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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Re: Just like the MPAA didn't learn from the RIAA, the games industry is next
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on: February 10, 2012, 03:15:50 PM
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Yes I was. But I've had a little time to think about it so I've modified my stance somewhat. (I'm not so full of myself that I'm unwilling to rethink my position or opinions.)  But I still think it would be better not to buy any more than humanly possible until such time as we completely kill off the existing music and record industry. Because as long as they're around funding bad legislation, they will prevent my further suggestion (see below) from ever happening. Hooray for the ability to intelligently debate, consider our perspective, and modify our opinions or approach if necessary. I think I can get behind your "minimal consumption" approach.  - Oshyan |
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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Re: Just like the MPAA didn't learn from the RIAA, the games industry is next
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on: February 10, 2012, 02:09:40 PM
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Wait, 40hz, weren't you recently advocating *not buying anything* rather than buying from independents, as I suggested? Isn't that the opposite of "giving something back to the creatives"?  As for the roots of this problem, let us be clear, there will always be special interests and they will usually have money, and as long as money is involved in the political process it will bias the results towards moneyed interests. There are two possible solutions I see, one more effective than the other but also less likely. That first approach is to literally remove money from the process, from life in general if possible, but (only slightly more realistically) at least from politics. This is about as likely as me flying around like superman. Even if you could get the system to outlaw campaign contributions, then you're just sending it underground; instead of public lists of who the biggest campaign contributors are as we now have, you have the same - or even larger - amounts of money going from god knows who to whatever politicians, in exchange for no doubt even firmer allegiances, all of it undocumented and untraceable. Remember that outlawing anything that people (or corporations, for that matter) really want to do never stops it, sometimes it even in strange ways encourages it. Look at prohibition or the modern drug war. Anyway, failing that option, there is something you really *can* advocate for that can make a real difference and actually has a chance of happening. I'm going to put this in bold and underlined so people read it instead of my largely useless preamble above: Instant Runoff Voting
Instant Runoff Voting is one of a number of alternative voting systems that have a statistically demonstrable and mathematically provable advantage in obtaining fair voting results. It is one of the single most important of possible reforms to any democracy that doesn't already use it. More important than campaign finance reform, more important than redistricting issues, electoral college reform, even Citizens United. The single biggest threat to the effectiveness of our democracy is our (literally) broken method of electing leaders. Believe it or not it is actually statistically and mathematically demonstrable that a Plurality voting system like the US uses is one of the least fair and effective ways of electing candidates which the majority of voters desire. Think about that for a second. One of the most powerful nations on Earth uses one of the least effective voting methods! This system has resulted in the widely lamented "2 party system" we have today, in which voting for a "3rd party" ("independent") is almost always seen as useless, "throwing your vote away". This is obviously a very dangerous attitude for the majority to have if we're to have any hope of change. It means that moneyed interests have fewer targets and a much easier time creating consensus for their interests. What we desperately need are more choices, a greater variety of options, diffusion in the political process such that money can concentrate less effectively, and candidates with differing views can at least have the possibility of winning major grass-roots support (which can be incredibly powerful - if there's anything we've learned from the likes of Kickstarter, not to mention the Obama campaign and more, it's that "the people" can really do a lot when inspired). Campaigns like Ralph Nader's have sadly and ironically actually reduced people's hope and desire for 3rd party candidates, because circumstantially many felt that votes for Nader cost Gore the presidency. This is just one example, but a relatively recent and powerful one. Imagine if Instant Runoff Voting, or at least some other more representational system, had existed at that time. The results would have been very different. Simply knowing that your *desires* will *always* be reflected in your vote can dramatically change *how* you vote. From fear-driven to aspirational, hope-driven voting. The beauty of all this is that IRV has already been implemented in some local governments and has even come close to passing at the state level (Alaska, I believe). It will necessarily start small, just like this, but if we each support IRV or similar ranked voting options in our local and state governments, we can eventually move it up to a national policy vote. If IRV could be made national law for voting on our presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial candidates, I believe we would see a lot of change for the better. If nothing else we would know that the will of the people was being much better reflected, even if that will may manifest sadly in the realization that everyone is stupid after all.  - Oshyan |
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37
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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Re: Google Ends Privacy
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on: January 26, 2012, 02:07:37 AM
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I'm with Josh and Deo: I willingly signed up for these services and can choose to cancel them at any time should I be dissatisfied with the utility/privacy balance. This change is expected and reasonable *given how Google has operated for years, which we all knew about*. It's not as if Google suddenly became this big information aggregator and it's all weird, new, and scary. They may be consolidating *more* info in a single place and associating some with others, but it was all there before. Frankly if it helps make the services better, I'm in favor.
And the beautiful part is this: if it *doesn't* help make the services better, Google will eventually lose market share and we'll all jump on some new bandwagon that does it bigger and better. That's the simple truth that everyone upset at Google seems to ignore. Nobody forces anyone to use Google's services. Is it frustrating to some that Google forces you to have a G+ account to use an otherwise unrelated but still useful service like Youtube? Yup. But if you don't like it, use Vimeo. Perfectly valid alternative. Does it bother some people that Google's search results now incorporate social influences by default? Yes, in fact I'm one of them. But A: I can turn that off (thankfully) and B: if I don't like it, I can use one of the many fine alternatives already mentioned in this thread.
And let's not forget that other organizations have been doing similar things for ages. Want to download the Windows 7 beta? Oh, I'm sorry, you need a Windows Live ID. Want to use Skydrive? Same. How about Hotmail? Your hotmail *is* a Live ID. How about Yahoo? Oh, yep, same. Yahoo Mail, Flickr, etc. etc. all use a Yahoo ID to login. And let's not be naive and think that *they're* not all aggregating their data behind the scenes. If MS is *not* using data from their other services to influence search it's either because A: they haven't figured out how to do it yet (given their many blunders in the Internet space this would not surprise me) or B: they don't think it's the solution to the problems they and Google both have as search engines for the "wild and wooly west" of the Internet (e.g. spam, scams, etc.). It's certainly not because they're worried about your privacy.
In the end it seems like this sums up people's complaint pretty well: "Google provides a lot of awesome services for free and I want to use them, but they have control over the systems and their functioning and don't always change them in ways I like, and worse yet they insist on collecting data on me so they can make money from my use of their services." So basically people want something for nothing.
- Oshyan
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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Re: It's a great day :-D
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on: January 26, 2012, 01:52:17 AM
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I reckon that's a drunk cat. What could be happier? Thanks for sharing your happy. Happiness is like DRM-free digital goodness - it's easily shared, it can be copied freely and you don't lose any of yours if I get mine. - Oshyan |
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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Re: Apple & Textbooks
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on: January 21, 2012, 04:52:25 PM
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The price of text books *is* insane, even used ones, even after you factor in the money you can recoup from reselling used ones back to the store. It's all pretty crazy. But Apple and forcing the purchase of $600+ hardware just to view vendor-proprietary text books is also not a solution. Unfortunately schools are so desperate for a magic bullet they'll try anything now, especially if it's from that darling of educational technology called Apple.
- Oshyan
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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Re: "Save the internet"
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on: January 15, 2012, 05:00:41 PM
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To defeat big media, you need to put them out of business in a clear and true capitalist fashion such that it gives them no grounds to go running to the government begging for intervention.
Is the more correct capitalist solution to the problem not buying at all, or buying from their competitors (indies). I'm not sure why you don't see that as at least as good a solution -if not better - than simply not buying at all. In my view, not buying can more easily be translated into "rampant piracy" (because surely people need music/movies/tv!). Also I think it's a harder pill to swallow to buy *nothing* for most people. If they could just shift buying habits to independent media, it still sends - I think - a strong message and people get to continue enjoying (some) media. It also tells artists/producers where they should be going to get more customers, further weakening the major's position, whereas if *nothing* is selling, artists/producers may panic, buying into the RIAA/MPAA/etc. party line of legislation to survive, *or* just give up entirely. Giving them an effective route to success with their product (independent publishing/promotion) steers them in the right direction, I think. - Oshyan |
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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Re: "Save the internet"
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on: January 12, 2012, 11:09:26 PM
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I reckon perhaps more effective than an outright boycott would be a massive move over to independent media. After all, with a sudden drop-off of sales and no corresponding rise in other legitimate media business, they can just claim piracy has had a huge jump and they need even more draconian laws to handle it.
- Oshyan
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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Re: Hosters are impossible. (A.k.a. get me what I want, not what I don't want!)
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on: January 07, 2012, 08:33:54 PM
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They haven't been supported for over a year. Basically, open one tab, and login on your @gmail.com account. Next, go to mail.example.com and login there. Nowadays, they log you out on the other one: only a single mailbox active seems supported nowadays. In days gone by, I could have three of the buggers open for days, and that was convenient, especially on the email-checking area. Logging in every time I need to use another account however is a big big bummer.
Odd, I thought they added *explicit* support for this within the last year or two, where you now have a drop-down menu from which you can easily switch between accounts. And yes, you can have multiple accounts logged-in and open at the same time, on different domains. I currently have 3 separate accounts logged-in, 2 regular Gmail, one GApps on a domain. Or is that not what you meant? - Oshyan |
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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Re: If you had a medical implant would you rather it be closed or open source?
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on: January 05, 2012, 09:37:20 PM
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It's not science though, it's politics. The science is what tells us fluoride is unnecessary. It's politicians in various forms that keep fluoride living on in our water supply. And Stoic, I agree, I grew up drinking water out of a spring, now that I live in a city I try to only drink filtered tap water (takes out the fluoride and chlorine). Hardly any cavities, especially compared to my friends. But that's all anecdotal and not really necessary given there is "hard science" showing essentially no benefit, not to mention potential risks from ingesting it. As Renegade said, the only potentially beneficial effects shown were with *topical* application, and even then then are apparently better options for preventing tooth decay.
- Oshyan
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Main Area and Open Discussion / Living Room / Re: Found on the Web: Short Rant Against Users of Free Web Apps
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on: January 05, 2012, 09:28:54 PM
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The other issue is the prices. Most shareware is going to be minimum $20. That's not much, but most people would consider it too expensive unless they were really serious about it. The app prices ($2-5) are much more acceptable psychologically to users. They'll buy it just to see. That's where you want to be, even more so with Windows.
I was under the impression that 99 cent apps sold a lot better than the $2-5 range. As I understand it the $2-5 range is still a really tough one even on mobile devices. I wouldn't be surprised if more expensive apps ($5-10 or even $20) actually sold better. It would jive with PC-side pricing realities where very often pricing your app at $20 actually results in a lower perception of value and thus lower sales than pricing at say $40 ($39.99). There was a lot of discussion on this in the Sagelight thread a while back. - Oshyan |
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