19th century Anarchist to a collegue: "This world is corrupt. Empires and governments exploit the worker, the rich get full as the poor starve. This world should burn, and we should build another one in its place."
21th century Katz to/.: "But in some ways life is worse - more polluted, crowded, ugly, and complicated and less spiritual, and certainly less private. [...] standards of living slipping, social programs weakening. Divisiveness seems inevitable in a world in which access to new technologies spells the difference between education and ignorance, poverty and wealth, opportunity and despair. [...]growing challenges to freedom and creative growth."
This coming from a man who advocates bootlegging mp3s, and justifies it as "choosing our own culture", whereas I would call it theft. Gotta love creative interpretations of reality (i.e. lies).
This coming from our "savior", Jon Katz, the Messiah.
Cry me a fucking river, Mr. Katz. I have no respect for you. It seems like every damn week, you see a new "evil", and attempt to decry it, wrapping yourself in self-rightgeous rhetoric, as you wet the ravenous/. crowds, who are always looking for the latest government/corporate conspiracy to discuss in the comfort of their own priviledged lives.
I have no respect for you, Mr. Katz. You decry the WTO meetings because they had an impact on the media. I respect the people who braved the law-enforcement officers, for their own ideals and beliefs.
I have no respect for you, Mr. Katz. You cry about the growing infringment of the corporate world in our own lives, yet you profit from it with books, and surely, correct me if I'm wrong, lectures. Are your books freely available? Are your lecture transcripts posted on a website somewhere?
I have no respect for you, Mr. Katz. I have no respect for quixotic polemists, always looking for the next windmill. I have respect for the people who actually do something, and have no need to be validated and worshipped by near-sighted freaks. I have respect for people who change the system by action and words, not words alone. I have respect for everyone in this country who gives his own time to help others. I have respect for every student who takes a year off to go overseas and teach to the disfavored. I have respect to everyone who dedicates their lives to helping others, through action. I have respect for my own aunt, a nun, who teaches to the poor in Peru.
I have no respect for you, Mr. Katz.
The rise of the megacorps?
on
AOL Nation
·
· Score: 1
The decade of mergers seems to carry on quite fine into the 00's.
But the question begs to answer. Is there any other way to go? You are the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation. Suddenly, your two biggest competitors decide to merge. From your good and lofty position, you become dwarfed by a giant. What are your alternatives? Bigger is better, a truism that applies too perfectly to the business world.
A real life example. Alcan of Canada, Picheney and a Swiss Aluminum co. (can't remember the name), decided to merge last year, creating the biggest Alumnimum consortium, topping Alcoa, of the US.
What did Alcoa do? Accept their fate smiling? No, they first approached Reynolds, and tried to buy it out through the management. When that didn't work, they went hostile, and bought them out through their shareholders. Add Reynolds to Alcoa, and they again become tops, over Alcan.
It might seem like an everending spiral. If your competitors become bigger, you need to become bigger, or you might be their next buyout target.
Inevitably, it will lead to giant corporations with tentacular holds on every aspect of commercialization and product. While this AOL/Time-Warner merger seems more like a buyout of AOL by Time (kinda like Daimler and Chrysler), it nonetheless creates the premier player in this new age of the media.
And while AOL and Time had similar business views and aims, it will not be long before we see mergers between corps that have nothing to do with each other, giving rise to that biggest invention of the cyberpunk writers, the megacorps.
Is AOL/Time bad? It might be. Should it be blocked?
America, land of Opportunity. If your only way to compete against bigger giants is to become one of them, who here is able to block your move? It's all in the interest of competition, sadly. Single-minded, smallish corps in big markets will, unfortunatly, not survive in the wake of the New Behemoths.
Raimi started out with the Evil Dead series who had, while not being a great cinematographic success, a hardcore cult following, and frankly, nobody did those quirky horror flicks better than he did.
Some people might think that Spiderman might be up another alley entirely, and that such a project would require a better established director, used to big-budget action flicks, à la Cameron or De Bont.
On the contrary. Raimi showed us he has a myriad of talents, and a true gift with the camera. Just watch "A Simple Plan" again (if you haven't checked that movie out, what's wrong with you? A great flick). Genius filmwork, showing a wealth of talent, and some great acting (Paxton and Thornton primarely). I think he would be a great choice, and give us another look at the superhero genre. (Remember the effect Burton had with his first Batman. I expect the same thing with Raimi).
I expect much of/.'s community to jump on this with a malicious glee in their eyes, hanging burning Bill Gates dolls and praising Red China for embracing Linux and all that it represents. Remember, "all that it represents", which also means open-sourcing. Do you actually think that China will openly and without any barriers open-source Red Flag Linux? The same country that killed thousands of students at Tienanmen, the same country that suppresed a whole culture (Tibet), the same country that just sent a few dissidents to jail for being part of nothing more than their equivalent of the Rotary club. China is a closed-source country. They're using Linux because it's an open-source OS that they can tweak at will, make it their own. They couldn't do that with Windows2000. So they'll get their own OS, but will I be able to order Red Flag? Will the world be able to see what Chinese coders can do with it? Think again.
The Sherman anti-trust law. A HUNDRED year old law, put to use in a field that changes from month to month. You may not like MS, you might want to see them do down in flames. But do it with Free Enterprise, innovative solutions and true genius. Don't let the governement dictate what the industry should be, because this will have much, much deeper ramification than just MS's.
So by your standards, Leonardo Da Vinci wasn't a genius. Picasso wasn't a genius. Buffet isn't a genius. Why do you equate genius with "Good at computers"? Gates was certainly, in the early 80s, and probably even today, much better with this whole IT business that all of us combined. Gates is undoubtedly one of the savviest business minds in the 20th century. Does that make him a genius in what he does best? If not, what constitutes genius?
Slashdot Mirror
19th century Anarchist to a collegue: "This world is corrupt. Empires and governments exploit the worker, the rich get full as the poor starve. This world should burn, and we should build another one in its place."
/.: "But in some ways life is worse - more polluted, crowded, ugly, and complicated and less spiritual, and certainly less private. [...] standards of living slipping, social programs weakening. Divisiveness seems inevitable in a world in which access to new technologies spells the difference between education and ignorance, poverty and wealth, opportunity and despair. [...]growing challenges to freedom and creative growth."
/. crowds, who are always looking for the latest government/corporate conspiracy to discuss in the comfort of their own priviledged lives.
21th century Katz to
This coming from a man who advocates bootlegging mp3s, and justifies it as "choosing our own culture", whereas I would call it theft. Gotta love creative interpretations of reality (i.e. lies).
This coming from our "savior", Jon Katz, the Messiah.
Cry me a fucking river, Mr. Katz. I have no respect for you. It seems like every damn week, you see a new "evil", and attempt to decry it, wrapping yourself in self-rightgeous rhetoric, as you wet the ravenous
I have no respect for you, Mr. Katz. You decry the WTO meetings because they had an impact on the media. I respect the people who braved the law-enforcement officers, for their own ideals and beliefs.
I have no respect for you, Mr. Katz. You cry about the growing infringment of the corporate world in our own lives, yet you profit from it with books, and surely, correct me if I'm wrong, lectures. Are your books freely available? Are your lecture transcripts posted on a website somewhere?
I have no respect for you, Mr. Katz. I have no respect for quixotic polemists, always looking for the next windmill. I have respect for the people who actually do something, and have no need to be validated and worshipped by near-sighted freaks. I have respect for people who change the system by action and words, not words alone. I have respect for everyone in this country who gives his own time to help others. I have respect for every student who takes a year off to go overseas and teach to the disfavored. I have respect to everyone who dedicates their lives to helping others, through action. I have respect for my own aunt, a nun, who teaches to the poor in Peru.
I have no respect for you, Mr. Katz.
The decade of mergers seems to carry on quite fine into the 00's.
But the question begs to answer. Is there any other way to go? You are the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation. Suddenly, your two biggest competitors decide to merge. From your good and lofty position, you become dwarfed by a giant. What are your alternatives? Bigger is better, a truism that applies too perfectly to the business world.
A real life example. Alcan of Canada, Picheney and a Swiss Aluminum co. (can't remember the name), decided to merge last year, creating the biggest Alumnimum consortium, topping Alcoa, of the US.
What did Alcoa do? Accept their fate smiling? No, they first approached Reynolds, and tried to buy it out through the management. When that didn't work, they went hostile, and bought them out through their shareholders. Add Reynolds to Alcoa, and they again become tops, over Alcan.
It might seem like an everending spiral. If your competitors become bigger, you need to become bigger, or you might be their next buyout target.
Inevitably, it will lead to giant corporations with tentacular holds on every aspect of commercialization and product. While this AOL/Time-Warner merger seems more like a buyout of AOL by Time (kinda like Daimler and Chrysler), it nonetheless creates the premier player in this new age of the media.
And while AOL and Time had similar business views and aims, it will not be long before we see mergers between corps that have nothing to do with each other, giving rise to that biggest invention of the cyberpunk writers, the megacorps.
Is AOL/Time bad? It might be. Should it be blocked?
America, land of Opportunity. If your only way to compete against bigger giants is to become one of them, who here is able to block your move? It's all in the interest of competition, sadly. Single-minded, smallish corps in big markets will, unfortunatly, not survive in the wake of the New Behemoths.
Merge or die.
Raimi started out with the Evil Dead series who had, while not being a great cinematographic success, a hardcore cult following, and frankly, nobody did those quirky horror flicks better than he did.
Some people might think that Spiderman might be up another alley entirely, and that such a project would require a better established director, used to big-budget action flicks, à la Cameron or De Bont.
On the contrary. Raimi showed us he has a myriad of talents, and a true gift with the camera. Just watch "A Simple Plan" again (if you haven't checked that movie out, what's wrong with you? A great flick). Genius filmwork, showing a wealth of talent, and some great acting (Paxton and Thornton primarely). I think he would be a great choice, and give us another look at the superhero genre. (Remember the effect Burton had with his first Batman. I expect the same thing with Raimi).
I expect much of /.'s community to jump on this with a malicious glee in their eyes, hanging burning Bill Gates dolls and praising Red China for embracing Linux and all that it represents. Remember, "all that it represents", which also means open-sourcing. Do you actually think that China will openly and without any barriers open-source Red Flag Linux? The same country that killed thousands of students at Tienanmen, the same country that suppresed a whole culture (Tibet), the same country that just sent a few dissidents to jail for being part of nothing more than their equivalent of the Rotary club. China is a closed-source country. They're using Linux because it's an open-source OS that they can tweak at will, make it their own. They couldn't do that with Windows2000. So they'll get their own OS, but will I be able to order Red Flag? Will the world be able to see what Chinese coders can do with it? Think again.
The Sherman anti-trust law. A HUNDRED year old law, put to use in a field that changes from month to month. You may not like MS, you might want to see them do down in flames. But do it with Free Enterprise, innovative solutions and true genius. Don't let the governement dictate what the industry should be, because this will have much, much deeper ramification than just MS's.
So by your standards, Leonardo Da Vinci wasn't a genius. Picasso wasn't a genius. Buffet isn't a genius. Why do you equate genius with "Good at computers"? Gates was certainly, in the early 80s, and probably even today, much better with this whole IT business that all of us combined. Gates is undoubtedly one of the savviest business minds in the 20th century. Does that make him a genius in what he does best? If not, what constitutes genius?