let it be known that i Already do not buy hard covers.
on the flip side, i don't buy ebooks either.
paper backs are nice :)
the problem is, hardcovers are freaking Expensive. we're talking 40-60 $NZ a go. or basically my entire month's discretionary cash for three or four of them. they then proceed to take up significantly more space on my shelf. i honestly can't afford to do this given the number of books [and other stuff] i buy.
so, paperbacks. which can cost anything from ~15[rare.] to 30 [also rare. i Think it usually means there was no hard cover edition]. though 19-26 seems to be the common range.
(rough conversion rate: NZ$3 will get you US$2)
giving me more reason to buy won't make me pay more for a hard cover at this point. my budget's tapped out. i already have enough reason to buy the books just for the Stories that it's overcome my financial ability to Buy the hardcovers :) thus, paperbacks. the down side is then having to wait a year or more for them to come out, of course.
in the mean time i borrow the hard covers from the library.
which [how surprising!] doesn't stop me buying the ones i was going to buy when they come out in paperback Anyway.
[actually, when it comes to novels, I'd never have Heard of most of the things i buy if it weren't for the library, and with manga the same is true of the library And scanlations.]
where the standard solution is Still [last i checked] to simply stick a blank video cassette in the VCR [usually called a 'video player'] and record stuff as it plays...
assuming you even still bother watching anything worth recording on TV rather than just buying the DVDs/downloading it in the first place, or rigging up a TV tuner card in your computer and saving things that way.
I'm not even sure if a TiVo equivalent is actually Sold here.. I've certainly never seen one advertised.
admittedly this is all a bit tangential, i suppose.
ya know, I've been trying to make a similar point about various things on many occasions, though not exactly the same one...
just because something is more efficient doesn't mean it's better, if you can afford the costs [all of them in every sense, or near enough] of the less efficient method and it produces better results. especially if the more efficient method destroys the very point in the exercise.
in this case it's not just efficiency, so much as, i dunno, immediate and obvious income with no extra work?
anyway, the point is, i get it, and it overlaps significantly with a view I've held for quite a while. which is pretty impressive when you realise my entire experience with businesses consists of an accounting course in high school... well, in any formal or concentrated manner, anyway.
well, it impresses me that i got it right, at least :D
ok, this is a fairly insignificant and disorganized point. let's just say i recognized a familiar angle and call it done :D
if you mean Specifically the American dollar, [the NZ dollar is a coin, not paper, and even if it were, it'd be a note, not a bill :)], then people love it for the same reason they used to love british pounds.
it's comparatively valuable, there's plenty of them floating around, and it's Stable.
if the US economy crashes badly enough, and there's someone else around who's doing a fair bit of trade and who's currency is pretty stable, the love of the dollar will go out the window pretty quickly, i think. likewise if such places got their own national/local currency out of whatever hole it's fallen in, as that's often another reason people take US dollars. they're more meaningful than the local equivalent.
pretty sure the process to get into the online banking system here is a lot shorter, and so far as i can tell you can't NOT have online banking.
that said, while the debit card has a 4 diget pin, the Internet banking [at least the bank i use] requires you to use a rather long password. which i could never remember. to the point where i got locked out of my own account at least once.
i just don't bother anymore. use the ATM for regular, normal withdrawals, and actually go into the bank for anything more complex. it's just... massively less hassle.
then again, the banks are all 9-5, Monday to Friday deals [some now open part of Saturday]. catering precisely to, as some wit put it: two types of people: the unemployed, and bank robbers. so maybe it's not that convenient if one actually has a job.
while there is some truth to the whole 'identity theft' angle, in that you very much should do your best to keep your passwords etc secure, and notify the bank if they get stolen or whatever, a password is a key. no more, no less. if you have a safety deposit box, and someone steals your key, copies it, returns the key in such a way that you do not know it was gone, and then one fine day waltzes down to the bank, opens said deposit box, and takes your stuff...
who's liable? you or the bank?
to me, it's the same idea, really. on the one hand, they really shouldn't be able to take your key in the first place. on the other hand, even With the key, they still shouldn't be able to get in if they're not you. the problem is, that internet banking is automated. that's pretty much the Point. it's the functional equivalent of said deposit box being in a vault... but the same key opens the vault as the box. [or in the cases where there's a separate password, the thief stole both keys]
on the Other hand, if someone sets up a false account in your name, and then proceeds to rip off the bank, that's Entirely on them, really.
oh, fun thing: NZ does not have social security numbers, or an equivalent. different entities are not Allowed to have systems that line up by design when assigning you identification numbers for record keeping[fluke chance is a different story]. not even different government departments, i believe. even the Video Rental places typically want photo ID before they'll issue you a card. most places require multiple forms of ID from other entities [passports and drivers licenses preferred] before they'll give you a new document that could be used as even basic ID. and on it goes. it's still not impossible to have one's identity stolen, but it is a lot more hassle.
also, the concept of stealing credit cards from mailboxes before they've been signed is averted, at least for debit cards, by the fact that you can only change the PIN in the bank itself, [or possibly through internet banking, i guess] and either the PIN and the card are both tied to the account, not directly to each other, or the pin is assigned to the card before the card is sent out. so anyone who steals and signs that card, needs to know the PIN too.
it's still possible to use a credit card based purely on your signature matching the one on the card in a lot of places, mind you... but only for credit. you can't actually take money that way. and, of course, when one gets the funky bill, one gets hold of the credit card company and says 'hey, i never bought that. what's going on?'. cue investigation.
umm... it's 7:30 am and i haven't slept yet. i hope that staye dmostly on topic...
"it'll never work for..."
hehe. this one works due to lack of corporate overlords, so there actually IS a unit 'it'll never work for'. I'm just not sure what the word for that is.
something similar was done here in New Zealand, [many sites going dark, or at least blacking out all their image content] when that silly copyright reform was proposed.
it doesn't mean much if the government is dead set on closing things down, and suppressing blogs is a welcome side effect, but when it's acting based on external pressures, it can sever well to draw a lot of attention. attention builds pressure. sufficient pressure form the public in one direction makes it a Lot easier for an [actually] democratic government to resist pressure i the Other direction from corporate or foreign interests.
so it doesn't really do anything active to Fight proposed laws. it does, however, make it rather clear how big of a deal the issue is, and draw more attention, making it bigger still. not exactly Passive resistance, but not active attack, either...
again, if the goal is to suppress free speech/make money and damn the voters, it an't going nowhere. likewise if it's met with general apathy because the public don't care about blogs. but the NZ one started as just that. blacked out, maybe a sign saying why, no content updates.
it not only had an effect, it Spread. to, among other things, at least one British celebrity. And, among other things got noticed here. a big success.
so, yeah. just simply not writing anything won't do much though. gotta use it as part of a larger plan. we had some low key public protests. public protests that get more than maybe 50 odd people picketing the city council tend to make the news regardless, too. that helps. but the online thing goes a lot further to show the public opinion. it takes less effort, so more people bother to actually participate, ya know? and it all adds up.
another thought wanders across my mind now: given the nature of a lot of blogs, to anyone who follows them, Shutting Up because of something actually makes a pretty significant point.
probably helps that telstraclear, one of the biggest ISPs in the country and a major employer, so far as i can tell, keeps coming up with more and more evidence that the entire thing is a useless waste of time :D
one of their more recent surveys i came across? basicly stated that any such law would stop maybe 1 - 2 thirds of so called 'piracy'.
that it Caught.
and that was from actually going out and Asking people. who straight up said 'nope, wouldn't stop me'
likewise, common causes for piracy in NZ:
arbitrary or semi-arbitrary delayed releases [especially after all the hype and build up over how great something is]. DRM,and how useless and annoying it is, Especially region locking. which, legally, unless they changed something, DVD video players are not actually Allowed to respect here :D which doesn't stop some disks from being funkey enough that they still won't run, and it doesn't change the effect of consoles and online content which are still locked up. and, additionally, sometimes ridiculous over pricing. video games cost [usually] 90-120 NZ$ [some are as low as 80, and expansions sometimes get down to 60].
that's roughly 60-80 US$, btw.
interestingly, one never hears of book piracy here [except for manga scanlations, which suffer the same issues of delayed releases due to how long the american companies take to get around to a given series, and often suffer from 'region locking' when put on the internet by those same companies]. maybe all the free public libraries render it unnecessary most of the time?
not that i really keep track, but our news papers seem to be doing ok too.
anyway, slightly more on topic again: most of the objection to section 92a was, in fact, due to the lack of due process. people [including elements of the media] kept trying to paint it as being all about free stuff and file sharing, but Every Time they asked the people involved in the protesting, it came back to due process. and to a lesser extent free speech. over and over.
well, that i saw and remember, anyway.
actually, one of the problems with NZ's legal system IS that it's too slow. a criminal case will regularly take almost a year to go to trial simply because the courts are, apparently, that busy. thus why we have tribunals and such, so far as i can tell. still, giving up due process is Not a viable solution. though i couldn't really tell you what Is.
as usual, ramble with various vaguely defined points. hope it at least interests someone :D
hum. don't see an edit button with my colour settings as they are [sometimes buttons decide to be background, so it may be there for all i know :S] and i forgot to mention something above:
the people who meter the broadband use here are the ISPs. that said, there's no monopolies [so far as i can tell, a non-national ISP is a rarity. of course, as always, i may well be wrong, and NZ is rather a lot smaller than the USA :D] at that level of the system, and you can always go through the consumer complaints tribunal [i think that's the one?] or other appropriate part of the system if you're getting screwed over.
or Fair Go. that's usually amusingly effective [public shame on national television does remarkable things for shaping up policy, it seems :D]
should be noted that, at least so far as i can tell, the situation in NZ is improving. slowly. mostly in terms of what you get for your buck going up, rather than costs going down, admittedly, if what I've experienced is any indication, but improving none the less.
hopefully the new fiber optic cables the government's getting involved in installing will improve things further.
i wouldn't be so sure we're getting hosed by telecom, as such. well, not as much as we were/might have been, anyway. they seem to be one of the few utility provider types who actually get stepped on when they get out of line :D
but, i haven't been following the news so much lately, so i may be wrong there.
other places that drive on the left [from memory]:
New Zealand, Australia, Japan... I'm sure there are more.
it amuses me to note that these are all island nations. [well, Australia is debatable, but note how there is only One country?]
New Zealand, incidentally, uses metrics for everything... Except: if you ask what someone's height is, most people will Still give it in feet and rough inches, despite the fact that we measure and record such things in centimeters. well, that I've noticed anyway.
it strikes me that i don't actually know what the penalties for speeding here are beyond fines, or even if there are any.
not that this matters. i don't drive anyway.
as for cunning ways around the impossibility of moving that fast: another option is some form of teleportation device. though i suppose that's about the same as just stopping time, now that i think about it.
On the post: Publishers Lashing Out At eBooks
on the flip side, i don't buy ebooks either.
paper backs are nice :)
the problem is, hardcovers are freaking Expensive. we're talking 40-60 $NZ a go. or basically my entire month's discretionary cash for three or four of them. they then proceed to take up significantly more space on my shelf. i honestly can't afford to do this given the number of books [and other stuff] i buy.
so, paperbacks. which can cost anything from ~15[rare.] to 30 [also rare. i Think it usually means there was no hard cover edition]. though 19-26 seems to be the common range.
(rough conversion rate: NZ$3 will get you US$2)
giving me more reason to buy won't make me pay more for a hard cover at this point. my budget's tapped out. i already have enough reason to buy the books just for the Stories that it's overcome my financial ability to Buy the hardcovers :) thus, paperbacks. the down side is then having to wait a year or more for them to come out, of course.
in the mean time i borrow the hard covers from the library.
which [how surprising!] doesn't stop me buying the ones i was going to buy when they come out in paperback Anyway.
[actually, when it comes to novels, I'd never have Heard of most of the things i buy if it weren't for the library, and with manga the same is true of the library And scanlations.]
On the post: Wouldn't The Last Thing We Want During A 'Cybersecurity Emergency' Be For The Gov't To Take Over Private Networks?
Re:
so probably not.
On the post: Fresh Off Victory Over Dish, TiVo Sues AT&T, Verizon
where the standard solution is Still [last i checked] to simply stick a blank video cassette in the VCR [usually called a 'video player'] and record stuff as it plays...
assuming you even still bother watching anything worth recording on TV rather than just buying the DVDs/downloading it in the first place, or rigging up a TV tuner card in your computer and saving things that way.
I'm not even sure if a TiVo equivalent is actually Sold here.. I've certainly never seen one advertised.
admittedly this is all a bit tangential, i suppose.
On the post: Is Assisting With Assisting With Assisting With Potential Copyright Infringement Illegal?
Re: Irony
On the post: Apples, Oranges And Journalism Revenue Print And Online
just because something is more efficient doesn't mean it's better, if you can afford the costs [all of them in every sense, or near enough] of the less efficient method and it produces better results. especially if the more efficient method destroys the very point in the exercise.
in this case it's not just efficiency, so much as, i dunno, immediate and obvious income with no extra work?
anyway, the point is, i get it, and it overlaps significantly with a view I've held for quite a while. which is pretty impressive when you realise my entire experience with businesses consists of an accounting course in high school... well, in any formal or concentrated manner, anyway.
well, it impresses me that i got it right, at least :D
ok, this is a fairly insignificant and disorganized point. let's just say i recognized a familiar angle and call it done :D
On the post: Moving To A Single Currency... Or Lots Of Local Currencies?
Re: Currenency?
it's comparatively valuable, there's plenty of them floating around, and it's Stable.
if the US economy crashes badly enough, and there's someone else around who's doing a fair bit of trade and who's currency is pretty stable, the love of the dollar will go out the window pretty quickly, i think. likewise if such places got their own national/local currency out of whatever hole it's fallen in, as that's often another reason people take US dollars. they're more meaningful than the local equivalent.
for now.
On the post: Going Once... Going Twice... Almost Sold Out On Various Techdirt Offerings
Re: Re: Re:
because if you did, this comment makes you look a lot worse than it does him :D
On the post: If Your Computer Detects You Laughing At This Patent Drawing, You May Have Infringed On The Patent
Re: Re: Its all about the game...
On the post: Is It ID Theft Or Was The Bank Robbed?
that said, while the debit card has a 4 diget pin, the Internet banking [at least the bank i use] requires you to use a rather long password. which i could never remember. to the point where i got locked out of my own account at least once.
i just don't bother anymore. use the ATM for regular, normal withdrawals, and actually go into the bank for anything more complex. it's just... massively less hassle.
then again, the banks are all 9-5, Monday to Friday deals [some now open part of Saturday]. catering precisely to, as some wit put it: two types of people: the unemployed, and bank robbers. so maybe it's not that convenient if one actually has a job.
while there is some truth to the whole 'identity theft' angle, in that you very much should do your best to keep your passwords etc secure, and notify the bank if they get stolen or whatever, a password is a key. no more, no less. if you have a safety deposit box, and someone steals your key, copies it, returns the key in such a way that you do not know it was gone, and then one fine day waltzes down to the bank, opens said deposit box, and takes your stuff...
who's liable? you or the bank?
to me, it's the same idea, really. on the one hand, they really shouldn't be able to take your key in the first place. on the other hand, even With the key, they still shouldn't be able to get in if they're not you. the problem is, that internet banking is automated. that's pretty much the Point. it's the functional equivalent of said deposit box being in a vault... but the same key opens the vault as the box. [or in the cases where there's a separate password, the thief stole both keys]
on the Other hand, if someone sets up a false account in your name, and then proceeds to rip off the bank, that's Entirely on them, really.
oh, fun thing: NZ does not have social security numbers, or an equivalent. different entities are not Allowed to have systems that line up by design when assigning you identification numbers for record keeping[fluke chance is a different story]. not even different government departments, i believe. even the Video Rental places typically want photo ID before they'll issue you a card. most places require multiple forms of ID from other entities [passports and drivers licenses preferred] before they'll give you a new document that could be used as even basic ID. and on it goes. it's still not impossible to have one's identity stolen, but it is a lot more hassle.
also, the concept of stealing credit cards from mailboxes before they've been signed is averted, at least for debit cards, by the fact that you can only change the PIN in the bank itself, [or possibly through internet banking, i guess] and either the PIN and the card are both tied to the account, not directly to each other, or the pin is assigned to the card before the card is sent out. so anyone who steals and signs that card, needs to know the PIN too.
it's still possible to use a credit card based purely on your signature matching the one on the card in a lot of places, mind you... but only for credit. you can't actually take money that way. and, of course, when one gets the funky bill, one gets hold of the credit card company and says 'hey, i never bought that. what's going on?'. cue investigation.
umm... it's 7:30 am and i haven't slept yet. i hope that staye dmostly on topic...
On the post: Street Performer Explains His Experience Connecting With Fans, Giving Them A Reason To Buy
Re: pay what you want does work
hehe. this one works due to lack of corporate overlords, so there actually IS a unit 'it'll never work for'. I'm just not sure what the word for that is.
On the post: Is A Blogger Strike The Best Way To Fight Back Against Laws Designed To Quiet Bloggers?
it doesn't mean much if the government is dead set on closing things down, and suppressing blogs is a welcome side effect, but when it's acting based on external pressures, it can sever well to draw a lot of attention. attention builds pressure. sufficient pressure form the public in one direction makes it a Lot easier for an [actually] democratic government to resist pressure i the Other direction from corporate or foreign interests.
so it doesn't really do anything active to Fight proposed laws. it does, however, make it rather clear how big of a deal the issue is, and draw more attention, making it bigger still. not exactly Passive resistance, but not active attack, either...
again, if the goal is to suppress free speech/make money and damn the voters, it an't going nowhere. likewise if it's met with general apathy because the public don't care about blogs. but the NZ one started as just that. blacked out, maybe a sign saying why, no content updates.
it not only had an effect, it Spread. to, among other things, at least one British celebrity. And, among other things got noticed here. a big success.
so, yeah. just simply not writing anything won't do much though. gotta use it as part of a larger plan. we had some low key public protests. public protests that get more than maybe 50 odd people picketing the city council tend to make the news regardless, too. that helps. but the online thing goes a lot further to show the public opinion. it takes less effort, so more people bother to actually participate, ya know? and it all adds up.
another thought wanders across my mind now: given the nature of a lot of blogs, to anyone who follows them, Shutting Up because of something actually makes a pretty significant point.
On the post: P2P Banned In Antarctica?
suspicious.
On the post: If You Build A House Based On Copyright Infringing Plans That You Bought In Good Faith... Are You Infringing?
Re: Re:
....
from the other end of the Pacific Ocean, of course.
On the post: Oh Look, Bloggers Can Do Investigative Reporting Too
Re: Re: Re: Re:
not that that's the world's most terribly helpful statement ever, but still :D
On the post: Hollywood Says Due Process Is Too Damn Slow
Re: Surprising Thing...
one of their more recent surveys i came across? basicly stated that any such law would stop maybe 1 - 2 thirds of so called 'piracy'.
that it Caught.
and that was from actually going out and Asking people. who straight up said 'nope, wouldn't stop me'
likewise, common causes for piracy in NZ:
arbitrary or semi-arbitrary delayed releases [especially after all the hype and build up over how great something is]. DRM,and how useless and annoying it is, Especially region locking. which, legally, unless they changed something, DVD video players are not actually Allowed to respect here :D which doesn't stop some disks from being funkey enough that they still won't run, and it doesn't change the effect of consoles and online content which are still locked up. and, additionally, sometimes ridiculous over pricing. video games cost [usually] 90-120 NZ$ [some are as low as 80, and expansions sometimes get down to 60].
that's roughly 60-80 US$, btw.
interestingly, one never hears of book piracy here [except for manga scanlations, which suffer the same issues of delayed releases due to how long the american companies take to get around to a given series, and often suffer from 'region locking' when put on the internet by those same companies]. maybe all the free public libraries render it unnecessary most of the time?
not that i really keep track, but our news papers seem to be doing ok too.
anyway, slightly more on topic again: most of the objection to section 92a was, in fact, due to the lack of due process. people [including elements of the media] kept trying to paint it as being all about free stuff and file sharing, but Every Time they asked the people involved in the protesting, it came back to due process. and to a lesser extent free speech. over and over.
well, that i saw and remember, anyway.
actually, one of the problems with NZ's legal system IS that it's too slow. a criminal case will regularly take almost a year to go to trial simply because the courts are, apparently, that busy. thus why we have tribunals and such, so far as i can tell. still, giving up due process is Not a viable solution. though i couldn't really tell you what Is.
as usual, ramble with various vaguely defined points. hope it at least interests someone :D
On the post: $1 Trillion Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Oprah Dismissed
Re:
On the post: EA To Require Internet Connection For Command & Conquer
please please please please
preferably one involving pitchforks, flaming torches, and the occasional trebuchet.
a battleship is fine too.
On the post: Who Will Monitor And Audit Broadband Metering?
the people who meter the broadband use here are the ISPs. that said, there's no monopolies [so far as i can tell, a non-national ISP is a rarity. of course, as always, i may well be wrong, and NZ is rather a lot smaller than the USA :D] at that level of the system, and you can always go through the consumer complaints tribunal [i think that's the one?] or other appropriate part of the system if you're getting screwed over.
or Fair Go. that's usually amusingly effective [public shame on national television does remarkable things for shaping up policy, it seems :D]
On the post: Time Warner Backs Off Metered Billing... Until It Can Figure Out A Way To Not Look So Stupid Presenting It
hopefully the new fiber optic cables the government's getting involved in installing will improve things further.
i wouldn't be so sure we're getting hosed by telecom, as such. well, not as much as we were/might have been, anyway. they seem to be one of the few utility provider types who actually get stepped on when they get out of line :D
but, i haven't been following the news so much lately, so i may be wrong there.
On the post: Man Beats Speeding Ticket After Pointing Out It Was For 50 mph Faster Than His Car Could Go
New Zealand, Australia, Japan... I'm sure there are more.
it amuses me to note that these are all island nations. [well, Australia is debatable, but note how there is only One country?]
New Zealand, incidentally, uses metrics for everything... Except: if you ask what someone's height is, most people will Still give it in feet and rough inches, despite the fact that we measure and record such things in centimeters. well, that I've noticed anyway.
it strikes me that i don't actually know what the penalties for speeding here are beyond fines, or even if there are any.
not that this matters. i don't drive anyway.
as for cunning ways around the impossibility of moving that fast: another option is some form of teleportation device. though i suppose that's about the same as just stopping time, now that i think about it.
fear the ramble.
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