i'm a designer and illustrator and i own a toshiba satellite tablet PC - i love it; it's got a big screen (14 inches) and it runs photoshop and all the other art/drawing tools i want, and drawing directly on the screen is so much nicer to me than using a wacom pad or something.
but it's getting old, and it's starting to show its age, and full-OS tablet PCs nowadays are just getting smaller (hard to find one with more than a 12-inch screen anymore) and more expensive ( i paid about $1100 for mine), while the cheaper ones are less useful. i was excited by the rumors of a mac tablet, because i thought maybe given apple's traditional position with designers and artists that the mac tablet might be something i could actually use.
it's true that tablets are a niche product, but it's MY niche, and it bums me out that it's not being better served.
The computers were all touchscreen enabled and put into cabinets like kiosks, and they were scheduled to automatically restart if a crash was detected and relaunch the multimedia presentations. The exhibit itself was bright, colorful, and interactive.
I wasn't directly involved with the implementation of this project so I don't know all the details, but maybe from the photos in the case study you can get a sense of how it was set up. I remember it being a pretty big hit - and while I don't know the extent of any "unpleasant surprises" that are sure to occur with a project like this, when I visited the exhibit I recall everything working very smoothly.
"If you're going to steal for me, what's to stop you from stealing from me?"
"If you're going to lie for me, what's to stop you from lying to me?"
"If you're going to screw someone else over, why should I trust you?"
And yet the people "at the top" - in business, in government, in organized crime, everywhere - play these same games with each other, and have played these games with each other for centuries. Somehow, the whole thing still "works" and they manage to stay "on top". How do they pull that off? How do they keep the house of cards from falling when every one of them knows that every other one of them would turn on them if the moment was right? It doesn't sound like it would be possible to keep an organization going in an environment like that, but somehow they do it.
The article keeps referring to what was stolen as "codes". Does that mean "source code" or are they talking about some kind of access codes or authentication keys or something, like the way people call their bank PIN their "secret code" ?
But you see, the point is that someone still DOES make horse buggies. People still go to Central Park to ride the buggies, and SOMEONE has to create them.
That's the great thing about a niche market - if you're the only one in a certain business, be it horse buggies or resurrecting Polaroid film, you might very well be able to get enough customers who are interested in your product to stay in business.
If they think that enough people still find the old-school Polaroid film appealing, then they'd be stupid NOT to take their money, since no one else wants to.
If you put the users to work, you "get" the value of the work they're performing in exchange for your content. It might not be "money", but you might be getting enough value from their menial tasks that it could be worth your while.
Now if someone started a political party with positions more similar to those of the editorial line of The Economist newsmagazine, I could see voting for them. That is, support free-market economies with regulation and/or costing of negative externalities (pollution, systemic risks, etc.), a moderate social safety net, and liberal positions on social and civil liberties issues.
I guess that's the sort of thing I'm looking for. I just wonder why nothing has yet filled that need, if the Libertarian party has diverted so far from that completely reasonable path. If the answer is "no one really wants that", then I suppose that answers the question about Americans and the things they really cherish, as opposed to what they claim to cherish.
Your reply illustrates exactly what I mean, and just reinforces my question... how did the Libertarian party become equated with "death by salmonella"?
How did a party that says "People should be free to live their lives and take responsibility for their lives" become the "idiotic" party that screams "government control is bad bad bad"?
There is nothing inherently wrong with the notion that people should be free to live their lives, and that people should be encouraged to take responsibility for their lives, and I tend to think that if you ask any American if they agree, they would say "yes".
But I still don't understand why the one party who claims to stand for that very thing is dismissed as a bunch of crackpots and lunatics who want everyone to be killed by unsafe food.
Legitimate question: why is the Libertarian party so marginalized in America? Their platform basically represents everything that most Americans will claim to believe in, so why do they have so little support? Is it them? Are they just bad at marketing themselves to the American Public? Are they so idealistic as to be completely impractical? Is it that Americans are actually pretty hypocritical? They say they love freedom and liberty, but then when they realize how much responsibility it takes they say to the government "ew, you take care of everything".
If it's the case that the Libertarian Party is essentially too uncompromising on ideals in order to function in the real world, isn't there a middle ground somewhere? Some party that says "yes, we really do love liberty, and we recognize that it requires responsibility, but here are some concessions that we recognize must be made for the real world". Who is that party? Is that kind of thinking what gets us Democrats and Republicans?
I've just never understood why "Libertarian" has become such a joke of a thing to be, when it essentially encompasses everything that Americans are "supposed" to cherish.
As others have mentioned, by that logic you could say NO small country is sovereign, because they would never be able to repel an invasion from a larger neighbor.
But what they CAN gain by referencing court decisions by their larger neighbors is legitimacy in the international community. When you are recognized as legitimate by the international community, you don't have to be worried about your larger neighbors invading you, because you would have that international community backing you up.
Even the United States couldn't fight the entire world at once.
Back in the day, video games were pretty much a staple of any party we threw. While people would hang out and talk and drink and whatever, we'd also usually have some kind of game-playing going on. most of the time it was fighting games in tournament mode and people loved it.
Cosmo: Posit: People think a bank might be financially shaky. Martin Bishop: Consequence: People start to withdraw their money. Cosmo: Result: Pretty soon it is financially shaky. Martin Bishop: Conclusion: You can make banks fail. Cosmo: Bzzt. I've already done that. Maybe you've heard about a few? Think bigger. Martin Bishop: Stock market? Cosmo: Yes. Martin Bishop: Currency market? Cosmo: Yes. Martin Bishop: Commodities market? Cosmo: Yes. Martin Bishop: Small countries?
as other people have mentioned, the firefox web developer toolbar offers a lot of CSS control, but if you don't want to install that and still want to disable all CSS, you can add a "*.css" filter to adblock. it's kludgey, but it will do the job.
so if an average worker spends an hour doing work online per day, and then spends 15 minutes of that time reading the news or ordering something from amazon, you'd get this same alarmist headline.
while you're correct that speech should be protected even if it is universally objectionable, never warranted, and offensive to just about everyone (and most people who really believe in freedom of speech would agree with you), i think the sticking point for spam is that spammers cause other people to unwillingly foot the bill for their publication.
when someone publishes a book, they have to pay to have the book printed and distributed. but when a spammer sends spam, they're not paying those bills, they are passing the cost along to other people against their objections.
using a first amendment defense to spamming is more like stealing someone's printing press, publishing your book with it, and then complaining about being prosecuted for stealing the printing press in the first place.
if it was really only the content of spam that was objectionable, then you're right, any true supporter of free speech would grudgingly accept spam. but there's a question of resources being improperly used, and people losing massive amounts of time and money against their will, all to pass along dubious messages from third parties.
At our company there's always talk about how "email is so impersonal and such an inefficient communication method" and "wouldn't it be much better to just pick up the phone or walk over to someone's desk", and every time it comes up I try to raise this very point.
How am I supposed to concentrate on what I'm doing if someone actually walks up to me and asks me something, or buzzes me on my phone? These things are interruptions that REQUIRE an immediate response. It's not like an email, where if I see one come in, I can ignore it for the moment and address it when I'm finished with my current task.
But I think there's a touchy-feely backlash against email that favors the immediate human contact, regardless of the side-effects.
Here in Tampa, Florida area, this was recently a very big deal. One of the things Tampa is famous for is Grouper, and several well-known restaurants were found to be serving cheaper fish instead of Grouper.
According to that article though it's hard to tell whether the deception was intentional, and even if so, who was deceptive: the restaurant, the wholesaler, etc.
Even when you get a "free gift" from a TV offer, you have to pay shipping and handling charges; if the music industry can no longer make money on the "product" (because there is essentially an infinite supply), then maybe it would be natural for them to get into the delivery business.
I guess in essence, that's what the recording companies originally were: delivery men. They'd deliver "product" from artists to consumers. Nowadays that "delivery" is pretty much handled by ISPs and the recording companies are just a second layer of middlemen who no one needs anymore.
Maybe record companies should all throw in the towel and just sell internet service.
much knowledge that would have been disclosed in patents, will now remain locked up as trade secrets and NOT eventually become generally available to practitioners of software engineering, and so will, long-term, hold back the progress of computer science
i don't know if that would necessarily be the case. without the legal obstacle of patents, it would be easier for software writers to reverse-engineer or otherwise mimic the features in question.
coca cola's exact recipe is a trade secret, but there's plenty of competition, some of which people even prefer, because the idea of a cola-flavored beverage itself was not covered by a patent.
people will figure out what they need to figure out... nothing important will stay secret forever.
Slashdot Mirror
You are required to pay royalties for covers and adaptations regardless of whether you use the actual recording
on the flip side, you are apparently allowed to do covers and adaptions regardless of whether the original author wants you to or not. you still have to pay, but they can't stop you from doing it. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/290/must-you-get-permission-to-record-someone-elses-song
i'm a designer and illustrator and i own a toshiba satellite tablet PC - i love it; it's got a big screen (14 inches) and it runs photoshop and all the other art/drawing tools i want, and drawing directly on the screen is so much nicer to me than using a wacom pad or something.
but it's getting old, and it's starting to show its age, and full-OS tablet PCs nowadays are just getting smaller (hard to find one with more than a 12-inch screen anymore) and more expensive ( i paid about $1100 for mine), while the cheaper ones are less useful. i was excited by the rumors of a mac tablet, because i thought maybe given apple's traditional position with designers and artists that the mac tablet might be something i could actually use.
it's true that tablets are a niche product, but it's MY niche, and it bums me out that it's not being better served.
Years back I worked for a company who did a very successful display at the Louisiana Children's Museum in New Orleans: http://www.bentmedia.com/case_studies/teamturtle.php
The computers were all touchscreen enabled and put into cabinets like kiosks, and they were scheduled to automatically restart if a crash was detected and relaunch the multimedia presentations. The exhibit itself was bright, colorful, and interactive.
I wasn't directly involved with the implementation of this project so I don't know all the details, but maybe from the photos in the case study you can get a sense of how it was set up. I remember it being a pretty big hit - and while I don't know the extent of any "unpleasant surprises" that are sure to occur with a project like this, when I visited the exhibit I recall everything working very smoothly.
"If you're going to steal for me, what's to stop you from stealing from me?"
"If you're going to lie for me, what's to stop you from lying to me?"
"If you're going to screw someone else over, why should I trust you?"
And yet the people "at the top" - in business, in government, in organized crime, everywhere - play these same games with each other, and have played these games with each other for centuries. Somehow, the whole thing still "works" and they manage to stay "on top". How do they pull that off? How do they keep the house of cards from falling when every one of them knows that every other one of them would turn on them if the moment was right? It doesn't sound like it would be possible to keep an organization going in an environment like that, but somehow they do it.
I think the Whitest Kids U'Know said it best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2Aqfp5iMnw
It would be like someone offering the secret of Coke to Pepsi - what do you expect Pepsi to do?
that very thing happened a few years ago - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5152740.stm
pepsi declined the offer and reported it as a theft of trade secrets.
The article keeps referring to what was stolen as "codes". Does that mean "source code" or are they talking about some kind of access codes or authentication keys or something, like the way people call their bank PIN their "secret code" ?
But you see, the point is that someone still DOES make horse buggies. People still go to Central Park to ride the buggies, and SOMEONE has to create them.
That's the great thing about a niche market - if you're the only one in a certain business, be it horse buggies or resurrecting Polaroid film, you might very well be able to get enough customers who are interested in your product to stay in business.
If they think that enough people still find the old-school Polaroid film appealing, then they'd be stupid NOT to take their money, since no one else wants to.
If you put the users to work, you "get" the value of the work they're performing in exchange for your content. It might not be "money", but you might be getting enough value from their menial tasks that it could be worth your while.
Now if someone started a political party with positions more similar to those of the editorial line of The Economist newsmagazine, I could see voting for them. That is, support free-market economies with regulation and/or costing of negative externalities (pollution, systemic risks, etc.), a moderate social safety net, and liberal positions on social and civil liberties issues.
I guess that's the sort of thing I'm looking for. I just wonder why nothing has yet filled that need, if the Libertarian party has diverted so far from that completely reasonable path. If the answer is "no one really wants that", then I suppose that answers the question about Americans and the things they really cherish, as opposed to what they claim to cherish.
Your reply illustrates exactly what I mean, and just reinforces my question... how did the Libertarian party become equated with "death by salmonella"?
How did a party that says "People should be free to live their lives and take responsibility for their lives" become the "idiotic" party that screams "government control is bad bad bad"?
There is nothing inherently wrong with the notion that people should be free to live their lives, and that people should be encouraged to take responsibility for their lives, and I tend to think that if you ask any American if they agree, they would say "yes".
But I still don't understand why the one party who claims to stand for that very thing is dismissed as a bunch of crackpots and lunatics who want everyone to be killed by unsafe food.
Legitimate question: why is the Libertarian party so marginalized in America? Their platform basically represents everything that most Americans will claim to believe in, so why do they have so little support? Is it them? Are they just bad at marketing themselves to the American Public? Are they so idealistic as to be completely impractical? Is it that Americans are actually pretty hypocritical? They say they love freedom and liberty, but then when they realize how much responsibility it takes they say to the government "ew, you take care of everything".
If it's the case that the Libertarian Party is essentially too uncompromising on ideals in order to function in the real world, isn't there a middle ground somewhere? Some party that says "yes, we really do love liberty, and we recognize that it requires responsibility, but here are some concessions that we recognize must be made for the real world". Who is that party? Is that kind of thinking what gets us Democrats and Republicans?
I've just never understood why "Libertarian" has become such a joke of a thing to be, when it essentially encompasses everything that Americans are "supposed" to cherish.
As others have mentioned, by that logic you could say NO small country is sovereign, because they would never be able to repel an invasion from a larger neighbor. But what they CAN gain by referencing court decisions by their larger neighbors is legitimacy in the international community. When you are recognized as legitimate by the international community, you don't have to be worried about your larger neighbors invading you, because you would have that international community backing you up. Even the United States couldn't fight the entire world at once.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/01/2055249&from=rss
the reason the cops could "beat the test" is probably because they knew polygraphs are completely bogus.
Back in the day, video games were pretty much a staple of any party we threw. While people would hang out and talk and drink and whatever, we'd also usually have some kind of game-playing going on. most of the time it was fighting games in tournament mode and people loved it.
Cosmo: Posit: People think a bank might be financially shaky.
Martin Bishop: Consequence: People start to withdraw their money.
Cosmo: Result: Pretty soon it is financially shaky.
Martin Bishop: Conclusion: You can make banks fail.
Cosmo: Bzzt. I've already done that. Maybe you've heard about a few? Think bigger.
Martin Bishop: Stock market?
Cosmo: Yes.
Martin Bishop: Currency market?
Cosmo: Yes.
Martin Bishop: Commodities market?
Cosmo: Yes.
Martin Bishop: Small countries?
as other people have mentioned, the firefox web developer toolbar offers a lot of CSS control, but if you don't want to install that and still want to disable all CSS, you can add a "*.css" filter to adblock. it's kludgey, but it will do the job.
so if an average worker spends an hour doing work online per day, and then spends 15 minutes of that time reading the news or ordering something from amazon, you'd get this same alarmist headline.
funny you should mention that. CNN just posted an article discussing how more and more people do work on their off-time.
while you're correct that speech should be protected even if it is universally objectionable, never warranted, and offensive to just about everyone (and most people who really believe in freedom of speech would agree with you), i think the sticking point for spam is that spammers cause other people to unwillingly foot the bill for their publication.
when someone publishes a book, they have to pay to have the book printed and distributed. but when a spammer sends spam, they're not paying those bills, they are passing the cost along to other people against their objections.
using a first amendment defense to spamming is more like stealing someone's printing press, publishing your book with it, and then complaining about being prosecuted for stealing the printing press in the first place.
if it was really only the content of spam that was objectionable, then you're right, any true supporter of free speech would grudgingly accept spam. but there's a question of resources being improperly used, and people losing massive amounts of time and money against their will, all to pass along dubious messages from third parties.
At our company there's always talk about how "email is so impersonal and such an inefficient communication method" and "wouldn't it be much better to just pick up the phone or walk over to someone's desk", and every time it comes up I try to raise this very point.
How am I supposed to concentrate on what I'm doing if someone actually walks up to me and asks me something, or buzzes me on my phone? These things are interruptions that REQUIRE an immediate response. It's not like an email, where if I see one come in, I can ignore it for the moment and address it when I'm finished with my current task.
But I think there's a touchy-feely backlash against email that favors the immediate human contact, regardless of the side-effects.
Here in Tampa, Florida area, this was recently a very big deal. One of the things Tampa is famous for is Grouper, and several well-known restaurants were found to be serving cheaper fish instead of Grouper.
6 out of 11 restaurants served cheaper fish.
According to that article though it's hard to tell whether the deception was intentional, and even if so, who was deceptive: the restaurant, the wholesaler, etc.
Even when you get a "free gift" from a TV offer, you have to pay shipping and handling charges; if the music industry can no longer make money on the "product" (because there is essentially an infinite supply), then maybe it would be natural for them to get into the delivery business.
I guess in essence, that's what the recording companies originally were: delivery men. They'd deliver "product" from artists to consumers. Nowadays that "delivery" is pretty much handled by ISPs and the recording companies are just a second layer of middlemen who no one needs anymore.
Maybe record companies should all throw in the towel and just sell internet service.
much knowledge that would have been disclosed in patents, will now remain locked up as trade secrets and NOT eventually become generally available to practitioners of software engineering, and so will, long-term, hold back the progress of computer science
i don't know if that would necessarily be the case. without the legal obstacle of patents, it would be easier for software writers to reverse-engineer or otherwise mimic the features in question.
coca cola's exact recipe is a trade secret, but there's plenty of competition, some of which people even prefer, because the idea of a cola-flavored beverage itself was not covered by a patent.
people will figure out what they need to figure out... nothing important will stay secret forever.
Copper-plated Zinc, 97.5% Zn, 2.5% Cu, according to wikipedia.
Zinc is also on the "endangered elements" list anyway, so my comment still stands.