Nothing altruistic about it; a larger market for electric vehicles can only help Tesla, even if they can't utilize other people's patents. Right now Tesla is really the only major competitor for a decent EV, and the Tesla is expensive. It's a great car, but you're looking at an MSRP of over $70,000 for the base Model S.
For people to be willing to buy a luxury car it helps if there are cheaper alternatives that make the idea of buy and using an EV viable to people. Marketing to the rich first was a smart move; it let's them pack the Tesla cars with a ton of features and the rich are the only ones likely to be early adopters of something that doesn't come with easy infrastructure.
In an ideal world the CC license would be unnecessary because you could use other people's ideas freely. Being able to copy someone else's stuff is greatly overestimated. If someone designs something, sure, I can copy that design. But they have the R&D department, and they understand that design. I don't. My copy will always be second best, and never have the "newest" thing. People will pay for stuff that's new, even if they can get it cheaper in a few months. And, as shown repeatedly at this site, people will pay for things that are free and easily copied, if they're convenient and open.
Tesla gets this. Even if someone iterates on their design, they'll be a leader in the industry because they got there first and know what they're doing. Patents are only important because people who suck at actual innovation have found they can get free money using them. Real innovators know they'll keep the lead because they're already leading the show.
Yes, Jacobsen v. Katzer. I don’t think that opinion makes much sense.
This whole section made me laugh out loud. You, who frequently utilize court cases to point out how the courts have spoken and therefore the author's opinion must be wrong, are saying the courts made the wrong decision (or the right decision for the wrong reasons)?
Huh, that's almost exactly what many of the articles you criticize here do. I hope someone remembers to quote this the next time you post a court case as gospel*.
* Disclaimer: I'm not saying that you're wrong to question whether or not the courts made the right decision, I'm simply pointing out that someone who frequently derides others for doing it while doing it themselves is a giant hypocrite.
That said, nobody said he is abandoning the patents, not even the man himself. He will retain them and it's wise to have patents these days as defensive measures against trolls. Which reinforces the notion that patents are actually a dead weight that must be carried just in case.
This really needs to be quoted again. Obviously an innovative company like Tesla would be a ripe target for patent trolls. If they didn't patent anything, some random troll would apply for the patents and then they'd spend all their time in court rather than designing cars.
The "in good faith" was much more likely referring to this; patent trolls are not welcome to use their patents to sue people, but car companies and other innovators are free to utilize them to actually make stuff.
Elon Musk is a long-term thinker. He invested practically his entire fortune after Paypal into SpaceX, a company many at the time considered a fool's errand. Now SpaceX is being paid by the U.S. government to bring supplies to the ISS and made enough money for him to create Tesla Motors. He is also a heavy investor and was the initial designer of SolarCity, a solar power and EV charging station company.
He's taking on the entire energy industry, and is looking for long-term gains. Our financial system has broken itself because it encourages short-term profit hunting via stock value rather than investing in a company's future.
This is one of the main reasons why the world economy collapsed in 2008. Prior to the bailout, GM made more money from their financial institution and investments than they did from making cars. If you can't see why a car company that's focused on financial investments instead of car creation is a problem, well, you're part of the problem.
So of course Wall Street is freaking out. They have no idea how real-world economics works. Most of the traders are still living in their imaginary world where short-term gains in "profit" is more important than long-term company stability and production. It should be no surprise to anyone when you focus entirely on profit margin at the cost of infrastructure that at some point the infrastructure is going to collapse.
We need more innovators that are looking towards long-term gains rather than short-term cash grabs.
Obviously you'd have to prove intent. That's the entire point. We already differentiate between a crime done by accident and one done on purpose.
In the example above, the TSA supervisor was clearly lying and doing so in order to accuse someone of a crime. Note the intent here...you can't lie if you're wrong and don't know it. There's no way he could have accidentally thought the guy pointed at him and threatened him. It's clearly a lie he created to justify his own actions.
This wouldn't affect reporting at all because proving intent has a rather high standard. If a reasonable person could have made the mistake, like in your van theft example, there's no crime.
Wow, you really are that ignorant. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt.
His actions had absolutely nothing to do with violent media. He was violent because he was trained from childhood to be a warrior and participated in ritual killings and cannibalism from the age of 11. His village probably didn't even have electricity, let alone access to video games.
I don't even know how to describe how dumb your comment is in a polite way. So I didn't try. You're welcome.
Unless children are exposed to content that contradicts your claims at an extremely early age. That is why certain countries have generals going by the name of "General Butt Naked"...I shit you not!
Congratulations, you completely validated my point. Joshua Blahyi was forced to commit actual murder (not virtual murder) at age 11 and was exposed to some of the most brutal and insane aspects of the human condition. You cannot rationally compare exposure to being forced to murder a child and eat her heart and exposure to violent media. That's like saying an ear flick is the same act of violence as rape. The effect on an individual are not even in the same realm.
I'm really not sure what your point is, unless you didn't bother to actually look up who "General Butt Naked" was and thought the name was funny. An 11-year-old absolutely can tell the difference between reality and fiction (and is not an "extremely early age" by any stretch in that context) and would be deeply scarred by the act of cold-blooded, premeditated murder and cannibalism. You don't need a degree in psychology to figure that the human mind would use any method possible, including hallucination and extreme dogmatic thought, to protect itself from such a horror.
Of all the examples to use, you chose one of the greatest examples of real violence's effect on the human mind. I can't tell if you did it on purpose to be ironic or, well, I don't even know.
So if I buy a gym membership, I buy it with the understanding that I will pay a fee per month, regardless of my use, and that I will be sharing the gym with others, and at peak hours I may not have access to the machines I want, which will slow down my workout. This is actually a pretty good analogy.
Now, if the gym were an ISP, they'd also say I can only spend 20 hours per month in the gym, and this is fine, because the average member spends less than 20 hours per month. It's only those few powerlifters that spend longer, and they get charged $10 extra for every 5 hours they spend in the gym extra. Also, once they reach their limit they have to wear a lanyard that gives priority to all other gym members because they've already used their share.
And that's the current situation. ISPs are proposing some "innovative" solutions. Now, Cybex Fitness Equipment can pay the gym a monthly fee and so any time you spend on their equipment doesn't count towards your monthly hour limit. Also, all equipment companies need to pay a monthly fee to the gym for their floor space, because they shouldn't get to use the gym's infrastructure for free. And since Precor paid some extra money, their equipment can be used as long as you want; everyone else has a one-minute maximum use time.
But hey, there's plenty of competition for this gym. In fact, there are four other gyms in town! They all only have two treadmills and single weight bench, but hey, you have options for your workout needs! Some other big gyms are available in other cities, but due to contracts with those gyms, only one of the big gyms exist in your city. Coincidentally, those gyms give their customers the same service and pricing.
When I'm paying for a possible maximum capacity with a monthly fee I'm sort of bothered by a bunch of random fees and restrictions that aren't actually caused by any technical restriction. The gym has a limit to its capacity, and during peak hours you'll probably have to wait to finish your workout. But that limit exists regardless if you spend all your hours in one energy-drink fueled 20-hour marathon or 20 days of one hour workouts. And the exercise equipment is the entire reason you want to buy a gym membership in the first place.
I'm not saying that ISPs should be required to give me my advertised speed at all times. Nobody is (or should be) saying that. I just want my limit to be caused by the capacity of the network, NOT some arbitrary data limit that has little to no impact on my speed. And the whole reason I go online is to access websites, so I don't understand why the websites have to pay my ISP extra so I can access them. I'm already paying for that (and they're paying their own ISPs to be there).
If they weren't making insane profits, I could sort of understand it as a method to make up the money they're losing because actually charging me for what they're selling isn't enough to cover their costs. But that's clearly not the case.
Since competition doesn't exist, and because they're trying to charge me and everyone else for imaginary resources, I believe they are engaged in anti-consumer, monopolistic, behavior that is not required for the health of the network or for their own business requirements and therefore should be regulated. And unlike a gym membership, for the majority of Americans internet access is not optional. We use it for business, we use it for networking (the social kind), we use it for knowledge, and much more. Living without internet access in the modern age is almost akin to living without electricity; possible, but miserable, and suicidal from a business standpoint.
We need the internet to stay accessible to all people, and to prevent the fact that access is necessary to allow monopolistic business to abuse their customers. It's sort of like banks in many ways, and I doubt many people would argue at this point that banks should be unregulated.
Apples and oranges. There's an actual, physical cost to shipping items, a cost difference between shipping quickly and at the standard speed (in opportunity cost and sometimes aircraft), and people pay per package sent. The pricing reflects the realities of the business.
You can't compare the two situations. It doesn't make logical sense. It's sort of like saying that it's unfair an Ford Focus driver has to pay the same toll as a Ford F-150 driver because the F-150 driver has to spend more on gas. The revenue stream and situation for the gas stations are completely different from the toll road.
We pay a toll to access the internet. And now ISPs are telling us we need to pay a gas fee, even though our gas mileage has little to no affect on their business situation. They also want our car company to pay our gas fee, because they should share the burden.
And for those of us that understand this, we're left scratching our heads wondering why the heck we're paying a toll to go on the road if they're going to charge us for something unrelated to their business expenses. It doesn't make sense.
Your rant is highly inaccurate. Studies have shown that children are able to discern the difference between reality and fiction as early as ages 2-3. But just because you can tell the difference between reality and fiction doesn't mean they can't have an effect on you.
This is obvious; even as an adult, I can go to a movie and feel sad when my favorite character dies or scared when the monster stalks the main character. I know it's not real, and more importantly, the effect it has on me is significantly different than if the events onscreen were happening to me in real life.
Likewise, people can be convinced of things than are not true, or at the very least not supported by evidence. For example, you believe there are "billions of people who kneel and kill in the name of their preferred imaginary father" which is a statement equally insane to the "lunatics who think Sandy Hook was a government psychyop" (whatever that means).
If you actually studied anything about religion you'd realize that human activity is largely independent of religious influence; most "religious" conflicts, with even a small amount of historical analysis, are mainly conflicts between political groups, economy, and ideology. War is, and has always been, a political activity, and it wasn't until the last hundred years or so that religion and politics weren't equivalent (and really, are only somewhat separated in the U.S.; the majority of countries today still have a strong religious connection to politics and the U.S. is no exception).
The point is that although fiction can affect us it doesn't drive our behavior. I may feel angry at Prince Joffrey in Game of Thrones, but I haven't gone out and attacked the actor who plays him. This is true of most human emotions; I get mad at my boss or the guy that cuts me off in traffic, but that emotion doesn't suddenly make me kill my boss (like in Horrible Bosses) or run a guy off the road. And in this case, these things are actually happening in real life.
The point is that children can tell when something is real and when something isn't, and while they may be scared of something that isn't real, they aren't going to be affected the same was as if it IS real. Video games aren't real, and we can all tell. Unsurprisingly, people who play video games aren't going out in droves to act the way they do in games. Around 58% of all Americans play video games. About 0.4% of the population commit violent crimes, and (probably by coincidence) as the number of video game players has increased, the overall violent crime rate has decreased. This probably doesn't mean that video games decrease violence (they're probably unrelated entirely), but it certainly makes it a hard sell that there's a positive correlation.
Only in one direction though. Mental health problems are not a predictor of violence.
Absolutely, good point. To my knowledge this applies to all factors, however; just because someone was abused, or is from a low income family, or has mental health issues, etc. does not mean they'll become violent, even though individuals who are violent tend to have one or more of these factors. There are things that increase risk of violence but nothing that can accurately predict violent behavior.
Also, my use of "mental health issues" was probably too vague, as there's a big difference between someone with depression versus someone with antisocial personality disorder. I probably should have said "certain mental health issues."
Re: Re: The problem here is with some people's worls view.
Go for it, make more competition among ISPs without government intervention. Please explain your "better ways" and how we can force ISPs to compete even though they already have agreements with each other specifically designed to prevent real competition.
What are you going to do, boycott the internet? Let me know how that works out...I'll wait for you to go to the public library to let us know. I hope you don't run any sort of modern business, because by taking yourself offline you pretty much took yourself out of business.
I hate this sort of logic. It's like saying that we should remove all regulation from the banking industry and Wall Street, because we don't want that dirty government interfering with our money. Guess what? The government pulled back banking regulations...and look how well that turned out.
Competition can only exist when everyone is playing by the same rules. This is common sense, and why "free market capitalism" doesn't work in real life. It's why we have referees in sports and don't assume everyone is going to play by the rules just because they know them.
It's an irrelevant point anyway. The FCC wouldn't be regulating the "internet." They'd be regulating ISPs. There's a difference. One is the FCC saying that AT&T isn't allowed to prevent you from calling someone with your phone because they're on a different network. The other is the FCC regulating what you say. The FCC has never done the latter for phones, and I have no idea why people would somehow magically think that applying a subset of those rules to the internet would change things.
It's a fallacy to reject an argument based on its source, and way too many people are doing that because Obama and the government are involved.
You need more of a solution than "there needs to be X". These things don't just happen by themselves. If you don't have a method for causing ISPs to compete, there is no reason to believe the current situation will change. Preventing abuse and fraud are exactly the what the government should be doing, not all this other crap we have them doing. The fact that so many people don't want to allow one of the primary functions of government boggles my mind.
Re: Re: Re: Re: "Smart phones are great handheld gaming devices"
Um, most games (if you're thinking of Mario games) that use this mechanic base it off the time you hold down the button, not the pressure used.
Either way, it's a moot point, because emulators already play all these games on smartphones, and they play just fine. Could they be better with a bit of modification specifically with touch screens in mind? Absolutely. But I've played everything from Super Mario to Donkey Kong Country to Starfox on a smartphone and they take about thirty seconds to get used to.
Sure, an actual controller is preferred (and Bluetooth controllers are available for a fraction of the price of a handheld console...) but it's playable, and for turn-based games (the Final Fantasy games come to mind) the control issues are almost non-existent.
People don't play smartphone games for the quality gaming experience. They play smartphone games because they're bored sitting around somewhere and already have their phone in their pocket, and it's better than staring at the wall.
Also, if a game is designed from the ground up with a touchscreen in mind, there's no reason why it can't work well. Games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush are a great example, as are most games that can be played easily with just a mouse (low precision), like tactical strategy games or board games.
If a person has a smartphone, and they're traveling, 99% of the time they will have the smartphone with them. Also, most people will justify the cost of the smartphone due to the versatility and usefulness of the device. Neither are true of handheld gaming devices. Handhelds require you to have the device on hand (and deal with it's crappy battery life, often a proprietary charging plug which also must be carried, and headphones if you want sound for all their fancy games). They are also a purchase you may not otherwise make.
So yes, from a pure gaming standpoint, a 3DS or Vita are vastly superior to a smartphone. But from a convenience and availability standpoint? Smartphones win by a landslide.
And based on the market, I think we can safely say that more people are looking for convenience and availability over fancy graphics and buttons.
I would argue that this isn't strictly true. Most consoles are sold at a loss (the hardware is more expensive to create than the price). For example, the Wii, probably one of the most efficient cost-to-profit consoles ever made, reportedly only made about $6 per unit sold. Console developers sell the hardware at a loss with the expectation of making up the difference in game sales.
By this logic, anything that causes your games to be sold more will make you more profit. By selling their games on smartphones, they are making money on something they aren't actually selling now.
It's more likely that Nintendo is trying to get people to have smartphone games on their portables to encourage people to buy the hardware, then buy their games because they already have the console. I just think they're overvaluing the attraction of being able to play Angry Birds on the DS.
This doesn't really matter in my opinion. Either way, the person has been "heard" and thus feels like they made their point. In turn, this makes them feel more engaged with the subject.
Likewise, people who already have their mind made up aren't really the target audience. In your example, if one person asserts "God is real!" and it's followed by "God is fake!" neither are really adding anything to the discussion, and most people are either going to recognize this or ignore the one they don't already agree with.
What news organizations should be looking for are the few people that identify flaws or add additional clarity. One of the reasons I love Techdirt is because the authors are really good at this; I've seen numerous times where articles are updated due to reader comments and others where the author clarifies or defends their position in the comments. This does a lot to add confidence that you're getting a good, thoughtful analysis...after all, if everyone reading the article can't find any issues, it's reasonable to assume their journalism was at least not sloppy.
I honestly read Techdirt almost as much for the debates in the comments as the actual topics, and have learned almost as much from them. News should exist to inform, and, by proxy, educate people about topics the journalists believe are important for others to know. Which teaches someone more...just reading an article, or researching one to defend or attack it because you believe it's correct (or someone else is incorrect)?
We're already living in a world where ignorance on topics is no longer accepted. We have tons of information at our fingertips, and more and more people are having discussions where true and false are easily and instantly verifiable.
My wife went on a walk with a friend of hers the other day, and some brief political discussion came up, and Obama was mentioned. My wife's friend said (I wish I were making this up) "Obama? I know that name, is he a singer?"
There's no excuse for this level of ignorance anymore. Comments sections are a tool for people to sort through the validity of things, and as far as I'm concerned, an article without comments is an article that's trying to distort the truth. Otherwise, why would they be worried about people proving them wrong?
Last thought...just because a comment is voted down (or here, reported) does not mean the comment wasn't valuable. For example, when some idiot spouts their drivel about how "Mike loves pirates because X and Y" it generally ends up with twenty more people linking to sources that indicate that person is full of crap. That means that anyone reading the article who wasn't sure can now verify it for themselves.
On the post: Hubris Defined: Dumb Murderer Takes A Selfie With His Dead Victim
Re: Re: Re:
I'd modify it to "a criminal is a person with predatory instincts without sufficient capital to hire a better lawyer."
On the post: Elon Musk Clarifies That Tesla's Patents Really Are Free; Investor Absolutely Freaks Out
Re: Attribution-ShareAlike
For people to be willing to buy a luxury car it helps if there are cheaper alternatives that make the idea of buy and using an EV viable to people. Marketing to the rich first was a smart move; it let's them pack the Tesla cars with a ton of features and the rich are the only ones likely to be early adopters of something that doesn't come with easy infrastructure.
In an ideal world the CC license would be unnecessary because you could use other people's ideas freely. Being able to copy someone else's stuff is greatly overestimated. If someone designs something, sure, I can copy that design. But they have the R&D department, and they understand that design. I don't. My copy will always be second best, and never have the "newest" thing. People will pay for stuff that's new, even if they can get it cheaper in a few months. And, as shown repeatedly at this site, people will pay for things that are free and easily copied, if they're convenient and open.
Tesla gets this. Even if someone iterates on their design, they'll be a leader in the industry because they got there first and know what they're doing. Patents are only important because people who suck at actual innovation have found they can get free money using them. Real innovators know they'll keep the lead because they're already leading the show.
On the post: Elon Musk Clarifies That Tesla's Patents Really Are Free; Investor Absolutely Freaks Out
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
This whole section made me laugh out loud. You, who frequently utilize court cases to point out how the courts have spoken and therefore the author's opinion must be wrong, are saying the courts made the wrong decision (or the right decision for the wrong reasons)?
Huh, that's almost exactly what many of the articles you criticize here do. I hope someone remembers to quote this the next time you post a court case as gospel*.
* Disclaimer: I'm not saying that you're wrong to question whether or not the courts made the right decision, I'm simply pointing out that someone who frequently derides others for doing it while doing it themselves is a giant hypocrite.
On the post: Elon Musk Clarifies That Tesla's Patents Really Are Free; Investor Absolutely Freaks Out
Re: Re: Re: Re:
This really needs to be quoted again. Obviously an innovative company like Tesla would be a ripe target for patent trolls. If they didn't patent anything, some random troll would apply for the patents and then they'd spend all their time in court rather than designing cars.
The "in good faith" was much more likely referring to this; patent trolls are not welcome to use their patents to sue people, but car companies and other innovators are free to utilize them to actually make stuff.
Elon Musk is a long-term thinker. He invested practically his entire fortune after Paypal into SpaceX, a company many at the time considered a fool's errand. Now SpaceX is being paid by the U.S. government to bring supplies to the ISS and made enough money for him to create Tesla Motors. He is also a heavy investor and was the initial designer of SolarCity, a solar power and EV charging station company.
He's taking on the entire energy industry, and is looking for long-term gains. Our financial system has broken itself because it encourages short-term profit hunting via stock value rather than investing in a company's future.
This is one of the main reasons why the world economy collapsed in 2008. Prior to the bailout, GM made more money from their financial institution and investments than they did from making cars. If you can't see why a car company that's focused on financial investments instead of car creation is a problem, well, you're part of the problem.
So of course Wall Street is freaking out. They have no idea how real-world economics works. Most of the traders are still living in their imaginary world where short-term gains in "profit" is more important than long-term company stability and production. It should be no surprise to anyone when you focus entirely on profit margin at the cost of infrastructure that at some point the infrastructure is going to collapse.
We need more innovators that are looking towards long-term gains rather than short-term cash grabs.
On the post: Lawsuit: TSA Supervisor Got Traveler Arrested For Bogus 'Terroristic Threat' Charge, Lied About Incident In Court
Re: Re: Turnabout and incentives for honesty
In the example above, the TSA supervisor was clearly lying and doing so in order to accuse someone of a crime. Note the intent here...you can't lie if you're wrong and don't know it. There's no way he could have accidentally thought the guy pointed at him and threatened him. It's clearly a lie he created to justify his own actions.
This wouldn't affect reporting at all because proving intent has a rather high standard. If a reasonable person could have made the mistake, like in your van theft example, there's no crime.
On the post: LG Will Take The 'Smart' Out Of Your Smart TV If You Don't Agree To Share Your Viewing And Search Data With Third Parties
Re: Question:
Score. What else do I need?
On the post: Waterboarding Whistleblower Released From Prison, Two Months After Torture Report's Release Vindicated His Actions
Re:
[Citation Needed]
On the post: More Violent Video Game Research Says Real World Violence Link Is Crap
Re:
His actions had absolutely nothing to do with violent media. He was violent because he was trained from childhood to be a warrior and participated in ritual killings and cannibalism from the age of 11. His village probably didn't even have electricity, let alone access to video games.
I don't even know how to describe how dumb your comment is in a polite way. So I didn't try. You're welcome.
On the post: More Violent Video Game Research Says Real World Violence Link Is Crap
Re: Re: Re:
Congratulations, you completely validated my point. Joshua Blahyi was forced to commit actual murder (not virtual murder) at age 11 and was exposed to some of the most brutal and insane aspects of the human condition. You cannot rationally compare exposure to being forced to murder a child and eat her heart and exposure to violent media. That's like saying an ear flick is the same act of violence as rape. The effect on an individual are not even in the same realm.
I'm really not sure what your point is, unless you didn't bother to actually look up who "General Butt Naked" was and thought the name was funny. An 11-year-old absolutely can tell the difference between reality and fiction (and is not an "extremely early age" by any stretch in that context) and would be deeply scarred by the act of cold-blooded, premeditated murder and cannibalism. You don't need a degree in psychology to figure that the human mind would use any method possible, including hallucination and extreme dogmatic thought, to protect itself from such a horror.
Of all the examples to use, you chose one of the greatest examples of real violence's effect on the human mind. I can't tell if you did it on purpose to be ironic or, well, I don't even know.
On the post: Despite Limited Interest In AT&T's Sponsored Data, Company Still 'Bullish' On Its Awful Precedent
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Domino Theory Isn't Right
Now, if the gym were an ISP, they'd also say I can only spend 20 hours per month in the gym, and this is fine, because the average member spends less than 20 hours per month. It's only those few powerlifters that spend longer, and they get charged $10 extra for every 5 hours they spend in the gym extra. Also, once they reach their limit they have to wear a lanyard that gives priority to all other gym members because they've already used their share.
And that's the current situation. ISPs are proposing some "innovative" solutions. Now, Cybex Fitness Equipment can pay the gym a monthly fee and so any time you spend on their equipment doesn't count towards your monthly hour limit. Also, all equipment companies need to pay a monthly fee to the gym for their floor space, because they shouldn't get to use the gym's infrastructure for free. And since Precor paid some extra money, their equipment can be used as long as you want; everyone else has a one-minute maximum use time.
But hey, there's plenty of competition for this gym. In fact, there are four other gyms in town! They all only have two treadmills and single weight bench, but hey, you have options for your workout needs! Some other big gyms are available in other cities, but due to contracts with those gyms, only one of the big gyms exist in your city. Coincidentally, those gyms give their customers the same service and pricing.
When I'm paying for a possible maximum capacity with a monthly fee I'm sort of bothered by a bunch of random fees and restrictions that aren't actually caused by any technical restriction. The gym has a limit to its capacity, and during peak hours you'll probably have to wait to finish your workout. But that limit exists regardless if you spend all your hours in one energy-drink fueled 20-hour marathon or 20 days of one hour workouts. And the exercise equipment is the entire reason you want to buy a gym membership in the first place.
I'm not saying that ISPs should be required to give me my advertised speed at all times. Nobody is (or should be) saying that. I just want my limit to be caused by the capacity of the network, NOT some arbitrary data limit that has little to no impact on my speed. And the whole reason I go online is to access websites, so I don't understand why the websites have to pay my ISP extra so I can access them. I'm already paying for that (and they're paying their own ISPs to be there).
If they weren't making insane profits, I could sort of understand it as a method to make up the money they're losing because actually charging me for what they're selling isn't enough to cover their costs. But that's clearly not the case.
Since competition doesn't exist, and because they're trying to charge me and everyone else for imaginary resources, I believe they are engaged in anti-consumer, monopolistic, behavior that is not required for the health of the network or for their own business requirements and therefore should be regulated. And unlike a gym membership, for the majority of Americans internet access is not optional. We use it for business, we use it for networking (the social kind), we use it for knowledge, and much more. Living without internet access in the modern age is almost akin to living without electricity; possible, but miserable, and suicidal from a business standpoint.
We need the internet to stay accessible to all people, and to prevent the fact that access is necessary to allow monopolistic business to abuse their customers. It's sort of like banks in many ways, and I doubt many people would argue at this point that banks should be unregulated.
On the post: Stop Saying That The FCC Is 'Treating Internet As A Utility' -- It's Not
Re: Common Carrier
You can't compare the two situations. It doesn't make logical sense. It's sort of like saying that it's unfair an Ford Focus driver has to pay the same toll as a Ford F-150 driver because the F-150 driver has to spend more on gas. The revenue stream and situation for the gas stations are completely different from the toll road.
We pay a toll to access the internet. And now ISPs are telling us we need to pay a gas fee, even though our gas mileage has little to no affect on their business situation. They also want our car company to pay our gas fee, because they should share the burden.
And for those of us that understand this, we're left scratching our heads wondering why the heck we're paying a toll to go on the road if they're going to charge us for something unrelated to their business expenses. It doesn't make sense.
On the post: More Violent Video Game Research Says Real World Violence Link Is Crap
Re:
This is obvious; even as an adult, I can go to a movie and feel sad when my favorite character dies or scared when the monster stalks the main character. I know it's not real, and more importantly, the effect it has on me is significantly different than if the events onscreen were happening to me in real life.
Likewise, people can be convinced of things than are not true, or at the very least not supported by evidence. For example, you believe there are "billions of people who kneel and kill in the name of their preferred imaginary father" which is a statement equally insane to the "lunatics who think Sandy Hook was a government psychyop" (whatever that means).
If you actually studied anything about religion you'd realize that human activity is largely independent of religious influence; most "religious" conflicts, with even a small amount of historical analysis, are mainly conflicts between political groups, economy, and ideology. War is, and has always been, a political activity, and it wasn't until the last hundred years or so that religion and politics weren't equivalent (and really, are only somewhat separated in the U.S.; the majority of countries today still have a strong religious connection to politics and the U.S. is no exception).
The point is that although fiction can affect us it doesn't drive our behavior. I may feel angry at Prince Joffrey in Game of Thrones, but I haven't gone out and attacked the actor who plays him. This is true of most human emotions; I get mad at my boss or the guy that cuts me off in traffic, but that emotion doesn't suddenly make me kill my boss (like in Horrible Bosses) or run a guy off the road. And in this case, these things are actually happening in real life.
The point is that children can tell when something is real and when something isn't, and while they may be scared of something that isn't real, they aren't going to be affected the same was as if it IS real. Video games aren't real, and we can all tell. Unsurprisingly, people who play video games aren't going out in droves to act the way they do in games. Around 58% of all Americans play video games. About 0.4% of the population commit violent crimes, and (probably by coincidence) as the number of video game players has increased, the overall violent crime rate has decreased. This probably doesn't mean that video games decrease violence (they're probably unrelated entirely), but it certainly makes it a hard sell that there's a positive correlation.
On the post: Nintendo Plans For The Future By Pretending All Of Our Smart Phones Aren't Great Handheld Gaming Devices
Re: The road to hell is paved with good nintendoes
This made me laugh out loud once I got it. Sometimes I'm a bit slow, haha.
On the post: More Violent Video Game Research Says Real World Violence Link Is Crap
Re: Re:
Absolutely, good point. To my knowledge this applies to all factors, however; just because someone was abused, or is from a low income family, or has mental health issues, etc. does not mean they'll become violent, even though individuals who are violent tend to have one or more of these factors. There are things that increase risk of violence but nothing that can accurately predict violent behavior.
Also, my use of "mental health issues" was probably too vague, as there's a big difference between someone with depression versus someone with antisocial personality disorder. I probably should have said "certain mental health issues."
On the post: Anti-Net Neutrality Propaganda Reaches Insane Levels With Bad Actors And Porn Parody
Re: Free Data?
Probably T-Mobile. I see what you're saying, but by "data" he probably means his arbitrary data cap, not the bandwidth he's already paying for.
On the post: Anti-Net Neutrality Propaganda Reaches Insane Levels With Bad Actors And Porn Parody
Re: Re: The problem here is with some people's worls view.
What are you going to do, boycott the internet? Let me know how that works out...I'll wait for you to go to the public library to let us know. I hope you don't run any sort of modern business, because by taking yourself offline you pretty much took yourself out of business.
I hate this sort of logic. It's like saying that we should remove all regulation from the banking industry and Wall Street, because we don't want that dirty government interfering with our money. Guess what? The government pulled back banking regulations...and look how well that turned out.
Competition can only exist when everyone is playing by the same rules. This is common sense, and why "free market capitalism" doesn't work in real life. It's why we have referees in sports and don't assume everyone is going to play by the rules just because they know them.
It's an irrelevant point anyway. The FCC wouldn't be regulating the "internet." They'd be regulating ISPs. There's a difference. One is the FCC saying that AT&T isn't allowed to prevent you from calling someone with your phone because they're on a different network. The other is the FCC regulating what you say. The FCC has never done the latter for phones, and I have no idea why people would somehow magically think that applying a subset of those rules to the internet would change things.
It's a fallacy to reject an argument based on its source, and way too many people are doing that because Obama and the government are involved.
You need more of a solution than "there needs to be X". These things don't just happen by themselves. If you don't have a method for causing ISPs to compete, there is no reason to believe the current situation will change. Preventing abuse and fraud are exactly the what the government should be doing, not all this other crap we have them doing. The fact that so many people don't want to allow one of the primary functions of government boggles my mind.
On the post: Nintendo Plans For The Future By Pretending All Of Our Smart Phones Aren't Great Handheld Gaming Devices
Re: Re: Re: Re: "Smart phones are great handheld gaming devices"
Either way, it's a moot point, because emulators already play all these games on smartphones, and they play just fine. Could they be better with a bit of modification specifically with touch screens in mind? Absolutely. But I've played everything from Super Mario to Donkey Kong Country to Starfox on a smartphone and they take about thirty seconds to get used to.
Sure, an actual controller is preferred (and Bluetooth controllers are available for a fraction of the price of a handheld console...) but it's playable, and for turn-based games (the Final Fantasy games come to mind) the control issues are almost non-existent.
On the post: Nintendo Plans For The Future By Pretending All Of Our Smart Phones Aren't Great Handheld Gaming Devices
Re: dang smartphones
Also, if a game is designed from the ground up with a touchscreen in mind, there's no reason why it can't work well. Games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush are a great example, as are most games that can be played easily with just a mouse (low precision), like tactical strategy games or board games.
If a person has a smartphone, and they're traveling, 99% of the time they will have the smartphone with them. Also, most people will justify the cost of the smartphone due to the versatility and usefulness of the device. Neither are true of handheld gaming devices. Handhelds require you to have the device on hand (and deal with it's crappy battery life, often a proprietary charging plug which also must be carried, and headphones if you want sound for all their fancy games). They are also a purchase you may not otherwise make.
So yes, from a pure gaming standpoint, a 3DS or Vita are vastly superior to a smartphone. But from a convenience and availability standpoint? Smartphones win by a landslide.
And based on the market, I think we can safely say that more people are looking for convenience and availability over fancy graphics and buttons.
On the post: Nintendo Plans For The Future By Pretending All Of Our Smart Phones Aren't Great Handheld Gaming Devices
Re: Not surprising
By this logic, anything that causes your games to be sold more will make you more profit. By selling their games on smartphones, they are making money on something they aren't actually selling now.
It's more likely that Nintendo is trying to get people to have smartphone games on their portables to encourage people to buy the hardware, then buy their games because they already have the console. I just think they're overvaluing the attraction of being able to play Angry Birds on the DS.
On the post: Guardian, Salon Show How Keeping And Fixing News Comments Isn't Hard If You Give Half A Damn
Re: Re: Media don't trust their readers
Likewise, people who already have their mind made up aren't really the target audience. In your example, if one person asserts "God is real!" and it's followed by "God is fake!" neither are really adding anything to the discussion, and most people are either going to recognize this or ignore the one they don't already agree with.
What news organizations should be looking for are the few people that identify flaws or add additional clarity. One of the reasons I love Techdirt is because the authors are really good at this; I've seen numerous times where articles are updated due to reader comments and others where the author clarifies or defends their position in the comments. This does a lot to add confidence that you're getting a good, thoughtful analysis...after all, if everyone reading the article can't find any issues, it's reasonable to assume their journalism was at least not sloppy.
I honestly read Techdirt almost as much for the debates in the comments as the actual topics, and have learned almost as much from them. News should exist to inform, and, by proxy, educate people about topics the journalists believe are important for others to know. Which teaches someone more...just reading an article, or researching one to defend or attack it because you believe it's correct (or someone else is incorrect)?
We're already living in a world where ignorance on topics is no longer accepted. We have tons of information at our fingertips, and more and more people are having discussions where true and false are easily and instantly verifiable.
My wife went on a walk with a friend of hers the other day, and some brief political discussion came up, and Obama was mentioned. My wife's friend said (I wish I were making this up) "Obama? I know that name, is he a singer?"
There's no excuse for this level of ignorance anymore. Comments sections are a tool for people to sort through the validity of things, and as far as I'm concerned, an article without comments is an article that's trying to distort the truth. Otherwise, why would they be worried about people proving them wrong?
Last thought...just because a comment is voted down (or here, reported) does not mean the comment wasn't valuable. For example, when some idiot spouts their drivel about how "Mike loves pirates because X and Y" it generally ends up with twenty more people linking to sources that indicate that person is full of crap. That means that anyone reading the article who wasn't sure can now verify it for themselves.
Something to think about.
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