As a high school student, I have to dispute this. Is the homework beneficial, or does it just raise students' grades because many teachers just check to see if its done, not actually correct?
I wondered about that study as well. If homework is graded you have to do it or you will not get a good grade. A study like this doesn't really make much sense unless the exams are identical in both situations. I really doubt a class that expects no additional outside work would have as challenging of an exam as one without outside work requirements. It sounds like a mumbo jobo study to state whatever case someone wants. I am sure that homework is actually not that important most of the time, my memory is doing tons of busy work just to turn it in, but at other times such as in math classes if I didn't do any of it I usually didn't do very well on exams.
Perhaps some GOP respresentative got worried US literacy rate may get over 95%.
Considering this is in San Fran I doubt it is a GOP initiative. The GOP seems bent on protecting protecting from themselves, while the Democrats seem bent on eliminating personal responsibility. This seems like eliminating personal responsibility to me. BTW: The No Child Left Behind act (a GOP initiative) is actually almost the exact opposite of this proposal (not that it is a really good proposition either).
One of my teachers did it best. He wrote an assignment on the board every day at the beginning of class that was due the next day, and then proceeded to teach it.
I can't say that I would think that a teacher like that was the best because they wrote the assignment on the board before class started. While any time I had a teacher like that I never had any homework, the point of a teacher is to teach the students. I don't think that a school should ban homework for reasons such as stress levels. On the other hand teachers shouldn't assign it in order to have the assignments do their job or because parents want to get out of having to deal with their children.
Banning homework limits a teachers options to provide students with a rich learning experience. The problem with schools today is that they tend to do things that cater to their laziness, or if they have some motivation they can't change the structure of the class because it is mandated by state and/or local laws/schoolboards.
I was always one of the bored kids in school because I was ahead of the course most of the time. I acted out a lot in class and was usually in trouble a lot... which landed me in a military school where nothing really changed(I was still in trouble all of the time, known as a class clown, and got suspended several times for crossing the line with teachers). I wasn't bored because I had too little or too much homework to do, but because I wasn't taking higher level classes. I was bored because teachers were uually teaching stuff that was booring. I hated classes like history because it really just meant reading a chapter in a history book every day/week. Teachers never engaged the class. When I went to college that changed when I had a history class taught by a full on communist (I am a libertarian which makes me pretty far right leaning). Having a teacher that engaged me was a hell of a lot better than a teacher that just wrote an assignment on the board and carried with a crappy lecture. A good teacher challenges a child and makes them think. I am not advocating putting a communist in an elementary civics class to teach them about the constitution, but I think teachers should take it upon themselves to provide some meaning to their classrooms and we can then allow them to assign or not assign homework.
I know there is a big differnce between a college student and a elemtary school child but the same principles can apply. Teachers can engage a class through a variety of measures depending on the age and level of the class. I think that in my entire life I probably have had about 15 good teachers with about 1/2 of them being in graduate school where I "pay" through the nose (I don't really pay too much because I have an assitantship, but tuition is prety high and the professors are all paid 6 figures) because it is a top 20 ranked program. I we were willing to pay teachers we would get the much better results, but when they are expected to work about 60 hours a week for 10 months a year for 35K/year they are going to be crappy, or they are going to complain about homework like the idiot in the TFA because they are really the ones that don't like homework since it changes their work week from a 35 hour week to 60 hours.
It doesn't really matter what tax rates companies pay. If they are taxed at a higher rate they just pass it on to the consumer. I can't stand hearing the argument that we should just tax the "rich companies" because it is really just implementing a sales tax when it comes down to it. Taxing corporations is about the least progressive thing we can do.
I don't know what others here have seen from a management perspective, but when expenses go up it rarely hurts the bottom line. Either cuts are made elsewhere (i.e. jobs), or the end price for the goods or services go up. It happens every time there is a minimum wage increase. It seems like a good deal to the low paid worker until they realize that that extra $/per hour they get goes out their pocket just about as fast because anything that they buy that relies on minum wage labor just costs them more. I'm not advocating against a minimum wage increase or anything because I do think it should rise with inflation, but shifting taxes to corporations doesn't change anything in the end.
As for the comments on where spending goes, it is a pretty small percentage spent on interest (I am not looking it up, but I think the last I saw for 2005 or 2006 was about 7%). Everything spent really is discrtionary spending when it comes down to it except the military. The dollars spent there don't necessarily have to be a certain amount, but it is about the only part of government spending in the constitution. Sure laws are passed legislation funding different programs, but they are relatively easy to change. The real problem is that once a program gets started it is almost imposible to get rid of it. Politicians are the real problem because they always want to look good and start a spending program without thinking about how it is going to be funded. The best example is social security, it is the biggest pyramid scheme on the planet, but it sure made Roosevelt popular during the Great Depression, and he is still well respected. In 20-30 years when those of us that aren't retired have to sell or organs to pay the taxes we will have to pay in order to keep it going we will probably all curse him.
The drop was really fueled by a number of causes. China's 9% decline the night before was the primary trigger. Sub-prime loans have been leading to trouble for a number of firms lately with the housing decline fueling those problems. The market has been in bull form for quite some time with no corrections leading to a large number of stock prices not supported by their fundamentals. The durable goods sales reports are expected to show under 3% growth when it has been up in the 4% range and this always spooks investors. Any economic indicators showing any sign of change spark massive changes on the market.
The computer problems experienced were really just a lag between the DJIA being calculated and the massive volume of trades being made. Individual stock prices were being reported correctly but the index wasn't keeping up. When the computers caught up they did it over a single minute dropping about 300 points while in reality by the time the index caught up the market had started to rebound a bit. All of the value stock buyers saw the deals becoming available when the landslide hit and started buying a bit. Kind of like today, the market is rebounding because many are looking at stocks that were overpriced yesterday and thinking they are cheap. It's not really as big of deal as the press makes it out to seem. It's not like the '87 crash where 500 points was like 20% of the market. 500 points off th dow is under 4%.
Another trigger for the sudden decline could have been the headline on The Drudge Report (linking to the New York Times article by the same headline) stated that Greespan predicted an imminent recession when his words were as they always have been and that people should be carefull because the economy has been growing for longer than the average growth cycle by about 12 months. Greenspan didn't say anything about a recession being imminent.
Are corporations that manufacture incandescent lights also invested in electricity producing companies?
Actually GE is a major player in the utilities industry. While they don't own the power plants, they build the turbines and much of the other equipment needed to build and maintain them. So in an indirect way they do benifit from electricity consumption.
The purpose of copyright is to provide a temporary monopoly on distribution of the art so that its creator can benefit from the work enough to encourage them to create further works. Copyright is NOT intended to create a source of lifetime income for the creator.
No, that is the purpose of a patent. A copyright is to protect the creator from theft of his/her unique ideas or expressions. That is why the USPTO has nothing to do with copyrights. They are two seperate issue and were created for different reasons.
What I find more interesting about the "See ID" idea, on most of the credit cards I've seen, they all have a clause that says "Not valid unless signed".
I have always found that interesting as well. I guess that my credit cards aren't valid.
I don't know, the idea of giving an individual or group what amounts to be a government sanctioned monopoly doesn't sound very capitalist to me.
How does allowing theft of work amount to capitalism? Intagibles are a whole different ball game than a tangible item. It is a challenging concept to tackle, but without copyright protection an entity with more market power can just force anyone else out by leveraging their distribution networks. That sounds much more monopolistic to me. I wouldn't claim that current copyright systems are perfect, but I have yet to hear of a better way.
If I submit a charge to Visa/Mastercard and it's authorized, I should be able to count on that unless the valid cardmember has a legitimate complaint that I did not resolve and charges it back. If the use was fraudulent, as the merchant I have absolutely no way to know that--that's why I'm asking Visa/Mastercard for authorization.
To me it is annoying that 90%+ of the time the merchant never checks my signature line which says "See ID" and actually ask for an ID. I understand your complaint, but when merchants blindly accept a card they should have to pay for it. I know it always ends up being the end consumer that pays, but still why should Visa/Mastercard lose their profits when merchants usually never check the card in the first place?
For 200 years, copyright was considered the only way to protect your creations, but what came out of copyright is the worst-case scenario for amateur artists: instead of copyright protecting your creations, it only protected the monopoly networks of distribution, what I would call distribution cartels..
Copyright is essentially a protection of property, much like having laws against theft. Without them people could "steal" (don't get into the semantics of the definition of stealing, my point here is obvious) work and claim it as their own. While 70 years seems like a long time it isn't really all that unfair. Essentially it is designed to protect the creator of the work for their lifetime. Just because people sell that right to others is no reason to say it isn't reasonable.
Does a plumber go to school for 2 years to learn how to fix toilets only to get paid for 70 years whenever you flush that toilet?
This is irrelevant. Fixing a toilet is a service. Content creation is an art. What does one have to do with the other? You are focusing on one business model and making the assumption that it applies to everything else. Get real... look at the razor blade market or the inkjet printer market... do these look more like the arts market? They get protection through patents on their ink cartridge design. Why should copyright be any different?
While some distributors do have significant control of distribution networks, their status is clearly not that of monopoly. The definition of a monopoly is one company controlling the entire industry, which is clearly not the case. One could argue oligopolies exist but I would not because many small distributors still exist and have carved out particular niches.
Creators of works have the choice of signing with a major distributor, a small distributor, or doing it on their own. No one forces one to sign with a big name, economics just dictate that it is much easier to make a profit when signing with them because of their broad scale of distribution. Your point seem extremely Marxist in that it is the right of the people to have access to every work out there. Capitalism doesn't work that way, each entity has the choice to do business how they see fit within the constructs of the law. Who cares what people did 200+ years ago, why not go back 1000 years? 10,000 years? Society evolves and with it our definitions of an individuals place in it, the social boundaries, norms, etc. 200 years ago the printing press was still relatively new and copying a writing was much more cost prohibitive than it is today.
While I don't agree with the way the MPAA and RIAA conduct themselves, in principle I do agree with some of their logic. The copyright holder has rights and most countries agree with that principle. If you don't want a big distributor to control your work, or want it to be passed freely you have the right to do so under the U.S. system.
My question about this is similar. People that would like Linux pre-installed are probably more likely to suggest it on their new web site. People with no interest in Linux are probably less likely to complain about anything because they have are likely to not know what to complain about. A better way to figure out what customers want it to ask them when they call.
I would be happy to buy a Dell with Linux pre-loaded and welcome the idea, but I am not sure taking a vocal computer savey group as representative of demand is really much of a way to determine which products to offer. It's kind of like taking an online FOX News poll as representative of the populous... sure they are the most watched news channel but they are the only major conservative (by American standards) news network in the U.S. and therefor don't have many liberal minded people visiting their web site. I think this article fails to prove that there is much demand for preloaded Linux boxes.
Both companies are actually expected to become profitable this year. Their biggest problem has been the cost of acquiring customers, similar to satellite TV companies. At a certain point the cost of acquisition doesn't outweigh their current income streams. I have tracked both of these companies for years and read every 10K they file as well as keep up with analyst reports such as the S&P Stars reports. I have also had access to both companies to some degree (I subscribed to XM and Dish provides Sirius music stations) and they both offer some great benefits to customers, but they are different. In my opinion Sirius has better music and the NFL but lacks on some other content while XM has better sports coverage overall, substantial news, and some pretty decent music. Others may disagree on their music selections.
A merger will help with several things financially. They will be able consolidate marketing efforts, particularly in new car installations. They will be able to reduce their satellite costs as well since each satellite has a limited life. If you actually look at the initial deal with the FCC they were supposed to have interoperability at some point so that consumers would be able to switch services without having to purchase all new equipment.
To me this is a big deal and a good thing if it is executed properly. If they start dropping stations because they feel it is redundant then I will be upset as a consumer. I actually cancelled my XM subscription in protest when they cancelled my favorite station last year. I am probably going to get it back in the next couple of months (when I graduate from Grad school and start getting a paycheck again) because I don't want to shell out the money for a Sirius system in my car and XM is much better than being stuck with the same music collection that has become stagnant.
With their existing contracts with the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, NCAA conferences, etc. they will be able to offer almost every major sporting even in the country. To me, this is great because it bothers me to be in my car and not be able to listen to games that are not in my area. Currently I live in Indiana, but I am a Floridian and get almost 0 coverage either on TV or radio for the teams I follow. I either have to shell out big money for sports packages on TV, go to a bar, or do without. ESNP offers streaming games but the quality isn't there yet and on a per game basis it is very pricey. To me it's just not worth it to pay ESPN $20 for a single game when I can get a month of radio service for that much.
A lack of management skills is what causes one to micro-manage.
I will agree with you on this point, although you are missing mine. It isn't that technical ability detracts from management skills, it is that managerial talent has nothing to do with technical ability.
The problem here is that in order to "dictate overarching business strategy" one needs to understand the effects of said dictating at all levels. Without a thorough understanding of the options how can you select the best strategy?
Here you don't get the point. IT should have very little to do with a business strategy, it is a supporting function for almost every company. A company doesn't rely on accounting, finance, or HR to dictate strategy does it? No, it uses accounting in order to ensure that goals are being met by measuring the metrics dictated by the strategy and reporting that information to management. The only supporting function that usually is involved in strategy formation is marketing because they tend to be the eyes and ears in the field and have an idea of what the customer wants.
First if the CIO is going to base all his decisions on what his underling tells him what the hell do you need a CIO for.
A CIO shouldn't just take everything his so called "underlings" tell him/her at face value. As I have said, the CIO must determine if the advice really will help meet the strategic objectives. Being able to make judgements without complete information is part of life, and those with talent at it are good strategists. All forward looking business decisions are made with incomplete information. A CIO has to balance the greater organizations needs with current technolical capabilities, time and monetary constraints, as well as the current infrastructure. Sure, replacing a piece of software may be a great idea from a technological standpoint (security reasons, bug fixes, etc.) but it may not provide enough of a financial benefit to the firm to justify the investment. Those financial decisions are the major consideration that a CIO should be making based on input from the tech people as well as the end users that the investment should benefit. 90% of the time if you give a tech oriented person a budget they will spend it whether it is worth it or not (this is why the CIO position was developed in the first place), if you give a non-tech person a budget for technology, 50% of the time they will only spend all of it if they can justify it financially (i.e. required return on investment). Remember that IT is NOT the business, it does not make the business, it supports the business by attempting to improve overall company efficiency... even in a tech company.
Second without thorough knowledge of IT how can you know who to hire to give you advice.
There are a number of ways to determine who to hire without knowing about the subject. If you need a lawyer do you have to know the law? If you need someone to build a house for you do you have to be an archetect, structural enigneer, and a contractor? No, you use references and have others that you know and trust (preferably those in the organization that do have technical expertise) be involved in the hiring process. Yes, a resume doesn't mean anything, and neither do references that you don't know, but there are plenty of ways to find out more about people.
Third whoever you hire is going to have predispositions towards their areas of expertise.
Exactly, you help make my point. If the CIO was a Windows, Java, or Web person they will have the exact same predispositions.
A CIO that just goes to meetings and nods his heads and agrees isn't worth anything when he comes back to the IS department and dictates to them that the CEO just changed vendors on a major software component over golf yesterday, and the windows application has to be rewritten to run on netware 3.11 in time for the product launch next week.
I would completely agree with you. My point is that the CEO and CIO don't always need to be involved in operational decisions at the technical level. In smaller companies they may have to deal with the issues you speak of. In a larger organization the CEO shouldn't care at all about vendors or tactical decisions made in the IT department. The job of a CIO isn't to dictate what products are used to accomplish a particular goal, it should be to dictacte the goal and let the people that have to implement the steps needed to accomplish that goal make the decisions they need to in order to get there. The CIO should understand things at a higher level, for example: they should understand what a spam filter is, if it seems to work, how much it costs to implement (software, hardware, and other resources), and is it in line with an organizational goal; but how it works shouldn't matter, only that it does or doesn't help reduce wasted resources.
In your example both the CIO and CEO are incompetent. They shouldn't be dictating a vendor change, the person or team that is implementing the end goal should be making those decisions. If the CIO is part of the team implementing the changes then it would stand to reason that they know what is going on, but in most cases they are there to keep the IT department from running wild and just implementing things that they think are cool but make little or no contribution to the business. The CIO position was corporate America's response to IT departments buying cool toys with little or no value to the organization. An MIS manager with some technical knowledge (or his/her team) should be making the decisions you were writing about.
remember, Bill Gates said he would end spam. As a "trusting" MS user, I believe him. So, since spam has ended, I don't know what these "systems" guys are complaining about. Geeez.
And I am going to ditch my firewall as soon as I get Vista because Bill says it will be a secure OS.
How does the CIO not understand what the IT deparment is doing and still become CIO? Can someone clue me in on the way a manager can know nothing of what they manage and still be a manager?
Because managers are there to manage, not to be technicians. The most effective managers should know something about what they manage, but they do not need to know the details. They are supposed to be "big-picture" people and leave the details to the experts they hire. When a manager knows too much about what they manage they tend to micro-manage and I am sure we all dislike that more than ignorant managers.
Personally I would rather have a manager that gives me the responsibility and flexibility to make the decisions that are within the scope of my job function who knows nothing about what I do and how I do it than one that is more knowledgable but ties my hands when it comes to getting things done. The CIO should dictate the overarching business strategy to the IS department and help ensure that their work helps accomplish the goals of that strategy. The details are for the rest of the department to figure out. Remember, the IS department is a supporting function, no different from accounting, marketing, or HR... it is not the business.
I'm sure I will be flamed for this response, but it is typical of technical people (not just IT, but in all functions) to have disdain for those in charge because they don't know what we know. But it isn't their job to, or else they would have no reason to hire us. A CIO position is NOT a technical position. Expecting a CIO to know everthing going on in the IS department is the same as expecting the CEO to know it as well.
- Grow plants (or algae) that have a high energy content and do not need good land. E.g. algae can be grown in salt water, switchgrass grows well in a variety of circumstances that other crops don't like, and kudzu grows whether you want it or not.
- Use the energy captured in these plants to generate electricity. There are various options here, too: extract oil from algae and combust that, convert the sugars in the plant matter to ethanol and burn that, or perhaps burn the plants whole.
Remember, this is an ISP, not an energy company.
Follow the KISS principle. Wind power with a storage mechanism is an excellent idea and probably the most cost-effective. It doesn't sound the company should be investing in hugh facilities that will require loads of R&D to get up and running.
This project should use proven technologies such as solar and wind that are readily available, relativly low-cost, and easy to set up and maintain. One example to borrow from is what many people in rural areas use which is a combination of wind and sloar combined with a storage mechanism. Another thought is for your backup generators, use a biofuel.
Oh.. yeah, this is reality... Google actually really screwed the pooch when they gave this site a rank to begin with... do any of you have a decent search engine?.. I thought that google was worth something... I guess that they sold their souls to youtube.
I thought that/. was for people that knew spam from crap... please give me some real info instead of total garbage.
Seriously, how did this make it on slashdot? Did we lose all moderators?
Slashdot Mirror
I wondered about that study as well. If homework is graded you have to do it or you will not get a good grade. A study like this doesn't really make much sense unless the exams are identical in both situations. I really doubt a class that expects no additional outside work would have as challenging of an exam as one without outside work requirements. It sounds like a mumbo jobo study to state whatever case someone wants. I am sure that homework is actually not that important most of the time, my memory is doing tons of busy work just to turn it in, but at other times such as in math classes if I didn't do any of it I usually didn't do very well on exams.
Considering this is in San Fran I doubt it is a GOP initiative. The GOP seems bent on protecting protecting from themselves, while the Democrats seem bent on eliminating personal responsibility. This seems like eliminating personal responsibility to me. BTW: The No Child Left Behind act (a GOP initiative) is actually almost the exact opposite of this proposal (not that it is a really good proposition either).
I can't say that I would think that a teacher like that was the best because they wrote the assignment on the board before class started. While any time I had a teacher like that I never had any homework, the point of a teacher is to teach the students. I don't think that a school should ban homework for reasons such as stress levels. On the other hand teachers shouldn't assign it in order to have the assignments do their job or because parents want to get out of having to deal with their children.
Banning homework limits a teachers options to provide students with a rich learning experience. The problem with schools today is that they tend to do things that cater to their laziness, or if they have some motivation they can't change the structure of the class because it is mandated by state and/or local laws/schoolboards.
I was always one of the bored kids in school because I was ahead of the course most of the time. I acted out a lot in class and was usually in trouble a lot... which landed me in a military school where nothing really changed(I was still in trouble all of the time, known as a class clown, and got suspended several times for crossing the line with teachers). I wasn't bored because I had too little or too much homework to do, but because I wasn't taking higher level classes. I was bored because teachers were uually teaching stuff that was booring. I hated classes like history because it really just meant reading a chapter in a history book every day/week. Teachers never engaged the class. When I went to college that changed when I had a history class taught by a full on communist (I am a libertarian which makes me pretty far right leaning). Having a teacher that engaged me was a hell of a lot better than a teacher that just wrote an assignment on the board and carried with a crappy lecture. A good teacher challenges a child and makes them think. I am not advocating putting a communist in an elementary civics class to teach them about the constitution, but I think teachers should take it upon themselves to provide some meaning to their classrooms and we can then allow them to assign or not assign homework.
I know there is a big differnce between a college student and a elemtary school child but the same principles can apply. Teachers can engage a class through a variety of measures depending on the age and level of the class. I think that in my entire life I probably have had about 15 good teachers with about 1/2 of them being in graduate school where I "pay" through the nose (I don't really pay too much because I have an assitantship, but tuition is prety high and the professors are all paid 6 figures) because it is a top 20 ranked program. I we were willing to pay teachers we would get the much better results, but when they are expected to work about 60 hours a week for 10 months a year for 35K/year they are going to be crappy, or they are going to complain about homework like the idiot in the TFA because they are really the ones that don't like homework since it changes their work week from a 35 hour week to 60 hours.
It doesn't really matter what tax rates companies pay. If they are taxed at a higher rate they just pass it on to the consumer. I can't stand hearing the argument that we should just tax the "rich companies" because it is really just implementing a sales tax when it comes down to it. Taxing corporations is about the least progressive thing we can do.
I don't know what others here have seen from a management perspective, but when expenses go up it rarely hurts the bottom line. Either cuts are made elsewhere (i.e. jobs), or the end price for the goods or services go up. It happens every time there is a minimum wage increase. It seems like a good deal to the low paid worker until they realize that that extra $/per hour they get goes out their pocket just about as fast because anything that they buy that relies on minum wage labor just costs them more. I'm not advocating against a minimum wage increase or anything because I do think it should rise with inflation, but shifting taxes to corporations doesn't change anything in the end.
As for the comments on where spending goes, it is a pretty small percentage spent on interest (I am not looking it up, but I think the last I saw for 2005 or 2006 was about 7%). Everything spent really is discrtionary spending when it comes down to it except the military. The dollars spent there don't necessarily have to be a certain amount, but it is about the only part of government spending in the constitution. Sure laws are passed legislation funding different programs, but they are relatively easy to change. The real problem is that once a program gets started it is almost imposible to get rid of it. Politicians are the real problem because they always want to look good and start a spending program without thinking about how it is going to be funded. The best example is social security, it is the biggest pyramid scheme on the planet, but it sure made Roosevelt popular during the Great Depression, and he is still well respected. In 20-30 years when those of us that aren't retired have to sell or organs to pay the taxes we will have to pay in order to keep it going we will probably all curse him.
The drop was really fueled by a number of causes. China's 9% decline the night before was the primary trigger. Sub-prime loans have been leading to trouble for a number of firms lately with the housing decline fueling those problems. The market has been in bull form for quite some time with no corrections leading to a large number of stock prices not supported by their fundamentals. The durable goods sales reports are expected to show under 3% growth when it has been up in the 4% range and this always spooks investors. Any economic indicators showing any sign of change spark massive changes on the market.
The computer problems experienced were really just a lag between the DJIA being calculated and the massive volume of trades being made. Individual stock prices were being reported correctly but the index wasn't keeping up. When the computers caught up they did it over a single minute dropping about 300 points while in reality by the time the index caught up the market had started to rebound a bit. All of the value stock buyers saw the deals becoming available when the landslide hit and started buying a bit. Kind of like today, the market is rebounding because many are looking at stocks that were overpriced yesterday and thinking they are cheap. It's not really as big of deal as the press makes it out to seem. It's not like the '87 crash where 500 points was like 20% of the market. 500 points off th dow is under 4%.
Another trigger for the sudden decline could have been the headline on The Drudge Report (linking to the New York Times article by the same headline) stated that Greespan predicted an imminent recession when his words were as they always have been and that people should be carefull because the economy has been growing for longer than the average growth cycle by about 12 months. Greenspan didn't say anything about a recession being imminent.
Actually GE is a major player in the utilities industry. While they don't own the power plants, they build the turbines and much of the other equipment needed to build and maintain them. So in an indirect way they do benifit from electricity consumption.
Congrats!!!
No, that is the purpose of a patent. A copyright is to protect the creator from theft of his/her unique ideas or expressions. That is why the USPTO has nothing to do with copyrights. They are two seperate issue and were created for different reasons.
I have always found that interesting as well. I guess that my credit cards aren't valid.
Hehehe.... I see the next /. poll :-)
How does allowing theft of work amount to capitalism? Intagibles are a whole different ball game than a tangible item. It is a challenging concept to tackle, but without copyright protection an entity with more market power can just force anyone else out by leveraging their distribution networks. That sounds much more monopolistic to me. I wouldn't claim that current copyright systems are perfect, but I have yet to hear of a better way.
I would bet Angelina Jolie looks 1000% better than 99.99999% /. readers significant others before makeup.
To me it is annoying that 90%+ of the time the merchant never checks my signature line which says "See ID" and actually ask for an ID. I understand your complaint, but when merchants blindly accept a card they should have to pay for it. I know it always ends up being the end consumer that pays, but still why should Visa/Mastercard lose their profits when merchants usually never check the card in the first place?
Copyright is essentially a protection of property, much like having laws against theft. Without them people could "steal" (don't get into the semantics of the definition of stealing, my point here is obvious) work and claim it as their own. While 70 years seems like a long time it isn't really all that unfair. Essentially it is designed to protect the creator of the work for their lifetime. Just because people sell that right to others is no reason to say it isn't reasonable.
I don't understand your point of copyright being the worst-case scenario for amateur artists. It has no merit. An amateur artist has the right to do whatever he/she wants with their work. Copyright does protect an amateur artist just the same as a major distributor. If you register a copyrighted work it is very well protected no matter what your ability to pay legal fees is. I just don't see how anyone can say that this is bad for an amateur artist. Your example of free domain is fine, it is your decision to do so, but don't force your Marxist views on others. Almost anything I write gets a © on it if I think it is of value, whether I plan to distribute it or not. Maybe I am just a capitalist pig, but if I want to protect my work from theft I should have the right to do so. Heck, I even put it on some of the course work I do for school if I think my ideas have merit and are original. I would never claim to be an artist, but I do write some, particularly non-fiction. I have never been published and don't know if I ever care to, but I would like to think that if I do cross that line someday I have the ability to profit from it.
This is irrelevant. Fixing a toilet is a service. Content creation is an art. What does one have to do with the other? You are focusing on one business model and making the assumption that it applies to everything else. Get real... look at the razor blade market or the inkjet printer market... do these look more like the arts market? They get protection through patents on their ink cartridge design. Why should copyright be any different?
While some distributors do have significant control of distribution networks, their status is clearly not that of monopoly. The definition of a monopoly is one company controlling the entire industry, which is clearly not the case. One could argue oligopolies exist but I would not because many small distributors still exist and have carved out particular niches.
Creators of works have the choice of signing with a major distributor, a small distributor, or doing it on their own. No one forces one to sign with a big name, economics just dictate that it is much easier to make a profit when signing with them because of their broad scale of distribution. Your point seem extremely Marxist in that it is the right of the people to have access to every work out there. Capitalism doesn't work that way, each entity has the choice to do business how they see fit within the constructs of the law. Who cares what people did 200+ years ago, why not go back 1000 years? 10,000 years? Society evolves and with it our definitions of an individuals place in it, the social boundaries, norms, etc. 200 years ago the printing press was still relatively new and copying a writing was much more cost prohibitive than it is today.
While I don't agree with the way the MPAA and RIAA conduct themselves, in principle I do agree with some of their logic. The copyright holder has rights and most countries agree with that principle. If you don't want a big distributor to control your work, or want it to be passed freely you have the right to do so under the U.S. system.
My question about this is similar. People that would like Linux pre-installed are probably more likely to suggest it on their new web site. People with no interest in Linux are probably less likely to complain about anything because they have are likely to not know what to complain about. A better way to figure out what customers want it to ask them when they call.
I would be happy to buy a Dell with Linux pre-loaded and welcome the idea, but I am not sure taking a vocal computer savey group as representative of demand is really much of a way to determine which products to offer. It's kind of like taking an online FOX News poll as representative of the populous... sure they are the most watched news channel but they are the only major conservative (by American standards) news network in the U.S. and therefor don't have many liberal minded people visiting their web site. I think this article fails to prove that there is much demand for preloaded Linux boxes.
Both companies are actually expected to become profitable this year. Their biggest problem has been the cost of acquiring customers, similar to satellite TV companies. At a certain point the cost of acquisition doesn't outweigh their current income streams. I have tracked both of these companies for years and read every 10K they file as well as keep up with analyst reports such as the S&P Stars reports. I have also had access to both companies to some degree (I subscribed to XM and Dish provides Sirius music stations) and they both offer some great benefits to customers, but they are different. In my opinion Sirius has better music and the NFL but lacks on some other content while XM has better sports coverage overall, substantial news, and some pretty decent music. Others may disagree on their music selections.
A merger will help with several things financially. They will be able consolidate marketing efforts, particularly in new car installations. They will be able to reduce their satellite costs as well since each satellite has a limited life. If you actually look at the initial deal with the FCC they were supposed to have interoperability at some point so that consumers would be able to switch services without having to purchase all new equipment.
To me this is a big deal and a good thing if it is executed properly. If they start dropping stations because they feel it is redundant then I will be upset as a consumer. I actually cancelled my XM subscription in protest when they cancelled my favorite station last year. I am probably going to get it back in the next couple of months (when I graduate from Grad school and start getting a paycheck again) because I don't want to shell out the money for a Sirius system in my car and XM is much better than being stuck with the same music collection that has become stagnant.
With their existing contracts with the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, NCAA conferences, etc. they will be able to offer almost every major sporting even in the country. To me, this is great because it bothers me to be in my car and not be able to listen to games that are not in my area. Currently I live in Indiana, but I am a Floridian and get almost 0 coverage either on TV or radio for the teams I follow. I either have to shell out big money for sports packages on TV, go to a bar, or do without. ESNP offers streaming games but the quality isn't there yet and on a per game basis it is very pricey. To me it's just not worth it to pay ESPN $20 for a single game when I can get a month of radio service for that much.
I will agree with you on this point, although you are missing mine. It isn't that technical ability detracts from management skills, it is that managerial talent has nothing to do with technical ability.
Here you don't get the point. IT should have very little to do with a business strategy, it is a supporting function for almost every company. A company doesn't rely on accounting, finance, or HR to dictate strategy does it? No, it uses accounting in order to ensure that goals are being met by measuring the metrics dictated by the strategy and reporting that information to management. The only supporting function that usually is involved in strategy formation is marketing because they tend to be the eyes and ears in the field and have an idea of what the customer wants.
A CIO shouldn't just take everything his so called "underlings" tell him/her at face value. As I have said, the CIO must determine if the advice really will help meet the strategic objectives. Being able to make judgements without complete information is part of life, and those with talent at it are good strategists. All forward looking business decisions are made with incomplete information. A CIO has to balance the greater organizations needs with current technolical capabilities, time and monetary constraints, as well as the current infrastructure. Sure, replacing a piece of software may be a great idea from a technological standpoint (security reasons, bug fixes, etc.) but it may not provide enough of a financial benefit to the firm to justify the investment. Those financial decisions are the major consideration that a CIO should be making based on input from the tech people as well as the end users that the investment should benefit. 90% of the time if you give a tech oriented person a budget they will spend it whether it is worth it or not (this is why the CIO position was developed in the first place), if you give a non-tech person a budget for technology, 50% of the time they will only spend all of it if they can justify it financially (i.e. required return on investment). Remember that IT is NOT the business, it does not make the business, it supports the business by attempting to improve overall company efficiency... even in a tech company.
There are a number of ways to determine who to hire without knowing about the subject. If you need a lawyer do you have to know the law? If you need someone to build a house for you do you have to be an archetect, structural enigneer, and a contractor? No, you use references and have others that you know and trust (preferably those in the organization that do have technical expertise) be involved in the hiring process. Yes, a resume doesn't mean anything, and neither do references that you don't know, but there are plenty of ways to find out more about people.
Exactly, you help make my point. If the CIO was a Windows, Java, or Web person they will have the exact same predispositions.
I would completely agree with you. My point is that the CEO and CIO don't always need to be involved in operational decisions at the technical level. In smaller companies they may have to deal with the issues you speak of. In a larger organization the CEO shouldn't care at all about vendors or tactical decisions made in the IT department. The job of a CIO isn't to dictate what products are used to accomplish a particular goal, it should be to dictacte the goal and let the people that have to implement the steps needed to accomplish that goal make the decisions they need to in order to get there. The CIO should understand things at a higher level, for example: they should understand what a spam filter is, if it seems to work, how much it costs to implement (software, hardware, and other resources), and is it in line with an organizational goal; but how it works shouldn't matter, only that it does or doesn't help reduce wasted resources.
In your example both the CIO and CEO are incompetent. They shouldn't be dictating a vendor change, the person or team that is implementing the end goal should be making those decisions. If the CIO is part of the team implementing the changes then it would stand to reason that they know what is going on, but in most cases they are there to keep the IT department from running wild and just implementing things that they think are cool but make little or no contribution to the business. The CIO position was corporate America's response to IT departments buying cool toys with little or no value to the organization. An MIS manager with some technical knowledge (or his/her team) should be making the decisions you were writing about.
I thought yours was funny... I was just trying to keep the joke going... poorly :-(
And I am going to ditch my firewall as soon as I get Vista because Bill says it will be a secure OS.
Maybe it's The Dilbert Principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dilbert_Principle
Because managers are there to manage, not to be technicians. The most effective managers should know something about what they manage, but they do not need to know the details. They are supposed to be "big-picture" people and leave the details to the experts they hire. When a manager knows too much about what they manage they tend to micro-manage and I am sure we all dislike that more than ignorant managers.
Personally I would rather have a manager that gives me the responsibility and flexibility to make the decisions that are within the scope of my job function who knows nothing about what I do and how I do it than one that is more knowledgable but ties my hands when it comes to getting things done. The CIO should dictate the overarching business strategy to the IS department and help ensure that their work helps accomplish the goals of that strategy. The details are for the rest of the department to figure out. Remember, the IS department is a supporting function, no different from accounting, marketing, or HR... it is not the business.
I'm sure I will be flamed for this response, but it is typical of technical people (not just IT, but in all functions) to have disdain for those in charge because they don't know what we know. But it isn't their job to, or else they would have no reason to hire us. A CIO position is NOT a technical position. Expecting a CIO to know everthing going on in the IS department is the same as expecting the CEO to know it as well.
Remember, this is an ISP, not an energy company.
Follow the KISS principle. Wind power with a storage mechanism is an excellent idea and probably the most cost-effective. It doesn't sound the company should be investing in hugh facilities that will require loads of R&D to get up and running.
This project should use proven technologies such as solar and wind that are readily available, relativly low-cost, and easy to set up and maintain. One example to borrow from is what many people in rural areas use which is a combination of wind and sloar combined with a storage mechanism. Another thought is for your backup generators, use a biofuel.
People with more balls than to post as an anonymous coward.
Oh.. yeah, this is reality... Google actually really screwed the pooch when they gave this site a rank to begin with... do any of you have a decent search engine?.. I thought that google was worth something... I guess that they sold their souls to youtube.
/. was for people that knew spam from crap... please give me some real info instead of total garbage.
I thought that
Seriously, how did this make it on slashdot? Did we lose all moderators?