>There are pretty strict rules for who can be an >Salaried employee. Basically, someone has to >have "advanced training" (ie. college degree) or >else fit into certain classes of
>employee. (Managerial or secretarial).
No offense, but if these laws exist... huh? "Advanced Training" is about as vague as it gets - perhaps that means you've worked there for X period of time and "know the place" and what you're working on well. Maybe it means you have prior work experience relevant to the company. Or "certain classes of employees" - what? If there were such a stupid thing, what would prevent a company from classifying there employees in whatever way they pleased. Are there enormous checklists put out by the Department of Labor (or state laws) which enumerate the sort of tasks people who can "legally" be salaried can perform?
I have a very hard time believing one must meet certain credentials in order to be salaried.
"There's no way you'll get this knowledge when just doing programming on the job 5 days a week, without formal studying of the subjects"
I'm not meaning to put you down here, but to be blunt, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Which you've admitted, since you're in school and have had no/very little experience at a job.
There are a lot of "jobs" out there that are far more challenging than building a rudimentary networking stack.
It sure better be possible for you to learn "this knowledge" in an informal setting, because that's how you're going to be learning for the vast majority of your life. The theory you learn in 4 year techical degree is the tip of the iceberg --gaining a deep understanding takes far more time.
Plenty of people have made this point, and I'll agree, whatever degree you get is largely irrelevant, period. When comparing degrees like CS vs CE - almost totally irrelevant. Do whatever interests you, period. I've heard many techie graduates (a few years after they've graduated) say they wished they had taken more liberal arts courses. If you're getting into the computer field, barring some stroke of luck that makes you independently wealthy, you are going to be doing plenty of bit flipping, but the opportunity to wax philisophical over 19th century french literature will almost certainly be diminished.
For me, college was far more than classwork. It was a new time, with new people, doing new things.
Classwork comprised only a small part of the pie.
Finally, all I can figure with all this hoopla that seems to spring forth on/. when any sort of "college education as relates to computers" story surfaces is - ego problems. It's amusing.
College can be a great place to get a basis in computer science or engineering. It is by no means the only way, and it NO WAY it is at all sufficient for any sort of challenging problem in computer science. Period. If you're working on non-brain dead projects, you will constantly have to be learning - and I'm not talking about getting better at C++ or learning Cobol-2025 when it becomes the next big thing. Algorithms, logic, math, and all those "Computer Sciency" things.
Which brings me to my main point - it doesn't matter what degree you get from whatever school that covered such 'n so subjects - you've only covered a *fraction* of whats out there, theory and all. People who seem to think a degree auto-dubs you a "Computer Scientist" are amusing. The MOST important thing any formal education can give you is a greater ability to teach yourself, because that's what you're going to be doing most of your life.
"Sure beats the choice between starvation and starvation."
The implication that a multinational corporation abusing cheap labor in a poor country has only one effect (namely, providing any sort of job), is very, very stupidly simplified.
If you think the net effect of this sort of exploitation is positive, you really need to consider the entire picture rather than break things down into easy stick figures your brain finds it easier to comprehend and dismiss.
"He makes the flawed assumption that college graduates make a better effort to continuously hone their skills than non-graduates - a claim with little to no evidence, at least none that he has shown.
The evidence is the college degree."
Apparently your coursework didn't cover a logic class (sorry, can't help but snipe:) ).
"It's a hoop to jump through; a painful, stupid hoop sometimes, but a hoop nonetheless"
It seems a sad state of affairs if this criteria is really the best you seem to think you can do.
"Get a science or engineering degree from a top-tier school and it says that, at the very least, you know how to work and to think"
To some degree, but not much. Let's remember a few things
- Many "top tier" universities have incredible retention rates. This is due in large part, certainly, to the fact that people there are good academians and score well on standardized tests. However in my personal experience, and those of friends who went to other "top tier schools", is that many "top tier" programs do everything they can to babysit and get people through. I'm not saying the coursework isn't challenging, but getting bad grades at most "top-tier" programs is very difficult. It's much like being in an "Honors" class or gifted program -- People assume you are smart, and tailor your grades accordingly.
- Real-word development is far different than the majority of any CS program's I've seen or heard of. Most CS programs focus on theory and math. We could argue endlessly over the value of this, but when trying to judge someones suitability for a certain techie job, this is apples to oranges in a big way. Rather than go on about this, I'll just say some of the very best folk I've worked with have (gasp) Liberal Arts degrees (in worthless Humanities kind of junk) and gleaned their computer knowledge without formal education.
- Almost any formal education that's worth half a grain of salt presents you with the basics and some help, but the vast majority of it is up to YOU to figure out with your fellow students. Any work environment for a new-guy worth half a grain of salt should be providing a similar (albeit more specialized) environment.
- There is nothing any formal education can teach you that you can't learn yourself or with the help of others (I'm not saying a formal education can't help the process but...)
-Work experience greatly outvalues any degree, certification, or what have you in a very short amount of time. I'm assuming when you say "just starting out" you mean people with zero work experience, in which case, alright. However this is about the only case where a degree should buy any power -- I.E. "Something versus nothing". The oft used example of "Two people who're exactly the same in experience, one with a degree and one without", never ever happens. The dilimeter there should be a rigorous interview process with competent interviewers. If you REALLY find hiring decisions coming down to who's got what level of degree from where, your practices need serious overhaul.
-I've found that most people who get excited about someone with XX degree or certification are those that like to boast about it themselves. Ego (not necessarily bad), and sometimes because they don't have much else to go on themselves.
-Similarly, most diehard espousers of formal education usually are people currently in college or recent graduates. Most people spending 4+ years in a program want to feel what they've done is worthwhile (whether it is or not - your perception is your reality) and that they have an edge. Unfortunately sometimes this feeling of "this was really worthwhile for me" turns into "this is the only thing worthwhile to start with". As the years grow on and your accumulated wealth of knowledge and understanding begins to dwarf that which you knew at 22ish in younger, you tend to get a different perspective.
Just to clarify - I'm not anti-college. My experience was, for the most part, a good one. However I find harping formal education about as annoying as harping about a particular religious faith as the only path to spirituality. Education != Formal schooling.
Now let's bring your analogy a little closer to reality: Would you rather have your house designed by someone with an architectural degree and has never built a house, or someone who has no degree but can show you 10 homes s/he's designed? When our fictional people both have 100 homes they can show you, do you care at all? If so, perhaps you should be spending a little more time considering the quality of their previous work rather than comparing rankings on the quality of archtectural degree programs.
Regards
I would expect, like at my apartment building which has a T1 running to it(and a few others around here in Austin, Texas), the SysAdmin duties would stay with the ISP.
Unlike another reply to this message, I don't expect "Net-enabled" apartment complexes to be in any sort of demand simply because at this point Cable and DSL are availible virtually anywhere within the city. The few apartments around here that had their own hookup installed were either forward thinking, or built in that brief period here when broadband access was getting hyped heavily (and in demand by many), but cable and DSL hadn't really rolled out. Now that broadband is availible through your telephone or coax, I don't see apartment complexes worrying about this, at least for now.
I don't mean to belittle you or your opinion, but this is one of the funnier things I've read in awhile =).
You own all the Herbert books in every variety of backings, and in multiple languages, have the prequels, as well as an encyclopedia. You've read them all at least 6 times. You even have an opinion on whether the non-Frank ones are Cannon or not, but you do not consider yourself an EXPERT? My question is, have you ever met an expert? I'm wondering if these experts might provide the definitive visual representation of what a Navigator should look like.
Just a note, the Stilgar spitting scene wasn't in the Lynch movie - scroll down to read a comment which posted FH's thoughts about Lynch's movie and the fact that this scene was filmed but ended up on the cutting room floor.
Also not sure if you like Alec or not - one minute you describe him as a brat, later as a good actor. Remember, paper bag over mouth, inhale, exhale.
I hardly think so. Enrollment in CS programs has exploded at every university I know of. At my alma mater, it went from something around 100 not much more than 10 years ago to nearly 3000 (yes, 3000) currently.
So I'd say you're about exactly wrong. I would predict whatever value a CS degree currently holds (current hiring trends point to near 0) will become even more diluted as freshly graduated CS majors crest grad hill pointing at a piece of paper and saying "Hire me -see I know something!".
A CS degree (or any degree) is only very basic identification, and not the only type. What matters now will matter later - what you know, what you've done, in whatever context that's relevant.
I've been done with my undegrad for a few years now, and have a BS in CS from a school with a well known CS department.
A college education is overvalued, period. My program was loaded with math and theory, being championed by many folk here as the end all. Anyone want to bet me more than 25% of the people out there spewing Boyer-Moore this, Dijkstra that, or Turing in between could do anything more than cover the very basics of said algorithms and concepts? Want to find me anyone out of academia (plenty of them in would work fine as well, but just to be safe) school greater than 4 years and get them to prove this or that is or is not NP complete? Or even make a decent attempt? Good luck -- *real* geeks, not self-styled ones, are very few and far between.
As with anything, you remember what you use, and forget what you don't. Give virtually anyone their 4th semester calculus final 6 years after they got an "A" and you're going to see some very poor results unless it's been related to something they've been doing since the final. Most forget, and very quickly.
Some of the most brilliant scientists and "industry" types I know either have no degree, have a degree in something "unrelated" to their techie field, or have only a bachelors degree where at least a masters is the norm.
The answer there is: college is one way of learning, but not the only way, and often not the best way. While I agree, fundamental theory and math are important to techie types, college is not the only means to that end. Much of any "you're being graded" educational scheme is to give you basis and a few answers, then leave the rest to you and all your student buddies to figure out.
Many of the most grueling and difficult courses I went through were curved extremely heavily. Even though the failure rate was incredible in many of them, it was pretty damn obvious only a *very* small few of those that got A's really understood the material in the end. They got good grades simply because they knew the stuff "well enough" compared to their fellows.
Having a grasp of loosely related concepts does not, for instance, automagically translate into being a "better Computer Scientist" or engineer. You can make an argument that learning anything has some sort of subjective worth as far as your overall competence at virtually anything else.
As far as I see it, it's just a matter of human nature. Most people that graduate college want to believe their experience was worthwhile intellectually, and doing this or that improved them. Unfortunately a common side-effect of wanting to give something value is to devalue everything else, and point to your path as being the best way. A sort of status symbol.
Having a piece of paper with your name on it tells very little about what you know or what you're capable of. Not that an undergraduate education is worthless, or the experience of college in general, but most of the commentary I see goes way overboard.
Contray to the story and a few of the comments I've run across here, you can pay more than $1 if you so choose, from the FAQ:
"I am worried that people won't pay, can I pay a little extra? Although we aren't asking you to do this, we have seen that many of you in your comments have asked if you can pay extra to help cover the costs of the dishonest people who will download The Plant and not pay. You should be applauded for this desire to pay -- and should be held out as an example to those of you reading this who are not planning to pay. You know who you are. No stealing from the blind newsboy. If you wish to pay more than $1, you can either send a check to the address specified at Amazon.com Payments or pay multiple times with your credit card and then do not download the file."
So there it is, and does allow for people with more inclination to help curb the percentage toward getting the novel published. Not that anywhere near 75% paid for would be hit in any case.
By the way, forget resale, this is not public domain period. If Pepsi wants to come up with a gigantic "The Plant likes Pepsi better than water!" campaign, Stephen King will not be out of the equation as far as rights are concerned.
Not that it matters. The SPP is not viable. It's a modification of old ideas that have not worked. It really isn't much different than what we're under now minus a few legal battles and quickly-eradicated new-encryption tactics. If you'd like to see copyright eliminated entirely and aren't concerned with the bazillion folks living off the idea currently, you have no problem. If you are concerned about that, things like the SPP and "advertising in everything" will not fill the void either. What you begin talking about is things like a "Software Tax" or "DAT Tax" (as you can read about on www.gnu.org). This will never happen in the capitialistic world we live in today.
As others have said, Copyright is not going away. Without radical changes like adding taxes, there is no broad economic solution other than no solution. This constant ring of dissonance and disagreement is going to continue for a long time -- just get used to it.
I didn't delve too deeply, but it seems from SCI's page they're fine with bootlegging live shows, but not studio works. Heck, even big-bad Metallica does that.
Most bands I know (albeit, most aren't signed to major labels) don't care about bootlegging. The quality of most bootlegs is poor because bringing good micing equipment to a concert, getting somewhere decent to set it up, and a DAT to record it on is pretty much an impossibility. As a consequence, it ain't like having a studio recording, and having low-quality bootlegs will very likely not satisfy someone who likes the band enough to listen to the music again.
"Why? Because Jerry died? Or because that have attained massive wealth and personal freedom by catering to their fans, making good music for multiple decades, and allowing their fans to share?"
No. It has to do with pointing to bands with wildly differing types of music to The Dead, or The Dead Jr, and saying you oughta grow the same kind of drug-party, 60s leftover audience. Not that I have anything against drug-parties or 60s leftover audiences, mind you.
"unless I agreed to a contract with whomever I gave it to"
Bing. Once you agree buy the CD, you've agreed to the contract, it's right there in the fine print. You don't have to squint though, as you probably already know this.
No need to quibble here about "signing" or "orally committing". It's obvious dealing with anything that might be mass produced, this is too cumbersome. You agree once you take the object in possession - very simple, unconfusing, and very difficult to argue you don't understand. And as a little point of fact, this whole copyright thing has been around in law for hundreds of years.
"We create (IP laws are created, not natural,\ rights) these rights to benefit the public"
There is no such thing as "natural rights". Period. And there are some people, like me, called Civil Libertarians, who are more interested in individual good than "public" good.
"Once I buy/obtain it, it is my wishes that I will be concerned about"
So you're selfish - not surprising. I find it amusing, after appealing to dismiss or embrace IP based on what's good for the public, what it really comes down to is your good -- with something someone else created. The givers shouldn't be able to take, the takers do all the taking!
"And as for the point that Napster is a corperate entity, and profits from people using it, my general reaction is "so what?". So they've managed to find a way to offer a service for free, and profit themselves in the process. So has Yahoo, along with most search engines. So have a lot of websites. (Slashdot included, I believe). The fact that someone profits from something does not, in my mind, immedietly make it evil."
The difference between your analogies and Napster is that Napster profits (arguably) at the cost of others and through very little merit of it's own.
"The point is, you can't (well, shouldn't, in my mind) outlaw something, because it MIGHT be used by someone bad to do something bad."
This argument has been beaten to death, but I'll step in for a dip. Per this reasoning, virtually no object should be illegal. From radar detectors to high quality lock picks to assault rifles. Virtually every object has a benign usage - I may want to buy a bunch of Anthrax simply to study it (pardon the extreme example, but I figured since we slid down the slippery slope all the way to banning compilers, I could go the other way).
The world is not black and white. Some tools/objects are far more prone for illegal use (by design or not) than others. If that's just about all it's good for, do you really have a problem considering the tool illegal?
Not to say I think Napster fits into this category - the *technology* behind it is not primarily used for illegal purposes. However the service Napster provides is primarily used for illegal purposes. In my mind, falls into a similar category as Ebay/Yahoo/Ubid/etc, where people sometimes auction illegal items. Should Ebay/Yahoo have any responsibility to monitor their auctions and remove these auctions? In my opinion, yes. The buck has to stop somewhere, and if you're providing a product/service which can potentially conflict with the law (such as, for instance, selling beer/cigs) you have a responsibility to keep yourself within the law.
Applying a little common sense and rationality isn't that hard. In the case of a service like Ebay, which makes an effort to remove the relatively miniscule number of illegal auctions it has, fine. When dealing with something on this scale (rather than being able to check every individual customers ID) a little common sense leeway in dealing with a gray area has to be applied: obviously *everything* won't be caught. In the case of napster, where 95%+ of what your service is facilitating is illegal and you're making no effort to prevent it, you're in a different bag, and you ought to be in trouble.
Now if you have a problem with the legality of the drinking/smoking age or in this case, copyright, that's a different argument, and one I don't think there's much else to be gleaned from.
I read Gene Kan's (the Gnutella-guy) response with interest as he did not, per se, come out with "Information wants to be free" flags flying and outright dismissing copyright nor IP. Not only that, but he mentions PIRATES and "legitimate" music. He also spends quite a bit of time emphasizing economic benefits (although I'll take this as part of attempting to relate to his audience.)
From someone including GNU in the name of their software package, I found this all a little surprising.
Of paritcular note was his appeal for viral marketing. This one I hadn't heard of, despite digging through the comments of quite of few copyright/IP/now mp3 slashdot stories. Unfortunately he spent very little time describing what he seemed to consider the complete economic solution to the "problem". It seems like an semi-interesting idea, if anyone can provide more information about it. It doesn't seem like it'd be actually be viable, but I wouldn't mind knowing more about the full idea.
Finally, from Gene Kan: "When the telephone company comes to your house to install your DSL, they might charge 150 USD for installation and 50 USD per month. Using that line, an infinite amount of music and be downloaded with little hassle."
Downloaded yes. Uploaded, no. A broadband connection for $50 USD a month does not equate to unlimited bandwidth.
Many, many universities are now enforcing bandwidth caps (and outright blocking napster). I have never seen a sub-$100/month (unmetered) connection that did not prohibit servers, which napster generally counts as. Crackdowns on high-bandwidth servers are spotty around my town - however friends of mine around town have been shut down and forced to pay reconnection/penalty fees for Quake servers, ftp servers, and yes, napster from their Cable/DSL providers because they were sucking up (or actually, shooting out) enough bandwidth to draw the hammer down. My ISP, which provides a T1 to my apartment complex, banned napster a few months ago because the amount of traffic it was causing was incredible. While we do have a no-servers clause in our usage agreement, I've never heard of it being enforced, but once the traffic was great enough - bang.
Usage agreements are, among other things, a sort of limitation on bandwidth.
Once DSL/Cable rollout has stabilized in some areas and the companies mature, I am pretty sure you'll see the enforcement on usage agreements begin to tighten significantly. The hoardes of fellow napster users or the anonymity of FreeNet may protect you from violating copyright laws, but these will not protect you from your ISP asking for a lot more money to support your bandwidth habits. There may be a day when broadband connections with no restrictions on usage are availible for really cheap and ISPs have so much bandwidth availible they see no reason to charge bandwidth hogs any less than casual users, but that day is not anytime soon. The real crux here is - most people will pay for broadband regardless of whether that means they can run napster, gnutella, freenet, or not.
That said, assuming your primary outlet of bandwidth usage is serving up and sucking down mp3s in some form or another, would prefer paying for "legitmate" mp3's at a much lower cost than current CD prices, or would you prefer paying your ISP a hefty sum for a connection that will allow the "free" exchange of pirated files?
And you think SBC is going to allow you to run servers without paying a premimum? I don't know about the specifics of their contract, but the couple of other DSL providing ISPs around here in Austin(such as the one my work uses) both charge substantially more (starting at over 100/month) for any contract allowing servers (or a metered contract). I would be more than a little suprised if SBC was any different.
You may not be sharing bandwidth at your neighborhood node - but you are sharing it once you hit the ISP, and they do have a care about how much bandwidth you're taking up.
"The people trolling this story are the same ones that cause females to turn away from technical careers. Even if a female is inclined to technical pursuits, she has a powerful reason not to, when the technical field is filled with sexist, insecure, and socially incoherent people."
"And to come back to the matter of copyright, I don't think it's the major issue with the Fugazi's and Ani DiFranco's of the world. They make their living by touring, mainly, and while their albums sell at very respectable rates, it is the live performances that are bringing them recognition and financial reward."
I've been to a few Fugazi concerts (it's been awhile, though) and admission to each one was $5. I've heard they have a thing about keeping their live shows as cheap as possible.
With 2-3 opening bands to divy things up with at each show and the inheriant costs of touring no matter how frugal, I guarantee they made very little money. What they did make money off was selling the wads of Fugazi merchandise (copies of music being the primary outlet) to a fairly dedicated fanbase along the way.
Whether pro-copyright or not, or whether it'd matter at all to the type of audience Fugazi has, I don't know. What I will tell you is that except in very rare cases (IE - The Dead - not Ani, not Sonic Youth, not Fugazi), touring nets very little money. Period. I've been there, done that, sold the t-shirt (and seen and been with many others doing the same). The oft repeated mantra of "Live Performing will make they money, music sales are irrelevant" by people who do not have the slightest clue, or experience with, performing live music.
Whether the Linux/BSD Kernel is "well written" is highly debatable. Regardless it would be useless for attempting to learn C++ and OOP style programming - it's dominantly C. Complex != "well written". Simple/small != "poorly written". No kidding, even good programmers write small and uncomplicated programs. Even if code is poorly written, that's a learning tool in itself. For a relatively new programmer, attempting to extend/modify something that already works is extremely eye-opening, particularly when programming the entire thing from scratch would be nearly impossible at that stage. It's also often much more interesting dabbling in something that may have some actual practical use rather than writing small chunks of code as nothing more than a learning exercise.
Functional programming is easier to pick up but requires a certain amount of intellect to grasp the ideas of abstraction that it relies upon.
I'm not sure I agree with that. Functional Programming is the first thing they teach at the University of Texas at Austin, followed by a Data Structures class taught in C++. Forgetting for a moment the wildly differing difficulty/style of the professors involved and the UT-CS programs brutal lawnmower in the undergraduate program, I think most students picked up C++ much more easily than the other two options (Haskell or Scheme).
For instance: Recursion is great, but intuition for MOST people I've run across, intellectual or not, leads to iterative solutions when possible. This is a double edged sword of course, as a solid grounding in recursion is a must for any future-CS major (and hopefully, programmer), but for many, many people (at least in my experience) it's not nearly as intuitive even after much dabbling.
Most people I know describe functional programming as "programming with your hands tied behind your back", but they're not just talking about explicit memory mangement. There are often less ways to solve the same problem, and that can be difficult for beginners (and, as many functional programming text's I've read like to advertise, functional programming helps produce more "correct code" -- another double edged sword). Yes, yes, functional programming does also make it easy to open doors that would be a large pain to deal with in something like C/C++ (such as function composition, returning multiple things, infinite lists, etc), but these added "flexibilities" have their same set of added complexity associated.
While C/C++ is more flexible and more complicated, it's certainly possible to learn/teach in subsets rathers than trying to master all aspects and styles at once. There are many references out there (which I unfortunately don't have at hand) on teaching C/C++ as a functional language and hiding the lower-level nastiness for a later date. C++ with a pretty-much STL compliant complier (this even includes MSVC) does this pretty well (string type, vector's, etc), although the lack of built-in garbage collection is a problem after the beginner stage.
That said, I'm not a huge fan of the idea of hiding the details for very long. Grasping the concepts of pointers, explicit memory mgmt, etc, are all very important. Period. While hiding these details in the depths of a compiler/language can be useful (and helpful!), it's something anyone wishing to call themselves a "programmer" or "computer scientist" should be very comfortable with - both in concept and in practice. I don't want to come off as a C/C++ evangelist here, so I will say, I think virtually everyone should have exposure to a functional language. As far as the "what's better for learning" argument goes, I really don't feel any language capable of decent abstraction (which doesn't include much in use these days, in academia or otherwise) is inherently much better or worse than another. With a competent student (and/or a competent teacher), the "important stuff" will get through. Edsger Dijkstra (a very popular man, particularly around UT-Austin) has been quoted as saying (paraphrasing) "Students who've been exposed to BASIC as their first programming language have their thinking so horribly broken it's impossible to teach them anything". While this was a quasi-joke, I don't really agree with the quasi-premise.
Personally, I'd recommend Java as a first language. Yes, there are problems (and this post is long enough, so I'll skip this), but you get garbage collection, OOP, and exposure to syntax similar to C/C++.
I'm a pragmatist - most anyone outside of (some)academians or hobbyists who's going to be programming will be running into C++/Java. It may be after sometime C++ and Java are just as despised as COBOL/Fortran legacy languages are now, but that day is a long way off (Despite what big fans of Haskell and ML might hope). Let's also not forget that beginners have an extrodinary wealth of open-source C/C++ code to learn from (and also learn how not to do things in some cases =) ) which is an ENORMOUS plus for any aspiring programmer.
CD sales are not real music. Live music is real music. World tours and mega-bands live in the fantasy-land of mass-produced, mass-marketed, canned meat. Music is for people, not corporations.
"Real" music? I don't think there's a definition. Unfortunately you'll find the "canned meat" everyone trades on Napster daily is just that regardless of whether a corporation, or artist, is making money off of it or not.
Most "real" musicians I know play music for themselves, not for people.
If a musician has to make a living playing bars in his hometown then so be it
Virtually impossible. Most towns have very few venues for live music, and most are not very well populated for local acts. I have never met anyone who's made a living off playing original music in a local or regional area. The money is simply not good to start with, getting booked repeatedly for any moderately long duration is next to impossible.
That's original music of course. I have known quite a few folks who've made decent money by playing millions of tried-n-true covers at bars, weddings, frat parties, you name it. Certainly not "real music" either.
Slashdot is not responsible for world idiocy. Oh no, ANOTHER story about linux! If you can't figure out anything new to say, you might take a moment to reflect why you continue talking. If you must respond to criticism anonymously, you might consider what's wrong with your ego.
Unfortunately I don't have my list of entertainment lawyer links handy here, otherwise I'd try to give some more solid evidence to refuting this, but oh well. Suffice to say I've been in and around the music industry in a variety of ways for many years now.
Most bands only get 25 - 35 per CD that is sold.
As often as this subject gets discussed under the mp3 banner, I can't believe people are still uninformed. Your average indy label or low-moderate profile major label deal will net you something around $1-1.50 per CD. If you're so lucky as to have worldwide distribution, you will get about half that (.75 per) for overseas sales. This is still a pathetic figure, but it fortunately does not get as ridiculously low as you claim.
With the exception of the handful of mega-bands like U2 & Pearl Jam, most bands make the bulk of their money from playing live
No, no, no. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about, so why are you talking? Here is the brief lowdown:
Small band that's popular enough to tour - The guarantee's, if any, are pitiful. The only way to come out ahead is if 1) You have friends in a lot of the stops you're touring at to sleep at 2) You're willing to live in a van packed with gear and 2-4 other sweaty humans who have infrequent access to shower facilities. Throw in any sort of duration or something a lot of areas have called "Winter", and #2 isn't an option in the first place. Throw in all incidentals (gas, food, laundry, whatever) and things are iffy. And of course unless you're willing to stop your lease and move (if you can) every time you attempt a tour, all rent+bills at the homestead are still coming in.
Bigger bands - The bigger the venue, the greater the cost. Lets consider
1) Tour bus + driver
2) Lighting + lighting crew
3) Zillion watt PA + sound crew
4) Misc roadies to carry stuff
5) Ticketmaster
6) Paying the venue
It gets better of course, as any large music venue will ask for 10-40% of the profits from any merchandise you sell there. The other gotcha with a grandiose tour such as this is that, unlike the bus days, you can't play (close to) every night. Setup/show/tear down is an all day event, and there's nowhere to play in Smallville, Colorado when going from Phoenix to Denver. Unfortunately your entire crew still expects to be paid regardless of the frequency your shows.
Touring is NOT a money making venture. Small bands come out ahead by merchadising along the way, and that (for any band I've been in or known) primarily CD sales.
Large bands do not expect to make money off performing live. This is while you'll VERY often find sizable tours coming out under the sponsorship of local radio or tv stations, or in the really big cases, under a megacorp like Pepsi or Sony. Big bands like this tour in hopes they'll expand their audience and sell more merchandise (and of course, hopefully they enjoy touring).
Summed up: Live performances do not net bands lots of money. There are rare exceptions (Say, the Grateful Dead), but by far and away the primary source of income for a band is CD sales, distantly followed by other merchadising.
The beginning of your post is trash. Why? Because like oh-so-many people, you speak as if you know everything when you don't know what you're talking about other than scrips and bits you've read here and there. I'll skip --
it won't take huge marketing budgets to promote artists
Someone, somehow, will be pushing a huge marketing budget to promote someone, regardless of the media/techology involved. These people will win over those without, period.
. More artists will produce merely because they want to
The notion of purity aside, I don't think you'll find any artist that doesn't fit this description.
Most artists will forego the expensive and lengthy editing which studios and book publishers have used to justify their huge take.
Your ignorance continues. Book Publishers? "Look Mr. King, you really need to try out this fancy font effect here and here". Studios are expensive because the hardware put in a pro-studio *costs a fortune*. Let me also explain, for someone who's obviously never attempted to record a song, that the endeavor is not a "here it is, let's cut it" process. With all kinds of new, very expensive, toys availible, experimentation begins. Some of my favorite albums cost a fortune to record because the artists spent a LOT of time playing around and attempting to really exploit what they had availible (My Bloody Valentine, Loveless, is a good example. 500k over quite some time to get it done, but I think you'll find the product wasn't finished in someones basement using some boss pedals and a 4 track).
Nowadays music is so heavily produced that bands are lucky to come out with one album a year. Is the music really that much better
The music? If it's a band bent on the purity of their live sound, maybe not. In all cases though, the quality of the recording has improved leaps and bounds. Buy a couple ADATs, a BRC, and whatever software you choose to record, edit, and master something. After spending that 10k, please attempt to record a band and make it sound half-way professional ("Dude, I ran Waves on this, but the levels still suck, whats the deal"). Once you've done that and you realize it sounds like shit, please consider the quote "Know of what you speak" may carry some weight when attempting to make a point.
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No offense, but if these laws exist... huh? "Advanced Training" is about as vague as it gets - perhaps that means you've worked there for X period of time and "know the place" and what you're working on well. Maybe it means you have prior work experience relevant to the company. Or "certain classes of employees" - what? If there were such a stupid thing, what would prevent a company from classifying there employees in whatever way they pleased. Are there enormous checklists put out by the Department of Labor (or state laws) which enumerate the sort of tasks people who can "legally" be salaried can perform? I have a very hard time believing one must meet certain credentials in order to be salaried.
The article you reference never mentions the guy got blinded.
I'm not meaning to put you down here, but to be blunt, you have no idea what you're talking about. Which you've admitted, since you're in school and have had no/very little experience at a job.
There are a lot of "jobs" out there that are far more challenging than building a rudimentary networking stack.
It sure better be possible for you to learn "this knowledge" in an informal setting, because that's how you're going to be learning for the vast majority of your life. The theory you learn in 4 year techical degree is the tip of the iceberg --gaining a deep understanding takes far more time.
Plenty of people have made this point, and I'll agree, whatever degree you get is largely irrelevant, period. When comparing degrees like CS vs CE - almost totally irrelevant. Do whatever interests you, period. I've heard many techie graduates (a few years after they've graduated) say they wished they had taken more liberal arts courses. If you're getting into the computer field, barring some stroke of luck that makes you independently wealthy, you are going to be doing plenty of bit flipping, but the opportunity to wax philisophical over 19th century french literature will almost certainly be diminished.
For me, college was far more than classwork. It was a new time, with new people, doing new things. Classwork comprised only a small part of the pie.
Finally, all I can figure with all this hoopla that seems to spring forth on /. when any sort of "college education as relates to computers" story surfaces is - ego problems. It's amusing.
College can be a great place to get a basis in computer science or engineering. It is by no means the only way, and it NO WAY it is at all sufficient for any sort of challenging problem in computer science. Period. If you're working on non-brain dead projects, you will constantly have to be learning - and I'm not talking about getting better at C++ or learning Cobol-2025 when it becomes the next big thing. Algorithms, logic, math, and all those "Computer Sciency" things.
Which brings me to my main point - it doesn't matter what degree you get from whatever school that covered such 'n so subjects - you've only covered a *fraction* of whats out there, theory and all. People who seem to think a degree auto-dubs you a "Computer Scientist" are amusing. The MOST important thing any formal education can give you is a greater ability to teach yourself, because that's what you're going to be doing most of your life.
The implication that a multinational corporation abusing cheap labor in a poor country has only one effect (namely, providing any sort of job), is very, very stupidly simplified.
If you think the net effect of this sort of exploitation is positive, you really need to consider the entire picture rather than break things down into easy stick figures your brain finds it easier to comprehend and dismiss.
The evidence is the college degree."
Apparently your coursework didn't cover a logic class (sorry, can't help but snipe :) ).
"It's a hoop to jump through; a painful, stupid hoop sometimes, but a hoop nonetheless"
It seems a sad state of affairs if this criteria is really the best you seem to think you can do.
"Get a science or engineering degree from a top-tier school and it says that, at the very least, you know how to work and to think"
To some degree, but not much. Let's remember a few things
- Many "top tier" universities have incredible retention rates. This is due in large part, certainly, to the fact that people there are good academians and score well on standardized tests. However in my personal experience, and those of friends who went to other "top tier schools", is that many "top tier" programs do everything they can to babysit and get people through. I'm not saying the coursework isn't challenging, but getting bad grades at most "top-tier" programs is very difficult. It's much like being in an "Honors" class or gifted program -- People assume you are smart, and tailor your grades accordingly.
- Real-word development is far different than the majority of any CS program's I've seen or heard of. Most CS programs focus on theory and math. We could argue endlessly over the value of this, but when trying to judge someones suitability for a certain techie job, this is apples to oranges in a big way. Rather than go on about this, I'll just say some of the very best folk I've worked with have (gasp) Liberal Arts degrees (in worthless Humanities kind of junk) and gleaned their computer knowledge without formal education.
- Almost any formal education that's worth half a grain of salt presents you with the basics and some help, but the vast majority of it is up to YOU to figure out with your fellow students. Any work environment for a new-guy worth half a grain of salt should be providing a similar (albeit more specialized) environment.
- There is nothing any formal education can teach you that you can't learn yourself or with the help of others (I'm not saying a formal education can't help the process but...)
-Work experience greatly outvalues any degree, certification, or what have you in a very short amount of time. I'm assuming when you say "just starting out" you mean people with zero work experience, in which case, alright. However this is about the only case where a degree should buy any power -- I.E. "Something versus nothing". The oft used example of "Two people who're exactly the same in experience, one with a degree and one without", never ever happens. The dilimeter there should be a rigorous interview process with competent interviewers. If you REALLY find hiring decisions coming down to who's got what level of degree from where, your practices need serious overhaul.
-I've found that most people who get excited about someone with XX degree or certification are those that like to boast about it themselves. Ego (not necessarily bad), and sometimes because they don't have much else to go on themselves.
-Similarly, most diehard espousers of formal education usually are people currently in college or recent graduates. Most people spending 4+ years in a program want to feel what they've done is worthwhile (whether it is or not - your perception is your reality) and that they have an edge. Unfortunately sometimes this feeling of "this was really worthwhile for me" turns into "this is the only thing worthwhile to start with". As the years grow on and your accumulated wealth of knowledge and understanding begins to dwarf that which you knew at 22ish in younger, you tend to get a different perspective.
Just to clarify - I'm not anti-college. My experience was, for the most part, a good one. However I find harping formal education about as annoying as harping about a particular religious faith as the only path to spirituality. Education != Formal schooling.
Now let's bring your analogy a little closer to reality: Would you rather have your house designed by someone with an architectural degree and has never built a house, or someone who has no degree but can show you 10 homes s/he's designed? When our fictional people both have 100 homes they can show you, do you care at all? If so, perhaps you should be spending a little more time considering the quality of their previous work rather than comparing rankings on the quality of archtectural degree programs. Regards
Unlike another reply to this message, I don't expect "Net-enabled" apartment complexes to be in any sort of demand simply because at this point Cable and DSL are availible virtually anywhere within the city. The few apartments around here that had their own hookup installed were either forward thinking, or built in that brief period here when broadband access was getting hyped heavily (and in demand by many), but cable and DSL hadn't really rolled out. Now that broadband is availible through your telephone or coax, I don't see apartment complexes worrying about this, at least for now.
You own all the Herbert books in every variety of backings, and in multiple languages, have the prequels, as well as an encyclopedia. You've read them all at least 6 times. You even have an opinion on whether the non-Frank ones are Cannon or not, but you do not consider yourself an EXPERT? My question is, have you ever met an expert? I'm wondering if these experts might provide the definitive visual representation of what a Navigator should look like.
Just a note, the Stilgar spitting scene wasn't in the Lynch movie - scroll down to read a comment which posted FH's thoughts about Lynch's movie and the fact that this scene was filmed but ended up on the cutting room floor.
Also not sure if you like Alec or not - one minute you describe him as a brat, later as a good actor. Remember, paper bag over mouth, inhale, exhale.
So I'd say you're about exactly wrong. I would predict whatever value a CS degree currently holds (current hiring trends point to near 0) will become even more diluted as freshly graduated CS majors crest grad hill pointing at a piece of paper and saying "Hire me -see I know something!".
A CS degree (or any degree) is only very basic identification, and not the only type. What matters now will matter later - what you know, what you've done, in whatever context that's relevant.
A college education is overvalued, period. My program was loaded with math and theory, being championed by many folk here as the end all. Anyone want to bet me more than 25% of the people out there spewing Boyer-Moore this, Dijkstra that, or Turing in between could do anything more than cover the very basics of said algorithms and concepts? Want to find me anyone out of academia (plenty of them in would work fine as well, but just to be safe) school greater than 4 years and get them to prove this or that is or is not NP complete? Or even make a decent attempt? Good luck -- *real* geeks, not self-styled ones, are very few and far between.
As with anything, you remember what you use, and forget what you don't. Give virtually anyone their 4th semester calculus final 6 years after they got an "A" and you're going to see some very poor results unless it's been related to something they've been doing since the final. Most forget, and very quickly. Some of the most brilliant scientists and "industry" types I know either have no degree, have a degree in something "unrelated" to their techie field, or have only a bachelors degree where at least a masters is the norm.
The answer there is: college is one way of learning, but not the only way, and often not the best way. While I agree, fundamental theory and math are important to techie types, college is not the only means to that end. Much of any "you're being graded" educational scheme is to give you basis and a few answers, then leave the rest to you and all your student buddies to figure out.
Many of the most grueling and difficult courses I went through were curved extremely heavily. Even though the failure rate was incredible in many of them, it was pretty damn obvious only a *very* small few of those that got A's really understood the material in the end. They got good grades simply because they knew the stuff "well enough" compared to their fellows.
Having a grasp of loosely related concepts does not, for instance, automagically translate into being a "better Computer Scientist" or engineer. You can make an argument that learning anything has some sort of subjective worth as far as your overall competence at virtually anything else.
As far as I see it, it's just a matter of human nature. Most people that graduate college want to believe their experience was worthwhile intellectually, and doing this or that improved them. Unfortunately a common side-effect of wanting to give something value is to devalue everything else, and point to your path as being the best way. A sort of status symbol.
Having a piece of paper with your name on it tells very little about what you know or what you're capable of. Not that an undergraduate education is worthless, or the experience of college in general, but most of the commentary I see goes way overboard.
"I am worried that people won't pay, can I pay a little extra? Although we aren't asking you to do this, we have seen that many of you in your comments have asked if you can pay extra to help cover the costs of the dishonest people who will download The Plant and not pay. You should be applauded for this desire to pay -- and should be held out as an example to those of you reading this who are not planning to pay. You know who you are. No stealing from the blind newsboy. If you wish to pay more than $1, you can either send a check to the address specified at Amazon.com Payments or pay multiple times with your credit card and then do not download the file."
So there it is, and does allow for people with more inclination to help curb the percentage toward getting the novel published. Not that anywhere near 75% paid for would be hit in any case.
By the way, forget resale, this is not public domain period. If Pepsi wants to come up with a gigantic "The Plant likes Pepsi better than water!" campaign, Stephen King will not be out of the equation as far as rights are concerned.
Not that it matters. The SPP is not viable. It's a modification of old ideas that have not worked. It really isn't much different than what we're under now minus a few legal battles and quickly-eradicated new-encryption tactics. If you'd like to see copyright eliminated entirely and aren't concerned with the bazillion folks living off the idea currently, you have no problem. If you are concerned about that, things like the SPP and "advertising in everything" will not fill the void either. What you begin talking about is things like a "Software Tax" or "DAT Tax" (as you can read about on www.gnu.org). This will never happen in the capitialistic world we live in today.
As others have said, Copyright is not going away. Without radical changes like adding taxes, there is no broad economic solution other than no solution. This constant ring of dissonance and disagreement is going to continue for a long time -- just get used to it.
Most bands I know (albeit, most aren't signed to major labels) don't care about bootlegging. The quality of most bootlegs is poor because bringing good micing equipment to a concert, getting somewhere decent to set it up, and a DAT to record it on is pretty much an impossibility. As a consequence, it ain't like having a studio recording, and having low-quality bootlegs will very likely not satisfy someone who likes the band enough to listen to the music again.
"Why? Because Jerry died? Or because that have attained massive wealth and personal freedom by catering to their fans, making good music for multiple decades, and allowing their fans to share?"
No. It has to do with pointing to bands with wildly differing types of music to The Dead, or The Dead Jr, and saying you oughta grow the same kind of drug-party, 60s leftover audience. Not that I have anything against drug-parties or 60s leftover audiences, mind you.
Bing. Once you agree buy the CD, you've agreed to the contract, it's right there in the fine print. You don't have to squint though, as you probably already know this.
No need to quibble here about "signing" or "orally committing". It's obvious dealing with anything that might be mass produced, this is too cumbersome. You agree once you take the object in possession - very simple, unconfusing, and very difficult to argue you don't understand. And as a little point of fact, this whole copyright thing has been around in law for hundreds of years.
"We create (IP laws are created, not natural,\ rights) these rights to benefit the public"
There is no such thing as "natural rights". Period. And there are some people, like me, called Civil Libertarians, who are more interested in individual good than "public" good.
"Once I buy/obtain it, it is my wishes that I will be concerned about"
So you're selfish - not surprising. I find it amusing, after appealing to dismiss or embrace IP based on what's good for the public, what it really comes down to is your good -- with something someone else created. The givers shouldn't be able to take, the takers do all the taking!
The difference between your analogies and Napster is that Napster profits (arguably) at the cost of others and through very little merit of it's own.
"The point is, you can't (well, shouldn't, in my mind) outlaw something, because it MIGHT be used by someone bad to do something bad."
This argument has been beaten to death, but I'll step in for a dip. Per this reasoning, virtually no object should be illegal. From radar detectors to high quality lock picks to assault rifles. Virtually every object has a benign usage - I may want to buy a bunch of Anthrax simply to study it (pardon the extreme example, but I figured since we slid down the slippery slope all the way to banning compilers, I could go the other way).
The world is not black and white. Some tools/objects are far more prone for illegal use (by design or not) than others. If that's just about all it's good for, do you really have a problem considering the tool illegal?
Not to say I think Napster fits into this category - the *technology* behind it is not primarily used for illegal purposes. However the service Napster provides is primarily used for illegal purposes. In my mind, falls into a similar category as Ebay/Yahoo/Ubid/etc, where people sometimes auction illegal items. Should Ebay/Yahoo have any responsibility to monitor their auctions and remove these auctions? In my opinion, yes. The buck has to stop somewhere, and if you're providing a product/service which can potentially conflict with the law (such as, for instance, selling beer/cigs) you have a responsibility to keep yourself within the law.
Applying a little common sense and rationality isn't that hard. In the case of a service like Ebay, which makes an effort to remove the relatively miniscule number of illegal auctions it has, fine. When dealing with something on this scale (rather than being able to check every individual customers ID) a little common sense leeway in dealing with a gray area has to be applied: obviously *everything* won't be caught. In the case of napster, where 95%+ of what your service is facilitating is illegal and you're making no effort to prevent it, you're in a different bag, and you ought to be in trouble.
Now if you have a problem with the legality of the drinking/smoking age or in this case, copyright, that's a different argument, and one I don't think there's much else to be gleaned from.
From someone including GNU in the name of their software package, I found this all a little surprising.
Of paritcular note was his appeal for viral marketing. This one I hadn't heard of, despite digging through the comments of quite of few copyright/IP/now mp3 slashdot stories. Unfortunately he spent very little time describing what he seemed to consider the complete economic solution to the "problem". It seems like an semi-interesting idea, if anyone can provide more information about it. It doesn't seem like it'd be actually be viable, but I wouldn't mind knowing more about the full idea.
Finally, from Gene Kan: "When the telephone company comes to your house to install your DSL, they might charge 150 USD for installation and 50 USD per month. Using that line, an infinite amount of music and be downloaded with little hassle."
Downloaded yes. Uploaded, no. A broadband connection for $50 USD a month does not equate to unlimited bandwidth.
Many, many universities are now enforcing bandwidth caps (and outright blocking napster). I have never seen a sub-$100/month (unmetered) connection that did not prohibit servers, which napster generally counts as. Crackdowns on high-bandwidth servers are spotty around my town - however friends of mine around town have been shut down and forced to pay reconnection/penalty fees for Quake servers, ftp servers, and yes, napster from their Cable/DSL providers because they were sucking up (or actually, shooting out) enough bandwidth to draw the hammer down. My ISP, which provides a T1 to my apartment complex, banned napster a few months ago because the amount of traffic it was causing was incredible. While we do have a no-servers clause in our usage agreement, I've never heard of it being enforced, but once the traffic was great enough - bang.
Usage agreements are, among other things, a sort of limitation on bandwidth.
Once DSL/Cable rollout has stabilized in some areas and the companies mature, I am pretty sure you'll see the enforcement on usage agreements begin to tighten significantly. The hoardes of fellow napster users or the anonymity of FreeNet may protect you from violating copyright laws, but these will not protect you from your ISP asking for a lot more money to support your bandwidth habits. There may be a day when broadband connections with no restrictions on usage are availible for really cheap and ISPs have so much bandwidth availible they see no reason to charge bandwidth hogs any less than casual users, but that day is not anytime soon. The real crux here is - most people will pay for broadband regardless of whether that means they can run napster, gnutella, freenet, or not.
That said, assuming your primary outlet of bandwidth usage is serving up and sucking down mp3s in some form or another, would prefer paying for "legitmate" mp3's at a much lower cost than current CD prices, or would you prefer paying your ISP a hefty sum for a connection that will allow the "free" exchange of pirated files?
You may not be sharing bandwidth at your neighborhood node - but you are sharing it once you hit the ISP, and they do have a care about how much bandwidth you're taking up.
Nooooo kidding.
I've been to a few Fugazi concerts (it's been awhile, though) and admission to each one was $5. I've heard they have a thing about keeping their live shows as cheap as possible.
With 2-3 opening bands to divy things up with at each show and the inheriant costs of touring no matter how frugal, I guarantee they made very little money. What they did make money off was selling the wads of Fugazi merchandise (copies of music being the primary outlet) to a fairly dedicated fanbase along the way.
Whether pro-copyright or not, or whether it'd matter at all to the type of audience Fugazi has, I don't know. What I will tell you is that except in very rare cases (IE - The Dead - not Ani, not Sonic Youth, not Fugazi), touring nets very little money. Period. I've been there, done that, sold the t-shirt (and seen and been with many others doing the same). The oft repeated mantra of "Live Performing will make they money, music sales are irrelevant" by people who do not have the slightest clue, or experience with, performing live music.
Whether the Linux/BSD Kernel is "well written" is highly debatable. Regardless it would be useless for attempting to learn C++ and OOP style programming - it's dominantly C. Complex != "well written". Simple/small != "poorly written". No kidding, even good programmers write small and uncomplicated programs. Even if code is poorly written, that's a learning tool in itself. For a relatively new programmer, attempting to extend/modify something that already works is extremely eye-opening, particularly when programming the entire thing from scratch would be nearly impossible at that stage. It's also often much more interesting dabbling in something that may have some actual practical use rather than writing small chunks of code as nothing more than a learning exercise.
I'm not sure I agree with that. Functional Programming is the first thing they teach at the University of Texas at Austin, followed by a Data Structures class taught in C++. Forgetting for a moment the wildly differing difficulty/style of the professors involved and the UT-CS programs brutal lawnmower in the undergraduate program, I think most students picked up C++ much more easily than the other two options (Haskell or Scheme).
For instance: Recursion is great, but intuition for MOST people I've run across, intellectual or not, leads to iterative solutions when possible. This is a double edged sword of course, as a solid grounding in recursion is a must for any future-CS major (and hopefully, programmer), but for many, many people (at least in my experience) it's not nearly as intuitive even after much dabbling.
Most people I know describe functional programming as "programming with your hands tied behind your back", but they're not just talking about explicit memory mangement. There are often less ways to solve the same problem, and that can be difficult for beginners (and, as many functional programming text's I've read like to advertise, functional programming helps produce more "correct code" -- another double edged sword). Yes, yes, functional programming does also make it easy to open doors that would be a large pain to deal with in something like C/C++ (such as function composition, returning multiple things, infinite lists, etc), but these added "flexibilities" have their same set of added complexity associated.
While C/C++ is more flexible and more complicated, it's certainly possible to learn/teach in subsets rathers than trying to master all aspects and styles at once. There are many references out there (which I unfortunately don't have at hand) on teaching C/C++ as a functional language and hiding the lower-level nastiness for a later date. C++ with a pretty-much STL compliant complier (this even includes MSVC) does this pretty well (string type, vector's, etc), although the lack of built-in garbage collection is a problem after the beginner stage.
That said, I'm not a huge fan of the idea of hiding the details for very long. Grasping the concepts of pointers, explicit memory mgmt, etc, are all very important. Period. While hiding these details in the depths of a compiler/language can be useful (and helpful!), it's something anyone wishing to call themselves a "programmer" or "computer scientist" should be very comfortable with - both in concept and in practice. I don't want to come off as a C/C++ evangelist here, so I will say, I think virtually everyone should have exposure to a functional language. As far as the "what's better for learning" argument goes, I really don't feel any language capable of decent abstraction (which doesn't include much in use these days, in academia or otherwise) is inherently much better or worse than another. With a competent student (and/or a competent teacher), the "important stuff" will get through. Edsger Dijkstra (a very popular man, particularly around UT-Austin) has been quoted as saying (paraphrasing) "Students who've been exposed to BASIC as their first programming language have their thinking so horribly broken it's impossible to teach them anything". While this was a quasi-joke, I don't really agree with the quasi-premise.
Personally, I'd recommend Java as a first language. Yes, there are problems (and this post is long enough, so I'll skip this), but you get garbage collection, OOP, and exposure to syntax similar to C/C++.
I'm a pragmatist - most anyone outside of (some)academians or hobbyists who's going to be programming will be running into C++/Java. It may be after sometime C++ and Java are just as despised as COBOL/Fortran legacy languages are now, but that day is a long way off (Despite what big fans of Haskell and ML might hope). Let's also not forget that beginners have an extrodinary wealth of open-source C/C++ code to learn from (and also learn how not to do things in some cases =) ) which is an ENORMOUS plus for any aspiring programmer.
"Real" music? I don't think there's a definition. Unfortunately you'll find the "canned meat" everyone trades on Napster daily is just that regardless of whether a corporation, or artist, is making money off of it or not.
Most "real" musicians I know play music for themselves, not for people.
If a musician has to make a living playing bars in his hometown then so be it
Virtually impossible. Most towns have very few venues for live music, and most are not very well populated for local acts. I have never met anyone who's made a living off playing original music in a local or regional area. The money is simply not good to start with, getting booked repeatedly for any moderately long duration is next to impossible.
That's original music of course. I have known quite a few folks who've made decent money by playing millions of tried-n-true covers at bars, weddings, frat parties, you name it. Certainly not "real music" either.
Slashdot is not responsible for world idiocy. Oh no, ANOTHER story about linux! If you can't figure out anything new to say, you might take a moment to reflect why you continue talking. If you must respond to criticism anonymously, you might consider what's wrong with your ego.
Most bands only get 25 - 35 per CD that is sold.
As often as this subject gets discussed under the mp3 banner, I can't believe people are still uninformed. Your average indy label or low-moderate profile major label deal will net you something around $1-1.50 per CD. If you're so lucky as to have worldwide distribution, you will get about half that (.75 per) for overseas sales. This is still a pathetic figure, but it fortunately does not get as ridiculously low as you claim.
With the exception of the handful of mega-bands like U2 & Pearl Jam, most bands make the bulk of their money from playing live
No, no, no. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about, so why are you talking? Here is the brief lowdown:
Small band that's popular enough to tour - The guarantee's, if any, are pitiful. The only way to come out ahead is if 1) You have friends in a lot of the stops you're touring at to sleep at 2) You're willing to live in a van packed with gear and 2-4 other sweaty humans who have infrequent access to shower facilities. Throw in any sort of duration or something a lot of areas have called "Winter", and #2 isn't an option in the first place. Throw in all incidentals (gas, food, laundry, whatever) and things are iffy. And of course unless you're willing to stop your lease and move (if you can) every time you attempt a tour, all rent+bills at the homestead are still coming in.
Bigger bands - The bigger the venue, the greater the cost. Lets consider
1) Tour bus + driver
2) Lighting + lighting crew
3) Zillion watt PA + sound crew
4) Misc roadies to carry stuff
5) Ticketmaster
6) Paying the venue
It gets better of course, as any large music venue will ask for 10-40% of the profits from any merchandise you sell there. The other gotcha with a grandiose tour such as this is that, unlike the bus days, you can't play (close to) every night. Setup/show/tear down is an all day event, and there's nowhere to play in Smallville, Colorado when going from Phoenix to Denver. Unfortunately your entire crew still expects to be paid regardless of the frequency your shows.
Touring is NOT a money making venture. Small bands come out ahead by merchadising along the way, and that (for any band I've been in or known) primarily CD sales.
Large bands do not expect to make money off performing live. This is while you'll VERY often find sizable tours coming out under the sponsorship of local radio or tv stations, or in the really big cases, under a megacorp like Pepsi or Sony. Big bands like this tour in hopes they'll expand their audience and sell more merchandise (and of course, hopefully they enjoy touring).
Summed up: Live performances do not net bands lots of money. There are rare exceptions (Say, the Grateful Dead), but by far and away the primary source of income for a band is CD sales, distantly followed by other merchadising.
Whatever happened, mini-spamming commentary everytime someone mentions IP is bad.
it won't take huge marketing budgets to promote artists
Someone, somehow, will be pushing a huge marketing budget to promote someone, regardless of the media/techology involved. These people will win over those without, period.
. More artists will produce merely because they want to
The notion of purity aside, I don't think you'll find any artist that doesn't fit this description.
Most artists will forego the expensive and lengthy editing which studios and book publishers have used to justify their huge take.
Your ignorance continues. Book Publishers? "Look Mr. King, you really need to try out this fancy font effect here and here". Studios are expensive because the hardware put in a pro-studio *costs a fortune*. Let me also explain, for someone who's obviously never attempted to record a song, that the endeavor is not a "here it is, let's cut it" process. With all kinds of new, very expensive, toys availible, experimentation begins. Some of my favorite albums cost a fortune to record because the artists spent a LOT of time playing around and attempting to really exploit what they had availible (My Bloody Valentine, Loveless, is a good example. 500k over quite some time to get it done, but I think you'll find the product wasn't finished in someones basement using some boss pedals and a 4 track).
Nowadays music is so heavily produced that bands are lucky to come out with one album a year. Is the music really that much better
The music? If it's a band bent on the purity of their live sound, maybe not. In all cases though, the quality of the recording has improved leaps and bounds. Buy a couple ADATs, a BRC, and whatever software you choose to record, edit, and master something. After spending that 10k, please attempt to record a band and make it sound half-way professional ("Dude, I ran Waves on this, but the levels still suck, whats the deal"). Once you've done that and you realize it sounds like shit, please consider the quote "Know of what you speak" may carry some weight when attempting to make a point.