If a used CD store loses a million in sales to piracy, that’s a million less that the business has to pay bills, pay employees, buy new merchandise from the originators, etc.I’m sick and tired of hearing this argument. If someone goes out of their way to pirate music or software, chances are that person would not have purchased the music or software in the first place, thus no financial loss to the used CD store, artist, or software developer. You can’t lose something that you never would have had in the first place. How does one come up with billions of dollars of lost revenue when a business model is based on the distribution and sales of crap that nobody wants to buy? When something does come along once in a great while that is worth purchasing, and it drives quarterly or annual sales up higher, why is that quarter or that year still considered such a loss? What has to happen for the RIAA and MPAA to say that their industries are growing despite the pervasiveness of p2p?
Monthly Archive for December, 2004
As a comment on a post about BitTorrent, someone named O’Dell had the following to say:
I’m rebuilding my Windows box again because of a strange slow down that has been plaguing me over the past several days. While doing so, I was checking out the images on Yahoo! and found this one:
Shaq just towers over Boykins, who is just two inches taller than I am. I knew I should have learned to play some better ball when I was younger.
Shaq just towers over Boykins, who is just two inches taller than I am. I knew I should have learned to play some better ball when I was younger.
The geek humor in Fox Trot never ends, I tell ya! Jason has it right on the nose about Santa:
Original found here.
Original found here.
I read today that good old Gov. Rod B. (D - IL) proposed some legislation to ban the sale of violent or sexually explicit video games to minors, with a penalty of up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $5,000 for breaking the proposed law. I vote Democrat because I agree with most policies backed by the Democratic party. Where my conservative nature comes out is with my opposition to BS legislation like that proposed by Rod.
I don’t see what is wrong with parents having to do their jobs when it comes to parenting their kids. I understand the legislation that forbids the sale of cigarettes and alcohol to minors, but video games? Video games aren’t any more dangerous than the evening news these days, especially when it comes to violence and sexuality. Parents, not the state, should be the ones making the decision as to what their children are mature enough to watch and experience.
Sure, there are whack job parents out there who really don’t care about what their little Johnny bad-ass does. Those are the kids I would discourage my kids from befriending. Wow, I almost can’t believe I’m posting stuff about the kids I don’t have yet, and the stance I am taking on this issue. Maybe it’s just my lack of understanding of parents who don’t parent. I don’t want the government to tell me what is and isn’t appropriate for my kids to play on their PlayStation 8. I’m going to make that decision with my wife, and explain it to our kids. And if they think they’re going to sneak around and play FDM (First Degree Murder™) at Johnny’s house, they’ve got another thing coming to them, and it’s going to be worse than anything the state can dream up.
As you’ve probably noticed, I haven’t posted much in a while. Besides my having problems installing Windows on my home computer, I’ve been fighting my web server at work and my Comcast internet connection was down from Sunday evening until earlier today. The best part of my internet connection problem is that an e-mail response sent to me by Comcast told me to join them in a live chat if my internet connection could not be fixed after following their troubleshooting directions. Of course, their directions were simply a paraphrasing of the troubleshooting I told them I had already performed before contacting them. Then to top it all off, I entered a chat with a support "analyst" named Rain, where I was sent multiple copy-and-pasted responses to my questions:
Rain> Thank you for contacting Comcast. My name is Rain. How may I assist you today? Mark > I cannot get my internet connection at home to work. Mark > I am at work now, so I will not be able to do any troubleshooting of the connection. Rain > Thank you Mark. I understand the frustration that you are experiencing with your connection. We can get that taken care of immediately. Rain > In order to troubleshoot your connection you will need to be beside your computer. Please call 1-800-COMCAST when you are at your computer and we will be happy to help. Rain > Is there anything else that I can help you with today?This is about where I lost it. In the e-mail I received, I am invited to enter a live chat with Comcast to solve my connection problem. This, of course, can’t happen unless I’ve got an internet connection. In my frustration, I get desperate for help:
Mark > but, I work in IT Mark > I have tried all of the troubleshooting methods that were e-mailed to me Mark > whoever replied to my e-mail said, "I understand you are having issues with your Internet connection. We currently do not show any outages in your area affecting connectivity. Just to make sure, I ran a couple of tests from here to your modem, and did not get any slow or missing responses. Slow or missing responses would need to be present to indicate a connectivity issue" Mark > I don’t know how he connected to my modem, because I cannot get a connection. Rain > In order to troubleshoot your connection you will need to be beside your computer. Please call 1-800-COMCAST when you are at your computer and we will be happy to help. Mark > okThat’s when I lost it and just exited the chat. Rain is lucky I came home with an active internet connection tonight, otherwise I’d be raining hell and fire on Comcast right now. I suppose this post on how Comcast’s tech support is horrid will do. So, to re-emphasize my point, don’t bother with Comcast tech support because they are generally of little help. Comcast tech support does not even bother to read what is sent to them about a user’s problem, hastily replying with some generic response that was probably found in some repository of answers.
The following was asked by Robin:
what is the general life expectancy of a Compaq 540 monitor? My brother-in-law’s computer is losing its red colors - - they come and go. I suggested to him that the monitor was probably get ready to die and that they would be far ahead to buy a new one. Is this correct advice to give them? Thank you for your assistance.Read on for my answer. Continue reading ‘Compaq 540 monitor’
As a short break from GTA, I’m watching a little bit of The History Channel’s documentary on Ben Franklin. I must say, Ben was quite a guy: entreprenuer, inventor, scientist, commander, diplomat, philanthropist, and…playa?! Yes, apparently he was a bit of a ladies’ man, in addition to all the other things we know him for. This, of course, isn’t the Ben we hear about in history class, and I think that is what I like about The History Channel.
Among Ben’s inventions were the bifocals, the Franklin stove, and the lightning rod. I had heard of the first two, but I don’t recall the last one, which makes perfect sense considering his kite experiment. I think the most remarkable thing about these inventions wasn’t their greatness or their contributions to science and technology, but that Ben did not wish to patent these inventions. He provided these inventions to society with helping improve the lives of people as his sole motivation, not profits. This motivation for his inventiveness is something that is lacking in today’s society, but that’s another story for another time.
That’s all for now. Watch the documentary if you want to know more about Ben. It’s pretty good.
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