*looks at his Incredible on which he can put any app he wants, even if he hadn't rooted the phone* *looks at the phones from other companies that prevent you from doing that* Huh, you know, it's almost like you have a [i]choice[/i] about what company to get your phone from. A choice you can make based on whether you want third party apps without rooting, if you are so inclined. So, tell me, what company can I get an Apple brand phone from that allows me to install any app I want without jailbreaking? I assume there is one because "at the core, [they] AREN'T ANY DIFFERENT," right?

How on earth did you get modded insightful? I thought slashdot was a place for nerds, you know, people who work in CAD or programming, where hardware (and to a lesser extent, software) upgrades every few years can make a HUGE difference. Also, you say DOS still works as well as it ever did (completely ignoring the fact that "as well as it ever did" is leagues behind what we have now), but as you bring in new people, can you imagine trying to teach someone who has only every worked in Windows XP to use DOS? Or going from AutoCAD 2011 to AutoCAD R12? Why would you want to spend days or weeks training every new employee to use your out of date crap setup, when you can just do a basic upgrade and safely assume that anyone qualified for the position will know how to use it?

But buying a new hammer wouldn't have cut the time it took him to remove it from his bag in half. That said, the GP is correct, but misses the point. The point is, upgrades can improve the productivity of a productive worker who knows how to use the upgrades. Some people would be lost if they were given a second monitor, others who know how to make good use of it would flourish. Of course, a good worker will not say "The reason I suck is my hardware," they will say "I can do my job even better with better hardware, and this is why."

True, but torrenting is far from the only way to download backup copies. Usenet, rapidshare (and the like), and IRC just to name a few examples of ways that don't cause you to share the files with others. Despite that, I still would not count on that being viewed as legit fair use in court.

I think, technically, he's in his right to make a backup of his copy. Downloading the movie is a backup of a different copy. Now, yes, it is complete bullcrap, but I believe that was how the music industry got that one service killed, MP3.com, I think. The one where you inserted your disk, it scanned it, and then it gave you streaming access to the copies of the songs from that CD on their servers. As I recall, the music industry got them shut down using the argument that while you are allowed to backup and stream your own disks, in this case, you were using backups and streaming someone else's disk, even though they were the exact same disk. So I wouldn't be so sure that you're safe to download a copy if you own the disk. I do welcome corrections if I am wrong, though.

Fortunately, there are many, many good arguments for why extensions are bad for the economy, a number of them already mentioned in comments to this post. Unfortunately, what matters is not the economy, but who has enough money to convince politicians to buy their version of how the economy works, even if it's flat out lies.

Copyright existed then, just not as it does today. At that time, derivative works were not covered by IP laws, that was something added years later.

Thank you! Good read, since I live in Michigan.

Am I blind, or does that map not actually give any information about what rights people in those zones do not have?

Obligatory: http://xkcd.com/451/

I imagine it determines your location when over wifi and assumes that's where you are until it detects a new wifi connection. I'm guessing this since while on the road in Ohio and Pennsylvania, it gave me ads relating to stuff in southeastern Michigan, the last area I'd connected to wifi in.

An excellent example of exactly what he's talking about. Despite how high taxes are, GE still didn't pay anything. Raising taxes will not change that. The rich who are affected by the high taxes on the rich have the money to pay people to figure out the loopholes so they pay as little as possible. But, with higher taxes, the government expects more money, so they assume they have a larger budget, but when tax time rolls around, oops! No more money than before comes in, putting us further into debt.

Now, tax reform to simplify tax law, reduce loopholes, etc, I think is something both parties can get behind (though getting the politicians to actually vote for it against the wills of the lobbyists would be more difficult). And that, if done right, would actually help.

"BUTT SUM1 ELS CULD GET AXES 2 IT!!!!1111 MAY-B!!!!" Common sense doesn't work when you have tech-illiterate judges being told what to think by record company lawyers.

You inserted the CD in the drive to prove you owned the CD, and your mp3.com account was updated saying that you own the CD. Showing that you owned the CD gave you access to the copies of the files on their servers. From that point on, you could stream that music from their servers to any device with web access, regardless of whether you had the CD with you or not. Kind of like entering a serial number to activate software.

Since every single one of those has been suggested dozens, if not hundreds of times on the boards, and I imagine every single one of them has had a reply from a developer saying they are doing it or explaining why they aren't doing it (with good, legitimate reasons every time I've seen it), yes, you are going to have to do better. A few examples.

They've had a 40 vs 40 battleground for half a decade. Then they introduced a pvp area that could take unlimited players. The servers strained near the point of crashing constantly and it was unplayable for anyone without a decent computer, so they had to change it. Now it maxes out at...80 vs 80, as I recall. They've said they like the idea, but until they find a way to do it without those issues, they won't try it again.

Just implemented that in Tol Barad.

So lots of development time, play testing, and balancing for something 0.0001% of players will get to see? No thanks. I pay just as much for this game as everyone else. I should have the opportunity to see and experience all of it without having to sacrifice my job and life to make sure I'm part of the "elite" guilds that can get that first kill. And if you're talking about individuals...good luck balancing that such that it isn't more difficult for some classes than others (see the Death Knight videos of them soloing content from near the end of the last expansion, whereas some classes probably still have a hard time soloing stuff from two expansions ago).

Been mentioned hundreds of times, and each time, people point out the devs would rather work on content that encourages the social aspect of this MULTIPLAYER game, rather than separating everyone into their own little worlds.

Woohoo, more stuff that 0.0001% of the player base can use.

Been done in Eve Online. Some like it, some don't. Blizz also tries to avoid implementing mechanics that encourages everyone to join up in a few large guilds. Sure, large guilds do have advantages, but right now, they aren't overwhelming.

Again, this is a MULTIPLAYER game. Blizz tries to avoid things that encourage people to say "screw everyone else" and just play on their own. That said, they have done it, to an extent. See the Opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj, though, despite it being a questline that individuals follow, required multiple raids that needed large groups working together.