For a time in the '70s, World's Fairs, science expos, etc. might feature handwriting analysis by computer. A large, impressive, punchcard-based machine would read your signature or other writing sample and produce a 'description' of your personality.
Graphology has at times significant support, and its use has been explored by criminologists. Nowadays, it's generally considered to be a crock. One of the areas where graphology was earliest discredited was in its (in)ability to tell the gender of a writer.
The Daily Wail article makes similar claims to those made for graphology, including the ability to determine gender, and proposes some of the same uses for the new technique. I suspect this will wind up on the crock-shelf next to graphology.
Programmers work 50+ hour weeks, need to spend time maintaining skills they may not be using in their current job (to be ready for the next one), and need to spend time acquiring new skills (or else risk becoming obsolete). Add to this time for sleep, meals and the occasional shower.
So the question for me, as an early-career programmer, is: do I spend the 15 free minutes I have per week re-learning Linear Algebra, or studying Zizzmo++?
And please don't make the obvious lewd suggestion about how to spend 15 free minutes -- I do that in the shower!
There are precedents to IBM's behavior. A "use them up, spit them out" attitude to the workforce is common where "raw unbridled capitalism" prevails. Examples that come to mind are the factory system in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, and the sex industry.
Capitalism is the most successful economic system, and is greed-driven, but it needs checks and balances built into it to allow it to be as beneficial as possible to society as a whole.
...you can reasonably expect people to follow the RFC because it is in their own best interest to do so.
And for nearly any law, there will be a substantial class of people whose best interests will be served by finding *any possible loophole* to evade the law's intent. Such as, perhaps, laws against champerty.
Around 1980, I thought I'd try running. I bought a pair of good running shoes and was doing a couple of miles a day when the shoes wore out. I didn't have money to replace them, but since I knew some runners didn't wear shoes at all, I kept running anyway on the worn-out shoes. The result: wear-and-tear arthritis in the balls of my feet. To this day, I can walk at most 1/2 mile, and can only run about 20 yds. FWIW.
What is this world coming to?
on
Oracle Buys Sun
·
· Score: 1
Oracle buys Sun, GM is considering selling Saturn, I hear even Uranus is up for grabs.
When a free market works against the public good, that market should be regulated. Examples where such control already exists, by one mechanism or another: corporate monopoly, price gouging in times of emergency, the length of the work week for wage earners, the cost of commuting by rail, the price of electricity.
Admittedly, market controls are difficult to implement, and should be used with caution. But just because things are a certain way, doesn't mean they can't be made better.
For example, it doesn't seem unreasonable for the American people, as a whole, to negotiate a group rate for medications.
Perhaps this technology could be used to produce the opposite effect.
A doctor could know the amount of pain medication a patient was *actually* taking (as opposed to selling on the street, etc.). Also, the doctor would have a record of this usage, to provide CYA.
The new pills could also provide protection against unscrupulous or incompetent "Dr Feelgoods" who are creating and supplying patients addicted to anti-anxiety medications.
The marginal costs to produce pharmaceuticals are significant, and often unpredictable. This is especially true of R&D. And drug companies are entitled to recoup those costs, as well as make a reasonable profit.
But are they entitled to make a *disgusting* profit? On a product that literally means life or death to the consumer?
The pharmaceutical industry is consistently among the most profitable in the world. In several years during this past decade, they have been *the* most profitable. Is this morally justified?
In addition, as a taxpayer, I have funded some small part of the vast research efforts that went into the technologies upon which the new developments depend. Doesn't this give me some right to ask my government to place limits on the returns drug companies can expect on their investments?
In the absence of regulation, corporations will charge what the market will bear for any good. They will reap whatever profit, obscene or otherwise, that they can-- without regard to the public weal. In the case of pharmaceuticals, this works decidedly *against* the good of the society, as today's out-of-control health care costs clearly demonstrate.
The harassment of coffee-shop owners for music licensing fees has never been customary. The fact that it is apparently *becoming* the custom in Florida is not likely to be unrelated to the ongoing DRM dispute.
This development threatens the livelihood of small-time musicians (such as I was) across the country. It reflects shortsightedness, greed, and desperation on the part of the licensing organizations.
The digital rights battle will be lost by those who seek to restrict fair use. Why? Because you cannot legislate ignorance. Knowledge, ingenuity, and access to minimal technological resources are all that are required to copy digital media. May it ever be thus.
i was a full-time working musician for 25 years, mostly in small nightclubs. these sleazy, mafia-infested, drunk-driver-producing barrel houses, along with coffee shops and other small venues, are where almost all american popular music first sees the light of day, or moon, as the case may be.
ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and the rest are, in their greed, taking the risk of destroying the network, (already endangered), that nurtures, employs, and provides outlet for musicians of every type.
this is an outgrowth of the DRM conflict, itself an example of corporate greed. like the ASCAP / BMI / SESAC coffe-house shakedowns, DRM is pursued "in the interest of the artists". bullsh--. the interest of the artists, aside from those few whom the industry has chosen to make wealthy, is to get their music heard by as many people as possible.
those my age will remember the music industry attempting to impose a $1 tax on blank cassette tapes, fighting the introduction of stereo FM radio broadcasting, etc.
people in the music industry, who make money from music but do not create it, are by-and-large in my experience bloodless, blood-sucking leeches. the decent human beings are few and far between.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it's because it's the Holocaust. Just making a false statement is not illegal.
It's because it's the Holocaust and *they are Germany*
No.
What if the *ground hogs* had "ultra-wide spectrum super-HD eyes with 60x optical zoom, Internet-connected HUD and complimentary laser cannons"?
For a time in the '70s, World's Fairs, science expos, etc. might feature handwriting analysis by computer. A large, impressive, punchcard-based machine would read your signature or other writing sample and produce a 'description' of your personality.
Graphology has at times significant support, and its use has been explored by criminologists. Nowadays, it's generally considered to be a crock. One of the areas where graphology was earliest discredited was in its (in)ability to tell the gender of a writer.
The Daily Wail article makes similar claims to those made for graphology, including the ability to determine gender, and proposes some of the same uses for the new technique. I suspect this will wind up on the crock-shelf next to graphology.
Programmers work 50+ hour weeks, need to spend time maintaining skills they may not be using in their current job (to be ready for the next one), and need to spend time acquiring new skills (or else risk becoming obsolete). Add to this time for sleep, meals and the occasional shower.
So the question for me, as an early-career programmer, is: do I spend the 15 free minutes I have per week re-learning Linear Algebra, or studying Zizzmo++?
And please don't make the obvious lewd suggestion about how to spend 15 free minutes -- I do that in the shower!
...tell Tchaikovsky the news. Send more Chuck Berry.
There are precedents to IBM's behavior. A "use them up, spit them out" attitude to the workforce is common where "raw unbridled capitalism" prevails. Examples that come to mind are the factory system in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, and the sex industry.
Capitalism is the most successful economic system, and is greed-driven, but it needs checks and balances built into it to allow it to be as beneficial as possible to society as a whole.
RTFM. With the emphasis on the F.
This comment is now banned by Apple: Fuck.
How unfortunate. I read and I obey.
Or perhaps I misunderstood your intent?
...you can reasonably expect people to follow the RFC because it is in their own best interest to do so.
And for nearly any law, there will be a substantial class of people whose best interests will be served by finding *any possible loophole* to evade the law's intent. Such as, perhaps, laws against champerty.
Around 1980, I thought I'd try running. I bought a pair of good running shoes and was doing a couple of miles a day when the shoes wore out. I didn't have money to replace them, but since I knew some runners didn't wear shoes at all, I kept running anyway on the worn-out shoes. The result: wear-and-tear arthritis in the balls of my feet. To this day, I can walk at most 1/2 mile, and can only run about 20 yds. FWIW.
Oracle buys Sun, GM is considering selling Saturn, I hear even Uranus is up for grabs.
Ah, yes, the beloved 'free market'.
When a free market works against the public good, that market should be regulated. Examples where such control already exists, by one mechanism or another: corporate monopoly, price gouging in times of emergency, the length of the work week for wage earners, the cost of commuting by rail, the price of electricity.
Admittedly, market controls are difficult to implement, and should be used with caution. But just because things are a certain way, doesn't mean they can't be made better.
For example, it doesn't seem unreasonable for the American people, as a whole, to negotiate a group rate for medications.
Perhaps this technology could be used to produce the opposite effect.
A doctor could know the amount of pain medication a patient was *actually* taking (as opposed to selling on the street, etc.). Also, the doctor would have a record of this usage, to provide CYA.
The new pills could also provide protection against unscrupulous or incompetent "Dr Feelgoods" who are creating and supplying patients addicted to anti-anxiety medications.
The marginal costs to produce pharmaceuticals are significant, and often unpredictable. This is especially true of R&D. And drug companies are entitled to recoup those costs, as well as make a reasonable profit. But are they entitled to make a *disgusting* profit? On a product that literally means life or death to the consumer? The pharmaceutical industry is consistently among the most profitable in the world. In several years during this past decade, they have been *the* most profitable. Is this morally justified? In addition, as a taxpayer, I have funded some small part of the vast research efforts that went into the technologies upon which the new developments depend. Doesn't this give me some right to ask my government to place limits on the returns drug companies can expect on their investments? In the absence of regulation, corporations will charge what the market will bear for any good. They will reap whatever profit, obscene or otherwise, that they can-- without regard to the public weal. In the case of pharmaceuticals, this works decidedly *against* the good of the society, as today's out-of-control health care costs clearly demonstrate.
200 bucks to buy. That's what I have trouble digesting.
This development threatens the livelihood of small-time musicians (such as I was) across the country. It reflects shortsightedness, greed, and desperation on the part of the licensing organizations.
The digital rights battle will be lost by those who seek to restrict fair use. Why? Because you cannot legislate ignorance. Knowledge, ingenuity, and access to minimal technological resources are all that are required to copy digital media. May it ever be thus.
ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and the rest are, in their greed, taking the risk of destroying the network, (already endangered), that nurtures, employs, and provides outlet for musicians of every type.
this is an outgrowth of the DRM conflict, itself an example of corporate greed. like the ASCAP / BMI / SESAC coffe-house shakedowns, DRM is pursued "in the interest of the artists". bullsh--. the interest of the artists, aside from those few whom the industry has chosen to make wealthy, is to get their music heard by as many people as possible.
those my age will remember the music industry attempting to impose a $1 tax on blank cassette tapes, fighting the introduction of stereo FM radio broadcasting, etc.
people in the music industry, who make money from music but do not create it, are by-and-large in my experience bloodless, blood-sucking leeches. the decent human beings are few and far between.