Should not the analogy continue a bit further with:
and when there are no more Charlie Stross novels, the customers can not buy them, making Amazon's incomes diminish. At which time they have to pay more to the Charlie Strosses out there.
Is this not just precise how capitalism is supposed to work?
No, it's not.
Most successful musicians find it difficult to stay sober enough to play their instruments. Can you imagine them trying to set up a distribution infrastructure of their own? Sit down and actually imagine it. Imagine, oh, I don't know... Ozzy Osbourne, trying to do this task.
and the musican for that matter create their own distribution websites. Seriously there's power in numbers especailly with the connection and access to instant customers they already have. They just need to accept the fact that people will pirate like people will shoplift. Make the products price reflect the production/distrubution costs and don't treat you customers as criminal and they will buy.
Even though I don't read books that much these days I do watch lots of movies/shows and if I could "buy to own" new releases that play cross platform with out some special player for say $10 and older movies for $4-5 there would be WAY less money in my bank account.
Because it's hard work, and they're not qualified to do it, that's why. Did you catch the bit where he was bitching about the prospect of having to get a real job?
Yes. We'll always need new books. Because human beings will always have new things to say in a new way. Because even if what you do might have been done before you never did it. And now that you have you join those that came before.
We must never stop writing. Never stop thinking. Never stop making things.
If he was really doing this because he had things to say, he wouldn't artificially restrict distribution, and he wouldn't need to be paid to do it.
He just doesn't want to get a job.
When writing is done to produce a product for mass consumption, the quality of literature goes down. Hopefully, when all the writers are supporting themselves with practical work, it will improve.
Anyone who thinks we need a profit motive for great literature to exist should read The Hobbit, which was written for no particular reason whatsoever, or The Lord of the Rings, which was written for his son.
Fruit is way to healthy. Why not print chocolate. Heating it up a bit should make it flexible enough to extrude and sticky enough to hold and it hardens when it gets cold so structures shouldn't collaps. Plus it would be cheap, easy to buy and reusable.
Old news:
Hey, everyone needs a pet. Or eight. True, they don't have any practical usefulness, but they do cool tricks!
Homo sapiens is pretty tough prey.
That's completely wrong, and any expert will say so. Without our technology and herd mentality, humans are VERY EASY prey.
We have very low strength for our body mass. Compare us to chimps, cats, etc., and we're weaklings. We don't have any biological weapons to aide in our defense, either. We don't have long, hard and sharp claws, and our jaws aren't powerful enough, nor properly designed to make our teeth practical defensive weapons.
Humans make difficult prey because of technology. We're well-fed, far away from wilderness, spending the overwhelming majority of our time inside defensive structures, out-of reach of predators, and when we are vulnerable, we have high tech items like knives, keys, or sharpened sticks which make very good defensive weapons. Our herd instinct means an injured individual will get immediate help rather than being food. And furthermore, we've eradicated the overwhelming majority of large predators that could, possibly predate upon us.
You go out, naked, into the wilderness of Alaska, and see how you do up against the first grizzly bear or a pack of wolves you come across...
Are we assuming that he does or doesn't have time to learn the surrounding terrain? You don't need technology to use the environment against your opponent, but you do need familiarity. If you succeed in surviving long enough to develop that familiarity, you can use it to overcome bears and wolves.
Human cells are pretty large, on average, and microbial cells are much smaller.
Thanks. I really wasn't interested enough to look it up, but this is very informative.
And yet, despite your choice to remain ignorant, you nevertheless had to express your skepticism...
and I'll stop at the businesses that I don't like, show them my money, tell them explicitly why they can't have it and leave, just out of spite. That's how I roll.
No it isn't. You've never done this. And even if you did, it wouldn't get the reaction you're imagining it would.
Did it yesterday.
For every dollar you don't spend on Microsoft, I will personally spend two. I also have my company running all Microsoft because they have, quite simply, the best available products out there.
Good for you.
What's the name of your company?
Let's just get this out of the way:
QUOTE
It's Microsoft, it suxers. It jus sux. in every way it suxxx. it's microsoft, right? it sux right? it sux. Suxxxxeeeerrrr. Sux, right?
OK.
It looks like a nice piece of hardware. I'd be tempted to get one. But, like you say, it's Microsoft. Once trust is gone, no argument can bring it back.
It is trivial to install Ubuntu on these, everything (including touch support and the pen) 'just works'. So no worries about committing to Windows with these
I've owned a Surface Pro 2 for a couple of years, and been very satisfied with the hardware. I've played with a Surface Pro 3, and the hardware feels even better - thinner and lighter (CPU/GPU are identical to the Pro2).
Price is an issue, but as noted endlessly, these are 'tweeners' - much more powerful than any tablet, not quite a full laptop replacement. The 12" screen helps, 10" was definitely not 'laptop-like'
That really doesn't matter. It's not about liking or not liking Windows. It's about holding myself responsible for the part I play in empowering companies by giving them my business. Business decisions are the only meaningful political decisions left. I'll travel three times as far and pay twice as much to avoid doing business with people I don't like, and I'll stop at the businesses that I don't like, show them my money, tell them explicitly why they can't have it and leave, just out of spite. That's how I roll.
It's not about efficiency. It's not about who does the job the best. It's not about price. It's about supporting the decent, civic minded people and diminishing the selfish, decadent and exploitative ones.
This douchebag dismisses other peoples subjective experience as lies, and I'M a troll?
Who moderated this, Suey Park?
Do you realize that there was a young man with hearing so good that he could use echolocation to play basketball despite being blind?
Can you do that?
Does this suggest to you that, perhaps when people claim to be able to discern sounds you can't, it's because your hearing isn't particularly good?
I'm nearsighted with superior human hearing. At least, that's what the medical tests they gave me said. I can't see that well, but I can hear electronics in the room when no one else can and do other things that are unusual. Not nearly good enough to use echolocation, but statistically speaking, probably much, much better than you. If you're going to talk about me behind my back, you might want to walk another 50 meters away before you start. Not really much of an art buff, though.
Dated a woman for years who was both a tetrachromat and a synesthete. Her capacity to discern things visually was spectacular. Brilliant painter. Didn't hear that well though. Unless you're a woman, I can say with a high degree of certainty that her vision is far superior to yours. Her mutation is known to cause color blindness in men. Her taste in music was rather simplistic compared to mine, a reflection of my own failure to appreciate what it is in visual art that gets people so excited.
Are you a child, perhaps? You come across that way. Most people learn that other people have vastly different experiences of the world by the time they reach adulthood, and learn not to project their own capabilities and limitations onto everyone else.
You know that when we play peekaboo, just because you can't see me, that doesn't mean I've disappeared, right?
There's always the rest of the world(read: countries within the NATO-defined First World) that doesn't want the US's head on a plate.
Dude, I hate to disillusion you, but we ALL want your head on a plate. If you meet someone and they lead you to believe otherwise, you should try to recognize that he's talking out of both corners of his mouth in an effort to get something out of you. None of us like you. I was half tempted to say that, maybe, the Israeli's, but honestly, I'm confident they think of you as a self-absorbed pack of idiots whose only role is to be exploited.
This is not a troll. At least, it's not intended to be a troll. I genuinely am trying to set you straight, help bring your perspective a little closer to the realities that exist outside your borders.
The shit you guys are responsible for as a nation is not a joke. No one is laughing along with you.
Inside your country, you can divide things up into "The CIA did this, the NSA did that, I didn't do shit, I was just here minding my own business and paying my taxes.", and that flies with the people you meet on the street.
But then when Chinese hackers do something, you say "China did it."
That's how it is for the rest of us too. Without open warfare, you can't intrude into the inner workings of China and hold individual citizens accountable, you need to deal with the entire state, hold them accountable, and leave it to them to hold the individual citizens accountable, or not.
We can't intrude into the inner workings of America and hold individual citizens accountable, we need to deal with your entire state, hold you accountable, and leave it to you to hold the NSA accountable.
So, basically, everything your government does to the rest of us, you have done to the rest of us. You can argue about fairness and prejudice till you're blue in the face, but these are the power dynamics, and that's just how it is.
You seriously need to clean your house before the rest of the world is forced to come do it for you. If you don't realize just how precarious a position your government has put you in, you really need to wake up.
Keep in mind. The US sets the standard.
I will agree with that. In the sense that any nation whose performance is lower than the US definitely deserves an "F".
"Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal." - Zaphod Beeblebrox in "Hithiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
