And I was bluffing.:P That should've been painfully obvious.
The beauty of the internet is that one can go off the deep end like that and not really care. It's kind of like a riskless wager. If I -did- catch any Monsanto employees, though, I'm sure their reaction would be priceless.
BTW, companies do forever will assign people to shill on forums like this one. The legality was toyed with a bit a few years ago but hell, I did some minor shilling back in the early-mid 00's when it was fine.
Oh yeah, the 20 accounts is expecting you'll screw things up in the long run and need a new schill. My master plan ruined by/.'s lack of an edit function. (and my crappy proofreading:P )
Actually it has everything to do with what he said. He said "one case in Wikipedia proves you're wrong" and I'm like "uh, one guy isn't hundreds of thousands of farmers."
I think AC's do. You guys must just be pretty damn underbudgeted to botch the job this badly.
Here's the REAL way to do the PR game: 1. Each shill makes about 20 accounts or so at the same time. It takes awhile -- you'll have to source accounts from multiple sources most likely. Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail...though at least you only need to make those once. Since our account IDs here are numerical, maybe each person makes their accounts a couple days apart from each other.
2. Whenever a shill topic comes up, use one -- maybe two of those accounts at most. Think of them as disposable -- obviously we can see your history.
3. Don't come on so strong for your cause. You have to see the overwhelmingly prevailing point of view and even fire a couple rounds against your side before you can be trusted. It's kind of like deep undercover cops who infiltrate the mafia -- they have to straddle the line for awhile.
4. Once you've done this, SLOWLY bring the conversation in a direction that is more favorable for your organization. Don't be all "you're all wrong, FU." That won't work.
That's all there is to it. Good luck and happy shilling.
p.s. Where y'all went wrong is that most people here essentially think patenting our food supply that is so easily distributed by accident and enforcing it the way Monsanto does is inherently evil. It's essentially a "gotcha" for a CRITICAL and underpaid sector of society. We don't give a flying fuck what the legal argument is -- we want to fix the law.
Translation:
Bob: Hey Phil, we're losing them over here. Help me out.
Phil: Got it, Bob. I just posted an anonymous, quasi-NPOV reply to your unpopular post. They'll never catch on.
Bob: Thanks, Phil. Surely these neerdowells will come to see things our way...
And naturally, because there is one case documented on wikipedia of windblown seeds, (that should have been sterile in the first place? I'm not hip to the whole story...) all the farmers that Monsanto has crushed are evil thieving bastards who brought it upon themselves! And don't get me started on those medieval peasant farmers 700+ years ago who would use windswept seeds from their neighbor's land and cultivated them! Rotten, scum of the earth hooligans! It's like they went over to their neighbor's and clubbed them with a spade!
Seriously AC, give it up. No one's buying it. Go back to your little PR cubicle over at Monsanto HQ and find somewhere else on the internets to spout your bullshit.
But when you enter the world of software, dotting the i's and crossing the t's devolves into mindless bureaucracy.
There is way too much focus on hardware in this thread. I've regularly been this archetype on the software side of my company. Client or server, issue with a product or issue with the dev environment..there is a lot of unnecessary bureaucracy in modern companies and I've frequently been the one to cut through the crap.
This can be anything from skimming through the self gratifying api documentation you see everywhere when developing plugins, to writing tools unpromped because they'll save time in the long run, to literally solving a code problem while others around me discuss it...which is pretty funny because they're realizing the fix was faster than the red ape they were putting up. I will happily go out of my area of expertise to "get 'er done". /br/>
In spite of all this painting me as a thoughtless speed demon, I actually put a lot of planning into things and have worked on vast products in an organized, but efficient way.
That said, there is a balance to be struck between corporate policy (and general human interaction) and my brand of efficiency. True to the stereotype, I am not very social and have few friends. But even if lower runs of mgmt can't stand me, higher rungs like me.
It's a weird and VERY risky game to play, bu it is a legitimate niche to carve out in a modern company. Now I'm directly under a boss who was my boss before and liked me, but in a different dept. But I get to pretty much be myself and have a ton of autonomy within the company. So I can't complain.:)
Sprint's...weird. Even from their inception as a competitor of Ma Bell, they've been trying weird things, or swimming against the current in some way. Lately it's been sending their stock price toward the pink sheets, but I've admired them for this for awhile -- and I even switched over about two years ago. I don't know if they're trying to be a force of good in an evil marketplace, but they managed to at least be a lesser evil. Blue and red really need some competition anyway...
Except the racket is heavily based on public institutions. Look at what's been happening in California for the last 20 years. You're right that it's unamerican -- unencumbered, free market competition should have swept in long, long ago.
It's still pretty hard on them, especially since they're still picking up the pieces from that big fight a few days ago. I'm sure the feds will be bailing them out in no time...
Or expecting near CoD sales and having giant statues of monsters all over the place when you're a startup -- and this is regardless of whether you're funded by the government or venture capitalists...
Fiscal responsibility is so dead that its tombstone is 6 feet under...
Yeah, TFA has some valid points, but it does seem to be more problems than solutions. I look forward to watching how the industry is going to evolve, from the outside since my musical talent puts me around amateur/karaoke.;)
I will throw him a bone though: He's from an era where technological progress was much slower, and a lot of the old guard just aren't used to the culture of constant change. Maybe 20 years from now when he's chatting it up with his grandkids, he'll see how we're all managing a living in a chaotic marketplace.
Yeah, that left a bad taste in my mouth...I forgot to mention it because my "best summary" was kinda crap. But it seemed that he was unwilling to minimize or downright cut out any part of his supply chain. The iTunes successes have included bizarre entites like Auto Tune the News, which do not jump through all those hoops to get their work out. I feel that he's choosing an unrealistic level of perfectionism over fiscal responsibility, a level that virtually no consumer is going to notice anyway.
Speaking of ATtN, it's clear that he's almost completely unaware of the new styles of talent that have succeeded in a post-digital music world that could never have gotten the startup money with the old boss. I did end up leaving the article wondering if certain genres will just disappear due to financial woes, but computers really can simulate virtually every sound imaginable...hrm...
After RTFA (well, 90% of it anyway) the 'new boss' in this case seems to be Apple, Amazon, Google... The author didn't point out(unless in the last 10%:P ) that major record labels were involved with Spotify. That doesn't change much, as Spotify wasn't a major target in this article, but it DOES explain why indie streaming rates are so pathetic.
My best summary of this person's grievances are that iTunes style services are essentially leeches, requiring excessive margins for too little risk -- and does admit some blame lies with the internet's tendency to cluster around a select few monopolies. (which is hard to argue against) But he also cites the greed of these organizations.
It's actually worth the full read. It's incredibly long, but has some interesting industry insider information. It takes awhile, but he does eventually address the issue where both the 'old boss' and the 'new boss' operate a musicians' lottery, though he feels that there were more suitably enriched 'lottery winners' with the old boss.
I find it funny how he rails against the tech industry's anti-union bias. (personally I like it -- unless you work at a crappy company, skill and merit, not seniority, plays a major role in tech pay.)
Frankly I don't blame them. The only way anyone is to crush facebook is by creating the perception that people are switching over. I say the blame belongs with natural herd menality.
the problem with this statement is that you're blaming a crowd of individually powerless masses. To be ashamed of what the masses vote for, from the point of view of the individual, is akin to falling prey to the myth that your individual vote matters. Power belongs to those capable of swaying others.
It’s time Microsoft realizes their future is in the Metro/Xbox brands, not in the Windows/Office ones. Ballmer's resistance is slowly going to kill Microsoft.
I'm not so sure. I totally agree with your feelings on the seemingly senseless acquisitions (what do they gain from Skype that they haven't already developed themselves?) but Windows/Office are key to keeping people in the loop. The challenge of migrating away from Office keeps the enterprise within Windows, the familiarity of office workers using Windows still keeps it in the home (Apple's desktop market share is still a joke), and with Windows in the home, they can cross-sell their other products more efficiently. It's no surprise that the top two tech companies also have the top two operating systems.
Problem is, with eurozone anti-regulatory policies binding them and probably some failures at high up managerial levels, they're not using this as efficiently as Apple. It's actually somewhat maddening to me in a way. I'm generally a libertarian who only feels monopolies should be manipulated when they've made an industry more or less impenetrable. However it seems that Apple is getting away with things that Microsoft could only dream about. (30% of all sales on multiple platforms, an ALLEGED wink and a nod agreement to promote various media outlets in exchange for said outlets to go easy on them *cough*newyorktimes*cough*, bundling their media player in the eurozone, and so much more...)
How much of this is really Ballmer's fault, and how much is caused by government interference?
I'm not inclined to agree with your console market assertions. The fact remains they are #2 in sales and may very well be #1 in profits, thanks to the cash cow that is xbox live. Kinect was a blowout hit as well.
They can't seem to beat Apple at its own game, though. I don't see that as a corporate failing, rather the inability to work with an unstable element. (Image, the perception of cool)
I've had it quite often myself, and I don't see why goodmanj got modded down for his statement. In fact for the longest time I blamed video games for making me more depressed, when it was actually the act of ceasing to play them that did so. Whoever wrote TFA really hit the nail on the head...at least for my case. It's all about feeling in control.
Problem is, to say "depression" is like saying "autism" or "cancer". So many varieties that no one solution works for all of them.
What's worked on mine is simple: I keep busy with regular projects, and give myself at least the illusion of control and accomplishment. May as well feel like I'm doing something while I'm hanging around.
A one time payment is preferable to what Oracle's asking.
Interesting perspective, by the way. I read TFPDF after reading your post as well. I thought it was all riding on whether or not Google's deferral of income (indirectly through preinstalled but fundamentally disconnected software [Google Play] instead of typical revenue streams) was an acceptable level of detachment from the "free" software to be considered an unrelated revenue stream, under the eyes of the laws involved anyway. This is related to your comment, but I'll be following this case at the edge of my seat.
Slashdot Mirror
And I was bluffing. :P That should've been painfully obvious.
The beauty of the internet is that one can go off the deep end like that and not really care. It's kind of like a riskless wager. If I -did- catch any Monsanto employees, though, I'm sure their reaction would be priceless.
BTW, companies do forever will assign people to shill on forums like this one. The legality was toyed with a bit a few years ago but hell, I did some minor shilling back in the early-mid 00's when it was fine.
Oh yeah, the 20 accounts is expecting you'll screw things up in the long run and need a new schill. My master plan ruined by /.'s lack of an edit function. (and my crappy proofreading :P )
Actually it has everything to do with what he said. He said "one case in Wikipedia proves you're wrong" and I'm like "uh, one guy isn't hundreds of thousands of farmers."
I think AC's do. You guys must just be pretty damn underbudgeted to botch the job this badly.
Here's the REAL way to do the PR game:
1. Each shill makes about 20 accounts or so at the same time. It takes awhile -- you'll have to source accounts from multiple sources most likely. Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail...though at least you only need to make those once. Since our account IDs here are numerical, maybe each person makes their accounts a couple days apart from each other.
2. Whenever a shill topic comes up, use one -- maybe two of those accounts at most. Think of them as disposable -- obviously we can see your history.
3. Don't come on so strong for your cause. You have to see the overwhelmingly prevailing point of view and even fire a couple rounds against your side before you can be trusted. It's kind of like deep undercover cops who infiltrate the mafia -- they have to straddle the line for awhile.
4. Once you've done this, SLOWLY bring the conversation in a direction that is more favorable for your organization. Don't be all "you're all wrong, FU." That won't work.
That's all there is to it. Good luck and happy shilling.
p.s. Where y'all went wrong is that most people here essentially think patenting our food supply that is so easily distributed by accident and enforcing it the way Monsanto does is inherently evil. It's essentially a "gotcha" for a CRITICAL and underpaid sector of society. We don't give a flying fuck what the legal argument is -- we want to fix the law.
Translation:
Bob: Hey Phil, we're losing them over here. Help me out.
Phil: Got it, Bob. I just posted an anonymous, quasi-NPOV reply to your unpopular post. They'll never catch on.
Bob: Thanks, Phil. Surely these neerdowells will come to see things our way...
And naturally, because there is one case documented on wikipedia of windblown seeds, (that should have been sterile in the first place? I'm not hip to the whole story...) all the farmers that Monsanto has crushed are evil thieving bastards who brought it upon themselves! And don't get me started on those medieval peasant farmers 700+ years ago who would use windswept seeds from their neighbor's land and cultivated them! Rotten, scum of the earth hooligans! It's like they went over to their neighbor's and clubbed them with a spade!
Seriously AC, give it up. No one's buying it. Go back to your little PR cubicle over at Monsanto HQ and find somewhere else on the internets to spout your bullshit.
But when you enter the world of software, dotting the i's and crossing the t's devolves into mindless bureaucracy.
:)
There is way too much focus on hardware in this thread. I've regularly been this archetype on the software side of my company. Client or server, issue with a product or issue with the dev environment..there is a lot of unnecessary bureaucracy in modern companies and I've frequently been the one to cut through the crap.
This can be anything from skimming through the self gratifying api documentation you see everywhere when developing plugins, to writing tools unpromped because they'll save time in the long run, to literally solving a code problem while others around me discuss it...which is pretty funny because they're realizing the fix was faster than the red ape they were putting up. I will happily go out of my area of expertise to "get 'er done".
/br/> In spite of all this painting me as a thoughtless speed demon, I actually put a lot of planning into things and have worked on vast products in an organized, but efficient way.
That said, there is a balance to be struck between corporate policy (and general human interaction) and my brand of efficiency. True to the stereotype, I am not very social and have few friends. But even if lower runs of mgmt can't stand me, higher rungs like me.
It's a weird and VERY risky game to play, bu it is a legitimate niche to carve out in a modern company. Now I'm directly under a boss who was my boss before and liked me, but in a different dept. But I get to pretty much be myself and have a ton of autonomy within the company. So I can't complain.
Sprint's...weird. Even from their inception as a competitor of Ma Bell, they've been trying weird things, or swimming against the current in some way. Lately it's been sending their stock price toward the pink sheets, but I've admired them for this for awhile -- and I even switched over about two years ago. I don't know if they're trying to be a force of good in an evil marketplace, but they managed to at least be a lesser evil. Blue and red really need some competition anyway...
Except the racket is heavily based on public institutions. Look at what's been happening in California for the last 20 years. You're right that it's unamerican -- unencumbered, free market competition should have swept in long, long ago.
I wish Sebastian Thrun all the best.
You do that. No one'll call the cops or anything, honest..
It's still pretty hard on them, especially since they're still picking up the pieces from that big fight a few days ago. I'm sure the feds will be bailing them out in no time...
Or expecting near CoD sales and having giant statues of monsters all over the place when you're a startup -- and this is regardless of whether you're funded by the government or venture capitalists...
Fiscal responsibility is so dead that its tombstone is 6 feet under...
Yeah, TFA has some valid points, but it does seem to be more problems than solutions. I look forward to watching how the industry is going to evolve, from the outside since my musical talent puts me around amateur/karaoke. ;)
I will throw him a bone though: He's from an era where technological progress was much slower, and a lot of the old guard just aren't used to the culture of constant change. Maybe 20 years from now when he's chatting it up with his grandkids, he'll see how we're all managing a living in a chaotic marketplace.
Yeah, that left a bad taste in my mouth...I forgot to mention it because my "best summary" was kinda crap. But it seemed that he was unwilling to minimize or downright cut out any part of his supply chain. The iTunes successes have included bizarre entites like Auto Tune the News, which do not jump through all those hoops to get their work out. I feel that he's choosing an unrealistic level of perfectionism over fiscal responsibility, a level that virtually no consumer is going to notice anyway.
Speaking of ATtN, it's clear that he's almost completely unaware of the new styles of talent that have succeeded in a post-digital music world that could never have gotten the startup money with the old boss. I did end up leaving the article wondering if certain genres will just disappear due to financial woes, but computers really can simulate virtually every sound imaginable...hrm...
After RTFA (well, 90% of it anyway) the 'new boss' in this case seems to be Apple, Amazon, Google... The author didn't point out(unless in the last 10% :P ) that major record labels were involved with Spotify. That doesn't change much, as Spotify wasn't a major target in this article, but it DOES explain why indie streaming rates are so pathetic.
My best summary of this person's grievances are that iTunes style services are essentially leeches, requiring excessive margins for too little risk -- and does admit some blame lies with the internet's tendency to cluster around a select few monopolies. (which is hard to argue against) But he also cites the greed of these organizations.
It's actually worth the full read. It's incredibly long, but has some interesting industry insider information. It takes awhile, but he does eventually address the issue where both the 'old boss' and the 'new boss' operate a musicians' lottery, though he feels that there were more suitably enriched 'lottery winners' with the old boss.
I find it funny how he rails against the tech industry's anti-union bias. (personally I like it -- unless you work at a crappy company, skill and merit, not seniority, plays a major role in tech pay.)
It's not herd mentality
it's the simple fact that a social network is only as useful as the number of people that are on it.
aka, herd mentality. Not picking something because it's the best in their eyes, but because more people are using it.
Frankly I don't blame them. The only way anyone is to crush facebook is by creating the perception that people are switching over. I say the blame belongs with natural herd menality.
Totally didn't have help from his parents.
the problem with this statement is that you're blaming a crowd of individually powerless masses. To be ashamed of what the masses vote for, from the point of view of the individual, is akin to falling prey to the myth that your individual vote matters. Power belongs to those capable of swaying others.
It’s time Microsoft realizes their future is in the Metro/Xbox brands, not in the Windows/Office ones. Ballmer's resistance is slowly going to kill Microsoft.
I'm not so sure. I totally agree with your feelings on the seemingly senseless acquisitions (what do they gain from Skype that they haven't already developed themselves?) but Windows/Office are key to keeping people in the loop. The challenge of migrating away from Office keeps the enterprise within Windows, the familiarity of office workers using Windows still keeps it in the home (Apple's desktop market share is still a joke), and with Windows in the home, they can cross-sell their other products more efficiently. It's no surprise that the top two tech companies also have the top two operating systems.
Problem is, with eurozone anti-regulatory policies binding them and probably some failures at high up managerial levels, they're not using this as efficiently as Apple. It's actually somewhat maddening to me in a way. I'm generally a libertarian who only feels monopolies should be manipulated when they've made an industry more or less impenetrable. However it seems that Apple is getting away with things that Microsoft could only dream about. (30% of all sales on multiple platforms, an ALLEGED wink and a nod agreement to promote various media outlets in exchange for said outlets to go easy on them *cough*newyorktimes*cough*, bundling their media player in the eurozone, and so much more...)
How much of this is really Ballmer's fault, and how much is caused by government interference?
I'm not inclined to agree with your console market assertions. The fact remains they are #2 in sales and may very well be #1 in profits, thanks to the cash cow that is xbox live. Kinect was a blowout hit as well.
They can't seem to beat Apple at its own game, though. I don't see that as a corporate failing, rather the inability to work with an unstable element. (Image, the perception of cool)
Netflix's stock is about to recover from that huge screwup back in September...
The movie technically didn't sink. The Asylum is renowned for always making a profit on their films.
Shane Van Dyke is starting to grow on me. Not sure if it's cancerous...
I've had it quite often myself, and I don't see why goodmanj got modded down for his statement. In fact for the longest time I blamed video games for making me more depressed, when it was actually the act of ceasing to play them that did so. Whoever wrote TFA really hit the nail on the head...at least for my case. It's all about feeling in control.
Problem is, to say "depression" is like saying "autism" or "cancer". So many varieties that no one solution works for all of them.
What's worked on mine is simple: I keep busy with regular projects, and give myself at least the illusion of control and accomplishment. May as well feel like I'm doing something while I'm hanging around.
A one time payment is preferable to what Oracle's asking.
Interesting perspective, by the way. I read TFPDF after reading your post as well. I thought it was all riding on whether or not Google's deferral of income (indirectly through preinstalled but fundamentally disconnected software [Google Play] instead of typical revenue streams) was an acceptable level of detachment from the "free" software to be considered an unrelated revenue stream, under the eyes of the laws involved anyway. This is related to your comment, but I'll be following this case at the edge of my seat.