the songs they are contractually obligated to sing. No, the only people who get hurt by music piracy are the massive corporate conglomerates that belong to the RIAA who have historically screwed both consumer and singer alike. I don’t know if there is such a thing as karma, but the RIAA is surely getting exactly what it deserves.
It is not so much the piracy for piracy's sake as it is just easier for the consumer to obtain the pirated goods. Furthermore it is not that getting pirated goods is too easy, but that getting the legit thing is so damn hard.
The movie industry is so scared about pirates that they will not release movies online. This means a lot of people are just fucked because they have no way to get the movie they want. With P2P I can watch just about anything I want for free by downloading it. I ask you this: Who is wrong, me for getting something for free that I have no idea where to buy, or them for failing to offer something I would buy if I knew where to look?
A friend has introduced me to the theory that money is a substitute for work. For years I have been trying to wrap my head around where exactly wealth comes from. I have heard about, and agree with, wealth is NOT a zero sum game (in zero sum if you get rich that means someone else gets poor). Now I see that wealth, or money, is work made real.
Therefore if money is a substitute for work, then I should be able to fork over some cash and have a company let me download a movie without any hassle. Yet the exact opposite is true: It takes far more work AND money to get the legit article when I can just download the thing without any hassles AND get it for free.
The point being all these movie big wigs have to do is let me download their films for a modest fee. Just let me have what I want when I want for a reasonable amount. Is that hard? Apparently it is because they will not do this. They would rather sell nothing then concede that someone might get something for nothing when they are getting that something for nothing either way. That is like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Today I opened windows media player to listen to some net radio. I noticed the "music" tab and clicked on it. I don't use WMP that often so I decided to check out some of its features. I was whisked off to a page with a selection of the latest and most popular albums. One of those albums was something by Green Day. I decided to check it out and clicked on the link. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was not at all surprised they wanted me to buy the songs. 99 cents a pop and two you had to buy the album to get. Quite tricky on their part since there are 9 songs (at 99 cents a pop) but the album is $10.89.
I decided to try a little experiment. Would it be easier to get the songs by paying or from P2P? I went to ThePirateBay and found several torrents of the album, and I found several rars and zips on DC++. These began downloading in earnest, the DC version at 45k/s and the torrent at around 90k/s. Back on the MSN network I first had to "sign up" before I could order anything. Needless to say by the time I was ready to submit my order for ONE stupid song the torrent was done (and the torrent was a full CD quality rip).
The reason it is so hard to get music and especially movies is their greed. I mentioned earlier I would gladly pay a reasonable price for movies if I could download them. I would also pay a reasonable price for music. But their prices are NOT reasonable. They are outrageous! Paying $25-$30 for a titney spears album is not reasonable. 99 cents for one song is not reasonable. Renting a movie for 24 hours for $5 is not reasonable.
These bastards are getting pirated because their sense of greed is so overwhelming. They go beyond greed and into malfeasance. They are little more than monopolists, or rather collusionists. The RIAA already got sued a few years for conspiring to keep retail prices of music artificially high. The longer they keep trying to peddle their overpriced wares on an outdated distribution system the more rampant piracy will become simply because it is the most efficient economic system.
"I pirate not because I don't have the money, but because they won't offer the product."
The software scene is something different altogether. I understand the need for many software publishers to charge high prices simply because they have such a small market. This argument does NOT apply to the likes of Microsoft or the gaming industry as they have plenty of customers, but they charge a lot anyway (greed). How many people really need to buy photoshop? A few thousand companies maybe? The current price for either Adobe CS or the Adobe Video Collection is about $1500. Outrageous yes, worth it no, unless you are a company. I can download both of these for nothing faster and easier than buying them.
However, if I could not pirate these I would never pay that much money for them. The fact is most people who pirate software never intended to buy it in the first place. I think it is disingenuous of the software industry to decry every pirated download as a lost sale. The fact is Photoshop would not be nearly as popular as it is if millions of people could not pirate it. These millions of users have created reams of how-to websites and guides, posted informative articles, and have contributed to the design of macros and plug-ins. These resources have in turn allowed Adobe to become as popular as it is. Piracy helped Adobe.
Until there is a new paradigm of thinking in the corporate world involving significantly lower prices and better distribution piracy will reign supreme.
Consider this: The cost of computer hardware has fallen dramaticially over the past 10 years. It used to be a mainstream system would cost well over $3000. At these prices the cost of Windows OS is something of an afterthought. Today, computer systems are starting to reach a price point of true affordability except for one component that remains increasingly expensive: the OS.
That's right, good ol' Windows in keeping the cost of computers sky high. In a low end system it is the single most expensive component! A quick websearch of current prices for XP pro reveals it costs between $120 to $250. A year ago my graphics card cost me $160, and it was the most expensive component. Even upgrades to XP cost over $100.
Microsoft spends too much time trying to do everything and ends up sucking at just about everything. Who among you relies on the Windows firewall? What about the encryption features? DO you use the CD burning utils? The movie maker?
There are tons of appz out there that replicate the features of windows and do an infinately better job. That's funny considering how staggeringly wealthy Micro$oft is. If I knew how to safely rip out most of the WIndows bloatware I would. Maybe if they concentrated on actually making an OS that worked things would be better.
They won't, of course. They are greedy, so they try to include as many features as possible to block any competition from gaining a market share and to justify an entirely new version of windows rather than a mere service pack. Service packs don't make money.
In the end Windows is a jack of all trades, master of none. Full of features only newbs will rely on, and still it crashes. I hope someone starts suing software makers because of bugs. If software companies were held to the same standards as physical product manufactures I bet Windows would not be the piece of crap it has always been.
Xbox Live Vision sneaks onto store shelf
Aug 19th 2006 8:53PM (Engadget)Hitachi sez: 1TB drives by end of year
Aug 15th 2006 6:41PM (Engadget)High powered TV-B Gone sniping hack
Apr 30th 2006 2:37AM (Engadget)Gamer feels cheated by FFXI's sneaky hidden fees [update 1]
Apr 22nd 2006 5:49PM (Joystiq)Jesus the hardcore gamer
Apr 20th 2006 11:59PM (Joystiq)