Message Areas - "Tom Kristoffersen, and the rest of you… "

Train-Sim.Com Message Areas

"Tom Kristoffersen, and the rest of you....."

Email this topic to a friend
Printer-friendly version of this topic
Bookmark this topic (Registered users only)
Previous Topic | Next Topic Conferences MSTS Route Design (Protected) Original message
MZH (2 posts)
Nov-22-01, 03:13 AM (EST) "Tom Kristoffersen, and the rest of you....."
Hello Tom ! Have some questions for you, don`t worry, no hazzle questions, kinda simple questions really. But first of all, the guys among us here are good guys so please consider this. 1. You ask questions to the forum users, latest one about Signals, and ofcourse the previous ones. Now, these guys help you free of charge, 2. This is where you come in Tom, why make them pay for something they have given you for free, like their help, tips and so on and so forth. This is what happens, you make your route, the one you are gonna make anyway regardless the "positive" feedback, and then plan on selling it to the VERY SAME PEOPLE who helped you make the route possible. This is not meant to be a hazzle post Tom, but simply letting you know something about "sharing". And if you other forum users read this, Thank you for all your help this far, been here from the start, but never posted, never asked questions. The search function really works for me. MZH

Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Table of Contents

Subject Author Message Date ID RE: Tom Kristoffersen, and the rest... LawrenceKellie Nov-22-01 1 RE: Tom Kristoffersen, and the rest... Jak_Fearon Nov-22-01 3 RE: Tom Kristoffersen, and the rest... rgarber Nov-22-01 6 RE: Tom Kristoffersen, and the rest... tomkrist Nov-22-01 2 RE: Tom Kristoffersen, and the rest... RMapplebeck Nov-22-01 4 RE: Tom Kristoffersen, and the rest... MZH Nov-22-01 5

Lobby | Topics | Previous Topic | Next Topic
Messages in this topic
LawrenceKellie (691 posts)
Nov-22-01, 04:00 AM (EST) 1. "RE: Tom Kristoffersen, and the rest of you....." Look, if the guy wants to make a buck, at a rate of about 0.00001 cents per hour, why is that a problem for you. If you don't think he should charge, then don't buy it. Why does so many people believe that everything has to be given to them for free. There is another current thread about people whining and crying because they might have to spend $10.Now, I find something very interesting.MZH has one post to his credit. When you look at the user profile, MZH has "MZH" as a first name and "MZH" as a last name. Hmmmm. Pretty anonymous, isn't it.Now, when we look at the post where Tom asked for feedback about charging for a route, "milgarfield2001" gave Tom quite a bad time. When you look at milgarfield2001's profile, you see John Doe as the name. Again, pretty anonymous, isn't it.So, we have two people, both anonymous, both with a name that starts with the letter "m" and supposing that "H" is the first letter of the anonymous person's name, it really isn't that far from "G" of Garfield, now is it?Interesting, as both MZH and milgarfield2001 are the only people who have given Tom grief about his post on selling his route.Well, enough for speculation.MZH, have you ever bought and read a book? Any book. Yes, a book. Have you ever bought and read one? Have you ever bought and listened to some music? Any music will do. Yes? Okay.Have you ever bought and driven a automobile? I don't care, any automobile will do. No, you're not old enough to drive???? Kidding there. Certainly if you are of any adult age, the chances are pretty good that you have.One last question. Have you ever bought and eaten food that was cooked in a restaurant? Now, bear with me, yes I do have a point. You have? Good. I would hate to see you go hungry.So you have bought and read a book, bought and listened to music, bought and driven a car, and bought and eaten food from a restaurant.One last, last question: Do you think that any of those four items spontaneously came into existence?The book was written after, for some authors, years of research. Years of getting ideas and information from OTHER people, some of the same people who would later buy the book. Every book is built on knowledge, information, and books preceding it.The music you listened to was composed by a person who (probably) spent many hours, years studying from OTHER people, building on what has gone before, learning the tricks of creating music, learning to play that instrument. Very, very few Mozarts, Beethovens or Bachs out there.The car you bought was based on the physics from years of research, from previous creations, from ideas from millions of people, from usability testing. It didn't come into existence without building on OTHER people's work.The food that you ate was created by a person who spent years learning from OTHER people how to prepare that food. Yes, it may be the case that the food you ate was an original creation of the cook, however, it did not occur spontaneously. The cook used ideas, techniques, tricks from people who went before him.So what does this have to do with Tom? Simple. (But before I get into that, I have to state that you ARE "hazzle" {sic} him. You are also trying to lay a guilt trip on him. Unfortunately, my mother is much better at that than you are!)Now back to my point.The point is this. I work in the Intellectual Property industry. IP deals with patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade names, trade dress, etc. In IP work, there is a concept known as "infringement." Infringement is when someone creates something that closely resembles something already in existence. Sometimes, particularly in copyright issues, the issue is this: Is this creation a new work? Or is it significantly like an earlier work?Remember my four questions above? They all had one thing in common. Each of those inventions/creations built on OTHER people's work. Yet, each one (looking at this simplistically) is a unique work that can stand on its own merit. Each one does not "infringe" previous similar items.Remember High School or College? Writing research papers? What was that all about? It was about learning how to synthesize information from OTHER people into a new and unique creation. And if your research paper was not a new enough or a unique enough synthesization of previous information, you would receive a note from the instructor that you plagarized!So, if Tom asks questions and learns from others and creates a route which he wants to sell, that is his business. There is one very important point that is being missed here. Regardless of the amount of information, the number of questions he asks, when all is said and done, he will have spent innumerable hours creating a new, and unique product. He will have built on OTHER people's knowledge and experience to create a new product.I would be willing to bet that when you read the thread about Tom selling his route, you did NOT stop right at the end of his post, but you read further. Therefore, your post is built on OTHER people's ideas! So, why are you presenting ideas that were already presented. This is the same thing that you are trying to give Tom a bad time about.Another point that you have missed. And it is a simple one. If you don't think he should charge for it, THEN DON'T BUY IT!But, let the guy sell it if he wants. And quit "hazzle" him!Lawrenceps: Jak Fearon, you don't have to slyly flame me, you can come right out and say it. That's okay. We all know that is what you meant. pps: Sheesh, I get long winded. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Jak_Fearon (196 posts)
Nov-22-01, 05:38 AM (EST) 3. "RE: Tom Kristoffersen, and the rest of you....." Lawrence,Lol. I was simply pointing out some cartoons I found to be funny. I don't recall having mentioned your name in the post, but now that you mention it...In all seriousness, I always very much enjoy reading your carefully planned thoughts, but I felt that you went overboard with the fully catalogued tirade against Tom. Rather than simply come out and say "Hey Lawrence, get a life!" or some other such nonsense, I figured I'd at least get a laugh out of you. Heck, I've had people email me with links from that site, pointing out what my "forum personality" was. How else would you think I would have found the site? A man who laughs at his own faults is the man whose fault it is he laughs... or something like that. No hard feelings, I hope. Jak Fearon
how in the world?
http://www.howintheworld.com Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
rgarber (580 posts)
Nov-22-01, 09:49 AM (EST) 6. "RE: Tom Kristoffersen, and the rest of you....." That's a good post. Sure made me think... and I want to add something to this which I think is really super duper megathoughtwhopper important. In working with Lawrence on the DEM stuff, we had to use to older versions of these 'DEM type programs' to get them to work. When you get stuff like that for free, okay? Like free as in no money exchanged? Guess what? You got no leverage whatsoever to get them to fix the thing. Yah... here we are a couple months later and supported programs are getting updated. But this free stuff isn't. So what can you do? Ask. And you are basically at their mercy. See, the person who does things for free knows because its free, he is not obligated to you in anyway. If you take their stuff, use it.. whatever... the burden is on you, not them. Free is fine. I don't think whether something is good or not should determine whether its free. I got a million things now I downloaded for free and I practially don't use any of them. But something I paid for? I use. In time, they'll be plenty of opportunities to get what you want whether its free or paid for. But the hobby needs paywear people as much as people who will do it for free. From paywear folks though.. I expect and demand a quality and service and support. That's the difference. So getting back to my earlier point about the two programs. You bet I wished they charged a price, because getting these older unsupported programs to work with newer stuff for DEM was hard. Ask Lawrence, he's the one who had to take time away from family to help me. The other alternative was to was asking the person who wrote these older programs, if they would please update the program. And from what I hear, they will, but who knows when? And Lawrence figured it out so we can get it done. And we're done with what Lawrence was helping me to do, but not because that program got fixed in time. For newer folks getting into this, I feel for them cause I don't know how they'll do some of this stuff. In fact, when you take a look at what TSTools did, they may never have to go through the pain we did because for a fee, you can now get a supported program that does it all. And look at how many people are happy they spent the $15 on Mike's book. But here's the key to all of this... spend your money wisely. Rich Garber Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
tomkrist (51 posts)
Nov-22-01, 04:15 AM (EST) 2. "RE: Tom Kristoffersen, and the rest of you....." LAST EDITED ON Nov-22-01 AT 04:36 AM (EST)Here we go again Lawrence has a quite big point there.
In my year as a pcfreak, i have done hours after hours with
FREE work for everyone on the net, just check my midipage at
www.krizmidipage.com. Here, you'll find 113 songs you can
download for free. I have not used lesser than 5-6 hour on
EACH song. I have played games,involved in alot of editors, like the Delta Force Land Warrior, and done things for free. Thats not a problem because i do that for fun I am also helping people around with pc for free, not only here home but also on the net. I have also made activities for free, you'll find it on the
trainsim.com. Just search after activities named: Transport in Maria, eurostar, Freight in Washington. I am not the man who is talking money with everything, but i do now that if i wanted, i could have earned some extra buck. But for me the money is not that important.I was curious about if people was really interesting in paying
for a route. Like Lawrence say, its your decision. If you don't want it, then leave it.At this moment there is several different add-on package
that is not for free.So whats the different? I just want something back of thoose hours i have used on this
route.Thats all Of course, i want to thanks everyone for using time on my questions in this forum. That is the good thing with this forum, if there is something you can't to fix, then you can ask here and get help. As a beginner in the route editor, i haven't helped
people that much in this forum, like i did in the activity editor, but belive me, if someone ask something i have the
answer on, i'll help this guy
T.K Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
RMapplebeck (20 posts)
Nov-22-01, 07:46 AM (EST) 4. "RE: Tom Kristoffersen, and the rest of you....." is it someones time of the month? Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
MZH (2 posts)
Nov-22-01, 08:42 AM (EST) 5. "RE: Tom Kristoffersen, and the rest of you....." LawrenceKellie and Tom Kristoffersen. Okay, read and understood, my mistake. I respect you.
Thomas Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Lock | Archive | Remove

Lobby | Topics | Previous Topic | Next Topic