£1 = $1? Phawwww not enough

[Stringent]

Haven't MS allowed multiple instances on their Office Home package? Can install onto 3 PC's I think.

However, there are Open Source alternatives to nearly everything. OpenOffice, GIMP, Linux ...

For the speed limit, as its another can of worms, it doesn't matter, the point is you are still over the limit. In fact speedos read 2-3mph MORE than what you are doing in most cases.

The Steam system is a good idea from that point of view, however, imagine downloading like 1GB of Microsoft Office 2007 Pro each time you want to use it somewhere different.

[simonfitba]

[Off topic]


No you're not - the speed limit is actually 10% of what the supposed limit is, so in a 40mph zone, the limit is actually 44mph. I've since read that it's actually 10% of the limit + 2mph on top, but I'd not heard that one before.

Of course, this is to allow a certain degree of tolerance in speedometers and radars and such, but still, I feel like being pedantic again.

[/Off topic]

Sorry mate that's not true. If limit is 40mph you can get done for doing 41. However, it's very unlikely as the court case against you would be very weak. The 10 per cent thing is a myth but a good rule of thumb.

[Agent]

Sorry mate that's not true. If limit is 40mph you can get done for doing 41. However, it's very unlikely as the court case against you would be very weak. The 10 per cent thing is a myth but a good rule of thumb.

The 10% thing is used because no system is 100% accurate.
Sensors need calibrating, tyre pressure (expansion of the tyre) can also make a difference, Speedo cables can become worn. The list goes on

[this_is_gav]

It is actually 40mph, however due to the fact that tachometers give slightly innacurate readouts they give you the 10% as a bit of leeway incase your car said it was going at 40 but in fact it was going at 44 etc.

You mean what I posted in the paragraph below? BTW, most cars don't have tachometers... and that bugs me no end. I want one on my bike too (they're more popular, but my Shadow doesn't have one )

[finlay666]

You mean what I posted in the paragraph below? BTW, most cars don't have tachometers... and that bugs me no end. I want one on my bike too (they're more popular, but my Shadow doesn't have one )

sorry I was slow in typing that out lol

I get speedometers and tachometers confused a lot...im not a massive driving person lol


but yeah....stealing is wrong!

agent....dont forget changing tires to larger ones

[Agent]

agent....dont forget changing tires to larger ones

aye - but we dont do that very often on bikes
Im not really a car user, so I forget things like that

[badass]

Sorry mate that's not true. If limit is 40mph you can get done for doing 41. However, it's very unlikely as the court case against you would be very weak. The 10 per cent thing is a myth but a good rule of thumb.

Exactily.
The only piece of equipment that can bust you for 1 mph over the limit is the opinion of a police officer.
Nothing else is type approved to be more accurate than +- 1MPH.
Strange but true.
That said, if you fought it in court it would probably get thrown out unless the policeman could demonstrate that he has a very accurate way of judging speeders that makes the magistrates believe beyond reasonable doubt that you are guilty.

[Dreaming]

FWIW, £70 for a copy of Home Premium that will last me 2 - 3 years (Microsoft have got a shorter release cycle on their next os) seems to me to be a fair price.

I use paint.net instead of photoshop. Although it's a powerful tool, there are alternatives. It is the industry standard though, I mean even in graphic design at GCSE they said that.

But CS2 is reasonably priced, so why not get that. Vote with your feet or something like that. Who actually needs the extra features? If you're doing advanced photoshopping where your clients pay you well for the best effects then you wont mind paying.

If you just like making cool little favicons or whatever they're called then you cant justify the price, but you want it, and it's there for free so why not? In defence of the hobbyist, they're not making any money of it, its simply for their own gratification, it's not massively hurting the sales because there are still companies and schools that will buy 200 licences at the full whack because they need it in a professional capacity.

All I would advise is not waste your time making icons, do something productive like read hexus instead

Having said that, after buying ArmA on release day, I wish I had downloaded it first to see how broken it was .

As for the different prices, I'm sure there's an anticompetition law about that somewhere.

[McClane]

Haven't MS allowed multiple instances on their Office Home package? Can install onto 3 PC's I think.

Doesn't that cost a lot more though? Obviously it's gonna be cheaper than buying 3 seperate copies though.

The Steam system is a good idea from that point of view, however, imagine downloading like 1GB of Microsoft Office 2007 Pro each time you want to use it somewhere different.

That's becoming less of an issue these days with faster internet connections. Also, if you got it on CD/DVD originally then you could just use that to install it on each machine. Failing that, if you can network the machines you are installing it on, steam has a backup feature meaning you can install from the backup. A similiar feature could be implemented

[aidanjt]

Does this version of photoshop actually have real english as a langauge option for this extra dough?

No

http://www.amanwithapencil.com/adobe.html

UK customers are literally paying twice the US amount for the same product and lesser support.

[Dreaming]

I think in the future we can expect to see a lot of the core files of applications bundled in one global pool on a computer, and any user from any place in the world can log on with their global account, and quickly download small bits of apps they need but the main bulk is already there.

Microsoft have already said something along these lines, though I've just extrapolated it a bit.

[EvilWeevil]

Doesn't that cost a lot more though? Obviously it's gonna be cheaper than buying 3 seperate copies though.

afaik standard retail copies come with three licenses by default, not as an expensive extra.

[chicken]

IMHO if they're going to show a lack of respect to certain markets by overcharging them compared to others, they're only diminishing respect these people will have in return when debating the whole "should I buy it / should I copy it" thing.

And after pages and pages of j1979 going off on random tangents, I think the main point was Piracy doesn't equal Stealing as Stealing removes the original item from the owner, Piracy copies it. Piracy only affects the creator, Stealing also affects the buyer personally.
It helps to note that this view doesn't include any moral implications of Piracy being a good or bad thing, and that that is altogether an entirely different arguement.
Quite where Piracy stands in the moral ground is subject to a whole host of different factors, most of which have been mentioned here and passed by in the heat of arguement.

[Stringent]

Another way round would be we all pay a subs for a terminal service type account where our hardware is on the Internet. If we had like 100mbit Internet we pay for the software and its installed on that Terminal Server. We can then access it from wherever we are. No need for media or CD's, no piracy because anything illegal would be flagged up.

I think thats what Dreaming was saying?

The word pirate indicates to remove or steal from. Either that or we all go around with The Black Pearl under Jack Sparrow. Sorry, Capitan Jack Sparrow.

Like I said, the law governs us (whether we agree with it is another matter) and if it says it is wrong to copy music/games/ whatever, then it is and we have to respect that.

The Office thing, you buy for one license, and can install on 3 PCs, no extra cost.

[TooNice]

I think we all know where the law lies. However, I think that it can be interesting, if off-topic, to discuss it critically from an ethical point of view.

Ethically, I differentiate between 'copying' (obtaining a copy of something without permission) and 'moving' (obtaining something without without permission and depriving it's owner of the item - something pretty unlikely with piracy). I am not saying one is wrong and the other is right. But I do think this differentiation quite important since the damage can be radicallyquite different.

I also think that there are grey areas, or, at the very least, debatable areas. Certainly, copying the latest version of Photoshop is not part of my list. But I do find room for discussions in abandonware for instance. Yes the distribution of abandonwares remain a copyright infringement as long as the application is not released to the public domain. Ethically though, I can only think of one, or perhaps two arguments in favour of that, but also some counter-arguments.

[gmcc]

On a lighter note, imagine what this guy could do with CS3

Mona Lisa in MSPAINT!