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Comment Re:No justification for the current media pricing? (Score 5, Informative) 429

If blu-ray disks were $5 each I would have hundreds of them.

As it is, I have none.

I will add the supporting evidence Louis C. K.

Rather than take a flat rate of $50,000 - $100,000 for his special from the industry where they would price the disks at $10 - $20 he just produced it himself and put it up online with no DRM for $5. By circumventing the major industry players and just doing it himself he has made more than double. He has effectively done what the media industry says is impossible without them suing and forcing people to pay out the nose.

I have bought several copies for myself and gifts to support the idea of paying what the market really thinks the product is worth rather than forcing a higher market price.

Comment Re:iPad (Score 3, Interesting) 374

They are suing Samsung because they think or thought they could win. Generally in cases like this the company sues someone they think they can win and then use that case to set a legal precedent. They then take that precedent and threaten other companies with it. It has nothing to do with believing in the next guy and only protecting their patents. Its all about protecting their monopoly and profits.

I am not certain Apple really thinks that they can win. There is a secondary effect of the law suits and it is tied to Apple's marketing. They sue the competition for copying, even though they know they can't win. They drag the issue out through the Media and pair the media attention to their law suit to advertising of how the iPad is a superior product to the competition. It is a secondary way of drawing attention to the product, and I would say it is working.

Pair this subliminal marketing with their ability to lock in manufacturing and supply chain to keep costs down and Apple can happily make a 50% profit margin on the iPad. This ties into how Apple markets their other computers, no other computer is an Apple that is why you will gladly pay a 25-40% premium for an Mac. The Mac has been around for over 20 years and has always touted itself as better than a PC. It is harder to do the same thing with a new product and hence the dynamic ways of marketing the iPad's superiority.

Comment Re:Great (Score 2) 262

You still have the ability to configure the windows install. In Windows 7 it is in the add/remove programs you have a link that says turn windows features on or off. I'm in the middle of something right now and don't want to reboot to 8, otherwise I'd see if they moved it. I would figure that Billy Gates would know this, maybe you could ask Stevie Balmer.

Comment Re:I'm glad I support the Republicans (Score 2) 857

BOTH parties have their issues, and I do not see the Democrats as being worse than the Republicans by a long shot, especially when it comes to religion (prayer in schools, prayer at government functions, the flagrant display of religious iconography in public buildings, denial of other religions equal access for displays, etc), the right for one to decide how to best manage body medically, and who one is allowed to have sex with, contraception, and who one is allowed to marry. Those issues hit me a lot closer to home than firearms ownership/carry, and how I'm allowed to access content vis-a-vis music and movies on the Internet.

I agree, I support equal rights. I don't like the term 'gay rights', it isn't like they are asking for anything I don't have. If they want to get married I say fine, you don't want that in your church, Fine. Marriage stopped being a religious act a long time ago. If you want to split hairs, if there wasn't an ordained priest you've got a civil union not a marriage, hence the paperwork for the state.

I am also a gun owner and a member of the NRA, but I don't support unfettered access. I don't mind the paperwork, I just wonder why I am required to report the sale of my car within 30 days, under penalty of law, but I can sell a gun at a garage sale and no one cares. It is this kind of political blind spots that annoy me. I'm good, I work hard, pay my taxes and yes it annoys me when someone who sits on their ass and get paid $20 million pays lower taxes than me. Don't give me the double taxation crap either, only 3 of the Fortune 500 actually paid any tax in 2010.

I support equality and opportunity. I support religious freedom but if you are a hospital religious or not you must provide services and benefits in allignment with your employee's faith not your own.

Comment Re:Or your PR dept. (Rovio is lying) (Score 1) 321

The basic premis is to not treat the user as simply a revenue source to be squeezed. Rather treat them as a fan, one who is willing to pay within their budget for your product. When you try to squeeze more money out of them than they can afford they will look for a way to get your product cheaper through illegal means if necessary. Provide your product cheaply at a price point that is fair to your fan and they will gladly pay it.

Supporting evidence: Louis CK

Comment Re:In a perfect world... (Score 1) 270

We the People: This is bribery! We demand you investigate yourselves

Gov'ment: We've investigated ourselves thoroughly, and we're guilty (sad-face)

They aren't mad at Dodd for saying you should vote the way your paid to vote. They are mad because he said it in public. We all know the votes go where the money is, but to blantantly state that in an election year makes it harder to hide.

Comment Re:Whoa..quantum computer + Cloud! (Score 1) 89

Investment at this point makes sense if you have money to throw away like DARPA. There are few actual functioning quantum computers and most are experimental concept models only. I don't see the applications of quantum computing getting past the education, institution, research and governmental use any time soon. If you were able to get a functional array of quantum computers you would likely not find a shortage of paying customers at this point, and your price point would be considerably higher than your standard crowded cloud market.

The type of people I see investing at this point are those who are also researchers.

Comment Free Market Failure or Success? (Score 3, Insightful) 175

When will the media companies and government realize that the proliferation of piracy is not the internet it is the outrageous prices they try to extract. The fact is that if they didn't keep trying to sell every stinking CD at $17 when we all know most aren't worth $5. Sell the product at what the market wants to pay for it, if you don't then the incentive to steal goes way up.

There have been several recent examples of artists releasing their work at reasonable prices with no DRM. Rather than being ripped off by the public at large, their fans have put down the money.

Louis CK has made over $1,000,000 off his most recent video. You can download it without DRM for $5. And yes he is Hilarious.

Comment Re:Bogus premise (Score 2) 591

No, the problem is our enemies do not fear us. We obsess and worry about whether our enemies like us. We allow our enemies to put propaganda in our legacy media. They don't.

If they truly feared us they wouldn't do the crap they do. Do ya think they would behead our people, desecrate their corpses, etc. if they feared us? Would they blow up a block of downtown NYC if they feared us? If they really though we would get seriously pissed off and go Add Coulter on their primitive asses and "Bomb their cities, kill their leaders and convert them to christianity." The answer is obvious.

Jmorris is right to some respect. The problem is that we try to fit WAR into the PC society. Warfare is not politically correct, it is not cute and fuzzy. Gunshot wounds are not licked on by kittens. It is a sad fact that we blame our troops when these things go wrong.

The fact is they are not wrong. If you look back at the posters for WWI an WWII you will see blatant acts by both sides to make the other out as sub-human not only to their soldiers but also to the general public.

You take this basic gruesome psychology of warfare and you add to it a society which in all honesty goes much further than urinating on corpses when they desecrate our bodies. I don't see this video as anything other than War, not at it's worst but at it's norm. The thing that bothers me is that it was filmed.

Our government is trying to win a war without offending anyone. They have it wrong. Win the war, then worry about repairing the relationships and rebuilding the country. It would be much cheaper to build schools if we waited until they stopped blowing them up.

Comment Re:Whats the big deal? (Score 1) 688

I have tried to explain the value of understanding how to code and the software development process even if you are not planing on becomming a software engineer. I liken it to the benefit of anyone going into business having a basic understanding of accounting and the legal process. While it may not be your job to engineer system wide solutions, an understanding of code can make you more efficient at your job.

My employers have always been amazed how I can obtain levels of productivity above and beyond that of my prececessors. I do most of this by using C#, VB or VBA and an indepth knowledge of Logic. I leverage the common tool most offices have (MS office) to shave time off every function of my day.

My success comes from the fact that I am a coder, although I don't market myself as one. I grew up in the information age my first computer was the IBM PC (1984). I started coding as a child using basic and quicky moved to Fortran, Cobal and beyond. I view computers as a resource not a tool. A tool has a function, a resource is raw and can be leveraged using tools to perform many functions. I don't see a computer for what it does, I try to ask what can it do?

Technophobia plagues our society even today, 40 years into the computer age. The thing that shocks me is the number of people who assume that computers are for someone else, the smart and techie. I think this is what this program is trying to teach. Maybe you'll never become a software engineer but you can still learn to code and create value even in a basic office job. A few years down the road from the learning experiance you may find yourself as a software engineer, or maybe just a manager like me.

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