It occurred to me when I was reading the article, one of the subheadings was "targeting fans", and it occurred to me the fundamental difference between different roles and relationships that motivates people to download music illegally and the lawsuits by the music industry comes down to differentiating fans vs. customers. The music industry are targeting fans who are not customers. Fans support the artists, but through being a customer, support the artists financially and at the same time pays the commercial "tax" to the music publishers/industry. As quite a few articles may have already pointed out, the music industry, after all, isn't suing customers, because if they were customers, they'd have paid and there would be no reason to sue. Artists have fans, music publishers/industry have customers. The major problem is, fans generally want to support artists without having to be customers, because they are not customers of the artist, and frequently, most of the money doesn't go to the artist.
Very true. The way the society works, and the way capitalistic societies work, it is important to have the exploitation. A stable economy is one that has a substantial middle class. Why?
Because these are the people who are doing work and making money and spending money. Who are the middle class? The people who do the work. These are not wealthy people, not business owners, not large shareholders, and not those who are in the position to exploit the middle class. People who are in the position to use money to make more money exploit those who use their time, energy, and health to make money.
And that's how it works. And that's why, corporations, allowed to run unchecked, can do so much wrong.
Exploitation certainly is better in capitalistic systems, because you have free will (or think you do). I still say, though, that though it is not a function of the economic system, the economic system is a powerful weapon that can easily be wielded by unethical people, just like a gun can kill people, but only because the wielder of the gun executes the action, so it is with economic systems.
North Korea is not better - they are also part of a Matrix, albeit a more overt one. I suppose I am a hypocrite for being judgmental about the things that allow me to live the very prosperous life style I lead. The "Matrix" I refer to in regards to the capitalistic system is very much the same as the one in the movie. Most people aren't aware they are in it (either by choice or not). Capitalism is not inherent good or evil. However, people can do "evil" tihngs because of capitalistm. There are countless stories of corporations, in order to improve the bottom line, do things that are immoral or downright illegal. Or to borrow from the gun lobby, "Capitalism doesn't commit crimes (or rip people off, or exploit third world cheap labor, or outsource jobs, people/corporations do)." So it is with RIAA - they do what they do because it is in their best interest to maximize profits. If they believe suing people will maximize their profits, they will do so. Look at SCO - they believe that at this point, suing people will make them money. They are in the business of making money, not of providing superior product. The same goes for Microsoft. Of course, the whole idea is supposed to be: 1. provide superior product 2. get more market share 3. profit!
But when you are in control (i.e. monopolistic), or if you are truly desperate and are no longer competitive (i.e. SCO), then you will seek out other means.
And please let us not underestimate greed. Remember Enron?
I had a lot of things I wanted to say about this, but you've summarized it so concisely.
The problem with the system of paying artists directly is that the people with the money in the middle that want to make a lot of money by leveraging a small investment (the artist) in order to harvest a large return (from the consumers, the masses, etc.) are not involved. And the problem with that, of course, is that the people with the money are also the people with influence and power in high places that can lobby and get laws passed to ensure that they continue to enjoy the ability to reap profits by acting as gatekeepers between the people and the things they want. As long as they keep control of that, they will make money.
Ultimately, that's the sinister nature of the RIAA companies. But keep in mind that corporations exist for the purpose of making money. And there's no better way of making money and lots of it, and easily, by using these techniques to fully exploit all of us.
If you thought the Matrix was merely futuristic and philosophical, then think of it a bit more - think of it as a metaphor for the system that we live in now. Think of the Matrix as the capitalistic system, think of the machines as the corporations. Then think of the people as....people. Think of the power they were harvesting as money....think of the "life" the Matrix was providing to the people in their pods as the music/movie being provided to us in return... We ARE in the Matrix, now, and have been as long as civilzation has been around.
If their IT costs weren't less than 1%...
on
Inside Wal-Mart IT
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
...there would be a big problem. $2.5 Billion in IT costs? For a global supermarket chain? I mean, if it was a technology company with big R&D budgets (like, oh, IBM, or something), that'd be a different story, perhaps. On the other hand, $250 Billion in sales is just that...sales of largely physical goods. A better indicator would be as compared to profits...or as a percentage of operating costs.
Very, very true. You are definitely desperately cutting costs if you are doing so through outsourcing. In my company, it was similar, though it was also because senior management looked at the software development payroll and saw how big it was and was misinformed about being able to get programmers in Manila to do the same work for about 10 times less. Fortunately, there was some resistance and our IT manager convinced them that outsourcing is not a solution, and if they really wanted to, they should do offshoring, but only on new projects for a business line that brings in less revenue and was high-maintenance (development-heavy) so as to "experiment" with less risk. This way, all of the developers in the U.S. stayed where they were, and new, less risky software projects were being done in Manila.
think about it, tax breaks are basically just giving money away. What if the state of Washington instead offers to invest money in the corporations that would otherwise get tax breaks? I know there are flaws with this idea, but in thinking about it...well, the shareholders are benefitting at the expense of the state, so if the state is a shareholder, then the state will benefit as well. Giving tax breaks just gives money away, and that money is never coming back, and they only get in return the fuzzy idea of job creation. I think that maybe a combination of investment and tax break may be even better. If Washinton state had been a shareholder of Microsoft, then it can possibly has more say in the company's action, and it benefits when the company does well. I guess the only problem is conflict of interest of some sort.
But as you say, they are doing what a corporation is supposed to do - make money. Any company's ultimate goal is making money. After all, the company is not any good when it stops doing that (something akin to stopping eating). A company that stops focusing on making money will cease to be a company pretty soon.
I mean, quite frankly, even as processing power increase, the human ability to remember password is not exactly getting better. There are techniques, such as mnemonics to help with remember long generally difficult to guess/remember passwords, but these techniques are already there. Typed in password formats themselves can't really change much anymore. Biometric authentication will probably have to be the way to go.
There's just no foreseeable way that existing password systems can be used to maintain systems that need to be absolutely secure.
On the other hand, I wish we'd just not need to have all this security and all these passwords.
Please, like there can't possibly be any terrorists in the U.S. who could do the same, or for that matter, criminals who would compromise code for evil purposes other than terrorism.
It's always possible to monitor and find out what people are doing, and certainly also to prevent them from doing something unsavory or illegal...but look at what it does for civil liberties and privacy. Sure, everyone can agree that child pornography is bad and is rightly illegal, but it a step toward deeming other more innocuous activities illegal.
It seems like it'd be no big deal to actually find out if these people are doing it intentionally, but looking beyond it, the implications of usage monitoring is just looming ahead.
I could barely grant you that Excel does true 3D visualization...but yes, Excel's 3D graphs and charts aren't too bad. For simple data situations, it suffices.
More important than the capability...
on
Data Mining Goes 3D
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Is having the knowledge, experience, and creative talent to know how to use the capability to design meaningful and easy to understand data visualization. Anybody can be an Excel monkey and drag and drop charts and graphs, but it doesn't mean they'd make sense. Leaping to 3D is not a panacea for data mining visualization, but the potential is certainly there.
to do totally unintended things. Of course, this being a general non-purpose robot, almost everything you make it do can be unintended. Reminds me of a very very simple robot I saw on a Japanese TV show this morning - a robot that moves (rolls on wheels) in one direction to serve tea. You pick up the cup, it stops moving. You put the cup back, it turns around and go back where it came from. Simple logic, but great in functionality (for someone to serve tea to you, for instance).
If only this thing had a bit more power and more dexterity in digital manipulation (more nimble fingers), it'd be great.
even if it was all a pre-programmed sequence. The thing's ability to do headstand, bend and lay down face down flat and get back up, and sidle, etc. It makes for some very flexible movements. It's not a utility robot, certainly.
When you consider things like Segway costing thousands, and video cards costing $400-$500 and high-end MP3 players at $500+, $1400 is not all that much more. Think of it a different way...5 years ago, you'd pay $2500 for a PII...
Catching someone isn't as good as preventing from doing it in the first place, of course. It takes time and money to investigate and trace a watermark back to a person, no matter how easy the process.
Most open source project focus on utility, not on appearance. The most powerful tools are often the simplest ones (in appearance). However, the ability to visualize and/or put a user-friendly interface is usually a good next step. Some may call this approach the "Microsoft dumbing down" approach, since it is Microsoft who usually put deceptively simple user-interface in front of a much more complex and powerful tool.
However, that doesn't mean these tools couldn't benefit from good visual front ends (and I'm sure people will point out there are plenty). Human's ability to make sense of well designed visual information (a la Edward Tufte) cannot be understated.
I also seem to recall reading a slashdot story a long while back about Infineon (I think) that had a hardware sniffer that is able to reconstruct TCP/IP traffic/session/connections that are captured, and it recognized hundreds of protocols/applications.
Bring all of that together: open source software being able to visually display security information in a meaningful way, using some kind of open standard like, say, OpenGL. Adding more to the existing foundation tools that we already have, that's where some contribution can be useful.
But that's just what I think, by no means do I think it's the best answer.
Does anybody find people who end their writing with "Caveat Emptor" pretentious and snobbish? I mean, it's like this: "I am superior enough to recognize a problem with something, and I advise you to be aware, because after all, I know better". "Caveat Emptor" is fine, it's how people use it, and from my perspective, I think it's taking on a snobbish tone, even if used correctly.
Never underestimate human stupidity, my friend. They will build bigger idiots who will get killed maimed and otherwise be bodily injured from this, because they will think of "cool new ways" of "misusing" it.
Now that, would be even better. Put all that military research and development to good use. Compressed air doesn't get you that much. With rail gun technology, you could possibly get many times the speed and height that you'd get through compressed air. Of course, your firework load may need to be modified to work as rail gun ammo, but....details, details.
Slashdot Mirror
It occurred to me when I was reading the article, one of the subheadings was "targeting fans", and it occurred to me the fundamental difference between different roles and relationships that motivates people to download music illegally and the lawsuits by the music industry comes down to differentiating fans vs. customers. The music industry are targeting fans who are not customers. Fans support the artists, but through being a customer, support the artists financially and at the same time pays the commercial "tax" to the music publishers/industry.
As quite a few articles may have already pointed out, the music industry, after all, isn't suing customers, because if they were customers, they'd have paid and there would be no reason to sue.
Artists have fans, music publishers/industry have customers. The major problem is, fans generally want to support artists without having to be customers, because they are not customers of the artist, and frequently, most of the money doesn't go to the artist.
Very true. The way the society works, and the way capitalistic societies work, it is important to have the exploitation. A stable economy is one that has a substantial middle class. Why?
Because these are the people who are doing work and making money and spending money. Who are the middle class? The people who do the work. These are not wealthy people, not business owners, not large shareholders, and not those who are in the position to exploit the middle class. People who are in the position to use money to make more money exploit those who use their time, energy, and health to make money.
And that's how it works. And that's why, corporations, allowed to run unchecked, can do so much wrong.
Exploitation certainly is better in capitalistic systems, because you have free will (or think you do). I still say, though, that though it is not a function of the economic system, the economic system is a powerful weapon that can easily be wielded by unethical people, just like a gun can kill people, but only because the wielder of the gun executes the action, so it is with economic systems.
North Korea is not better - they are also part of a Matrix, albeit a more overt one. I suppose I am a hypocrite for being judgmental about the things that allow me to live the very prosperous life style I lead.
The "Matrix" I refer to in regards to the capitalistic system is very much the same as the one in the movie. Most people aren't aware they are in it (either by choice or not).
Capitalism is not inherent good or evil. However, people can do "evil" tihngs because of capitalistm. There are countless stories of corporations, in order to improve the bottom line, do things that are immoral or downright illegal. Or to borrow from the gun lobby, "Capitalism doesn't commit crimes (or rip people off, or exploit third world cheap labor, or outsource jobs, people/corporations do)."
So it is with RIAA - they do what they do because it is in their best interest to maximize profits. If they believe suing people will maximize their profits, they will do so. Look at SCO - they believe that at this point, suing people will make them money. They are in the business of making money, not of providing superior product. The same goes for Microsoft. Of course, the whole idea is supposed to be:
1. provide superior product
2. get more market share
3. profit!
But when you are in control (i.e. monopolistic), or if you are truly desperate and are no longer competitive (i.e. SCO), then you will seek out other means.
And please let us not underestimate greed. Remember Enron?
I had a lot of things I wanted to say about this, but you've summarized it so concisely.
The problem with the system of paying artists directly is that the people with the money in the middle that want to make a lot of money by leveraging a small investment (the artist) in order to harvest a large return (from the consumers, the masses, etc.) are not involved. And the problem with that, of course, is that the people with the money are also the people with influence and power in high places that can lobby and get laws passed to ensure that they continue to enjoy the ability to reap profits by acting as gatekeepers between the people and the things they want. As long as they keep control of that, they will make money.
Ultimately, that's the sinister nature of the RIAA companies. But keep in mind that corporations exist for the purpose of making money. And there's no better way of making money and lots of it, and easily, by using these techniques to fully exploit all of us.
If you thought the Matrix was merely futuristic and philosophical, then think of it a bit more - think of it as a metaphor for the system that we live in now. Think of the Matrix as the capitalistic system, think of the machines as the corporations. Then think of the people as....people. Think of the power they were harvesting as money....think of the "life" the Matrix was providing to the people in their pods as the music/movie being provided to us in return...
We ARE in the Matrix, now, and have been as long as civilzation has been around.
...there would be a big problem. $2.5 Billion in IT costs? For a global supermarket chain? I mean, if it was a technology company with big R&D budgets (like, oh, IBM, or something), that'd be a different story, perhaps.
On the other hand, $250 Billion in sales is just that...sales of largely physical goods. A better indicator would be as compared to profits...or as a percentage of operating costs.
Very, very true. You are definitely desperately cutting costs if you are doing so through outsourcing. In my company, it was similar, though it was also because senior management looked at the software development payroll and saw how big it was and was misinformed about being able to get programmers in Manila to do the same work for about 10 times less. Fortunately, there was some resistance and our IT manager convinced them that outsourcing is not a solution, and if they really wanted to, they should do offshoring, but only on new projects for a business line that brings in less revenue and was high-maintenance (development-heavy) so as to "experiment" with less risk. This way, all of the developers in the U.S. stayed where they were, and new, less risky software projects were being done in Manila.
...to move 3 18ton rotor blades? The inertia is tremendous. And what about friction on something so stupendously heavy?
think about it, tax breaks are basically just giving money away. What if the state of Washington instead offers to invest money in the corporations that would otherwise get tax breaks? I know there are flaws with this idea, but in thinking about it...well, the shareholders are benefitting at the expense of the state, so if the state is a shareholder, then the state will benefit as well. Giving tax breaks just gives money away, and that money is never coming back, and they only get in return the fuzzy idea of job creation. I think that maybe a combination of investment and tax break may be even better. If Washinton state had been a shareholder of Microsoft, then it can possibly has more say in the company's action, and it benefits when the company does well. I guess the only problem is conflict of interest of some sort.
But as you say, they are doing what a corporation is supposed to do - make money. Any company's ultimate goal is making money. After all, the company is not any good when it stops doing that (something akin to stopping eating). A company that stops focusing on making money will cease to be a company pretty soon.
I mean, quite frankly, even as processing power increase, the human ability to remember password is not exactly getting better. There are techniques, such as mnemonics to help with remember long generally difficult to guess/remember passwords, but these techniques are already there. Typed in password formats themselves can't really change much anymore. Biometric authentication will probably have to be the way to go.
There's just no foreseeable way that existing password systems can be used to maintain systems that need to be absolutely secure.
On the other hand, I wish we'd just not need to have all this security and all these passwords.
Please, like there can't possibly be any terrorists in the U.S. who could do the same, or for that matter, criminals who would compromise code for evil purposes other than terrorism.
It's always possible to monitor and find out what people are doing, and certainly also to prevent them from doing something unsavory or illegal...but look at what it does for civil liberties and privacy. Sure, everyone can agree that child pornography is bad and is rightly illegal, but it a step toward deeming other more innocuous activities illegal.
It seems like it'd be no big deal to actually find out if these people are doing it intentionally, but looking beyond it, the implications of usage monitoring is just looming ahead.
I could barely grant you that Excel does true 3D visualization...but yes, Excel's 3D graphs and charts aren't too bad. For simple data situations, it suffices.
Is having the knowledge, experience, and creative talent to know how to use the capability to design meaningful and easy to understand data visualization. Anybody can be an Excel monkey and drag and drop charts and graphs, but it doesn't mean they'd make sense. Leaping to 3D is not a panacea for data mining visualization, but the potential is certainly there.
Did you RTFA? When was the last time you saw Powerpoint and Excel do true 3D visualization?
to do totally unintended things. Of course, this being a general non-purpose robot, almost everything you make it do can be unintended. Reminds me of a very very simple robot I saw on a Japanese TV show this morning - a robot that moves (rolls on wheels) in one direction to serve tea. You pick up the cup, it stops moving. You put the cup back, it turns around and go back where it came from. Simple logic, but great in functionality (for someone to serve tea to you, for instance).
If only this thing had a bit more power and more dexterity in digital manipulation (more nimble fingers), it'd be great.
even if it was all a pre-programmed sequence. The thing's ability to do headstand, bend and lay down face down flat and get back up, and sidle, etc. It makes for some very flexible movements. It's not a utility robot, certainly.
When you consider things like Segway costing thousands, and video cards costing $400-$500 and high-end MP3 players at $500+, $1400 is not all that much more. Think of it a different way...5 years ago, you'd pay $2500 for a PII...
Catching someone isn't as good as preventing from doing it in the first place, of course. It takes time and money to investigate and trace a watermark back to a person, no matter how easy the process.
Yeah, on this monitor, your full-sized pr0n will look like thumbnails.
Most open source project focus on utility, not on appearance. The most powerful tools are often the simplest ones (in appearance). However, the ability to visualize and/or put a user-friendly interface is usually a good next step. Some may call this approach the "Microsoft dumbing down" approach, since it is Microsoft who usually put deceptively simple user-interface in front of a much more complex and powerful tool.
However, that doesn't mean these tools couldn't benefit from good visual front ends (and I'm sure people will point out there are plenty). Human's ability to make sense of well designed visual information (a la Edward Tufte) cannot be understated.
I also seem to recall reading a slashdot story a long while back about Infineon (I think) that had a hardware sniffer that is able to reconstruct TCP/IP traffic/session/connections that are captured, and it recognized hundreds of protocols/applications.
Bring all of that together: open source software being able to visually display security information in a meaningful way, using some kind of open standard like, say, OpenGL. Adding more to the existing foundation tools that we already have, that's where some contribution can be useful.
But that's just what I think, by no means do I think it's the best answer.
Does anybody find people who end their writing with "Caveat Emptor" pretentious and snobbish? I mean, it's like this: "I am superior enough to recognize a problem with something, and I advise you to be aware, because after all, I know better". "Caveat Emptor" is fine, it's how people use it, and from my perspective, I think it's taking on a snobbish tone, even if used correctly.
Never underestimate human stupidity, my friend.
They will build bigger idiots who will get killed maimed and otherwise be bodily injured from this, because they will think of "cool new ways" of "misusing" it.
Now that, would be even better. Put all that military research and development to good use. Compressed air doesn't get you that much. With rail gun technology, you could possibly get many times the speed and height that you'd get through compressed air. Of course, your firework load may need to be modified to work as rail gun ammo, but....details, details.
That's because Mac users will actually pay for music. PC users steal all of theirs. :D
(j/k, of course).