I get your point--billboards can be fantastically ugly, to use that one example. However, I don't think they are a good example to use in this context--many communities have variations on "nice-place-to-live" laws which prohibit this sort of thing, and that's that. Someone puts up a billboard, it's pretty patently obvious whodunit, it gets taken down, and they are fined. Same goes for paper advertisements--many countries require that "no ads in this mailbox"-type stickers be respected, and that's that.
The problem with using these is that the "cost" incurred is pretty subjective. I don't like billboards, they're ugly, ick. Ban 'em. In that sense it's not much different from, say, bright pink houses, off-key accordion players at the subway station, or people who wear white socks with their suits (taken to the absurd, I know, but that's the point.)
Like it or not, capitalism, money, consumerism, whatnot, are all incarnations of a phenomenon that's one of the cornerstones of most civilizations--property. I own something, it's mine, even if someone else wants it, if my ancestors took it away from his ancestors, etc. Not that it's right, but they used to hang pickpockets in Georgian England.
I definitely recognize your argument. I don't like people who broadcast shitty TV, who "force" me to listen to idiotic jingles in department stores, who put up ugly billboards across my neighborhood. However, none of those detract from my material ability to take my girlfriend out to a nice expensive restaurant on Saturday. A spammer, to boil the argument down, does.
I object to radio and TV taxes. I find it objectionable that I should pay fees _and_ see advertising (this is in some European countries, can't speak for the rest of the world.)
However, the fundamental flaw of your argument, which you don't seem to get, is that use of land for billboard, use of airwaves for advertising, etc, it costs me NOTHING. And yes,
Lets not forget that "costs" are not just $. The world is not SOLEY run on $.
but the law of the land punishes crimes against property, such as vandalism and theft. That's the whole point. If you take my car, you have stolen my property. If you jump around me on the street, wearing a funny hat, and blowing a whistle, you may have "stolen" my time, but that's not illegal, beyond whatever laws against making a public nuisance of yourself your country may have. But if you push unsolicited data at me, using bandwidth _I_ have paid for, so that I incur higher costs, you have stolen.
Spam is not embezzlement, you're correct. It's theft. Plain and simple.
You are thoroughly correct--in fact, I'd venture to say that a large percentage sending out unsolicited advertising ("but it's real stuff, it's not a spam") are willing to pay attention to unsubscribes.
The problem, though, is that even if you only have 0.1% of fuckers who say "oh yeah, sure, you won't receive any more spam from spec1@l0ff3rz@viagra.fakedomain.com" and turn around and sell any confirmed addresses to someone else as "real, tested mail addresses, no bounces", their effect still outweighs the honest souls who'll genuinely unsubscribe you.
That's nice to hear--it's such a beautiful country, studded with some amazing monuments to incompetent unaesthetic architecture, or landscape engineering (i.e. plonking some giant concrete thing smack in the middle of it.) Sort of like here, in Switzerland (most of whose architects should be taken out behind the shed and shot repeatedly.)
I understand that a lot of it stemmed from the need to build stuff fast during the 1960s nascent economic boom, but I never understood why this happened in Kyoto, which was spared American bombing in WWII.
Oh christ, I can't believe I forgot about it. This was in 2000 or thereabouts--yeah, there's a metro. *hangs head in red-faced shame*
Not much of one, though--its coverage is pretty limited. And like a lot of cities that combine underground metros with fairly modern buildings, it's pretty charm-free (I just think tramways are cool.)
I rather think that this was due to the fact that you _can't_ have those types of lines aboveground. Rather have 3 utilities toast during an earthquake than 6 (power, phone, cable TV.)
But your cost argument is most likely a big part of it.
I always thought this was because of earthquakes? Especially the Marina, Sunset and Richmond are built on fairly shaky ground--rather than running around digging up ruptured cable shafts every time something moves, you can just leave it above ground, where it's got some give.
With Kyoto, it's not just wires--it's general shoddy urbanization. The city has no metro, so public transportation consists of fairly shabby buses, the traffic is insane, and in between historical landmarks, the place is laid out in a grid pattern filled with boxy, unattractive 1960s office buildings (at least the downtown areas.)
It's really too bad--this is pretty typical of those parts of Japan as a whole that I managed to see (caveat: mainly built-up areas between Himeji and Tokyo.) Buildings were put up and cities planned, seemingly with purely pragmatic concerns in mind, with little regard for aesthetics. Damn shame, really.
Now, if the case were tried in California--it'd be another story--the wall of the courtroom would burst open in a cloud of flame and smoke and you'd hear a deep voice with an Austrian accent say "I ahm de highest court. Hasta la vista, baby"
Cool! Actually it's pretty foggy and nasty here, and the girls wear too many clothes (and booze and cigars are way too expensive.) I wouldn't mind being shipped off to Cuba and staying there indefinitely without a trial.
Oh, I guess you mean that horrible resort hotel in Gargamo, wotsitcalled, not Club Med.:(
Just add 'with 2 proofs of purchase of a copy of DeCSS'
I have trouble seeing how anyone would ever match that--even if someone did sell it, you'd only need one copy. On the other hand, if someone ever sent you the two bar codes, you'd better make sure you have some rope, duct tape, and a mighty big Norwegia-sized shipping crate ready.
There's something deeply wrong if you're shopping for gifts at Target; take a step back and ask yourself why you're even bothering in the first place. Because you "have to?"
Send a nice card or take them to dinner if you can't find something unique and "nice". Sorry, but I'm a bit of a purist in that sense--either make it tasteful and personal, or don't give a gift.
I'd rather get a phone call saying "hi", or a card than some tacky mail order department store shit.
Yeah but you're missing my point--I come here to get the "free" content, in exchange for which, I agree implicitly to view their ads. That's fine. It's something I do on top of my "normal" use of the Internet.
I guess your TV system works different from mine then, since TV stations here (Switzerland) are paid by cable providers. Think of the TV stations as a combination of resellers and providers of content.
Naturally, if you have regular non-satellite broadcast TV, the situation changes radically.
What if the lockpicks where purchased from an online retailer named "burglarytools.com"...
If burglarytools.com is not committing any illegal acts (and in some countries/states, discussing the how-tos of crimes _is_ illegal), you are not committing any crime.
Note my careful original formulation--if neither party in the transaction is doing anything illegal, the transaction, no matter how suspicious, is legal. It's the same as running down the street shouting about anarchy and martians and things; I might get a ticket for causing a public disturbance, but the content is not illegal.
Now I'll thoroughly agree with you that "discretion is the better part of valor" and that if you want to produce a porn flick, driving up and down the street, acting like a john and asking any old ho if she'll go along may not be the wisest M.O. and the cops would have what's called "probable cause" to arrest you (as the AC below said, 'beyond a reasonable doubt' applies to conviction, not arrest) but they would still have to prove your guilt in court, no?
That said, it's just snowed buckets in the alps and I don't think I'll be watching a lot of the crap that's shown on TV this winter, let alone going to the trouble of either paying for or stealing _more_ of it...:-)
TV content providers make money by selling that content to TV stations. TV stations charge cable providers to allow them to carry their signal.
Viewing a website is not my prime motivation for using my internet connection--it is not the raison d'etre for the internet. I use my internet connection primarily to check mail, download things, etc--that incurs _bandwidth_ costs, which is what my ISP fees pay for. And the ISP fees of the guy on the other end of the line.
You can't really make the comparison between internet and TV--it's an interactive medium (I hate that word) versus a passive one. A better analogy would be someone setting up a booth in a department store which gave away drinks but forced you to look through catalogues while you're consuming. It's not the primary purpose of my visit, and by going to their booth, I agree to look at their stuff. Sounds fine to me.
The way I see it, we should be encouraging people who can afford it not to play games, but to do the real-life thing! So, here's my cost lineup:
1 Full-auto paintball gun with outfit: ~$500 1 Over-under shotgun and hunting clothes: ~$3500 1 Hunting club membership: ~$2000 1 Set of golf clubs and membership: ~$15,000 1 2003 Ferrari Enzo: ~$645,000 1 Tank of 99 Octane gas: ~$75 1 Private jet lease to go drive on the autobahn:: ~$15,000 1 Slightly used MiG-29: ~$250,000
Watching the look on the guy's face as he gets nailed by customs trying to get all this shit into the country: Priceless.
You must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone has committed a crime, or in some cases, that they are about to. And even then there are strong limits (e.g. you must plan or threaten or somesuch--IANAL.) No pre-crime police here.
It's the age-old argument about being pulled over with lockpicks in a state where lockpics are not illegal. Although yes, technically, while not necessarily in accordance with the law, a cop can in practice arrest you if he doesn't like your ugly mug. But then, that's why we have laws, innit.
Same with smart cards. As long as it was a legal transaction, the goods were not stolen, no tax laws were violated, whatever, you have not committed any crime, whether I buy it from DirecTV (although it escapes me why anyone would want to voluntarily watch _more_ TV, paid or free), my cable box p1r8, or my neighborhood crack dealer.
And as for your Blockbuster example, I'd be fairly happy about doing my little tiny infinitesmal bit to maintaining the free market and taking my custom elsewhere and telling everyone I know to do the same. You'd be surprised how fast that sort of thing can result in a consumer backlash.
Lastly, the use of litigation as a threat to extort money out of individuals against whom there is no indication of a crime or intent to commit a crime beyond circumstancial evidence (yes, that is precisely what it is) is immoral, unethical, and downright pathetic. And once again, it has led to me, for whatever little tiny unnoticeable bit it's worth, voting with mr. wallet.
Actually, I don't think the problem is with advertising per se, or even with targeted advertising.
I'd rather think that the primary objections people (well at least I) have are:
Getting advertising despite paying for a service (for example, with cable TV, or TV license fees (YUCK!) in some European countries.
Ways in which "targeting" data is obtained and handled--i.e. resold.
I don't mind advertising targeted towards me, as long as I (a) get to pick what's sent my way (I rather enjoy some well-done ads, and I like seeing ads for stuff that I'm currently in the market for.) and (b) I know how my data's being handled.
The first is pretty straightforward--dealt with by "opt-in" advertising and other ploys. To be honest, I don't care about the occasional commercial break during a TV show; my attention span isn't that great anyway, and it gives me time to go get food, check my mail, chat with my girlfriend (which I do during the show anyway), take a dump, whatever. And when I _do_ have TV running as background noise during dinner, I'd prefer beer commercials to tampon/yeast infection ads thankyouverymuch (you'd be surprised at how many of these you get on TV during dinnertime here.)
Nor do I mind ads in games, as long as it's unintrusive, on billboards or in newspapers (except for the 50 pages of ads at the front of every magazine). It's passive, so I can choose to tune in or tune out--unlike spam, I don't have to actively hit 'delete' to ignore them.
The second problem is a bit nastier, and that's where I tend to agree that monitoring and pattern collection is bad. I don't trust _anyone_ to handle my personal information, including such apparently banal things as my viewing habits, in a manner I'd describe as "responsible."
Slashdot Mirror
For a low low price of, say, 50 bucks a week, and your address, I'll gladly do it.
That is, as long as it's not before 10 a.m.
"bulge"?
I get your point--billboards can be fantastically ugly, to use that one example. However, I don't think they are a good example to use in this context--many communities have variations on "nice-place-to-live" laws which prohibit this sort of thing, and that's that. Someone puts up a billboard, it's pretty patently obvious whodunit, it gets taken down, and they are fined. Same goes for paper advertisements--many countries require that "no ads in this mailbox"-type stickers be respected, and that's that.
The problem with using these is that the "cost" incurred is pretty subjective. I don't like billboards, they're ugly, ick. Ban 'em. In that sense it's not much different from, say, bright pink houses, off-key accordion players at the subway station, or people who wear white socks with their suits (taken to the absurd, I know, but that's the point.)
Like it or not, capitalism, money, consumerism, whatnot, are all incarnations of a phenomenon that's one of the cornerstones of most civilizations--property. I own something, it's mine, even if someone else wants it, if my ancestors took it away from his ancestors, etc. Not that it's right, but they used to hang pickpockets in Georgian England.
I definitely recognize your argument. I don't like people who broadcast shitty TV, who "force" me to listen to idiotic jingles in department stores, who put up ugly billboards across my neighborhood. However, none of those detract from my material ability to take my girlfriend out to a nice expensive restaurant on Saturday. A spammer, to boil the argument down, does.
I object to radio and TV taxes. I find it objectionable that I should pay fees _and_ see advertising (this is in some European countries, can't speak for the rest of the world.)
However, the fundamental flaw of your argument, which you don't seem to get, is that use of land for billboard, use of airwaves for advertising, etc, it costs me NOTHING. And yes,
but the law of the land punishes crimes against property, such as vandalism and theft. That's the whole point. If you take my car, you have stolen my property. If you jump around me on the street, wearing a funny hat, and blowing a whistle, you may have "stolen" my time, but that's not illegal, beyond whatever laws against making a public nuisance of yourself your country may have. But if you push unsolicited data at me, using bandwidth _I_ have paid for, so that I incur higher costs, you have stolen.
Spam is not embezzlement, you're correct. It's theft. Plain and simple.
You are thoroughly correct--in fact, I'd venture to say that a large percentage sending out unsolicited advertising ("but it's real stuff, it's not a spam") are willing to pay attention to unsubscribes.
The problem, though, is that even if you only have 0.1% of fuckers who say "oh yeah, sure, you won't receive any more spam from spec1@l0ff3rz@viagra.fakedomain.com" and turn around and sell any confirmed addresses to someone else as "real, tested mail addresses, no bounces", their effect still outweighs the honest souls who'll genuinely unsubscribe you.
Announcing the most-awaited games of 2004 *fanfare*...
Duke Nukem Forever and Half-Life 2! Ladies and gentlemen, what a surprise!
And announcing the most-awaited games of 2005 *drum roll*...ibid.
Aaand the most-awaited games of 2006 *cough* *wheeze*...ibid.
Aaaaaand the..oh buggrit.
That's nice to hear--it's such a beautiful country, studded with some amazing monuments to incompetent unaesthetic architecture, or landscape engineering (i.e. plonking some giant concrete thing smack in the middle of it.) Sort of like here, in Switzerland (most of whose architects should be taken out behind the shed and shot repeatedly.)
I understand that a lot of it stemmed from the need to build stuff fast during the 1960s nascent economic boom, but I never understood why this happened in Kyoto, which was spared American bombing in WWII.
He's English. At least he didn't call it the 'bonnet'.
Jolly good, old chap indeed.
Oh christ, I can't believe I forgot about it. This was in 2000 or thereabouts--yeah, there's a metro. *hangs head in red-faced shame*
Not much of one, though--its coverage is pretty limited. And like a lot of cities that combine underground metros with fairly modern buildings, it's pretty charm-free (I just think tramways are cool.)
Sorry bout that.
I rather think that this was due to the fact that you _can't_ have those types of lines aboveground. Rather have 3 utilities toast during an earthquake than 6 (power, phone, cable TV.)
But your cost argument is most likely a big part of it.
I always thought this was because of earthquakes? Especially the Marina, Sunset and Richmond are built on fairly shaky ground--rather than running around digging up ruptured cable shafts every time something moves, you can just leave it above ground, where it's got some give.
Offtopic, but Ikea makes great velcro cable ties. They're about 1" wide and maybe 10" long--superb for keeping things orderly.
With Kyoto, it's not just wires--it's general shoddy urbanization. The city has no metro, so public transportation consists of fairly shabby buses, the traffic is insane, and in between historical landmarks, the place is laid out in a grid pattern filled with boxy, unattractive 1960s office buildings (at least the downtown areas.)
It's really too bad--this is pretty typical of those parts of Japan as a whole that I managed to see (caveat: mainly built-up areas between Himeji and Tokyo.) Buildings were put up and cities planned, seemingly with purely pragmatic concerns in mind, with little regard for aesthetics. Damn shame, really.
Of course they have to give up, this is Norway.
Now, if the case were tried in California--it'd be another story--the wall of the courtroom would burst open in a cloud of flame and smoke and you'd hear a deep voice with an Austrian accent say "I ahm de highest court. Hasta la vista, baby"
Cool! Actually it's pretty foggy and nasty here, and the girls wear too many clothes (and booze and cigars are way too expensive.) I wouldn't mind being shipped off to Cuba and staying there indefinitely without a trial.
Oh, I guess you mean that horrible resort hotel in Gargamo, wotsitcalled, not Club Med.
Don't worry about it.
Just add 'with 2 proofs of purchase of a copy of DeCSS'
I have trouble seeing how anyone would ever match that--even if someone did sell it, you'd only need one copy. On the other hand, if someone ever sent you the two bar codes, you'd better make sure you have some rope, duct tape, and a mighty big Norwegia-sized shipping crate ready.
There's something deeply wrong if you're shopping for gifts at Target; take a step back and ask yourself why you're even bothering in the first place. Because you "have to?"
Send a nice card or take them to dinner if you can't find something unique and "nice". Sorry, but I'm a bit of a purist in that sense--either make it tasteful and personal, or don't give a gift.
I'd rather get a phone call saying "hi", or a card than some tacky mail order department store shit.
Yeah but you're missing my point--I come here to get the "free" content, in exchange for which, I agree implicitly to view their ads. That's fine. It's something I do on top of my "normal" use of the Internet.
I guess your TV system works different from mine then, since TV stations here (Switzerland) are paid by cable providers. Think of the TV stations as a combination of resellers and providers of content.
Naturally, if you have regular non-satellite broadcast TV, the situation changes radically.
Unfortunately, most companies are a tad reluctant to put "Professional Knob-dicker-arounder" or "Leader of the Free World" on business cards.
What if the lockpicks where purchased from an online retailer named "burglarytools.com"...
If burglarytools.com is not committing any illegal acts (and in some countries/states, discussing the how-tos of crimes _is_ illegal), you are not committing any crime.
Note my careful original formulation--if neither party in the transaction is doing anything illegal, the transaction, no matter how suspicious, is legal. It's the same as running down the street shouting about anarchy and martians and things; I might get a ticket for causing a public disturbance, but the content is not illegal.
Now I'll thoroughly agree with you that "discretion is the better part of valor" and that if you want to produce a porn flick, driving up and down the street, acting like a john and asking any old ho if she'll go along may not be the wisest M.O. and the cops would have what's called "probable cause" to arrest you (as the AC below said, 'beyond a reasonable doubt' applies to conviction, not arrest) but they would still have to prove your guilt in court, no?
That said, it's just snowed buckets in the alps and I don't think I'll be watching a lot of the crap that's shown on TV this winter, let alone going to the trouble of either paying for or stealing _more_ of it...
TV content providers make money by selling that content to TV stations. TV stations charge cable providers to allow them to carry their signal.
Viewing a website is not my prime motivation for using my internet connection--it is not the raison d'etre for the internet. I use my internet connection primarily to check mail, download things, etc--that incurs _bandwidth_ costs, which is what my ISP fees pay for. And the ISP fees of the guy on the other end of the line.
You can't really make the comparison between internet and TV--it's an interactive medium (I hate that word) versus a passive one. A better analogy would be someone setting up a booth in a department store which gave away drinks but forced you to look through catalogues while you're consuming. It's not the primary purpose of my visit, and by going to their booth, I agree to look at their stuff. Sounds fine to me.
The way I see it, we should be encouraging people who can afford it not to play games, but to do the real-life thing! So, here's my cost lineup:
1 Full-auto paintball gun with outfit: ~$500
1 Over-under shotgun and hunting clothes: ~$3500
1 Hunting club membership: ~$2000
1 Set of golf clubs and membership: ~$15,000
1 2003 Ferrari Enzo: ~$645,000
1 Tank of 99 Octane gas: ~$75
1 Private jet lease to go drive on the autobahn:: ~$15,000
1 Slightly used MiG-29: ~$250,000
Watching the look on the guy's face as he gets nailed by customs trying to get all this shit into the country: Priceless.
looks like she is getting a Realistic Paper Craft "YZR-R1".
Looks like you are getting "nothing" for the next six months.
Doesn't parse.
You must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone has committed a crime, or in some cases, that they are about to. And even then there are strong limits (e.g. you must plan or threaten or somesuch--IANAL.) No pre-crime police here.
It's the age-old argument about being pulled over with lockpicks in a state where lockpics are not illegal. Although yes, technically, while not necessarily in accordance with the law, a cop can in practice arrest you if he doesn't like your ugly mug. But then, that's why we have laws, innit.
Same with smart cards. As long as it was a legal transaction, the goods were not stolen, no tax laws were violated, whatever, you have not committed any crime, whether I buy it from DirecTV (although it escapes me why anyone would want to voluntarily watch _more_ TV, paid or free), my cable box p1r8, or my neighborhood crack dealer.
And as for your Blockbuster example, I'd be fairly happy about doing my little tiny infinitesmal bit to maintaining the free market and taking my custom elsewhere and telling everyone I know to do the same. You'd be surprised how fast that sort of thing can result in a consumer backlash.
Lastly, the use of litigation as a threat to extort money out of individuals against whom there is no indication of a crime or intent to commit a crime beyond circumstancial evidence (yes, that is precisely what it is) is immoral, unethical, and downright pathetic. And once again, it has led to me, for whatever little tiny unnoticeable bit it's worth, voting with mr. wallet.
Actually, I don't think the problem is with advertising per se, or even with targeted advertising.
I'd rather think that the primary objections people (well at least I) have are:
Getting advertising despite paying for a service (for example, with cable TV, or TV license fees (YUCK!) in some European countries.
Ways in which "targeting" data is obtained and handled--i.e. resold.
I don't mind advertising targeted towards me, as long as I (a) get to pick what's sent my way (I rather enjoy some well-done ads, and I like seeing ads for stuff that I'm currently in the market for.) and (b) I know how my data's being handled.
The first is pretty straightforward--dealt with by "opt-in" advertising and other ploys. To be honest, I don't care about the occasional commercial break during a TV show; my attention span isn't that great anyway, and it gives me time to go get food, check my mail, chat with my girlfriend (which I do during the show anyway), take a dump, whatever. And when I _do_ have TV running as background noise during dinner, I'd prefer beer commercials to tampon/yeast infection ads thankyouverymuch (you'd be surprised at how many of these you get on TV during dinnertime here.)
Nor do I mind ads in games, as long as it's unintrusive, on billboards or in newspapers (except for the 50 pages of ads at the front of every magazine). It's passive, so I can choose to tune in or tune out--unlike spam, I don't have to actively hit 'delete' to ignore them.
The second problem is a bit nastier, and that's where I tend to agree that monitoring and pattern collection is bad. I don't trust _anyone_ to handle my personal information, including such apparently banal things as my viewing habits, in a manner I'd describe as "responsible."